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#1 Mar 03 2011 at 8:07 AM Rating: Excellent
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As I've said in the past, I'm an extremely casual player. I do not aspire to be a "real" PVPer. I just enjoy trying to improve at my own pace, because I don't like raiding and this is a fun endgame alternative, and because I love my class and it's fun to get better at it. I've been enjoying battlegrounds for a long time, but began dabbling in arena this season as well. My only arena experience prior to this was about 30 matches on my pally a long time ago. (Remember prot-holy? Prot-holy was awesome.) So go ahead and laugh, but my one very modest ambition is to get the 1550 achievement.

To hear the experienced PVPers talk, people can just smack their keyboard indiscriminately with their feet and get that achievement, but I can't. The closest we've come is 1524, which is annoying, as you can imagine. It's odd but as soon as we get above 1500 things seem to fall apart. I assume this is an imaginary barrier, and there can't be that much of a difference between a 1510 player and a 1550 player.

So frustrated have I become by my inability to achieve this goal, I've made the crazy decision to...

watch videos.

Anyplace besides Warcraft movies you recommend? I don't see any links in the sticky.

Any other suggestions that are glaringly obvious to you would also be welcome, as they're probably eluding me.



P.S. A resto druid ran out the 45 minute clock on us last week, both of us and just her left standing, because we couldn't kill her. Eventually we gave up and chatted in guild chat/poured more wine/got snacks until it was over. Humiliating or what?


Edit: Also these movies are tough for me because I often can't follow what's going on. With the camera zoomed out I can't read the cast bars, and things happen pretty fast. Are there ever any where they explain what they're doing, what they cast, etc.?

Edited, Mar 3rd 2011 9:23am by teacake
#2 Mar 03 2011 at 9:07 AM Rating: Good
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I mainly just watch WCM. But also you can go to arenajunkies and depending who is online streaming at the time, watch live streams. I've seen multiple rank 1 gladiator streams just from being on at the right time. One was a hpally in rated bgs another was a warrior playing 5s.


Some movies I literally learn nothing though. Especially when you cant understand their UI. It helps to download movies rather then stream whenever possible because the streaming are often poor quality so you cant read castbars.



Other things, like binding every ability, using focus target in arena and having target=focus macros for your core spells. I assume still playing priest, so focus dispell, focus sw:death with /cancelaura pw:shield macro'd in to break a poly, focus mana burn.

I'm looking into some mods myself to alert of spells like collosus smash and recklessness and zealotry or other burst cooldowns enemies use (shadow dance etc)


Also the one thing you dont hear arena players admit much, you simply have to grind out the games. How many have you played this season? When you are climbing its not uncommon for teams to play 1000+

I remember hitting 2200 with my partner. It was just as tough at 1600 as it was at 2100. Mild, mild exageration there. But really the difference between 2k teams and 1600 teams was marginal. There are false barriers in your mind about "I hit this rating it gets harder". Its not true. You just keep grinding out games you slowly keep climbing rating. Its like 52 steps forward 49 steps backward 35 steps forward 32 back, thats how you climb, its a grind.

If you've played like 400 games this season and still not 1550 I'd be a little more concerned. But I'm guessing its more like 30-120 games in which case simply keep grinding out games, talk about your losses, maybe film some games which can also help. And like I said get in the habit of focus macros every game. DO watch lots of disc videos, you will see the offensive playstyle they bring which wins games. Burst hard, fear healers on CD, position aggressively and focus mana burn, etc..

Edited, Mar 3rd 2011 10:15am by mikelolol
#3 Mar 03 2011 at 9:35 AM Rating: Excellent
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Thanks Mike! We've played 70 games total, we're 38-32.

Regarding focus macros, is there any reason I can't just use my regular mouseover macros on the Gladius frames instead, to DoT/Mana Burn/Dispel/etc. whichever opponent I want? I actually just got Gladius working last night (dunno what was up, couldn't get the frames to display properly before) and my mouseover macros weren't working over those frames for some reason. I set up click casting in Gladius for the night just to get through, but mouseover is a lot quicker. Or maybe another arena frames mod?

Otherwise I can add an @focus cast to my offensive macros with a ctrl modifier or some such, and just make sure I always have one opponent targeted and the other focused so I can cast on whichever I want. I'm just always worried about accidentally hitting the wrong target when I'm in a pressure situation.
#4 Mar 03 2011 at 9:48 AM Rating: Good
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You could do that for sure. Myself I mainly just use gladius to set focus targets in arena (right click) and track trinkets and watch health/mana bars. I never thought of using it for mouseover macros actually. I suppose you could use them, I'd think its a little faster to have more keybinds myself but it comes down to preference. I'd have say ALT-X as /cast [@focus,harm] mana burn; mana burn so the second I see a pally sneak out behind the pillar I'm casting it.
#5 Mar 03 2011 at 10:47 AM Rating: Good
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Check WCM for the high rated priest videos and don't be bothered if you can't follow everything, you just watch the video again and again and again until you figure it all out.
Any video that has vent is a pro, a really really big pro.



Also, find someone who is good at PvP and duel him/her ad nauseum with that person telling you what you're doing wrong after each duel.
Although it does get a little frustrating after your 7258th loss in a row, you do learn a lot from it.
#6 Mar 03 2011 at 5:45 PM Rating: Good
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I really have to emphasize downloading movies when at all possible; I even did a few months of subscription to WCM just to get premium download mirrors so I could see videos better.

Reading AJ helps depending on your class. For rogues it's a marginal help because the rogue forum tends to be a cesspool, for hunters it's pretty easy because most hunters are pretty laid back.

Anyway, watching videos over and over as Aethien said really does help. Similar to how football players watch film, I consider it a necessary evil to being a good PvPer so that you get used to natural reactions people have at high end.
#7 Mar 03 2011 at 8:18 PM Rating: Excellent
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Thanks a lot for your help and suggestions, guys.

I got little to no work done today because I spent too much time ******** around at Warcraft Movies and YouTube. >:-[ Needless to say WoW can't take up this kind of time on a regular basis. Luckily for me, forty minute bg queues mean plenty of time to watch movies as an alternative to archeology during my regularly scheduled playtime.
#8 Mar 03 2011 at 9:52 PM Rating: Good
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40 minute queues o.O

You know about the queue bug? You can sit in endless queues. But they made some fix where horde generally get instant queues now and alliance queues are always instant. If you sit in a queue more then 2 mins, leave and requeue odds are you should get an instant pop. Or at least <2 min. Sometimes it takes 2-3 times of requeueing to get a pop. But the bug is basically, it will sit you in an endless queue. "Estimated time, 4 minutes, time in queue, 39 minutes" is the queue bug. Never sit in one more then 2-3 minutes (assuming you're talking about 85 bracket as horde, alliance should always be instant). Non 85 bgs can be a bit longer.

The bug is really annoying, but beyond that, they fixed SOMETHING. Queues are faster then I remember from as far back as TBC where they were actually acceptable. In WoTLK they got borked and stayed that way the entire expansion and the early chunk of Cata so I'm happy they are finally pretty fast.
#9 Mar 04 2011 at 7:36 AM Rating: Excellent
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Um. No, I did not know about this. Heads will roll on my staff! I wonder why they didn't publicize this in some way?

The queue is never actually endless, I always get in eventually. If I stay in while doing all my dailies, puttering around with crafting, etc. I'll generally get one bg in by the time I'm done. Then I don't want to queue anymore so I go play an alt. So this will be very helpful, thanks!

Edit: the really long queues just started happening for me with Cata, or maybe around the time they merged the battlegroups. Sometimes 10 minutes in Wrath but never like this.

Edited, Mar 4th 2011 8:37am by teacake
#10 Mar 04 2011 at 8:05 AM Rating: Good
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Teacake -- are you queuing for specific BGs or the random and/or Call to Arms? I always queue for random or call to arms, so I can't speak to the queue times for specific BGs, but since Cata I rarely wait more than 1 minute. Of course it will vary based on faction and battlegroup, but I can't imagine the difference being as large as my 1 min to your 40 mins. I'm Alliance on Ruin, fwiw.

Re: the original topic, I have the same trouble where I watch some vid theo recommended and can't figure out what on earth is going on. Then I go back and read theo's comments and he's all like "wow that redirect kidney to focus step dance garrote ambush was amazing". A I'm all like, "who shot who in the what now?"

I exaggerate, of course, but the point is that finding vids where the player goes back and steps through his/her thoughts/approach is HUGELY helpful. Learned a ton from those.
#11 Mar 04 2011 at 8:48 AM Rating: Excellent
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4,074 posts
AynLoD wrote:
he's all like "wow that redirect kidney to focus step dance garrote ambush was amazing". A I'm all like, "who shot who in the what now?"


LOL'd.

I always queue for randoms. But the way I hear it, Alliance has had insta-queues since the random bg was introduced. As I understand it the Horde population is larger overall, and even though humans have such a great racial, the Alliance still seems to be mostly care bears. :)
#12 Mar 04 2011 at 10:51 AM Rating: Good
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"cake for tea" wrote:
the Alliance still seems to be mostly care bears

You bite your tongue, young lady! Though, it's funny you say that...my primary ally server is pve and my primary horde server is pvp. On the other hand, all my arena experience has been as ally. EMFH is just too sweet.
#13 Mar 04 2011 at 12:51 PM Rating: Decent
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AynLoD wrote:
Re: the original topic, I have the same trouble where I watch some vid theo recommended and can't figure out what on earth is going on. Then I go back and read theo's comments and he's all like "wow that redirect kidney to focus step dance garrote ambush was amazing". A I'm all like, "who shot who in the what now?"

Eh, I notice stuff because I watch movies over and over and over and over and over. I also pause videos to look at people's bars, and notice when they have a macro for one of their abilities, like Redirect and KS.

Again, downloading is key. A lot of video makers will also slow down complicated moves so you can see what they're doing.
#14 Mar 04 2011 at 1:03 PM Rating: Excellent
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AynLoD wrote:

You bite your tongue, young lady!


I'm Horde on a PVE server. :) I'm just messing with you, because you are either a draenai, or allied with the draenei, and either must be punished.


(Important update on my feelings about the alliance: the draenai have actually surpassed gnomes on my hate list. I'm not sure whether this is because my affection for my goblin brethren has slighty softened my position on gnomes, or because male draenei pallies prancing around on their goat feet flailing swords around with their tentacles are just so damn stupid they wore me down.)
#15 Mar 04 2011 at 1:18 PM Rating: Good
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27,272 posts
Overlord Theophany wrote:
AynLoD wrote:
Re: the original topic, I have the same trouble where I watch some vid theo recommended and can't figure out what on earth is going on. Then I go back and read theo's comments and he's all like "wow that redirect kidney to focus step dance garrote ambush was amazing". A I'm all like, "who shot who in the what now?"

Eh, I notice stuff because I watch movies over and over and over and over and over. I also pause videos to look at people's bars, and notice when they have a macro for one of their abilities, like Redirect and KS.

Again, downloading is key. A lot of video makers will also slow down complicated moves so you can see what they're doing.
I have to add to this that, at least for me, vent (or even better: explanations) are a massive plus in understanding what's being done because it gives a why in addition to a what.
#16 Mar 04 2011 at 2:18 PM Rating: Decent
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13,048 posts
His Excellency Aethien wrote:
Overlord Theophany wrote:
AynLoD wrote:
Re: the original topic, I have the same trouble where I watch some vid theo recommended and can't figure out what on earth is going on. Then I go back and read theo's comments and he's all like "wow that redirect kidney to focus step dance garrote ambush was amazing". A I'm all like, "who shot who in the what now?"

Eh, I notice stuff because I watch movies over and over and over and over and over. I also pause videos to look at people's bars, and notice when they have a macro for one of their abilities, like Redirect and KS.

Again, downloading is key. A lot of video makers will also slow down complicated moves so you can see what they're doing.
I have to add to this that, at least for me, vent (or even better: explanations) are a massive plus in understanding what's being done because it gives a why in addition to a what.

Vent sometimes helps but a lot of the time they don't explain what they're doing, they're just talking to their teammates about what they're doing.

They often won't say "redirect KS" they'll just say "KS" or "focus KS" or similar.

Explanations with slowed down video sequences are really the ideal, but very few videos feature that kind of stuff.
#17 Mar 04 2011 at 2:41 PM Rating: Good
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428 posts
"Theo" wrote:
Explanations with slowed down video sequences are really the ideal, but very few videos feature that kind of stuff.

Yup, there's just no comparison and indeed they are hard to find probably b/c they take so much longer to produce/edit. I've managed to find a couple of them for the two classes I've arena'd with, though. One for frost mages at L.70 and another more recent one by Reckful for rogues (on skill-capped.com I think). Dude loves him some gouge.

"Let that sit" ;)
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