help me with my noob arena game

So I'm a 70 rogue, and just started arena 5v5. I've got some kara gear, and the 71dps weps. Anyways, I'm fine in 1v1 PvP, but when it comes to arena, I find myself lost on what to do and who to attack. Anyone have tips?

Also doing a 2v2 with a hunter, and not really sure how to deal with pallies...

What's the 5man setup?

I'm still learning on my rogue. 250+ resil now.

Generally speaking, i think rogues serve 2 roles in arena. They either are stunning/control machines or burst dps. I'm not sure what your spec/gear is, but i like the combat maces approach.

The first thing you need to do is suck it up and start farming honor to get everything you possibly can for pvp gear. Snap out of PvE mentality and start thinking survival. Your burst dps doesnt mean shit if you die in 5 seconds. You need resilience and stam. Try to pickup the best weapons you can as your first priority with arena points. :D

Think in terms of control and team coordination.

For example, if you're on a caster... even if he's the kill target... you need to chill out and focus on interrupts and control. You dont just keep blowing your wad for max dps. You gotta hit those kicks, kidney shots and gouges. Even if he's at 5%, you need to stay calm and in control. I'm fairly new in arena with a rogue, and this has been the hardest part for me...

Mace spec rogue can basically lock a caster down or hold down the main target. I shiv wound with offhand, and use crippling with main hand. In 5v5, you can thus: 1) pressure a weak CC class 2) hop on the main target 3) or swap mind-numbing and get on a main healer (make the pally bubble).

One little thing you need to be particularly careful of in arena is human Perception. Don't get cocky trying to get saps off. If you can pull one off, excellent. You're making somebody blow a trinket, usually.

As for specific strategies, it really depends on your team and who you are facing.

In 2v2 with a hunter, you're basically both semi-squishy DPS and need to just simply blow somebody up. Your goal as rogue should prolly be to hold the main target down. You probably need to get on the DPS target (even a warrior), just so that you survive better. You thus have to basically DPS through their healing. If it's 2 dps, just think it through.

Play a shitload and dont get frustrated. Think of it like a puzzle, and just keep talking it through. Get better every time you play as a team, focusing on little things. That way you feel a sense of accomplishment even if you arent pro yet. You'll know you got better at one tiny thing.

In 5v5, I'm not really sure what to say. It depends. The odds are that you'll either be holding down a healer or acting like a main assist. If yer on a healer, shiv mind-numbing and just stay on the fucker with a focus on shutting his ass down. If yer on the main target, stick to wound and try to keep them in line of sight of your dps.

Tse Tse has some great info there. I arena in both 2v2 and 3v3 with a rogue (im a holy/disc priest). He is combat maces and that is definitley his favorite option.

We typically dont run a rogue in my 5v5 so i dont have any real experience there but i can only assume youll be doing what rogues and the best at. Locking down healers/caster of choice, and then switch when the burn is called.

Get into the habit of sticking any class that gets to close to you to apply crippling poison, im pretty sure its the strongest snare in the game and is particularly effective agaisnt warriors.

Grind out the BG pvp gear while saving arena points to get probably the weapons first. And be ready for a long road. Getting set up for arenas is a long road, good luck.

Shut the fuck up

id be willing to bet that reggs plays a human rogue on a RP server

id be willing to bet that reggs plays a human rogue on a RP server

I feel that a female gnome rogue would be more fitting.

so mtndewmike and i are getting pretty tired of the class make-up bullshit that is 2v2. my war (krrk (http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Tichondrius&n=Krrk)) doesn't have shitty gear, and neither does mike. yet we're still struggling around the 1800 mark (this week we fluctuated from 1850, down to 1750).

we ran into a spriest/lock combo 4 times last night and lost every time. it seems as though it's all about luck in the class makeup and nothing about skill in 2v2. there are, however, plenty of war/pally combos a lot higher than us, is it strictly skill? is it gear? i'll admit this is the first time i've played arena consistently since it's inception. so i don't do the right thing 100% of the time. i didn't think we're bad players, but we can't seem to rise much farther than 1850. how much is gear playing into this? to be honest i'm concerned about reaching that 1850 mark in s3 to get my sword, and i've pretty much given up hope to get to 2k for the shoulders.

wtf are we doing wrong? i'll take as much constructive criticism as you've got.

2v2 and 3v3 are very much rock-paper-scissors, and there are certain setups that are the "kings" of each category. Likewise, i think certain rating ranges end up dominated by different categories... so you'll see a shitload of SL-SL locks in the 1800-2100 range, but less concentration above and below.

Likewise, do not get discouraged by this season. It's been a BS season.

Most of the teams above 2100 stopped playing 1-2 months ago, scared to lose points. This has meant an unnatural stagnation in points and ratings. There are 2500 teams that should be like 2700. There are 1800 teams that should be 2000. The bell curve should be spread out more across a wider range... and isnt.

Thus, you have a clusterfuck from 1800-2100 with high concentrations of certain combos that are very hard to beat. You also have many teams who should be higher rated than they are.

That isnt to say you cant improve. You can always improve and oughta look for how. I'm sure you could improve with gear, too. Going into the 1800-2100 range without full gladiator and while making mistakes = going to keep you sliding back. At this time in a season, you cannot be making mistakes if you want to get ahead...

Make sure you have the right strats. That you have proper macros, tactics, etc. Watch some vids, dont get too frustrated.

And most importantly... play a lot. Dont necessarily play for hours at a time when losing, but try to get into queue often. Stay fresh.

GET OUT OF QUEUE WHEN YOU ARE BEING FARMED.

If you lose 2 in a row to a "counter" team, then get the fuck out for the time being.

your warrior has shitty gear

so mtndewmike and i are getting pretty tired of the class make-up bullshit that is 2v2. my war (krrk (http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Tichondrius&n=Krrk)) doesn't have shitty gear, and neither does mike. yet we're still struggling around the 1800 mark (this week we fluctuated from 1850, down to 1750).

we ran into a spriest/lock combo 4 times last night and lost every time. it seems as though it's all about luck in the class makeup and nothing about skill in 2v2. there are, however, plenty of war/pally combos a lot higher than us, is it strictly skill? is it gear? i'll admit this is the first time i've played arena consistently since it's inception. so i don't do the right thing 100% of the time. i didn't think we're bad players, but we can't seem to rise much farther than 1850. how much is gear playing into this? to be honest i'm concerned about reaching that 1850 mark in s3 to get my sword, and i've pretty much given up hope to get to 2k for the shoulders.

wtf are we doing wrong? i'll take as much constructive criticism as you've got.

Word. Kyuss is a damn good warrior (he's been playing a warrior since release basically and has stuck to that character). I'm not the best paladin playing this game but I don't think I suck either (I've played almost every class long enough to realize strenghts, weaknesses, counters, etc). Occasionally we make a mistake but most of the time I think our playing is pretty solid. It's really frustrating to go 12 - 1 one night, then like 3 - 7 the next.

My gear isn't the best but I have 391 resilience and enough stamina that I can't use that as an excuse anymore.

I'm sure our lack of experience is a factor. This is my first season doing arena and I'm often still unsure of who should be our first target or what we can do to beat a certain combo. We've been steadily improving up to this point but I do agree it feels like we're hitting a wall right now. The biggest problem right now from my perspective is playing against any team who can drain mana. And if both of them can drain my mana we're pretty much fucked. I do the best I can with line of sight but eventually I have to stop and heal and and get burned. I'm having some druid envy these days.

your warrior has shitty gear

so we're where we should be considering the gear i have?

i've never played a pally, but i think it might be worth it to trade some resil for +healing or mp5. that'd help more w/ teams that drain, and your heals would obviously be better. i'd say get your reps up and get some of the rep items, like the sha'tar healing weap or something. one of my old pally guild mates manages to maintain gladiator rank in bg9 in multiple brackets w/ only like 200 resil. he has over 2k +healing though

some of the heroic stuff might help out too, i dunno. aren't they making heroics doable at honored next patch?

kyuss your war doesn't have completely shitty gear... shitty to a$e is anything below BT/Hyjal loot.

That being said, you guys should be able to get higher than 1850 with those stats. I hit a wall w/ my pally around 1850 for a little while until we worked out all the kinks and got better playing together and then we moved on up as expected.

Give it some time, get used to each other. Make sexy time.

stuff

War/Pald, while not as strong as it was last season, can easily get to 2200+. First thing would be to drop some resilience as a paladin. maybe down to 300 in order to boost your +healing/mp5. If your gladiator gear is gemmed with stam, regem for the resil socket bonuses using 9healing/2mp5 and the occasional 9healing/4int if you have to.

As a paladin in arena, your biggest advantage is kiting, and therefore LoS. You should be constantly moving around an object (pillars in nagrand, BEA, and the tomb in Ruins) stopping only to heal. This way the drain teams have a harder time hitting you, and the warlock teams have a harder time controlling you. I haven't seriously done war/pal since a little bit early season (I played the warrior), but for the past few weeks I've been doing Druid/Warrior (I play the druid this time) and we're currently in the 2350 range and have encountered some pretty solid War/Pal, so it is possible with that setup to do well.

this corresponds to what I am currently seeing in stormstrike 2v2.

Most of the teams above 2100 stopped playing 1-2 months ago, scared to lose points. This has meant an unnatural stagnation in points and ratings. There are 2500 teams that should be like 2700. There are 1800 teams that should be 2000. The bell curve should be spread out more across a wider range... and isnt.

Thus, you have a clusterfuck from 1800-2100 with high concentrations of certain combos that are very hard to beat. You also have many teams who should be higher rated than they are.

is this natural to see in the end of a season and is there any way around it if you are trying to work a team up to gladiator? my 5v5 team broke up well before the end of last season due to people having to go play cs so I never expierenced the late rush of people trying to get their ratings up. but just looking at the stormstrike bracket it seems like over half the top 150 2v2 teams dont play at all and in the 1950-2100 bracket there is really fierce competition with tons of different looks and everyone losing rating. we dropped 14-15 points several times to a mage/rogue on saturday at 2050 rating and then gave them 16 on sunday at 1980.

all this losing to good teams at around 2000 has me and my partner at odds and we are wondering if it is even worth it to continue given the amount of games it takes to go up a decent amount of points. do you think it will get any easier once we hit 2100 and is it even worth it?

word, thx a ton for the tips. keep em comin!

this corresponds to what I am currently seeing in stormstrike 2v2.

I was talking mostly about stormstrike (BG5), which in S1 had the highest ratings of any BG in the world. This is apparently happening all over, including BG9.


is this natural to see in the end of a season and is there any way around it if you are trying to work a team up to gladiator? my 5v5 team broke up well before the end of last season due to people having to go play cs so I never expierenced the late rush of people trying to get their ratings up. but just looking at the stormstrike bracket it seems like over half the top 150 2v2 teams dont play at all and in the 1950-2100 bracket there is really fierce competition with tons of different looks and everyone losing rating. we dropped 14-15 points several times to a mage/rogue on saturday at 2050 rating and then gave them 16 on sunday at 1980.

all this losing to good teams at around 2000 has me and my partner at odds and we are wondering if it is even worth it to continue given the amount of games it takes to go up a decent amount of points. do you think it will get any easier once we hit 2100 and is it even worth it?

Well, im in the same boat on the same BG... floating around 2100 for like 4 weeks now (i was away for a while before this). Our 5v5 started farming some blatantly bought 2200 team and took about 45 points from them before they jumped out of queue. We've seen only 1 team over 2200 in the past 4-6 weeks, and that was in 3v3... and we beat them decisively, but never saw them again.

It's natural for folks to try to hold onto their gladiator ranks, yes.

I just think the 100 teams or so stopped playing very early this season, and then we also saw the rise of guilds like "dtwf" who turned selling 2000 teams into an industry.

All i know is... the competition, as you say, is fuckin nuts between 1850-2200. I've joked before that i'd put stormstrike's 1900 teams up against any in the world. I sincerely believe our 1900-2100 teams would be way at the top on most BGs. Heck, one of our 1800 teams took a game from the #2 team at WSVG Vancouver, and almost knocked them out in round 1. And several of the top teams on BG9 are filled with former stormstrike players.

I just wish people would PLAY. :(

I dont know the solution for breaking through, other than to try to hunt down the 2200+ teams in the last 2 weeks because many are likely going to have to play.

for the past few weeks I've been doing Druid/Warrior (I play the druid this time) and we're currently in the 2350 range and have encountered some pretty solid War/Pal, so it is possible with that setup to do well.

what are the war/pal groups doing vs. you guys that owns you?

So I'm a 70 rogue, and just started arena 5v5. I've got some kara gear, and the 71dps weps. Anyways, I'm fine in 1v1 PvP, but when it comes to arena, I find myself lost on what to do and who to attack. Anyone have tips?

Also doing a 2v2 with a hunter, and not really sure how to deal with pallies...

In S1 I played with a rogue partner as a holy/disc priest. We did pretty well and hit 1900's with crap for gear (no kara, no pvp gear, no arena gear).

In S2 my rogue partner switched to his lock, though he was affliction for a long time he is now SL/SL.

The problem with rogues in 2v2 is just their squishy factor. My partner just got to the point where we couldn't progress anymore with a rogue/priest combo. He was just too damn squishy and with resilience becoming more and more of a factor he couldn't kill crap before I was down. I couldn't heal us both was what it pretty much came down to most of the time.

A rogue/hunter 2v2 would be a pretty tough team to get up very high. 7 of the 10 teams we played last week were paly/war stunherald teams, which we destroy most of the time. I can't imagine that most rogue/hunter teams would stand a chance against them even if the rogue can lock the paladin down.

In 2v2 I'd say attack the dps (since the majority of teams are dps/heal) and just lock him down. A hunter can take care of a healer 1v1 pretty easily if they don't suck.

As for 5v5, again we don't have a rogue on the team in S2 but we did in S1, we always just had our rogue lock down a healer. Though he might not kill them he could keep them locked down pretty damn well allowing us to assist train the second/third healer down or to just mow down their dps if it was a solo healer team.

what are the war/pal groups doing vs. you guys that owns you?

JoJ and watch the warrior mow the druid down?