Arenas

Arenas are crazy.

They can last from as short as 30 seconds to 10 minutes.

The biggest factor in a successful arena is the way that team is setup for the bracket.

Lets take a look at MY arena teams and make a quick discussion as to the good and bad aspects of these teams. (Links to Armory Arena Teams pages for each one)

2v2 - "No juice for you" - Hunter, Druid - Basically all out DPS on this team with a little healing from me. The biggest problem on this team is ME because a) I don't heal enough b) I don't Root enough c) I don't cyclone enough. I'm working on it. 3-7, unfortunately we were doing these on a Monday night so we didn't get credit for the ten. With more practice I know we can win more than we lose.

3v3 - "Wrathful Angels" - Our most successful trio seems to be the Hunter, Mage, Druid combo (yay I'm part of it!) - Last night we only needed to do 4 matches to get everybody over the 30% mark to get points, and we won every one of them. Granted - we are down near the 1200 rating mark - but you'd be surprised how many people buy those lower teams and basically "power-level" them up back to a better rating. You can tell the difference between a team that really should be at that rating and one that shouldn't. We have 5 members of this team and the constant mixing to make sure everybody gets a shot at points makes us lose.

5v5 - "Deaths Angels" - Hunter Hunter Rogue Mage Druid. All DPS is probably NOT the way to go in 5v5. Especially when you are against a group with 2 pallies, or a mix of a pally and another healing class - you will die. We finally added a priest to the mix - with him healing and me providing backup heals and DPS - it SHOULD work out a lot better. Unfortunately, one of our Hunters is Pregnant, our rogue is in the Navy stationed in Guam, the other hunter and mage are in Australia - and I THINK the priest is too, but he parties a lot - so we haven't been able to try out our new setup. I think with the good experiences I've been having in 2v2 and 3v3, I'll be much more beneficial to the team - EVEN though I'm an arena gimped Feral...

There are LOTS of PvP strategies out there - but in my blog readings today, I was reading Kestrel's Aerie and he posted a link to A Dwarf Priest where there is an awesome entry on Priest PvP tips against other classes. I actually got some good ideas from reading it (on how to druid pvp better yay!) and even learned some things I DIDN'T KNOW!! ((There is also a GREAT synopsis of the "Love is in the Air" Holiday - I got TWO romantic picnic baskets yesterday - so I gave it to a friend instead of taking it out of the gift - the baskets can not be, but the gifts of adoration CAN be traded even after you opened it to see what it was!)

Like I said I felt like I needed to use Cyclone more to help - but there are DIMINISHING RETURNS on cyclone. From the Dwarf Priest:

Cyclone has diminishing returns (first time cast on you it lasts 6 seconds, the second time is 3 seconds, the third is 1.5 seconds, the fourth and subsequent times you are immune) which get reset if combat is left.

Now why didn't I know that? Probably just because I didn't use it enough to figure that out. :p So it looks like if I run away enough to "leave combat" I can then cast the 6 second Cyclone again, right?

Great! Running away strategies!

One thing I have noticed... Some druids are good at ONLY the "run away!!" strategy and not the "run away heal run away cyclone run away heal heal heal don't run away turn into cat form and mangle the face off that remaining opponent!" strategy.

Right... Sorry about that got a bit excited about that last part there as I was able to successfully do that in all the battles my 3v3 group had last night. We only had one death in all the matches we played last night. That's not bad!

Unfortunately - because I only had time for one thing (and logged off immediately after getting everybody to 30% played) - I missed out on a VERY kind invitation to run Sethekk Halls from my good friend Ethlite. Sorry about that Helstrike!! I really want my Swift Flight Form - all this time spent "mounting" my Nether Ray is just too much time wasted when I can insta-shift into flight!!