Navigating the Mental Game of WoW Arena Competitions

Ever felt like you're a sitting duck for those relentless melee attackers in World of Warcraft's solo shuffle? Fear not! Our latest episode is a treasure trove of tactics for Warlocks braving the fray, and it's chock-full of strategies that any player can employ to kite, position, and survive against the odds. We delve into the nuances of using your soul burn port to keep those pesky fighters at bay, maneuvering healers into unfavorable positions, and the art of defensive play to outlast the competition. For the Demonology aficionados, we break down the optimal use of fear, pre-cognition, and summoning tyrants to unleash havoc when the moment is ripe.

Transitioning to the mental and technical aspects of PvP, we shed light on the daunting task of mastering your rotations amidst the heat of battle. Through practical advice on keybinding and muscle memory enhancement, we pave the way for smoother, more intuitive arena play. Hear a heartfelt tale of lifting up a struggling newcomer amidst the often unforgiving PvP community, underscoring the profound impact of support over criticism. If you're navigating the complex emotional landscape of competitive gaming, this episode offers camaraderie, encouragement, and a reminder to join our supportive fold on social media for ongoing solidarity and updates.

Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:26

Have a good day. Hello and welcome to the pig and whistle tales from Azeroth. As always here at the pig and whistle in in some wind, I go for a variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft. Grab a bottle or a pint, sit back and enjoy this midweek episode. We're going to be looking at a few things that people have been worried about. People like a few things that people want advice on all on the forums. It's an array of things, essentially, but hopefully some of these things will help you out in your own personal gameplay or be able to. It's just, you know, something to listen to and have a good time with it. Essentially because some of these posts are a bit different and I want to debunk them. I want to help with them. I want to do whatever I can with them, because people do post some actual good stuff on the forums that require the attention of Blizzard and the community itself.

Speaker 1: 1:48

But we'll start off with the first one. This one is Warlock specific and tips or guides for Warlock shuffling. Now, this is tips and guides that can be used for everyone as well. This isn't just Warlock shuffling. This will be kind of a general one, I will say as well, I'm trying to hit 1800 on my lock out lock, but with how wild and troll players have been, I'm trying to figure out how to control more triple melee lobbies. The H war red, I'm playing demo healers are usually misweaver or priest and I just can't have a room. Or, and I just can't have a room for breathing due to some facts, rents just freedom or curses I try and put between me and war or DH hella doesn't get too close to me, or play around portals. What could I possibly do? I have impish instincts. I always sell, burn, port to kite and run, but either DH or war gets to me and I have one cast off and then it's a stun interrupt fiesta. Okay, so I will address this part first. This is the first half.

Speaker 1: 2:58

So it is true, there are a lot of melee in solo shuffle right now. It is melee fest right now, at this current time in the season, mainly demon hunters, but there are decays, rats, warriors. There's never usually a full ranged cast, a lobby. It's always full melee lobby. Now elemental shamans are part of this, but that's because they have a lot of utility, plus, their rotation is pretty much self-explanatory on its own. You don't have to do anything. But if you want to help in terms of a Melle lobby, you can't really do much about it.

Speaker 1: 3:43

What you're doing is the port and the soul burn and port. But what you need to keep doing is running after you've ported. That's great, but the best thing about the soul burn port is that you are immune. To interrupt not interrupts CC or slows is the best way to say it. So if you run, they will charge you, they will leap to you. They'll fail, rush to you however. They get to you, but you still have that slow immunity for several or a few seconds afterwards. So you keep running with your speed up and you get more distance and they won't be able to get there because they're using a lot more mobility to get to you. They're using two, lots of mobility rather than one, but eventually they're going to run out. Eventually it feels like every melee has like 200 things to catch up to you.

Speaker 1: 4:31

As for demo lock, I can't speak specifically, but what you're planning on doing is depending on your other melee. It's best to try and just get CC on the healer, don't force it or Don't try anything like that. But the best way that you can do this is depending on the map. So let's go with ruins of Lordaeron. Okay, ruins of Lordaeron is a very awkward map and a very good map for melees, because all you have is one tomb in the middle and it's very, very awkward for casters If that healer is playing around the tomb to get CC. So what you want to do is drag the melee into very unfavorable positions, and what this means is Basically, if you have to go into your spawn room, do it, because that way the healer has to come out to heal them, otherwise they will die, and this means that you can get easily more CC. Now, obviously, this will go both ways. Your healer will also be in the open, but depending on how Favorable the matchup is for the healer, then they might win it, they might lose it, but essentially you want to be dragging their healer into awful situations, because melee, dps and shuffle don't tend to look at where their healer is a lot. They very much do just a zug-zug and go in and not care. So that's probably one of the best things that you can do is Demand a poor positioning from their melee DPS, which will drag their healer out.

Speaker 1: 6:03

Now, as for damage rotation, I know it's gonna be very rough as a demo lock, as any sort of lock. As a mage, you know it's gonna be rough anyway, but that's the way that you can do. It is, after you've, like, gotten there essentially, or gotten away, you can start spam fearing and when they're within range, you think you just keep spam fearing but essentially want to try and duke a pre-cog and During this four seconds of pre-cognition that you get, you want to send out as much damage as you can, so tyrant your dread stalkers and then just one hand of gul'dan and you know, run away. Kind of deal. Again, it's all about kiting and I know that there seems to be so many things that they can do to catch up, but they will run out eventually and if you survive long enough, you eventually win is the best Thing. Your best offense is a great defense, the best way to put it. So if you're kiting like really well and you're dragging their DPS into poor positions where their healer can get secede, then it's going to be very good. It's all about the healer positioning. To be honest, against double melee, if you can drag the healer out, then that's perfect. If you can get him into a poor position, then it's just great.

Speaker 1: 7:19

Missed weaver on other team is usually fist weaving. My life, either of the 3dps that I'm tagged with don't peel or CC anything and I just get in the middle of a cleave fiesta and I'm there just looking at my life wondering why I'm doing this to myself. It really it's really player orientating on how either have good interrupts, slash stuns to allow me to run not actually having a good port boil fear, or axe toss fear to open a small window to be able to start casting the micro interruptions from Mistweaver, fist weaving, or the warrior literally glued on me with either healer or really not peeling me up, peeling off me or using CDs properly. I have given me the feeling of I can't do anything besides what I'm doing when I'm so locked away from casting Besides some small windows. Okay, with that healing, if it is a fist weaver, if it's anything like that, the best thing that you can do, actually the best thing that you could do for any double melee is yeah, run Like so so far.

Speaker 1: 8:28

Now I get that you want to port and then cast your damage, but if you are the main target, you want to run so far like you want to make it so that they actually switch to your monk or whoever is on your team, that you want them to switch to the other DPS. Now you don't want to run Like behind a pillar and get CC there and then your healers like out of line and all of that you want to keep in the open. But you just want to kite around the edge of the map. Kind of deal is the best way to put it. But yeah, honestly, when you port, you just keep running.

Speaker 1: 9:02

You spam your curses, no matter how much you think that they're dispelling them, freedoming them, you just keep spamming your curses, especially with fist weaving monk. You want maximum uptime on curse of exhaustion, they can get out of it due to Chigi and no essence font, I should say, and the what is it? Tigers lust, which you know gives them a speed increase, but they are on a cooldown, them two things. And Because the essence font requires you to use the thunder focus T to become CC immune or slow immune, if that makes sense. So that's the best way to deal with that. But yeah, honestly, you just want to run. Let you have a DPS deal of it.

Speaker 1: 9:42

If they do, just somehow Trying chase you down without switching targets, you just keep running. That's all you got to do. You don't actively have to do damage in order to win a solo shuffle. If you can survive long enough and just kite them so that they aren't doing damage but your DPS is getting nice uptime, then they will figure it out. Okay, they will figure out. And with how shuffle damp works, that's probably the best way to do it, because demo lock Will win in like damp situations. It won't really win in any other situations unless it's like a really good setup comp, but that's usually only in threes with like shadow play and stuff like that.

Speaker 1: 10:23

Um, I yeah, it's very tough. This goes for like most casters as well. You just want to keep kiting from these melee and Surviving because they will just keep chasing. They. Some melees don't have the idea to switch targets and and it shows, it really does show. So if you're managing to just run away for years, that's probably the best thing to do so With impish instincts. Any sort of damage can proc the impish instincts. So even if you're taking throw glaive damage Like and you haven't been hit by a natural melee ability for 15 seconds will say, you will be about 10 seconds away from that teleport again. So they will have so much downtime on you that it's not in their best interest to actually like Go you, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 11:16

Um, obviously you got to make sure that you're trading perfectly when they use and cooldown. So if they avatar blade, storm metamorphosis, you just want to immediately soul burn TP away dark packed and just book it To run. Don't care about anything else, just run. And if you have shadow mailed, you shadow mailed the bolt. That's like flying in. Or you just insta-trink it, the first stun that they do from range so they can't catch up to you.

Speaker 1: 11:39

You know you might not think it's worth it, but it really really is. That's the difference. It's tough to say, but you, you ideally want to get to dampening. Most casters, when melee, have a lot of mortal strikes so they can kill. When it isn't high dampening, obviously there's a point where it's you need to go aggressive because if you get to 80% dampening and you just kite in doing no damage, you will still eventually lose because your healer isn't being able to keep up with the small bits of damage that are being sent your way anymore. But yeah, hopefully that helps with anyone struggling solo shuffle as more of a range to cast a thing. But you know it is what it is. It's very rough right now at the moment and it's yeah casters. We just got to get through it. Essentially the only casters that are good Like or a lot easier to play right now is Ellie shaman, because it doesn't ever need to cast. Who would have thought a cast that doesn't need to cast? They went that route with boomkin like a couple seasons ago where it's, we think, boomkins not casting enough and yet you've got Ellie shamans jumping around slamming their head on the desk, just pressing earth shock and lava burst without casting a thing you know. Yeah, not sure how that one worked out, blizzard, but you know it is what it is. And this next one is really nice, bless it. I'm starting to find these ones, which is really good.

Speaker 1: 13:06

I'm starting to get into Arena about two weeks ago. Whenever a match starts, I know what the rotation is for my spec. I started out doing things right, but I start to panic. Field times are quick in this game mode. I mess up rotations because I still have to look at my spells, slash keybinds, which I would figure I would know by now. I realize a lot of these problems come from being not experienced in arenas. I can do the rotation better in battleground blitz because I guess it's a less pressured mode. I still am having to look at my keybinds, but not as bad.

Speaker 1: 13:39

Any advice on how not to panic and learn your keybinds quicker? Also, you may not be able to help me with this, but do you have any way to force yourself to watch your own gameplay to try and improve? I can record my games but refuse to watch them If you don't like your voice. You can just simply turn the sound off on your keyboard If you think that it's dogshit gameplay. It's one of them things where you have to realize that you're watching it to get better, to get out of that dogshit gameplay like mentality, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 14:09

But as for your rotation, it takes a long time to know your rotation in an arena setting because a lot of things are happening. You can be stunned mid set up if you're a rogue. This person is a rogue that's posting. So if you're stunning the two targets, you've stunned one, stunned two, but the third one stuns you before you even have to make a very quick decision to trinket it and stun them to get the go, or you just let it sit and you just wait. But that's very situational. You don't really know which one's best but honestly it takes so long to figure it out.

Speaker 1: 14:47

The best thing that I can give you in terms of advice is to hit a training dummy. Just practice your single target training dummy and then incorporate the cleave target dummies with it. So if you're a rogue you want to obviously set up some CC on the off targets. So you practice your first rotation You're just normal rotation on the training dummy constantly and after an hour or two you're like, ok, let's try to add some CC in there. So you step kidney the off target and then step or hook back to the main target and start your damage rotation. You know you start getting that muscle memory built up.

Speaker 1: 15:25

It takes so long and I cannot stress enough, it takes probably years, to be honest to understand each situation in an arena. Your key binds obviously just take a lot of time. Depending on the class there's going to be more or less key binds. Rogue certainly has a more unique palette of key binds because you need primarily more macros to step the off targets to kidney them or cheap shot them etc. But it just takes a lot of time and figuring out. It's very tough to give this advice, because I really hope that this guy plays long enough arenas to enjoy it, because it does take a while to actually get into, or some people and you know it is what it is A lot of people hopefully will follow in this guy's footsteps and start playing arena, even though it is very daunting and yeah, it's it. That's all I can say. Really, it's so daunting that newer players get thrown off really quickly. I'm going to end it here but want to leave you with this.

Speaker 1: 16:34

I had a solo shuffle on a new sort of alt that I was playing and one of these people came into the arena in full PvE gear. He was Not the best is. I'm gonna say it as it is. He was not great at PvP it. He was level 10 on a like he was on a level 10 or whatever it is. So he's played very few battlegrounds, very few arenas and stuff. This is a solo shuffle. This is 1500 wherever you're put in for a new sort of owl. It seems crazy to me that newer players are putting at that rating and because you can get a mix of, like, good players and awful players.

Speaker 1: 17:11

But this person was trying their hardest, he just wasn't good. He had no experience. It was in full PvE gear, apart from trinket, and usually his first global was divine shield and that's pretty rough, to be honest. It's that, or like it was when he was 50%. He was worried because he didn't trust healers and you know the healers need to be trusted in these circumstances and all of that stuff. But Bless him. He was getting so much hate.

Speaker 1: 17:41

I did throw him a message afterwards because he did end up leaving and Rage, quitting or just leaving because he wasn't enjoying it the arena and I did end up sending him a message saying don't worry about it because a lot of people in there were being Dicks essentially to someone who is new at arenas and I said you'll get there. Honestly, don't worry, you do great, just take your time with it. It takes a lot of time. I didn't get a reply, but hopefully that helped him.

Speaker 1: 18:06

And it is sad to see that people don't realize that this is a newer player in arenas and that instead of berating them for not playing like a rank one, that you know they aren't trying to help them out and just be like, hey, don't worry about pressing bubble. If you get really low, then I understand, but trust me, like if I'm a healer, I've got you, but like the first part, all right, you know that kind of deal, but it is what it is. It's just immunity and the mentality that people have when going into solo shuffles and stuff. It can't be helped, I guess. But thank you all very much for listening. As always, do check out all of the socials down below. Lots of stuff happening over there. Thank you all very much once again and go with our friend. Goodbye. Oh, oh.