AVOIDING NOOB TRAPS

AVOIDING NOOB TRAPS INTRO

Welcome to our course for avoiding those noob mistakes. As WoW has evolved over the last 20 years, so have the expectations that are put on every single player, including me and you.

Climbing an arena is sometimes as simple as fixing small mistakes and bad habits. But here's the problem.

The worst mistake is the one you don't even know that you're making. Don't worry though, because we've all felt stuck at some point in our WoW careers.

And to help you out, we put together a list of the most common mistakes in Arena, so you know exactly what to avoid.

HOLDING DEFENSIVES

You see this? This is a trap, right?

And so is this. And maybe even this.

It's a trap! But wait, how is this a trap?

Truth is, you probably have some bad habits that are caused by thinking you're playing smart and outplaying your opponents, but as you'll find out, you might be trapped into outplaying yourself. In fact, many of the problems in the video today are so pervasive that even gladiators in rank 1 sometimes mess these up.

Not to worry, because today we're here to show you the 6 biggest mistakes you might be making in arena and how to fix them. Let's kick things off with the biggest problem we see in arena, and yes, this even applies to rank 1s.

You should know by now that cooldowns are everything in shadowlands, and if you want the highest chance of winning it usually means having a cooldown advantage over the enemy team.

By now most people know this, or at least have some vague understanding of how this works, but it can create a really bad habit where players try and hold onto defensive cooldowns thinking they can save them for later. And what tends to happen when you hold onto defensives?

Well this. In this clip our warrior is sitting in defensive stance with ignore pain up, which means they are doing almost everything right.

That's true until their healer gets trapped with no trinket. In this moment our warrior could press die by the sword or even storm bolt to stop some damage.

Instead he decides to play it greedy, and instead of immediately committing one of his defensive cooldowns he lets the hunter tee off like tiger woods only to die right in the face. The only thing he can do is use parry.

What you will find at higher ratings is that players are really snappy with their defensive cooldowns. Instead of waiting until they are low before using CDs, they use cooldowns the moment there is a threat, or even pre-use cooldowns to delay setups.

Here for instance our healer gets into a full fear, which will probably be followed up with a full trap. Instead of being greedy our rank 1 warrior immediately uses die by the sword, knowing that there is still more damage to come.

This will help him stay alive through the CC on his healer while allowing his druid to conserve cooldowns. One thing we see a lot of in VOD analysis is that players try and hold defensives for too long.

They see their opponents pop cooldowns and instead of immediately responding they try and save them for next game. Instead of trying to greed defensives it is almost always better to just commit them the moment you are threatened since holding onto them is a complete coin flip.

There are so many damage spikes that can happen, like divine toll having good procs or a big crit from the hunt, that if you hold CDs you are taking an unnecessary gamble.

Of course, there are a lot of damage spikes that can happen, like divine toll having good procs or a big crit from the hunt, that if you hold CDs you are taking an unnecessary gamble.

This doesn't mean you should use defensives randomly or all at once, but instead you should think of how you will trade cooldowns 1 to 1 with your opponents, or you should communicate throughout the game as to who should be trading into enemy pushes.

But please don't try and greed things out, it might work sometimes but it can cause unnecessary losses.

USING DEFENSIVE CDS AGGRESSIVELY

The next mistake we see is one that we are all guilty of making at some point, and it's using your defensive cooldowns aggressively. We all know that feeling of getting CC'd when you are going for the kill and slamming your trinket to try and win the game, only to lose moments later after getting caught in a stun.

It's really tempting to use your trinket aggressively just because it is so annoying to get CC'd when it seems like you can just end the game. Now, we're not saying you should never use CDs or trinket aggressively.

In fact, it can win you the game. I mean, why wouldn't you burn a trinket to execute someone at 1%?

But you really need to take damage thresholds into consideration. Trinketing to kill at 1% seems pretty obvious, but trinketing to kill at 20% or even 10% might not be worth it.

Here, we have an RMP mirror, which can be a super volatile matchup. In most cases the rogue will be the kill target, and it is important that defensive CDs are used really precisely.

Our team manages to secure an opener on the enemy rogue which forces their trinket, and now with our rogue disarmed, we can get the kill target to kill the enemy rogue. We just need to wait out DRs to get a huge setup with smoke bomb.

Unfortunately, our rogue will aggressively trinket this disarm to try and finish off their opponent with two DR stuns. But now we have one massive problem.

We just gave the enemy team their win condition for free. And without a break on the CC setup, our rogue gets punished instantly.

Even though you sometimes see players using defensive CDs aggressively at higher ratings, more often than not CDs are conserved in order to stay alive. There is possibly no greater example of this than the fact that the enemy rogue is using defensive CDs aggressively at higher ratings.

This is a very common problem in the game, and it is one of the most common problems in the game. You're probably familiar with this moment where blizz0 narrowly dies to method EU, but this moment really highlights some intelligent gameplay from this guy right here.

Yes, the sheep. Let's break down why this is one of the most heads up plays in wow history.

With smoke bomb up and loonie pinned away, method EU has their win condition once DRs reset. Waz will bomb and kidney blizz0, but maro will run in for a frost nova, and with db up there is a high chance that waz will get a kill.

But the problem is that blizz0 will not be able to get a kill. So, we have CC'd.

Waz is a good player, everyone knows it, and he could have cloaked this nova to avoid the follow up db. Instead he saves it, because if this setup somehow fails he will be super vulnerable and he could easily be punished, losing out on a sweet blizzcon trophy.

So instead of being aggressive and cloaking the nova, waz manages to secure his blizzcon victory while polymorphed, knowing that he could throw the game by being aggressive. Not even a few hundred thousand dollars can stop mage CC.

That was a pretty neat clip, but we want to hear from you. What is the coolest play you have ever done in arena?

Don't be shy, this is your time to flex. Tell us your galaxy brain play in the comments below.

WASTING MOBILITY

Moving on, we have something we see over and over from low rated melee and it involves wasting your mobility. Here's a challenge, I want you to go to twitch, find a rank 1 dk, and see if they death grip as their first global.

More often than not the answer to that question is no, and in most cases they will just run mounted in and start attacking their target. But why?

Why wouldn't a dk of all things not want to instantly connect with their target? The reason being is that some melee classes like dks and warriors have fairly limited mobility, and if they commit a death grip or charge in the opener there's a good chance the target can easily slip away.

Obviously this depends on the matchup a bit, but imagine charging at a mage in the opener of a game. What would that accomplish?

They could nova you and walk a few steps, they could shimmer away, they could soul shape. If they do any one of these things you have to burn your heroic leap to catch back up, and suddenly you are losing the mobility race.

In this user clip our warrior is playing against two incredibly slippery dps classes. If he wants to have uptime.

He needs to space out his charge, heroic leap, and storm bolt. But instead he commits heroic leap and charge immediately on a mage who just blinks and soul shapes away.

He will try and hit the hunter with storm bolt and cooldowns, but human racial and disengage will ruin his day, and with no mobility options left our warrior is forced to waddle in the middle of the map with all cooldowns wasted.

When you are thinking about using your mobility you have to always consider what it will accomplish when you reach the target. If the opponent has tools to easily slip away.

It might be worth it to try and bait their escape options before you commit your cooldowns. If you are able to keep a mobility lead it enables you to have more pressure and that means more winning.

WAITING FOR THE STARS TO ALIGN

Next up, we have one astronomical problem that is worth fixing right now, and it is waiting for the stars to align. Some classes or comps have mechanics or builds that involve a ton of investment for one huge bang.

An example of this is Deathbolt Affliction Warlocks. Don't get us wrong, that spec can be really scary, but it requires a ton of setup.

Not only does the warlock have to have full dots up, but they also need to have Demon's Soul and even Power Infusion or Aura Mastery to have the highest chance of actually working. In short, there are a lot of things that have to go right in order for this setup to work.

Get ready to pour one out, because this clip is one of the saddest things we've ever seen. The enemy warlock is playing against Arresto Shaman and Arms Warrior while using a Deathbolt build.

Let's pause for a minute and think about some of the things the warlock has to avoid. Obviously, they can't be kicked, so that means interrupts could be a problem.

And even if the cast lands, it could be grounded by the Shaman, or reflected by the Warrior. And the warlock ideally should have Dark Soul up, which they do.

And PI and Aura Mastery up, which they don't. Oh, they also need full dots up against a Shaman who is spamming Dispel.

And with this last little detail forgotten, the enemy warlock Deathbolts for a whopping total of one damage. Yeah, you heard that right.

Deathbolt will hit for one damage with no dots up. All of this investment to do absolutely nothing.

But even outside of Deathbolt, players of all classes sometimes look for the perfect set of procs and cooldowns, or the perfect CC setup. To try and line up a kill.

The logic seems simple enough, right? You have enough damage to one shot, all you need to do is wait.

But waiting for damage to align doesn't always pay off in Shadowlands. The game is hectic enough that your kill windows are already short as is, so trying to fit in some RNG procs into the equation can be a big mistake.

TRYING TO PLAY COOL

Just like waiting for the stars to align, another big problem we see around rival to duelist ratings is people trying too hard to play cool. Look, we all remember the old rogue montages of WoW legends doing crazy things, but those are usually just remnants of a forgotten era.

Chances are your average player today doesn't know or care who Neil Yeo is. And let's face it, the game is completely different.

It's totally fine to go for cool plays in arena, and it makes the game really enjoyable. Like here, where a priest shadow melds hammer of justice.

Pretty cool right? If you sort through the top VODs of your favorite PVP streamer, chances are they have some clips doing some crazy stuff, and it might seem like they are constantly outplaying their opponents with galaxy brain maneuvers.

But more often than not, these sorts of plays don't actually win games, and if your entire mindset is to go into every arena and play like you're filming a PVP montage, you might be a bit disappointed. What matters most in arena is choosing the most consistent and replicable option for every decision you have to make.

Sometimes, this just means choosing the path of least resistance, and selecting the easy and guaranteed option. What you will find is that the best players generally do what is safest and most efficient.

Of course they will sprinkle in some flair every now and then, but they don't let flashy moves take away from their normal gameplay.

JUKING TOO MUCH

And last but certainly not least, we have the last noob trap for today's video, and it is juking too much. We covered this concept in some of our interrupting guides, but it is worth taking another visit just because there is so much confusion over the topic.

If you are an old player from the Wrath, Kata, or even Mop era, you might think that juking means you're outplaying your opponents. On paper, it makes sense.

Of course you should juke your cast, because you don't want to get interrupted, right? But if you watch our guide on tanking kicks, you already know that the best players rarely juke their damage spells.

For one, tanking interrupts on damage opens up the possibility of landing CC if you have multiple spell schools. And secondly, there are just so many things that can disrupt your cast that stopping to fake just adds unnecessary complexity.

In this clip for instance, our rank 1 mage doesn't even bother to try and juke, since he knows there are a million different ways his cast can get shut down. In this case, it's just better to tank each kick.

Knowing that there is always another spell on a different school to cast. Of course, there is a lot of complexity that goes into this topic, and for a full breakdown, we highly suggest watching our guide on how to tank interrupts.

Alright guys, that about wraps it up. As always though, thanks for watching, see you soon.