CHAPTER 2: DEVELOPING A WINNING MINDSET

DEVELOPING A WINNING MINDSET INTRO

Welcome to our course on developing a winning mindset in PvP. Our goal in this series is to help you break through your current rating barrier by providing you with practical advice for climbing no matter what class you play.

Each video is going to include a bite-sized, isolated tip that's really going to help you reshape your mindset and transform the way you approach PvP from the outside looking in. And with that, we hope you enjoy!

PICK A CLASS YOU ENJOY

Hey everyone and welcome to a very special guide. There's no doubt that World of Warcraft PvP is incredibly unique.

And while it offers plenty of casual formats, it's rated arena that sees the most competition. Unfortunately, some players struggle a little more than others to get the most out of themselves, which results in them being stuck in duelist, rival, or even challenger ratings.

Well, don't fret, as today we're bringing you the ultimate guide to escaping low CR. Specifically, our top 7 ways in which you can start to improve as a player and break through those barriers that are holding you back.

Without further ado, let's get right into it. The most fundamental part of WoW Arena is picking a class that you actually enjoy playing.

This might seem obvious, but choosing a class that you have fun playing will improve every other part of your arena experience. There's nothing worse than struggling to gain rating on a class that you don't enjoy.

If playing the class you like, you'll be able to get a higher rating than the class you don't like. If playing the class feels like a chore, and if you don't even have fun while winning, maybe it's best to try another class or spec.

The class and spec you choose should reflect both your playstyle and your personality. Are you the type of player who likes to control the enemy team and play defensive?

Warlock might be the class for you. Warlocks and mages have spammable CC with fear and polymorph that allows them to slow down the pace of the game by shutting down kill attempts.

Do you like playing aggressive, charging into the enemy team and doing as much damage as possible? Then Warrior might be your class.

Class identity matters. If you have lots of fun playing a spec, you will be more motivated to improve.

And always try to have fun. It feels better to achieve your arena goals if you are able to have fun while doing it.

Playing your character might be hard at times, but it should never feel like a chore.

MASTER THE FUNDAMENTALS

Once you have found a class that you can identify with, focus on mastering its fundamentals. This starts with understanding your class and spec and learning everything there is to know about your character.

Make sure you are reading every spell, talent, and soulbind. There are many different ways your spells, talents, and soulbinds interact with each other.

There are so many spell modifiers and micro-interactions between abilities. For resto druids, the amount of healing done by your nature swiftness regrowth depends on how many hots a target has, whether or not soul of the forest is active, and if it's used with nature swiftness.

Resto druid mastery, soul of the forest, and nature swiftness all modify the amount of healing this single spell will do. If you didn't know these interactions, you could be missing out on a lot of healing.

Obviously, this example is just for resto druids, but this should illustrate how deep the interactions between abilities can be for every class. Learning how all of your spells and talents interact allows you to maximize the efficiency of your spells.

Once you have mastered your character, try to learn as much as you can about all of your spells and talents. If you have a character that you want to master, you can learn about other classes and specs.

It might seem daunting, but the more you learn about other classes, the better equipped you will be when fighting them in arena. You don't have to treat wowhead like an encyclopedia, studying every spec for hours, but you should make some effort in understanding the core abilities of other classes.

The first thing you should learn are the cooldowns of each spec. Not only should you read exactly what these cooldowns do, but you should pay close attention to their spell icon and any animations that they create.

Offensive cooldowns are especially important to recognize visually and automatically. If you have a character that you want to play, you can play them in a way that is easy to recognize.

A spell like combustion for fire mages has a distinct icon, spell animation, and sound that you need to be able to recognize. If you don't know what an offensive cooldown does or what it looks like, you may find yourself reacting too late.

Finally, make sure you make the most out of your UI and macros. This can be an overlooked part of gameplay, but it's really important.

Imagine being frustrated that your feet are too close to the steering wheel of your car, and then imagine someone showing you that you can simply back your seat up so your legs sit better. This may seem like a silly example, but playing with a bad UI is like being uncomfortable in your own car.

Your UI should always make the game easier to play. Generally speaking, minimalist and information-dense UIs are really good for PvP.

You don't want to have a plain UI with absolutely no information. You need to be able to track things like interrupts, enemy cooldown usage, and enemy buffs.

Your add-ons should help you see things going on in Arena, and they should communicate vital information to you and your team. They should not create a cluttered environment that makes the game harder to play.

TRY NOT TO DEVIATE FROM THE META

After you've mastered the fundamentals of your class, it's time to choose a comp to play in Arena. Your success in Arena depends not only on your skill as a player, but also on the two other players you will be queuing with in 3v3.

It is highly recommended that you try to choose the best possible comp for your class in Arena. You should stay up to date on Arena tier lists, seeing which comps work well with your spec.

Always try to play the best comps for your spec, and if possible, try to pick a meta comp that suits your playstyle. If possible, try to stick with one or two core comps the entire season.

Remember that each comp requires a unique skillset and a unique set of strategies. Arena is all about repetition and muscle memory.

The more you play a single comp, the more you learn its nuances. The more experience you have with your comp will make you better suited for recognizing patterns in Arena games, such as knowing when you can or cannot trinket, which targets are best, when to use cooldowns, and so on.

Arena comps tend to fall somewhere on a spectrum of aggression and control. Whether you like fast-paced Arena games, or slow methodical control-based setups, try to pick a meta comp that is not only strong, but also fun for you to play.

Picking a strong comp is important, because it will give you a better perspective on the game and will give you a higher chance at gaining rating. Competing against other meta-dominant comps allows you to engage with core competitive gameplay.

It can be fun to play a non-meta comp, just know that it might hinder your progress as a player. There is nothing more frustrating than losing Arena matches because your comp is weak, and if you want further proof, just look at the teams that compete in the Arena World Championship.

In almost every tournament Arena game, they are playing strong meta comps.

FIND PARTNERS WITH THE SAME GOALS AS YOU

If you find a comp that performs well in the meta and suits your playstyle, try to find partners with the same goal as you. Always seek out other players who are willing to grow and learn with you as a player.

Building team synergy will be incredibly important for your long-term success. Part of this synergy includes having effective communication and knowing how your partners react in specific situations.

We all have our strengths and weaknesses as players, but it can take a long time to recognize the specific strengths and weaknesses of your partners. You might find that your healer tends to panic when getting trained.

This doesn't necessarily mean that they're a bad player, but rather that you might have to learn how to cover this weakness. The more you play with your partners, the better you will become at covering their weak spots.

At the same time, they will be learning how to play with you. Everyone on your team benefits with synergy.

It may seem obvious, but remember that WoW Arena is a team game, and a team functions best when everyone is directed towards the same goal. It might be fun to have a queue session with someone much higher rating than you, or to queue with friends at low CR.

But if your goal is to improve as a player, you should think about long-term commitments. A queue session only lasts for a day, but an arena season lasts for months.

Jumping from team to team can dramatically change your arena rating, so it makes your progress as a player much harder to track. Having a stable arena team with the same set of goals will help you build team synergy, and will give you a clearer view of your own progress as a player.

LEARN HOW TO COMMUNICATE

If you manage to find two other players who are willing to follow you on your journey to Gladiator and beyond, your next goal should be learning how to effectively communicate in Arena. Communication is one of the most important parts of gameplay, and it's probably one of the most difficult things to get right.

There's this important balance you need to remember when communicating. You don't want to say nothing during an Arena game.

And on the other end of the spectrum, you shouldn't be talking over your partners the entire game. Not only is it just rude to talk over your friends, but it might drown out the information that they're trying to communicate.

They might be out of mana or out of cooldowns in a crucial moment, and you might not be aware of this due to poor communication. Remember that communication helps fill gaps of information for your teammates, and allows you to coordinate offensive pushes and defensive plays with your partners.

Comps like Rogue Mage often coordinate incredibly precise offensive pushes, and this requires all players line up their global usage within a few seconds. In order to do that, you need to be able to communicate with your teammates.

In order to do this, both the Rogue and the Mage have to talk out exactly when a CC will land or when a stun will be used. To get better at communicating, practice calling out as much relevant information as possible during a game.

This includes things like targeting, cooldown usage, crowd control, positioning, and resource management. You don't have to announce every single global you press, but prioritize communicating what is most important.

FOCUS ON YOUR MINDSET

If you've learned to effectively communicate, it's time to think about your mindset in Arena. Remember that mistakes happen and losing is inevitable.

A friend once told me a super valuable lesson, you either win or you learn. You cannot avoid losing or making mistakes, but you can learn how to deal with them.

After Arena games, think about what went wrong during the game and discuss it with your partners. Maybe you died because you didn't use a defensive cooldown in time, or maybe your healer didn't manage mana properly until it was too late.

Take the time to talk about the specific details of an Arena match. You should think about your mistakes and try to find active solutions to employ next time you're in a similar situation.

Think about every single way you could've reacted and ask if there was a more optimal line of play. For instance, you might have a strong defensive cooldown and weak defensive cooldown.

If you died while pressing your weak defensive cooldown only, it indicates that your stronger cooldown or even both cooldowns were necessary. While you're doing this, try to bring out the best in your teammates.

The worst thing you can do is rage at your Arena partner. Getting angry and yelling can really hurt a queue session because it makes the playing environment worse for everybody.

Being aggressively confrontational makes people less likely to want to play with you. Focus on positive reinforcement.

If your partner does something cool or skilled in Arena, recognize it. People are more likely to repeat behavior when they feel rewarded for it.

And remember, don't hate the player or hate the game. You cannot change class balance.

You cannot nerf your opponents and buff yourself. Focus on the things you can control.

STUDY THE GAME

Once you have your goal set, it's time to study. Use the videos on Skillcapped or Twitch streams to their maximum potential.

Be an active viewer by studying the gameplay of the best of the best. Pay attention to their movement, their rotation, their cooldown usage, and their communication.

You might notice that a pro player is able to do a ton of damage. Try to figure out why.

See exactly what goalballs they're pressing, when they're popping cooldowns, when they push, and when they run away. Use this information to incorporate their gameplay into your own.

If possible, try to record your own gameplay. This will give you a record of every queue session and will allow you to analyze your losses.

Rewatching your losses might seem painful, but remember, you either win or you learn. The games you lose often have the most important information, your mistakes.

Rewatching your losses allows you to follow your own breadcrumbs, seeing exactly what went wrong. Nobody has a perfect memory of every moment of an arena game, so it can be hard to remember what you did wrong without recorded gameplay.

And of course, make sure to watch the video to see if you can do it. Also study your wins.

Find points during arena games where things went well and try to replicate them. Finally, practice your gameplay in multiple environments.

Arena might be the premier competitive setting, but test your skills in other environments. Learn to adapt in as many situations as possible.

This will allow you to become a well-rounded player. PVE is an overlooked mode of practice.

Use mythic dungeons and raids as a way to perfect your damage rotation and maximize your throughput.

DON’T FOCUS ON THE RESULTS

We here at skillcapped pride ourselves on helping our viewers improve, and have successfully done so for over 10 years now. And in these 10 years a lot has changed, but one thing that remained the same are the mistakes we see preventing players from climbing.

In this guide we're going to be sharing the 4 most common mistakes that we see time and time again that stop players from reaching their rating goals. Without dragging out the intro too long, let's jump right into it.

Our first point is something that gets every one of us at times, and is without a doubt one of the hardest mindsets to adapt, and that's trying not to be results driven. This is a concept that comes up in almost every game, and even sport for that matter, with wow arena being one of the biggest culprits.

It's super easy to see our win rates and statistics and take these as a clear indication on how good or bad we're playing. If we had a good session and climbed rating we must have played great, if we lost a few games and lost rating for the day, we're obviously playing bad.

Well. This is what you need to get out of your head.

Just because you're winning or losing doesn't mean you played good or bad at all. And this is even more important to understand with world of warcraft arena, especially if you're playing with new partners or lfg.

There are just way too many different variables that could net you a win or a loss. Equating a positive session where your rating goes up to you becoming a better player can and will set you on a fast track to failure.

This sounds super cheesy and you've probably heard it said so many times, and well that's probably because it couldn't be more true. Your focus should never be on winning, losing, or even gaining rating.

This is a concept we try to teach with our videos and that's your focus should instead be entirely on your own play and how you can improve. One of the best but also hardest ways to really improve is to take every arena match you play as an opportunity to improve and learn something from.

Remember nobody started out at a high rating, everybody who's either pro or playing at the highest level possible got there because they simply learned and grew to understand the game. Thus make mistakes.

However, game losing a lot less commonly. We understand it's incredibly hard to adapt this mindset, but one way to start is to begin to review your gameplay and not just your losses, watch your wins and understand how you got into that winning position.

Then for your losses, try to identify what mistakes happened to leave you in that scenario. If you can identify and learn to understand why you won or lost certain games and focus on replicating or preventing the same mistake happening twice, you're going to be on a fast track to improvement.

And to help with this, we've even got an entire video dedicated to this. I'll link it in the description below.

I'll also be posting a video about how to improve your gameplay and how to improve your gameplay. So be sure to give that a watch.

Hold on, go back a second. While we're here, one of the most common video formats you'll see us do at skillcapped are tier lists and we pride ourselves on having the most up to date meta analysis available.

UNDERSTAND THE META

Why I'm telling you this is that the second reason we find players struggle to climb raiding is that they don't fully understand the meta, and even if they do, sometimes they choose to ignore it.

Sadly, if you want to improve, you're going to have to come to terms with the fact World of Warcraft is just extremely meta-driven. Top players have tons of different alts and specs that they're capable of playing and are always re-rolling and swapping mains.

The reason for this is that they understand the meta and always want to play the strongest compositions and specs to give them the best chance at climbing and doing well. And no, there isn't any shame in doing so either.

After all, a meta exists for a reason. This is a common problem we see from players stuck trying to climb, and that's they're just causing themselves to struggle by playing specs that are not strong in the meta.

Sometimes it's as a way to always have something to blame for their inability to climb, but a lot of the time it's just plain and simple ignorance. So if you're serious about climbing and improving, you should always avoid playing non-meta and underdog specs.

Always aim to set yourself up for the best chance. at success.

LOADOUT ISN’T EVERYTHING

Moving on, one of the biggest struggles for any player trying to climb is gear. And if you're not full best in slot with the highest level conduits, gems, and legendary, that you'll be losing games because of it.

Well, this is something that we see time and time again. Players get so caught up in trying to chase this perfect loadout in gear that it becomes one of the main fallback reasons for them losing their games, and without it, don't stand a chance at climbing.

Before you start, no, we're not delusional, and we do understand that you do definitely need a threshold of gear to even stand a chance in arena, especially at gladiator level ratings, but what we're talking about here is achieving that perfect loadout of highest level conduits, the best gems, and highest eye level legendary.

What you need to understand is this is all so incredibly minor, and in 99% of your games doesn't even come close to being the reason why you didn't win that game.

As an example, let's take a player you probably all know, a player who's widely regarded to be the best of their spec, and has been for as long as we can remember, winning multiple times in a row, and has been the best of their spec for as long as and reaching the very top of the ladder every season without fail. Zepai.

With all due respect, Zepai is quite frankly a player who would struggle to dress themselves from a wow gearing standpoint, and we'll tell you this himself, puts in the very bare minimum every season when it comes to gearing, and all the other great additions wow throws at us.

Even taking a quick look at his armory, we've been 20 weeks into the season, and even have catch-up mechanics now in 915, and we see 1 out of a potential 6 gem sockets, and he's not even level renowned. Not to mention, he even has some of his best conduits at their base level of 145.

It's safe to say this man lives in a world where Korthia does not exist, and Zepai is not the only player that this applies to. This is quite a common practice among top players, and that's that they just get the bare minimum and still manage to win games and consistently be at the peak of the ladder while doing so.

But anyway, our point is things like conduits, gems, and even renown are all so unbelievably minor, you don't need everything perfect to be able to be competitive. Instead of chasing those small percentile upgrades and blaming lacking them on the reason you lost, focus on your gameplay and improvement above all else.

The gear can always come with time.

PERFECTION IS AN ILLUSION

If you ever watch your games back and really focus on improving, you'll see you almost definitely make tons of mistakes. Whether that's missing kicks, mispositioning, wasting your resources, or even using your defensives or offensives poorly.

Believe it or not, if you take any pro player or streamer, watch them play, but spend the time to really, and I mean really focus on their gameplay, and you'll see just as many mistakes. They'll still miss kicks, miss procs, and sometimes even make decisions that don't make sense.

The point is, there is no such thing as perfection. There are just way too many variables in WoW arena that it's impossible to ever play the perfect game, and the great thing is, there's always something you could have done better.

So don't ever beat yourself up over the little things and let that hold you back. Top players win these games despite not playing perfect for one reason, and that's simply because they have the correct strategy.

Let's take League of Legends as an example. Two terms that are continuously thrown about are macro and micro, or mechanics.

Micro is your individual mechanical play, so this in WoW terms would be things like your damage retention. And macro is the bigger picture, and in WoW terms, this is things like strategy and game plan.

Well in arena, you can get by with a very low level of micro or mechanics as long as you have sound strategy, or in this case, macro.

So even if you're missing interrupts now and then, and sometimes messing up a few things on an individual level, as long as you're going into games with the correct strategy and have the basic knowledge of arena, you'll be able to push rating. You've seen it before on our channel, and that's the flow of arena.

It's consistently a game. It's a push and pull.

You'll do your offensive setup and then play defensive, which is just the bare bone basics of arena. Knowing when to play offensive, knowing when to play defensive, and which target to hit are going to be far more important than missing that one interrupt or damage proc and playing perfect every game.

The bottom line? You're not going to have to play perfect to win a game.

Instead, try to learn the matchups, understand what's making you win or lose, and try to be as consistent as possible.