CHAPTER 3: FINDING YOUR PLAYSTYLE

THROUGHPUT PLAYSTYLE

Over the course of WoW PvP history, we've seen countless great players, and at one point we even had a bunch of them living in the same house! But that got us thinking, what do some of WoW's best players have in common?

And perhaps more importantly, what makes them so different or unique? Today we're going to explore the three different playstyles that are common among the best players in the world.

If you're looking to improve your gameplay, this might be one of the best places to start. We will be breaking down the strengths and weaknesses of each playstyle to show you which one might be best for you.

So stay tuned as we take a deep dive into the mindset of the greatest players of all time. Before we get too technical, let's break down what we mean by playstyle.

Without spoiling too much, there are three specialties that rank 1's tend to focus on when developing their gameplay. Throughput, Control, and Defense.

Generally speaking, most players tend to gravitate toward one of these even if they might not be aware of it. But specializing is not like choosing a starting pokemon.

Nobody in WoW is locked into a single playstyle for their entire career. And just like everything else in the world, there are many other specialties that rank one.

In the same way that in the first place, there are many other specialties that rank one. But if you're good enough, it's even possible to specialize in two or even three categories at the same time.

But for the most part, many good players will focus on developing throughput, control, or defense as the defining feature of their playstyle. But again, just like pokemon, each playstyle has a set of strengths and weaknesses that affect how well it can perform in competition.

And sometimes the class you play determines which playstyle is best for you. If you're confused, don't worry, let's break it down.

The first specialty is throughput. Which is probably the easiest to understand.

But it has a bit of nuance you might not expect. Throughput specialists focus on making their damage and healing numbers as big as possible.

As a DPS, this means prioritizing dealing pressure through raw damage with the sole intention of finding win conditions by overwhelming the enemy healer. And obviously for healers, focusing on throughput means maximizing HPS while also trying to be as mana efficient as possible.

Throughput healers are types that exhaust every single resource to keep you alive while trying to stick to a healing priority to make sure you never drop low in the first place.

For all roles, throughput specialists are the types of players who routinely show up at the top of damage or healing meters no matter what class they play. One benefit to this playstyle is that it is quite natural for most players to learn.

In fact, the majority of content in the game already supports this specialty. If you're a PvE player, your goal is already maximizing throughput in order to kill bosses in dungeons and raids.

Aside from being natural, having a throughput specialty can allow you to go really far in arena even without nuanced game knowledge. This is why you routinely see world first raiders do so well in the game.

This is why you see world first raiders do so well in the game. This is why you see world first raiders do so well in the game.

This is why you see world first raiders do so well in arena despite barely playing PvP. High damage is able to compensate for any gaps in PvP specific knowledge.

Altogether this makes throughput a very fundamental concept and it elevates other aspects of your gameplay. Once your damage or healing rotation becomes natural and optimized, you're able to focus more on the micro interactions of arena.

This is why damage and healing are the first courses we teach for every class on our website because they are absolutely fundamental and without them the rest of your toolkit loses a lot of its value.

This is why damage and healing are the first courses we teach for every class on our website because they are absolutely fundamental and without them the rest of your toolkit loses a lot of its value.

Don't worry about the damage and healing voltage, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but what sort of disadvantages might this bring? For one, not all damage is created equal, and because every dps has some form of self-healing or passive tankiness, sometimes damage alone is not enough to score kills.

For one, not all damage is created equal, and because every dps has some form of self-healing or passive tankiness, sometimes damage alone is not enough to score kills. On top of this, some specs simply aren't able to win the game off raw damage.

Sub Rogue, for instance, plays best with a hit and run strategy that involves small bursty damage windows since backstab damage doesn't really do anything meaning a sub rogue doesn't really need to top damage to win the game.

And at a certain rating, damage needs to be pretty easy to deal with for a game that's to be combined with precise control or an attention to defense in order to beat the best opponents, but for the vast majority of players, throughput alone is what tends to carry games. You might have experienced this with other games.

Even if you're inexperienced, you can still win with characters that deal a lot of damage. There have been many great damage dealers throughout WoW's history, and currently, players like Trill are pushing the limits of what it means to do big damage in Shadowlands.

He's a phenomenal player all around, and has had success in WoW outside of 3v3. Not only has Trill won Blizzcon, but he has also competed in the MDI and in the Race to World First.

A lot of his skills in PvE transfer perfectly to PvP, where he adopts a DPS-focused playstyle, which includes fishing for optimal damage modifiers in order to deal the most damage possible. Recently, Trill has helped revitalize Outlaw Rogue in competitive 3v3.

What makes his approach to the class unique is that he will commit damage even outside of optimal CC setups. Again, his goal is to maximize his DPS, relying on an optimal CC setup.

He will also have an optimal rotation to open kill windows as a supplement to perfect 3-2-1 CC. And no matter what class Trill plays, this is more or less his approach to every game.

But stepping away from Trill and looking at the metagame today, a damage-specialized playstyle is common among some of the most popular metacomps, most notably MLP.

Despite having numerous control options, it is actually a damage-centric comp, not winning the game off of precise control, but instead winning by raw damage output, which eventually overwhelms enemy healers.

Missplay cleaves are also able to utilize this playstyle quite well, and even comps like jungle cleave are centered around consistent damage output rather than precise 3-2-1 control.

Again, there have been multiple players throughout pvp history who have been known to do big damage, and these players tend to be the bane of any healer, as one small misplay can easily snowball into a loss.

CONTROL PLAYSTYLE

Throughput might be the most obvious and intuitive specialty, but other players focus more on control. Control specialists aren't looking to top the damage or healing meters, but instead, their focus is on using crowd control or even mobility and zoning tools in order to dictate the pace of the game.

Usually this means playing around CC DRs and looking for really precise moments to coordinate perfectly timed cross CC in order to swing momentum. In many cases, this means planning your win conditions around the enemy team's cooldowns.

Instead of trying to squeeze brute force kills with optimal DPS, control specialists look to exploit the weaknesses and gaps in the enemy's defense. This might seem like a purely offensive mindset, but it actually balances out quite well with defense.

By getting consistent control over your opponents and combining it with huge burst damage, you're able to push the enemy team back and deny their offensive pressure.

The defensive benefit of this playstyle was demonstrated over a decade ago when Rekful released his video on control, showing how the toolkit of a sub-rogue could be used to stop the enemy team's momentum. And his defense.

This double warglaives video showed how win conditions can be opened up with CC alone, even without optimal damage. Of course, both these videos were from a wildly different meta than what we have today, but they helped shape the mindset of an entire generation of players.

This playstyle is not just limited to DPS, and even healers can adopt this mentality. Since many healers have multiple CC spells, control can be used as a replacement for healing.

If you can stop the enemy team's damage with control, it means you don't need to be as efficient with your healing rotation. The biggest advantage this playstyle brings is just how well it can be used.

You can control the pace of the game without maintaining optimal damage or healing output. Instead of needing to brute force your way to wins, your control is what opens up your win conditions.

One downside to this playstyle is that it often requires lots of game knowledge and arena experience in order to really master. PvE encounters don't really offer a way to practice managing CC DRs, and instead, grinding out arena games is really the only way to develop a control mentality.

Because of this, inexperienced players might fail when trying to make control the foundation of their playstyle. Since CC DRs need to be carefully managed in order to reach win conditions.

If you don't know the right moments to CC, or if you fail to coordinate control with your partners, your kill opportunities will vanish. But speaking of vanishing, this playstyle works really well with sub rogues, and players like Waz utilize a control focus mentality in order to win games.

One of the main reasons why Waz's RMP has been so dominant across multiple expansions is because of how relentless he is when it comes to dictating the pace of the game with CC. Opening up massive win conditions for his team while limiting his playstyle.

And limiting what the enemy team is able to do. On the mage side of things, Marrow is another example of this mentality, but with a more defensive style.

His main focus is making sure the enemy team is never able to play the game by rotating polymorph and root DRs. It's no surprise that both of these players happen to be really good at Boomkin, which is a spec that supplements its damage output with consistent control in the form of cyclones, roots, and stuns.

If it wasn't obvious by now, a control focus playstyle happens to work best with classes that have spammable CC. Polymorph, Cyclone, and Cheapshot are all good.

But they are fundamental tools for its success. And comps like RMP demonstrate the true power of control when multiple CC tools are available.

Even though it may seem like RMP deals a lot of damage, that isn't always the case. More often than not, RMP can win every game if their damage output is a mere fraction of the opponent's.

This playstyle can even work with melee cleaves like Rett Warrior. As we have demonstrated in the past, it is a massive misconception that RMP is the only comp that needs to coordinate CC.

Virtually every comp in the game has some form of cross CC. Meaning focusing on control is possible for the vast majority of classes.

DEFENSE PLAYSTYLE

With that being said, Compsic RMP and Ret Warrior have created an arms race of how to deal with throughput and control, and are the catalyst to our third specialization, Defense. This is probably the most abstract playstyle of the three, and is often the least intuitive to understand.

When we think of defense in WoW Arena, a handful of abilities might come to mind. Abilities like Polymorph, Grounding Totem, and Pain Suppression can all be used defensively, but what truly defines a defensive mentality is how and when spells like these are used.

Defense specialists are constantly trying to deny the enemy team's advancements. This means utilizing tons of in-game information and game knowledge in order to know exactly when the enemy team has their win condition, and then using that information to pre-plan a response.

A defensive shaman wouldn't simply use Grounding Totem to deny a random Polymorph, but instead would recognize when the enemy mage needs to push in for a 3-2-1 setup, and save grounding for that specific moment. Interrupts are another great example of how a defensive mindset can be implemented.

A defensive-focused warlock wouldn't kick a, random fireball cast, but instead would save their spell lock for other key spells, like Polymorph on their healer or mind games from an enemy priest.

Instead of trying to open up kill windows with active forms of offense, defensive-oriented players are looking to gradually exhaust the other team. They aren't looking to gamble, but instead they might play safe and conservative in order to minimize risks to win the long game.

The advantage of playing defensively is precisely that it minimizes risks when done appropriately. Once again, playing on offense usually requires you to take multiple gambles, like sacrificing your position to CC healers, or using interrupts on key spells during your offensive pushes.

A defensive-oriented player doesn't have to make nearly as many risks, since they are simply reacting to the enemy team's risk-taking behavior. Once again though, this requires a lot of game knowledge, especially when it comes to individual matchups.

A defensive player knows the win conditions of their opponents, and actively works to deny the enemy team from reaching them.

This makes this specialty incredibly demanding, or even impossible for a beginner player, since it requires you to know so much information, such as, key damage, prox, or even knowing how much damage your opponents are able to do. There's also a social stigma to playing defensively.

We typically prefer to see highly risky mechanical plays, and you don't really see many PvP montages highlighting deep-dampening games. Some players might consider this playstyle boring, and might say that you can do nothing and still win while having this mindset.

Despite this, many players have specialized in defensive play, and have seen incredibly consistent results. Regardless of his actions outside of competition, Looney is one player that comes to mind.

Instead of taking unnecessary risks as a player, he was known for carefully monitoring every piece of information in every game state, and then using that knowledge to precisely block enemy attacks.

This playstyle is not just limited to healers, however, and DPS players like Chanimal are also really great representations of the power of defense. As a Warlock, Chanimal utilized his team's zoning tools with his own CCDRs in order to make sure the enemy players never had the chance to interact with his team.

Practically any class can play defensively, since it has more to do with dictating your opponent's cooldowns, rather than using your own.

Again though, this usually requires intensive game knowledge, which is why it's the last course we teach on our website, because it requires you to know how your own toolkit can be used to react to your opponents.

So, just as a quick recap, throughput, control, and defense are the three main paradigms in WoW Arena, and the world's best players usually specialize in one of the three.

The absolute best players of all time are the types who are able to master all three at the same time, but these types of players are incredibly rare. Rank 1 and pro players are usually able to have split specialties, but simply having one specialty is usually more than enough for Gladiator.

Your goal as a player is to recognize which playstyle works best for you, while also considering that control and defense might require a bit more game knowledge to fully flourish. Choosing a specialty is kind of what you do in life anyway.

Your education, your career, and your hobbies generally align with what you are good at doing. It would suck pursuing a job you suck at, or don't enjoy, so why would you pursue a playstyle that isn't even right for you?

THE FINAL DIVISION

And this brings us to one final division when it comes to how rank 1 players actually utilize game knowledge. There are two other paradigms that affect how information gets used.

On one hand you have a logical mindset, and on the other hand you have intuition. Logical players take an analytical approach to the game, looking at game design itself as a system that needs to be understood and manipulated.

These players generally like to plan everything in advance and then follow a pre-designated path that seems the most rational when navigating arena on the macro level.

Cognitive players take a more improvised approach to arena and instead look at their human opponents as the system that needs to be understood and manipulated.

They don't care about the game as much on a macro level and instead are constantly trying to exploit small micro interactions and capitalize on key mistakes being made by their opponents. Both of these paradigms can work along with throughput control and defense and one isn't necessarily better than the other.

After all, PvP requires you to understand game design and other human opponents simultaneously, so both are valuable approaches to learning how to play the game.