CHAPTER 5: HOW TO PLAY EVERY MATCHUP

HOW TO PLAY EVERY MATCHUP INTRO

This course is going to attempt the impossible by teaching you how to play every single matchup. Why are we so confident about that?

Well, over the past decade, Arena has really started to take on a very specific structure. This is what's commonly called scripted PvP.

There's going to be some mentions of mechanics from older expansions here, but don't worry. What you're going to learn is timeless.

Think of this like a blueprint for smart PvP. No matter what comp or what bracket you're playing, we're going to be outlining how Arena should be played from start to finish.

BASIC ARENA FLOWCHART

Are you ready for something bold? Today we're gonna do the impossible and show you how to play every comp in the game.

Yes, you heard that right! We're gonna teach you the fundamental strategy used in every single arena game at the highest level.

Seems crazy right? Well, it's easier than you might think, and we will break down how every comp should be played regardless of rating.

We will be analyzing what it takes to play just like a pro in 2v2 and 3v3 by giving you the 4 simple steps to win an arena. It doesn't matter if you're just starting out or if you're a seasoned veteran, stay tuned because this one is for you.

Let's start at the very end by giving you a complete picture of how every single arena game is played at the highest level. Every game you see played at high ratings follows this exact flow chart.

No matter what comp you're playing and whether you're playing 2v2 or 3v3, this is the fundamental strategy in arena. It starts with selecting a target and then entering an offensive phase where you perform a kill setup hoping to burn cds from the enemy team.

Following that you will enter a recovery phase where your goal is to survive long enough to set up another kill with your cds and drs. After this the flow chart resets and your goal will be to wear down enough cds from the enemy team until they have nothing left to block your setup.

We're not lying, this is how every arena game for the past few expansions has been played at the highest level, and your game plan should try and follow this as closely as possible while keeping in mind that your opponents are probably trying to do the exact same thing.

So with the strategy outlined, let's break it down piece by piece.

SELECTING TARGETS IN THE OPENER

Target selection varies greatly depending on what comp you're playing, but there are some general guidelines you should follow. If you're playing a melee cleave, consider hitting targets that have fairly limited mobility.

Say, for instance, you're playing against a boomkin shadow priest. Who do you think would be a better target to hit?

If you said shadow priest, you are right. Not only do they have less mobility, but attacking them will deny a lot of their important damage since they only have one damage spell school.

Training players with limited mobility can also mean hitting disc or holy priest as a melee cleave, and in many cases, this is the best target the entire game.

For melee caster comps and spell cleaves, target selection is a bit more flexible, but generally speaking, it is better to set up kills on enemy DPS while using long CC spells on healers. One consideration every comp should make in the opener is making sure you play around fleshcraft.

Necrolord players are significantly more tanky, meaning you either need to wear down at fleshcraft before your first setup, or pick an entire team to play around fleshcraft. Necrolord players are significantly more tanky, meaning you either need to wear down at fleshcraft before your first setup,

THE FIRST SETUP

Once your target is selected, the next step is to set up your first go. Your go involves combining crowd control on multiple enemy targets while using burst damage on the kill target you selected.

Usually this means using a long CC on the enemy healer while stunning the kill target and controlling the second DPS if possible. It is a huge misconception that RMP is the only comp with CC based setups.

In Shadowlands every meta comp is capable of cross CC, including melee cleaves. Here for instance our cleave puts a full stun on the priest while using offensive cooldowns, but in order to make this go as effective as possible we need to cross on the feral who can disrupt our kill with CC and off heals.

In order to prevent this, our warrior stuns the feral, effectively shutting down two targets simultaneously. This setup forces the priest to trinket and allow our shaman to hex the feral.

This will burn even more resources from the enemy team, giving us a cooldown advantage early on into the game. Ok so now you know that melee cleaves can benefit from combining cross CC with CDs in the opener, let's look at the opposite scenario.

Let's look at the opposite scenario. Let's look at the opposite scenario.

Let's look at the opposite scenario. Let's look at the opposite scenario.

Let's look at the opposite end of the spectrum at a spell cleave. In this opener our team has managed to CC the entire team.

Remember that this is important because it only takes one player to completely shut down a kill.

The CC setup will eventually wind up forcing the warriors pvp trinket and the monk's revival, but more importantly it will push the enemy team back, allowing us to preserve our important defensive cooldowns to block a future attack.

One of the reasons RMP has been so dominant across multiple expansions is because it can perform these setups seamlessly, especially in the opener. Here our team has secured perfect cross CC on every enemy player, preventing any immediate block from the melee cleave.

Although this setup doesn't instantly convert to a kill, it does burn multiple defensive cooldowns from the enemy team, which we can use to try and secure a more guaranteed kill later, and we will show how that happens later in this video.

Ideally you should try and perform your first setup before your opponents, and we detail that in depth in our video about controlling Payson arena so be sure to check that out.

But as a refresher, beating the team that goes first will give you a cooldown advantage in the early stages of the game and can help you snowball a path to victory later on. Always remember that the goal of your first setup is not to win the game, but instead to force one or more major cooldowns from the enemy team.

In general, the most important cooldown to force is pvp trinket, since it can be used to deny kills when combined with other defensive cds. If you're able to force more than one trinket on your setup, you're usually in a good position to outright win the game.

Against inexperienced players, you can sometimes win in the first setup, so long as you combine control with damage. Here our jungle cleave uses maim on the rogue, chastise on the mage, and the mage uses the mage's cc on the priest.

And since no one on the enemy team reacts, the game is won simply by combining the cc with burst damage. So just as a quick recap up to this point, once you have selected a target, the goal is to perform your first kill setup before your opponents by combining your burst damage with cross cc on enemy players.

This will allow you to get ahead on cooldowns, but now some defensive work might be needed.

SURVIVING ENEMY SETUP

And here is where we enter the next phase of the flowchart, blocking the enemy setup. Remember that while you are performing your own arena flowchart, so are your opponents, which means they will also be performing goes to try and force cds.

This requires you to think about ways to efficiently trade your team's defensive cooldowns in order to deny their win condition. Inexperienced players often create a goldilocks problem where they either use too little or too many defensive cooldowns to respond to enemy attacks.

Most of the low rated games we see are under a minute long, simply because they either don't notice enemy cooldowns, or they respond with too little and too late. While low rated teams sometimes trade too few cooldowns, the reverse is also true.

Some low rated players will also over commit to setups and trade multiple cds and pvp trinkets into a single kill attempt. While this might temporarily block the attack, it exposes them to an even deadlier setup once cooldowns and diminishing returns rotate back.

At lower ratings, the majority of games are under 2 minutes because teams either use too little defensive cds and then lose their cooldowns. This is a very common problem with low rated teams.

So, if you are playing a game that is too low rated, you will have to play a game that is too low. So, if you are playing a game that is too low rated, you will have to play a game that is too low rated.

So, if you are playing a game that is too low rated, you will have to play a game that is too low rated. you will have to play a game that is too low rated. Or they use too many and die in the second setup.

Games played at the highest level, especially in tournament settings, sometimes go on for over 5 minutes, since better players are able to trade defensives efficiently.

They do this by focusing on trading cooldowns 1 for 1, which means pairing at least 1 defensive cooldown for every offensive cooldown being committed by the enemy team.

For instance, if the enemy team pops a damage increasing cooldown like avenging wrath, the best response is a damage mitigating effect like pain suppression or fortifying brew.

The more effective and efficient your defensive response is, defenses, the more likely you are to reach your win condition later on into the game. Here our team has done their job in the opener and have forced a pvp trinket from the enemy paladin.

But now there is one huge obstacle. The enemy team is popping multiple major cds and is doing their setup.

With our priest stunned and the enemy team still on CCDR, we need to find ways to live. Our team responds in unison as our feral druid spams heals into our priest while our priest trades his guardian spirit into the enemy team's cooldowns.

Spamming both of these things together ensures that our team is able to survive without burning too many resources. Of course, not every team is the luxury of having an off healer, but spammable CC is another option for breaking up kills.

Here our priest is stunned by a melee cleave who is popping all of their offensive cds. Our priest responds by trading his biggest defensive cd, guardian spirit, but there is still a chance that he could die to damage if he procs.

So in order to make sure that doesn't happen, our mage spams polymorph on the enemy warrior. He makes sure to cast another polymorph immediately, since the shaman is able to dispel it.

And now with the kill setup denied, our team is able to start swinging the game back in their favor. Ideally your team should attack first and then block the setup, but comps like RMP make this impossible and due to mechanics like stealth and invisibility you will have to block first then attack.

I'm sure you've watched our tier lists evolve over the expansion and you have noticed one thing, that warriors have continued to dominate every patch. The reason is because they have so many ways to deny setups, allowing their team to get closer to their own win condition.

Here. Our shaman has forced major cds and will likely win the next setup, but with the enemy team popping cooldowns we need to protect our shaman.

To do this our warrior uses intervene on his healer. Not only will this transfer damage, but will also transfer the physical interrupts from the enemy team, allowing his healer to free cast.

But the work isn't over yet because as intervene fades our shaman will start feeling the pressure of the jungle cleave, and with the enemy priest channeling his shackles trinket, our warrior breaks up the remainder of this setup with an aoe fear, completely shutting down the kill attempt.

Denying enemy setups is the biggest problem low rated players encounter and it is probably the most fundamental part of arena. Without proper defense your team will be unable to reach your actual win condition.

But how does that happen? Let's take a look.

RINSE AND REPEAT

If you are able to perform a setup and block an attack you just need to do it again, right? Well, not so fast.

You can't just setup your next go randomly, you have to wait for a few things, most importantly diminishing returns. Against better opponents you need CC to land kills, of course there are random abilities that can one shot at any time, but to have consistent kill setups you need to wait for DRs.

Once again let's go back to our spell cleave and see how they navigate a setup in the mid game. As you can see our priest has his cooldowns ready while our mage has combustion ready.

The enemy team is also off CC DR meaning the team has an opening to attack. Our team pushes in and uses all of their instant cast CC on all three enemy players and uses this to setup an attack on the enemy warrior.

Even though this doesn't land the kill here it does force die by the sword from the warrior putting the enemy team at a slight cooldown disadvantage. Checking for DRs is easy and can be done with addons like gladius, esserina, or diminish.

Here for instance we can see the enemy rogue is on stun DR but the enemy mage is on stun DR. Checking for DRs is easy and can be done with addons like gladius, esserina, or diminish.

Here for instance we can see the enemy rogue is on stun DR but the shaman is not. This gives our team an opening to attack the shaman since we are able to get full value out of our crowd control on this setup since they weren't on stun DR.

In this case the shaman is late to respond to this setup and winds up dying to our spell cleave. But outside of diminishing returns you might consider holding off your kill setup if you are about to have major offensive cds rotate back up.

Let's pause here for a second. We're late into the game and we have trinkets forced from both the shaman and the ret paladin.

We could go in the next few seconds but why should we delay our go? We could go in the next few seconds but why should we delay our go?

It's because our mage almost has combustion ready. If we wait just a few seconds longer our kill setup will be infinitely deadlier.

Recognizing this our rogue delays his setup until combustion has completely come off cooldown. And by being patient and waiting for his team's cds to line up with CC DRs our rogue is able to convert this patience into a kill.

KNOWING WHEN TO SWAP

Okay, so now you know that you need to set up kills with CC and damage and block enemy attacks with your CDs, but what if that isn't working?

The flowchart we laid out earlier is meant to repeat over and over until the enemy team runs out of ways to deny your setups, but regardless of what target you select in the opener, you aren't necessarily chained to attacking it the entire game.

If you've been doing a good job cross-CCing on your setups, you've probably forced trinkets on multiple players. Doing this opens up the possibility of attacking a different target if you can find a good opportunity to do so.

In this game, our team has tried doing multiple setups on the red paladin, but now the warrior is in the center of the map in battle stance with no trinket. And with the warrior in this position, our team launches an all-in attack.

With dampening stacked high and with all of our team's damage combined, we were able to open up a new kill window. Because our team was able to force trinkets with effective cross-CC earlier in the game, we were able to use this to swap.

To a different target than we originally selected. This works exceptionally well for comps with massive burst damage like RMP.

And even if you aren't forcing the CDs you want from the kill target, you can easily change to a different target if they trinket one of your setups. Here, our team has forced trinket on the enemy healer, but not on the initial kill target, the Windwalker Monk.

And even though the Windwalker will drop low and be forced to kite away, our team will find an opportunity to punish the healer's trinket. And after kicking Fleshcraft, our RMP is able to find a new kill target on the healer, since we were able to burn their trinket with a CC setup earlier in the game.

FUNDAMENTALS CONCLUSION

There are obviously nuances for every matchup, but understanding the core arena flowchart is important no matter what you are playing. Chances are if you find your team struggling in arena, it's because something has gone wrong in the cycle.

If you're struggling to land kills it's probably because you have weak setups and need to work on coordinating goes with cross CC and combining your control with damage.

If you're struggling to survive, it's likely because you're failing to trade efficiently and are either using too little or too many defensive cooldowns to survive.

In any case, sticking to this flowchart is how every arena game should be played, and the best teams in the world are able to follow it closely regardless of their comp or matchup. Ok guys that wraps up our guide on how to play arena just like a pro.

As always though, thanks for watching, see ya soon.