HOW TO STAY AHEAD

HOW TO STAY AHEAD INTRO

Welcome to our course on how to stay ahead in WoW Arena. Now do you know what makes Chanimal one of the best players of all time?

He is a master of understanding and controlling game states. What game states means is knowing what direction the game is headed, which has an enormous influence on how you play.

In this course we're going to teach you how to control every arena game at three different levels from basic to advanced concepts. You're going to learn how to speed things up, how to slow things down, and it's going to give you more confidence for your next queue session.

We hope you enjoy the course.

WIN MORE GAMES BY CONTROLLING THE PACE IN ARENA!

You know that saying slow and steady wins the race? In shadowlands that is a complete lie and this turtle would be stuck at 1400.

But not to worry because if you are finding arena difficult this season, there is one thing you can change right now. We will be showing you how to win more games by controlling both offensive and defensive pacing in arena by focusing on basic, intermediate and advanced concepts.

So if you want to learn some of the strategies used by the best players in the world, stick around because this one is for you. Game pacing is probably something you do already but only the best players in the world have really mastered it.

But before we look at some gameplay, let's understand what pacing means. Arena is like a series of waves and of course each wave has a peak.

This represents your offensive control where your team builds momentum by being aggressive and forcing defensives from the enemy team. But after each peak there is a recovery phase.

This is when your team will be waiting for CD's and DR's to come back up while also deflecting any enemy attacks. Ideally you want two things, which is to have more peaks than the enemy team, which in turn means having a higher frequency with your kill attempts.

And these two things together can be achieved by controlling the pace of the game. But how can you make sure this happens?

It starts by understanding two things. The first is using your offensive cooldowns effectively, which usually means using them as often as possible.

In most cases your team should commit at least one offensive cooldown in the opening exchange of the game. This will only force one or more defensive cooldowns from your opponents.

This will help set pacing in your favor by automatically giving you a cooldown advantage over the enemy team the moment the fight engages. High rated melee cleaves use this strategy often, and although it may seem reckless to an untrained eye, it is highly effective.

In this matchup, the monk will be the kill target since they are far less durable than the warrior. The goal will be to set up the kill in advance by forcing cooldowns in the opener.

This starts with a hammer of justice on the holy paladin. Our warrior then follows this up with a kill.

The enemy team then throws a storm bolt on the monk as our paladin uses wings. We are only 11 seconds into this game, but major cooldowns have already been committed by our team.

This early aggression will force the enemy monk to trinket, and if we speed things up, our warrior will land a full fear onto the paladin while also using their offensives. This will now force trinket from the enemy paladin.

Now if we look at the enemy team's cooldowns, our team has forced trinket from both the monk and paladin and we are only 20 seconds into the game. Meanwhile on our team, both of our partners still have their trinkets available.

We can now use our trinket to force trinket from the enemy. This is the first time our team has had a shield or shield shield available with most of their defensive CD's.

This early game aggression might seem reckless, but it serves an important purpose. It sets the pace of the game early and allows our team to stay ahead on important cooldowns.

Using offensive CD's to stay ahead early is incredibly important in mirror matches, especially in comps like RMP where momentum can swing super fast. Here our team has secured cross CC on the enemy team, but we need to find a way to force the healers trinket.

One of the problems standing in the way is the fact that the rogue has a massive fleshcraft In order to force the healer's trinket, our rogue uses shadow blades while our mage uses combustion.

Despite having a massive shield before the kill, this forces the enemy priest to trinket since offensive CDs have been committed. If our team had not used cooldowns here, the enemy healer could have preserved their trinket.

Instead, by being aggressive with cooldown usage in a mirror match, our team was able to use this early game pacing in order to secure a kill later when the priest was unable to break out of CC. But sometimes, simply popping offensive cooldowns isn't enough to actually force CDs.

So how can you ensure your cooldowns are effective? The answer is control.

One distinct advantage comps like RMP have throughout the game is how they can combine their offensive cooldowns with team-wide control, which together almost always force one or more defensive CDs from the enemy team, once again putting the RMP at a pacing advantage.

Here, we have the best RMP in the world that is about to win a game in 30 seconds. Don't blink, because this kill will happen.

The kill starts with a coordinated polymorph on the hunter with a shackled undead on the hunter's pet. This forces the priest to make an awkward dispelling decision while also preventing roar of sacrifice in the opener.

The priest dispels the hunter, but now the hunter's pet is CC'd and our rogue moves in for a blind. The hunter will be unable to roar of sacrifice this opener and the priest will be baited into using a trinket.

This blind opener will put the hunter under insane pressure and the priest and hunter both panic and overlap PvP trinkets one-to-one. The trinket is a good example of how our team can combine this control with the mage's combustion.

The pacing of this game has already been set with really intelligent control combined with offensive cooldowns. In the first five seconds of the opener, the enemy team is at a massive cooldown deficit versus an RMP.

If we fast forward to when stunned DRs come back up, this control focused opener will have paid off and the jungle cleave will be unable to recover from their mistake. With trinkets overlapped in the opener, it just takes one more setup for the RMP to win.

By setting the pace early with cooldowns and control, our team was able to plan their victory one step in advance, setting the pace early and preventing the enemy team from ever gaining momentum.

But it's not just RMP that has to focus on control, because in Shadowlands, almost every single comp uses control-based kill setups. High-rated melee cleaves will often use control to dictate game pacing.

Although they don't have as many tools as RMP, it is still important to dictate the pacing of the game early with CC spells. Synchronizing CC on the enemy team can force them into burning major cooldowns early.

Then, once DRs are back up, the enemy team will be in a really vulnerable position. If you are an intermediate level player, you probably already have a basic understanding of how cooldowns and control are essential for pacing the game.

We have only focused on how to pace the game for your team, but we haven't talked about how you can control the enemy team's pacing. This is something that only the best players really understand.

Knowing when your own cooldowns are ready allows you to know when you can start to go, but by paying attention to your opponent's cooldowns, you can delay your own cooldowns. But by paying attention to your opponent's cooldowns, you can delay your own cooldowns.

But by paying attention to your opponent's cooldowns, you can delay your own cooldowns. But by paying attention to your opponent's cooldowns, you can delay their go from even starting.

The best way to do this is with add-ons, of course. Omnibar will allow you to see all of your opponent's most important cooldowns.

Another lesser used add-on is Diminish, which allows you to track DRs on your character. Another lesser used add-on is Diminish, which allows you to track DRs on your character.

If you see that your opponent's cooldowns are ready, and if you notice that DRs are about to reset on your character, you know that your opponent will be attacking soon, so what can you do to stop it? Preemptively using a minor defensive is one method.

Ideally, you should never commit a major defensive or a PvP trinket until the go is actually started, but minor cooldowns like Cenarion Ward, Earthen Wall Totem, or Fleshcraft can be used before your opponents commit their offensives in order to delay or deflect their attack.

Nowhere is this more clear than in this matchup, where one of the best offensive teams in the world will go head-to-head against one of the best defensive teams. One of the worst things that can happen while playing against RMP is getting triple CC'd, which as we mentioned is how RMP sets pacing early on.

If we look at the enemy team, the Shaman and Paladin are CC'd, but where is the Warrior? If we take a look at the background, the Warrior is standing absolute max range from his team in the opener.

This might look like a mistake, but this is intentional, because he does not want himself to be in a position where he can be controlled. If he eats any CC in the opener, he will allow the RMP to set the pace.

The Warrior eventually leaps in, blade storming to prevent getting CC'd. If we pay attention to the DRs on the enemy team, there is only one blind available to CC the Shaman, so what does the enemy Warrior do?

He immediately uses AoE fear. Despite the fact that no cooldowns have actually been committed from the RMP.

Once again, this is done to deny any pacing and momentum and to prevent the RMP from committing cooldowns. The opener is where RMPs take control, but this can easily be redirected by playing aggressively defensive, like we see here.

Let's skip forward to another go to see what the melee cleave does next. If we look at Gladius for a second, we can see that stun DRs are ending soon on the DPS and polymorph DR is ending soon on the healer.

This is a clear indication that the RMP will be attacking soon, but with multiple defensives on CD, what can the melee cleave do to delay the setup? In order to buy some time, the Shaman will use Fleshcraft to trigger ultimate form.

Fleshcraft can normally be interrupted, but Spirit Walker's grace will prevent that. Now, the Shaman will have temporary CC immunity in a crucial moment where DRs were about to reset on his entire team.

This temporary CC immunity might not seem like much, but it is enough to delay the RMP's attack. The Shaman will also have to delay the setup to keep the game balanced for the melee cleave.

Every second counts in arena, especially during crucial moments where cooldowns or DRs are about to reset. So, if you want to control the pacing of the enemy team, simply pay attention to their cooldowns and DRs.

If you see major cooldowns about to reset, you can use minor cooldowns or control to help give your team some time for major cooldowns to come back up. One of the best ways to delay enemy attacks is with positioning.

If CDs and DRs are about to come up for your opponent, you can pre-kite the go before it happens. Here, we can see that this RMP has both Kidney Shot and Dragon's Breath available.

This is a clear indication that they will be setting up soon. Our Paladin could push in, but this would be needlessly risky.

He doesn't have bubble for another 14 seconds, and the Priest is dead oom. We have a win condition, we just need to be patient.

Our Paladin sees this, and instead of chasing the Mage into the open, he starts line of sighting behind the pillar, trying to make sure he can at least avoid the Mage. The Rogue makes a crucial mistake, leaving a small gap in the middle of the map.

He then uses his RMP after Chastise, allowing our Paladin to pre-use Blessing of Sanctuary on himself. And with our entire team cross-CC'd, this pre-emptive movement behind the pillar is enough to line of sight our Paladin from the Mage, who is spamming Combustion for the kill.

This micro-positioning from our Paladin is enough to narrowly escape death, as bubble comes off cooldown right before the RMP is able to land the kill.

As you can see, by being patient and pre-kiting, we gave ourselves enough time for our defensive cooldowns to rotate back again, and this changed the entire outcome of the game since we had a clear win condition if we were able to avoid this death. Pre-kiting enemy attacks is especially useful against caster cleaves.

Here, our team's healer has been put into a full polymorph, while the enemy Shaman has used Stormkeeper and Echoing Shock. The enemy team is now trying to pace the game.

They have landed a CC while using their offensives. Instead of letting his opponents ride out this pacing, our Paladin immediately kites to the pillar, denying the enemy team any momentum from this attack.

This winds up being a win for our team, since we were able to simply kite to avoid enemy pressure, allowing our team to stay ahead on defensive cooldowns and maintain positive pacing over the enemy team. And there you have it guys!

Once you understand how pacing works, it allows you to approach the game just like a pro player. As always though, thanks for watching, see you soon.