OFFENSIVE COMMUNICATION

OFFENSIVE COMMUNICATION INTRO

Welcome to our first course on communication, and this one is going to be for all you aspiring shotcallers. If you ask many top-level players who the GOAT of PvP is, well, chances are Snuts is going to be in the conversation there.

One huge reason he's managed to stand the test of time is really simple. He is the best communicator.

What does it take to be good at communication in PvP? Well, in this course, you're going to learn what goes into offensive shotcalling.

We recommend watching these guides from start to finish, as every concept is going to build off one another. Anyway, we hope you enjoy.

RECOGNIZING WIN CONDITIONS

But before we get into how to communicate, we have to revisit a topic we've covered in multiple guides this expansion. Win conditions are the backbone to effective communication in Arena.

What you will find in many top player comms are discussions about how they will win the game, while also discussing how they will avoid a loss. While win conditions might vary from comp to comp, the general principles on offense are relatively similar.

Generally speaking, your win condition is reached once you are able to combine your CC and offensive CDs into a team that is missing multiple defensives.

RMP is the most obvious example of this, as the game is often won by exhausting one or more trinkets from the enemy team, and then using that advantage to perform a setup that cannot be blocked.

But even outside of RMP, most comps arrive at their win condition in the exact same way, by gradually wearing down at enemy resources through consistent setups. Most comps will outright win the game by performing a setup involving some sort of CC combined with bursty offensive cooldowns into a target.

By now, you might be nodding your head and saying, yeah, no sh** skill capped, we already know this. So what does this have to do with communication?

Well, quite frankly, this is exactly the foundation of effective comms in Arena. The main thing you and your team should be communicating is how to arrive at your own win condition faster than your opponents arrive at theirs.

3..2..1.. SETUPS

The first part of any win condition involves the setup, which can be as simple as 3, 2, 1. Generally speaking, each kill setup is a combination of cross cc with burst damage, and having the strongest setups possible means making sure that cc lands on multiple targets at the same time.

This prevents opponents from preusing defensives before cc hits. One of the biggest problems we see routinely at lower ratings is that teams do not coordinate their cross cc, often leaving one or two enemy targets free to break up the kill with defensives or control.

This brings us to the first part of offensive communication, which is coordinating who will cc each enemy target and making sure that the cc lands at the same time.

Deciding who is responsible for each target should be communicated as early as possible in the initial stages of the game, sometimes even in the starting room. Then, once cc targets have been established, somebody on your team should check to see if everyone is ready before coordinating spells on each enemy target.

This initial communication should be repeated throughout the game as cc DRs reset on the enemy team and as cc spells become available if they are attached to a cooldown. I have root beam and then you stun the rogue and we win the game.

Ready? 3, 2, 1, root beam, stun the rogue, game.

Episode 1 of our Road to Gladiator series showed just how powerful 3-2-1 setups could be, as our team was able to climb from 1900 to almost 2.3k by simply coordinating cc throughout the game. 3, 2, 1, go.

Go priest here. 3, 2, 1, go.

COMMUNICATING ENEMY DEFENSIVES

By now you might be asking, what's next? Surely there is more to 3-2-1 right?

Of course, and the next part of communication is centered around enemy defensives. The goal of every setup is to force one or more defensive cd from the enemy team, ideally on the kill target, but also sometimes on off targets and healers.

Your first setup might force a pvp trinket from a dps, but that means that the enemy healers trinket or even the other dps trinket might be able to block your next kill.

In any case, at least one person on your team, ideally one of the dps, should announce what cooldowns were forced through each setup, and should announce what cooldowns remain for future kill setups. In this video, I'm going to show you how to use the dps to force a pvp trinket from a dps.

In this video, I'm going to show you how to use the dps to force a pvp trinket from a dps. In this game, Waz was able to call his team's win condition nearly 30 seconds before it happens.

This starts by announcing that dispersion has been forced, while the enemy healer is missing their trinket. He also notices that blind and vanish are available, meaning he just needs to wait for drs to reset before he can set up a huge cc chain by himself.

When you combine all of these things together, you have the perfect win condition. The kill target doesn't have cds, and the healer doesn't have trinket.

And when drs finally reset, he is able to blind sap the healer, while his team bursts damage into a trinket. This is a very important part of the game, because it's a win condition that can be used to target a target who doesn't have any defensives left.

This win condition was recognized nearly 30 seconds prior, and it was orchestrated entirely by proper offensive communication. You might be wondering, aren't addons supposed to do this work for you?

And while it's true that omnibar or weak auras can help you monitor enemy defensive cooldowns, you can never be sure that your partners are actively monitoring the same information. On top of this, knowing the information your addon tells you is only half the battle.

It's what you do with this information that actually matters, and that is where shotcalling comes into play. This is why communication is necessary, because it ensures that everyone is aware of the current game state and knows exactly what to do next.

COMMUNICATING TEAMWIDE OFFENSIVES

Hauling out enemy defensives is not the last step however, as team wide offensive cooldowns also need to be communicated. We've already established time and time again that cooldowns are central to how WoW PvP is played.

This isn't the burning crusade where games can be won by pressing viper sting on a healer over and over until they are oom. No, this is shadowlands, where people explode in the blink of an eye.

The reason they explode? You guessed it, cooldowns.

Just like enemy defensive cooldowns determine who can be killed, your team's offensive cooldowns dictate whether or not a kill is even possible. Without offensives, your burst is often not enough to take down targets, even when it's combined with CC.

That brings us to the third rule of offensive shotcalling, be sure to communicate your offensive cooldowns. This is important for every comp in WoW, and it is incredibly common to hear top players talk about their own offensive cooldowns, or ask their partners when they have theirs available.

Offensive CDs are the third part of your team's win condition, and having offensives available can either make or break a kill.

So, just to recap everything so far, communication on offense should focus on three things, coordinating CC and kill targets, discussing enemy defensives, and checking on your team's offensive CDs.

There's obviously more that you can do, like interrupts and enemy positioning, but these things are just accessories to the win condition itself. By simplifying your communication around the three rules we've outlined, you can make your games much cleaner.

WHO SHOULD BE COMMUNICATING?

Now we know what needs to be communicated offensively in arena, but you might be asking, ok, who should be doing this? If we look back at our three rules, shot calling means coordinating cross cc, calling out important defensives, and checking for team wide offensives.

This seems like an impossible task for one person to manage, but not to worry because there are a few things that can make this easier. For one, healers should generally avoid shot calling in arena.

This is because defensive communication takes priority, which we will cover in a follow up guide. Instead, one or both of the dps should be actively communicating these things for their entire team.

In melee caster setups, special attention should be given to the melee, since they are often limited by mobility, meaning 3-2-1 setups aren't always available because they might not be in range.

What this means is that it's up to the melee dps to communicate if and when they can perform a setup since they have this unique restriction.

In double melee setups like rett warrior, either player is fully capable of performing offensive communication, and just like before, each player should check to see if they are actually in range to use their melee caster setup.

In melee caster setups, either player is fully capable of performing offensive communication, and just like before, each player should check to see if they are actually in range to use their melee caster setup.

And finally, wizard cleaves are probably the least demanding when it comes to offensive shot calling since target selection is usually dictated by enemy positioning more than anything else.

With that in mind, setups should still be communicated and classes with multiple instant cc tools like shadow priests should typically be the ones coordinating kills since combos like stun silence are usually what wins the game.

RINSE & REPEAT

Now you know all three rules of shotcalling, the goal is just to rinse and repeat. We've shown you this animation time and time again, but arena truly follows a series of peaks and valleys, where your pressure hits crescendos when CC is combined with offensive cooldowns.

Shotcalling needs to happen before each peak. The moments building up to the setup are where communication about win conditions are truly required since they keep everyone aware of the current game state and dictate what needs to happen next.

After each kill setup, the focus shifts towards defensive communication, which once again is something we will cover in another video. But in case you want a spoiler, your defensive communication is just a mirror of offense.

Instead of communicating your own win conditions with your offensives and CC, you should instead communicate the enemy team's win conditions with their DRs and offensive CDs. But that wraps it up for today.

As always, thanks for watching. See you soon.