WOW PVP MYTHS

MYTH 1: MELEE CLEAVES ONLY TUNNEL ONE TARGET

There once was a happy young rival named Little Timmy, who wanted nothing more than to become a gladiator. To start his journey, he did what many young players do, consult the genius PvP experts over at the WoW forums, the place where everyone has a rank 1 title and is never wrong about anything.

Timmy started to get confused, because the forums were not the place he thought they would be. Instead of high-level PvP discussions, he found alcohol-fueled rants and rages.

Instead of theorycrafting, he found sh**posts. Timmy started to worry that not everyone on the WoW forums has a PhD in PvP like they so claimed.

And instead of starting his journey to gladiator, Timmy vanished. What he left behind was a notebook, and in it contained the things people were telling him on the forums.

Skillcapped was the first to explain. He was the first to acquire his writings, and it is our duty to share them with the community.

The first thing Timmy wrote down was that melee cleaves just need to tunnel one target and win. No!

That's not right at all! Look, we know the Zug Zug memes, if you play a cleave you just smork down priests, right?

Not entirely true. You see, the best melee players look to maximize pressure the entire game.

And if someone kites away and is out of reach... They don't just blindly follow them.

Instead, rank 1 melee will look to pressure off targets. Sometimes pushing into enemy healers to threaten with interrupts.

This is a huge part of melee cleave mirrors, and the best teams will constantly look to hit who is most vulnerable and keep the enemy team on the retreat. In fact, training one target the entire game is usually inefficient.

Aside from getting kited, attacking into defensive CDs can be a massive waste of time. So, do good players tunnel vision all game?

Not at all. Here, Vanguard's first target is a good one.

He forces evasion and cloak. But does he continue attacking the rogue?

No! He tabs to the mage and then pushes towards the priest for a stun.

Making sure to keep up as much pressure as possible.

MYTH 2: CASTERS NEED TO JUKE

The next thing Little Timmy saw in the forums was people saying that wizards need to fake cast every spell, and if you get kicked, that means you are a noob. No!

That is complete bulls**t! This is some leftover attitude from years of binging PvP montages.

The truth is that many rank 1 casters don't even bother to juke kicks. Why not?

Because it's a waste of time. Imagine trying to fake cast against a comp like DKDH Resto Shaman while getting trained.

There would be no point. Even if you juke one kick, you still have two more to deal with, not to mention grounding totem to stop your casts.

Instead, rank 1 caster DPS almost never juke at all. When they get kicked on one spell school, they just cast another until the lockout is over.

Look at Marrow here. He nearly won Blizzcon and is placed very well in every Shadowlands tournament.

Does he care that he gets kicked? No!

He just casts another spell instantly during the lockout, and by soaking interrupts, it means his healer can free cast. It's a win-win.

No matter what.

MYTH 3: HEALERS NEED TO PILLAR ALL GAME

Okay, but Timmy also saw people saying that healers should never leave the pillar. If they do, that means an instant loss.

No! No!

Well, mostly no! While it's true that healers need to do a good job avoiding swaps in CC, pillaring all game is a convenient way to lose for some specs.

Priests, Resto Shamans, and Holy Paladins are all super interactive healers that benefit a lot from pushing in with their team. Whether it be with control or utility, these three healers can directly contribute to kills.

Resto Druids and Mistweaver Monks can be non-interactive, but they still need to push in for CC or sometimes even damage too. Of course, there are times for all healers where pulling away is the move, but if you were pillaring all game, you were probably doing something wrong.

MYTH 4: YOU CAN ONLY WIN IF YOU CC THE HEALER

Timmy was interested in strategies, and the forums kept telling him that the only way to win was to CC the healer and kill the DPS. But were the forums right?

Nooooo! Who even believes that?

Look, in many cases it's okay to CC the healer and kill a DPS, but is that the only strat ever? No.

In fact, many healers can die quite easily. Resto Shamans and Priests can generally be trained by melee, Resto Druids die easily in stun setups, and well, Mistweaver monks are kinda hard to kill in stuns, but is definitely possible if they are close to their port.

In fact, even Holy Paladins can die outside of Forbearance. And for all healers, mind games is a massive bane for countering auto heal mechanics and for burning a global to dispel.

MYTH 5: YOU NEED TO PLAY A TOP SPEC FOR GLAD

Little Timmy had one goal, to get Gladiator. And people kept on telling him that he needed to play a top tier spec in order to do that.

But were they right? No!

This is just objectively wrong! Look, every season there are Gladiators from literally every spec.

And we're not including tanks here for legal reasons. Look, we know imbalances exist.

We make tier lists for God's sakes. But every spec on our tier list can get Gladiator.

And that happens literally every season. Can every spec get rank 1?

Not always, but that is a completely different question. Don't let anyone convince you that you are incapable of getting Gladiator just because you enjoy Arcane Mage.

MYTH 6: YOU NEED TO PLAY A FOTM COMPS

Okay, maybe every spec can get Gladiator, but Timmy kept hearing that only Flavor of the Month comps can do well, and that every Rank 1 player spams Fodum setups. No!

You can literally watch any stream and see this is wrong. Seedoo lost on stream the other day playing Unholy DK Demo Warlock at 3k MMR to Feral Druid Shadow Priest Resto Druid.

Yeah, Feral SPR Druid. Such a meta comp, right?

Will you do better playing the meta? Probably, but that doesn't mean it's 100% necessary.

On any given day, you can find Rank 1 players using completely off meta setups. Why?

Because if you master the Arena fundamentals, you can make almost anything work.

MYTH 7: TOURNAMENTS REFLECT THE META

Timmy started hearing that rank 1 doesn't matter anyway, and that the real meta is whatever players are doing in tournaments. If Timmy wanted to be good, he should just copy what he sees in the awc.

NO! The tournament meta is completely different than the latter.

We literally have skill capped contributors who have played in the awc and won blizzcon. They will tell you themselves that tournaments are completely different than retail pvp.

In the awc teams know exactly who they are facing, so they can conveniently plan a counter comp to any matchup. Not to mention the fact that they usually play defensive builds to minimize their chance at losing, which is completely different than the aggro cleave fiestas you will encounter every day on ladder.

MYTH 8: 2V2 IS POINTLESS

Tournaments were a long ways away for Timmy, but maybe he could learn how to play in 2v2. But according to the forums, the 2s bracket was an imbalanced mess that should be avoided at all costs.

GET OUT OF HERE! 2v2 is one of the best learning resources in the game.

We recently told you that 2s is one of the best places to practice your damage or healing rotation, not to mention other pvp fundamentals like setups and playstyle, which we teach at skill-capped.com. Yeah, there are some matchups in 2v2 which are basically unwinnable, but there are also counter comps in 3v3 too.

Don't let the 3s only propaganda fool you.

MYTH 9: YOU NEED PERFECT GEAR

Timmy wanted to get started in PVP, but the forums kept telling him that the only way you're ever gonna have fun is farm the perfect gear set, have max eye level, and gems on everything. And NO!

You do not need to have perfect gear to be competitive. Zeep Eye is the laziest WoW player in existence and has gotten rank 1 in this expansion with green conduits.

Of course having good PVP item level matters. Everyone knows that and we have even made 20 minute videos critiquing WoW's gearing system.

Do you need full gems, perfect conduits, and a fully upgraded legendary to start PVPing? Not at all.