DOWNLOAD LATEST PODCAST HERE

Tomorrow (Saturday) we’ll be doing a live mini-show for ArenaCast with myself, Igoaf, and possibly some guests. A full show will be recorded Tuesday or Wednesday with some more players who were in Europe. See you then!

GotFrag is allowing 400 WoW fans to sit in and listen to some WoW professionals (the ones who weren’t good enough to make it to Cologne haha) in Ventrilo for one of their ‘Vent Parties’.

To join download Ventrilo and connect to:

IP – 70.86.151.50
Port – 3816
Password: usregionals

Matches begin at 4:15 a.m. EST but they will start pregame discussion around 3:00 a.m. EST. Igoaf might join in but nothings been set in stone.

Our guests for the week include dsox, Azazael from Team EG and Venruki of Complexity. I also want to remind people that next week we will be doing a live show.

I will post the specifics of the live show sometime throughout the week (Wednesday-ish, after finals) but it will most definitely take place on Saturday, just not sure what time. Thanks for listening!

DOWNLOAD SHOW HERE (or where it says “Download” below. Right click, Save as)

We talk about the recent replenishment changes, burst damage in PvP, a lot about rogues, and a lot about warriors. We also discuss some of our first week arena experiences (save for myself, still grinding away on my Mage for gear). Thanks for listening!

Make sure to right click and download the cast instead of playing in-browser. The embed is messed up and I plan to fix this sometime this summer.

We cover topics such as The Elite Eight TR Council, 3.1, and new comps in Season 6. Thanks for listening and Saturday is now our regular show date.

Also, a reminder that our in-browser player is shit so you’re forced to download it. I’m sorry.

On a side note the past two weeks we’ve been really close to hitting a landmark number of downloads. Lets try for it this week. If we hit it, we might be able to give something away to our listeners! Spread the love!

Sure, there were obviously other websites that I could submit my content to. However, I would have either been driven out by trolls or overwhelmed by the amount of other content, so I was as enthusiastic as could be about making my first post a hit. I wanted something to write that was a genuinely helpful insight into what I believed to be the most important factor in the WoW Arena setting. Yet, because this was a new frontier for me, I also wanted to try something I had never tried before when writing an article.

I tried for the sarcasm approach, and it very obviously fell completely on its face. You see… if you knew me in real life, or in game, or from any aspect – you would know that the previous article is completely the opposite of everything that I stand for and anything I have ever written. Those two facts right there are the sole reason I even contemplated writing it in such a sarcastic voice, and why I felt it might just work as an interesting post. The entire point of it was that it was completely harsh, ridiculously critical, and barely helpful: if you could get past the thick skin, however…there was supposed to be the nugget of information that would be another breadcrumb onto your way to improving your game.

From the reaction I have seen, both from the staff here at ArenaCast and the folks who read and responded to the article, I was not even close. People mistook me for an honest troll, and someone set out to prove just how much better I am than those who “dropped low enough to read a website.” That was not my intention at all, and I sincerely hope that (if you read the last article and are reading this one) you are willing to give me another chance.

Why Multitasking?

Even though 99 percent of the replies to the previous article were bashing me, there were also some comments slipped in about how I was wrong. If there was anything I learned from the schooling I’ve received, it is that constructive criticism is one of the most important steps to success. So, with that being said, I do still believe that multitasking is the most important, but not the only valuable skill in Arenas.

Being able to juggle all of the incoming and outgoing information is easily the most difficult part of this game. Sure, there are reaction times when trying to interrupt a spell, or strategies that must be memorized before a match, but none of that is helpful if you’re unable to realize WHEN those things become useful. For instance, being able to gauge the cooldowns and timers of your opposing team, the positions of you and your teammate(s) as well as your opponents, and even the environment (ala pillars on the Orgrimmar Arena) will allow you to determine just how important the counter-spell would be, versus saving it for later and instead strafing behind a pillar.

In the same vein, multitasking is not only the key to surviving, but also being able to call out a burst at the perfect moment. There are quite a handful of different variables to consider, including but not limited to: opponents defensive trinket/out/cooldown usage, teammates offensive cooldowns, possible LoS issues (bridge in Blade’s Edge, pillars in Nagrand), and most importantly the relative health/mana of each enemy player. Calling the burst at the wrong moment, which is inherently easy due to the massive amounts of opportunities to be “the wrong moment” will lead to a failed kill, most likely leading to your defeat.

Hey! Other things are important too.

Obviously, there are aspects of playing this game that are vastly more important than others. Understanding the strengths and weakness of your class/comp against every single other class/comp is of supreme importance. Knowing the spec/gear that is required to find the right glass canon: solid brick wall ratio is also a key aspect of the meta game that is WoW Arena. Do you know the strategies of your opponents, the immediate specs and gear (PvE vs. PvP pieces), and even the little details such as they’re good and bad maps?

All of these are critical components to victory, and play a huge part in your eventual success or failure as each individual match go. However, it is of my personal opinion that your biggest gain can and will come from improving your ability to multitask. Looking back at some of my favorite matches and videos, coming from the former-GotGameEast-now-Complexity teams, Evil Geniuses and Council of Mages members, I can see plain as day when HappyMinti or Azael would call for a burst/save and actually pull it off in a move that could be seen as divine guidance. Absolutely fascinating to me, but perhaps you have a better counter argument to prove me wrong?

Critical Criticism

Yet, I am just one member of a community of avid World of Warcraft players and fans. I am not some incredible being of omnipotence, and I don’t have all of the answers. I am more than willing to listen to anyone who believes I’m wrong or just have the details and focus in the wrong place. Feel free to comment about any of that, or even if you think I’m absolutely dead on and have even more examples of why, please make some sort of a comment! This is, as I said before, a community, and I’d genuinely appreciate some discussion on the matter – intelligent discussion that actually progresses the idea and theory, not just belittles it.