There's no doubt that WoW Arenas can be incredibly involving and intense, but there is something that can be very important to your team. Namely, cohesion and having the right mindset for battle.

Winning over and over again is quite the thrill, and gets extremely addictive. I'm sure thats why all of us play. Losing however, can cause a variety of problems.  Just recently we've had one of our members get really pissed off about dropping a 25 point game due to a horrible decision the team made. The game was really ugly and there was no reason we should have lost but this is the power of an unorthodox matchup against many teams. Imagine a team with 2 mace warriors, a resto shaman, a moonkin and a paladin.

Our typical matrix is War/Pal/Pri/Rog/Mage, and we do the typical punish the cloth with expose/kidney nuking while the Mage cc's and tosses in damage. Against that team, we were genuinely confused as to who we should go for. All 5 of them are effectively in plate armor, so it hurts our strategy a lot and makes us grind it out, which is death against a double warrior team that never slows down.

Anyways, we lost, and after the game one of us blew up and started screaming and yelling about how stupid we were and how could we blow the game like that. All in all, I'd say it was called for, but the reaction afterwards was not productive. The best thing to do is to get right back up and play on like it never happened. Instead we bicked for a while about the strategy and then eventually the inital angry teammate logged, knocking us low for the night.

It is just a game, but it is also serious business. You want to be able to play competitively and excel. It is certainly demoralizing to lose, but it shouldn't stop you from playing. Learn from it and move on. Dwelling on it is going to hinder your progress from that game forward. Get angry, sure, but channel it in a healthy and natural way, namely absolutely crushing the next 5 teams to get even.

If you do get on a losing steak, maybe it is worth it to log for the night and get back with it the next day, but such occasions are rare, and really should be saved for fighting matrices that your group matches up very poorly against. (Even still, I would argue that the experience in playing them over and over is worth the loss in points, especially midseason after you have all the gear you need.) You do this to break the cycle and to break the concentration you have. Its much like a baseball game where the catcher calls time and goes to talk to the pitcher. The catcher isn't going to say anything that the pitcher doesn't already know, but the break in the action is all thats necessary to realign and refocus on the things you already do well. When you get into a certain mindset, as a pitcher, as a player, it can become self destructive. You start trying to force the ball in or trying to force a win through sloppy, but aggressive play. You do a lot more harm then good by playing on like this, but a short break can do a world of good.

Knowing when to keep going and when to break seperates good teams from great teams. It is important to recognize this in your teammates and also in yourself, although you probably won't be able to see it yourself. The absolutely last thing you should do, however, is log out pissed off while in the middle of a session because of one or two bad results. You hurt your teams progression, and you piss everyone off, making the entire venture not fun for anyone.

Hey everyone,

I'm a longtime druid, formerly one of the most vocal Feral Druids on the WoW forums, and prominent poster on the Elitist Jerks forum.

My druid is Zyla and I currently have a 2k 2's rating alternating between myself and Shadowshade the rogue and Inquis the Warlock. I just started getting back into my Druid, and have attained a 2k rating in two weeks, with completely horrible gear. I mean, look at all the blue gear I have.

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Gorefiend&n=Zyla

My Gnome warrior is in a 2k+ Ranking 5's team, just outside of the top 20 in my Battlegroup.

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Gorefiend&n=Shorticus

I've been playing the two toons concurrently and it definately gives me a lot of insight into the state of Druid PvP, and about Warrior PvP as well.

Introduction over, here's some actual content!

The central issue with playing a druid well is timing. It determines the difference between the scrub that gets *****d almost instantly by a competant player, and one that makes people tear their hair out, as they watch you speed away with impunity all the while your HoT's fully heal your partner as they decided to hit you instead.

You have to anticipate what your enemies are going to do before they do it to properly succeed. While NS and Swiftmend are reactive abilties, a majority of the Resto Druid's bread and butter comes from the proactive hots and travel form kiting. Being able to run at 154% speed on demand is exceptionally useful , this much is obvious. However, all too often I see it misused in PvP.

Switching forms breaks all snares and immobilize effects on you, but it will not prevent future snares from coming. I often see druids easily locked up by failing to anticipate incoming snares. Hamstring and Frost Nova are two of the most significant snares that can come, as both usually mean the caster/warrior is going to put a serious hurt on you.

Many druids tend to get caught in hamstring locks while trying to run away from a warrior. It really is a fight of the GCD's. Both you and he can spend one to break it or reapply it. Forcing the warrior to spam it lowers his damage, but it also slightly hurts your mana pool. Therefore you want to orchestrate ways of getting out of range of the warrior iwith as few shifts as possible. Usually, you'll face an Intercept -> Hammy -> MS combo. Against such an attack I would recommend setting up Barkskin as a spammable macro (few druids make use of this incredible spell because it has been changed a good deal.). Preemptively hitting it will save you a good amount of damage from the initial burst on you, and you can use it at any time, even stunned, feared, what have you. As soon as you see the hamstring go off, you want to travel form and run through them. This forces the warrior to make a decision while he is turning away from you, either to resnare you, or to get that big hit on you. If he chooses the MS, you'll get away for sure if you have the 4pc bonus. If he chooses the hamstring, he's giving up a much stronger strike. The key is to surprise him and make him choose betwen a strong hit and letting you get away or keeping you stuck to him. If he chooses to spamstring you, you can usually sneak off with a Natures Grasp roots proc before things get out of hand. Don't forget to make use of LoS to prevent the intercept from happening in the first place, as controlling the warrior is your number one concern.

Gotta go smash things with my gnome, I'll be back later to add more to this concept.