by David Piner on Apr 26, 2008
David “Xerin” Piner played a Druid in Ten Ton Hammer’s Jammin Ninjas” arena team. Below is his personal recount of the trials and tribulations on the arena server.
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You start off with lots of loot! Look at those stats before enchants.
Playing on the arena realm is something I both savor and loathe. I like my games to involve leveling up to be able to access things like the arenas and high end battlegrounds. Having everything handed to you at the start is wonderful and a great way to insure even and fair play. However, at the same time it makes the game seem so different. Prince Kael’thas’s weapons are sitting here on a vendor waiting on me to click on “buy”. These same weapons are inaccessible currently to most everyone on the main servers due to the sheer difficulty of the encounter.
However, while I feel bad picking up these powerful enchants, gems, and loot I also feel good. I feel good knowing that when I enter battle my skill will determine exactly what I can and can’t do. Not my gear. I also feel good in the sense of, well, YES FINALLY ALL THE GEAR IS MINE bahahahah!
That out of the way my trip into the arena realm started by me creating a Druid. A class I may have never played before but is needed if we’re to pull off a successful 2v2 team. The only problem was that it’s a Tauren. I detest in every shape and form the Tauren race. If I was on a roleplay server I’d be one of the races I’d constantly try to lambast with my sharp wit and creative writing. That’s the only race available, sadly, to play as a Druid so I have to swallow my pride and go for it.
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The victory screen shows just how important proper healing is.
Loading into the game I found that everything I’ve ever wanted is hanging from trees (well goblins) ready and waiting for me to take it. I spent a good portion of 30 minutes preparing my character. Choosing enchants, gems, and loading up on various supplies needed for combat. Eventually I met up with DarkFact who joined me in the process. Together we discussed what items we should use and eventually went to duel.
Let me tell you. Playing as a character you’ve never used before is difficult even if you’re parading around in some of the best gear in the game. Figuring out how to shapeshift, using my heals, and then attacking was near impossible. Eventually we just decided to practice on how long I could stay alive since any good team would attempt to take me out first. Staying alive is a very important part of the game.
After enough pretend play we headed into the real arena. Together as comrades we landed ourselves in a fight against two Paladins. This fight was like no other fight ever in the game. As the healer my goal was simple: stay alive. That was easier said than done as neither Paladin was doing much damage. However, the length in which the game went created some difficulty on my mana pool. Eventually both Paladins ran out of mana and one of them finally took a killing blow from DarkFact’s weapons. This wasn’t anywhere near the end of the fight.
The other Paladin remained and summoned every bit of Holy power in the universe to stay that way. Nothing could stop it. Even out of mana it was taking barely any damage and my mana bar was still hurting. The Paladin had what seemed like Uther Lightbringer’s own blessing and Tirion Fordring had nothing on him. Shapeshifting into another form and attacking was out of the question as I wasn’t accustomed to it and healing was still required!
Eventually I felt confident in my mana to begin moonfire spamming while DarkFact unloaded. Slowly, bit by bit, the Paladin gave. Eventually we were declared winners and things were off to a great start! The Jammin Ninjas had a victory under their belt and were ready to push further into the game.
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This Paladin might as well been Uther himself!
Then the next match came. Being that DarkFact as a Rogue and me a Druid we were able to start off both stealthed. However, entering into the main floor, we found no enemies. This meant that we were fighting two stealthers as well! Little did we know that one was a Mage using invisibility. Once the invisibility spell wore off DarkFact engaged the Mage and was quickly under the influence of Cheap Shot’s stun. My healing wasn’t enough for the DPS that the Mage and Rogue outputted and he soon fell. This was our first loss.
Many of these games happened, fighting mostly Rogues and Mages. Each time we met defeat. Not because of an unbalanced pairing, but because of our inability to play our classes. Each game we got closer and closer to victory. Our skill was what was holding us back. This is exactly how the game should play. Those with skill should be allowed to continue. Those without should be held back.
We eventually ran against a Warlock and a Priest. DarkFact used his expert knowledge to take down the pet first while I kept both of us healed. Eventually he killed the pet and went toward its Master. The Warlock followed its pet into death which left just the Priest. Combining forces DarkFact and I took care of it quickly.
The next few fights were the Mage and Rogue combination which posed the same amount of difficulty. I wasn’t able to deal with the Counter Spell and high DPS in a quick enough fashion limiting my ability to heal causing us to lose the match. Thinking back to it, switching to Dire Bear form may have won us a few of those close matches where the Mage had enough mana for the last spell which was the final blow for myself.
For our final bout we faced a Rogue and a Priest. This match proved difficult because the Priest was effective in using Mana Burn. However, quick thinking led me to switch to Dire Bear form to cause the Priest to waste casting time. This may have been the deciding factor in the bout.
In the arena the majority of the fights were all about how well I played compared to how well the other team played. Sure, some fights were against us because the opposing team had a better class combination but that’s fine by me. You can choose any class. You’re not stuck with one class. Like in Guild Wars there are always combos that work really well until people start playing a combo that breaks up that combo. The 2v2 world may just exactly be that until teams are locked down for the last two week stunt.
Having the gear, enchants, and everything is a relief in competitive PvP. I was, for a very long time, a big fan and major competitive player in Guild Wars. Guild Wars operated very similarly to this. In Guild Wars everyone had the same equipment options, same rune options, and same spec options. Runes worked much like gems and at the “PvP Character” creation screen you could choose any. In PvE you’d have to spend a lot of gold for certain runes but to make a PvP only character they’d be free.
This worked really well. Technically, outside of the sheer amount of equipment choices you have in WoW, the arena realm works much the same. You’re not limited in anyway. In the regular wow servers to make a “popular” combo you’d have to level to 70 which would take between 2 weeks and 2 months. Then farm the BGs over and over until you have enough gear to seriously take on the arenas. Then you’d have to get a high enough ranking each week to get enough points to buy the latest season’s gear. This would take months. On the arena server this takes minutes.
In a way it’ll be sad to me in a few weeks when the server closes and those who’ve made the cut will advance to the next rounds. There is no fight or struggle to get enough gear to prove how good you are. There is no massive time sink. If you want to PvP you’re ready to go. Ready to fight. Ready to prove yourself.
If I were to give advice to those of you looking to compete… that advice would be simple. Live to win. Fight to the death. It’s easy to get lost in the shiny gear but since the playing field is even you’re going to have to work hard to get those wins. Time spent farming, raiding, getting honor, or even arena points don’t matter here. Your choice, your button presses, and your partner(s) skills all matter. You’ve got to work as a team and you’ve got to work hard to get to the top.
Overall I found the Arena Tournament server to be tons of fun and can’t wait until we get our 3v3 team with Byron “Messiah” Mudry ready to go. The 3v3 arena is where skill shines even more and it’ll be a blast! Though I’m almost doubting that it’ll be more fun than I’ve already had. You can’t get better than that!
Comments or questions? Email us (Xerin@TenTonHammer.com) or post on our forums!