You’ve probably heard something about the 2009 Arena Tournament. This is an annual affair that’s been going on for a few years now and it’s just what it sounds…a Tournament for the Player vs. Player Arena in WoW. I’ve never been much of an Arena guy but this year my curiosity got the better of me. I mean if I could actually win real stuff (up to $200,000 in cash and prizes) by playing a freaking game would it be worth the entry fee? It’d be a heck of a good story. I plunked down $20 and headed in to see what this was all about.
Here are the basics. You get to make up to three level 80 characters per account. You have access to all the top end gear. There are two, three and five man Arena setups. There is a way to practice against other players called “Skirmish.” So the first 10 or 20 minutes are spent gearing up your guy. I rolled a Night Elf Balance Druid and had a lot of fun fitting this guy out. You get to use whatever you want including gems, enchants, glyphs, the regular talent tree, trinkets, high end armor and weapons and all that. Again it’s all “free” in game as in there really is no gold to worry about. Everyone has the same access to all the stuff so this really comes down to a test of skill rather than who’s got the best gear. A level playing field.
I call up a fellow WoW buddy on Skype and we jump into a few Skirmish matches. His favorite build is a Survival Hunter and he built a really mean one. Survival Hunter + Moonkin is typically a pretty devastating combo in the Battlegrounds so we figured we’d rock and roll. The first few matches were pretty easy and our “strategy” was to jump on and beat the crap out of the first guy we could get our hands on. We won seven out of eight practice matches. Holy crap we’re going to win the whole thing! We signed up for the Rated Arena Match queue (the ones that count) and in we went.
Our first rated match was a bit of an eye opener. From what I can piece together the gates went up, I ran out into the Arena and then promptly fell dead. My partner was able to get a few shots off before he died. Total time in the area? Roughly 43 seconds. Hmmm.
Second match I started out prowling in Cat Form and sent my buddy out in front on point. Both of our enemies were invisible from the start. One exposed himself to stun and stab the heck out of my buddy and I promptly popped up to cast a heal like a good little Druid. Before I could get the heal off I was stun locked, I popped my trinket, stun locked again and then quickly hacked to death. Total time? About 43 seconds.
Long story short. We lost the first 7 matches before winning the 8th, 9th and 10th. Professional Arena fights are hard. Very hard. They are super fast and wicked brutal. Timing is everything and burst damage is king. Is it frustrating? Hell yes. Did I want to tear my hair out? Yes. Am I going to be practicing up for next week? Like you would not believe! Give it a try!
by 4an, on March 12 2009 @ 9:38 pm
I love the tournament for how down and dirty it is. Where else do you have more money than you can spend and anything you need readily available to you – including as much and as many arena matches you can handle. Great practice and way too much fun.
Run any class or spec you like too. You get to see what other classes and specs can do and therefore what to expect when facing them.
This leads you wanting to make an in game recreation of what you play in the tournament. But I digress. If you even think you liked PvP during your time logged into WoW, you should be puttin up the 20 bucks to really learn how its done!
by Balance Druid 2009 Arena Tournament Build Changes | WoW Druid, on March 23 2009 @ 6:58 pm
[...] you read the post about my first experience in the 2009 Arena Tournament you know that I’m just not that good at it yet. I had a Balance Druid made up, with a bit of [...]