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Osiris' Rogue Guide v3(New)
Stealth FAQ (EU)
Grinding Guide 1.0
Arena Trends, Pots, and Black Kettles
Actually I'm quite guilty of this myself. How many times have you run a 2v2 composition, a 3v3, or a 5v5 and run into another team that made you think to yourself "god what a bunch of lamers, running XXX/YYY/ZZZ, wow that takes skill". You just ran into Priest/Mage/Rogue and you're running Warrior/Rogue/Druid. Well gosh, Pot, meet Kettle. The fact is every team composition out there is "pretty lame", and we can muse on that all we want just to make us feel better about our own compositions, but when it comes right down to it we are guilty of the same thing.
The team compositions are lame, but they work. And this is the means of succeeding in arena. It breaks my heart to say that a lot of team makeups might be more "fun" because they're wierd and all, but many players are out to win. They don't care about playing fair, or playing with honor. Now, I draw your attention to a very dead-on article regarding the "Art of Video Game War" as I like to call it: Playing to Win
If you are not about to read that whole article then let me sum it up for you. You don't get first prize by playing honorably. You don't win a duel by bringing a knife to a shootout. You don't- well you hopefully see where I'm going with this. A lesson to learn is that the most successful arena players win by minimizing their disadvantages and adjusting their advantages to the times. Each season brought about new compositions that became widely popular due to this very fact. PMR was extremely strong in season 2 with it's heavy CC and ability to drop a lot of burst damage very quickly. 2345 dominated the 5v5 bracket until a counter (2346) was found, until another counter (euro, or 5432) was found. This is how the times change. Flavor of the month comp will be a FOTM until the new FOTM takes it over, and everyone will flock to that. This is not necessarily "cheap" or "lame", but top players take advantage of these head starts to win.
Of course all of the above is not to say that everyone who doesn't play a FOTM matrix isn't going to win, after all most of the comps played are, or were FOTM at some point in time. Just because the flavor has moved over to the next jug in the ice cream freezer doesn't mean the old flavor has gone out of style, of course.
Just remember next time you step into arena, if you see a FOTM team comp, go ahead and call them lame for running it. If nothing else, they are probably mumbling on the other side of the field, the same thing about your team.
The team compositions are lame, but they work. And this is the means of succeeding in arena. It breaks my heart to say that a lot of team makeups might be more "fun" because they're wierd and all, but many players are out to win. They don't care about playing fair, or playing with honor. Now, I draw your attention to a very dead-on article regarding the "Art of Video Game War" as I like to call it: Playing to Win
If you are not about to read that whole article then let me sum it up for you. You don't get first prize by playing honorably. You don't win a duel by bringing a knife to a shootout. You don't- well you hopefully see where I'm going with this. A lesson to learn is that the most successful arena players win by minimizing their disadvantages and adjusting their advantages to the times. Each season brought about new compositions that became widely popular due to this very fact. PMR was extremely strong in season 2 with it's heavy CC and ability to drop a lot of burst damage very quickly. 2345 dominated the 5v5 bracket until a counter (2346) was found, until another counter (euro, or 5432) was found. This is how the times change. Flavor of the month comp will be a FOTM until the new FOTM takes it over, and everyone will flock to that. This is not necessarily "cheap" or "lame", but top players take advantage of these head starts to win.
Of course all of the above is not to say that everyone who doesn't play a FOTM matrix isn't going to win, after all most of the comps played are, or were FOTM at some point in time. Just because the flavor has moved over to the next jug in the ice cream freezer doesn't mean the old flavor has gone out of style, of course.
Just remember next time you step into arena, if you see a FOTM team comp, go ahead and call them lame for running it. If nothing else, they are probably mumbling on the other side of the field, the same thing about your team.
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posted by Mephs at 3/25/2008
Cerias Shadows
Zyk
Osiris
Khormid
2 Comments:
One thing a lot of people seem to not talk about when mention Playing to Win, is that Sirlin thinks playing that way can and will (for hardcore players) lead to more fun. So when your playing a "good" setup instead of a "fun" setup to try and "win", Sirlin asserts that it actually ends up being more fun.
Most people don't talk about that point though, or they don't agree with it. Fact is, it's pretty much true.
^ I agree completely. But then again getting to 2k as warrior/warlock was incredible fun, also. If nothing more than for kicks.
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