General awareness is the name of the game, and in arena it is a matter of win or lose. You're geared to the teeth, you can down a priest like a fatty downs a 64 piece KFC bucket...so why are you still stuck in the 1500s with no release? Awareness. While you were dropping that clothie your teammates were getting slaughtered, mercilessly. We're talking Nagrand Chainsaw Massacre. So now it's basically 1v4 and you're looking straight down the smoking barrel of 4 bloodlusted double-barrelled shotguns.

Rather than dish out more literary works of art, let's get right to the point. It is better to be more focused on what your partner's buddies are up to, than what your target himself is up to. Knowing what's going on around you in an arena match more or less will decide the game. You can see that paladin gearing up a 4 second downie holy light (lol curse of tongues), but what do you do about it? Do you stop casting that frostbolt that *might* kill your target, except the paladin is likely to get a crit 10k heal off beforehand, or do you stop and counterspell him? Well if you're stuck in the 1500's the answer is very obvious.

1. Pay attention, pay attention, pay attention. It's particularly common for melee to suffer from serious tunnel vision, because of their need to be in close quarters to do damage, but still, survey your surroundings. Keep a mental note of what your partner can do, and how you can counter it.

2. Think twice about what your opponent's partner(s) are capable of. If there is a warlock that you are not on, you should be watching him very carefully for a potential fear, or watching that mage for a polymorph. Watching that healer for a heal that could decide the game.

3. Think three times about what you have at your disposal to prevent predictable outcomes. You know that paladin isn't here to holy shock you to death (well maybe if you're already at 1k hp and your healer is blinded), so you just might want to focus the majority of your attention on stopping his heals constantly, but keeping DPS on your main target. Preemptively cloaking a poly or a fear might buy you just enough time to finish your target.

4. Preemptiveness is key. Be one step ahead of your opponent(s). You know after 3 years of PVP'ing in this game (most players) you should be familiar with every other class's abilities and how to counter them. It's almost autonomous to some people. It sparks through their mind the second they see certain triggers. "Mage has glowy white hands! VANISH!" "Hunter just went red, EVASION!", the same goes for watching your enemy's teammates. Instead of just watching your target remember: "Main target's low, and the healer already wasted trinket, BLIND!".

5. Defend your teammates. Sure you might think you're some kind of Indiana Jones and might be able to 1v3 a fully coordinated team. I might just think you're full of complete bull-poo. Maybe. You often can predict who will be the main target 90% of your games in arena. Be ready to peel opponents off them because even losing one person usually means you lose. There are very rare circumstances where this is an exception, but in most cases once one goes down, the game is over.