Obviously the answer is to play arena matches right? Well not really I've actually found this to be one of the worst ways to introduce an arena virgin into the wonderful (and fucking painful) world of arenas.
I remember my first arena matches in vanilla, back when there was no teams or ratings and everything was essentially a skirmish. You saw your first FotM in double shockadin paladins after someone released a video of them breaking face. Nobody really understood arenas at that point so their video was them destroying complete noobs. My first arenas I ran a 3s team consisting of rogue/warrior/priest and we hosed people with little strategy or coordination. I spammed flash heals uninterrupted or cced and my Ashkandi wielding warrior and Quiraji Ripper rogue sat on whoever the fuck they felt like. Things fell over quickly because no one had resilience, but this meant I fell over quickly too. I invented my first pvp spec for arenas based on this and picked up a spell I had previously spent a lot of time ridiculing, as I had been mainly worrying about the throughput on my downranked heals. This spell was of course the 15 second angel form after you die. I would get zerged and my teammates didn't even have to care about keeping me up because I heal way better when I am uninterruptable and don't give a shit about mana. This left my team mates free to zerg someone down and we won many a match where the enemy scored the first kill only to have their entire team die in the next fifteen seconds while my warrior/rogue were essentially immune to death. This was the only period of time that playing arenas was the best way to learn cause nobody knew a fucking thing. There were people who would beat you but it wasn't usually because they knew what they were doing it was they sat in front of their screen way longer than you getting fatty purples and oranges.
Fast forward to rated teams and gladiator titles, people still played wierd comps and weren't that great but strategy developed and synergies were discovered. CC and interrupts became much more important to manage and coordinating these things is what set a good team apart from a great one. This was especially true during BC because games were slower paced and kills came from planned actions more than getting global cooldowned. Now someone who wants to play an arena match needs to have some sort of comp that works, or invent something and create strategies to deal with people who not only know what they are doing but have internalized it to the point where they don't have to think. At this point there aren't a lot of combos that haven't been tried so your enemy has a very very high probabilty to have played against your particular setup and know generally what they have to do to win. Of course if you are playing something generally non-viable like double shadow priest or double healer they might not have a strategy but they won't need one cause they will just faceroll you.
So step one find someone who knows something about arenas and can communicate it. This is pretty important because being a good mage doesn't necessarily mean you can tell your new rogue buddy what to do, what targets to choose, how to spend cooldowns etc. He could probably give you lessons on what most classes do, but his knowledge will be largely centered around how he has to deal with what they do to him. A warlocks strategy for playing against a mage is vastly different than how the lock will approach a rogue so his advice may be lacking in that area. Despite these holes in his knowledge its important to learn how he reacts to other classes so you can begin to learn how to help him. A mage has lots of options and can create space by themselves, but the more time they spend creating space the less time they are pumping damage or ccs into their oponent. Therefore when your mage partner starts talking about how annoying feral druids are because they can pursue mages so well, you should start thinking about how and when you can use your abilities to help the mage get into a situation where they are forcing their will upon the enemy instead of reacting.
So you've found someone to play with and you enter an arena. Your partner knows generally what your team should be doing and can communicate it to you. Great frost mage / rogue team created, you're pumped you enter the arena and you immediately play a team that your partner knows exactly what to do. You have a plan you start executing it. What the hell the match is over already you got facialed before you could react? You can blame WotLK and the very quick pace of the game if you want, but the actual problem is you aren't familiar enough with your character to react and carry out a high level strategy without having to think about it. Maybe you don't have enough gear to survive for long enough to carry your strategy. Now a couple things happen, your partner is frustrated because he knows exactly how to beat that team, maybe you even have a comp advantage but you just lost. I've been here on both sides of this equation. My first instinct as both a teacher and a learner is to keep throwing yourself into battle, thinking you'll pick it up as you go. If your team mate has the patience of a saint, and you actually learn from dying in 10 seconds then yes you will eventually improve. This is a frustrating process but to get past this frustration you need to go do other frustrating things.
First go grind some honor, do some wintergrasps. Yeah your gear will improve but the real point is in a battleground you're generally gonna fight idiots, but fuck are there a lot of them. You'll start figuring out your classes limitations and you might even start learning how to kill people. Don't think that being good in battlegrounds will make you good at arenas, cause that's not even close to true. Battlegrounds are a fuckfest where you rely on your team to do good things (which if your alliance they definitely won't do) so don't get frustrated when your getting killed a lot. You're there to learn to get killed slower and get used to your abilities. When I started my paladin in BGs I would get zerged and die a lot. That's because I was depending on my bubble to save me. Turns out that cooldown gets spent pretty quick if you are in the middle of 6 pissed off people and while you can use your bubble like that and live, anytime its not up or immediately after its gone you get hosed. So I started realizing that positioning and anticipating pressure helped me stay alive and be more useful to whoever I was healing. You pick your battles, and obviously you don't have to run from 7 mounted hunters in an arena match but you become more aware of where you are, and more importantly where you don't want to be.
At this point you should know your class well enough to appreciate someone else playing it. Now is your time to seek a mentor that plays your class. Yeah your partner still has a lot to teach you but you need some advice from someone who's been where you are. You can talk about specs, gear, enchants, gems all that fun stuff (none of which will win you games, but doing it wrong will sure lose some). Listen to this advice and ask questions. Talk about situations you've been in that went really bad and see how they avoid them or handle them. This doesn't have to be a gladiator or anything just someone that can get you thinking about this stuff. Once you start hearing other opinions you'll start to notice things you hadn't thought of before and try new stuff out. Now its time to watch someone really good play. Head to warcraftmovies.com and find a recent video of someone playing your class. Preferably someone who plays your comp but you can learn from either. Don't sit there like a retard and be like omg he hit for 7k with his icelance he is a pvp god if I had his gear I would be unstoppable. That's crap, any video that focuses on huge numbers you should delete immediately. Find something that shows off quick decisions and flawless execution of strategy. Find something where they are making quick decisions and doing things very well then watch it a couple of times. The first time you watch it you will see what they are doing in a very general way. They are sticking on the warrior, they are timing stuns well etc. The second time you watch it try and see what their partner is doing and how they work together. The third time you watch try and figure out what the other team is doing, and what they do that allows the team you are watching to win. Now take these lessons and apply them. Don't try and copy what they do exactly, because they are really good at it, they can iceblock EM Lavabursts because they've practiced a lot. Their cc chain is perfect without even talking in vent, but you aren't there yet. Start with copying their strats and try and react to the enemy similar to how they are. Once you get this going, you'll be able to start executing.
Fast forward to rated teams and gladiator titles, people still played wierd comps and weren't that great but strategy developed and synergies were discovered. CC and interrupts became much more important to manage and coordinating these things is what set a good team apart from a great one. This was especially true during BC because games were slower paced and kills came from planned actions more than getting global cooldowned. Now someone who wants to play an arena match needs to have some sort of comp that works, or invent something and create strategies to deal with people who not only know what they are doing but have internalized it to the point where they don't have to think. At this point there aren't a lot of combos that haven't been tried so your enemy has a very very high probabilty to have played against your particular setup and know generally what they have to do to win. Of course if you are playing something generally non-viable like double shadow priest or double healer they might not have a strategy but they won't need one cause they will just faceroll you.
So step one find someone who knows something about arenas and can communicate it. This is pretty important because being a good mage doesn't necessarily mean you can tell your new rogue buddy what to do, what targets to choose, how to spend cooldowns etc. He could probably give you lessons on what most classes do, but his knowledge will be largely centered around how he has to deal with what they do to him. A warlocks strategy for playing against a mage is vastly different than how the lock will approach a rogue so his advice may be lacking in that area. Despite these holes in his knowledge its important to learn how he reacts to other classes so you can begin to learn how to help him. A mage has lots of options and can create space by themselves, but the more time they spend creating space the less time they are pumping damage or ccs into their oponent. Therefore when your mage partner starts talking about how annoying feral druids are because they can pursue mages so well, you should start thinking about how and when you can use your abilities to help the mage get into a situation where they are forcing their will upon the enemy instead of reacting.
So you've found someone to play with and you enter an arena. Your partner knows generally what your team should be doing and can communicate it to you. Great frost mage / rogue team created, you're pumped you enter the arena and you immediately play a team that your partner knows exactly what to do. You have a plan you start executing it. What the hell the match is over already you got facialed before you could react? You can blame WotLK and the very quick pace of the game if you want, but the actual problem is you aren't familiar enough with your character to react and carry out a high level strategy without having to think about it. Maybe you don't have enough gear to survive for long enough to carry your strategy. Now a couple things happen, your partner is frustrated because he knows exactly how to beat that team, maybe you even have a comp advantage but you just lost. I've been here on both sides of this equation. My first instinct as both a teacher and a learner is to keep throwing yourself into battle, thinking you'll pick it up as you go. If your team mate has the patience of a saint, and you actually learn from dying in 10 seconds then yes you will eventually improve. This is a frustrating process but to get past this frustration you need to go do other frustrating things.
First go grind some honor, do some wintergrasps. Yeah your gear will improve but the real point is in a battleground you're generally gonna fight idiots, but fuck are there a lot of them. You'll start figuring out your classes limitations and you might even start learning how to kill people. Don't think that being good in battlegrounds will make you good at arenas, cause that's not even close to true. Battlegrounds are a fuckfest where you rely on your team to do good things (which if your alliance they definitely won't do) so don't get frustrated when your getting killed a lot. You're there to learn to get killed slower and get used to your abilities. When I started my paladin in BGs I would get zerged and die a lot. That's because I was depending on my bubble to save me. Turns out that cooldown gets spent pretty quick if you are in the middle of 6 pissed off people and while you can use your bubble like that and live, anytime its not up or immediately after its gone you get hosed. So I started realizing that positioning and anticipating pressure helped me stay alive and be more useful to whoever I was healing. You pick your battles, and obviously you don't have to run from 7 mounted hunters in an arena match but you become more aware of where you are, and more importantly where you don't want to be.
At this point you should know your class well enough to appreciate someone else playing it. Now is your time to seek a mentor that plays your class. Yeah your partner still has a lot to teach you but you need some advice from someone who's been where you are. You can talk about specs, gear, enchants, gems all that fun stuff (none of which will win you games, but doing it wrong will sure lose some). Listen to this advice and ask questions. Talk about situations you've been in that went really bad and see how they avoid them or handle them. This doesn't have to be a gladiator or anything just someone that can get you thinking about this stuff. Once you start hearing other opinions you'll start to notice things you hadn't thought of before and try new stuff out. Now its time to watch someone really good play. Head to warcraftmovies.com and find a recent video of someone playing your class. Preferably someone who plays your comp but you can learn from either. Don't sit there like a retard and be like omg he hit for 7k with his icelance he is a pvp god if I had his gear I would be unstoppable. That's crap, any video that focuses on huge numbers you should delete immediately. Find something that shows off quick decisions and flawless execution of strategy. Find something where they are making quick decisions and doing things very well then watch it a couple of times. The first time you watch it you will see what they are doing in a very general way. They are sticking on the warrior, they are timing stuns well etc. The second time you watch it try and see what their partner is doing and how they work together. The third time you watch try and figure out what the other team is doing, and what they do that allows the team you are watching to win. Now take these lessons and apply them. Don't try and copy what they do exactly, because they are really good at it, they can iceblock EM Lavabursts because they've practiced a lot. Their cc chain is perfect without even talking in vent, but you aren't there yet. Start with copying their strats and try and react to the enemy similar to how they are. Once you get this going, you'll be able to start executing.
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