Filed under: Blood Sport (Arena PvP)

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Sport for arena enthusiasts and The Art of War(craft) for fans of battlegrounds and world PvP. Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more.

Listening Music: José González's "Hand on Your Heart." One of my favorites.

Vanilla WoW PvP was very fun, even if the top raiders on the server had enough gear to kill you in a global or two. The speed of combat got progressively faster before The Burning Crusade came on scene; a full tier 3 player could change the tide of a battleground by himself easily. Resilience was added to the game to slow down the game -- and it worked! Arena games in The Burning Crusade took a long time to complete, but they were interesting and definitely had depth, even if they made you miss dinner once or twice.

Wrath of the Lich King revamped arena completely by emphasizing burst kills and huge crits. In Season 5, death knights and holy paladins were the best classes in the game because they could sustain damage for periods of time longer than 20 seconds. It was shellshock for arena players everywhere. The 30-minute games we had come to know and love were a thing of the past. Damage was king, and the law was a quick death.

Cataclysm appears to be returning to a Burning Crusade era of controlled arena matches. Giant crits and powerful damage combos are unlikely to be making an exit from arena, but their grip on PvP will be loosened when Deathwing's presence is felt.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Sport for arena enthusiasts and The Art of War(craft) for fans of battlegrounds and world PvP. Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more.

Listening Music: David Bazan's "In Stitches." If you like slow, trippy indie and haven't heard of David Bazan (or Pedro the Lion), you should YouTube him. These KEXP recordings have come through surprisingly clear.

In my four years playing WoW, I've transferred servers for PvP around 15 times. For some, that might seem like a small amount but for the majority of you, it's probably a really often (and costly)!

Now, please take into account that I play multiple characters and I've happily stayed on some servers for many seasons. Other times, I've only been on a server for a few days -- finding out that your new PvP teammates aren't everything you expected them to be is pretty rough. Fifty bucks down the drain is worse.

So I've decided to write this article on giant red flags that might appear in the transfer process. The warning signs are obvious -- but sometimes only after you've already made your decision and thrown down your hard-earned cash. No one is immune to some crafty deception; even the best of us can bite that golden hook of a tempting offer or a myriad of other reasons for transferring.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Sport for arena enthusiasts and The Art of War(craft) for fans of battlegrounds and world PvP. Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more.

Listening Music: Kay Pettigrew's beautiful cover of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. It's two years old, but still awesome nonetheless.

Recently, players have started asking me, "Where should I transfer before Cataclysm hits?"

There are so many variables involved in that question, it's hard to know where to start. After all, it's difficult to say a single realm name when I know very little about the inquiring individual. Most people like different things in different realms.

I assume the people asking me where to transfer to are probably inquiring about PvP. After I give a few tried-and-true strategies, I usually get asked about arena teams and battleground imbalances. To tell you the truth, I'm not exceptionally knowledgeable about whether Horde wins more Alterac Valleys on Emberstorm/Whirlwind than Alliance. Unless you play on that battlegroup, you probably don't know much about that, either.

Whenever I choose a new realm for one of my PvP alts, I systematically go through a series of checklists. This article is that checklist. If you're wondering about where to transfer for Cataclysm because you have battlegrounds or arena in mind, this article is for you.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Sport for arena enthusiasts and The Art of War(craft) for fans of battlegrounds and world PvP. Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more.

Listening Music: The Legend of Zelda, via symphony. You're welcome!

Occasionally, I'll meet a rank-1-quality opponent who is playing with people far below his or her level. Sometimes people are just naturally amazing at WoW. I'm not one of them. I have to use trial and error a lot before I pick something up. Oh well, at least I'm honest about it, right? I've battled opponents in the 1,900 bracket who are 2,700+ rated players; if only they would shed their partners and pick up a few gladiator buddies!

There are three primary reasons for people playing with teammates who are far below their level of PvP prowess: gear, friends and realms.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Sport for arena enthusiasts and The Art of War(craft) for fans of battlegrounds and world PvP. Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more.

Listening Music: A classic -- The Beastie Boys' "Sabotage." Kind of on-theme for what we'll be discussing today, too. The interview at the beginning is 30 seconds long if you want to skip it (but you shouldn't; it's awesome).

For the last two weeks, I've talked your ears off on some strategies and tricks that players use to attain rank 1, largely legally. The season is now over, and a lot of changes to arena are coming via Cataclysm. I debated with myself whether or not to write about the darker side of arena.

I decided that you, the reader, deserve to know about what happens in back rooms when no one is watching. The season is over, and I feel confident no one is going to use this article to ascend ladders unlawfully. Unfortunately, there are reports of people using these very tactics (sometimes in large numbers per battlegroup) to get a soiled Wrathful Gladiator title next to their name. Luckily, some of these teams have been caught and reset without reward.

A curse be placed upon them, their children, and their childrens' childrens' family dog. Sorry Fido, Grandpa cheated. Deal with it.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Sport for arena enthusiasts and The Art of War(craft), covering battlegrounds and world PvP. Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more.

Listening Music: "70 million" by Hold Your Horses. The music isn't completely up my alley, but the video is incredible. Why didn't someone think of this before? Best idea for a music video ever. Absolutely brilliant. I could write an entire page describing the genius of this video, but that would be boring.

Last week, we talked about PvP secrets the top gladiators use to achieve the highest arena rankings. We're doing more of the same today, as I've judged by your comments that it was pretty interesting to you guys.

I talked about spying and sniping last week. I wasn't sure I would talk about queue dodging today, as it's a far more questionable practice. I decided to talk about it because many high-rated teams definitely queue dodge, and I think it's my responsibility to talk about everything high-rated players do, even if I personally don't participate in it.

Queue dodging is very similar to sniping. Instead of attempting to get an arena match against another team, queue dodgers attempt to avoid a team they consider to be difficult to defeat. Queue dodgers employ a spy who allows the queue-dodging team to see when the feared enemy team is in an arena.

Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column.

Listening Music: Two awesome kids covering Foo Fighters' Everlong.

Before I got into the arena scene, I thought attaining a gladiator title (let alone a rank 1 title) was reserved for the very best PvPers. I wasn't at my computer for five hours a day grinding away at BGs and arena matches. I didn't have any special accomplishments or skills to bring to the table. I thought that I would never attain one of those awesome 310 percent speed flying mounts I wanted so badly.

Then I hit rank 1. I was initially surprised with how easy it was, but looking back on it, it seemed everything fell in place just right. Since then, I've been there and back a few times but each time much differently. I've seen lots of people achieve rank 1 in different ways, so we're going to have an awesomely long list of helpful tips and secrets used by those few individuals with Adjective Gladiator titles.

Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column.

Listening Music: Katy Perry's banned Sesame Street appearance. I appreciate Perry's timbre and unique enunciation. It's off-putting to see her music becoming increasingly overproduced, but I guess that's the business of pop music.

I wrote last week on momentum and had to truncate a lot of talking points. I wasn't satisfied with only talking about two aspects of the bad momentum that forces you to adapt your gameplay, so we'll be discussing more aspects this week.

• Action You get Counterspelled out of your healing school.
• Bad reaction You spam heals mindlessly.
• Good reactions You communicate, use other schools and improve your positioning.

Every healer, even professional WoW players, get locked out of his healing schools. Sometimes, Counterspells hit your heals at the very worst times. Your teammate will be straddling the line of life and death when you go for a quick Flash of Light and boom, you're suddenly locked out of your holy school. Your teammate dies.

Relax. There's not a lot you could have done in that situation; the opposing team simply outplayed you into that position. Talk with your teammates to figure out a way to not get yourselves in life-or-death situations in the future -- the problem wasn't with your getting spell-locked.

Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column.

Listening Music: Bill Withers is amazing. I dare any of you to challenge him to a duel. He'd win, then write a song about it while your entire family recites it word for word because it's so catchy.

It's our anniversary! I bet you forgot. Shame on you. You sleep on the couch tonight.

About a year ago, I started writing our favorite column. We've been through two arena seasons together, and I've never loved you more. I just wanted to say a special thank-you to all my readers who have made it an incredible joy to be a part of WoW.com... err, WoW.joystiq.com... err, WoW Insider. I suppose it doesn't matter. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Thank you for all the comments you've left and the emails you've sent. Here's looking to many more to come!

Enough with this mushy stuff; let's get down to business. It's business time.

Momentum is extremely important. Two weeks ago, we talked about good momentum and the effect it has on our opponents. Today, we'll be looking at the other side of the coin.

Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in our arena column.

Listening Music: Tool's Schism. I remember when this first came out -- so many unique meter changes.

Overpowered classes are overpowered. First of all, it's beta. Things are subject to change. Some classes appear to be incredibly strong at the moment. Here's a video of a warlock dueling seven different classes. (NSFW, some written profanity.)

Hopefully, Blizzard developers will remember the ridiculousness that was season five. Ret paladins and death knights were far more overpowered in Wrath beta than anything I've seen in Cataclysm beta so far, but there is still tons of opportunity for improvement. Let's also hope they continue on with the philosophy of making swift changes so things don't get too out of hand early on in the new expansion.

Spoiler alert: I was originally going to write an article on bad momentum and how to shift from losing to winning mid-arena match. I suppose that article will have to wait, because I'm excited to write about Cataclysm. With 4.0.1 hitting the PTR, I imagine now is good a time as ever. So if you're not into spoilers, stop reading!

Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column.

Listening Music: Stevie Wonder. I listen to this stuff when I play arena -- teammates think I'm ridiculous. I think they're ridiculous for not appreciating Stevie. Although, I guess it is a bit weird to hear kill targets shouted while You Are the Sunshine of my Life ... is blaring in the background.

Understanding the big picture

Gladiators look at arena battles very differently than most. This isn't because they're naturally gifted at solving complex riddles or puzzles -- they just have enough arena experience to understand things that others might not. Well, get ready, because this is the start of your crash course in seeing what we see, how we see it.

So sit back, relax and crack open a cold one.

Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column.

Listening Music: Massive Attack's "Teardrop." Apparently this song is the Dr. House theme...or something. I only noticed this because of the comments on this video. I wouldn't know, I don't watch the show. Maybe I should start because obviously someone from that drama has taste in music.

Default to damage

Oh, Wrath of the Lich King, how we had such great hopes. Damage is almost always the most successful strategy. Defaulting to damage is something I have to explain often, especially when I start playing with new teammates who are trying to push for their first gladiator title.

Players who have high technical skill (for instance, being able to Spell Reflect an escaping druid's Nature's Grasp) often try to win games by doing things more "skilled" than the enemy. They'll preach for seemingly endless hours about how often they Counterspelled their opponent's Incinerates, yet they still lost the match. Sometimes, the opportunity cost it takes to interrupt one of your spells to interrupt an opponent is better spent by doing damage, especially if an enemy is low on health. Why bother Counterspelling an enemy damage spell when you can get a kill? [EDIT: I removed confusing language concerning interrupts and global cooldowns.]

These same players look down on opposing compositions for being "faceroll" or "noob comp" because they win games by just pumping damage into the enemy. There's a reason why "bad players" can get to high ratings by using certain compositions -- damage is the premier strategy.

Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column.

Listening Music: Talking Heads with "Psycho Killer." I love David Byrne.

I've been playing Cataclysm beta for about a week and a half -- well, if I can call it playing. I've done a few quests in Hyjal. I'm still level 80, about 25 percent of the way in. It's been fun, but I haven't been able to break away from arenas and battlegrounds on the live realms. Oh, how I've missed thee, my beloved PvP.

Offense vs. defense

4 DPS teams are offensive quintets (even the healers participate in damage most of the time) that use incredible damage to accomplish quick wins and losses. They're often referred to as "zerg teams." Silly StarCraft references.

When I first started playing arena, a friend much more PvP-experienced than myself explained to me the difference between two-healer team and 4 DPS: "A two-healer team is a balanced fighting force, using positional and defensive advantages to their advantage. Think of a castle, fortified with archers and boiling oil. A 4 DPS team is more akin to a juggernaut, barreling through walls and relying on brute force. Sometimes the castle wins; sometimes the battering ram is successful. The lines of attack and defense are much different, however."

Blood Sport: The column where we grind our enemies into a fine pulp, add sugar, water and love. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Where did that saying even come from? I'd love it if life just randomly gave me lemons. And in that vein, who wouldn't make lemonade with lemons? What other uses do lemons even have? Anyway, let's talk about owning people in 5v5 and stuff.

Listening Music: The xx with "Basic Space." The real talent is the guy playing the buttons.

Drain teams were exceptionally successful in The Burning Crusade, so much so that developers went out of their way to make burst damage, and only burst damage, a successful strategy in Wrath of the Lich King. The problem, of course, was that it went completely overboard, and we were stuck looking at extreme dominance from classes that did best under high-burst-damage conditions.

In season eight, we're seeing a return to some strategies that try to get an enemy's mana to 0 percent before they make a serious attempt to kill anything.

I have a special place in my heart for drain comps. My first No. 1 title came from playing a drain team with fellow gladiators; it was our first time hitting No. 1 together and it was an amazing time. I probably sounded like a little girl when I screamed ridiculously loud as I saw that coveted title attached to my character's name.

Blood Sport: The only column where we crush the corpses of our enemies into golf balls, drive them 300 yards down the fairway and hear the lament of Tiger Woods. And Tiger Woods fans. And Tiger Woods' mistresses. And Chewbacca -- just because. We also play sweet music that doesn't really go hand in hand with crushing corpses, but whatever.

Listening Music: Regina Spektor with a piano-only live performance of "Fidelity." Better than the album version, imo.

This Week: Group composition is an important part of arena. There, I said it. Not like you didn't know that already. Pretty much everyone knows that a five demonology warlock team isn't going to break 2,000 in 5v5.

Unless, of course, the demonic quintet is paired up against an all-mage 5v5 and goes 100-0.

Boom, in your face, Archmage Pants. Ouch. He's gonna need a sparkly pink Band-Aid for that burn. Cry me a river, bottle it up and serve it to your healers in your pansy raid, Belt. Mwahahaha.

Seriously though, understanding why certain 5v5s work is as important to 5v5 success as understanding your own class. Last week, we talked about why some healing pairs (such as paladin-priest and druid-priest) have been historically successful. Today, we'll be discussing DPS trios on a two-healer team.