From what I've seen, the ones that know how to play, are complaining about PvE, not PvP.

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If anyone goes over to worldofming.com, he has an EXCELLENT insight as to what makes a good 5v5 arena team, what the typical group makeup and style of play are. He's quite analytical and very intelligent.

The "typical" top-tier teams in 5v5 are "tri-healer" teams, or 2.5 healer teams. This usually consists of a Priest-Paladin linked with another Pally, a Druid, or a Shaman. Then your DPS-ers are a Warrior/Rogue, or Warrior/Mage. There are some teams with tri-dps as well, either way though, a warrior is key. You need someone who can hack down and hammer an opponent quickly. This is why the Warrior/Rogue combo is so leathal. Huge crits plus poisons, along with a warrior's high dmg and mortal strike make it almost impossible for a healer to keep their target alive for long.

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I have seen posts similar to this befor, but just for the top 20 5v5 teams in a battle group. The rankings were very similar but with paly's on the top and druids on the bottom.

Warriors and Paly's are resilient and are very troublesome to take down in 5v5 arena battle.

Blizzard has commented that they are balancing PvP for group battle (5v5) and not for smaller battles (2v2) so I do expect to see some additional resilience or group support skills added for some classes.

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And this is before Warriors are getting buffed and Druids are getting nerfed? I actually am very surprised by everything but the high Paldin number. That was to be expended. 5v5 is an endurance fight afterall.

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Yeah, because 5v5 pvp is essentially designed with warriors in mind. You get a set group with a healer who will actually pay attention to you, and very likely a paladin who will blessing of freedom you. Of course, you've also ground the mandatory blacksmithing to get the bop axe/mace. And of course, if you want to raid and pvp you're going to have to spend 100g a week to alternate between 35/23/3 and 5/5/51. So yes, at the end game, with a lot of gold and a competent team, warriors are apparently useful. Wasn't that the point that warriors were the end game, scales well with gear, wait till you hit 70 for the good times class?

To be fair through, warlocks and druids are markedly more popular in the 2v2 and 3v3 brackets. Apparently warlocks are just too squishy to be usaul in 5v5, but have much better survivability when they can't simply be assist trained down.

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Two words: mortal strike.

I haven't done any 5v5, but I imagine there are often groups with three, four or even five classes with some healing abilities. You can try to CC them all with the talents of all your players, or you can make all their healing useless by adding one class.

Now just wait until charge, intercept and intervene remove movement-impairing effects.

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Cormak;
Granted druids and warlocks fair better in 2v2 and 3v3 duels, however, Blizzard gave the reasoning that 5v5 duels are worth more arena points because they balance their classes for larger group battles.

So, to be fair Blizzard needs to give more arena points for 2v2 and 3v3 duels or buf some classes such that they can perform better in 5v5 duels, perhaps adding skills that benefit a group in PvP.

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The reason us locks are so low on the arena charts is that we are gods in PvE now and there is tons of PvE content to do. I'd guess that like me, most of us are PvE'ing it up and demolishing everyone in damage in 5 mans, Karazhan and above.

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Not a suprise, warriors to be effective in pvp require a pocket healer. Having more then 1 would make it much harder to beat the group if you can't take out the healers first.

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I wonder how these number stack up against census numbers, percentage-wise. Last I heard warrior was the most played class with druids and warlocks falling toward the bottom. If the correlation were perfect wouldn't that simply suggest that classes are pretty well balanced, and that simply the top players of each class are doing well?

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Perhaps Locks would be a bit higher on the list if we had anyway to gain shards during arena fights. As it stands, if we use a spell or conjure an item that uses a shard, we have no way to get one back.

I refuse to even step foot in the arena until this is fixed.

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My main is a druid. We're pretty worthless in arenas, imo. Even though cat form can put out rogue-like damage we don't have the stuns, interrupts, cooldowns, and blind. And bear form with its damage nerfed is only for turtling. Tree is worthless for PvP. Moonkin is okay but less versatility and damage than a mage.

Frankly the only druid I can see being useful in an arena is balance/resto spec. You can heal, cyclone and toss out nukes and DOTs, and unlike a priest if you get zerged you can drop into bear and turtle. But in a non-healing role druids are no good in the arena.

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To Hidden Agenda, #11:

That was my complaint exactly after the big 2.0 patch. However, by 2.0.1 or 2.0.2, I don't remember which, they fixed that.

During the "opening" part of the Arena, before the doors open, all spells cost no mana and NO SHARDS. The Arena also resets all cooldowns after you leave, and returns to you whatever pet you had prior to joining afterward.

My favorite strategy: Summon Voidwalker, buff myself up, then at the very last second use Voidwalker Sacrifice and Fel Domination to switch to Felguard. Soul Link up, and I have about 25 seconds of free invulnerability during the first part of the match. :)

Since they fixed that, the only complaint I can see anyone making is Shadowburn's consumption of a Soul Shard in the Arena, but you should time Shadowburn to kill them anyway, so you would get it back. Also, Arena fights are by-and-large too fastpaced to even dream of trying to use Soul Fire.

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the thing is, if you check warcraftrealms, warriors are the most played class in arenas atm.

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Quote: warriors to be effective in pvp require a pocket healer

Actually, healers require a pocket dps'r.

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This makes perfect sense to me. The 2 classes that can absorb the most damage will stay alive the longest with people actually healing them. 1v1...that is a whole different story. Also, I think you will find that all the noobs deleted their warriors and paladins to reroll a noob/EZmode class like warlock/hunter/rogue. That is probably why they are all on the bottom and people who still play warriors/paladins are generally more skilled.

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i have a lock and my long time friend has a druid who is feral specced, and we own in 2v2...partly because we've played together for so long, but also because warriors aren't the only class who benefit from being healed...just about any class can...when he throws a heal on me i'm golden and you are dead...same is true for my mage...I only point this out because the previous posts point out how deadly warriors are when they are getting healed..in my exp...any class is deadly when they are getting heals if the right person is playing them

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Hmm. Perhaps I'm just biased coming from a warrior perspective, where not all classes could be equal 1v1, since the only way you could do that was by eliminating class differences. If everyone is going to be equal for 5v5, I'd like to see the same 1v1.

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Nerf warriors.

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@6:

"Now just wait until charge, intercept and intervene remove movement-impairing effects."

SNARES, not movement-impairing effects, S N A R E S aka hamstring, wingclip, crippling poison and NOT forst nova, imp. hamstring, imp. wingclip, roots.

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