V'Ming - who thinks that gnome warlocks are travesties of nature and need to be KOSed - shares thoughts and ideas on becoming deadlier at the Arenas. He also dabbles in the dark arts in Blood Pact.

You've formed your ideal Arena team. You have great expectations and diligently put in time and effort to claw your way up the ratings. You dust yourself off after defeats and trudge on, knowing that great things will come your way if you persist.

Gradually your team rating improves, and the sweet taste of victory more than makes up for the disappointment of defeats. You move past 1600, and 1700 eventually. You notice that victories are becoming scarcer, and defeats seem a lot more painful. Your team hits 1800 - woot! - and suddenly match wins seem to all but dry up - and your weekly matches start to feel like exercises in futility.

Welcome to hardcore Arena - where your opponents are much more likely to be decked out in full Season 3 gear and less likely to give you an "easy" win. You start to run into a lot more cookie-cutter comps - you know, the ones you read about here. The queues are long but the matches are short - and you've run out of encouraging or witty things to say to your team while waiting. It's almost an awkward, seething silence between matches, and the game becomes a test of patience. "Did I sign up for this?" You ask yourself.

WoW quests seem to be pretty formulaic. "Bring me some number of this item or kill that number of mobs." I guess there only so many types of quests that the developers can make. In order to ensure that you get enough experience from some quests, they assign a ridiculously low drop rate. Sometimes I think there are sensors in the keyboard that measure one's level of the frustration by how hard you hit the keys. Once you reach a certain threshold, the item drops. I'm probably wrong about that.

When you put five, ten, twenty-five, or forty people together you're bound to come across people who annoy, amaze, and amuse you. Peri on Terokkar posted a list of raid archetypes who may seem familiar to you. Some highlights of her post include:

• The GM's Significant Other- Okay, so he was going to have to quit but he tricked his SO into playing. She loves it. She's terrible. You'll effectively 24 man every boss. Count on 4 constructs in the raid, every attempt. She plays a Belf.
• The Backbone- Plays a tank. Doesn't have much to say. Made an error once in SSC, or so you heard. Will disconnect when Gorefiend is at 30% and keep aggro while offline for the rest of the fight. Has never said anything negative to the healers. Ever. GL with your progression without one of these. Hates the prima donnas.
• The Prima Donna- Requires special attention from management. Constantly whining. Plays some vital role. Might be a main tank, mage tank, or lock tank. The officers really hate this guy and as soon as they can find another tank with 24,000 buffed HP, he's out.

This thread in the general forums brings up a good discussion topic about everyone's in-game pet peeves. And note the definition - a minor annoyance that causes extreme frustration. I have a number of them, myself, including people who refer to me only as "priest," players who start yelling "HAEL ME!!!" the second they take damage, and the players who see me shadowforming in PvP and feel they need to lecture me on the worthlessness of a priest that doesn't heal. (The latter especially irritates me, as anyone who's played with me for a while should realize that, even with a shadow spec, I know how to shift out of shadowform, and if I wind up in a good group will spend entire AV matches healing. Argh! I get frustrated just thinking about it!) But what are your personal pet peeves in this game?