With the new season coming out, Arenas and battlegrounds are back in full swing.  I don’t know about your server, but Wintergrasp hasn’t seen this much action in awhile.  People are doing their PvP dailies again and the arena queues are  short and sweet.  I’ve joined in on the action like usual with a new 5s, 3s and 2s team.  I actually saved up over 1k  Stone Keeper’s Shards, about 120 Wintergrasp Marks and a few Commendations of Bravery just for this time and was able to buy the four new Wrathful pieces and the Titan-forged Shoulders by the 3rd day of the new season.   I thought it was a good time to post some more arenas tips for aspiring Gladiators (or even Challengers).  I’m doing my 2s with an Arms warrior this season, so I’m going to focus these tips on that for this post but many should also work for any PvP situation.  I’ll focus on some of the more problematic classes you’ll come up against but I’ll also try to touch on them all.

Affliction Warlock

Warlocks and priests will be two of the most difficult classes you’ll face.  A good affliction warlock will spend most the fight using fear followed by drain mana, keeping you mostly useless for the entire fight.  He will also keep Unstable Affliction up the entire fight on both you and your partner so you can’t cleanse the mana drains, the fears, or the other dots.  You’ll spend a large portion of the fight running in random directions.  The fight can last a very long time and is more of an endurance mana-based fight.

Drain mana can be very difficult to avoid since it is instant cast and continues working even after you break line of sight.  You should still try to avoid it by staying out of line of sight as much as you can.  Against an affliction warlock, you need to be very mana-concious.  Use Divine Plea every cooldown and abuse Seal of Wisdom like its your lifeline.  Luckily, almost every warlock will sick his pet on you, which is like sending an infinitely sized mana battery to you.  Just backpedal wherever you go swinging away at the pet as much as you can throughout the fight and you’ll find you’ll always have plenty of mana.

Another advantage you have against affliction warlocks is that they really don’t have any burst damage potential, so you don’t have to worry so much about keeping your health at 100% the entire time.  Their goal will be to wear both you and your teammate’s health down over time.  With Beacon of Light, burning down the health of both of you at once is a non-issue for you (just make sure to keep it up).  This also allows you to stay up to 60 yards away from the fighting, as long as you’re still in line of sight.

The other good thing about warlocks is that they usually run out of mana fairly quickly.  If you really want to burn a warlock’s mana, kill his pet (and find a different target for your Seal of Wisdom).  This will hurt his ability to fight as well as burn his mana as he summons a new one and its often a much easier kill than either of the two opponents.  Killing 2 or 3 pets should find him mana drained completely.  Make sure to use Holy Wrath to help stun and kill the pet.

If you ever find that Unstable Affliction is not on you or your teammate, start cleansing everything to completely eliminate all damage, fears, and mana drains on your team.  If you do accidentally cleanse an Unstable Affliction, you’re putting yourself at a big risk if the enemy notices and takes advantage of it (which is usually rare except against very good teams).  Make sure to heal yourself back up as soon as you can.

Your team will need to kill the warlock between his Demon Circle teleports, which can be difficult and will probably require quite a bit of burst.  Keep at it, keep your mana up, and eventually he should run out of mana or make a mistake.  If you can keep a lot of pressure on the warlock, he won’t have as much chance to drain mana.

Destruction Warlock

Destro warlocks are much different and function similiar to an Elemental Shaman and other ranged burst classes.  They’ll do less CC and mana burns than an affliction lock, but a lot more burst damage.  They’re also easier to kill.  Make sure to keep your health high and be ready for big bursts of damage.  Use Divine Sacrifice, Hand of Sacrifice, Glyph of Salvation, and Holy Shock like usual to keep yourself and your teammate alive and be ready to break CC as soon as the burst start to happen.  You’ll also want to stay by a pillar and run out of line of sight or out of range if you can.  This will probably be a short fight so you don’t need to watch your mana as closely.  You’ll usually be able to tell right away which type of warlock you’re fighting by how much damage is going out.

Discipline Priest

Discipline Priests are probably the hardest spec you’ll go up against.  The fight will be similar to an affliction warlock in that you’ll be feared while being mana burned and won’t be able to do a whole lot about it.  Their mana burn is also more potent than a warlock’s.  In addition to this, they can also dispel your buffs (including your bubble) and they don’t have a pet for you to siphon mana off of with seal of wisdom.  Unless he’s really good, you should have time to get a Holy Light off after you bubble before the bubble is dispelled as long as you immediately cast it.

Staying out of line of sight is one of the most important things you can do against a priest.  Their mana burn is a little easier to avoid than a warlock’s since it has a cast time.  You should be able to avoid most of them except when you get feared.  Keep a visual on him (keep him targeted) and stay on the opposite side of a pillar from the priest as much as possible.  The smaller the pillar is, the better because you can run to the opposite side and duck in and out easier.  You’ll want to rely on Divine Plea and Blessing of Wisdom for most of your mana and use Seal of Wisdom when you get a chance.

The good news about a priest is that he really can’t do all three things at once.  He can’t mana burn, dispel, and heal at the same time.  Also, like a warlock, he has a limited amount of mana.  A priest will usually choose to either spam dispel or spam mana burn.  If you find he isn’t mana burning, you can be a little more aggressive, otherwise, just hide behind the pillar.  If he is a dispeller, you need to counter that by constantly reapplying your buffs.  It will be a battle over buffs (this can happen against a shaman too).  You really need to keep Blessing of Wisdom, Sacred Shield, and Improved Righteous Fury up if you want to survive.  Also, the dispelling will keep him busy and help drain his mana.  If you keep a lot of pressure on him or his teammate he might not have time to dispel or mana burn, which is the ideal situation.  Also watch for opportunities where he did mana burns or dispells instead of healing when he should have healed and take advantage of them.

Save your stun for when you see a shadow fiend come out.  If your partner can fear or CC the shadowfiend when the stun is up, that’s even better.  Watch and follow the priest closely and use Hand of Freedom to get to him to prevent him from drinking.  You should be able to outlast his mana if you can mostly avoid his mana burns.  This fight should be a little shorter than the one against the warlock since priests are squishier and have less mana but its still mostly a mana management fight.

Mage

If you and your warrior go up against a disc priest with a mage, you’re going to have a very difficult time pulling out a win.  Try to cleanse polymorphs and Frost Novas (or use Hand of Freedom) while staying out of line of sight or out of range.  Make sure to let your teammate know when you get counter-spelled so he can pop his defensive cooldowns.  Besides that, mages don’t have a ton of tricks by themselves.  They do good consistent damage with good CC but are quite squishy and everything they have can be cleansed.  Their mana goes down fast but can also go back up with Evocation.  Try to get out of line of sight or out of range especially when they pop Mirror Image.  This will be a very difficult (but probably short) fight.

Restoration Druid

Restoration druids are very difficult to win against, but also difficult to lose against.  In other words, its going to be a very long fight.  You probably will never drain a restoration druid’s mana (and he won’t drain yours), which means the only way either of you are going to win is with coordinated burst.  Keeping pressure on both targets is usually a good idea so he has to split his healing and then coordinate your stuns and burst abilities (like Bladestorm).

The one trick a druid has (besides infinite mana and great survivability) is Cyclone, which is the only CC you can’t bubble out of (don’t even try, you’ll waste your bubble).  You also can’t heal someone who is cycloned.  A good druid will cyclone you three times in a row while your teammate gets bursted down.  A really good druid will cyclone your teammate who has low health so you can’t heal him (and waste your mana trying).  He’ll then alternate cyclones between you and your teammate.

You do have some weapons against cyclone in the form of your instant cast abilities.  A druid will usually not be able to cyclone you twice in a row before you can get off an instant cast.  Divine Sacrifice and Hand of Sacrifice are great to mitigate damage on your teammate while you are cycloned.  Holy Shock and instant Flash of Lights work good as well for some heals between cyclones.  Let your teammate know when you’re cycloned.  Feel free to LOL when the druid cyclone’s himself with spell reflect.

Holy Paladin

Fighting another holy paladin is very similar to fighting a resto druid only with even less tricks (outside of bubbles).  They will probably never run out of mana or health.  You’ll usually want to focus on one target because of Beacon.  It will be a very long fight.  Like the resto druid, coordinate your stuns and your burst and try to force a mistake.

The classes above are the main ones you’ll have trouble with and will give you the longest/hardest fights.  I’ll go over the other classes below.

Shaman

Elemental shamans bring a ton of burst and have fairly good survivability but if you can live through heroism they usually are not too dangerous.  A good shaman will not cast heroism until one of you are already close to dead, so be ready.  Try to kill their totems if you can.  Don’t dps a shaman while his wolves are out.  Shamans will also purge your buffs so it can become a buff war.  Mana can become an issue for you against very good teams who are doing a ton of damage while purging blessing of wisdom.  If you can, stay out of line of sight just to avoid the purges.  Fights against a shaman are usually fairly quick either way.  Its mostly a gear and reaction time contest.

Other Ranged Dps (Balance Druids, Hunters)

Hunters are another class that gives you a personal mana battery, although theirs is more dangerous.  Make sure to use Consecration if you see snakes on the ground.  Hunters are hard to kill for a melee because its hard to stay in range of them but their burst dps isn’t as high as a balance druid, elemental shaman, or destro warlock, their CC’s not as potent, and they have to stand still to do good damage.  For all ranged dps, try to run out of line of sight or out of range as soon as they focus on you while using Holy Shock, Hand of Freedom and Glyph of Salvation on yourself to stay alive.  You can shut down a hunters dps with Hand of Protection on your ally.

Rogues/Warriors/Ret Paladins/Death Knights

These classes should be fairly easy for you, with death knights being the most difficult.  You can shut down the dps of all of these with Hand of Freedom, Hammer of Justice, and Hand of Protection on your ally.  You can also keep your mana up fairly well by beating on them while they beat on you.  If you can get a stun on a rogue during his opener, it will really mess up his plans.  Ret Paladins will be the hardest to kill but probably the least dangerous.  Rogues can be dangerous if your trinkets are down and you can’t get away, so you may need some help from your partner to break up their rotation.  Rogues are the easiest to kill though.  Stay away from a warrior’s bladestorm.  Try to stay spread out away from your partner with all of these, especially a Death Knight.  Stun a DK’s gargoyle and ghoul with Holy Wrath.  Use Retribution Aura against these classes, especially rogues and especially if your partner is melee dps.  You should be using Improved Concentration Aura against the other classes.

Every Class

Against every class, you’ll need to keep an eye on their health at all times.  Once one of them gets down to about 60% health, stun the healer and throw yourself at the low health opponent.  Use Holy Shock, judgement, and shield of righteousness at every cooldown.  You may want to use Consecration against a rogue, but probably not the other classes because of how much mana it burns.  Never miss an opportunity to use Hammer of Wrath.  Try to coordinate your stuns and burst dps with your partner’s.  Just make sure you aren’t neglecting your own health while you’re doing dps.  It can be very tempting to go for the kill but you won’t win if you die in the process.

Get an Add-on like Gladius to help you keep track of what’s going on.  If healing isn’t intensive and mana isn’t an issue, feel free to put pressure on the enemy the entire fight with Holy Shock, etc and keep them on the defensive.  Don’t do this against priests and warlocks though.  If you’re going against two dps classes, use your Hammer of Justice on every cooldown, focus on healing and defensive moves, and just outlive them.  You shouldn’t be doing  any dps against two dps classes unless for some reason the damage they’re doing is really low.  They’ll eventually die if you can stay alive long enough, although some dps classes can do quite a bit of healing on their own so the fight may still take awhile.

Get Geared Early

Besides all that, get in those battlegrounds and arenas and get your gear early in the season.  Get a good PvE weapon and shield.  The sooner you gear up, the easier it will be.  You are in a race against everyone else to get the best gear first.

Good luck!