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Hey hey all, I am extremely desperate for some advice! :D

For the past few weeks me and my friends have been trying relentlessly to climb up the Arena Ladder, with 2200 being the goal of course! We've scrapped and remade the teams in 2v2, 3v3 & 5v5 brackets a few times to try get something that works, tallying up at least 200 matches (I think closer to 300, but as said we've scrapped some teams so can't be certain on the number). At first it was going really well in our opinion, we had about a 50/50 Win/Loss ratio for the first few weeks and climb to 1500 without much trouble.

The problem starts after that, even after practicing and practicing we've not got even slightly better, and in all honesty I've not got a clue how to beat the teams we're losing against. I know people say to watch PvP Videos, which we have done but most of the time the situation goes as followed:

Enemy starts to nuke our Frost Death Knight.
I take my first CC, and have to Racial out of it to stop the DK from dying.
I take my second CC very quickly after, and have to Bubble for the same reason.
I then take a third, and usually forth CC (Or silence, or Lockout-Interrupt) and the DK dies.

We're almost full Cataclysmic all round, so I don't think it's a lack of Resilience. As long as it's not a heavy-CC team (RMP, or some combination with Priests, Rogues, Mages or Warlocks in it) then we don't have much of a problem. We never have any trouble against full-DPS teams because I can throw Hand of Protection and Divine Shield.

I know to try and abuse LoS to interrupt enemy casts, and that to stack Crit so I can get as many Instant Casts off as possible on beaconed targets, but when I can't get a single heal off in the combination of two or more CC's then it seems hopeless.

So help me please! I've no idea how to deal with this situation, and all the videos I watch never seem to to have to deal with it. Very, very greatful. :)

Just seems like your teammate don't actually use Defensive CDs when you need them to.

You as the healer has to tell your team to use CDs when you're CC'd so you don't have to trinket the first CC and bubble the 2nd.

Gotcha! Will take that onboard and get back into the arena. Thank you very much.

Not helping :( They're CD'ing on the 1st CC so I can Trinket/Bubble for the next ones, but the next CC's still kill us.

Starting to get worried that I'm not going to get to 2200 before Mists of Pandaria, really willing to take any drastic action needed to help improve our Rating, suggestions please?

Fraps yourself playing and upload it so I can actually help instead of guessing what the problem is =/

go blood then your DK won't need healing :P

To avoid CC keep distance, the most important thing for a holy paladin is positioning. also dont forget you have hand of sacrifice which will break several cc's if you time it correctly. If you're starting out i'd advise an addon called gladiatorlossa or something along them lines cant remember its name, which will shout out when a cc is being used, therefore you can pop a hand of sacrifice or run around a pillar. there is also an addon that shows what is being cast on who. Also i dont know if its unholy skill only but DK's have a skill called unholy frenzy that does the same as hand of sacrifice. I normally wait out the first CC as your partners are probably not going to die. If you have been cc'ed a few times you can almost expect a silence, eventually u will get used to it and u can predict a silence and prevent it with aura mastery. its hard to give tips as i dont know whats going wrong for u

Never ever use Gladiatorlosa as it just per defualt take any kind of awarness you have, if they ever break the addon you'll notice it.

Another question, this time about 2v2. Is it possible to get a high rating as a Holy Paladin in 2v2's or would I have a better chance going Retribution? Any teams with a Mage, Rogue or Priest we don't have a single chance against :D

It's possible, played Holy to 2400 in half blue gear in 2s on my alt with a DK friend of mine.

Use hand of sacrifice on your dk, when he take damage it will broke CC's on you.

I use a macro that taunts pets when I cast holy shock on a team mate, this causes pets and mirror images from mages to attack you and can break cc, if the player cant control their pet they tend to put them on passive taking them out of the fight anway


#showtooltip
/cast Holy Shock
/cast Righteous Defense


Hope it helps, there are quite a few macro suggetions around so take a look :)

Feel like such a n00b, didn't even know pets could be taunted, I've just been Fearing the DK/Warlock ones. I'll have a video inc so hopefully everybody will continue being uber-helpful and will tell me wtf I'm doing wrong :D

23/04/2012 19:46Posted by Mimim

didn't even know pets could be taunted

They can but the thing about it is that as soon as somone uses a petattack macro the taunt will go off nomatter what so I find it quite useless as most players have petattack in a spammable macro offensive ability.

Here's the video. Two loses, and one win. It blacks out for a few seconds here and there on the final match, and then has an extra minute or two of pure black at the end. No music or anything, provide your own, didn't make the video to show off my video skills, made it so people can tell me how to be less n00b ;D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKsToBP6d9s

First off, you should read the guide I wrote on gearing. You're not using a Tsunami or Battlemasters: Spirit trinket and you've reforged to all Crit, that's why you're going out of Mana.

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3313032985

DO READ THE MACRO PART, YOU'RE LACKING ALOT OF MACROS WICH WILL MAKE LIFE ALOT EASIER FOR YOU

If I was you I would run with a Tsunami / Battlemasters with Spirit and crit reforge as you're playing a melee cleave comp.

Second, you should really start using some addons, something I see you could actually need is an addon called LoseControl.

http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/losecontrol

It will show you timers on yourself and on teammates when they're CC'd(I saw you for example casting into Cyclone ^^).

Interuptbar will show you the cooldowns of the enemy teams interrupt, for example it will make it easier for you to "Fakecast" interrupts.

http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/interruptbar

What I mean with Fakecasting is that you start a cast and stop it halfway so the enemy mage would use his counterspel and miss your cast so you're not locked out for 7 seconds, instead you're just silinced for 4.

Third, you're positioning, you're standing close to a team with a Feral & Priest that only has meleerange CC, you could of avoided most of the CC by just standing further away from them, Fear has a very short range and Cyclone is 25 yards or something.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13TNqmDMzLU

Is a movie I made not to long ago that has clips against good players, watch where I'm standing most of the time and take notes to take into account when you're playing yourself. I know it's not easy to just watch someone and do it yourself right after but it's a start.

I do make misstakes in that video like not keeping Judgement up but positoning wise it's pretty good.

Fourth, you need to stop clicking and using Mouseover macros. It's alot quicker to just use a macro to target your teammates then mouseovering Grid all the time.

Simple macros for that is, /target NAMEOFPLAYER and bind it to something you have an easy time hitting, I have mine on Scroll up and down, target myself with pressing the scrollbutton.

Binding stuff like Hand of Sacrifice is quite crucial as you can use it to break CCs, for example if you see a Mage casting Polymorph you can use Sacrifice to break it.

While being trained you should always use Divine Protection and Hand of Freedom at the same time to get the maxium benefit from it.

Don't waste your trinket either, use it as careful as possible in the last game I saw you rinket a DR'd Gnaw stun. A tip for stuns is to use Hand of Freedom during the last second of it and then use Divine Protection when you're out of the stun, this will help you out alot as you're not wasting Global Cooldowns on nothing after you're out of the stun. You'll be able to heal right out of it.

Plus, if you use your trinket and your teammates are CC'd use the time out of it to dispel them, they'll peel for you by just spamming damage.

Another thing I saw while watching the video was the targets your team took.

The enemy teams have Priests and instead you go on the feral / rogue? :D

As a meleecleave your goal should be to kill the healer, have your DK grip the Priest in and go on him =P

Alright, that's a ton of time and effort you've put into helping me there! Really appreciate it. It's clear to me if I want any real chance at getting anywhere in arena, I've got to wipe the slate clean and completely re-learn from the beginning (New UI, learning how macros work and how to understand them, how I'm using my hands, keyboard and mouse altogether!) which is going to be really hard, because my Holydin became my main for TBC sooo that's 5 years I've been playing this way daily!

At the same time it's a little disheartening to know I've got so much to do and change, but I'm just going to think of it as when I change to my PvP Specc I'm playing an entirely different game to when I'm in my PvE Specc. Going to get started with it first thing tomorrow.

Some stupid questions, as I'm not entirely sure where to start but:
At the moment I'm controlling the game like this:
Left hand on keyboard, fingers ready on the Arrowkeys (My movement) with my pinky finger reaching to press Ctrl/Alt/Shift for my different Clique Clicks.
Right hand is on mouse, obviously. As said, using my mouse to target, Clique to cast my different spells and the numbers from 1-12 to cover my main actionbar (Using a Razer Naga).

I'm guessing I've got to start using my Mouse to move instead, and all manner of different keys on my keyboard to cover all the different abilities and targets they could be cast on?

EDIT: For trinkets I've got some PvE options if you think they'd be better than the PvP ones I'm using?
Seal of the Seven Signs
Jaws of Defeat (Heroic)
Heart of Unliving

I'm guessing I've got to start using my Mouse to move instead, and all manner of different keys on my keyboard to cover all the different abilities and targets they could be cast on?[/quote]

24/04/2012 07:36Posted by Mimim

At the same time it's a little disheartening to know I've got so much to do and change, but I'm just going to think of it as when I change to my PvP Specc I'm playing an entirely different game to when I'm in my PvE Specc. Going to get started with it first thing tomorrow.

Yeah I know but there's no shortcuts ^_^

And about your spec, I don't actually know wich one is your PvP & PvE spec but I did give a few comments on the more usal specs for PvP in the guide I wrote.

24/04/2012 07:36Posted by Mimim

Alright, that's a ton of time and effort you've put into helping me there! Really appreciate it. It's clear to me if I want any real chance at getting anywhere in arena, I've got to wipe the slate clean and completely re-learn from the beginning (New UI, learning how macros work and how to understand them, how I'm using my hands, keyboard and mouse altogether!)

Yes a fresh start would probaly be the best.

For keybinds you shoulden't ever use keyturning. For example I use WASD to Move and have Q and E bound for other spells.

You should just use A & D for strafe as it's alot quicker to get around corners and if you ever get used to /target NAME macros you'll be atleast 5 times quicker at evrything you're doing right now.

Start off with the new addons I told you about and try and get used to /target and strafe keybinds first, after you feel comfortable with those you should consider a new playstyle(i.e, using LoS more to your advantage ;p).

Some stupid questions, as I'm not entirely sure where to start but:
At the moment I'm controlling the game like this:
Left hand on keyboard, fingers ready on the Arrowkeys (My movement) with my pinky finger reaching to press Ctrl/Alt/Shift for my different Clique Clicks.
Right hand is on mouse, obviously. As said, using my mouse to target, Clique to cast my different spells and the numbers from 1-12 to cover my main actionbar (Using a Razer Naga).

It's fine as long as you don't keyboard turn or click spells, it's alot slower then actually binding them.

Go with whatever feels good for you, if you're happy using the Naga for most of the keybinds go ahead, more power to you I told you earlier what I use for turning and how I play.

I think the best thing to do is start leveling a new Paladin just to try out new keybinds and then you could import it to your main character, I did level a 2nd Paladin just for the purpose of trying out new things that could help me get better but I just coulden't play like it on my main character. It does help alot just starting from scratch and go for it.

As long as you have a UI that works for you, keybinds that work for you go for it.

A Mega-Thanks once again! I've completely changed everything, my UI layout, scale, addons. All my abilities are now bound either to letters or numbers around my WSAD keys, the abilities that need it (Hammer of Justice, Blessing of Might, etc) are all macro'd. Using my scroll for targetting.

It's almost mind-blowingly complicated for me to get to grips with at the moment, and my 2v2 partner isn't being very patient with me, but I can see how much quicker I'll be to react once I've mastered this. I'll post again once I'm ontop of things and zooming up on rating ;D