S4 Launch, when to start playing arena?

[Boylston]

My question is somewhat of the opposite of Ellay's poll about ending S3...

Should I begin playing arenas immediately after the S4 launch or wait a few days and let the dust settle?

Since everyone will be reset to 1500, does it make more sense to let the truly amazing teams pump their rating up (and avoid a lot of losses to people I can't beat) before trying to gain rating? Conversely, will there be a lot of terribly bad players who are throwing themselves into the queues in order to try to get the 1550-1600 rating-required items... people that **I** can be farming?

Thoughts? Anyone have any experience with the S2-S3 launch timeframe?

[Boylston]

I think I will. My hope is that the number of totally incompetent people hoping to get 1550-1600 rating far outnumbers the "wolves in sheep's clothing" (i.e. the 2200 point Ellays out there who just got reset to 1500).

[cepheus]

I think that in the first few weeks of season 4 it will be very hard just to maintain 1500 rating.

Think about it for a second. Every 2k+ rated team will have their rating back to 1500. Some may think this just means that they boost right up to 2k again? I think not. A lot of good team will also meet each other, resulting in very good team actually will go below 1500

Arena will be very hard until some teams way below 1500 have been dispanded and restarted at 1500, and then pushing the average rating higher.

[Lyonheart]

Based on how the start of S3 went, its really the luck of the draw. I met as many suck ass teams on my hunter as full S3 teams. We got to 1600 the first week and my hunters max rating was 1800. I was average 1700. So its just random who you get matched up with. Also there is a "gear" check I thought ? So you should be able to keep 1500+ if you were 1600+ before.

I only did two weeks of 10 games with my noob shaman. I have no healer.. i was losing every game until i repsec my paly holy and made 4 hotkeys that have him heal a dif shamy, and when he hits that hotkey the shaman have the casting macro there as well( using G15 keys for this ).. so no matter which shaman hes healing they are all DPSing. Its a short term fix, until I find a healer who will grind it out with me and learn with me. Anyways i was 0-8 before i did that and won the last two with the new heal macros hehe. I would have played more..but i was grinding EotS tokens and it was late 8P

[Evol]

Theoretically, if you're better than average, it should be to your benefit to queue early since there should be more people worse than you as opposed to better. But then again, the people that are really good are more motivated to play early and often, since they'll be trying to get 2050 for weapons asap.

I started queuing day 1 of Season 3, and on my battlegroup, I don't think anyone was over 1700 after the first day. It could be that the hardcore people just kept playing through the night and their armory didn't update though. I think our 5v5 (which was rated 1950 at the end of season 2) went something like 10-10 on the first day and we ended up like 1510. Luck of the draw.

I'll probably wait until Thursday to queue, but that's more due to the fact that I'll have so much new gear to gem and enchant that I'll probably be busy all Tuesday with that, and all my teammates raid on Wednesdays.

[JoeWunsch]

Personally I am going to make a push the initial night, and if I get 2 or 3 wins in a row, go buy the legs at 1550 required real fast.

I am wearing S1 though, and I just started getting arena points 4 weeks ago, so I can still farm the lower brackets for S3 for a while and be getting amazing upgrades from that.

[Kayley]

The battlegroup I'm on it has taken at least 2 weeks for the 1500s+ to sort itself out, roughly 2 months for the 2k+ rating to sort out. (previous seasons)

[Majo]

Many people have said that in 5v5's it's the strange, unconventional setups that mess you up, and those are usually lower rated teams. So with that in mind, I'd say queueing up early has the advantage of giving you a better chance of fighting the setups you're more ideal against.

[Havelcek]

Regardless of your rating I'm not sure it makes sense to sit out and forgo the point accumulation.

[yarr]

Regardless of your rating I'm not sure it makes sense to sit out and forgo the point accumulation.

i think he means wondering whether to start doing games immediately or wait till this weekend (since the points accumulate on a weekly basis, there is no points lost)


IMO the worst that could happen is you lose a bunch, tank your rating, and have to chartar a new team. No big deal. Jump in if you want to, if you arent happy with the results, wait till this weekend and start a new one.

If anything your efforts will contribute to the "equalization" of the new season.

[Kicksome]

I played tonight - it wasn't easy. We had several 2K rated teams that we played - but we also had some horrible teams. That being said - we managed to get a 1600 (after 26 games) rating so we could get our s4 chest at least. Now we need 1650 for the rings then 1700 for the helm!

[Boylston]

Bad idea in my BG tonight. 80% of the teams we faced were 1900+ in S3. We got a very small number of bad teams, which we handily killed, but our fresh 1500 rating plummeted to the low 1400s.

I'm still glad we played, it's a good preview of the opponents we'll be matched up against later in the season (hopefully).

[Evol]

Total luck of the draw last night on US Cyclone. Started out the night on my multi-boxing team and went 4-0 before stopping to buy pants. The teams we faced were fairly terrible in gear, composition, and play. I finally got my 4-piece bonus, so I'm excited to try again this week.

Then I switched to my well-geared solo players for 5v5, 3v3 and 2v2 action. Only managed to get to 1550 on one other character (warlock) after stringing some 3v3 wins together. My priest, which is by far my best character, couldn't break 1550 in over 2 hours of trying. Our 5v5 kept alternating between terrible teams and 2k+ triple melee teams (which gave us a 1900ish ceiling last season because we always lose against that make-up). I think we hit 1549 or 1548 like 3 times and eventually had to just call it a night.

[entoptic]

I took my 2 toons and hooked up with a geared out hunter for some trial and error.

It was all ERROR last night. We got rick rolled by everyone. All people were s3 geared out and we pretty much had no chance in hell at winning. My bum hurts.. it was that bad...

[Stabface]

Pretty tough yesterday for me as well, played on my alt and went 4-6 with S2/S3 rogue/druid 2v2 that hit ~1650 last season. Haven't tried any 5-boxing yet, will likely do something super late or super early this weekend to try and catch scrub teams and not go 0-10.

[yarr]

as mentioned above, hopefully after 2 or so weeks, it will be somewhat equalized so that most of the 2k+ teams are at least 1800. Hopefully.

[Bluepants]

Im actually glad i got to meet some good teams yesterday.
I feel the only reason we couldnt push it higher in S3 was because we couldnt meet enough high-rated teams.
We met the odd 2warlock-priest-rogue-druid team.... Win 3 the first time, and then get stomped for 25 points.

This season, we actually beat some S3 top 15 teams into the ground, leaving them 1 win(not us) and 4 losses (all us)
The 1 time we met a really good team in S3, we met the nr 3 team, an amazing T6 hunter made my life hell, but we managed to get 2killed, but the hunter could probably solo us...
Lost 0 points 3 times, almost getting them everytime ;)

Whether you start now, or you start later, your rating will climb eventually.. I just feel like getting a good start and the goal is to stay within the top 50 all season.
Need 1700 rating for my head, S2 shoulders need 17 more AB marks (HATE AB!)
But with the shoulders and head, ill be 1merc 2venge 2 brutal :thumbsup: now i dont even have the 4 set bonus.

I feel like this will be a great multiboxing season!

[Kicksome]

after 40 some games we still couldn't break 1650 - left it at 1625 on the 4x shaman 5v5 team. Really frustrating - but great experience. Highest team we played in over 40 games was 1701.