Some annoying statistics

[magwo]

Tuesday (day before reset): 8 straight wins, no losses.
Wednesday (significant gear upgrade): [s]6[/s] 8 straight losses, no wins.

[magwo]

Basically, it feels like fighting at 200-300 higher rating when you're not playing on the day before reset.

[Tizer]

hehe, sounds like you are suffering like me. My mouse ended up flying out the window last night I didnt know at the time but i played 1987 rating team, mage, warrior and 3 healers. I took out the mage at the start, instantly, they must have been shocked. I camped the corpse while they tried to get several sneeky res's off. In the end they sent the warrior on, he was very well geared and took down my healer and then my toons. There was no way i could kill his healers, every time i landed a volley of LBs they would LoS me and leave the others to take over. I should have had that game in the bag. Now i need a new mouse. :x

[Dominian]

The last day queues always gets longer and the risk for the arena going down is alot higher that day. Most seriouse teams have learned to take theyr matches earlier in the weeks.

[Tizer]

and its the most serious teams that we have to play if we are going to get any better, so i play every night, some nights i expect to get twatted, others i expect to scrape back my points

[merujo]

Basically, it feels like fighting at 200-300 higher rating when you're not playing on the day before reset.

casual teams normally play sundays or tuesday night. active teams play all days.
Everyone is suffering because its a start of a season, all we need is to be paired with even rated teams. And even when u do, they most of the times outgear u. It's a pain but u gotta learn somehow.

[Millz]

Yup, if your just after climbing the ratings play on a tuesday or sunday.

The games are very hard any other day... which is when i tend to play... i like the challenge - (on my warlock, not multiboxing.... :P)

[magwo]

Yes. I need to calm myself down and realize that mid-week rating means nothing. I can easily pimp it up when tuesday comes.. so I should just focus on practicing and learning to play the other days.

[Biz]

wed/thu teams always seem much harder on Ruin. Sunday seems easiest for me as well.

[Elektric]

Somedays teams are going to have your number.

It could be gear, rating, you, your healer, bad connection, too many distractions.

If you are playing for rating, I am currently making a run for the S3 shoulders (1891 on Tuesday night, 2 losses last night 1828), don't learn against teams that just spank you match after match. The team that beat me last night took 49 pts. Where they better then my team, I consider them lucky those two matches. A beatifully timed Pally Bubble Arcane Torrent combined with the teams burst damage nukes while pillar humping was the end of me while they chain cycloned my healer. Its definitely a beatable team by Im not going to give 25pts away at a time to learn.

But here are the rules I play by while chasing rating:

• A stop is defined by at least a 3 hour break. This allows you to queue dodge a team, 5 people on for more than 3 hours doing arena is rare (but it does happen). Grind some honor and get your rythm and confidence back.
• If you take a hard loss (they obliterate you and you feel helpless) stop.
• If you lose because of missed nuke/DC/wrong kill talk out your new plan imagine the win, requeue.
• If you lose to any team two times in a row its a wrap, stop.
• If your playing for rating and keep trading wins but are losing more than 5pts per trade, stop (ie. they win they get 20pts, you win you get 10).

Arena is just as much about controlling who you play as executing your strat perfectly. The system is currently set up so that you can get a 2k rated team without ever playing a 2k rated team. I play teams frequently that I take 25 pts from and when they don't que again I understand why they have the rating. People have posted on the forums that with their Eurocomp team its impossible to beat me. This is a full S3 team. I am beatable and they have beat me, but one night I had their number and they queued, game after game after game. And then they complain about their rating. Not playing when your losing is about patience. With a quadbox you need an extraordinary amount in any bracket where they hide for 5 mins behind a pillar before attacking you. Taking break while chasing rating is smart. But also realize that while you're chasing rating you wont learn as much. Going for rating means less games with 3 hour breaks all over the place.

Its early in the season, and unless you think you need to push for a certain raiting to buy a piece of gear, play your heart out. Every loss has a lesson to be learned. Sometimes I have to lose 5 or 6 times to the same team before I can figure out what Im doing wrong or admit they've got my number with their gear and strat. My 2 cents good luck!