I had just spent the past two weeks playing with various healers as my priest and pally had transfered servers. I finally found a healer, paladin, with the skills and dedication to make a run for it. So two weeks ago I came up with this brilliant idea to reroll. I wanted to give the Paladin his own team with his own record.

We cruised into the 1700 bracket and then ran into the Pole Humping LoS Queers with Rez. On my team I realize that Rez is my biggest weakness. At the very most I can provide pressure and searing totems. Running around the arena and interupting usually spells D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R if both my healer and I aren't perfect. Because these triple Rez teams were so heavy in this bracket we had a horrible record. So many games I had 3 people down and they came back to beat us. Regardless of how embarrasing and frustrating it was, I encouraged my healer that it was just a communication issue and that once we got it under control it would be gg. I must say in these situations having a priest is so much more of an advantage because a good fear with no trinket = death much faster.

So over the weekend I day dreamed about my goal of "Brutal Gladiator" and tried to get as many games as possible in. Unfortunately at any one time I would only get one team. Playing the same team over and over is really a disadvantage, as these teams get to work on their strat and timing until they finally find something that works. And every team over the weekend had the opportunity to show me they could beat me. But despite big losses and my frustration I didn't stop playing. Queue dodging isnt my style and I'm a true believer that the Quadbox played right is unbeatable. So after the weekend was said and done I tanked our rating from 1990 to 1780. On a side note, my lag was bad, I had a couple of -20 point DC losses and combine that with the Champagne breakfasts I had on both days (can you say LUSH?) I wasn't all that surprised.

Monday I was on a mission. I tried to get home early from work, but despite my efforts the shortest day I could pull off was a 10 hour. I got my ducks in a row and played from 6pm to 1:30am. Our week total was something like 200 games. I watched Ellay's videos over and over to bring me back to basics. I played only on my terms and it paid off. We went from 1780 to 2102 with a record of 75-5 Monday Night.

I farmed 2 or 3 of the top 10 teams and ended the season at Position Nubmer 5. ArenaJunkies.com says I need to be in the top 7 for Gladiator but only the top 3 teams in the past have recieved Gladiator for 5v5. Hopefully, all things considered I'll have an armored Netherdrake in my mail box next Tuesday.

The keys to my success:
- Setting and Damaging a "Focus Target" while targetting someone else (you would be surpised how long people stay in the open if you dont target them)
- Learning to Coordinate the Heals on teams with MS (Hunter or Warrior) and Spell Damage (My healer would yell BoP and I'd heal through the burst damage)
- Coordinating Rez Interrupts (Against the best teams one mistake and they'll have everyone up).
- Using the nuke and not waiting for the server to show the damage before hitting Earth Shock. Once I realized that me waiting for the server to show me the NUKE was launched before hitting Earth Shock was allowing people to react...I stopped it and with it came their ability to react
- Regardless of how quickly you can roll through the low levels...the difference between 1700 and +2k is simply Patience, Patience, Patience. (a little execution, gear, and skill come into play too :P)

My thoughts on the patch...
- I think Thunderstorm is OVER-rated (it might have more use in arena but in BGs...I dont think its that great).
- Im almost in full S4 (S3 Shoudlers and Weapon, just got my S4 shield ) and people are hacking right through me, WTF?
- People are hitting so much harder I, I can't see how you can't go 40/0/21 just from the perspective that you need the healing talents to stay alive.
- I love the new focus casting option, opened up 4-5 macros for me.
- Although the achievement system seems a little lame atm, I dont think it'll take me long to become addicted to the BONG! I just achieved blah blah blah.


And lastly, if the netherdrakes are incoming (*fingers crossed*), any ideas on how to make 15k Gold in a week?

/Cheers to a good season and a great community!
-Elektric