Quote Originally Posted by 'bugilt',index.php?page=Thread&postID=91262#post91 262
I went into the arenas for the first time yesterday and got my asses handed to me a few times. I didn't expect to win anything with the current gear I have on (4pc s2 and random 60-70 blues and greens.). My friend was playing his pally as my healer, also not very well geared atm. The AOE teams crushed us the first few games, but after getting down to 1420 we started getting teams that get softened fast. My healer friend was getting upset even after telling him we are only doing this for practice and I don't expect to win much. I was planning on playing 50+ games over the weekend, but I need a understanding healer to sink with my ship atm.

What else should I be working toward as I collect my honor gear?
As you collect your gear...make sure you get exalted with the factions for +dmg gryphs/inscriptions. Save up those shards from farming your Totem of the Void...all those Large Prismatics add up to some serious Gold.

Skill wise I've really been working hard to work the clone turn into my playbook. In the bg's its really hard at the moment since most people die before ever reaching my shaman. Another nice skill while Bg'ing is when confronting a group, just like you would in arena, practice burning the most dangerous target first. Identifying and executing kill order needs to be second nature to do well in high end arena. Totem management is another big one, practice keeping your Grounding totems and Tremor totems up. It sounds silly, but against the really good teams, they'll go after these immediately realizing that immunity to polymorph, silence, fear, instant nukes is really where our power comes from. How do you beat a team that can nuke but you can't?

I try to play with as many healers as possible. Playing with different healers has allowed me to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the healers, myself, and our opposition. Experience doesnt get any better than that. I try to never enter a bg without a healer in the group and on vent. Killing people while communicating is what 5v5 is all about, and you can get that experience in the BGs. Most of the time they just laugh and say how watching Chain Lightning kill people never gets old. BGs aren't any real comparison to arena, but they do allow you to work the basics.

Speaking of Chain Lightning, my new Joy in arena is blowing the Nuke on scrub teams and killing two targets at once. Its never worth any points but its funny as hell! lawl