I would have to say first that every system in the world can be exploited. ie. I'll just let my rating tank then form a new team at 1500. So ill be playing team in the 1300 bracket and getting points at 1500.

I take arena much like I did school. Its fun when your doing well and quite upsetting when you're not. But realize in the end you are there to learn. Playing with the best, studying with the best, will only make you the best. Dont hang around with teams you can beat all day long, play teams that beat you over and over. Nothing pisses me off more than hearing "They out gear us, thats why we lost." This is a cop out.

I am in no way dismissing the importance of gear in this game. But with S2 epics for anyone willing to grind honor its only a real issue at the high end. When people say its a gear issue 9 times out of 10 someone made a mistake and a team with gear and strat capatilized on the error. Ellay really needs to fraps what happens when he misses a nuke, or messes up the kill order. I might be going out on a limb here, but I imagine those things are really important because he mentioned them in the training video and I'm playing at a new level since attempting to master them.

Back to my school analogy. Remember unless you're in full S3 or S4 you're in the arena to learn. Dont expect to go in play 50 games and learn everything. Take your time and enjoy the losses. Every loss points out a weakness. This provides an opportunity for you to become better. And let me point out again, your losses probably have 20% to do with gear and 80% do to a flawed strat or execution.

I think most of what I posted was off topic to your original post but it comes from my attitude that the 4 Quadbox shaman healer team is unbeatable. That means I should be anyone and the only thing messed up is that Im not number 1 yet. Ellay makes me feel like a slacker :P

The rating system is flawed, and I'm a perfectionist, loses are unnacceptable to me and I have to rationalize them as learning experiences, lol