Hello.
I have noticed that some arena matches end up as 1v1 encounters between a ranged class and a melee class. Naturally, the melee class wants to stay as close to obstacles such as pillars as possible, while the ranged class wants to remain as much in the open as possible for room to maneuver and kite the melee class.
Unfortunately, this often degenerates to a waiting game. For example, if I am playing on my hunter and my opponent is a blood death knight, the death knight will remain behind a pillar indefinitely and occasionally poke out in order to try to do a death grip or outbreak. Meanwhile I would be foolish to send my pet to fight him, which would only serve to heal the death knight, and it would be even more foolish to walk over to where he is behind the pillar.
I understand the need for a way to break line-of-sight for melee classes or ranged classes would have an unfair advantage. It even goes for ranged vs ranged sometimes. Line-of-sight is a useful aspect of the pvp experience and I am not suggesting that pillars and other obstacles are removed.
However, I do recommend including some sort of raid-style mechanics into arenas so that such waiting games don’t occur. An example of this might be the Dalaran sewer arena, where every once in a while the center of the arena gets a temporary waterfall of sorts that breaks everyone’s line of sight.
I suggest more intense mechanics that would get people moving instead of just sitting behind pillars all game. The same applies to ranged classes though who would sit in the open all game instead of trying to chase the player hugging the pillars. Some sort of raid mechanic where meteors fall randomly, or the pillars eject thorns that damage players once in a while, or the ground opens in the open and plague bile erupts, forcing the ranged player to move. Etc…
I hope that both ranged players and melee players can agree that the current arena setup leaves a lot to be desired.
Thank you for reading.