I want to try Arena, but I am honestly scared

PVP Arenas
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Considering how important high rated arena is for PvP gearing in Shadowlands, I’ve given thought to trying Arena again when that expansion hits. It’s always something I’ve struggled with, and 1750 in 2v2 was the highest I ever got back in the day, but I am thinking about it again.

As the title says though, I am scared.

-Scared I won’t be able to grow and learn, and only get paired with toxic ragers after losing a few times.
-Scared I don’t have the coordination and lightning reflexes it takes, especially as a mage that requires perfectly timed CCs in conjunction with your teammates CCs and whatnot to win.
-Scared because, if skirmish weeklies are any indication, it would take hours just to eke out a single win, and get nothing at all for that time.
-Scared of the inevitable chest pains and anxiety I used to get from arena in the past.

But despite that, I do kind of wish I could try. I don’t know. Arenas have always been a hard subject for me. Anyone here possibly willing to offer some words of encouragement?

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completely dependent on your determination

you’ll always be able to grow and learn as long as you’re able to take losses on the chin and keep playing

this is an unfortunate reality for most players but if you just ignore miserable players you WILL eventually find people you DO like to play with and that you can lose with and still have fun / understand why you lost

just remember, hardly anyone you q with out of lfg at low rating has any genuine idea why you lost the game so when they lash out just write them off and don’t take it personally/to heart

don’t think so hard about it

as intimidating as it might be from the outside, nothing in this game really requires natural talent or reaction speed
almost everything is muscle memory and game knowledge based

the more you play the better you get
and the more you invest in learning the faster you’ll get better

using mage as an example
you can get well over gladiator range fishing for random sheeps and having a rogue kidney when you finally get them and win more games than you lose once you’re comfortable

or with a sub rogue when kidney double cheap comes out you just sheep off

most everything is way more scripted than improvised and you learn that script just playing the game a LOT

if you just put in the games and push yourself out of your comfort zone you 100% can improve and feel significantly more comfortable : )

also avoid skirms for the most part
gear and comp are both important
nothing is more demoralizing for new players than getting dominated in skirms because their lack of gear/partners gear/comp and group experience paired up against teams with all of those things since there’s no mmr

just make LFGs “Learning spamming games no toxic”
turn off party if you want and just spam q
watch streams of players who play your class to learn how they handle different match ups to speed up your game knowledge intake also

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I 100% go through the same thing a ton and still do whenever I q, but I get pretty anxious very easy so aygottem lol.

Despite that though, the only way to get better is to keep qing and try to improve every game .

If youre playing mage and plan on playing rogue mage, we can play some games in a 0 stress environment, I’d be down to q some games with you on my rogue whenever I’m free: Sync25#1739

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If you’re having actual physical symptoms then it definitely sounds like performance anxiety. Maybe look into some self help books or articles on that and see if you can find anything useful.

Arena is stressful to learn, but chest pains shouldn’t be part of the deal. Unless you’re just talking increased heart rate/adrenaline which is natural.

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I greatly appreciate the responses everyone. Thank you.

I think it’s just more about the people. Weirdly enough I have the best time with solo content like the mage tower in Legion and the horrific visions in BfA. Because there’s no one there to tell me no I can’t play, there’s no one to call me names or tell me I’m bad, and no one to judge while I learn. In those areas I’m totally capable of taking my punches, learning, and slowly conquering it. That all changes with actual people around though. You get laughed at, called names, and kicked/rejected, possibly preventing you from ever getting to play it again. Though to be fair that’s not just an arena thing either with me, I have the same issues with M+ and raiding.

It does appear intimidating. I’ve seen videos of high level RMP and their coordination is out of this world. I’m just not sure I can match up to that sort of sync with a teammate. Probably why I run solo pretty much all the time and why I’m scared of group content. Tunneling and me seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly.

True. I only attempted them when it was that weekly quest, and I’ve stopped even that because it’s a horrible experience each time, hehe.

I’m not really sure, rogue/mage/priest is the only real setup I’m familiar with. I’d love to give it a try though. Will add you when my computer is fixed.

Hehe, they typically happen when it’s a really close nail-biting match, usually when it boils down to a 10% health 1v1, and I’m trying like hell to win. I have genuinely gotten chest pains from that.

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News 4 u kid if u scared to do battle den u ain’t got the heart

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i used to be a lot like you, id get crazy anxiety before and during every game. i already had an anxiety disorder so i was anxious basically every second of a game. it was pure misery

the key is to transition into genuinely not caring whether you win or lose. i know that sounds a lot easier said then done, but it really is that simple. most anxiety is caused by an insecurity; for example, like you already touched on, the reason youre nervous during a game is because youre afraid of messing up or people calling you bad/being toxic. if you were more confident in yourself or just didnt really care what people thought of you the anxiety and nervousness would disappear

the way of thinking i started adopting that helped me a lot was this: even tournament level players, literally the best players in the entire world call other tournament level players bad. so even if you become an r1 level player, literally the highest you can go in arena some people will still call you a bad player. so if people playing at 3k cr call each other bad, why would you care what some random idiot in the 1700 bracket thinks? even if you do make a mistake and they start turning toxic understand that they also make tons of mistakes themselves or they wouldnt be playing at that rating

once i really adopted that perspective my arena anxiety went away completely. games became a lot more relaxing because i realized just how much there is for me to learn and theres just no reason to care what others think because even if you get to the top they’ll still think that way. once you start taking games less seriously and simply focus on getting better, your anxiety will decrease significantly

tl;dr dont take arena so seriously. if somebody calls or says youre bad just shrug it off, even the best players in the world were called bad at some point and now theyre playing in tournaments. being “bad” isnt permanent, you can become good at the game no matter how bad you were initially, it just takes playing thousands of games and understanding how arena works. theres no reason to put pressure on yourself when you have so much to learn. understand that youre not going to be a good player anytime soon, just focus on realizing your mistakes and correcting them. watch gameplay of the best players, see what theyre doing and try to emulate that

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Hey OP< you’re not alone, I felt exactly like you.

This may not be the advice you’re looking for, but what I did is: gave up on arena entirely unless I’m with trusted friends and guildmates. Life is too short to expose yourself to the toxic people you find in random groupings. There was a time when we’d collectively shun people who act the way people often act in-game. Just because they have access to a keyboard doesn’t make the terrible garbage they think any more valid. This goes for every aspect of the game, and the internet in general. Make no sacrifices when it comes to your own well-being.

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It’s not an athletic sport. You may never get a 5:00 mile, no matter how much you try, but playing video games is nothing like that.

The only thing stopping you from r1 is time, experience, knowledge, and willingness to improve. The best players have literally 10s of thousands of arena games as experience. So just play, have fun, and keep an open mind.

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Hello I’m about to shower but I’d love to discuss this further

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Playing with people that talk trash can get me irate but it rarely does because I accepted that I’ll come across people like that. It’s just a reality in online games lol. This attitude can help you get over it.

This is a game. It’s suppose to be fun but you’re stressing out. There will be bad experiences with some players but there will be good ones too. I’ve played with people that kicked me from groups and /whisper trash talk and I’ve played with a streamer that was yelling trash at me DURING the game. Some people can be very toxic. They probably have issues outside and are just taking it out on people in a game. It can be really upsetting initially but don’t be bothered by it and let it go. It’s just a game. I’ve added people from LFG to friends list that are great to play with!

To improve in arenas; just practice. Keep queueing. You gotta play game after game to get better. It’s only game, why you heff to be scared? As long as you’re actively thinking what you could do better after each game you will improve.

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I’ve joined maybe 30 yolo 2s groups this prepatch and have yet to encounter a single toxic person.

Don’t overthink it and make it a simple goal to just play x amount of games each week/season.

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Hellhound put together a comunity to help new players, feel free to join: https://blizzard.com/invite/yZP4gknFDNp

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Arena really isn’t about reflexes that much because there are gcd’s and usually it’s more about positioning and trading cooldowns and knowing when to play offensive and defensive. As far as ragers etc, you’ll always get them at any rating it is what it is. Just lfg until you find someone chill who wants to grind and q up! Also having a understanding what all the classes abilities do does help.

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I am also in the same boat about being nervous to arena. Not so much about playing with toxic players, because I play with IRL friends, but really the belief that I am too old to play the class I enjoy (mage). Have always been intimidated, even made a post on these forums about it. Was pleasantly surprised how encouraging everyone has been.

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Most people here are pretty nice unless you’re really obnoxious or arrogant.
In-game’s hit or miss.

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I also wanted to add another more thoughtful reply (was pretty exhausted when I replied yesterday) and:

Everyone learns at their own pace, and there’ll always be a point where you’ll get stuck at one specifiic point for a while. At that point, you need to identify what’s going wrong and keep practicing to become more aware.

For example, I often misuse shadowstep and am unable to reset in a 2s or 3s match where I need to and end up dying or being forced to use CDs where I otherwise wouldn’t have to.

Thats when you cut ties and leave that group asap.

Like everyone above said, everything is scripted; rm and rmp in general is a big if else statement. There are a lot of things to watch out for and anticipate. The only thing in mind is looking for a swap on an rdruid out of form for a swap. Otherwise, swaps will be mostly looking for cds on target, and that mostly is anticipation and watching omnibar.

Practice and synergy with your partner.

You’re qing with a random person(s) into two (or three) random or premade. 50% of the time its a slugfest with people that’ll break your blind sap poly, and you’ll be forced to brute force dps race a win. Skirmishes aren’t representative of 2s and 3s.

And in case this is for your main comp on a loss streak; its fine, someone will always win and lose. You’ll just have to figure out why the loss happened, and learn from it.

I’m pretty bad with anxiety, so I get you. You just have to find people that you are comfortable with, and try to not get offended on losses, griefing/toxicity, etc.

You either do or don’t! Don’t be ambivalent on wanting to try something you’re interested in! It’ll only make it easier to recede if progress or resistance does not go your way.

Be a belieber. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

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I’m that guy that tends to accidently break a person’s sap, sadly.

It’s times like that that make me wonder if I deserve to be playing around other people. Just gotten so much crap from others over the years of playing WoW that group content is a depressing endeavor. But that doesn’t just apply to arena either, I face similar struggles with M+.

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Well, one step at a time!

First you’ll have to figure out what broke sap. Were they stacking on sap and you orbd? Living bomb/ignite conflag/etc? Or did you hit the wrong target, or did you not know who the kill target was because the rogue wasnt communicating?

These are all correctable things, and you can take your time and learn with.

Just gotta be positive mang. Especially if you’re still learning and on the cusp on pushing to rival. Definitely do not be toxic and negative towards yourself; it’s a lot harder to push out of those kinda thoughts.

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I’d say all of the above. I tend to just try to pick a target and do my best to kill them. Sometimes a sap or other CC will be in the way of my frostbolt or whatnot and it breaks.

I’ve never actually done an arena as a mage though. The last time I did arena was in Warlords as a DK. I just haven’t been able to bring myself to try it as a mage yet, aside from skirmish weeklies.

I try to, and for the most part I can, with solo content. I’ve learned and persevered when it came to things like 5 mask visions, warlock green fire in MoP, and mage towers in Legion. It’s when other people get involved that I struggle. They’re the ones putting me down, judging me and whatnot.