The health benefits of PvP

Last night, my guild and I had our first run in with the newest boss of the Coliseum, the "Faction Champions", and I can say with absolute certainty I've never been facerolled so bad by a boss encounter. The reason this encounter is so difficult is because it's not a raid boss. No, this fight is a raid boss level arena team, and yes, they are Gladiators (except the mage, he's just a Duelist). If you don't know the fight, imagine Priestess Delrissa from Magisters' Terrace (and if you don't know THAT fight, go now, it's one of the most entertaining 5 man bosses in the game), except double the number, make them boss level, and give them every serious PvP ability that players have. Early reports from the PTR claimed this encounter to be a cakewalk. Blizzard must have taken that to heart, because it is quite difficult, or at least it is for the guild that doesn't PvP...

My guild does not have a noteworthy arena presence. We have no Gladiators, and the Furious gear we have was a gift from Emalon. Sure, we have some BattleGround enthusiasts, but BG's don't really give you that true Player versus Player experience. BG's tend to be more Players on Player. There is little to no communication, and what communication there is exists on a strategic, not tactical, level. The PvP that means something is the Arena game, because it takes some serious skill and coordination (or a Flavor of the Month team) to be successful.

Arenas should be a mandatory part of being a raider. If you want to raid end game, guilds should require that you participate in Arena matches. Yeah, I know not everyone likes to PvP and aren't totally in to that whole side of the game, but how many of you actually enjoy wiping on a boss during the "learning phase"? I'm not suggesting that one attain an arena title to raid, far from it. That takes some solid dedication (at times on the scale of raiding). What I'm suggesting is that PvP will teach a player more about their class, more about other classes, help them develop faster reflexes, train them to watch for cast bars and buff animations, and increase situational awareness.

To PvP in an Arena match is to survive. The name of the game is survival. Survivability can be increased in three ways. You can gear for it with stamina and resilience, you can use your own abilities and talents to increase it, and/or you can use your team members' abilities and talents. When you gear for PvP, you generally have to sacrifice other stats. Higher stam values plus added resilience take up more of the item budget, leaving less room for intellect, strength, hit, etc. So as you gear for PvP, you have to strike a balance between defensive and offensive oriented stats. This balancing act can apply directly back to PvE, and is the most direct connection raiders will have to PvP. The goal is to cram the best performance for what you need into the gear you have. If you are a warrior, for example, you may not be the first target on the opposing team's kill order, so you can sacrifice some defensive stats for more Crit or more Attack Power. On the other end, as a healer, you will likely be a focus target. You may need to stack on more stamina and resilience to increase your time alive. What you are doing in these situations is evaluating yourself in the situations you see most often. You are increasing your encounter analysis. Jump over to raiding now. Imagine you have a fight that is going to be long. Your goal will be to last the entire fight, and output per second is less important. As a healer, you will be able to recognize that for this encounter, gear with mana regeneration will benefit more than higher amounts of spellpower. If you look instead at a shorter fight or a fight with low time on target, you will know from your Arena matches how to best combine cooldowns and abilities to maximize burst damage, just like you would while finishing off an opponent with low hit points.

Using your own abilities to stay alive in an Arena match teaches you more about your class, with the added benefit of encouraging proper key bindings. You have to be well aware of the utilities at your disposal and know exactly where they are in a pinch to save yourself in a match. Where are your interrupts? Are they bound to a key that you can hit easily? What about a backup ability if the interrupt fails? What forms of Crowd Control do you posess? In an Arena match, it is very important that you know what abilities you have and how to best use them. This requires a lot of attention to little things. For example, if you are prepared to interrupt a target, watch the cast bar not only for a cast, but for which ability is being cast. If a mage is winding up a fireball, it may be beneficial to not interrupt it, especially if the opposing team is running a CC train on your healer. Save your interrupt for the Polymorph that he has on standby as his next cast.

Have you noticed something big in that last example? A big IF, perhaps? If you are going to save an interrupt for a CC cast instead of a DPS cast, you have to have been watching and taking note of the degree to which the opposing team is utilizing CC. You have to pay attention to how they play, much the same way you have to pay attention to the tanking style of the tank in front of you. If the tank is using slower threat AoE abilities, you can't wind up to full power on the first target. Conversely, if the tank is using snap aggro and high threat abilities while tab-targetting through the mobs, you can't let loose a wile AoE ability. This player awareness is an extentsion of situational awareness, and Arena matches will keep you on your toes with tests of your situational awareness. If a player leaves your screen view, you need to keep tabs on where they are. You need to know where your team members are and what they are focusing on, be it putting pressure on the healer or kiting melee away from you. It follows suit in PvE encounters, too. You need to know where your offtank is, especially if you need to avoid a mob that cleaves or in case you pull aggro and need to run to your tank (btw, always ALWAYS run TO the tank). You need to be vigilant of the abilities that other classes/mobs have and know what to look for to avoid, which brings me neatly to my next point...

As a player, one of the best things you can do for yourself is to learn other classes. You need to know what your enemy has in store for you, and you need to know fast. You can't properly counter an enemy if you aren't sure what they will use against you, just like you can't defeat a raid boss unless you know where not to stand. Most abilities that can be countered will have some visual aid to clue you in to their presence. A Warrior's Bladestorm is quite obvious. A whirling ballerina of death, it's hard to miss, and just by looking at the talent tree you will know that this Warrior is Deep Arms. However you don't have to wait for Bladestorm to KNOW that this is an Arms Warrior. Assuming he's not a terribad, if you see a Warrior in a match, check out his weapon. If you see only one weapon, you are looking at an Arms Warrior (dual wielding two handed weapons screams Fury). Arms Warriors utilize a single two handed weapon to get their point across. Again you can check out talent trees to understand that Arms prefers one two handed weapon, or you could ask someone familiar with the class how you can easily identify them. If you are facing a team with fears, do you know if you healer can dispel magic? If not, you need to know that you will have to utilize your trinket to break that fear. In PvE, you have to know your fellow party members. How does your tank generate threat? If it's a Frost Death Knight, they may wait to spread a disease around before dropping a massive Howling Blast to make sure the mobs are glued to them.

It extends beyond just know WHAT a player/mob can do, though. It's important to understand WHY and HOW. Let's go back to the Arms Warrior. Okay, you can recognize Bladestorm, and you know it hurts. Do you know, however, that while Bladestorm is active, that Warrior is immune to CC? Yeah, the Mage NPC on the Hodir fight drops a nice fire that keeps you from having to jump around like an idiot, but do you know that spells cast while near the fire have a chance (and a damn good one) of hitting for additional damage and applying a stacking spell damage increase debuff on Hodir? Knowing the little things, the ins and outs of an ability, will keep you from wasting a GCD on a fear or popping your trinkets at the wrong time.

A lot of this may seem like common sense to the average player, but it's stuff that really isn't emphasized in a PvE setting. You stand, deliver, and stay out of the fire. The broad knowledge is certainly required in PvP. Proper bindings, situational awareness, class knowledge, quick reflexes; they mean the difference between a win and a loss, and not just in PvP. A good PvP player can react fast, either to a player spell or with a quick Battle Rez. They know where their enemy is, even if they aren't always looking. Browse through the top end guilds, check their arena team ratings. It's no coincidence that top raid guilds have top Arena players, and it's not because they spend too much time playing WoW (okay, not entirely because of that). No, it is because PvP and PvE are not too dissimilar. They both require solid play; active, quick thinking; and are both about the end goal of scoring that win, be it against 2/3/5 other players, or one giant, incredibly pissed off dragon.