So how are you guys doing so far in Arena? I tried to arena the first day the season started, and my rogue partner and I came up against a Pally/DK team and it was just brutal. I didn't even want to attempt arena again until last night.

I got a new arena partner, another rogue, and we gave it a shot again. The results were less than stellar. We went a dismal 1 and 9 and I wanted to throw my laptop through a window.

I'm sure that part of it is my rustiness in Arena, but another part of it could be our game plan. I found that last season, an effective strategy with the rogue i was running with at the time, was to focus fire on the squishiest target, get them down first, then have a little breathing room (to throw a couple hots on myself or my partner), maybe a tranquility, and finish the remaining opponent off. Is anyone using this stategy for the current season? Maybe it's me, or maybe it's my team-mate, but the job just isn't appearing to get done. I think I'm getting focus-fired much more this season than last, and I'm biting the dust pretty quickly.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be very much appreciated.

With the burst dps that classes have right now, the lack of resilience that players have, and DKs having the ability to dispell HoTs, druids are going to have a difficult time initially.

while i'd love to say that it was only the DK's that we were coming up against, it was ALL classes. Warrior and Pally were the biggest headache we ran into last season, and we ran into that combo twice, but it was difficult across the board. Hell, a lock/rogue coombo threw a hurtin on us twice, along with a lock/warrior combo once... in all fairness, *i* screwed up on the lock... i thought i saw him die, so i went to cast tranquility... lock's dots out-dps'd my tranquility :banghead_

never ever hit tranquil without barkskin up is a very important rule in arena

yea, i learned that one in Season 2, which was the first season i started... had it up last night, but the dots were ticking like mad... :(

i suppose u are heal-druid?
my tranquil heals for ~4k per 2 sec. (im feral with 1k +heal)
there must have been more than dots on your friend to bring him down!

maybe get a few hots on the main target before starting tranq.
but i know: easier said than done! ^^

The big problem that no one has addressed yet is that DPS PVE gear scaled considerably better than Resil gear. So right not in arena's its not about staying alive longer, its about burst DPSing down one of their members first. I run with a 3v3 team of Resto Druid, Boomkin, DK and we are right around 1450, so not great. Pallies, Hunters, and DK's were hands down our biggest weakness. All of the above did get nerfed yesterday, so only time will tell if they are still an issue.

Basic stragegy, leave your pvp gear in the bank! The Resil doesn't make up for the lost DPS. When I put on my pvp gear, (mostly savage) I sit around 550 resil, but my spell power drops to about 1250. In PvE gear my spell power is ~2k.

Also, with the "Rating" system on the higher end arena gear, Blizz has created a cycle, where players can't get high end gear because their rating is too low, and they can't get rating, because their gear is too low.