World of Warcraft®

3. Even if typing will get you killed, it's usually worth it to call for help; Unless you're really good or really geared, you're usually only delaying the inevitable by trying to hold the place yourself.

You can type while dead, sapped or stunned.

I never said anything to the contrary, merely that typing a message instead of moving might get one killed, though it's probably worth the sacrifice.

Vanguards just released a communication guide on arena junkies a few hours ago and he put it in a much better way then I could ever, so I'm just going to leave this here. (If you don't want to follow my link it should be on the front page depending on when you see this.)

http://www.arenajunkies.com/news/465-communication-and-dealing-with-losses/

I agree that Voice isnt always a good tool. just making sure you pay attention to what is going on is the biggest help.

Use Skype.

I have a question about communication in arena. Do you guys use push to talk to speak or its always on ?? I mean, I use push to talk and I think I might loose a second when doing that...

What you guys think about that ?

NEVER EVER NEVER use push to talk use Skype.

Voice is only good if your going to do a rated bg with a group that uses it. If your doing a random bg just stick to chat. Here is a few communication skills that take teamwork to help the team win.

Whenever someone comes on and says we are going to loose because of some mod they have, mostly numbers people use these that dont have a backbone, work as a group to silence said person. Bgs are tricky everything can be going perfect but suddenly without warning go down hill fast.

Whenever you here some one talking trash repeatably saying how great they are but everyone else on the team sucks. This is also a good time as a team to silence said person and concentrate on turning the battle around.

Lastly the blame game never helps the team, if you loose you loose suck it up.

The key to success in any BG is communication, and having a basic strat that everyone is at least aware of.

In order to facilitate communication in any non-premade BG, you of course need to not be stuck with half a group that only speaks English, and half a group that only speaks Spanish. Usually 1-2 people in it will be bots or afk from the start, 1-2 will not care what anyone has to say, since they feel they're better than everyone else or that they know better (and that everyone else is "bad").

But assuming you get lucky, and 80% of the group speak the same language, care, and aren't bots, here are some basic tips that can make a major difference.

1. When there are ~30-45 seconds remaining on the timer for the BG to begin, discuss a basic strat - mark the healers, and if anyone can carry flags, if appropriate.

2. Become a conduit for communication - if no one says anything in the first few minutes of a BG, there probably won't be any real communication for the rest of it - if just one or two people perk up early on and get things rolling, it can make a real difference in group morale/participation.

3. CALL THINGS OUT. If you're defending an important area (your flag, towers, etc), and you see incoming reds, or you get sapped - announce it to others in the area. Your communication on these things can be the difference between keeping that objective, and losing it - you can even stop enemy flag carriers that aren't marked yet by announcing their location (WSG only - EFC's can get halfway across the field before they're marked on the map).

4. Related to #2 and #3.... remind people to call things out. Some people are new to the BG game, and they honestly might not even think to.

5. If you have time, type out entire words. Sometimes you don't, and BS/LM/BET are just fine. But remember, as always - some people are new to the BG game, and might not know what the acceptable/popular abbreviations are.

I hope these tips help someone out there, ideally Alliance ;)

Never let anyone tell you that voice chat is the most efficient way to communicate with teammates in a multiplayer game.

Nothing is more vital than hearing everything going on around you, even in an RPG (or in this case, an MMORPG).

Learn to touch type swiftly, and you'll have a significant advantage over those who use voice chat, as they will effectively be deaf and incapable of discerning most sounds from the voices constantly on the air via voice chat channels.

Get Gladiatorlossa for that... and Skype/Vent are the best choice for Coordination.. You can quickly tell people what you are doing so it doesnt overlap, and you can have nice chill conversation

Here is a strategy for winning Tol Barad on Dawnbringer against the Horde:

Don't play!

The Horde constantly cheat on this server using illegal Carbonite add ons to spot stealthed toons at low levels, having 40+ against the Alliance 20, and toons that can one shot you even if you are geared to the teeth with Honor gear.

We've been trying to infiltrate the Horde and how they cheat. It appears there is a Horde guild that does nothing but fight in Tol Barad with toons that can one shot anybody (Charming) and tickets are never resolved. Horde spies also report that the Horde guilds make it mandatory for all healers to go to Tol Barad.

Alliance is not that strong in strategy. It takes us twice the time as the Horde to tap the flag, we are always outnumbered 2 to 1 and we don't cheat. It would be so easy for WoW to determine the truth that the BG system is broken and the Horde take advantage of it. Until it gets fixed, my strategy is to tell everyone to stay the hell out of BG on Dawnbringer. The classes are not balanced (Ex. Arcanist Mage can do over 90% damage to a player who is at full health in maximum resilient gear).

It's not a game if one side gets to cheat all the time.

Don't be the guy who says

"Shut up and stop whining"

Explaining to people who obviously do not know how a battleground works is not whining.

What is surprising is that there are people who still do not know how battlegrounds work
^
That is whining.

Vanguards just released a communication guide on arena junkies a few hours ago and he put it in a much better way then I could ever, so I'm just going to leave this here. (If you don't want to follow my link it should be on the front page depending on when you see this.)

http://www.arenajunkies.com/news/465-communication-and-dealing-with-losses/

^ perfect.

I think the biggest problem with communication these days is that people don't discuss their positioning or make predictions based on resource wars. On my healer I'm able to make a lot better calls like "enemy healer's running low on mana, and [big heal cooldown] is down, we need to drag them into the open and burst on so and so." or "smoke bomb/dance are still up and our positioning is bad, we need to play conservatively and set this up."

I think a lot of it is just people not staying calm or failing to take a big step back and assess the actual pacing/flow of the match. Not freaking out is so vital to arena, and it naturally extends into calmly predicting/preparing a timeline for your team.

I always use skype for pvp communication. It is just easier to not have to click the push to talk button for vent. I never read chat while I do rated pvp (rbgs, arenas) In regular bgs just spam things in caps locks until people go do it.

What you need is a Communication program, but most important is Synergy, there are a lot of teams out there who barely talk and are pretty good because of Synergy between the People.

Notes on voips

Yes, we can hear your parrot/birds over the skype/vent and yes it is annoying.

For ventrillo, bind a freaking button, don't use their open-mic feature. Vent isn't anywhere near skype in sound quality or filtering, so we can hear you breathing, coughing, drinking, chewing, etc.

vent very needed to stay coordinated, which is good because that coordination is what makes it so fun(as well as the gear)

I primarily do random BG with occassional arena.

I am the type of person to type in chat and being a fully key bound player it isnt difficult.

I find a chat before is good . On capture the flag BG i usually say

' priority is flag return over flag capture unless ur a healer'

People often doubt this but if a game goes badly and you repeat it and lead by example people will follow.

Making calls helps even though you will get trolled by the nerdragers
'more to O'
'more to D'
'smash the FC'

It's a team game meaning morale is important .

'Win the middle' is a call people usually follow getting them to break for the FC is harder

I find the communication on node capture and hold BG is very good. Keep it sweet when calling incoming by some simple rules

1. Don't just say inc assess the threat in case of feint attack
'inc ST 1 . Ok for now standby'
Repeat it mor Ethan once so people see.

' more inc ST need help NoW'

2. If no help is coming do just repeat give more info

' inc ST get help quick about to lose'

I find with Strand simple is best
'all green(blue)'
'win gy'
'cleanse demos'
Cc horde don't kill

I find with 40 man best to keep the banter good and communicate freely. If you get a troll etc best to ignore as everyone else will

While vocal is obviously superior communication deaf people play this game and over come that limitation all of the time. Hell I was reading about this blind guy who plays wow and effectively raids current content and they even push heroic content with him.

Impossible. The only way this is actually happening is if he has somebody holding his hand doing it for him. Which means he isn't actually responsible for any of the actions.

Actually, it's quite possible and happens all the time, through macros, audio cues (addons and vent), and so forth. Your failure to be educated about this does not mean it doesn't happen each and every day. In fact, blizzard has gone ridiculously out of their way to ensure that this game is as "handicapped-accessible" or whatever you want to call it as possible. For instance, are you aware that nearly everything has TWO available keybinds, rather than one? Aside from strategic reasons for pro players, this allows unprecedented accessibility for those using macros, etc.

Obviously, they don't typically use the standard interface, but yes, legally blind (even fully blind in some cases) players can competitively raid. It still comes down to the player behind the screen, not whether or not you can see. (How many people playing WOW are watching Family Guy half the time instead of paying attention to the raid anyway?) To be blunt, PVE is predictable. PVP presents a more difficult challenge, since you can't predict what a random 1-in-10Million-subscriber person who happens to be in your BG/arena may do, but NPCs really are that simple to manage due to their predictibility. And when there's something special, you find a workaround. For instance, staying on /follow behind your macro'd assist target for movement fights, or in the case of a warrior, having a preset "follow me" guy to whom you intercept via /cast [@Bob] Intercept macro, etc. Just because YOU can't do it doesn't mean it can't be done. In fact, most disabled players are FAR better than normal players, as they frequently eat, sleep, and breathe WoW due to medical restrictions.

I, for example, have no arms.

.

.

.

Ok, I lied about that last part there, but you get the point.

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As for the on-topic part:

"BG Defender" (Addon - See Curse.com) works wonderfully, though you can't force people to actually read, sadly. Voice chat (will be greatly improved, afaik, in MoP) will eliminate a lot of this, but ultimately it's still the same bad players in randoms.

Note: WTB Ability to just handpick 10 and Q for random BG. Random BG's are awesome. Random people suck, Blizz. Srsly.

Back to the rant. Of course, the same players would likely refuse to use voice chat even if the built-in one didn't suck. It's bad enough everybody swears at them in chat, god knows what they'd get if I saw them still standing in midfield after 3 progressively less polite requests for them to pick a flag, any flag, and chase it, etc. As anyone who knows me will attest, I'm more than willing to spend countless hours helping someone who wants to improve, but I have a zero tolerance policy for fighting anywhere except at an objective or directly on top of the red or blue flag. One is offense, one is defense. I don't care which one, but for gods sake go to ONE of them. No amount of communication can make people stop being "that idiot who is still in midfield halfway thru the battleground AND getting farmed for his efforts cause on top of everything else, he sucks at the actual button pressing part", however. /sigh

I know that sounds douchebaggy, but really. if you're anywhere but at a designated BG objective, then yes. You're wrong. I'm not being mean by saying that, but if repeated communication doesnt work, we have no recourse. We can't kick people who say "I'm going to intentionally lose now", etc. We can't kick anybody as long as they even remotely pretend to be engaged in PVP combat.

That said, I fight to the bitter end, win or lose... if the team is responding and working as a team. If there are 9 other people out there, each in their own world of bad, then no offense, but I'm not carrying lazyasses. take 10 mins and read a forum. No less than 100 people o your server would be glad to point you in the right direction. Its not our fault if you suck cause "I don't read chat noob", bro.

Bottom line, I will gladly and easily in most cases carry my end of the deal. If I go for a flag carrier, I get the flag carrier. if I go for a base, I get the base. However, if there are 5 bases I (and all the rest of the pros suffering thru random baddie-BGs) can only solo 5 enemies at once, and can only take ONE objective at a time. I can't guard Stables when you all leave it empty AND be expected to go take the other bases as well. That's why reading matters. All the superstar in the world doesn't help if people REFUSE to read. I don't care if you are bad at reading, learn or gtfo my BG. (Yes, MY bg. If I have to carry you [which is nearly every random-queued BG] cause you fail to pay attention, I get to claim the glory as well.)

I'm nice, helpful, polite and everything... until I inevitably see 9 alliance dots on the map, and all 9 are at the same spot exactly a million miles from either flag, etc. THAT is when I change from the friendly "I'll take care of calling INCs and respond very quickly to calls for help, etc" to "F-U, carry your lazyass scrub selves" mode and typically leave and go do something else, or an alt etc. I'm not here so carry lazy asses who watch TV. If you can't focus on the game for 10 damn minutes, then no offense, but screw you. Log off WoW if you can't focus, as clearly you have far more pressing IRL concerns with which you need to deal." i don't give a crap if your baby cries. I don't care if you want to watch that commercial. I don't care if you got a TXT. That's your problem, tough crap, make a choice. Either WoW or all the other crap you people seem to think is so much more important than paying attention to the 10 minutes you spend in a BG. Unless your house is literalyl on fire, just freaking play the damn game and stop doing other things until the Bg is over.

Not all ragers are raging. I only "rage" if you're doing it wrong.

I'm not just randomly saying things lie "3 INC stables" or "please gtfo of midfield and chase a flag" cause I like the sound of my keys clicking. It isn't my fault if you don't look at a map for an entire BG. Seriosuly, omfg. Again, not trying to sounds douchebaggy, but if they don't pay attention, all the communication in the world doesn't matter, Blizz. Auto-join a BG chat? Sure there will be "voice griefing", but overall games will be much smoother. Simply handle voice griefers via standard reporting methods. Again, I don't want to sound elitist, but it's not unreasonable to expect you to focus on the game for 10 freaking minutes. if you can't do that, then stop playing WoW. You're screwing it up for the rest of us who actually try to win, or at the very least not lose horribly.

Point is, communication only works if scrubs learn to read or Blizz fixes built-in voice and forces bads to listen to people swear at them until they finally gtfo of midfield. lol

Also, many players immediately turn off BG chat due to idiots. Granted, it's inevitably their own fault cause the "idiots" are screaming at them for playing badly. So in other words, rather than fix their suck-!@# play style, they simply turn off chat. Period. All the communication in the world doesn't fix people doing this $%^-, Blizz.

LET US HAVE FREAKING PREMADE REGULARS WITHOUT AV ENABLER.

omg, it's not like we're asking for anything other than the ability to play normal BGs (can use consumables etc) with 10 people who don't intentionally suck, turn off chat, afk, fight in midfield, etc. You let me stop having to play with bads and I'll stop cussing out the bads. Deal? Currently, the only way to do this is either A) Rateds (for which the 10 aren't always appropriately geared) or B) AV Enabler (Which is technically an exploit, though clearly Blizz seems to be allowing it.) But with that, you have to jump through hoops, makje sure everyone has it, requires communication between at least group leaders, etc. Jus tfreaking let us queue with 10 or fewer, OMG.

Please note: this does not mean I'm elitist and require 10 pros with pro gear. I just want 10 people able to communicate. Me and 9 bad-geared players will still win 7 out of 10 by virtue of simply not fighting in the wrong location, as communication is key yet Blizz refuses to allow groups to queue at once.

Until they allow us to have group that CAN communicate (premade 10-man groups), this discussion is pointless and just going to piss off the actual good players. Yes, I know most people suck and will only use this to stack a team with only players with 403s but honestly, I don't care. My rogue still has a couple blues and I still absolutely 1-man-carry the BG. When a couple guildies and I get on, it's insane. If we could get premades, we'd be unstoppable with or without gear. Artificially making it easier for scrubs to enter PVP is the whole reason people suck at PVP so bad, Blizz. Learn from your mistakes.

With all the new arena tournys. I notice every dam team has a lock or Shaman. When is wow going to fix this. It makes no sense to have only one healer that is great in arena. Also locks are like a shamans best friend. This is not good for the game, that is way pve is getting more views then pvp. So when are going to address this issue.

Don't yell in Vent.

Don't eat your mic.