How To Get Started in World of Warcraft PvP

World of Warcraft is still the world’s most popular MMO. Although Final Fantasy XIV is hot on its heels, one area in which Blizzard has Square Enix licked is its PvP systems. Your mileage may vary, but for our money, if you want a PvP-friendly MMO, WoW is still the place to go. Despite this, it can be hard to know where to get your start in the world of WoW PvP. Here’s our guide on how you can go from beginner to pro in the world of player-versus-player combat.

Learn the basics

Do you know your 2v2 arena setups? What’s the most meta class right now in Shadowlands PvP? These are things you’re going to need to learn if you want to play WoW PvP, but it’s also important to know the basics. Understand what game mode you’re going into, what the condition for victory is, and how you can most efficiently achieve it. Many players focus exclusively on kills, but it’s all about the win condition.

Don’t be afraid to boost

If you feel you’re consistently outstripping your peers when it comes to WoW PvP, then you might want to avail yourself of a booster. The top paid WoW services for boosting do command a price, but in return, you’re getting a superlative service that will help you reach the rank you feel you belong in, bypassing all the low-skill players that might cost you games you otherwise deserved to win. Be sure to research boosting to as much of a degree as possible before engaging with it, of course.

Practice

Practice makes perfect, as they say, and the only way to consistently improve your arena skills is simply to practice. Play your preferred class in PvE settings and stick to just one or two classes; that way, you’ll learn the ins and outs of your chosen playstyle without needing to memorise lots of difficult button combos and inputs. It’s also important to make sure that you know your gaming hardware inside and out so that using abilities in PvP is never difficult.

Know your expansion’s meta

In PvP, “meta” refers to what wins games; it’s often referred to as the “most effective tactic available”. Way back in the Legion days, the meta looked considerably different to the way it does in Shadowlands, and with each new patch and expansion, the meta will change. One of the reasons you’re not winning PvP games could simply be because your current class is not part of the meta.

Pick up a constant group

One of the ways in which World of Warcraft stays competitive with popular games like Apex Legends is to emphasise communication. That’s why it has a built-in voice chat module, and that module should be encouraging you to find a consistent group and stick with them, as should the other communication methods in the game. PvP in WoW is incredibly difficult if you don’t regularly communicate with the other players in your team.

Use PvP addons

Addons are at the heart of what makes WoW unique and special. They do exist for other MMOs, but Final Fantasy XIV’s creators are much more strict about using them, whereas Blizzard are fairly laissez-faire about addons. There exist a whole host of essential PvP addons for WoW, including MikScrollingBattleText, which helps you to see exactly what’s going on in combat, and Gladius, which is a unit frame mod for arenas to help you target your enemies more efficiently. If you’re constantly losing, it could be because your enemies are using addons you don’t have.