More entertaining and prestigious, Rbgs or Arena?

[amirasha23]

I feel as if the age old debate roars on. Rbgs or arenas. There is a lot of debate as to which is more prestigious, rbg or arena. There are certainly more skilled players who know thier class and how to counter others in arena. But Rbgs are so much more, you need to be able to perform like arenas but with more strategy involved, being able to think and adapt to many other moving parts on the fly. It's like a football game... Arenas would be covering your friend while running routes on a sunny day. Rbgs would be actually playing the entire game 11 on 11.

[Deleted]

Arena. Forget about all the "fotm to glad" bs, its all grossly exaggerated. Arenas are very noob-unfriendly, produces countless strats and in general have a low tolerancy of mistakes. RBGs are cookie cutter both by design and gameplay.

[amirasha23]

Arena. Forget about all the "fotm to glad" bs, its all grossly exaggerated. Arenas are very noob-unfriendly, produces countless strats and in general have a low tolerancy of mistakes. RBGs are cookie cutter both by design and gameplay.

I agree to an extent , but comp matters. It matters in both settings, moreso in arena. Rbgs more forgiving? Cookie cutter? Please explain.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Entertaining - RBG

Prestigious - Arena

[Deleted]

Arena. Even with fotm, you won't get far unless your team is good. Comp matters yes, but only up to a certain point.

[NiceJazzhands]

I wish you wouldn't have lumped entertaining and prestigious together. To me, RBGs are more entertaining, but arena is more prestigious.

You'd get better results if you focused your question.

[amirasha23]

Arena. Even with fotm, you won't get far unless your team is good. Comp matters yes, but only up to a certain point.

It's just that rbgs are so much more. It's essentially a big arena but with strategy and thinking involved.

[Deleted]

I agree to an extent , but comp matters. It matters in both settings, moreso in arena. Rbgs more forgiving? Cookie cutter? Please explain.

In areans its close to impossible to 2v3 if someone dies. In RBGs, if you are losing 1:0 with a half dead team, you can still pull it out.
Cookie cutter?
DK for mass grip? check
boomy? check (this was pretty nerfed but still goes around)
Affly for dispel protection? check?
Melees by design being unviable unless packed with near OP toolset, like warrs

And everything else resolves around the skeletons of the comp. There is a reason why top PvP players do arenas and entertaing/gimmick guys like swifty do rbgs.

[Darsithis]

Rated BG's are far more fun but Arena is the "prestigious" part of PvP.

[DiscoGhost]

arenas or bust. rbgs are a total cluster fu**

and this is coming from a 2k exp player.

[Shahad]

I prefer RBGs on my warlock. Node defending and spreading DoTs are more fun than pillar humping.

[Itisamuh]

I think RBGs, for both. I find them way more fun and entertaining, and slightly more prestigious. Just because I feel like class and comp imbalance is highlighted much less in RBGs, where oftentimes in arena you can tell who will win just based on comp. Not to mention RBGs are significantly harder to set up and coordinate with so many more people. Objectives also add an extra dynamic to the game, instead of just a little duel. I like arena, make no mistake, but RBGs win in my book.

[Deleted]

Arenas are far far more competetive, prestigious and harder to be succeful in. Have always been like this. RBGs are too cheesy/exploitable and takes too much preperation and time to ever be viewed as something more than just a niche in the game.

And RBGs are pretty much just as class and spec dependent as arenas. But its a fun way to have fun with casual guild mates on a low skill level without having the stress of arenas. But the competetive side of RBGs is heavily lacking.

[Deleted]

I've always been a fan of BGs since Vanilla, but if you're looking for individual skill arenas are where you should look at. RBGs are a great show of leadership and coordination however, I'd say they just require a different kind of skill.

[Deleted]

Any previous season I felt like grabbing the 2.2k awards on a slightly underpowered class I'd just take him for a spin in a rated battleground, which is more fun than arenas but so so much easier. You can basically be braindead and do decent in RBGs. Arenas require way more skill and is way more prestigious.

[worsthitmanNa]

I think RBGs, for both. I find them way more fun and entertaining, and slightly more prestigious. Just because I feel like class and comp imbalance is highlighted much less in RBGs, where oftentimes in arena you can tell who will win just based on comp. Not to mention RBGs are significantly harder to set up and coordinate with so many more people. Objectives also add an extra dynamic to the game, instead of just a little duel. I like arena, make no mistake, but RBGs win in my book.

I know several rbg player who are stuck at 1750 in 2's, and 3's. I think arena is harder honestly.

[Joycemiester]

Niether so I did not vote. RBG has had so much rating exploitation that I cannot go with "it takes a great team to get high ratings" and arena well that is getting fixed in 'wod', with the specific que times for serious / prestigue teams.

[Snuggli]

I think RBGs, for both. I find them way more fun and entertaining, and slightly more prestigious. Just because I feel like class and comp imbalance is highlighted much less in RBGs, where oftentimes in arena you can tell who will win just based on comp. Not to mention RBGs are significantly harder to set up and coordinate with so many more people. Objectives also add an extra dynamic to the game, instead of just a little duel. I like arena, make no mistake, but RBGs win in my book.

There's an argument to be had whether class/comp distribution is actually more diverse in Arena. There is a looooooot of RBG groups that look the same apart from maybe 1 or 2 classes. There is often a cookie-cutter 7-8 class setup with 2 spots for extras. It might've changed recently, but when I did RBGs in Cata and the first season of MoP it was very rare to see a non-FotM RBG group.

OT: I've done RBGs and Arena to high(ish) levels, and I wont deny that some people in RBGs are extremely skilled - but the main difference I find between RBGs and Arena is that of player skill or awareness. Once you're in combat, the tactic in an RBG team hardly changes depending on what the enemies do. You normally swap between the 'best targets to kill', rather than react to what an enemy has done.

In a way, RBGs are sort of similar to Raiding... in that the individual player skill might be good, but it's very hard to distinguish yourself or actually prove your skill because your job remains mostly unchanged. In Arena, there is the potential to prove your skill and outplay opponents, react to whats happening and actually have some sort of mind-games with the enemies.

Maybe i've gone slightly offtrack, but in my opinion the individual skill level between the average high rated RBG player and the average high rated Arena player is massive. Thus, Arenas are vastly more prestigious because if you're high in Arena then you're 1 of 3. If you're high rated in RBGs, you could've just queued into MMR exploiters or been boosted. I've met 2.4k RBG players who can't get above 1.8k in 3s. It's very hard to find someone who's 2.4k in Arena who couldn't achieve that or higher in RBGs.

[apepi]

Maybe i've gone slightly offtrack, but in my opinion the individual skill level between the average high rated RBG player and the average high rated Arena player is massive. Thus, Arenas are vastly more prestigious because if you're high in Arena then you're 1 of 3. If you're high rated in RBGs, you could've just queued into MMR exploiters or been boosted. I've met 2.4k RBG players who can't get above 1.8k in 3s. It's very hard to find someone who's 2.4k in Arena who couldn't achieve that or higher in RBGs.

I have found some arena masters that were horrible at rbgs.

Anyways I like rbgs more than arena. Arena can be good with 3 good players, but playing a rbg with 10 good people against another good rbg team is awesome. The ore the merrier is what I think.

Though it is much easier for the quality of arena to be better(requires less people) but once you find a good rbg team, rbgs are so much funner.

[Itisamuh]

There's an argument to be had whether class/comp distribution is actually more diverse in Arena. There is a looooooot of RBG groups that look the same apart from maybe 1 or 2 classes. There is often a cookie-cutter 7-8 class setup with 2 spots for extras. It might've changed recently, but when I did RBGs in Cata and the first season of MoP it was very rare to see a non-FotM RBG group.

That's a good point, but I think a lot of that is player min/max mentality carrying over from arena. It's not that other comps wouldn't work just fine, but rather that people think it's inefficient to do anything else besides what's considered cookie cutter. In that case, it's the players making it that way, not actual game balance. But regardless of the reason, it's a fair enough point you make. And I agree that on an individual player level, it's more impressive to be one of three, than one of ten. I think the ten is a more impressive group effort, though.

I'd have to respectfully disagree with good arena players automatically being good at battlegrounds, though. I've run into a lot of arena players who just don't know how to focus on an objective besides killing, and sometimes they aren't even very good at that when the battle is larger than just a few people.