Major Factors to Success in Arena

[Deleted]

I wanted to make a guide at some point, but a short summary of what I use to record my games:

Software: Bandicam (free trial allows for 10minutes of recording which I find to be enough, but if you check around you might find a complete version). It's super easy to setup (you just need to set a keybind for recording and choose whether you want audio or not), and you're good to go. Coupled with Skype, your games in high definition.
Addons: I use several addons in order to get the most amount of information: what's the point on recording your games if you can't check who did what/when?

Sarena= replaces gladius and uses way less memory while maintaining a classic default ui for arena targets/spells/trinkets;
GladiusEx= allows you to set many things, but I use it for 3 things: enemy DR trackers, party trinkets, and last party abilities used. This is a great tool to have in situations where my warlock swears he feared the hunter at the specific time: I just need to drag the video to that specific point, and see the row of abilities being used. This is also very helpful to determine where your teammates were actually peeling for you (if you're a healer) or if they were indeed CCed or not.
Tellmewhen= works just the same as gladiusEx (probably even better).
Gladiatorlosa= many players use this to track abilities used in arena, but I find it even more useful to see if your teammates actually react to things: did your monk disarm that warrior when he popped cds? Did your healer reacted to that rogue vanish? It doesn't matter if you have awareness, I love this addon because it allows me to quickly check whether my partners are noticing enemy cooldowns (like hunters purging hand of sacrifice/etc).

My warlock and I tried many ele shamans in our way to 2K as LSD, and after a session of arena, we would review the videos together. Can't stress enough how helpful that was, not only to identify bad shamans (who would not follow cc, not tremor/ground/be low on damage), but to identify our own mistakes. It can act a bit like WoW logs: how were your dots uptime? The amount of cc? how many times did your healer complain about your position? Did you trinket when it wasn't needed? Last but not least, I'm done arguing with players: hard to pinpoint who exactly screwed up after a game where tensions can run high, but after some time while watching a video I find that my partners (and I) are much more willing to receive feedback and work together.

[Debased]

Arena;

50% Know your class in and out.
25% Know your keybinds in and out.
25% Know every other class in and out.

You'll be better than 9/10 players and if you form a decent team you will get very far.

[neghinitza]

Semi-off topic: What do you guys use to record yourself ? My connection is too bad to stream - fine enough for lag-free playing - so I figured that I'd get a free program that just dumps the video files to a local disc. Any good suggestions ?

I used FRAPS, but then switched to streaming a bit and got OBS. It has a local recording feature. You just set the quality that suits you and your rig.
Check out https://obsproject.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2972 .