What's the biggest lesson you learned in PvP, after LOSING a lot of games?

[epigramx]

I'm a big believer in learning in pain and suffering and emerging from the ashes; survivorship bias isn't the best teacher and sometimes watching streams of pros can have the opposite result; so what have you learned after endless wipes that made you realize "wait a second.."?

[Eazy]

I've learned that without learning your own and other classes how they should be used in PvP, you'll keep losing.

Plenty of people are trying to do "highest DPS PvE rotation" on arena and they're failing miserably.

[Meowtwo]

As a mage against melee, you dont block when you get low, you block when your kiting and defensive kit (and your healers) has run out and they connect to you, even if you have 80% health.

[Aphelios]

I've learned that it's never my fault.

[Nymrohd]

I learned I suck at PvP and I don't bother anymore.

[Tehkast]

DH are cheap and Russians are just try hards.

[nvaelz]

It's like different for everyone based on personal traits.
What I learned based on me enjoying pixel perfection, and a comparison would be if you're going to navigate through a pitch black room with traps and you can repeat this process all the time, you'll get into patterns.

That's always what I enjoyed about games, and WoW has been a great place for me to enjoy this activity, that's why I'll never forgive Blizzard for patching "Wall Climbing" in Classic etc... It was one of the best parts of the game imo, just trying to climb big walls, discovering places, just wasting time time obsessively trying to climb something. I mean people would come up with new things to abuse with it, so it's understandable it was removed, but still it was a huge loss in fun imo.

And in PVP I was always into psychological tricks, precognition, timings, mastering wasd/camera, having fluid flow in keybinds and how they synergize with eachother, control, but also aggression, and evasion.

Sadly what I've learned after playing Dragonflight is that some walls can no longer be climbed. Recently Plunderstorm was released and since people easily forget how PVP in the past actually worked, Plunderstorm allows players to go beyond their capabilities more and more the longer they play it, and the smallest differences in if you react in -0.1 or +0.1 could mean everything, and they way you aim, or gauge distance etc it becomes really really TIGHT.

Something that isn't true in Dragonflight where everything is a BIG LEGO BLOCK you use a CD force a CD 2 beats 1, skill means alot in 1 v 1, but it's all DEVOLVED to please really trash players, so what I've actually learned.

TL;DR I've learned that players are really happy that Dragonfight makes them so good at the game, but if these same players join Plunderstorm or travel back to Classic-BFA times they'll get farmed like they didn't learn anything at all.

So basically I've reached the stage of learning where I understand that Blizzard has limited my learning by making the game easy.

And I don't mean easy in a "not-complex" way, I mean easy in a me punching you faster from an unseen angle doesn't matter because you have 5 seconds to press your button that makes nothing matter. Not true in Plunderstorm or pre SL/DF.

But most players can't even begin to comprehend what skill really is, for alot of players the complex spamming in Dragonflight is skill, there's a flow of intensity in Dragonflight that's skillful, but that same flow exists in even Classic, it's just less complex and more about timings, resources, range, etc. Empty space and when to be in it and when to leave it.

In Dragonflight you don't really "hover" much, you just GOGOGO all the time.

Anways it's really difficult to explain what I learn from losing,

in Classic to BFA I learned that I could always go further in the ways I describe in BOLD.
in SL I learned that the game shifted into blowing people up by stacking them and pressing CDs on them.
in DF I learned that even stacking and pressing CDs no longer worked, could no longer "outplay" could beat REALLY bad players, but the bad/medicore or almost good players could more easily 2v1 me.

Some situations were always hopeless, like playing at times vs 2 rogues would be way more impossible back in the day, but now it's easier for me.
It's just that in Dragonflight everything I dreamed about and progressed through became futile. Like these knowings of impossibility compressed me further.

I suppose I learned I can't boost really bad players in DF because what really matters now is team composition. That's really something I learned in Dragonflight, that I have to manage my team to get ahead, while in the past there was way larger scope in my activities solo and what I could accomplish or progress through.
But it's because the game is stupid now and it's more automated and that complex flow is also a limiter in personal ability.

Because(trying to explain this again). Spells are weaker, mobility is higher, cds force cds, so it's very much a stupid trade for stupid people to enjoy stupid things.
The only viable enjoyment in Dragonflight for anyone reasonably good is playing with other reasonable good players.


Also, Real TL;DR>
The biggest lesson I learned... Everyone has their own super powers, I try to learn from others what they're good at, and sometimes it's really obscured because of my lack of observation or whatever but that makes it even more interesting, and I think that's something big, trying to implement things I learn from others to fit into my own style of play.

Also alot of players will want you to feel like you're worse than them, because they don't want you to know that you're better, or that you'd even have a chance to be better.
But some players know they're stronger and it's not an insult towards you that they are either. But both these things occur, it can be very confusing, so really the BIGGEST lesson is to believe in yourself, but not be foolish about it to the point of delusions.
I think a common delusion is "not seeing growth ahead" but more being in a constant defensive ego and roleplaying good, being offended at someone else being good, feeling threatened instead of inspired.

[SinR]

that I suck at it and shouldn't be doing it

[trapmaster]

learned that pvp isn't my thing as i used to during vanilla/tbc/wotlk/cata/mop. The charm of pvp in the air and feeling just poofed... what's so thrilling about it anymore?

[Dhrizzle]

I haven't done anything approaching serious PvP since TBC, and what I learned then is I might as well wear crappy gear so the opponent kills me quickly and I get my ten rounds out of the way for those sweet welfare epics (season 2 staff was the shit.)

[Zyky]

Personally I feel like PvP is drastically different every expansion. Also if you're not willing to play FOTM classes/specs, don't expect to have even a decent time if you have expectations of getting high ratings.

[epigramx]

alot of players will want you to feel like you're worse than them, because they don't want you to know that you're better, or that you'd even have a chance to be better.
But some players know they're stronger and it's not an insult towards you that they are either. But both these things occur, it can be very confusing, so really the BIGGEST lesson is to believe in yourself, but not be foolish about it to the point of delusions.
I think a common delusion is "not seeing growth ahead" but more being in a constant defensive ego and roleplaying good, being offended at someone else being good, feeling threatened instead of inspired.

Yeah the usual "you will never be good" attack which is regular old narcissism (or pure narcissistic personality disorder if they do it obsessively at an individual level). I know what you mean about the other side of the coin; sometimes we may get selfish and pretend "we know everything"; nobody knows everything or is great at everything.

Some of the best players I know in all games try actively to tone it down themselves; e.g. they may say "let's play the game and not complain (we are not Devs)"; when they do get defensive or aggressive unnecessarily towards others that usually turns them playing badly.

[Warferno]

That as a caster, if you lose your cool you lose the game. Keep your cool, fake cast and more fake cast, look for windows and if you are not moving all the time unless dropping CDs you die.

[allegrian]

Install the correct addons and just play solo shuffle if you don't have some friends to power through rated losses. rated pugs are random and horrible, as they just disband after 1-3 losses.

[Ti Amo Gaming]

Asking myself what I could have done better and move to fix any problems on my end. Works 90% of the time.