Post by Stall on Jun 19, 2013 16:55:26 GMT -5
First and foremost I would like to thank you on reading my guide. I truly believe the general skill-level of all players will rise if those tips are observed more frequently.
To answer your question: I would start with the most blatantly obvious forms of abilities. These are things that you should instantly be aware of regardless of your skill level.
Ice Block, Bloodlust, Divine Shield (Bubble), Starfall, Guardian Spirit, Deathgrip, etc.
If you know these abilities well enough, you will always know how to react when you see them. Defensive cooldowns mean to either switch targets or dispel them. Offensive cooldowns mean to go defensive or start a CC rotation. However, there are always special circumstances. Using my examples: Guardian Spirit means to slow down DPS, switch targets, or stop DPS completely temporarily; Starfall means to incapacitate the Boomkin as soon as possible to minimize damage on yourself and your partners.
From there you should move up to very commonly used abilities, but only gamebreaking ones. The most obvious form that comes to mind is CC. Learn what each individual CC does, how to break it, how to avoid it, and what it shares DRs with. The most helpful resource that I can find is the DR table posted in the SC articles section, located here. If you learn all of those spells, you will be aware of every CC in the game (note that that guide was made in WotLK).
Next you'll be wanting to learn offensive abilities. These are spells that should tell you to go defensive as soon as you see them.
Avenging Wrath (Wings), Bloodlust, Summon Gargoyle, Stealth, Beastial Wrath, Beast Within, Smoke Bomb, Ring of Frost, Shadow Dance, Spirit Wolves, Metamorphosis, Bladestorm (not really powerful at the moment, but when it receives a noteworthy buff it will be something to watch for), Throwdown, and Colossus Smash.
Know what these abilities do and what they look like and you should be able to read a situation and act on it.
After offensive abilities, you should learn about defensive abilities. These are what you'll need to be watching for when you're on the offense looking for a kill.
Spell Reflect, Defensive Stance, Blood Presence, Shield Wall, Divine Protection, Hand of Protection, Hand of Freedom, Pain Suppression, Dispersion, Fade, Warlock Portal, Icebound Fortitude, Anti-Magic Shell, Anti-Magic Zone, Lichbourne, Barkskin, Survival Instincts, Disengage, Deterrence, Cloak of Shadows, Evasion, Vanish, Cheat Death, Stoneclaw Totem Shamanistic Rage, and Grounding Totem.
These are abilities that are designed to keep you from killing your opponent in one way or another. They typically mitigate damage, but some are more dynamic than that (Cheat Death, Grounding Totem), and should be watched for.
Now on to spells that may or may not affect you, but should still be watched for. These are interrupts, offensive abilities that cannot be avoided, uncategorized abilities, or peeling abilities.
Counterspell, Spell Lock, Skull Bash, Silencing Shot, Strangulate, Mind Freeze, Shield Bash (Gag Order), Pummel, Arcane Torrent, Piercing Howl, Kick, Windshear, Rebuke, Silence, Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, Chains of Ice, Chillblains, Hand of Guldan, Shadowfury, Shadowflame, Scatter Shot, Holy Word: Chastise, Killing Spree, Vendetta, Faerie Fire, Purge, All categories of Dispel, Frost Shock, Earthbind Totem, Infected Wounds, Feral Charge, Charge, Intercept, Crippling Poison, Mana Regen abilities (Replenishment, Mana Tide, Divine Plea, Innervate, etc), and Berserk.
Some of these abilities may be blatantly obvious, yet I'm including them here for reference purposes. These spells are the last few that you should learn, aside from the long cooldown abilities located in the section below this one.
The last form of spell I'm including here is the unusual ability. The ability that either you don't come across often, the ability on a very long cooldown, or the ability that you wouldn't normally notice being used.
Preparation, Cold Snap, Holy Radiance (Speed of Light, talented), Sin and Punishment (Vampiric Touch, dispelled), Unstable Affliction (dispelled), Haunt (dispelled), Dark Transformation, Cold Blood, Premeditation, Hemorrhage, Adrenaline Rush, Thunderstorm, Typhoon, Elemental Mastery, Lava Flows (Flame Shock, dispelled), Power Word: Barrier, Intimidation, Hibernate, Turn Evil, Aura Mastery, Hand of Sacrifice, Infusion of Light, Divine Favor, Icy Veins, Arcane Power, and Hot Streak.
These abilities and talents usually explain why that Mage just used Ice Block twice, why the Rogue had his CDs back up so quickly, why you can't seem to Spell Lock that Paladin when he's healing, why that Ele Shaman just started doing a lot of damage really quickly, and why some classes are randomly using instant nukes.
I did my best to include every ability that matched the categories, but this is a very extensive topic and it's likely that I missed a few/a lot. Also I'm aware that the listing order may be odd, but it's the best way I could think of to order them aside from listing by situation, which would take hours.
How to use this post: Go through the categories in order and glance across the spells. The first few categories may be very familiar. This is designed. However, if you don't recognize a spell, look it up on Wowhead. All you really need is basic knowledge. Even 9 time rank 1 Gladiators can't tell you every ability in the game and the situations for which they are used, this is a very dynamic game and that isn't as useful as you might think. When you get through the entire post, go back over the abilities and try to name what they do. Once you can do this, I would recommend going to Wowhead, clicking on Database, then classes, and glancing over the classes' abilities to find ones that I missed or that you don't know about. Then I would recommend doing the same thing for talent trees. Cataclysm changed this game a lot, and you might find something you didn't know in the talent trees.
Doing this will make sure you are as intellectually prepared for Arena as possible. I hope this post helped you, and thank you for your time.
Resources: Minor's Guide to CC
Izekial's What it Means to Know Your Class
To answer your question: I would start with the most blatantly obvious forms of abilities. These are things that you should instantly be aware of regardless of your skill level.
Ice Block, Bloodlust, Divine Shield (Bubble), Starfall, Guardian Spirit, Deathgrip, etc.
If you know these abilities well enough, you will always know how to react when you see them. Defensive cooldowns mean to either switch targets or dispel them. Offensive cooldowns mean to go defensive or start a CC rotation. However, there are always special circumstances. Using my examples: Guardian Spirit means to slow down DPS, switch targets, or stop DPS completely temporarily; Starfall means to incapacitate the Boomkin as soon as possible to minimize damage on yourself and your partners.
From there you should move up to very commonly used abilities, but only gamebreaking ones. The most obvious form that comes to mind is CC. Learn what each individual CC does, how to break it, how to avoid it, and what it shares DRs with. The most helpful resource that I can find is the DR table posted in the SC articles section, located here. If you learn all of those spells, you will be aware of every CC in the game (note that that guide was made in WotLK).
Next you'll be wanting to learn offensive abilities. These are spells that should tell you to go defensive as soon as you see them.
Avenging Wrath (Wings), Bloodlust, Summon Gargoyle, Stealth, Beastial Wrath, Beast Within, Smoke Bomb, Ring of Frost, Shadow Dance, Spirit Wolves, Metamorphosis, Bladestorm (not really powerful at the moment, but when it receives a noteworthy buff it will be something to watch for), Throwdown, and Colossus Smash.
Know what these abilities do and what they look like and you should be able to read a situation and act on it.
After offensive abilities, you should learn about defensive abilities. These are what you'll need to be watching for when you're on the offense looking for a kill.
Spell Reflect, Defensive Stance, Blood Presence, Shield Wall, Divine Protection, Hand of Protection, Hand of Freedom, Pain Suppression, Dispersion, Fade, Warlock Portal, Icebound Fortitude, Anti-Magic Shell, Anti-Magic Zone, Lichbourne, Barkskin, Survival Instincts, Disengage, Deterrence, Cloak of Shadows, Evasion, Vanish, Cheat Death, Stoneclaw Totem Shamanistic Rage, and Grounding Totem.
These are abilities that are designed to keep you from killing your opponent in one way or another. They typically mitigate damage, but some are more dynamic than that (Cheat Death, Grounding Totem), and should be watched for.
Now on to spells that may or may not affect you, but should still be watched for. These are interrupts, offensive abilities that cannot be avoided, uncategorized abilities, or peeling abilities.
Counterspell, Spell Lock, Skull Bash, Silencing Shot, Strangulate, Mind Freeze, Shield Bash (Gag Order), Pummel, Arcane Torrent, Piercing Howl, Kick, Windshear, Rebuke, Silence, Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, Chains of Ice, Chillblains, Hand of Guldan, Shadowfury, Shadowflame, Scatter Shot, Holy Word: Chastise, Killing Spree, Vendetta, Faerie Fire, Purge, All categories of Dispel, Frost Shock, Earthbind Totem, Infected Wounds, Feral Charge, Charge, Intercept, Crippling Poison, Mana Regen abilities (Replenishment, Mana Tide, Divine Plea, Innervate, etc), and Berserk.
Some of these abilities may be blatantly obvious, yet I'm including them here for reference purposes. These spells are the last few that you should learn, aside from the long cooldown abilities located in the section below this one.
The last form of spell I'm including here is the unusual ability. The ability that either you don't come across often, the ability on a very long cooldown, or the ability that you wouldn't normally notice being used.
Preparation, Cold Snap, Holy Radiance (Speed of Light, talented), Sin and Punishment (Vampiric Touch, dispelled), Unstable Affliction (dispelled), Haunt (dispelled), Dark Transformation, Cold Blood, Premeditation, Hemorrhage, Adrenaline Rush, Thunderstorm, Typhoon, Elemental Mastery, Lava Flows (Flame Shock, dispelled), Power Word: Barrier, Intimidation, Hibernate, Turn Evil, Aura Mastery, Hand of Sacrifice, Infusion of Light, Divine Favor, Icy Veins, Arcane Power, and Hot Streak.
These abilities and talents usually explain why that Mage just used Ice Block twice, why the Rogue had his CDs back up so quickly, why you can't seem to Spell Lock that Paladin when he's healing, why that Ele Shaman just started doing a lot of damage really quickly, and why some classes are randomly using instant nukes.
I did my best to include every ability that matched the categories, but this is a very extensive topic and it's likely that I missed a few/a lot. Also I'm aware that the listing order may be odd, but it's the best way I could think of to order them aside from listing by situation, which would take hours.
How to use this post: Go through the categories in order and glance across the spells. The first few categories may be very familiar. This is designed. However, if you don't recognize a spell, look it up on Wowhead. All you really need is basic knowledge. Even 9 time rank 1 Gladiators can't tell you every ability in the game and the situations for which they are used, this is a very dynamic game and that isn't as useful as you might think. When you get through the entire post, go back over the abilities and try to name what they do. Once you can do this, I would recommend going to Wowhead, clicking on Database, then classes, and glancing over the classes' abilities to find ones that I missed or that you don't know about. Then I would recommend doing the same thing for talent trees. Cataclysm changed this game a lot, and you might find something you didn't know in the talent trees.
Doing this will make sure you are as intellectually prepared for Arena as possible. I hope this post helped you, and thank you for your time.
Resources: Minor's Guide to CC
Izekial's What it Means to Know Your Class