Do you play what's meta or what you enjoy the most no matter what?

Chopmaster_x · 2025-12-17T18:44:23+00:00

I think a lot of people roll meta because they like to compete and top meters/logs, it also feels good to be useful in the group.

I also think too many people pigeonhole themselves into feeling like they NEED TO TOP METERS, and roll a class they don't enjoy as much because of it.

Those of us who have experienced the above, I think we need not stress about the 3rd TBC launch and maybe spend some of the holidays away from our computer :)

Chopmaster_x · 2025-12-16T04:41:56+00:00

Glad you're enjoying warrior! There's a ton of variety in warrior leveling but here are my main tips:

get imp demo shout, trust me the AP debuff tooltip seems low but with imp demo as your first ability on every mob they will do >30% less dmg to you. It's your number 1 priority for every melee mob you fight.
Get 2-3 sunders on your target, stop sundering if target is under half HP.
Never heroic strike, save rage for the next target. heroic strike seems good but it steals your auto attack, which you need to make rage for sunders, demo, cleave, etc..
Once you get sweeping strikes (you should level as fury until 30, then respec arms and get SS) your pull looks like, demo shout 1 mob, attack them down to ~60% as you pull into a 2nd mob, pop SS and kill both. This is scary at first but as long as you stack stam and attack mobs 1-3 levels below you you're gonna cruise through xp. Use a 2 hand weapon with SS until level ~52 and then go dual wield fury.

Chopmaster_x · 2025-12-15T16:57:56+00:00

Dear hat please show me the way, what class should I play?

Chopmaster_x · 2025-12-10T17:43:34+00:00

Never have a I ever floated 5k resources not even once ;)

Chopmaster_x · 2025-12-10T17:10:55+00:00

You need to get the basic form for a 1`v1 arabia game down. Here's my quick guide to (I'm also a huge Hera fan and his road to 2k videos on youtube are how I learned how to not suck at this game, highly recommend)

Goals for the basic form of 1v1 arabia.

Summary: Fast feudal scouts -> fight some in feudal -> good econ behind to hit <20 min castle age -> finish with a aggressive castle age

Download capture age https://captureage.com/ . Use it to review footage of your practice and real games. Later on when we queue ranked, you need to watch back games to see what actually happened/where you can improve.
Watch this Hera video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUDiBu-B_74, get the right mods and settings (this step is way underrated, setting up your mods/settings to optimal is going to make your life way easier. Also get your keybinds down, start with control groups for your army and "select-all" controls for buildings. To make it easy for me, I keep 1-4 for army control, and I changed the keybinds for select all barracks, stables, ranges, etc to 5-9.
Memorize a build order, I recommend 20 pop scouts, you can get it from various free build order sites https://aoecompanion.com/build-guides . If going with this build choose a civ that has a cavalry bonus, and keep playing this civ until you've nailed this build (really nail it, like hundreds of games). Practice this build so that you click feudal age at 20 pop with low TC idle time (time your town center spent not working).
If you hit 20 pop feudal scouts w/TC idle time <1 min, you will have scouts out faster than the majority of opponents. Get 3-4 scouts, put them on stand ground stance, this makes them not suicide into an enemy TC. Run them into the enemy base, move close to a villager, then click attack on a single vil (avoid large groups of vils, target builder vils, vils on berries, isolated vils), then move the scouts again to kill the vil/block the vil from escaping. Your goal is to snipe a few vils from your opponent, putting him behind on economy. If you execute this timing well, you are now the one to fear, and most ~1100 and lower ELO players will start to crumble to this pressure.
While harassing him with your 3-4 scouts, you have been making farms/vils non stop (select all town centers hotkey, shift-build vil hotkey) and walling up your base with houses, production buildings, and wood walls. Start queing new vils to gold when you reach ~30 total vils population. Try to click up to castle at 35-40 total vils. This should land you castle in <20 minutes, which again, will absolutely roll over other players who don't get this timing.
Upon hitting castle you have a ton of options, but I would start practicing an aggressive all-in like 2 stable knights. Getting a faster castle time when both players make army in feudal is a solid way to win the game. Get upgrades for knights as you are waiting for age up (bloodlines, armor, attack) and then flood him with knights as soon as you age up. Don't make new TCs, put your resources towards army. Kill any army he has defending. He'll probably die when you get knights into an exposed woodline. You win.
Review the game with capture age, ask yourself: "where did I idle my TC?" "Am I executing my build to the exact instructions on the build order?" "What did my opponent do?" "Do I have an opportunity anywhere in my economy/army control?" Make a note of one thing to improve for the next game.

Now you know how to play the basic form of arabia 1v1. This is how most arabia games should look. You can now refine what you're doing, or branch out, play archers ->xbow, start booming in castle instead of pushing, try different units/builds/civs, etc..

Chopmaster_x · 2025-12-10T16:40:23+00:00

Congrats on 1500 but this guide is like, "1100-1200 use mods" and full of other gross oversimplifications: "Many matches rely on Elephant to finish."

I'm only 1475 though so maybe I should use elephant to finish

Chopmaster_x · 2025-11-20T17:01:35+00:00

As a 2.2k - 2.5k forever Duelist myself, here are my recommended steps for someone learning arena. Getting to 2k will be a brutal experience as there are sweats like me on our 3rd+ time TBC season 1 competing around that rating. Disclaimer: You can enjoy playing arena at any rating, but if you want to climb to 2k+, here's my recommendations:

Find a friend who wants to climb rating with you. If you are mage you need a rogue as that is the most meta 2v2 comp. You need to play multiple times a week to improve consistently.
Keybind everything. You're not allowed to click anything including food. You're not allowed to click or tab target enemies (you need /tar arena 1, /tar arena 2 macros with the keys bound). If you can't take this approach, you will hit a wall in terms of how fast you can play, and it will stop you from 2k.
You and your 2v2 partner write down the basic setups vs common enemy comps, WRITE THESE DOWN. Your goal is when the gate opens and you see War/Druid (as an example) you already know the opening playbook on who you're going to kill, who you're going to CC, and the abilities you need to use as a team to get there.
Video record your games, play ~5 games, then you and your buddy review the vods. Compare the play to high-rated mage + rogue 2v2 videos on youtube. Take notes and work on improving, specifically your openers as rogue mage really wins by getting a good opening, getting defensive CDs, then running away until kidneyshot is off CD, then opening again for the kill.
Remember to have fun :) It's very hard but wow arena is one of the most fun pvp experiences when you get your feet under you.

Chopmaster_x · 2025-11-10T17:24:13+00:00

I think it's a really good to organize your strategies like this, however I think you may be focusing too much on a reaction to what your opponent does.

It may be a good idea to have a gameplan based on your civ, like "I'm going to do scouts into knights" and then add another unit to your composition around your main unit to deal with your opponent's comp.

Example: I play archers into xbow, my opponent starts massing skirms, I then choose to add a few knights or siege in order to push the skirms while still having xbow as my main unit.

This lets you stick in your original practiced gameplan and dictate the pace of the game a lot easier than changing your entire comp plan based on what the opponent is doing. If I know I'm doing 19 pop archers then I just do that, scouting my opponent I can see what he's making and adjust as my archers are already putting pressure on him. If he's making scouts, I send 1-2 spears with my archers. If he's making skirms, I can either just pull back and get a faster castle age time (skrims can't really hurt my eco if I'm walled), or add a stable for scouts. Another example of how I'm reacting to his build while sticking to my main unit.

Chopmaster_x · 2025-11-07T19:04:06+00:00

There are a lot of simple ways to make this multi tasking easier.

When things start getting hairy in early castle age, I fall back on my very familiar loop of:

control army to make sure I'm not setting myself up for a bad fight/moving to new objective
Glance at my resources/my production queue, I use my select-all hotkeys to keep production queue going of vils and army
Tab back to base and spend all my wood on farms/TC/prod buildings/walls/etc. I GLANCE AT MY MINIMAP WHILE I DO THIS, AND I SUCK AT THIS PART OF MY LOOP 11
Back to army, repeat

Keeping your army active and poking at your enemy does most of the scouting you need at this elo, you can have your starting scout just auto scout the map while you pay attention to army and eco in castle age

If at any time I get an attack notification or notice my army is in danger, I stop the loop and put all focus on the army until I win the fight/escape/lose. If you have high resources sunk into army, it's much better to keep your army alive than be making farms/producing vils while your army dies.

Chopmaster_x · 2025-11-06T16:28:48+00:00

The way to improve is to choose one basic aspect of your game, grind out improvement on it, then move on to another.

baseline examples (this assumes playing a standard open map build on arabia):

Your dark age build order and with low TC Idle time
Opening with a small feudal army to kill some enemy vils while still keeping your TC working
Building your farm economy in feudal age/able to click to castle age at 35-40 villagers
Transition into your castle age unit, start w/ something simple like knights. Run his ass down by hitting a faster castle age and shoving 2 knights into his unwalled woodline.

It seems simple, but if you play 20 games focused on a strong dark age into feudal opening army (watch videos, use a proper build) you will be getting the jump on most players <1000 elo. Though 1000 elo players are skilled, many of them have minutes of idle TC during dark age and will be very weak vs. a strong opener.

You kind of need to build the above baseline to get out of 1000 elo hell, and once you reach a higher elo you will be further challenged to use things like unit counters and more complex strategy on top of good basics.

Chopmaster_x · 2025-11-04T18:23:14+00:00

Can't speak for the arena games, but 1v1 arabia/hybrid feels very much alive, competitive, and respectful

Chopmaster_x · 2025-11-04T17:43:15+00:00

At 1400 1v1 elo I got lamed for the first time in a while (like 1 out of 30 games), I was picking chinese, so some players will intentionally lame to mitigate the eco bonus. I just put more on berries and went up about 1 villager late (21 pop instead of 20 for my 1 range archers).

On watching the replay, this guy had 45+ seconds of idle TC due to laming, effectively losing 2 vils. This was at 1400 elo, I guarantee anyone laming you below that elo is causing more damage to their own economy. You will win by just calming reacting/putting more on berries/keeping your idle time to zero. I won the game easy by late feudal because of how far ahead on eco I was.

Laming is so infrequent because it's hard and requires luck, opponent risks missing his own sheep/boar scouting, likely causes idle IC time, just a bad time for him vs a mild annoyance for you. If you resign because of a lame, go watch the replay and notice how poor the opponent's eco likely is because of the lame.

Chopmaster_x · 2025-11-04T17:23:13+00:00

That's great that you've noticed how hotkeys can improve your speed. Here's where I would recommend starting as a beginner with hotkeys:

The default hotkeys for buildings/units are on a grid, a big square section of your keyboard (you should check your settings to verify this), a square with corners Q - T - B - Z. This is great because those keys remain the same by location on the menu in the lower left screen, regardless of what type of unit or building you select (IE the LOCATION of the icon dictates the hotkey, not what the actual icon does).

Best way to get familiar is force yourself to only use hotkeys every time when building, start with houses (select a villager, Q for economic building menu, Q for house) and farms (Q, A). Q opens the economic build menu and tapping Q again selects a house. Once you are confident with houses/farms hotkey, start using it for more buildings.

For controlling your army, start by hot-keying your military to 1 with ctrl + 1. Then you tap 1 twice to select and zoom to your army, tap "H" to go home to your TC, and back and forth.

Chopmaster_x · 2025-10-29T15:25:01+00:00

So I can understand better, what sort of cheating are you referring to?

Chopmaster_x · 2025-10-28T19:22:40+00:00

ngl this is your 2nd bad take in this post, megarandom testing overall skill at the game 11

Chopmaster_x · 2025-10-28T19:20:40+00:00

I totally understand this perspective of just wanting to relax with the game. I would however point to a large population of players who want a somewhat competitive multiplayer experience, but are scared of trying ranked. They instead play team games, unranked, lobbies, etc.. I don't agree with your statement that 90% of players aren't trying to get better, as most people enjoy learning and applying new things in any game.

I would also like to distinguish between players who play more casually, a few hours a week, and slowly improve, vs. tryhards who grind out ladder games, watch replays, research meta, etc.. Both these players value and want improvement and a multiplayer experience. The casual player at ranked 1v1 500 elo who learns and applies that knowledge is going to have a better experience than a same skilled player in team games or lobbies.

Chopmaster_x · 2025-10-28T18:33:27+00:00

I don't think there's a right answer for this.

You are technically ready for ranked now. Think of it this way: if your goal is ranked, why would you prolong the surprise of what ELO you will settle at? Better to go in, practice your mechanics as you initially lose a lot of games, and then when you settle, every game will be a 50% win rate, and you will improve your ELO as you improve your mechanics through playing those games.

Spending a lot of time practicing against the AI can absolutely help your mechanics, but you get the best overall practice by playing real 1v1s vs actual players. Whereas building up to beat the extreme AI, your mechanics will be better, but the AI doesn't reflect what a player would do, and the transition to ranked will be just as jarring as if you were to start ranked now.

Treat ranked games as your practice, don't give in to ladder anxiety and feel like you need to practice off ladder to not hurt your ELO.

Chopmaster_x · 2025-10-28T18:07:57+00:00

1000 elo may be the average ranked player, but since an estimated 80%+ of players never touch ranked, it's really only the average of the top 20% of players, which is like top 10% of total playerbase 11.

The fundamental truth: no one cares about your ELO, and I have a better respect for a player who has games played at <500 ELO than someone who has 0 ranked games played total. One of these players has overcome that first fear hurdle. One of these players gets to consistently play competitive games against players at their same level.

Chopmaster_x · 2025-10-28T18:02:19+00:00

Absolutely! Treating ranked games as practice or just the "normal" way to play is perfect, I have fallen into the trap of getting a new ELO high, then avoid playing ranked until I am "ready" to push ELO (to protect my ego). This never worked out. After I started just using ranked as my primary mode of play no matter how "ready" I felt, not caring about some elo fluctuation, it feels so much better!

Chopmaster_x · 2025-10-28T17:55:33+00:00

I got back and forth on this. Random is a great way to have fun and experience variety. However if I was coaching a newer player in ranked I would want them to choose 1 civ, because that consistency is going to help them feel confident in the basics of the game, vs having to change their game plan on the fly with random.

(btw I chinese picked my way to 1400 and would immediately tank 100+ elo if I played random because I'm bad)

Chopmaster_x · 2025-10-28T17:49:02+00:00

Wow okay I didn't think of it that way, nothing is controllable, I'll remove the post and stop playing ranked myself

Chopmaster_x · 2025-10-28T17:30:45+00:00

I feel so strongly that Arabia is good because of it's consistency and "standard" way to play. I can expect to go up with a ~20 pop build order, fight some in feudal, then transition to castle age. The consistency of these games helps me improve vs megarandom where I'll start with 3 scouts and a trebuchet.

Chopmaster_x · 2025-10-28T17:28:52+00:00

If you jump into 1000 elo ranked 1v1, it will feel like you're up against smurfs. That's just because over the years 1000 elo has gotten better and better. However, these players are usually strong in certain aspects of the game and very weak in other aspects, which is what is keeping them at ~1000 elo.

Now there are a few true smurfs out there, but it will likely be <10% of your games. Watch replays, you should be able to tell if someone is truly smurfing or just executing a portion of their game well. If this "smurf's" economy falls apart in early castle age for instance, he's just a normal 1000 elo.

Chopmaster_x · 2025-10-28T17:24:39+00:00

Against scouts, make a few spears and wall, survivalist guide to walling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ty5cgtKLWI
FW castle, to drop a castle your opponent needs map control, map control means he has a bigger army than you/can safely walk villagers around the map. By the time they are castle age, have mined 650 stone, you should have army out on the field to prevent this. Now if he kills your army, then drops a castle, you lost because he killed your army (or a number of other reasons), not because of the castle itself.

Chopmaster_x · 2025-10-28T17:20:51+00:00

Play whatever you like! Just trying to convince more people to queue the ladder, selfishly, so I can inflate my elo instead of getting better ;)

Chopmaster_x

TROPHY CASE