Blood Sport: Fun things to do in arena

Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column.

Listening Music: On the Apple HQ Rooftop -- The Beatles last live performance.

Last Week: Dawn Moore (no relation) was kind enough to take the column over and discuss the merits of PvE gear in arena. She did an awesome job, and I think you'd all be doing yourself a disservice to not go back and read her work.

Dawn charged me to find a term for people who arena. Many of you suggested gladiator in the comments section. Shame on you. Gladiator is a title reserved for the best arena players. I'm going to pitch the suggestion of Face-Smashing Blood Hungerer. FSBHer for short. I guess Arenaist would be sufficient too.

This Week: Fun things to do in arena! What more needs to be said?

So guys, it's been a while. Exams were a bit hectic, but we're over that now. Blood Sport readers are the best readers in WoW history, and I know you're all wanting to massacre me for leaving you for so long. Ahh, my kind of people.

Cataclysm is drawing closer every day, but I've found myself just playing the auction house and occasionally doing other knick-knack type things in my free-time. Arena has become slightly less fun for me lately -- and I think I know why.

All my gear is going to be obsolete soon! Noooo!

Oh well. I've started trying to have a lot of fun in arena lately. My friends and I have been trying to figure out ways to have the most possible fun in season eight. Here are a few of our suggestions for spicing up your "special arena time."

Play a ridiculous spec.

Right now, I have my warlock specialized for a machine-gun imp-focused build. Oh yes. I'm sure many-an-opponent were surprised to see an imp appear out of nowhere slinging fireballs directly into their face. Boom. Score one for Jubmir.

This is a great time to try out that spec "you've always wanted to play, but just never got the time." Fury/protection warriors? Holy priests? Shockadins? Yeah, let's do it.

Use ridiculous strategies.

My friend is currently on a 3v3 team comprised of two discipline priests and a restoration druid. Annoying? Affirmative. Hilarious? Equally affirmative.

Is it sad that they're undefeated and approaching 2000?

Play with people on trade.

I especially recommend hitting up the /2 if you're one of the better PvPers on your server. Chances are a random guy on trade will appreciate the help. Don't go gung-ho about winning, just try to enjoy playing some games. You might meet a friend that you can raid with or whatever later on. You might not. Who knows, it's like opening a mystery box! No one can resist the mystery box!

Start an alt just for arena.

If you already have an 80, this might be right up your alley. Set all your bindings for arena-access, change your UI around a bit, befriend some people who like doing battlegrounds and go to town. You might not have a ton of time to gear it out in the best-of-the-best gear, but hey, the character will be a new look at arena PvP.

Play ridiculously weird compositions.

I'm talking triple fire mage. How about feral druid, protection paladin, shadow priest? Demonology warlock, affliction warlock, destruction warlock. You might actually like some of the interactions that certain classes have with each other and use those on serious teams. Don't doubt it -- that very scenario has happened to me!

Create new challenges for yourself.

In season four, I got super bored of 2v2 and wanted to see how high I could get playing 1v2. I got to something like 1650 and petered out. I grew bored with it, so I decided to try new challenges that were also interesting.

I decided to play with a friend, naked. Not in real life, of course. We removed every visible piece of clothing except for weapon. We wore rings, trinkets, necklaces, etc. We also turned cloak/helm to invisible. This was before the naked bug, so opponents actually thought we were naked.

After having about as much fun you can playing with someone else naked...err, wait... I wondered what could happen if I combined playing 1v2 and being naked. I lost. A lot. I occasionally killed a single member of a team at low ratings, but couldn't pull off the actual naked 1v2 win.

...Until I got a fire mage / boomkin combo at around 950 rating. It was glorious. I wish I still had the screenshot. They logged on my server afterward to send me tells. We actually had a pretty awesome conversation -- they were friends that were just starting arena. They saw my #1 glad title and wanted to ask me about arena. I still talk to them today.

Creating new challenges for yourself can be a fun and fulfilling way to pass the time in arena, and usually makes a good story if you pull off a win or two.

Make a level 70 twink.

You can play arena at level 70 and get lots of arena gear. It's pretty awesome, honestly. All you have to do is level a guy to 70 (or use an old one that you have lying around), and turn experience off by talking to Behsten in Stormwind or Slahtz in Orgrimmar.

If you feel really ambitious, you can buy a new account that is upgraded to The Burning Crusade but not Wrath of the Lich King. This will allow you to play in battlegrounds with super cool gear. Normally, you wouldn't be able to enter battlegrounds because there aren't enough level 70 twinks queuing up for them. However, you can still enter 'normal' battlegrounds when you're on a capped account.

Next Week: We might have a part II to this article, or we might just talk about some basic positioning via MS Paint galleries.

Want to ascend the arena ladders faster than a fireman playing Donkey Kong? Check out WoW.com's articles on arena, successful arena PvPers, PvP, and our arena column, Blood Sport.