Honesty time as a beginner I dont know how you guys do it, im not sure what exactly am I supose to be tracking over here, the whole pvp scene is not beginners friendly, too many spells going on, you have to keep track of other peoples trinckets which need an addon for, the whole battle is over very fast if you dont know what you’re doing. Why there is no tutorials teaching basics of pvp in game? Looking online they all have a completly different layout you can never really tell what exactly they look for, how do they know they got an opening, when to run when to go offensive. It’s always more intuitive when the game teaches you how you should think when in a pvp situation. Also just to start on pvp a feel like i need to know all classes well but most of the game never really exposes you to other classes abilities unless you play all of them.
You are correct.
The best advice I can offer is checking out SkillCapped’s YouTube videos and find someone on YouTube who plays the class you do in PvP. But yeah, it’s a bloody mess.
Yes, the game isn’t great at showing you the basics.
They should make a dedicated PvP area, like GW2 did. Except not as grim and depressing as GW2’s.
When you’re really new but committed to improving, my suggestion is going to Durotar or Elwynn, in the “dueling area”, and find an experimented sparring partner who’s willing to teach you the basics.
Dueling in general is a great way to learn other classes’ toolkit.
If I were you, I’d spam duels and casual PvP like BGs and skirmishes until you feel confident jumping into arenas, because otherwise you will just feel powerless and you’ll give up. Same way throwing a brand new WoW player into M+20 will make them feel inadequate.
Experience.
Believe me… I started PvP 2 weeks ago. I was lost. Kept dieing every 5 seconds.
You need to understand everything from scratch, you need a new build, new gear.
Start farming the PvP gear (by doing the world quests and doing random Battleground, it’s easier than Arenas). In the meanwhile study the PvP builds for your class and test rotation on practice dummies.
Once you have your pvp gear things will change a lot, you will be more effective, you will last longer and will enjoy the PvP a lot more.
Once you are ready jump in the ranked Solo Shuffle and once again, start crying for not being able to gain ranks!
Again, take your time and keep practicing…
Have fun!
Play alot and you start picking up stuff. Do duels, wpvp, bgs, arenas.
I used to think I was decent but nowadays I don’t know half the spells different classes have.
Yh this helped me a lot, but the problem is you need to duel lots of different classes who can take the patient to go easy on you and ramp up as you slowly try to adapt. This is the most fun way to learn but not always i encounter many people with low level pvp gear, as you can imagine high level is not common with beginners.
Nothing wrong with study but this is so not beginner friendly process. First impressions should be inviting not like a phd in wow.
Not only is hard to start the spells and ways to play do change a lot.
I mean just search online and compare your class top players’ builds. So you can see the talents they use. I think that this part of WoW is extremely interesting and enjoyable. No need to do theorycraft at the beginning. 
I agree, there are no resources online to teach pvp for beginners.
This is because pvp is not Blizzard’s focus.
So as others said, practice and analysis of each situation is the way to learn and improve.
Practice.
But let me tell you, the hardest thing to learn is not which class does what, but situational awareness and being preemptive. The first means to see clearly what is happening around you, but this is often difficult because of panic. The second means to predict what the opponent will do/cast.
I pvp casually since 2009 and still haven’t mastered those two very well.
But there are people with many, many arenas played and thousands of bgs and they see it all.
Off topic:
PVP is fun. /s
Cheers.
how to be good at pvp:
spec warrior and run at people and press 3 buttons and you somehow kill someone.
Yh a build can tell me things but i still feel i do not know why, for example people at the start seem to avoid focus on ret paladins, i intuitively know why since it heals itself lots of survivability. Something that is not intuitive is that pvp players do seem to know what to do when you burst lots of damage and some how they dont take damage then suddenly you take tons of damage without even know how to counter that? It happens a lot maybe im undergeared but at times not by much and i see many pvp players that still get the upperhand even undergeared which tells me that they are not just dishing out damage they are sort of playing this rock paper scissors type of game that they understand and i do not.
I just wish that there was like ways in the game that would help you increase your awareness about other classes, there was a dungeon in shadowlands in maldraxxus that it would make you pvp your teammate for a buff. That was cool because you getting exposed to what other classes can do to you. I wish there was more of that.
Duels are for this 
Okay. Understanding PvP is understanding your role or specialisation.
There is the grind for gear. Gear and item level can influence the performance but there is still a gap among player skills.
If you get with a pvp guild or community they can try help you out. But then you can throw yourself into content. Rated content is more gated ESPECIALLY since people want to check your ratings and numbers before allowing participation.
It is the exact same thing with Mythic dungeons and the Keystones
Gathering pvp currency to improve your gear. Then serving a role, So if some ignore the objectives in battlegrounds either try say in chat or go for the objective yourself.
Some people join pvp to go for objectives others do so just to kill the other team.
So are you a team player or not?
This is kinda why I wish there was comp stomp all year round (without all the honor rewards for obvious reasons). Comp stomp is a type of brawl where you fight against AI opponents in battlegrounds. The opponents you face have all the same abilities a regular pvper would, and can still prove a challenge if you’re new.
Sadly the next one isn’t until March 21st, but it’s a quick way to get a full set of honor gear which scales to 411 in pvp. You’ll also learn how to play against other “players” in a less fast-paced environment.
Honestly in the end of the day, its not just understanding your class and being comfortable with your keybinds.
Mostly pvp is about knowing enemy classes and key moments when you see them use a certain ability and understanding when to run back away and kite and when to commit again, when to interrupt etc.
All of this just takes time. Sadly with how many abilities this game has. It takes a while to get used to all that.
Getting to play many classes also tremendously helps but is a tall order to get 13 classes alone to 70, let alone understand each of their specs.
Time is the name of the game. Just enjoy pvp, youll get better as time goes on!
I’m willing to help you ingame learn the basics
feel free to add me and hit a /w
Battle tag : Raken#21685
PvP stands for Player vs Player.
It is a gamemode where players battle eachother to see who comes out victorious!
You are welcome.
Started doing arenas with a mate after many many years of no serious PvP and it has been rough to learn the offensive CDs and defensive CDs of specs.
Imo as a caster you definitely need a addon that tracks your enemys interrupt cooldown, other addons I highely recommend to use is weakauras and import the PvP pack that alerts with noise and flashing icons on your screen when stuff like grounding totem is up etc, gladius for enemy unitframes and omnicd is also good to keep track on enemy cooldowns.
All I can say is play, play and play more and learn, watch some videos on high ranked mages to learn positioning and fakecasting etc as it’s crucial for a caster if you want to stay alive.
Yeah, PvP is not very beginner-friendly, unfortunately. My advice would be this:
- Start with the basics. Skill-Capped has some good videos on how to build your UI, how to trade CDs, how to position yourself etc. It will take some time, but you need a good foundation to build upon. If you need specific information on what people are playing right now, you can check murlok.
- The most important advice I can give is to practice. Arena is all about making hundreds of small decisions that ultimately affect how a game ends and no guide can teach you that. You need to practice to get better.
- Find a solid team. This is probably the most difficult part, but it’s key if you want to get better. LFG is overall a toxic environment and not very good for a beginner. Add people you enjoy playing with and try to form a team.
That pretty much sums it up. I hope you have a good time in arena and good luck!
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