Was curious what the arena community thought about this. I’m going to liken a rank 1 player to a professional athlete for the sake of this discussion. Do you think just about anyone can become a rank 1 player with enough time, practice, help etc…or like a professional athlete, is there a certain amount of inherent genetic ability required (in addition to time/practice) to becoming the best of the best?
Kind of a weird question I know, but was just curious on people’s thoughts.
Anyone can do it. But it’s very gated, all rank 1 have been playing arenas for 10+ years and have the same team mates every season. A huge factor is also having a good team around you.
Also, you need to play the meta.
Anyone can do it if they sit for 6 months in SL S1.
Yes. This game is mostly about knowledge. I guess you need to learn like 4 things - your win condition, setup script (if you play some setup comp), how to trade cds properly (i guess you should do some limit tests so you know what you can survive alone/when you need help etc.) and how to do big damg. You dont even need some insane reaction time since there is gcd and at some point you can predict everything that is going to happen.
Also as it has been said many times theres huge difference between r1 ladder and like r300 which has been r1 too.
Or you can skip everything and just wintrade like everyone else nowadays.
Actually since there is such a small player pool and noone except 30 people care about arenas + there are so many spots + game is unbalanced joke + milion other problems => you can get away (high) with very little effort/without actually being good at the game. Idk for example as dkdh in bfa S2 and S3 thanks to tank trinkets/stuff you were unkillable even tho you made horrible mistakes that would make you lose in previous seasons.
The fact that i got few titles even tho i miss 90% of my interrupts and with really low effort (i guess i was really lucky tho) put into the game and even got to top 8 in awc/gcd with 0 practise shows how low the competition is. Maybe with way higher player pool the game could be competitive but rn its a joke.
There is an incorrect consensus that if you just “spend X hours and trade cooldowns” you will suddenly become gladiator (or R1) material.
Just because these veterans in the thread did it doesn’t mean that genetics don’t matter - because they do.
There are limits to things like reaction time, ability to remember spells and abilities, field of vision and ability to process information from multiple places at the same time.
Same as everywhere. 90% practice, 10% genetics. With same practice time, genetics ( talent) obviously win. Multitasking, awareness, reaction time ect.
Imo the biggest factor is finding people that are good and help you reveal your potential.
After that it’s just all about spamming games and play a top tier comp, I heard that even not that good player got r1 sometimes because of how braindead some spéc can be (without toxicity, just a thought from the top player).
Imo. reaching top levels of skill in games and sports comes through your intelligence and your ability to find a learning curve, understand how to improve yourself etc. and thats the same thing people often call “talent” but thats just imo.
Imo well yes but actually no. As I said theres small competition, low amount of people so differences between on glad-r1 ladder are absolutely insane (and small at the same time if that makes sense) so yes while there are some limits I would argue in wow you can do well (rating wise) even tho youre not playing that well. Imo in different games/irl sports thanks to higher competition small details (like idk some human abilities you mentioned) matter waay more than in wow. Imo in wow there are like 30 insane people (idk ± i dont check ladder) playing atm and theres huge gap between them and rest. So its 30 people And 300 r1 spots last season (i guess even more idk about actual numbers). So basically imo till you face these 30 people its more about game knowledge, when you face them its about knowledge + some other human traits. (I mean obviously to some degree it matters but not that much.) + Ladder actually doesn’t reflect skill since there are people who are insane and win tournaments and almost don’t play ladder except some boosting.
Why do you say this?
wow is a pretty slow game mostly about accumulating silly amounts of game knowledge and using it to make good decisions. it doesn’t require great reaction times or mechanical ability like aim. i don’t think any particular level of talent is necessary.
I like how people say this there when the meta’s been as fast as it is for the past two seasons. 
Your point about WoW mostly requiring knowledge is valid, but you do need to have quick reactions to avoid getting one-shotted.
There are certain steps to achieving this goal.
Step 1: Move into your mothers basement.
Step 2: Grow a neck beard.
Step 3: Practice involuntary celibacy.
Step 4: Admit that your greatest achievement in life is in a digital game and will be gone at some point.
Final step: Buy lots of tokens and watch that rank rise 
Its not like youre getting oneshoted 24/7. Its just once per idk 1,5-2min? Just once in a while when your weak aura tells you to be careful you need to do something then you can chill for another 60 seconds. Anyway if you get templar for 30k or something Its not like reaction time would help you since you need to know what is going to happen and how youre going to respond before it happens.
fast by wow standards maybe, but even then not really i don’t think. what’s the average on human benchmark, like 250ms? that’s plenty. maybe you don’t always have several seconds to react, but that’s much slower than the typical time if you’re talking actual reaction times. you’re constrained by global cooldowns for a lot of things as well.
you use a bad global and die spamming block, that’s not a reaction time problem on your end. that’s a decision problem. your brain saw the trouble and tried to block, but the game prevented it because of a decision you made a second earlier. you don’t notice you’re getting deleted, realise too late and die, also not a reaction time problem. you press the wrong thing and die through, not reaction time.
when you do get deleted it’s usually at least somewhat telegraphed with preparing and positioning and stuff as well, so you have plenty of time to react (in terms of human reaction times) - assuming you know what you’re looking for and are prepared to deal with that stuff, which is knowledge and awareness.
I think that in generals genetics are way less important in e-sports than in real sports. I mean if you like something like sprinting, if you are 1.70 cm tall you are not gonna become a top athlete.
All you need to be r1
time (being smart/fast learner cuts this down alot)
game knowledge (every spell in-game)
how to react to every spell/situation
positioning
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