How do you make Random Arenas fun not frustrating?

I don't think I need to elaborate, really, but some people may want more specifics.

Why does it always seem like fun for a few matches, and then you just get so POed you have to leave? Is there something you can do when team matchups are just so poor? Is there a way to study/figure-out what is wrong with your team or what is so good with theirs? How can you pick a build and learn to use it when a full 75% of the time your teammates or opponents or both make the build unworkable?

Seriously, I'm not trying to gripe. I really want to know becauase I want to practice in RA, but sometimes I can play for an hour and feel like I only got about 3 good matches in where I could work on executing my build.

Help?

If you're with 3 bad players against 4 decent/good ones there really isn't much you can do. If you don't have a monk, you're likely to lose against a team that does. It's just the nature of RA. Exceeding large amounts of stupid people helps screw up RA aswell. If you really want to play PvP, find a more organised form.

Random arena is just that random sucess or failure
If you want organized sensible teams do team arenas

9 times out of 10, the odds are against you in RA. That'll piss anyone off...

Why do you pvp again?...

You make random arenas fun by not sweating the losses. You know people are going to drop the ball and suck so why let yourself get worked up by it?

You just have to be good enough yourself, and then hope to hell your teammates are decent. Yes, it's depressing.

run p block against all the mb eles

Stop noob syncers!

Ok this is what you do.
You load up on a pvp w/mo with a controversial name that everyone will be pissed about, and then you run stance tank (dolyak sig, block stances, riposte, defy pain, healing breeze, stuff like that) and as soon as the battle starts, start flaming in caps. A 55 works as well. It's loads of fun.

Use a GvG build - get if off wiki, learn to play it well, learn to play it well. That way you make yourself a solid team member, and with 3 other solid team members you have a solid team.

Then you take your GvG build which you know how to play well, hit enter, just suck it up with losses till you get a decent team, and enjoy the pvp along the way.

Eventually let's say you get a hammer warrior, a ranger, a necro, and a monk, you might get 10 wins, but you don't even need a terribly balanced party to beat whatever random groups you meet. Remember that you may only win 1 out of 10 games, but everyone else there also has the same awful odds and only wins 1 of 10 games, based on this we can assert that if you have a bit of an idea what you're doing you're bound to get at least a few victories.

I've got 10 wins without a monk (beating 4-5 teams with monks along the way), 10 wins with a rit healer, beaten 2 monk teams without a monk, lost to a team while I had a monk then subsequently beaten them with all warriors, etc.

TLDR VERSION

1) Run a GvG bar. GvG bars will always be the best pvp builds by far.

2) Suck it up and play.

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This is what I use in RA, actually I made it myself after improving my self made hammer build for a month or so, so the fact that it's on wiki is only tangentially related to me. I'm quite good with it, and given the right circumstances will do a lot of damage to the opposing team. I run antidote signet for my optional, because although there are more interesting/ cool options it helps a huge amount against otherwise unbeatable bsurge else, blinding rits, etc.
http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:W/an...Hammer_Warrior

Don't get stuck in flail, noob.

How do I make RA fun not frustrating?

(no troll)

By not playing.

I'll second that. If you're unwilling to synch cheat, then you're hitting your head against the synch cheat wall. Stay out of RA. If a net doesn't care about it, then why should anyone else?

Become decent at a GvG build like Lux said. A good BA ranger can go far.... some of the time. Always remember it's called Random Arenas for a reason. If you feel you did your best, don't worry about. If you feel you made mistakes, learn from those so you don't have a repeat.

RA is fun when I take long breaks from PvP or GW altogether, and I come back to play a little. It's relaxed and I do have some laughs even losing.

However, when it comes to more serious play, trying to get Glad points and win, it can be EXTREMELY frustrating, lead you to rage really. If you play something damage, you get no Monk. You play Monk, you get another Monk or bad damage... And finally even if you get a nicely balanced team, you can still face a wtfpwnage team at the last matches (#9, #10...) that completely counters yours, or is made up of synchers, and be robbed of 2 Glad points.

It's just the way it works... Random is random.

I find the very concept of being “good” at RA hilarious, based on the fact that it is totally random and there is zero strategy involved. It’s just four players banging and spelling away at each other and the ones with the flavor of the moment build wins. Screw GUILD WARS this is BUILD WARS!

Ranger is probably one of the easier classes to start pvp on since most meta ranger builds bringing condition removal + blocks, however you still need to be good to do well.

The time I got 10 wins without a monk, we had rangers who were obviously skilled and made a big difference - one of them actually beat two warriors by himself after everyone else was dead and all our signets burned.

Note that when I say "ranger", I mean "GvG build ranger" - any random skills you throw together isn't going to be a quality build unless you know what you're doing.

Either that or enjoy E/Me mindblastblockgay until it gets nerfed.

I see a lot of top guild people in ra, the other day I saw the leader of vR, and last time I got 10 wins we had a critscythe from yumy and a ranger from GlhF, also I saw chiizu once and he told me to read QQ.

PRO TIP: Play in the International district, because the players there are slightly higher quality there.

Lux is giving you great advice. Random Arena, Alliance Battles, Jade Quarry & Fort Aspenwood are all randomized teams. You cannot worry about what team you will have, you can only make sure that you have a good useful build and have learned to use it effectively.

The point of RA is to learn your build. Once you have that down, move on to less frustrating PvP. In the meantime, play until you start to feel frustrated, then switch to something else.

This is terrible advice. Good GVG bars (or HA or even TA bars for that matter) should and do include intra-team synergies, and frontline builds are designed assuming a competent backline (and vice versa). You can't count on any of that in RA... unless you're a synch cheater.

IMO:
Don't build around intra-team synergies, since the other half of the synergy won't be there. (ie Don't use GvG/HA/TA builds.)
Don't build around trying to carry awful teammates, since you're doomed anyway if you get awful teammates.
Do build around somewhat competent teammates, since those are the teams that might get somewhere. Assume offensive players will have passable DPS, but nothing that synergizes with your build, and they won't follow targets too well. If you've got a monk, assume you'll get some red-bars-go-up from time to time, but little or no prot or removal.

uhmm wat exactly r u running?

and if ur getting mad.. u must be in american dis? lol.. thats ur problem then

Horribly misleading.

It is, however, a good idea to bring some condition removal because generally one monk will be under too much pressure to remove your blinds.

do what lux said and a few forgot the best piece of advice...TURN OFF ALL CHAT..if u turn it off u sure to have a bit of fun cause u don't have to hear the other team call ya noobs when u beat em

Its even more fun when u turn off team chat too

Play b-surge and keep local chat on. Guaranteed fun.

its so easy to win in RA, just run builds that will counter the meta. for example, E/Me with distortion is real popular right now so i just run a shattering assault unblockable sin and gg!

Thanks for all the advice everyone. Some of this I do already. Some I should try. I never did the international district because I always thought it was kind of a cheat. I used to see teams of 4 in RA all from the same guild, and someone told me that's what they did. If it's commonplace now, then I'm shooting myself in the foot by not doing it.

As far as RA goes, I guess I will have to just take it lightly, since I don't really have any other PvP options. I could PuG in TA, but that's just quasi-RA verses really skilled teams. And yeah, my builds aren't cookie-cutter wiki builds, but you can bet that I looked at a few really carefully before I put mine together. I do like to use RA to gauge my own builds, but as discussed, that doesn't always work well.

The was one other thing I wanted to ask, but I'll have to start a new thread. I don't want to get moderated (again) for hijacking, especially in my own thread.

This is good advice. Metagaming to screw the meta is sure to get you some wins.