People who bail during Arena

Please don't prematurely leave the group during arena matches.

The other day, I was in a group with a guy who left while we were waiting for the doors to open. At first I thought he just got disconnected, but another team member said that the same guy left his last group too. Apparently, he keeps going into the arena and leaving until he gets into a team configuration that he likes (pretty much screwing every team he leaves behind in the process).

I ended up on a team with him a little later where he decided to stay. But as soon as he died he left before anyone had a chance to rez him.

Firstly, bad team combinations don't necessary mean you will lose. I have been in teams with no healers, teams with no tanks, teams with really low levels and teams with missing players that still managed to win. I've also been in teams with max levels and perfect team balance who lost to a weaker but apparently more skilled team. I'm sure many other people have had similar experiences.

I don't think that Arenas are supposed to be about winning all the friggin time. No one keeps track of how many arena matches you've won or lost. I think Arenas are where you go to practice and learn how to deal with different combinations and situations.

If you have a crappy team, I think it's good to look at it as a challenge and a learning experience. The best arena experiences I've ever had was when I was on really underpowered teams that managed to pull out a win anyway. In fact, we ended up winning 3 vs. 4 after that guy I mentioned left. So apparently our team wasn't as bad as he thought.

Also, don't leave just because you die. I've seen some pretty incredible comebacks even when it was down to 1 against 4.

-Myrian

Quite right. I've seen multiple times when a team can completely come back from a very near loss.

I remember, just for an example, one time during a 4v4 arena match, we encountered a well put together small team with two secondary monks that were doing some amazing output. One went down, but we were caught off gaurd, as at the time there were very, very few teams running dual monks in the 4v4s (Though now it's so prolifant it isnt funny), and felt the damage from their nuker hard. Three of us went down, and our main tank began running: The enemy team didnt follow. Fatal mistake. They ran after our priest, and the warmo was able to get our main raiser up. Within a few moments, we were all up, and they had no clue. They got the idea when suddenly their priest was delt massive damage and died within all of five seconds. (Love them mesmers.) It was not long after that that we set some energy denial on the monks and mopped them up one by one.

If anyone would have left: We would've been totally screwed. We SHOULD have been totally screwed with the death of three of us and only one of them, but you never know when someone will make a mistake and you will have that golden opportunity to strike back.

Side note: We *were* a semi-PuG. Two guildies, friend, and some random person.

Considering just how common it is in a RANDOM arena match to lack any specific profession, to hear someone say, "This team has no ____, we're dead, so I'm off." and then follow through, is very frustrating to say the least.
One of the most satisfying things would have to be seeing that person again in the arena (actually end up seeing 1-2 people from the previous match or that were formerly in my team in the next match pretty frequently) in their 'ideal' team setup, and still managing to beat them.
I have support builds to test that are next to useless in most teams, and yet I still go into the random arena, stick it out, and even if I can't do much more than use Rez Signet on an ally, then so be it. Sometimes one revival is all it takes to upset the tide of battle. However, after it's completed, if the build won't accomplish much in that team, I'll leave, both for my sake, and theirs.

It's also ridiculous for people to assume that the people in the group won't work well together because they are missing something.
Like if someone leaves when there is no monk primary... that's stupid. There are E/Mo who are fully specced for healing but just wanted energy storage and they can heal fine, but people don't give them a chance.
Also, people don't seem to realize that elementalists can tank pretty well. With Armor of the Earth, Aura of Restoration, and Ether Renewal, it takes quite a while for an enemy team to kill me even if they focus. So if there's no warrior in the group, don't give up. One of the elementalist's might be earth-specced and they will do fine!...
And there is absolutely nothing more effective than every member of the team just being COMPETENT. There's more to the game then picking a bunch of damage skills and nuking all you can, even if you are an elementalist. Lots of people think Earth Magic sucks... I say they just havn't used it right. I can't see myself using any other element now that I've grown used to earth.

I won a 2 against 4 fight today so anything is possible. We had me, a W/E and a R/(something). Granted the other team was very bad, but the point is my teammate and I didn't give up, we tried anyways. You should always try.