If you have been following my arena guides lately then you should now be entering the arena with a strong team setup coupled with a sophisticated communications setup to enable your team to perform to its best.

But all that planning is for nothing if you cannot execute your attack in the right way, as with the preparations you make before attacking, the way in which you initiate your attack is vital to winning in the arena.

Should your team end up confused and scattered in the attack it is a fast road to a lost match, likewise should you be able to force confusion upon your enemy it can make your wins easier to obtain. The trick is to force the other team to play into your own hands and style; make them dance to your tune and victory is assured.

One basic and effective opening tactic is a rush, this favors high burst dps teams to take advantage of the confusion for an easy first kill. The plan is simple, hit the other team hard and from an unexpected angle before they have a chance to identify what composition they are against.

An example of an effective place to rush is Blades Edge, most teams generally line up at opposite ends of the bridge and spend some time scouting out the other team, an effective rush will instead mount up and ride to the opposing teams ramp up to the bridge to hit them in the side.

The big downside to a rush is that while the other team will not have time to scout you out, neither will you have time to identify an effective target to nuke and so it is easy to end up with your own team confused without proper leadership.

A second effective opening tactic, and my personal favorite is harassment. This generally relies on having dispell classes move forward and purge one or two of the enemy buffs before backing off again quickly. In this manner you can weaken the enemy without fully engaging them and try to make one of their members panic and charge you.

If harassing, remember to land an attack from a distance on warriors in order to put them in combat; this stops them from utilizing charge against you which is the most common way you will be chased down as a harasser.

You can also harass with mana drains such as viper sting and by utilizing low rank DoT spells which cost far more mana to be removed than they do to cast. Further harassment tactics extend to the killing of hunter and warlock pets; these are sometimes left on aggressive stance and will charge out when attacked, enabling them to be killed alone.

The third tactic involves mass AoE crowd control and is effective when combined with a slightly delayed rush.   What it typically involves is a class such as a rogue sapping enemy healers or a mage polymorphing them before/as you charge in. This forces them to trinket in order to begin healing.

It is at this point that you hit the entire team with an AoE fear such as intimidating shout or howl of terror. The healers, having previously trinketed will now be out of control and likely to run out of line of sight of their team mates, causing chaos in the enemy’s organization.

This tactic does however rely on the other team being bunched up and you being the attacker.

The final opening tactic is the stealth hunt, if you know the other team has a stealth class, especially a rogue, then the chances are high that they will be sniffing around your team scouting you out. If you can catch them out with a low rank AoE to detect them or by utilizing the shadow sight gems then you force the other team to attack in order to rescue the stealth member.

This can lead to the opposition lacking organization in their attack making them much easier for you to dominate.

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