In light of my “retirement” from raiding, I’ve started PVP-ing more or less all the time with my Paladin. He’s now Ret, and he’s got a fairly decent starting set – 3/5 Merciless, 2/5 Gladiator, Guardian Belt, Vindicator Ring, Veteran Bracers, and some PVE Epics.

Last week, I started a 3v3 arena team with some friends – a Resto Druid and a Hunter (sometimes BM, sometime Survival-Marksman). The first week was touch and go. We went 3 – 7, and ended the week with a 1440 rating. Not impressive, but you have to start somewhere.

This week, we did better. Ended the week 6 – 4, and our rating rose slightly to 1476. One reason we won so many games, though, is because we played the same team three times in a row. We owned them three times in a row. Likewise, we lost three games in a row to a different team.

This leads to me ask the question… why are arena matchings so streaky?

Arena Matching

In theory, the arena matching system is supposed to choose teams that are fairly evenly matched. Using the rating system, it picks people from the queue that aren’t that far apart.

Unless it’s a brand new team with full S3 or S4, the system should work. It seems logical that a team rated 1440 should be roughly equal to a team rated 1420 or 1460.

What happens after the game, though? It would seem that if you lose points to a team, you should move out of their “bracket” and have a new team to play. This doesn’t always work out, though, if you play a team that is rated high above you and win.

The team that we beat continuously (Holy Pally, Resto Druid, Shadow Priest) gave us 18, 16, and 14 points. Presumably they were high above us in the first game, somewhat above us in the second game, and equal or below us in rating by the third game. Lucky for them, we had a new opponent for the following game.

Should Rating Alone Determine the Matches?

While we thoroughly enjoyed smashing that team three times in a row, it was equally frustrating for us to be on the losing end of a Resto Shaman, Warrior, Warlock team.

Should there be some mechanism in place to prevent teams from playing 3, 4, or 5 times in a row? In the past, I’ve played the same team 4 out of 10 times during a day of arena.

If rating alone determines the match up, then this is conceivable. If the losing team continues to win (like we did), then it will take three or four matches to even out the points. However, there may be other factors that are determining who wins.

Certain teams have an advantage against certain other teams. Two rogues have a pretty decent advantage against two clothies. You can reasonably expect the rogues to win most of the time against equally rated opponents.

In our case, I think it was a matter of team make-up that gave us an edge. Is it fair that the team should continue to play us – three or four times – with such a steep disadvantage?

Aside from the points, it would be nice if match-ups were tracked as well. For example, after you lose two consecutive games against a team you get a heavy negative modifier for matching against them in the future. The matching system might consider your rating an extra 20 or 30 points lower vis-a-vis that team.

Playing the same team twice isn’t so bad – it gives you a chance at redemption. However, there are times when it seems mostly futile… and playing that team again and again is just demoralizing and unfair.