How to get into team arena?

I was suggested kickballs but listening to "i dont know who these people are" over and over gets old fast.
Would be fun if someone could organise kickballs for the not so cool kids before the draft.

Your best bet is probably to befriend one of the "cool kids" and have them bring you along with them.

Are you looking to get into competitive or casual team arena?

If you're looking for someone to organize an instructional-type kickball event, then I'd say we have a few people around here that would be good at that kind of thing. Anyone participating, though, would need to be patient and listen to the logic behind effective builds and possible strategies in order to understand what goes into being competitive in the team arena setting.

If you're looking for an experienced PvP'r to spend time doing consistent, non-competitive KB's, however, it goes against the nature of most PvP'rs, and most would likely consider that sort of thing to be non-productive (since competitive PvP'rs are generally focused on getting more competitive PvP'rs involved). Casual PvP can certainly be fun; dUmb does L4 PvP stuff from time to time and it's a hoot...but I personally think you're going to have a hard time getting people to do consistent, casual team arena PvP.

As for hearing "I don't know who these people are" so much during kickballs...that's because captains are trying to pick the best line-up out of the pick pool and are looking to get build/experience info from people on Vent or in-game chat. I captained the other night and initially picked a couple of people that I knew because I was aware of what they had and needed it...but since I'm still learning about a number of PvP'rs on Freedom, I had to rely on those picks to help me make a few of my remaining picks.

At that point I said "I don't know who the rest of these people are" because I was essentially asking everyone on Vent to clue me in so I could make informed picks. If I'm on an emp (which is always) and, for example, need to know what kind of corruptors are left in the pool, asking those on Vent is more informative than asking for build info in the terminal set-up or arena chat, etc.

That beind said, I'm sure teams ended up consisting primarily of "cool kids" because that's the nature of kickball, assuming you're trying to pick the best team you see. When we ran kickball on Infinity, though, we'd take turns sitting out in order for late-comers (both vets and new PvP'rs) to participate. That's pretty easy to do if you have just a handful more than 16. If you have more than that, and you end up not getting picked, I'd suggest starting up a 2nd KB match with the "fat kids." I can see that it might be frustrating to break into the "cool kid club" or whatever, but I'd imagine you'd get a chance if you kept showing up for KB and proving yourself in matches, show up with a good PvP build, and doing stuff like posting on the boards here about trying to better yourself/trying to get into PvP more, etc.

Sorry I went all psypunk there...what max said there is good advice.

Be willing to put up with dewshes.

Be willing to get on vent.

Be willing to forget everything you know.


Be willing to get farmed and be bad.

Psoma hit it on the nail. Sadly there is a kool kids club in pvp just like in all aspects of life. Kind of like starting a new job where you don't know anyone. Once people see you are outgoing and a team player they will warm up to you.

There are some ******** that refer to people as "shittys" or "noobs" or "they suck" but that is not the majority. I recently just got back in to pvp and moved to Freedom. I think I had it a little easier because a lot of people knew me from test leagues. Still though its hard to be new and stand a chance at being picked over people that are already known to be good or decent. There really are a lot of great people willing to help with tips, builds, attack chain advice, getting accolades etc. Make yourself vocal in arena chat and don't be afraid to send people private tells to ask for help. I have even found that those that come across as real ******** are usually willing to help and give constructive advice.

When the kickball is full and you get fat kidded I would suggest one of 2 things. Either watch the match for strategies and listen in on vent for techniques or get with the others that didn't make it in that match and start up a second match.

Being on vent is a good thing though, you stand a much better chance of being picked if you are on vent.

As someone who came from no real 8 v 8 experience, very Casual Arena/Zone player I can tell you a few things you can do to help get picked.

1. Don't bring a second rate build. When new people come around a lot of times on Vent people will ask about them, who they are, what they are on. A few things are checked for. Do they have Phase or Hiber? Do they have 1500+ HP on a squishy? Do they have the needed travel powers to get around/keep up. Are their power sets useful? If you can pull all of these off? You have a much better chance of getting picked as a Nobody.

2. Have a thick skin. Don't get all bent out of shape if someone calls you out for being bad.

3. Don't be bad. In that.... don't get farmed. As a new target you're likely to be called a bit more as people will be testing how easy you go down. Bring a pile of greens and learn to evade/break LOS.

4. Let people know what you have, and sometimes you can get a spot if you switch over. Be flexible especially if you are new. Find out what the match needs and hopefully? You have it. Recently there seems to be a shortage of blasters somehow for matches.

Beyond that, I really wouldn't call the matches being run recently as casual KB's. The people playing for the most part would like balanced teams. And really all it takes is one or two really bad people to have a match go from like a 5-2 outcome to a 20-2. So someone new is likely a liability. But less of one if they have are built correctly and bring a build that is useful/needed to make the matches balanced.

Really though, try for an early or late match if you can. Let a few people get to know you and what you can do. Little things like tabbing through targets and getting decently quick locks, actually using your buffs, and generally following instructions and listening to what others are telling you can go a long way.

[QUOTE=MrLiberty;2599523snip[/QUOTE]

1. Is Mind/Cold a a second rate build? In my opinion it brings plenty of tools to grief targets but i wouldnt know since i havent rteally tried it in an arena enviroment.

2. Not an issue.

3. How would i know how bad i am if i don´t get picked in the first place? How do improve without playing. Only thing i can do now is aggroing multiple villains/heroes in RV and trying to evade them with weights(TS). That only go so far since the only maps i´m familiar with is cargo ship and perez.

4. I have no pure damage toons sadly. Well i have a fire/fire dom but with limited funds and the villain market being what it currently is itt will take too long to build.

And lastly
Problem is i have no experience in running kickballs let alone participating in them. Just because i can use a hammer and nails doesnt mean i can build a house.


This is from the server advertising that has been done:

I think the real question we need to ask ourselves is:

"Why don't we have an arena option for larger than 8v8 other than SG battle?"

Personally I think Kickballs are garbage, but there are definitely ways that you can get your foot in the door. Nothing is guaranteed though.

1. Be on vent.

2. Be able to talk enough to announce things like target locks (even if you're slow like the majority of the population in this game), phases, evasion, and being disrupted.

3. Bring a decent toon.

4. Die less than -Divine.

Eventually someone will mention that you did "pretty good", and you'll end up getting picked again.

Kat makes a lot of us out to be jerks, I'm positive I'm one of those people. I'm okay with that.

If you follow the above suggestions, you'll have a better chance at getting picked for matches, I'd wager.

@Vince