This is the real meta, and it needs a nerf

"spotremix;1007110" wrote:
when i did arena on a regular basis i did my 5 battles whenever i wanted. i don't care who's payout time it was. my goal for arena back then was to be at the best possible rank at all times.

i use to space 3 battles throughout the day and try to finish the 3rd battle around my payout time. that left me with 2 battles after my payout time and i never hesitated to use them.

as far as i'm concerned arena is every man/woman for themselves at all non cheating costs.

Collusion does not break developer "intent" nor does it violate the ToS as it is not hacking the game nor is it a form of cheating. Collusion was patched with Tournaments relatively quickly after release, whereas collusion has been allowed to continue in Arena for the entire duration of the game with the devs almost certainly knowing about it. This, if anything, is an implicit "ok" from the devs that this is working as intended. It has never changed in the past, it probably isn't going to change now, and thinking it will just because you happen to be struggling in your shard is just naive. The OP is speculating about the developer "intent" when in reality, Arena is just a Free For All environment (emphasis on All).
Consider this, you're in the Colosseum with 9 other gladiators. You sneak off to the locker room and sh*t on everyone else's gear, just because you feel like it. The others find out and agree to team up on you when it's time to fight.
No one is doing anything wrong here. FFA means you have the freedom to do whatever you want (sh*t on other people's gear). FFA also means everyone else has the freedom to do what they want (team up against you).
Actions have consequences. When you step all over other people's payouts, you're going to turn people against you. You have the freedom to play however you want within the ToS, and sniping outside your payout is not prohibited. That's fine, but you can't expect others to not have that same freedom to play how they want.