Having reached silver 1, it's not really that bad... But there's definitely a"missing link" from the PvE content to the PvP.
The thing about PvE is most of the times you can brute force your way into it, set up bigger attack, and higher speeds and things like that and most of the times you can break the PvE content.
In Arena you need a clear objective of what your hero can do and how it helps other heroes, that includes how to gear your heroes with specific stats and sets and specific masteries.
Because of that, there's a different learning curve that the game didn't teach you.
Having said that, I will still reiterate that Plarium needs to protect their lower tier players, specifically the Bronze tier ones, it is not right that people that have silver or even gold upgrade on their Great Hall can fight those without