We’re getting closer and closer to Blizzcon- Only a handful of days left! Our WoW Arena team have been hard at work preparing for the tournament and we got the chance to pick their brains. Last week we sat down with Loony, our Arena Healer, and picked his brain on some game mechanics, Blizzcon, and WoW Classic. Check out what he had to say below!

 

I’d like to start this off with a bit of information for anyone that’s a new fan to Wildcard. What’s your role on the team and how long have you been playing that role?
My role on the team is healer, and it has been ever since I started playing back when The Burning Crusade was released.

Have you played at Blizzcon before?
Yes. This year is going to be my third. I first attended in 2014 along with last year.

Will we see anything different in your own playstyle at this Blizzcon with WC?
I wouldn’t think so. GNA is pretty straight forward. I’ll just use my heals.

What’s your biggest concern going into Blizzcon?
I think the biggest concern for both my team and I is the rogue/mage teams we are going to face. We will try our best but we don’t really have big hopes considering how one sided the meta is on tournament realm.

How is it traveling to the US and coming to these LAN events?
It’s always fun meeting all the players and hanging out. Also, the weather is pretty good in LA compared to Sweden right now so that’s a plus too.

Other than Blizzcon do you have anything fun planned while you’re in California?
This year I dont sadly, besides just hanging out with people during the tournament days. Planning on going straight back after the tournament.

Let’s talk about game knowledge and experience! What are critical aspects of arena fights that common players may not know?
It’s about reading your opponents, and being able to react situational during the games. Usually, there’s a ”script” to follow in most matchups, but you always have to do stuff based on the situation you’re in which is always random. Normal players tend to be much worse at doing so. Also being able to read opponents on what they want to do ( if a healer wants to get a mana drink off, or if the enemy dps are planning on making a switch – which is basically you reacting randomly from a situation properly) Like precooning or prewalling a go on myself for example when I play my mistweaver monk. Can’t really learn any of that without just playing a ton of games.

What is the biggest mistake you personally thought you made during summer finals? What could you have done differently?
Overall, my performance was pretty poor. I did not play great at all in the cups during summer season. The meta was against us from the start. We didn’t have any good comps because they don’t exist vs RMD, but still my performance in the games wasn’t good. It was a combination of RMD being broken and my arm being broken i guess. Not sure what I would have done differently, since our performance in the summer cups led to us having a great seed for summer LAN which made us have a good bracket to qualify to Blizzcon. So now, looking back, I’m happy how it all went great seed as in we faced the top seed from NA by being lowest seed from EU and the top seed from NA was an easy match for us and we knew that before going into the tournament.

In your opinion, what’s the biggest misconception about Healers?
I don’t know. I don’t think there is one. maybe one is that healers cant play dps but that’s not true at all. in wow, the healer isn’t considered being easier/harder than dps kinda similar roles in terms of difficulty.

Huh, like they just wouldn’t be good at it?
Yea but people think like that, but it’s not true obviously. Many of the good healers have played dps role on very high ratings before.

Hmmm. Yeah, I’d imagine it’s not.
But not many dps have been healing.

Fair, fair. So the just don’t know what their talking about, aye?
I know kubzy has played dps on very high rating in the past, gorecki as well from NA. Boetar has from EU. Even myself has done it, considering how little ive played dps throughout the years as well, so maybe it’s the other way around playing dps role is actually easier I remember for example back in warlords of draenor I was struggling a lot to beat rmd in season 2 and beginning of season 3 by playing turbo ( arms warr  enh shaman rdruid) then I played some enhancement myself and beat whaz main rmd more than I lost the enha shaman back then was in charge of basically carrying the matchup which may enhance back then couldn’t do.

In your opinion, what’s the most difficult part of playing the Healer?
I’d say not letting your team die. There’s nothing in particular, I guess.  It’s just you have a lot to keep track of as healer usually and arguably more than a dps,  but it depends what comp you’re playing and what you’re facing. You have to assist your team in winning the game along with watching your mana, faking interrupts and healing everyone. This is all going on while dps players press their 2 button rotation and listen to their healer. Another difficult this is also also minding your positioning which is very key as a healer. Nowadays, most healers do all of this
but back in the days it wasn’t as normal. You’re also in charge of calling all defensives for your team telling them what to do and not do. (even though dps players usually help out as well sometimes)

So far I really enjoy how all of you have answered this question so nonchalantly! You guys are nuts and play so well. I’m always super impressed, you make it look so easy.
Yeah that’s how it is with anything you get good at. To others it looks easy because for the person it is pretty easy, but iit took a long time to get there.

Any tips or tricks you can give to aspiring Healers?
Try to watch how healers play in some matchups, get a good ui. get all of the useful addons that good players use. Then besides that they just have to play a ton!

Can you name some useful addons,?
Omnibar (tracks cooldowns)
Sarena/gladius (addon for arena frames)
Arenatracker (tracks your teammates cooldowns, very useful as a healer)
GladiatorlosSA (a lady that tells you everything)
Bigdebuffs (makes it easier to see certain debuffs on both you and your party member’s frames)

What do you feel is your biggest strength going against RMD?
We are used to the comp, I guess. We know exactly what to expect. Unfortunately, it won’t make much of a difference because they win early, mid and late game. Rogue mage never used to win late game since they basically can just stay alive forever now which was always the win condition- Live their goes and play well defensively and you’re gonna win rouge mage; That’s how it was in the past. Now if you live forever into rogue mage you still can’t kill them.

Main issue besides their incredible damage and defensives is that the rogue and mage snares people to 99% so you can never move your character, you basically can’t play the game the way you want because you are constantly snared which they apply by doing nothing. Assa rogues apply snares by default to anyone, melee or 40 yards away by not pressing anything basically same with mage in legion ( where rogue mage was a very dominant comp, as in tier 1), rogue mage could still lose to many comps because assa rogues had 30% snare and mages 50%.

No class had greater snares than 50% which was very good for game balance in bfa! That changed because they forgot to read it with the new expansion and they never bothered to change the snares back to how they used to work, which has made the game much worse and the gameplay is much more boring now. Classes have 70% snare + frost mage, dk , assa, ret for example. But dks and rets snare is much more difficult to keep up. You have to actively press your buttons and waste damage rotation to snare people. Assa rogue keeps everyone in the arena at 70% less movement speed by not pressing any buttons.

So… there’s basically nothing you can really do?
Best option is obviously to play your best, try as hard as you can and hope for the rogue mage team to choke/play bad. That is the only win condition vs a good rmd! That’s what we did vs diabolous.

Have you picked up any new games or hobbies recently?
Been playing and having a lot of fun on classic WoW recently. Besides that nah, trying to pick up my workout routine again but it’s difficult after my arm.

Speaking of Classic WoW, any opinions?
Yea dont think its a game for everyone. It’s’ a very ”grindy” game. You’d just need to try it yourself. You definitely need to have friends to play with, too. That’s the least I can say.

Also- Speaking of your arm, how’s it healing?
The healing itself went good I think, but still have some issues with my arm. I don’t have my full mobility and stuff yet, so that sucks.

Twitch chat was going nuts during your game against Diablous at Summer Finals. It definitely seems like you have a solid fan base. Anything to say to your fans and supporters?
I’m glad they support us and hope they will still cheer for us at the con!

Let’s end with a game we made up just to ask each of you. You can Sheep One, Pyroblast One, and Nova One. Zeepyee, Blizo, and Maro. Who gets what?
I’d pyroblast Zeepeye sheep Maro and nova Blizo.