Karfhud: Hey chaps, firstly give us a short introduction of yourselves.
Starym: Hi. I’m Starym from Nihilum, been playing a warrior since beta. Never really considered switching since it’s the most complex dps class out there and tanking is the most challenging thing to do in WoW so any other class would just be a downgrade.
Kathriana: 29 year old guy, Romania, been playing WoW for the past 3 years.
Vanderlei: Hi, I’m Vanderlei, member of the Nordrassil’s guild Mystic. In real life I’m 26, am a dj and work for a well known company that produces booze.. hic!
What’s your online gaming experience?
Starym: I played a lot of Ultima Online as far as MMOs go, but other than that just normal casualish online gaming, FPSes, RTSes, the works.
Kathriana: WoW is my first ever MMORPG. As for online gaming, my previous experience includes Hattrick… and that’s about it 
Vanderlei: Started gaming online in 1996 with the release of Diablo 1. Moved to Starcraft, then again back to Diablo when the second part was released (rolled barbarian ofc). In the meanwhile I tried a bit of Ultima Online and EverQuest, but back then I preferred playing gigs to games until I took a peak at WoW.
How did your career start in World of Warcraft?
Starym: Career? Well I suppose you could call it that since I’ve spent more time on WoW than on any other job I’ve had/am likely to have. Started playing in original European beta, with the more serious involvement starting at lvl 59 when I joined Nihilum, prolly around 1-2 weeks after WoW Europe release, can’t really remember how long it took me to get to 59.
Kathriana: Career…tough word… started in Nov 2005 with a gnome mage on Nordrassil, which up to date has also been the only server with max lvl characters. Then in Jan 2006 I joined Saga and started the raiding experience.
Vanderlei: I haven’t heard much about WoW, cause like I said I wasn’t much into games at that time. All of that changed when I paid a visit to an old friend of mine whom I haven’t seen for quite a while. His disappearance was caused by… WoW. After visiting him I got my own copy the same day . Not knowing much about the mechanics, nor the classes, I was assigned to Nordrassil server as a random char. I remember one guy doing a charge on his warrior. Seeing that I knew what I wanted to do in game – charge. This made me roll a warrior. It was the end of November. Firstly I joined Ordo Unum, then moved to Lords Of Nordrassil, to become a member of Mystic (since 30.04.06), where I am now and hopefully will stay forever <3 You guys.
You’ve all experienced high-end raiding to the fullest – what are your thoughts on the difficulty of the raids? What new raiding stuff would you like to see in the WotlK content?
Starym: Well, it’s a strange thing, this difficulty issue in raids. You could say that Sunwell, for example, is much easier than BT was, or that BT was easier than TK or SSC was, and you wouldn’t be wrong. But the thing is, if an encounter works properly, and isn’t purposefully overtuned or bugged so that you can’t kill it without max luck or extreme gear/raid setups, it’s always going to seem “easy”. My personal issue with this is that there are many ways to make encounters difficult (and by this I mean that it takes more than 2-3 days to finish the encounter) that Blizzard don’t seem to be utilizing. With BC, raid difficulties dropped considerably due to the 25 people per raid change, and while that made raids a lot more accessible to people it also made it very difficult for the encounter designers to make a really challenging encounter, since it’s a lot easier to get 25 people to play well/perfectly.
As for WotLK the one thing I would really like to see is Blizzard utilizing either new methods of making things challenging or looking back to some old ones that work perfectly. Specifically I’m referring to Vaelastrasz. The encounter itself wasn’t anything special, but the mechanic behind it seems perfect to me. You have 2 hours (or 1, I can’t remember exactly) to get the whole thing together, strat and execution. It just seems like the exact thing to make raids harder and longer lasting, and makes even more sense in the WotLK environment where there are so many raiding options. Also it seems like the best way to see who actually is the best guild around, since this recent trend *cough*SKgaming*cough* of starting raids at 9 am is retarded and proves nothing at all. With the timer it doesn’t matter when you start raiding, (unless you actually kill the boss, but hey, no plan is perfect) all guilds have the same amount of time on the boss to figure him out and make it work. It may depend on luck a bit too much, but I’m sure Blizz could find a way around that.
There, that’s my answer to that question, I’m planning to release it in 4 volumes or make a tv show of it, I’m not sure yet (IT’S LONG is what I’m basically saying).
Kathriana: I don’t think anyone would say they don’t like challenging content. Difficult fights lead to sweeter victories. Too bad there’s almost none left in the game right now What I’d like to see in WOTLK? Encounters like C’thun might have been at 60, like M’uru used to be at 70, very well designed and which bring a lot of satisfaction to the ones who emerge victorious.
Vanderlei: Raiding on par with PvP was always fun for me and one of the reasons to play the game of course. Experiencing new instances, downing new bosses has been and will be a great feeling. The pre-TBC 40 man raids were awesomesauce, TBC and its 25 man raids, despite making some guilds fall apart, are great and show what teamplay is all about. Some players say that WoW has passed its peak. Some are excited about Wotlk, some aren’t. I know it’s often hard to adapt to changes. I just hope that everyone stays satisfied and gets a spot and stays useful for either a 10 or a 25 man. I’m looking forward to the new expansion. The game could use a few minor tweaks, but I’ll get used to whatever happens. Just hope that Blizz won’t nerf new bosses often, cause every boss is doable (no kinky thoughts here) no matter how difficult it is. Speaking of difficulty… after the latest patch, the current level of it is.. a joke. I mean I still find raids enjoyable and challenging, but it’s really easier to down a boss now. No matter If You’ve tried him pre-patch or not. Anyway lots of credit and cheers for all the kills after patch and good luck with the bosses left.
Right, let’s get onto the key issues of this interview. I gathered you to discuss the way the fury warriors were in the past, the way they are now and the way they will be in the future. I’ll take off with the simplest question I can come up with – why did you roll a fury warrior?
Starym: Sorry but that last answer got me too tired to continue.
I actually didn’t originally roll a fury warr specifically, and I was a tank for a very long time, up until BC.
Even after that I tanked several encounters in progress raids, and was mostly arms at the start due to the debuffs and lack of solid fury gear. Of course, during that time I kept asking Kungen to go fury since it’s eleven billion times more fun, but for a while the dps boost over arms simply didn’t outweigh the bonuses from the debuffs. After a while fury dps was good enough so I finally got to spec it, but by that time warlocks were insane so wasn’t as much fun as it could have been.
Kathriana: As I mentioned, I had started with a mage and mage was my main character until April-May 2007. Later in TBC when I reached 70 I specced prot, started tanking stuff, found it fun and rewarding and switched from mage to MT. Soon enough though, I joined Fallen Legion as fury, going back to my first love Why a fury warrior? Simple, I’d say: kill faster than you’d get killed, no other way around that. Fury wasn’t all that popular pre-TBC and even less popular at the start of TBC, so I can say it wasn’t easy going around with that spec. Fury has always been appealing to me, as a DPS addict and I guess, with all the comings and goings, it has become better over time. But I am convinced WOTLK will make it justice, as I see more and more suggestions of the player community being taken into account for the direction in which warriors are going. Plus, now I can scare people with dual wielding 2handers
Vanderlei: Like I said before (another wall of text incoming), I didn’t know much about class mechanics. I just enjoyed playing my class in my own way. At early thirties (lvl 30) I started to become an addict to pvp. This ofc made me spec arms for quite a while. Even a bit longer after getting Sulfuras. Becoming a fury took quite a while as it required more specific gear (hint: hit rating). I liked the huge numbers as arms, but after obtaining the fury “epics” the DPS was also quite decent and was the main thing I focused on, since Mystic always had imba tanks, so the offtanking role wasn’t needed often. After TBC launched I slacked a bit and had to catch up. Lvled as fury till I reached 70 and was kind of forced to respect to prot for a bit (oh noes), which I found fun as well (oh dear). But being prot was also a way to gather the specific gear for fury (hint: hit rating). Again having our wonderful tonks I could limit myself to DPS. That’s what I do at the moment and planning to get better. Buffing BS and Rampage when there’re no pallies/druids in raid/party and healing with bandages (have screens!). It’s hard to predict the future of DPS warriors, as we can’t tell yet how TG will work with arms talents or whether warriors won’t stay arms, either 2h or DW, since it’s also quite popular now. Might be also that we get nerfed or buffed, which will again make us look for the best talent setup. Anyway I stay positive.
Fury warriors had it difficult all the time. Getting into a heroic pug for example was almost impossible; just when you earn your name, show the people that you can DPS very well – they take ya along. Similar thing happens in 10mans – we’re not the most favoured class in any setup, are we. In 25mans, though, it’s a lot better, there’s USUALLY a spot for a fury specced warrior; however, the raid didn’t benefit a lot from us. BS and sometimes offtanking were the advantages, but it were mostly the rogues and enchancement shammies that kept the priority for the melee spots.
Starym: As I said earlier, by the time we could really dish out serious dps as fury other classes got really buffed (mostly locks and shamans), so we fell back on the prio list. As for me I was fairly lucky in Nihi since we always had a dps warr spot in all raids. But in general I suppose the rise of enh shamans mostly screwed some fury warrs over since they basically did everything we do but better, and, of course, Bloodlust which was almost a prerequisite for some if not all recent bosses.
Kathriana: Can agree with you on the first part, although even as protection, I must say (at least in the early days) I wasn’t very keen on taking fury over any other DPS in heroics at least. When I asked my former GM in TBC what he’d think of a fury warrior in raids, he said “not over other melees”, so it was pretty clear we wouldn’t have one very soon. Even when I applied to my current guild, Fallen Legion wasn’t using a fury warrior in raids and hadn’t done so since the start of TBC. So I guess one could say I had to earn my melee spot in raids, but that is not false for any other class I guess, so I am OK with that, as long as I managed to prove it’s worth having this class and spec in a good raid. And any raid leader can judge the benefits against weaknesses of bringing any melee over the other, IMO it’s in the end down to the performance of the player + class, not just the class.
Vanderlei: Lots of warriors been whining that they don’t get spots in parties or raids and that they can’t beat other players in PvP. That is often true, but it requires a warrior to prove his worth. We don’t have cc abilities as other classes do and can be cc’ed more easily. It’s a fact. I’m not whining, I still love my class most. Like I said, warriors need to show that they are worth getting an invite. We can compete with other classes when it comes to DPS, we can offtank, we can buff with BS and Rampage (although it doesn’t stack now), debuff targets with BS and TC. That ain’t often enough for some for 5 mans, but we do see at least one fury in end game raids (/cheer).
Still, there were fury warriors that were very popular, I think that Nihilum’s Landolph is a great example here. He could be called “an ambassador of fury” – he released a couple of movies, wrote one or two guides; thanks to him, community grew more curious about this spec, he made it a bit more popular.
Starym: Landolph, yea. He’s such a douchebag. Did you know he once molested a turtle? Also he’s a scientologist and believe George Bush is a great man and the perfect president.
But, seriously, I loved playing with Dolph, he’s a ridiculously nice guy. He really livened up Nihi while he was there.
Also, he’s the guy you want around due to the massive theorycrafting threads and forums he frequents. Was especially interesting for me since I’m pretty much the opposite, I like to feel things out in-game, see how a spec works by speccing it then testing it out. Also I love trying out totally weird speccs that have like 0.1% chance of being good or better than the standard, just to try. All this premade, elitist jerks etc “here, this is the best spec out there now spec it or suck at dps” pisses me off (although of course it’s correct 99% of the time and I spec it anyway), and I at least try out some variations on the standard.
I have no idea what the question was anymore, but yea, Dolph rapes dolphins.
Kathriana: As a noob fury back in the pre-TBC days, I started learning from the people who were close to me in game back then and who were playing the spec and class. I learned tons from Jacky, Safer and Valkki (hope I spelled last one right), who were well known fury warriors on our server. It took me a while to get to forums and into theorycraft for fury, passing through tanking. I have always looked up to popular/well-known fury warriors in top guilds and tried to follow their example, even if we may have different gear/spec choices, personal style does matter a lot and the results should be the most important aspect.
Vanderlei: Landolph did make a couple of good guides and movies. Players like him really made fury warriors more popular, but to be honest every one of us can be a bit of an ambassador of our class himself, by just doing what I’ve mentioned earlier. At least in the guild, or on the server. I myself had some hard time proving that it’s worth to have a DPS warrior in raid. Some still say that there’s no such thing as DPS warriors.
What were your most favourite bosses to DPS on?
Starym: Nothing specific, Illidari Council was fun due to all the moving around and paying attention, but mostly just any fight where you have to dps and also do other things. I guess all progress raids are my favorite to dps on since you are always looking around, checking everything out for as much info as possible to create a good strat.
Kathriana: Starting with Void Reaver (even though I’d mostly overaggro), definitely Akama and Teron Gorefiend, then off to Archimonde, Brutallus, Felmyst and top of it is M’uru/Entropius. KJ is fun but doesn’t match the fun I have/had with the latter 2. Hated Al’ar, Kaz’rogal, Gurtogg.
Vanderlei: The least mobile ones I guess. Mother, Akama, Brut, last phase of RoS… although downing Archimonde and KJ was a real pleasure as well.
As of the new patch, there are a couple of raid-viable specs; there’s the classic fury with the enhanced Deep Wounds, there’s 53/8 with dual wield, then we’ve got Titan’s Grip spec and finally, the least popular of these, the Incite-based spec. Which one did you choose?
Starym: Currently I’m 53/8 (or so) 2h specced, and it seems to work quite well. But I think it’s pointless to discuss these talents yet. They simply weren’t made for this environment, as you can plainly see with retri Paladins. Any relevant discussion will be about the spec at lvl 80, and I already got some crazy ideas in mind – which won’t work and I’ll spec whatever everyone else is anyway 
As it stands now I seriously doubt Titans Grip will be good for a long while into WotLK, at least until we get a lot of 25 man gear to back it up (and then it will depend on what kind of stats that gear will have).
Kathriana: I am afraid I haven’t made up my mind 100%, but am heavily drawn towards TG, even though lack of deep wounds is painful >.> As addons weren’t working properly at the start of new patch, I could experiment with TG very well, as I think slam plays a big part in its style. Now that I got my addons back, will give it a more thorough review whenever opportunity will rise for trying it. Also hoping the new TG is on live soon, with less hit penalty, which will make it even more attractive. And now I am in love with protection again too!
Vanderlei: I did try all the specs, the 15/46 fury, the 15/38/8 Incite, the dw and the 2h arms and TG and still trying to make a choice. I’m thinking about the fury ones cause of having the KJ fist and an OH being a fist as well. The problem with DW arms is that I’d need Venge or Brutal axes or swords (/drool at Cobbra). Axes would be nice to get even more crit for deep wounds. I’d leave TG for lvl 80. It is great fun to carry both 2handers, especially with the current bug where you drop your talents but still have both 2handers equipped and go arms and 2h arms is tempting…
Double mongoose or keep it the old way, Executioner/Mongoose?
Starym: Right now I’m exe/goose but for a dw arms spec I’d go double goose.
Kathriana: Lucky me, I got two 2handers, one with Executioner and one with Mongoose. Since Executioner stays as raw armor reduction and hasn’t been nerfed to ArP rating, I find it more powerful now even than it was before. As a conclusion, I’ll stay with Exe/mongoose combination, even with TG.
Vanderlei: At the moment I do have the classic executioner/mongoose, which used to be the best combo for warriors and still might be. But would like to try double mongoose with stacked crit gems and a faster oh to see how it affects deep wounds.
Favourite instance?
Starym: Depends, if you mean favorite experience-wise then it would have to be BWL, had the most fun there with all the oldschoolers from Nihi. Design-wise I’d have to say Black Temple. It just had the right atmosphere and boss setups.
Kathriana: Sunwell Plateau before 3.0.2
Vanderlei: Stratholme – undead side, MC, SWP.
Least favourite class?
Starym: Never really liked priest, but mostly due to the annoying leveling, it’s an actually great class for endgame (fun-wise at least).
Kathriana: Mage right now.
Vanderlei: Don’t have any. Tried every class and was fun playing them. Even the most “hated to play against” Retri Pallies make me smile, cause it’s nice to see people having so much fun suddenly playing them. But still… stop bubbling while carrying our flag!
Briana Banks or Jenna Jameson?
Starym: I prefer local talent.
Kathriana: Why pay?
Vanderlei: Briana is younger and therefore seems more hardcore which is nice, so I guess I’d do erm… choose her, but then Jenna is an icon, she’s as vintage as Lemartes and Bubbles or Skanga and Xp. Why not both of them? Just like in this “Briana loves Jenna” DVD I’m watching right now.
Cheers for the interview guys!
At least I hope that there will be challenging stuff. And yes, nobody was really excited when we killed KJ today, it definitely would have felt better to kill him before the nerfbat.
In real life I’m 28 and work as marketing specialist in e-commerce business.
