It's just we get so focused and locked in on oh what's the best
comp? We're only running the best comp
for every level from 2 of. The Karen Tour for Pandaria.
For calendar to the. Burning region for Gilnaeus or?
Has not died for the Lich King, for the.
Sindori for the Alliance for the.
Whore for Azeroth. Hello and welcome to another
episode of For Azeroth. My name is Manny AKA de Truvan
Manny and I am joined once again by recruiter friend Sean.
Sean, how has the World of Warcraft been treating you this
week? Manny, the World of Warcraft has
been treating me quite well this week.
I've had a pretty good week so far.
It's Wednesday, so we're recording this after our weekly
heroic clear, which we blasted and then we went in and blasted
normal as well just for for SS&G's.
San Lane and Goblins. San Lane and Goblins, yeah.
Yeah, same thing with my team. Just going through on normal
clearing through that. We've got some new recruits, so
we wanted to get them some gear from that kept them sort of
caught up, jumped into Heroic, went through half, half of that.
Now we're up against the bosses that we have been progging it
get. Well, sorry, I'm not sure
Princess Nexus. Princess is really Prague.
She seemed, she seemed to go down pretty easy.
We ended up doing her first and then doing Brute Twister because
Brute Twister is so much more coordination and that seems to
be a point where my team seems to hit some struggles.
So that's our current fight right now.
Those are good fights. Brute Twister caught some
nerves. Were they just to Mythic?
And we're going to talk about this in a second, you know?
What? Why don't we jump right into it?
I know it's sort of it's sort of out of order, but yeah, we have
seen some nerf. So Brute Twister saw HP nerfs on
a number of things. The biggest one that I think is
fantastic, and I don't believe this is just for mythic the the
pest, the parasites, they can be stunned when they are actually
trying to infest. So they don't have that
invulnerability anymore. You still get that extra moment
to like get off because I used cap totem, there's a bit of
delay when it goes off and if I and like I've seen it just be
like, Oh no, and I just screwed up.
So I'm I'm super happy for that. The mythic only nerves also
include the speed at which, or sorry, the rate at which their
speed increases. Because for as long as they're
out every second they were getting a speed boost.
Now it's every other second. So they're speeding up.
They're speeding up way slow. It's going to be a much easier
thing controlling those past and everything and then like half.
As fast. That's good.
Yeah, yeah. And with the with the HP nerves,
it's going to be a lot easier to to handle things and kill rude
Twister. But a lot of those nerves are
mythic only. We also saw some nerves for Kai
Vesa, the Nexus Princess. Kai Vesa, her execute having 25%
damage taken out of it. Her her dot also having damage
taken off of it, including when you clear it.
So it feels like the it's going to be a lot easier on the
healers. And this is I think in tandem
with the nerf set, or rather some of it was bug fixes, but
we'll call them nerfs that happened to Preservation Evoker.
They no longer double dip in vitality for a couple of moves
and stuff. So they aren't going to be as
crazy outliers as they used to be.
Yeah. So now they'll just be
approximately 15% ahead of every other healer based on the
numbers. So that's good.
That's good. That that's way better age.
You know, they're like they're bringing it in.
They're giving other classes a chance.
There's a there's actually a a problem.
I think Blizzard is hesitant to nerf Preservation of ochres
because there's a lot of the fights in mythic right now.
They had like the last few fights that are only possible
because you have double preservation of ochre and how
broken preservation of ochre is right now.
Like I don't see if you nerf preservation of ochre and it
doesn't also come alongside massive damaged nerves to silk
in court and to Ansarek. I don't see other teams being
able to kill those two bosses without double preservation of
ochre. It is doing that much of the
heavy lifting in the healing and the healing matter.
Yeah. And it's and and oven acts that
fight is being 3 healed right now.
And it's it's being 3 healed because preservation of ochre 2
preservation of Ochre's are able to to basically.
Area yeah, I, I think though, they have to end up bringing
preservation of ochers in line because there are teams that are
going to be coming up now that aren't going to be switching
their comps to tailor it for for this sort of damage.
This is just part of the typical, I, I want to say
typical, but it's been that that way for a while where as the
teams go through as like various teams are coming up, they nerfed
the content so that it is doable for, as you said last week, mere
mortals. And that is a big part of, of
where we're at now with the race because we have now completed
the race to world first. At the time of this recording,
we have four teams that have defeated Queen Ansarak.
And so, Sean, can you take us through this and what it took to
bring down the Queen? Yeah, this was an incredible
race. One team went into the race just
clearly playing ahead of everyone else, and that was Team
Liquid. It was a it was no surprise to
anybody who watched any part of this race that Liquid came away
with the victory on September 29th.
That was Saturday, Saturday evening for them, Sunday morning
for me. And they pulled that kill out
and they did a great job. They watching their analysts.
There was a point on like Thursday or Friday, even when
people weren't sure that Ansereck was killable in this,
in this reset because of the the damage required to kill her.
And I liquids, liquids analysts went went, they went cooking, so
to speak, and pulled out some incredible, incredible damage
numbers. Like they shifted cooldowns
around. That's my actual favorite part
of the race. I know a lot of people like
watching the players perform and that's great.
But you can see those players perform at a super high level
almost anytime. Like you watch any, any of
their, their, their rating, any of their mythic plus that they
do. But you only really get to see
the analysts shine in that race to world first where they're
trying to squeeze out as much damage, as much healing as
possible from from the limits that they have.
But they pull the win. Echo came in second.
They almost lost second. So everybody, it's been pretty
solidly locked in liquid E1 and two flip the order for the last
little while. But Echo came close.
Our method came close to stealing 2nd place from EE did
not play with the usual consistency that we expect to
see from them. Now I say this, please
understand they're still miles and decades ahead of anything I
or any of my friends or anybody else that I know could possibly
imagine doing. They are among the best.
Except. For me, like if I read 12 hours
a day I'd be there too this last episode.
We did, yeah. Yeah, if I just raided 12 hours
a day, it's like coming in second on the race.
World first is like winning silver medal at the Olympics.
You're still second best in the world.
The world, it's like it's even like people are like, oh, you
came six at the Olympics. Yeah, I'm only 6 best on the
planet. I'm sorry.
Anyway, they came second. Method pulled in 3rd.
They both did that on the 30th and then on October 2nd, which
is today. I think it happened last night.
About nine hours ago from this recording, yeah.
Yeah. And so nine hours ago, Hot Pot
hero, Bogo Hero pulled it in for 4th and it was really great to
see them pump it out from the the China realm because we that
was not something we had been seeing or we had expected to
see. And they put on quite a show.
There is potential that they could maybe fight for a third
place spot in the next race. We'll see with that monetary
incentive coming from China, maybe helping to push their
their, their drive a little bit. Yeah, well, they they didn't get
it this time. So as per that deal, they throw
more money on the pot until, until somebody from the Chinese
realm gets world first. It it just the incentive just
keeps growing. And like it is great to see that
strong showing out of the region because they just got back into
the game with the launch of the the war within that that
repairing that fence and getting that the game back into the
region. This is amazing.
This is amazing that they were doing it.
I kind of wonder if there were illicit ways for people to play
in the region at at some point. It just either way, I wouldn't
be surprised. The fact that like they could
jump to this level so quickly is is actually not surprising for
me. These guys, all these players
play at such an amazing level. You are right, this is Olympic
level plays and it's not just being able to play that well,
it's being able to play that well so consistently.
Consistently you were talking about like, hey, Echo, they were
bit inconsistent and they would get like that 20 something
percent kill and then they'd be wiping in phase one the next
poll and it'd be like, oh geez, this is not where we want to be.
And they'll like I I definitely agree with you, but the world
first kill took 404 pulls attempts that they went in over
the course of multiple days. Like we were saying, oh, they
got to Ansrak the resets there. We'll give them like let's say
two to three days. And we were saying like
Thursday, Friday. Yeah, it happened on Saturday.
So I you weren't really that far off Sean, when you said Friday,
but 404 pulls for that first 1E with 449 pulls method did it in
less pulls 425. And that's why you're you were
saying hey, like they almost lost it like the difference
between world 2nd and world third was a matter of hours.
And it was actually inverted in the number of pulls it took to
get to take down answer. There's a question of, hey, if
method had gotten a little bit of stronger showing when they
were trying trying to do pulls earlier.
If they hadn't had that like late night, if they hadn't had
like the COVID that took out I think 5 players and and caused
them to isolate, this might have been a completely different
game. So like there is a big question
mark there about like, hey, what's going to happen next
time? Because I think method has
definitely shown that it could jump into second, if not first
place in in the next one if they can keep up the level of
performance that they did here. So all of these teams, Olympic
level performance and it's great to see more teams in the
competition, more players being showcased here and people just
hungry for that gold. Yeah, it's I'm excited.
More teams is better. It's it's it's exciting for the
fans, exciting for us. I can't wait.
And yeah, it's I mean, you said it, 404 polls.
That's crazy. You said that to a regular team.
You know, two night a week, you know, 404 polls, that's three
months of polls. You get about an average of 25
polls a night, 20 to 30, you know, polls a night, depending
how fast they're going, some a little faster if it's a
contendual style fight. So four months of prog for the
rest of us. So Blizz, if you're listening,
we're ready for those nerves now.
Most definitely I I think when you get those like with teams
Ivory that when you when you even get close to triple digits,
that's like this team might be disbanding territory.
So it is a completely different mindset to dial in that hard to
get these down yeah. On the flip side of that, let's
talk a little bit about Mythic Plus, because keystones are
continuing this week, we have a new affix here.
The Void bound is the next part of Xalatas bargains Void bound.
The way that that works is that when the group is in combat,
Xalatas periodically appears yet again some of the Void Emissary,
which immediately begins to empower enemy enemies with this
dark prayer ability. OK each dark prayer cast grants
these surrounding enemies a damage reduction.
You do less damage but when you defeat the void adversary it
clears all of the stacks that were on the boss or sorry on any
of the characters that are around.
And then all of the players get a 22nd buff that is ACDR cool
down reduction and increases your crit.
This is the dream as an enhancement shaman that is 100%
about cooldowns, this is the dream for me.
I'm going to have so much fun this week.
I haven't had a chance because we were recording really early.
Last night was raid night and I didn't get to play as much, but
I I am so excited for this week. I also love that the punishment
is yet again, it takes longer to kill the enemies.
So everybody hard switch, do the mechanic kill this thing?
Yeah, hopefully on the beta we noticed that shamans were able
to purge the mechanic. They were able to purge the
shield and essentially one shot the AD.
I haven't run with a shaman yet this week but I have spoken to
some friends who had who I told them about this and they said
the shamans that they played with were unable to do that.
So I don't know if it was removed or not.
But if you're a shaman, I definitely recommend at least
trying urge the Xalatath shield at least once.
Yeah. Because if that's the case, just
one more reason to stack those shamans in the the sub 1211 and
below range. It's a +2 to plus 11 is is
double shaman territory all day long, every day.
I mean you can also bring in those demon hunters, they have
the offensive purge too, so I. Did run with a Demon Hunter,
they were not able to consume magic.
OK, as a warrior can you shattering throw to do extra
damage to that shield? Yeah, if I talent into
shattering throw which. I have to talent the Purge.
Come on man, this is now like we're looking at options here.
Yeah, that's not going to. That's not going to happen.
All right, OK, we'll check and have to like come back.
Maybe I'll do an editing note before we put put this up to,
to, to say definitively editing Manny.
This is your point right here. Editing Manny here.
It turns out that purge has been fixed so it no longer one shots
the shield. It looks like you are going to
have to do it the old fashioned way.
I return you to the episode beyond that, we're back to
tyrannical at four at 10 fortified.
Obviously once you get past 12, the the void bound disappears
and you're dealing with the guile.
We have had some teams that have been pushing a lot higher and
now, but with those higher keys is where the stress is coming
from. And so we've seen additional
nerves to some of the more challenging dungeons because at
this point in the season, there are some dungeons that are
clearly easier than others and some dungeons that are much
harder. Like as much as Sean, you and I
had like a a bit of a clown show and miss this weekend.
I think miss is strangely one of the easiest of the dungeons
available. It just feels like you just go
forward. There's not much that's going to
screw you over in that. But on the flip side, Rim Batal,
Siege of Baralis, and Stone Vault all got nerves and I think
are very needed nerves for those dungeons.
Yeah, it's crazy how much easier miss is.
Like there's a graph put up by Lo Fi Banshee on Twitter and
they like track keys that have been done and mists is more than
there's been more mists done timed if they're more than
double the the amount of any other any other key.
I don't want everything nerfed to miss level.
I think maybe they actually need to bump up the difficulty in
Miss and Eric Kira I think is another one that's kind of easy.
I so I agree, Eric Kira is also easy.
The City of Echoes is a little bit easy.
I'm OK with easy because it's infinitely scaling content.
Let it be easy in those low key levels so that people who just
want to get their keys for the week done and get them done and
get out without hating their lives and let the difficulty
ramp up for the people who want the difficulty at the higher key
levels. I don't think there's any
problem with keystones from 2:00 to 10:00 or 2:00 to 11:00 being,
you know, timeable with a wipe if you have a full part of you.
I actually think they should be tolerable.
I think from 2:00 to 11:00 every key should be timable with it
with one full party wipe included.
I, I agree with you. I think that that's all always
of course relative to gear, like the more gear you have,
obviously the easier you're able to make up for, for a wipe.
And therefore as you get higher gear can compensate for less.
And so that's automatically something that that occurs, but
I meant in terms of difficulty relative to other dungeons.
I dislike when there is a dungeon.
In that case, make the rest of them easier, dumb them down.
I don't want, I listen, I don't where there's some I don't run
because I just don't want the headache.
You know, I, I queue up to do my eight 10s for the week and I, I
usually pug those by myself. I log in in the afternoon or in
the morning and I just jump into pugs.
I do eight 10s. It was black or cold in season 3
of Dragonflight because it was the one that was the most likely
to be completed with pugs. It's Mr. Tyrannosythe in this
one. I ran 8 myths last week.
And then I I do other keys on the side with my groups.
So my my mythic plus group or my my raid friends?
My raid team friends, either of those, I'll do whatever dungeons
we have or farming trinkets and stuff.
We're doing all of those. But if I'm looking to fill my
vault to complete my week, I want it to be easy.
I'm running those mists every time.
Every time I even I know I'm going to run 10s of City of
threads, Grim Batal. These other ones that are a
little bit harder, I know I'm going to run them.
I still pug 8 mists out because I want to incentivize I I speak
with my money so to speak him instead of money.
In this case, it's my time. I'm letting him know, hey, this
difficulty of myths, I enjoy this.
I'm doing it a lot more of this, please.
I Yeah. OK.
I mean, like I think that's always going to be the case that
players are going to go towards the path of least resistance,
like from the dawn of Mythic plus everybody running MA a
million times because it was just fast, easy in the that.
So it's always going to be the case.
I just think that if they have a target difficulty that they want
and seven out of eight dungeons are hitting that and there's one
that just is a little bit low, I don't say screw your target
difficulty and bring them all down to that lower thing.
I say bring the outliers into range, both the high and the
low. I know players typically are not
going to like that because it's like, oh, you made my eight runs
a week harder if. If they bring the hard ones
down, I'm OK with them bringing mists up.
But Manny, I don't have the same faith that you do that.
That's what will happen. I think we'll see mists timer, I
think. I think what will happen is
we'll see the timer and mists decreased.
You'll have less time to complete it because it's so easy
to complete, but it'll just shorten the timer that you have
in there, which I'm OK with. I'm already going fast.
I don't mind if I have to go faster, but I don't think the
same adjustments are going to happen on those ones that are
like City of threads right now. This the the the twins boss.
If you're not in a group that's coordinated and knows the fight
and is in voice comms, you're not finishing that dungeon on
anything above A7. I I got to say that that is
something that they really need to address.
The it's not how hard things hit.
It's not the bad overlaps, like they're already addressing that.
If you guys look at our show notes, we've got all the
adjustments that they made. A lot of it is bad overlaps,
random mobs that like run out and like can screw you over
because they've run into a pack and pull over pack that you
didn't want. That sort of stuff they're
already on top of. But those levels of coordination
that create the PUG stompers, I think that's what they need to
start looking at now. And I think that they also need
to think about that because in combination with the effects
that we had last week, you could have some really bad overlaps
where it's like, hey, I got to run out of this, but now all of
the orbs are coming from that direction.
What do I do? And I, I so I I just think they
need to adjust timings and so forth so that the coordination
doesn't need to be that meticulous.
Yeah, it's man, there's some bad overlaps.
There's some that somehow got introduced in Dawn Breaker.
Dawn Breaker is a very easy key to complete.
If you're looking to complete Dawn Breaker, run like you're
looking for a good key to complete, run it.
I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up being the first plus
10, like the first portal you get from or within.
I wouldn't be shocked if it was Dawn Breaker.
I think City of Echoes also maybe, but Dawn Breaker is
super, super accessible right now.
But there is the third second boss.
There's some weird overlaps that somehow did not exist last week
that exists this week where they're doing orbs on top of
tank Buster and AOE on top of orbs which didn't exist last
week. And like, if it's just the tank
Buster, my health part doesn't move, my health part literally
stays at 100%. But this week it was tank Buster
plus the orb and I one shot me. Well, I guess two shots.
It was 2 abilities, but and it was completely out of nowhere.
We have no idea how it happened. So there is the there's
adjustments that were made that it's like, oh, did you make this
worse in the other direction? Maybe.
I don't know what happened, but yeah, hot tip for Dawn Breaker.
If you're a Dawn breaker fan, you're somebody who enjoys Dawn
Breaker. Run it in slow flight, turn off
I beg you, I beg you I beg you I beg you.
For anybody who's pugging dawnbreaker or running with a
regular group, turn off sky riding and use boomer flight.
It gives you more precise landing and you don't need the
zoomer flight to get to the end safe location, you can just fly
there straight there from the ship.
So when the first boss is doing her explosion at like at the end
at .1%, she starts her explosion mechanic.
As soon as that cast starts, everybody leaves the ship.
Fly right inside the church because you get down into the
town before the mobs spawn. So you're standing on the spawn
location of the first Lieutenant when it spawns, you can pull it
right there. You don't need to be on the ship
when it dies. It dies anyway.
It casts that spell, it dies. And then from there you want to
have slow flight on so that when you're landing on spots, you can
hover above it, wait for everybody to get there and then
land straight down. Instead of having people dive
bombing in on an angle and pulling a bunch of packs from
the side And we're like, oh, well, I couldn't land straight.
Like just slow flight. Everybody should just slow
flight. I won't.
I'm at the point now where I will not run it.
I'm telling everybody before I put the key in slow flight and
and then on the last boss, you just get off the ship and you
fly direct straight line to the spot where you end.
You have plenty of time. I land and I can just wait for
him to wait for ration on the land anyway.
Was that this week's Just the Tip?
That was this. That was this week's just the
tip. Yeah, there was like 3 just the
tips in there. So if you go, yeah.
Perfect. In terms of the meta that has
been forming in the keys, we've it's mostly a a continuation of
last week, both in good and bad. The highest keys that we have
seen completed as of this recording has been a 14 Aracara
no less. We've seen 13 a ton of 13 / a
number of different dungeons. So that's that's been good.
The representation for tanks still quite healthy.
We've got 3 tanks with over 20% representation.
We've got the Blood Decays, 26.4 is the highest percentile.
We've got Warriors 25.7 really close there, Druids 20.6 a
little bit behind, but both the air carrier and a number of high
keys have been completed with Guardian Druids, so they are no
slouches whatsoever. Then on the other half, the
lower representation, we've got VDH, the Vengeance Demon
Hunters, they're at 15.5%. Brewmaster Monks, I'm really
sorry, 7% on the dot and protection palleys.
Ouch. 4.8% on protection palleys.
And I really think that it is the fact that paladins are still
like very much tied to that concentration that if they don't
have up the defensives, they just start getting trucked.
It's so like it it's I'm not sure if they need, they need
some sort of adjustment. But the last time paladins got a
rework or something, it was nightmare fuel for the rest of
us. So I'm not entirely against a
little bit lower of representation right now for
Protection paladins. What?
What do you think about this? It's great, Hank.
Parity is good. People should be able to play
what they want at the levels they want.
Again, as we get to those higher levels, you're going to see a
gap start to exist, but the the longer you can delay that gap
happening, the better. I'm OK with there being like,
you know, I locked in meta where it's like only this specific
comp complete can complete the keys at this level as long as
that's only one or two key levels above what everybody else
can complete one. Preferably I can accept 2, but
when and in most cases that is how it is.
It's just we get so focused and locked in on, oh, what's the
best comp? We're only running the best comp
for every level from due up. That's when you see a problem.
Yeah, that trickle down effect is what really effects these
numbers more than what's actually viable at those high
keys. Yeah, human perception, people
not understanding how you know the game works or how any of it
works, really. It's like, it'd be like if you
watch the NFL and saw the the Chiefs win a Super Bowl and
think to yourself, well, we're only going to win if we have a
tight end who's dating a pop star and a quarterback who's
Patrick Mahomes. So we got to cut all our Tom
Brady's. We got to cut all our Jared
Goffs. We got to cut all our Matthew
Stafford's. All these people got to go.
Sam Laporta, you're out of here. Yeah.
And it's like, that's not it worked for them this season, but
it's OK. Like, you can still get this
done with, you know, your Jaden Daniels.
Sorry, I watched a lot of football.
That's OK. All of these names are French to
me. I'm like, I think I recognize
that name. I think I've heard that name
before. This is what happens, like when
I like show my show, my girlfriend.
I'm just like, hey, listen to this show.
It's like, what the hell are you talking about?
I'm like, no, no, no. I just need the general flow is
when I'm trying to get you to understand.
It's like, yes, you guys sound enthusiastic.
I don't know what you're saying. I love it.
OK, the flip side of that of course is there is a huge
differentiation with healers. Resto shaman, as bad as it was
before, is pretty much cemented itself with over half the keys.
54.2% of keys. And this is a keys 10 and above
right? The next highest is priest
combined holy, Holy and discipline at 14.5%, Holy Pally
at 11, Preservation of ochres at 8.9, Miss weaving 5.9, Resto
druids at 5.5. So I want to say that if you
throw Resto shamans out of that picture, the other ones are
really close together. Like there's pretty even
representation outside of that just disproportionate lion's
share that Resto Shaman has. And if you guys want to know our
thoughts of like why Resto Shaman is just absolutely
killing it for for healers, do check out our previous episode.
We did go into that and we actually had a little bit of a
help from Spencer as well who who gave their point of view.
Yeah, yeah. Again, parody is good.
We want to see that one to two key levels.
I think it's still too early in the season.
People's gear is still behind. Do you have one or two groups
which are skewing the data? You know, you've got if if
you've got, let's say there's three, there's 15 people.
So three groups worth of people that are pushing those high end
keys right now. Well, most of them are playing
one, maybe 2 characters and that's it.
So those numbers are going to lean towards the characters that
they decided they were going to play and that that affects it a
little bit. So don't get too locked in just
now. I think it'll be interesting to
look a month from now and see where things are at.
We're seeing some Boom Kim buffs, which will, I think,
remove Guardian Druid from the equation and maybe put Vengeance
back in. Boom Kim's looking really good
in a lot of Mythic Plus dungeons.
Ultimately, you're going to have a Druid in that the top group,
the top groups are going to have a druid no matter what.
You want the versatility buff. If you are bringing DPS that
benefit heavily from mastery, then you're going to have a
shaman because you want sky fury totem and that locks in two
spots a rest of shaman. And then your your druid is
going to be maybe a boom kin or maybe guardian druid.
If boom kins not doing well and boom kin is doing well, then
you're going to be looking at OK, let's buff that damage with
a vengeance Demon Hunter. It also brings syphilis silence
still, which is still good even after the nerves.
So I'm interested to look at a month.
Let's look at it in a month and see where things are and then
that's when we can start. This.
I think officially crown what the season 1 meta is, but I want
to point out this is not a new position for Resto Shaman.
Resto Shaman was the meta in season 1 and not the meta, but
they were. They were the most played healer
in season 1 of Dragonflight as well.
I honestly think when I look at Dragonflight and how the Meadow
shaped up, it was really about the damage.
We got into a point in later seasons where what was really
challenging stuff was how quickly you would get one shot.
And what people did to compensate for that was bring in
Ogvokers. They would allow tanks to be a
little bit harder, hardier and be able to get through stuff and
on top, on top of, you know, boosting everybody else with
with the extra damage. Guardians were just insane about
being able to just have infinite rage, so they were doing so well
when they removed that in came in other tanks that were just
able to survive but bring high high amounts of damage there.
And unfortunately, and it's still true to this day, resto
Shaman doesn't bring much damage.
What's propping Resto shaman up, in my opinion, is the fact that
it's able to bring the utility and the extra health so that
these teams that are going in early aren't aren't so like hurt
and one shot. When I look at the way things
are set up with like these teams that are pushing, we're seeing
frosty KS in there, right? We're seeing some unholy decays
when when there's not frost, We're seeing ogvocers back
again. We're seeing arcane mages,
guardian druids and protection paladins and, and of course we
we talked about having blood decay being highly represented.
They're covering off like the battle rez, the bloodlust.
And once you have that cover, you start seeing that shift when
you don't have the resto shaman in some of these high keys.
That's when I start seeing elementals and enhance come in
to cover that utility as well as bring in bring in the bloodlust.
When you have a guardian druid in there, you're less likely to
see the BDK. I've seen rogues show up and
such because hey now we don't need that battle rez.
Though I always find that like it seems scary to have a battle
rez on your tank, you you recently experienced like how
much it takes out of DK to do that do that battle rez.
It's a similar situation that when you're on a tank,
especially now with Blood DK not stacking haste as the as we were
talking about over the weekend, their resource generation isn't
as instantaneous. Losing all of that to do the
battle rez? Yikes.
Yeah, and no thanks. Yeah, so I I definitely want to
see how it develops, where crystallizes.
I just think it's kind of cool to see how things are.
And I think it's actually going to be very interesting because
now that we are past the race to world first, this is when
Blizzard really starts coming back in with those those class
adjustments. And like you said, like we're
going to see things change drastically from from here.
Any thoughts on like what what you think is probably going to
get hit with an Earth bat? I I'd like to see, I mean, we
talked a little with dungeons, but I'd like to see it happen
with classes as well. I'd like to see Preservation,
Evoker brought down, rest of Druid brought up.
The healers in between those two are all pretty well mark like
pretty well lined up for parity for for healing done.
But Preservation of Ochre is way ahead and Wrestler Druid is way
behind. Which is ironic because coming
out of the beta they were they gave it some nerves.
Wrestler got nerfed a bit and since then it's been rebuffed
for a total of like 12% odel overall healing and still so far
behind. I don't know, I sometimes wonder
who's in charge of like who looked at it on the beta and
said this definitely needs to be nerfed to be at the point that
it's still 12% and then like have a release and give it a 12%
overall buff and still have it be so far behind.
It's sort of wild to me. And so I think I think you'll
see those. I do think you'll see some
adjustment in that. That way.
I don't think they know how to buff freshly Druid or what is
wrong with I don't know. It'll probably hopefully it's
not just another aura buff. I hate those, but who knows.
I would like to see for Adps standpoint they actually did
fury really dirty. They they tuned, they tuned fury
warrior based off of normal and heroic raid and heroic dungeons
damage, which is unfair because they looked really good because
all of their damage was instant burst.
But as soon as you get to a situation where any of these
mobs are living longer than the 15 seconds of that burst window,
they fall off completely. So if you look at the damage
profile now of fury, they're below the halfway point for AOE
cleave damage. So they're they're midpoint for
the thing they're supposed to be best at.
They're below half and for single target, they're second
from the bottom. So what is their niche?
What are they here for? Like it was they they the early
tuning on it was necessary, but they tuned it.
They they nerfed it 3 posts in a row.
Three different things happened and it was too much.
And if the cooldowns for fury didn't happen to line up so
exceptionally well on answer act, I don't think you would see
it played much at all anymore. And then Warcraft logs on
rationale on a fight that has ads that need to die.
They are extremely dangerous ads.
Decided not to count the AD damage in logs.
So fury warrior if you clear ration on on any difficulty but
mostly mostly talking mythic and you look at the the details
meter at the end of the fight your fury warrior is at the top
and you survived the fight because they killed the ads.
If you look at it on Warcraft logs, they'll be the bottom.
So warriors are swapping to arms and no longer killing the ads
and. Teams are struggling because
they're struggling. To kill it.
That is, that is so bizarre. And yeah, OK, there are two
games that happen when you are raiding.
There is the Beat, the Boss, the Play the Mechanics game that
exists in World of Warcraft, and there's this other secondary
game layered on top, which is I need to get that legendary
parse. Not that it's, but it's not just
that it's teams base their roster on the damage they see in
Warcraft logs. Yes.
So who we take, who we taking to the bus?
Who's at the highest damage? OK, well, our Warriors are at
the bottom, but we're not taking them.
Yeah, but I think that's not the game that you're actually
playing in order to beat the boss.
That is a secondary thing that has like been overlaid, which
had value. But like when they make those
decisions to say like, OK, we're counting any ad damage as
padding and therefore not included in the logs and it
warps the perception. Like you could have teams that
are literally working through their own detriment because
they're misappropriating the logs.
It's like I recently there was a, a post about like how the
damage from evokers isn't being properly attributed and that you
need to, you need to like look at this to see what the evoker
damage is. And that to me is just like it
happens from time to time, but like you've got to be on top of
that because you could have a Evoqua that's doing amazing
damage, Wing Commander destroying, but because your add
on isn't quite reporting it, right?
You bench them and then you wonder why you're taking X
amount of extra kills to to like get back to where you were last
week. That's so.
That is so weird for me. Yeah, it's crazy stuff.
So anyway, to fully answer that question, I'd like to see Perez
brought down a little bit, Druid brought up a little bit for DPS.
I'd like to see Fury giving back some of its identity, return
some of its or, or, or just revert some of the nerfs that
had happened to their AOE ability.
I don't care if you make the strongest single target Warrior
has arms for that, but give Fury give them a identity.
They don't have one right now and people are abandoning it
because of it. And I also would like to see
shadow priest get a buff. Shadow priest is in in a rough
spot so they could use a buff. And I guess the the issue that
we run into a shadow priest is it's hard to buff it for raid
without making it broken and mythic plus.
So it's like, what do we do here?
And BM Hunter's the reverse. It's hard to buff them for
mythic plus with making the broken right.
Anyway, shadow priest needs to be fixed somehow.
Do something. And then my fear, my big fear,
my concern is coming to fruition.
They are probably going to nerf prop warrior because all the
streamers are playing it. Manny, they listened to me.
They said, oh, Sean's right. This is a lot of fun.
This rage generation is crazy. I'm basically invincible.
I love it. Let's push with it now and it
Pratt. I mean, I I meme a lot on this
show, but Pratt does not need a nerve.
Pratt feels comfortable. All of the other tanks will feel
similar as they get gear. Pratt just happens to be less
reliant on gear. Pratt will is not broken.
They're not like a head and shoulders above, you know, and
they won't be taken. They won't be the metacomp tank.
They'll be the most fun tank. You might see them in the MDI,
but not the TGP. But I'm worried that perhaps
going to catch a perception nerve because so many people are
playing it and saying how much fun it is and how great it is.
That's my my fear. I, I, I don't want to contradict
you because you are the guy who knows prod, but I have been
looking at prod and I've been seeing like seeing all of the
damage that is coming out of mythic plus.
That is just the, the white swings, the auto attacks, right?
That is fairly heavy in in mythic plus and as you get
higher in those keys, right, it's going to become worse and
worse and protection warrior is the tank for physical damage.
And so like I understand sometimes it's perception, but I
also think that like right now, the way damage numbers are
coming in and mythic plus, unless they're willing to like
back out of like a million mobs came at you and white and white
swinged, which is kind of the issue that some of these tanks
that need to build up stuff before before they can really
smooth out damage or or dealing with like I think that they have
to be worked in a vault, but there's going to be.
More to mythic plus than can my tank survive these hits?
It's what group utility do they bring?
What what kind of damage are they doing?
How much damage are they doing? That kind of stuff and it's just
brought brings nothing else other than hey, I could tank a
lot of mobs really well. And if you take that away from
them, you're going to run into the same thing you had with
fury. What's the class identity?
Then if you if you remove that right, their their class
identity is hey, I can get punched in the face a lot, a
lot, a lot I. Mean that is the that is the
quintessential tank identity and they they do the sword and board
better than others in that way, but that that's really good.
OK, guys, we are going to move into a interview that we
recorded with Lithi. You're going to see that coming
right up. But before we do, I want to take
the time to thank all of you who have been leaving us a review on
iTunes or the bonus roll production directory.
It is the best way to help us in a non monetary fashion.
It helps us reach new listeners, and we thank you for all the
support that you give in that way.
Hello and welcome to this very special bonus interview of For
Azeroth, which we're tagging on to.
Episode like 296 is where this is going, maybe 295, it's hard
to tell. Numbers are not real myself.
Sean is here with True Villa and Manny as always, and we are very
happy to be sitting down with the one and only.
I want us to make sure I'm pronouncing this correct.
Is it Lithiara or how do I say the?
It's just, it's just lithy, lithy R Us curvy, the long form,
but it's not really used at all. Someone has been banking my
Twitter handle for like 12 years now.
So. Oh really?
Yeah. It's an account that last
tweeted in 2012 and can't do anything about it, you know?
How dare they give the name up? We demand it.
Can I ask where does Lithy come from?
Where did that name generate from?
Oh God literally just my my musings off.
I need a name for my Demon Hunter.
Was playing a lot of Borderlands 3 so I wanted to go with Lilith
like everyone else that was taken already.
After some thinking it turned into Lithiara and from there on
out everyone just called me Lithi.
So that was that's what stuck basically.
Very cool, I dig it. That's that is a good genesis of
the name. I like that LITHI.
For any of our listeners who might not be sure, you just give
us like a brief synopsis, like what's the elevator pitch?
Who is LITHI? So yeah, I'm a esportscaster,
mostly play by play, but I do some hosting.
I've been focusing a lot on Mmos over the last six years.
I've done a bunch of League of Legends, Valorant, but you'll
find me all over the place really.
And yeah, I love telling amazing stories.
I love putting a spotlight onto the players and just have a good
time and hang out. I love it.
What what drew you to cast?
Because your other than your exceptionally innate talent at
it, what drew you towards it? I, I don't think I would call it
an innate talent, but I appreciate it.
Honestly, always been very, I've always been very fascinated by
just commentary from like from a young age onwards, especially
like traditional sports, F1 soccer or football.
And at some point I had the opportunity like, hey, would
you, would you be interested in casting German MDI for World of
Warcraft? I was like, I mean, that's out
of nowhere, but let's go, I'll do it.
And I jumped on there, had fun, was apparently decently good at
it, and stuck to it. Worked my way up and now I'm
here. I love it.
That's great. That's a it's an inspirational
story to to do something you love.
You never work a day in your life, I think is what they say.
So so it seems like you're having a lot of fun with it.
Let's jump into why we're like, why is Lithy here?
Why did we bring Lithy on the show?
What do we want to talk about? And that is specifically this
race to world first in Narrow Bar Palace that just finished
up. You were selected to be one of
the casters for what ended up being 3rd place team method.
How was that? How does that happen?
Do they just reach out? Do you reach out to them?
Long story short, I, I obviously tried to reach out to the teams
ahead of the race, see if I can get a spot.
I was in touch with with Echo, had a little bit of a
conversation. Sadly nothing came of that, but
that's all right. And I'd also talked to method
and at the time they also they already had their caster roster
locked in and I was kind of given the feedback.
Hey, we sadly, we sadly don't know enough of you as a race.
The word first caster to had you considered in like the the first
choice of players. We needed a bunch of as casters,
we needed a bunch of analysts, and you didn't fit the profile,
so we went with some other people.
That kind of the initial feedback I got, which quite
honestly is fair enough. I've been out of the word first
race casting like actively for the entirety of Dragonflight
after the aversion events kind of died off and pieces died as
well. Very sad about that, but hey,
what can you do, right? But during the race, especially
during the first week, at some point there was a little bit of
a COVID issue in the Method studios.
So a bunch of the players were sick, a bunch of the casters got
sick. And at some point I was reached
out to and they told me, hey, we could use some backup casters.
We are running low on people at the moment.
If you could come in, that would be awesome.
And I was like, yeah, sure, definitely, definitely can do
it. Got on the train the next
morning and rest is history really.
Were they? Is their venue closed?
Like are you close enough to their venue that it's like a day
can be for you or? It was a six and a half hour
train ride. So I mean it's doable in a day,
but definitely like I'm in Berlin, so like NE Germany and
they were near Stuttgart, so S southwest of Germany.
So like completely cross country really.
Gotcha, gotcha. Gotcha.
Cool. I dig that.
So coming in, you're getting ready for the race row first.
You mentioned that you had been out of it for for an entire
expansion. How do you get ready for that?
How do you like go into a raid? How do you go into an event
thinking, OK, I need to be the most prepared?
What kind of stuff do you do for that?
Quite honestly, not too much extra because I was prepping for
the tear and everything anyway because I'm raiding myself.
So TLDR, you look up current state of the game, what classes
are good, what classes could be good?
What's there in terms of insane items like insane trinkets that
make some classes really, really good like a spy masters,
etcetera. And you look at the bosses.
How are the bosses designed? What is what are the difficulty
points in this tier? Which boss is going to be a wall
like which bosses are going to be important?
And basically you just try to get in and go in as prepared as
possible with as much knowledge as possible and kind of go off
of that because what first race casting is a lot less comparable
to traditional E sports casting. You can't really do too much
prep in terms of player storylines, etcetera, unless of
course you're very familiar with the team and it's a team that's
been long established, which method is in constant
fluctuation. And quite honestly also, well, I
got called one day before casting, so I didn't really have
the time to do as much research as I would have liked to for any
other event really. But yeah, this kind of that's
kind of the prep that goes into it.
You want to be, you want to be ready to talk about all the
topics that can come up on a word first race broadcast, which
compared to other esports is very podcasty.
So you talk about all kinds of things and also all kinds of
things that are not World of Warcraft.
Like I was spending a lot of time with logs on the couch
because we had a bunch of the morning shifts together.
We just talked about about bodybuilding, you know, So
that's kind of that's kind of where the what first race
casting is at for me. Yeah, because it's it, it's
broken up, right? Because it's like a minute of
action or two minutes of action followed by long periods in the
in the middle. So you have to be quite adept at
the gift of gab, I think is what my my mother.
Would say just a yapping for hours as the kids nowadays say.
Yeah, yeah. Man, it looks like you're ready
to jump in there. What do you have?
Don't wanna hoggle the Lithi time?
Thank you. Honestly like hearing how much
it is about the prep and how much it is about like having all
of your ducks in a row before you even step out and say word
1. You also said that like, hey,
like, yeah, you started decent, but like, how do you improve
between between like casting, like what do you do to like
craft the gift of gab, as it were.
So most of the improving part is really focused on kind of
traditional E sports casting where you have some very clear
cut structures and game flows that you kind of want to
represent a need to hit and need to talk about.
So VOD reviews are kind of the most important thing.
Watch back your casting, double check what you're saying.
Did you talk about the right things, etcetera, etcetera.
Even more so do it with knowledgeable peers of yours.
If you have some other casters that you respect, the whose
opinion you respect and then you know can give you good feedback,
ask him to do a what review with you.
Ask them to do some advice even if they don't have too much
time, sometimes they'll they'll they'll find the time to maybe
just rewatch a quick clip of you of your play by play castle like
a League of Legends team fight or like a the last play of a wow
arena match, for example, right? Get some feedback.
Get any feedback you can get because it's super super hard to
find quality feedback. Talk to your peers.
But outside of that, just make sure you prep as much as you
can. It's it's a bit hard to kind of
bring across how to prep storyline and storytelling
because I've never really put too much thought into into
practice regarding that. It's a little bit more of I
really, I really want to talk about these stories because I, I
think they're interesting and kind of finding, finding this
interest to communicate what I'm passionate about.
That's that's that's really all I do to approach storytelling
and everything else is literally just prepping as much
information and context as I possibly can when it comes to
raise the world first casting. So a very podcasty style.
Have conversations with people, talk to people and practice
conversation not just talking about the same topic while
sitting next to each other. Like actually talking to your Co
caster, listening to them and not straying from that flow of
conversation cause a lot of a lot of casters.
A lot of beginner casters especially in the word first
rate scene are very focused on just talking about the topic.
Sometimes tend to over focus on chat a lot as well, which is
it's valid if you want to bring in chat, but that's more that's
like a that's a broadcast this decision from the team right to
be 1 involve chat a lot to be not 11 involve chat a lot.
But if you do involve chat, make sure it's done in a way that it
doesn't undermine your Co caster.
That's kind of the mantra I try to keep when it comes to word
first race casting. But yeah, what reviews,
conversation, those two are the biggest things.
And then obviously the third is practice your game knowledge,
learn the game, know what you're talking about.
Like that you mentioned not undermining your code, Castro.
That's a great segue into this next question that I want to ask
in and it's a meandering segue. I'm an old person.
This is what happens with Neander in the movie Saving
Private Ryan. They've we're gonna meander.
Buckle up. They famously took the cast, the
majority of the cast, and put them through a boot camp before
the movie, with the exception of Matt Damon, who they left owed
from the cast. So all of the people in the cast
who are supposed to be going to save Matt Damon did this
horrible, grueling boot camp section.
And then they brought Matt Damon in at the end with the intention
of making it so that the cast, who was supposed to be
frustrated they were going to save this one soldier, were
actually frustrated with this one person, the actor.
So why am I bringing this up? In this analogy, Method had
already started. They've been going for a week,
their team have been prepped, they've been communicating, and
then along comes with the private riot and you're brought
in. Now, hopefully the cast of
Method didn't hold that same animosity towards you that the
actors did towards Matt Damon. But what does it feel like
joining that team that has been working together for a period of
time? Honestly, it was quite nice.
Everyone was very happy to see me.
It's the Wow community, so you kind of know each other at least
from the online space already. Previously, right?
I had never met the majority of the Castor roster.
I had met people like Lorox and Cana when they were still
playing for Method back in the day during the the Eternal
Palace race and the Nyalotha race.
So we weren't complete strangers and you know, you have, you say
hi in the chat, say talk a bit to someone like dark mech.
I've casted an event or two with dark mech in the past, but
that's full remote. So generally the just the the
reception was very warm, was very nice.
Everyone was happy to see me, got along well with everyone and
the energy in the studio just generally was very, very high
focus. I came in obviously basically on
the day, the first day of the second reset.
So obviously first day was very chill, lots of splits, but you
can you definitely tell tell at that point the Raiders really
were locked into the tier and just gaming away.
Not too much, too much yelling and conversation.
And also the Raiders are sitting decently separate from the
caster, so you don't actually interact too much outside of the
like, lunch and dinner breaks and maybe after the right night.
But wasn't generally a good good pleasant energy in the studio.
Especially considering that I basically came in and on the
exact day that everyone started to test negative from COVID.
So this is kind of the big reunion of everyone back
together in the same space. I think that definitely helped.
Nice. You also came in just after they
had stayed up late to do that big push, and they're coming off
of that. You're somewhat separated, but
what was the energy at that point?
So after that, after that big push, obviously killing Silicon
court at 4:00 AM just before the reset was a massive deal, was a
massive kind of boost of momentum, but it also messed up
the the sleep schedule a bit, etcetera, etcetera.
What method did in the following week is shift the entire
schedule back. So instead of starting at 8 and
ending at midnight, they started at 10:00 AM and went until 2:00
AM. So they definitely shifted that
a little bit. That was kind of the big thing.
Generally, I think they were all very hyped and excited about
being able to be on Queen before the reset, just like Echo and
Liquid were. So it was definitely the feeling
of OK, we are hot on their tails really.
And I think that momentum carried forward, even though I
think it took like a day or two or three to really recover from
that late night kind of crowbar segment of gaming, you know?
I love that they had that momentum that they actually
shifted their schedule and not try to just like go right back
to business as usual. And with people coming back in,
the reunion seems really good. Shifting gears a little bit, at
the same time, you were also casting for the AWC, so you were
doing 2 jobs at once. How did you balance that?
I don't know, basically, basically when Method called me
up, I told them, hey guys, I'd love to do this, but I'm booked
for an event this weekend, so you need to give me the hours I
need to have the evenings free and I need my own setup where I
can cast. If you can do that, I'm game.
I'll pop over and do some casting.
And they were very, very lovely in kind of making that possible
for myself. Also big shout out to the tech
guys at the location at the lead camp who were helping me set up
and everything. And the occasional minor
technical issue that is just going to pop up if you if you're
on the road right. But they help me out a lot in
terms of, in terms of just managing the workload most tough
I, I don't regret it because it was a good time, but in terms of
the exhaustion level, I definitely regret it.
And it was a terrible idea. But I, I gave it my all.
I hope it didn't affect my casting too much, except for the
Saturday, which was an utter off day and I feel very bad about
it. But it's just got what what
happens after a bad nights of sleep and a lot of work, you
know? Yeah, that'll happen.
It's this is this is actually great because I love to ask the
difference between casting in person at a venue and casting
remote. And you, you can literally give
us that example to them both in the same week.
So how does that, what are the differences there?
How does that feel? It is.
It is a massive difference. So remote casting generally
works really well, but it's a lot more static.
You you're not able to communicate on body language,
hand signs, etcetera with your Co caster as much.
It requires a lot of additional kind of brain power and
willingness from both sides to to set up and get into a
position where you can kind of gesticulate to each other, read
body language etcetera. When you're remote casting,
which in 90% of shows I've worked on so far, it's just not
really feasible. In person is a lot better
because you're standing next to next to each other like a a
quick glance over or your Co caster coming in with a hand
sign and like doing a finger up or something like gesturing to
you that he wants to jump in with something.
It's a lot easier. Hand offs and like quick
conversational bounce backs are a lot easier even in high
intensity moments in person, that's just, it's just a lot
easier and a lot more fun to cast together in a studio.
But remote casting obviously has its benefits.
You're at home, you're in a very comfortable space.
You have all your set up, especially if you're at at your
own PC and have prepared accordingly.
You have more information than you could ever hope to have on a
caster desk in a studio at your availability because you can't
have everything up, up and open on every single screen while on
a caster desk usually like you have your notebook, maybe an
extra screen with a little bit of extra info.
So you're definitely less limited on that regard when
you're casting from home, at least me personally on my setup.
Yeah, yeah, I like that. You mentioned that you had cast
for the German MDI in the past. Was this your first AWC and or
first English casting for Blizzard?
They're they're called English casting.
Yeah. That didn't like make it.
That's not like a huge language faux pas.
No, I think so. I mean, I'm, I'm referring to
it, I'm referring to it as the, the English main broadcast kind
of. But so the first time I was
picked up for AWC was earlier this year, I think it was the
third season of Dragonflights. Towards the end they had they
had a spot where they needed a caster for one weekend.
And I've been bugging them for a couple years by this point that
I would love to be on the AWC and love to do some casting.
And they finally gave me a shot. And that kind of always was my
goal is like, I need just one day.
Just give me give me one day and I'll convince you that you want
to keep me on the broadcast and kind of worked out.
So they brought me back for the final season for a few weekends.
And now they brought me back again for a couple of weekends
for this season. So yeah, that's that's kind of
how it went. I like that did.
That answer the question, sorry that.
Does answer the question, Yes. You're like sort of.
You're very familiar with the ABC.
You're like an old hat. And it's like, this is you know
what? I got this.
I told you I was gonna do it and it was gonna be awesome.
I was right. I knocked your socks off.
Here I am. I'm just curious.
Sorry. Go ahead.
Manny. No.
No, no, go ahead. I'm curious because AWC like
arena play and and MDI play is so very different.
Like MDI you can almost, it's not scripted, but you like, you
know what polls are coming up next.
You sort of have a feel for it and AWC is very much more on
your feet now. You might not want to pick, but
do you have a preference which you prefer asking for?
Oh absolutely. AWC because it's PvP, it's a lot
more high intensity, especially for me as a play by play caster.
It's much more where my comfort zone lies at because you
basically get high action the entire time.
Yes, it's very analytical heavy play by play casting, but it's
still play by play casting the entire time.
While MDI, which I dearly love and I enjoy casting a whole lot,
it's a lot more conversational style, a lot more analytical,
almost colour casting with a few key play by play moments.
And even those can be very scripted because obviously the
teams practice these poles and if you cast the dungeon for the
same team multiple times, you generally end up with very
similar kind of situations. So that's kind of why you enjoy
the AWCA lot more. Additionally, it's just a lot
more focused storytelling. You have a very rich history of
teams that have been around for years of competitors that have
been playing for years. And there's there's just a lot
of opportunity to tell stories about these teams and put a put
a put a focus and a spotlight on these players that have been
around for so long. I.
Love that that's I had never made that connection before that
MDI is, is more you learn more into that color commentary
because it is just like I've seen them do this poll 30 times
this week. I like that a lot.
Well, you're very good at it. You, your play by play is
incredible. Having you on the desk is, is,
is a real treat. So hopefully we get more liffy
in both AWC and MDI. If possible.
I, I want to touch on a more serious topic, a sensitive
topic. This, this most recent AWC,
there was some backlash, some some, I don't want to say
backlash because that makes it almost justified.
There was some shitty people. I can't swear.
There was some comments made that were inappropriate, some
negative comments came towards you as a caster.
And I just wanted to know if you could talk about that for a bit,
sort of what transpired or how you felt.
Yeah. Well, it's such a, it's such a
weird thing to talk about because all the all the negative
comments and the things that actually reach me are mostly OK,
let me let me start, let me start over.
I think the the obvious context here is that I am gender fluid
and I do present I do present female a good number of times
and especially long broadcasts. I like to wear a little bit more
fancy outfits because I feel comfortable in them.
And obviously there are a lot of comments about the hell is the
hell is that guy wearing? What is going on here?
Which doesn't bother me at all. It's like whatever you, you can
say whatever you want, really. Obviously then there are the a
lot more kind of toxic comments towards my presentation, but
also a number of comments that just target my performance and
my credibility and my I question the reason why I'm on the desk,
you know, and the problem with a lot of these comments is that
yes, I am very new to the desk. Yes, I am not even remotely as
good as legends like Super tease, Van Rookie and Zico that
I have the honor of working with.
And I'm not as established of a personality on the desk like
someone like Aya who is doing a fantastic job as well.
So, and a lot of these comments about this guy is not as good.
I hate his casting style. I really don't like that he's
not as analytical as the other guys.
This guy is getting lacking game knowledge.
It's all it's all comments where I have to, I have to admit to an
extent there is a kernel of truth to them.
But what on the other hand, what bugs me about it is the fact
that those days where I'm on the broadcast mail presenting, the
number of comments and flak I am getting feels like it is reduced
by like 90%. And I'm I'm online.
I'm online enough. I'm online enough to, I think,
be justified in expecting thinly veiled homophobia, transphobia,
transphobia presented as justified comments, so to say.
But at the same time, I don't want to go out there and accuse
people of hating on me just because I am different.
So, yeah, it's AI think for me currently, it's a it's a
difficult tightrope walk of finding the kernels of valid
constructive criticism that I need to improve my game
knowledge, that I need to improve my casting.
And I think that's kind of the the biggest tool that I am also
constantly working on because I do agree.
But on the other hand, it's also like, I don't, I don't need to,
I don't know, owe it to anyone to engage with all the and sorry
for the choice of words with all the bullshit that's tossed in my
direction. And yeah, it's it's very much a
learning experience. I've been casting for six years.
I've been getting the occasional comment of I don't like this
guy, I really like this guy. You know, the IT holds itself a
balance. But being on the AWC certainly
opened the gate to a very new level of kind of backlash,
criticism, whatever you want to call it, that I've received.
But in equal measures, I've had so many people reach out and
compliment my casting and comment on that.
They are very happy that I'm kind of breaking the norm, that
I'm presenting myself in the way I am and that it's encouraging
to them. And I had a very good
conversation with a friend last night and I think he phrased it
better than I ever could. And what he said was it.
It sucks to see the situation happen, but it is growth that's
just being facilitated in the World of Warcraft community.
And it is good that this has finally happened because it has
been long overdue. And I very much agree with that
sentiment. And I am very happy to help
facilitate this growth as much as I possibly can, even if it
means that I need to put some extra mental effort into
enduring kind of the the growing pains.
You know, I think that's, I think that's a good way to
phrase it. I like that.
I'm going to tie it back into Saving Private Ryan.
You mentioned the experience level on the desk.
If Van Rookie is Tom Hanks, you're certainly Matt Damon and
you, while you may be newer and newer on the scene, you are just
as good and we'll have just as bright a future as as our Van
Rookie Hanks have. So.
I appreciate that. I appreciate that and it's it's
also nice to see that my Co casters are kind of having my
back. I was, I was talking to Azale a
bit the other week and we did a, we did a quick little vaude
review together. And basically I kind of took
into that vaude review what was given to me as kind of the
harshest criticism. Like, OK, what's what's up with
your game knowledge and the casting style And the feedback I
got generally was OK, yes, there's a few points that you
can work on and you should work on, but generally you're in a
very good spot. And I kind of try to approach it
from the angle of the people that know as much and or way
more than me and the people that are my peers and doing the same
job. Those are the opinions that I
actually need to listen to. That's those are the opinions
that matter. And as long as my peers and
especially the Wow E Sports team is happy with my performance and
things, I'm doing well at the very least, OK.
I think that's the measure of kind of quality that I need to
listen to instead of listening to the voice from the community,
no matter how loud it is. I like that I want to be
cognizant of your time with the and I'm completely hogging this
entire interview. So Manny, I apologize, but I
want to get one last question and what can we do to help
improve the space? How can we help?
I don't want to say fight this energy because, I mean, you
won't say it, but I'll say it. Those people that make those
comments aren't making those comments because they give a
shit about your casting ability. They're saying it because for
the exact reasons that that we think they're saying it because
they're, they're garbage people. So how do we how do we improve
the space so that it's better for everyone?
Just be more accepting, Be kind to each other, to everyone
really, especially those people that are brave enough to be
themselves on a broadcast, even if they are different.
I think that's the biggest thing.
If you if you don't look at the broadcast and you don't really
hear a difference in in anything, maybe it's not worth
commenting on it. Even if the person actually
looks different once you open your eyes again.
Other than that, if you want to criticize and you're very, it's
very valid to want to criticize. Keeps constructive.
Don't be rude about it. You can definitely tell a caster
what you think. Even if the verdict is I don't
like your casting, say why I don't like your casting because
you don't understand the game enough.
I'd love for you to bring in more like valid analytical
points during your casting. That's good feedback.
That's something the caster can work with and if it fits into
your style, it can be integrated.
And the broadcast is going to go better because as much as some
people out there seem to hate it, queer people and diverse
people and people of all colours and identities, they're around,
they're everywhere and they're going to stay.
You're not going to get rid of them by being a bigot.
So just just give up on it and chill.
Just be chill. I like that that's that could be
the tag line for the episode. Just beat chill.
Okay Manny, I'm done. I'm done hugging all the
questions. I'm sorry.
It's tough. It's so fun talking to Lithi.
I got I got time all day. You can ask me all the questions
you want. No, this, this has been great.
I'm really glad that we got to have this time and talk about
this sort of thing. I really do think that like the
people who have their bad faith arguments that are going to
suddenly become so critical for for particular reasons.
It's night and day watching that broadcast.
You were talking, going back and forth, and it wasn't until the
match was over and you appeared on screen that suddenly people
had stuff to say. And that's just so telling.
So absolutely telling. Like for you to say like, yeah,
it's 90% different when when you're presenting male versus
versus when you're presenting a female.
It's like, I didn't even need that confirmation.
Like it was like already transparent where that was
happening. But what I love is really the
energy that you bring. How do you like just before we
let you go, Like how do you keep up that energy over the long
cast, like through an MDI through, through the AWC, they
have rotating people. But like, how do you keep up
that energy going through all of that?
I mean, in the physical sense, literally make sure, make sure I
slept enough that I'm awake, which is some days it's easier,
some days it's harder because it's on my full time job and
sometimes I come off work and straight into a broadcast.
But yeah, enough food, enough sleep, enough energy, get a get
a snack, get the blood sugar up every now and then.
But in terms of just motivation, it's literally just, I'm a
massive fan of the games I cast. I rarely ever pick up a
broadcast where I'm not at least enjoying the game.
So I try to just to reflect that I love Wow Arena, I love Wow
PvP, and I'm a massive fan. Even if I'm not casting, I'm
sitting in front of my screen and it's cheering for the move,
even if they get knocked out in the second round lower bracket
every now and then, you know, But it's just really, I try to,
I just try to convey the love and passion I have for the game
on broadcast. And sometimes that works with a
lot of game knowledge, sometimes it doesn't.
But generally I just try to bring the energy level because
as long as that is on point, I want to say that's like 50 to
60% of a good broadcast. If your caster has a lot of fun
and is very passionate about it, it automatically sounds way
better. As if you have someone talking
about the game that knows everything, but it's not
passionate about commentating for it, you know?
I always love that energy when you're casting and I've watched
games where I don't even know about the game and then later be
like, you know what, I am gonna pick up Valerie and see what's
going on in that game because of things.
I really appreciate that. I always approach it from the
angle of if you don't know what's going on, you have a team
on the left side, you have a team on the right side, just
watch the health bars and cheer for the team you want to cheer
for. If their health bar goes down,
that's bad. If the other team's health bar
goes down, that's good. And I think that's a good
starting point. And from there on out, you can
just learn the game while watching because I think we as a
caster team and especially the other three guys and I are doing
a solid, solid job of breaking down and kind of presenting what
is going on in a more digestible fashion, of course, at fast
pace. But the more you watch, the more
you learn. So any upcoming events where we
can catch you? Are you allowed to announce
anything at this point? Well, obviously you can catch me
on the AWC broadcast once again starts with top eight EU this
Friday. It's 7:00 PM CST and I think
10:00 AM Pacific. I think that's roughly around
the correct timestamps on the official watch of channels on
Twitch and YouTube. So that's kind of the the
biggest things that are going on and anything for the rest of the
year. If you want to hire me, I'm
available. Beautiful.
So thank you so much. Any last thing that you want to
say before we let you go? Not really.
Thanks so much for having me, for letting me talk about
casting, because I enjoy that almost as much as I do casting,
and you guys do a fantastic job. So I'm very excited to be on the
show here. Thank you very much, Livi.
Where can our listeners find you online?
You can follow me on Twitter at Lithiara.
You find me on Twitch, just Lithi on there or blue Sky,
which is also just Lithi in case you have abandoned the hell site
by now. And other than that, yeah, maybe
on your local Wow E sports broadcast or Final Fantasy or
whatever else is happening. Perfect, right?
I think that's it. Manny, do you want to?
I don't know. I don't end our shows ever, so I
don't know how this ends. May all your hits be crit, you
know. How this ends, let's let's hear
to Sean ending the show. Yeah, you know how it goes.
Great. In a world where you can be, I
don't know, it's different show. That's it for us from For
Azeroth with this special episode interview with Lithi.
We're so thankful for you listening to this episode and
may all your hits be crits.