Hydra 10 PvP Video / Interview, Blizzard Art

[chaud]

Diablo 3 - SEA/ANZ Home Region Change, BattleTag Update, Blue Posts and Twitter, Curse Weekly Roundup

US Mists of Pandaria Press Tour
The US Mists of Pandaria Press Tour took place today and we are working on getting all of the new information ready for you. Check back Monday, March 19th @ 3 AM EST for all that we learned!

Hydra 10 PvP Video Released
Hydra has released his 10th installment of his PvP videos, creatively named Hydra 10. Below is the video released in full. Nik also managed to ask Hydra a few questions about his experiences in making this latest video and his views on PvP currently and how it's looking for the new expansion.

So go ahead, why don't you introduce yourself.
Hey there, some people know me as Ryan; most as Hydra. I’m a 22 year old student from the UK. I’ve been playing WoW since beta (unfortunately lol) and before WoW I played a multitude of games, predominantly Starcraft: Broodwar, D2:LoD and Call of Duty.

Personally I loved the new video, how long did it take you to gather all the various clips and edit it all together?
This video took the longest out of any of my videos, mainly because I put the most effort into making it as good as I could with what was given to me (cataclysm clips were hard to get). Most of it was edited by me, with the exception of the antidote scene on Blades Edge Arena which was edited by Castorcato. The random clips at the end were found with the help of Castorcato and Mercx.

What would you say is the best clip of the new video and why?
The ultranumb RMP mirror match (Rogue Mage Priest vs. Rogue Mage Priest) on Nagrand Arena vs Khuna, Raiku and Mehh. It has so many clutch moments in quick succession and almost no mistakes by me, really hard to do vs arguably the best players of each class in a mirror match.

Some might see Cataclysm as the lowest point in WoW’s PvP history, what are your thoughts on it all?
Cataclysm is a joke in my opinion. Blizzard don’t care about the game or it’s company supporting ESports in general, from what is seen by the public. Go compare Blizzard to Riot and try and tell me Blizzard care while keeping a straight face. In fact, they are directly hindering the growth of SC2 as an ESport by not putting more into it. Last IEM event saw LoL with 5 times as many viewers as SC2 even though I see SC2 as an infinitely superior game.

Riot: We've modified the client for you all, we've put millions in prizes for you all to win everywhere, we put links to streams in our main LoL client, and we pay players to stream to help educate people.

Blizzard: Yeah, if your prize pool is over 5k, you need to give us some ad revenue. You need to buy a license. Custom Games? Good luck finding them. Promote tournament streams? Nah, just look at a picture of Jim Raynor instead. Oh and by the way we’re not going to support LAN.

What do you think the future of pvp is going to be like in regards to the MoP class and resilience changes?
Well it can’t be worse than Cataclysm can it? They seem to have the right idea, finally identifying their faults. I think we should just wait and see before we make any judgements on whether MoP is going to completely flop, after all it’s their last chance to save the game pretty much if they don’t want to see their entire competitive player base move on to other games (GW2, TERA, etc coming out).

For people that want to get better at PvP what would you say is the best thing they could do to improve?
Get a general understanding of your class abilities and what you’re likely to come up against vs other classes. You can do this by duelling or 2v2ing, (2v2 is great for learning the game) then apply those skills and improve your strategy in 3v3. There are plenty of places to get started and I’d say it’s definitely not worth paying for some guide when there are plenty of equally useful ones for free on the internet (shameless http://hydramist.tv/guides/ plug). AJ used to be a great place for new players to learn and get tips from more experienced players, however I feel the quality of the site has steadily been going downhill compared to where it was when I left the site when they refused to condone GCD hacking in Season 8.

What drives you to keep playing WoW Arena, with other games becoming bigger, and more popular?
Mates, competitive nature, will to produce content for the community.

I know that you play a lot of Starcraft 2 in your spare time do you plan on perusing it any further than just playing it casually?
I’d like to. I was really really close to hitting GM league a few seasons ago, I haven't had that much time recently to practice but now with X done I’ll be focusing way more on SC2 since this is the next game I plan to go pro at.

Any shoutouts that you'd like to give?
There are a bunch of shoutouts in the movie, but I guess the main people who helped me with the movie - syeren, Castorcato, Dice, Dave, Mercx, Boozt, Raiku and Igno. In addition shoutout to my old partners, Kalimist, Flyn and Redhot you guys were amazing to play with and I wouldn’t have learned so much about the game if it wasn’t for you guys. Finally thanks to Reliza, The ‘Protoss is for Chuffnuts’ skype channel and my cat Micky for judging me when I go to get food at 5am so that I go to bed! Additionally thanks to Steelseries for sponsoring my stream.

As a note if either my Twitch, the Twitter or Facebook page gain 10k likes then I’ll release an audio commentary version of Hydra X explaining each clip and why I chose it along with the background music. If you want more from Hydra you can check out his website, twitch.tv stream or youtube.

Blizzard Art Update
Blizzard added six pieces to the Wrath of the Lich King art and Cataclysm art galleries.

[vizzle]

You guys are commenting your spams on the wrong news post. I had a feeling this would happen.

[Xarama]

can't wait for MoP

[Freezeonfire]

"when I left the site when they refused to condone GCD hacking in Season 8."

Does he mean condemn?

[BatteredSausage]

edited all the crap out of my post now the panda posters have been deleted.

Anyway back on topic...roll on monday, its always nice to hear about new stuff coming...maybe when we get to see what else is on offer in mop it might change many peoples minds including myself.

[Asrialol]

Hydra was the sole reason I started PvP'ing on my priest back in s1/2 and 3. Awesome guy.

[Deleted]

"when I left the site when they refused to condone GCD hacking in Season 8."

Does he mean condemn?

yeah, its a typo. hydra left AJ in 2010 after the big drama with bladey and gcd hacking.

[Alayea]

To all those posting here hoping for a certain pet:

Want to talk about this news post? Use this thread! Please don't attempt to enter the contest in it, as your entry will not be counted.

Correct thread is http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...2#post15922222. Post there.


Back on topic... Very nice artwork! My favorite is the one of STV's many bridges, although the one with the fel magic crystal feels pretty creepy. Speaking of which, just where would that ritual be set in? Doesn't seem like it's from WotLK or Cataclysm.

[Nathanyel]

By EST, you mean CEST, right? Still, unpleasant time for a European :/

[Arcsecant]

Wotlk RMP mirrors are a thing of beauty

[Deleted]

How are your fingers? i'm sure you are mad to tell us what you know Boub, Chaud and MMO-C team!

[Asmekiel]

Why isn't it monday yet

[theKarn]

Why isn't it monday yet

Because time doesn't work like that!

[ota-kun]

By EST, you mean CEST, right? Still, unpleasant time for a European :/

Unpleasant? It's way better for us European. It's in the morning and not middle in the night.

But I think it is EDT (Eastern Dailight Time) and not (EST=Eastern Standard Time), because since March 11 most of the US have Daylight saving time.

3 AM EDT versus 8 am (CET=Central Europe Time:Germany, France...)

[VOxPERENOLDE]

I really wish the 19th would get here already, it feels like they are pulling of the bandaid slowly.. yank it off!

[Spiffums]

I love the pandas! I play a freebie game when servers are down and they have a monk class. It is really cool for PVP because you have some great crowd control with kung fu moves.

[Byrogan]

Bah, I can't wait that long dammit! T_T

[Nathanyel]

Unpleasant? It's way better for us European. It's in the morning and not middle in the night.

I assume "EST" meant European Summer Time, but it is in fact ambigous with Eastern Standard Time. I just assumed an EU meaning since the MMO-C admins (at least Boub and Chaud, admit I don't know much about the rest of the team) are in France.

Also, didn't it say 3am instead of midnight an hour ago?

[RoKPaNda]

I think Hydra is way off base with his assessment of Riot vs Blizzard. He's right in that SC2 is an infinitely better game, but LoL is a much more casual game - It appears to a different audience. Also LoL events aren't nearly as common, are hyped up more, and built into the client, of course they're going to get more views. Most people that I know didn't even know that IEM was going on, where every LoL player knew because it's all built into the client. If we could get a comparison that involved a major SC2 event like MLG/GSL - I have no doubt that LoL would still be ahead being a more casual game that appeals to more people, but the gap would be much smaller.

[MrGene]

This will be intresting to see how well the pandas accually do.