Interview with Hafu: Druid no more?

I was trying to make this a 2-part article but an issue came up with the other half of it so I'm going to save it for the second day that I'll be writing this week. Look forward to that and more in the next article.

For today, however, I got a chance to interview Rumay "Hafu" Wang on a more personal level than most. She really needs no introduction if you haven't been living under a rock for the past couple years, so I'll get right into it. My questions are in bold, her responses are in regular text.

Rumor on the grapevine is that you're currently in a relationship with Glick now. While not very surprising if true, can it be confirmed? If so, with Glick being 21 years old and yourself only being 17, do you feel that it will complicate things at all or do you not even look at things that way?

Yes, yes of course. Unfortunately, Ming's wild guesses and exagerations have somewhat been true. We've been dating since March and did a pretty good job keeping it on the down low.

As far as the age difference complicating things, not really, no. As of now, we don't have any plans for the future, and I think the age difference will be less significant as time goes on. 18 and 21 sounds a lot better than 17 and 21, but those are just numbers. I'm not a completely new person when my birthday comes around, so whatever.

Your team obviously experienced a great deal of success ever since your first tournament victory at MLG Orlando. However, many people often argued who "carried" team Orz. Do you feel that your success there and at every following tournament was due moreso in part to your team chemistry together or because of individual talent on your roster?

My teammates are both incredible players, there's no doubt in that. However, we've collectively played thousands and thousands of games together. I feel that we were successful because we never dodged teams that we felt were "counters", and instead managed to work strategies around them (ie: double melee/PMR/shadowplay).

SUCH A LIAR YOU COMP STOMPED US AT ORLANDO

You tried to countercomp our counter, lol. And that's different anyway =T. We never got enough practice versus that comp to be confident on LAN. you know T_T. PMR and ****, though, like duelists, farmed our #1 team to get first, and they got highlighted on WoM, but we kept playing them until we figured out something =/

Speaking of the old WLD, what comp(s) in particular did you feel were a hard-counter if any, or possibly gave your specific team the most issues? For example, did you think x6's priest/warlock/warrior was a counter? I remember them specifically telling me in an interview that there was no way they could lose if they didn't mess up.

I felt that shadow-play was a huge counter to us. I recall one match in Boston, where we had a bad start versus MoB, Rhaegyn died in three seconds flat. We really can't make any mistakes verse it in order to win.

Mage/Warrior/Healer is a pretty big counter as well. A mage can control our warrior easily, and can also put out amazing burst damage. We found that if the team targeted our pets (warriors two-shot felhunters, and mages can two-shot voids), that they could win easily after killing our two pets. We also don't have an easy target-choice, where-as they can hit a number of things.

I don't think x6's priest/warrior/warlock is a counter, but we never played it firsthand. WLDs should be able to turtle it out, and then win when the priest is pretty much oom and out of cooldowns.

I also feel that Shadow Priest/Warlock/Rogue is a counter as well. We had a lot of trouble facing Sammslol's team on live. They were all undead, which made it difficult for us to control them. Their rogue would open on me, while they dotted up both Rhaegyn and myself, making healing near-impossible through the silence/spell-lock/death-coil/rogue stuns.

You mentioned being confident in your lineup and sticking to it when facing against potential counter-comps. However, reports are that you're currently practicing playing as a restoration shaman for expansion and LAN (more on this later). Why do you now feel that you can no longer be successful on a druid and have to resort to swapping classes?

I'm not confident in my line-up anymore at all. I don't think anyone, aside from PMR, should be confident. It's been too soon since the changes for anyone to have formulated consistant strategies versus everything. It's important to have flexibility on our team in order to be successful. Take X6 for example, they can run virtually everything at a competent level, and they're definitely one of the best teams in Europe. I feel that now is the best time to learn new classes, as when WOTLK comes out, everyone will be back at square one with each class. As strong as druids are, I don't think that they're the right choice versus every comp.

In your opinion, what changed the most in 3.0 either with druids or with other classes that made druids far less dominant at being the best healer for 2v2 and 3v3 and being far from mandatory now?

Damage is out of control right now. Arcane mages can solo me on my druid. If I don't have full HoTs ticking on everyone while facing like.. a mage/rogue team, then someone is going to die in the three seconds that I get blanket CSed. It's ridiculous. We tried running warrior/warlock/druid, and bumped into a bunch of triple DPS teams. I remember facing a mage/rogue/ret team that was able to kill me even though I trinketed the HoJ, healthstoned, and had a FULL set of HoTs ticking on me.

On a similar note, considering 3.0 is not balanced around level 70 HP pools, do you feel this trend will remain the same or do you expect druids to once again be dominant at level 80 and have an additional 10 talent points to work with?

I'm anticipating that restoration shamans will overtake druids at 80. It's just a speculation though, and I could be completely wrong. As it stands, druids don't have the flexibility as they did pre3.0. You can either sit in tree-form, and try to keep your mana up -- or you run oom quickly by trying to shift in and out of forms and crowd control. One of the biggest problems with shaman solo-healing pre 3.0 was that they had to cast. However, with riptide and with the ability to decurse, I feel shaman will overcome that.

Speaking of which, rumor has it that you're making a newly-leveled shaman as your main character for expansion. You've also had limited practice with the class lately. Many people would agree that restoration shamans are one of the most complex classes to master and that you can count the number of good ones in the US on one hand. In fact, in my x6 interview at ESL LA, when I asked the best players of each class in EU, they literally said that there are no good shamans. Are you confident that you can master the class as well as Kollektiv and GC and will we see it in every lineup for Orz, or is this more for having an alternate healer to play on LAN to a druid?

I agree that shaman is the hardest class to play and "master", especially without the help of mods. However, with focus-frames being part of the default UI, it'll be a lot more doable on LAN. I'm not completely confident that I'll be as good as kollektiv or the storm king, but I'm going to try anyway! I am looking to turn shaman into my main class, and so as it stands I'm looking to sell my character, Hafu. (If anyone's interested, they can contact me through a PM on Gameriot!).

So what's your shaman's name? It seems your fans will need a new armory for their homepage.

Maymay! (my name) LEVEL 66! I've had the pleasure of playing on several shaman thus far, so I do have some experience with 70 resto ones. It really helped that I leveled my shaman, because learning binds is one of the tricky parts of picking up a new class.

Let's talk about Blizzcon. Your team was often regarded as the best WLD out there but you fell to both Nihilum and selective queuers in mirrors. Can you give some insight on what happened at that event in your opinion? Do you think the mirror matches came down to RNG like many people feel WLD revolved around or was it being outplayed?

We were really out of practice. Our team hadn't played together seriously since the first tournament realm. We hoped that the ESL server would provide a practice environment, but we took the first week by storm and qualified early, and in less than a hundred games. WLD mirrors aren't completely RNG, but it definitely does play a role. I don't think that we lost because of RNG in our mirrors. We really didn't play at our best throughout the entire tournament.


What happened with Zyz at Montreal?

EG/pandemic were at one hotel, everyone else at another. 20 minute drive. The bar closed at like 2. So I decided to go with Pandemic and Conrad (Zyz) back to their hotel. Alex (Glick) came. Bla bla bla. Anyway, Alex and I ended up staying with EG. We slept on the floor but then Alex left lol. Took a cab home. I didn't go with because I was too tired and it was really cold out, so I slept in the same bed as Zyz/Azael. Zyz told Azael to sleep with his brother, so ya. I didn't even take off my clothes, unexciting :3

Who's the coolest EU player you've met so far?

Siler

Name one US and one EU player that you've yet to meet in person but would like to

Thinktank from US and Sonny from EU.

Many of your fans have been anxious to see another video released by you since your last one was years ago back in season two. Are there any plans of one anytime soon or is that not going to happen with you swapping to a shaman now?

I was planning on releasing another one, and had a lot of material from the ESL tournament server. But, I'm just not a fan of PvP videos. I find them to be extremely dull, and have watched maybe five, fully. Ever. After reviewing my own fraps, I found that although there were a few good matches, collectively it was just boring to watch. I deleted it all a while ago.

I'm not sure if I'll release another one soon, as right now, every match is just a giant zerg. If I manage to fraps decent material, then of course I'll try to make a second movie!

What do you feel is the most overpowered spec/class currently after the latest 3.0.3 patch?

ARCANE MAGES!

If you had to play with another warlock other than Glick, who would your next best choice be?

Azael

Best player of each class in the US excluding warlock/warrior because we know the answers for those:

Druid: Sodah
Hunter: SHIOS
Mage: isn't there only celex now lol
Paladin: GLICK LOL
Priest: Ely
Rogue: Zyz
Shaman: Kollektiv

Word Association: List the first thing that comes to mind when a certain term is listed.

WLD: OP
Nerd Rage: Celex
Ming: Fat
Jasi: Not fat
RNG: -gyn
Counter-comp: x6
Arcane mage: SHADOWMELDING THE POM NEILYO STYLE
Glick: mine :3
Rhaegyn: HOLY PALADIN LOL
Thinktank: buck teeth bastard
Kasumi: bunny
Noxn: Awesome
Paperkat: DC
Didy: quit smoking!
Trevor "midway" Schmidt: MLG
PvE: sucks
Bleeding Hollow: FIGNUTS
Dodging: Zilea
Spoh: Spoh time
Kintt: Alcohol supplier
Zyz: SLAVE!
Hoodrych: Bosssing
Druid/warrior: Completely fair
Celex: Headphone smasher
Trance: God
Neilyo: Neilyo27
Samuel Mathews: english accent!
Pandemic Black: NOT WASHED UP
Gravitas Gaming: second place champions
Got Game East: SODAH SODAH SODAH
Got Game West: triple deeps
James "2GD" Harding: a$$hole
BG9: overrated
Malicious: t6 <3

Have you ever been approached by someone in person when not at a LAN tournament that recognized that you were "Hafu?"

Yeah, only twice I believe. Once at an IHOP, and once at the supermarket. The person who claims he saw me at an IHOP told me through AIM, he didn't approach me at the time. I thought he was full of it, but then he told me when and where, and I guess he really did see me.

The dude that recognized me at the supermarket was in his mid-30s I would say. He followed me and my dad around for a bit, and then eventually came up to me while my dad was away from me, and asked if I played WoW. I said no and walked away :X

My ex-boyfriend got me into WoW, so him and all of his friends know about it. Also, a bunch of people know because my face was on the front page of gotfrag for a while. It's really awkward when people bring it up, and I try to avoid the subject at school.

If you could convey one point of advice for any aspiring female WoW arena competitor, what would it be?

Watch what you do at LANs, people with cameras are evil.

Thanks for your time in this interview. Are there any final shout outs or mentions that you would like to make?

Thank you so much to fnatic and all of my sponsors: Steelseries, MSI, Coolermaster, Bestpoker.com, and Ugame.net

Thinktank and Balancedruid

Also, everyone should register at Ugame.net and add me to your friends: http://www.ugame.net/users/Hafu/