Hello fellow Rogues, I am Kay, your Head-Mod on our community discord and I love PvE.
Our discord is very active on the PvE channel and players love to share their logs for analysis too so an idea came to my mind. For the website, to bring more PvE-oriented content, outside of the usual guide and basic explanation, I thought about directly speaking with you!
It is a great pleasure that I will follow up with some 100 parsers from our community to share with you their preparation and how to approach the fights.
I hope it will motivate many of you to maybe push a little bit more the yellow class in the rank of your raid and help you if you were struggling to unlock the full power of your char. So let’s read some good information, starting with our bg boy parser Mctwist, and do not hesitate to join our discord to talk with our community 🙂

 

Kayhinae: Hello Mctwist! I am very happy to start this new series with you! Before we start, can you introduce yourself IRL? (name age country, eventually when you started playing games, specifically wow, which first server and class, etc.)

Mctwistgodx: Hello my name is Lars, I currently reside in the midwest of NA. I’ve been playing blizzard games since I was about seven years old. Started with Starcraft & slowly moved into other Blizzard titles. Started with WoW in December of 2004 with a group of friends from school. My first server was Illidan and I played a Night Elf Rogue.

→ Kayhinae: Okay all right, true OG here! So you played on the original TBC?

Mctwistgodx: Yes, I remember being driven to my local Best Buy to get the Collector’s Edition of TBC with my father at the midnight release. I eventually server transferred off of Illidan due to massive server queues, and most of my friends from Vanilla did not last near as long as I did playing WoW. The server I transferred was very low pop and died quickly, to which I rerolled an Orc Warrior on Kil’jaedan and convinced another group of friends to join me.

→ Kayhinae: Okay that explains why you started as a warrior on Classic I guess?

Mctwistgodx: Yeah, my original character at the start of Classic was a Human Warrior named Mctwist on Bigglesworth NA. I started with some basic goals and never stopped moving the goalpost. We have fully cleared everything from classic in a timely manner. I was able to obtain Scarab Lord which was one of my bigger goals of Classic.

Kayhinae: Okay okay thanks for this introduction. May I ask you, what motivates you to play the game? As a top parser, what makes PVE so appealing to you? 

Mctwistgodx: Honestly what motivates me to play the game is the people I have chosen to surround myself with. I’ve made a ton of new friends throughout Classic that I hope to continue to play with for many years to come. They keep me entertained and engaged.
For PvE, I love pushing my character and damage to the absolute limit no matter the cost. It’s never something I thought I would find myself doing, but once you start, you can’t stop!

→ Kayhinae: Nice and what’s your biggest challenge then? for now and later phases? What are your personal goals?

Mctwistgodx: My biggest challenge in TBC is finding ways to keep people engaged and having fun to avoid burnout. Keeping people out of their comfort zone and trying bigger strats to push the limits of what our raid can do. My personal goal for TBC is to lead successfully through all content and maintain an atmosphere that is both stress-free and fun, but also focused enough to maintain high ranking parses

Kayhinae: Now I would like to talk a bit more about your rogue on Classic and I have several common questions
Did you choose a specific race for PvE, if so why? 

Mctwistgodx: I’ve chosen Human as the extra expertise for using swords seems to be the best play. As well as perception is the best choice for Alliance PvP. 

→ Kayhinae: Okay, so you’re practicing PVP?

Mctwistgodx: Yes, I have been playing a decent amount of PvP since Season 1 began. I have mostly played 2’s in Season 1 playing Rogue / Lock to a peak of 2200. Currently practicing to push higher in 2’s and branch out into 3’s with a top goal of obtaining a Gladiator mount as the Armored Nether Drakes are one of my favorite mounts in the game.

Kayhinae: Nice! So you want to be a complete player.
And what profession are you running for Phase2 and what is your plan for the next Phase(s)?

Mctwistgodx: Currently I am running Engineering and Jewelcrafting. My current melee group has an Enhancement Shaman with Leatherworking for drums. Engineering is the next best thing for PvE using sappers, grenades, dynamite and battle chickens!. Also, the perks obtained from Belt / Goggles for PvP are too good to pass up. I will retain Jewelcrafting through the entire expansion and will also swap Engineering for Leatherworking closer to Sunwell.

Kayhinae: Okay thanks for your reply. And what about the consumables? They are extremely important on Classic, especially in the top PVE guilds.
How do you farm all your consumables? 

Mctwistgodx: One of my favorite farms is to solo Scholomance for Dark Runes. You can stealth to Rattlegore, then move into the 6 bossrooms where the last boss is. Each mini boss has a good chance to drop a Dark Rune. On average you can obtain 3-4 Dark Runes depending on RNG. Each lockout is netting almost 300-400 Gold an hour on my server once you have it down.

Kayhinae: OK, I see, and do you use to sim a lot to min-max your character? Can you develop about your process?

Mctwistgodx: I use the sim to see which upgrades are the most important and which items are not as important that I can pass on to other raiders.

Kayhinae: What is the hit and expertise you will have at the end of P2.
Do you follow the BiS list from Simon?
Do you have a link to your BIS on seventyupgrades maybe? with talents if possible)

Mctwistgodx: I’ll be looking at 21 Expertise and 293 Hit (313 with food) at the end of Phase 2 if I am able to obtain my full BiS. I used the BiS list from Simon and changed a bit of the gemming as I prefer to have as close to the 315 hit cap as possible.
My BIS list: https://seventyupgrades.com/set/fLxvkCUcK6BptB19xdarpR

Kayhinae: Okay, now let’s talk a bit about <Cuties only>. Can you give us more details about your guild?

Mctwistgodx: Sure. During the end of Classic our guild decided to split into 2 separate guilds. Still wanting to lead, I started my TBC project <cuties only>.

→ Kayhinae: Oh, ok. And what is your personal goal creating a parse guild more than progress or speed running guild? could you share your WCL profile?

Mctwistgodx: Honestly, I don’t consider us a parse or speed running guild. We are a solid group of gamers who enjoy gaming with each other. However, I did set up a strong melee group to show that melee can compete with the purple and green classes, as well as moving away from the negative stigma melee received heading into TBC. With solid kill times and proper support, parses will come naturally.
My WCL: https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/character/us/bigglesworth/mctwistgodx

Kayhinae: I can see you improve the DPS from month to month, which is insane.  How do you prepare for your next run?
Is it about the stuff that everyone gathers, new comps, more targeted profession, any change on consumable, debuff optimization?

Mctwistgodx: To prepare for runs, I look at my own VOD and try to see if there is any place that I or our raid can improve. I also watch streams of top guilds to see if there is a change in boss strategies we can implement to maybe push higher. 

Kayhinae: Your kill times are one of the fastest in the world for the bosses, how much time do you spend before and after kill looking at logs and discussion with the guild for this kind of achievement? Can you break down the preparation of such a guild? 

Mctwistgodx: I don’t tend to spend much time looking at logs. As stated above, I do watch streams of top guilds to see what sort of strategies I can implement into my own raid to improve times. It keeps people out of their comfort zone and engaged with pushing themselves.

Kayhinae: Great. So let’s talk about Phase 2.. Did you prepare Phase 2 anything on PTR?

Mctwistgodx: During phase 1 my biggest prep was stocking up consumes for Phase 2 progression. We found ourselves a bit late to the PTR Party, however, we did kill 7/10 via PTR prior to them closing up the raids

→ Kayhinae: If so, is there anything you noticed about the boss scripts/behavior? What is your global impression of the P2 content?

Mctwistgodx: I feel Blizzard could have tested their content a bit more having the game-breaking bugs on some of the bosses such as Vashj evading bugs that still exist and the KT threat drop bug that recently got fixed should not have made it out to live. 

Kayhinae: What is your goal for P2? 100 Parse I assume? Any Speedrun on the way or focus on Bosses?

Mctwistgodx: Honestly my goals are a bit more PVP Oriented I really want to perfect my craft and push towards a gladiator rank, for PVE I have obtained 2 100 parses so far, so i will continue to strive to keep pushing those up and maintain a top rogue on my server, and even a solid world rank. Pushing for a speed run a couple of times this tier is also on the menu as I feel that would be a really fun experience and a great way to push my guild.

Kayhinae: What would be a game-changer for your character and you wait for it the most? (Weapon, 4p T5, off set pieces?)

Mctwistgodx: I feel the biggest upgrade that is the most contested is the Belt of One-Hundred Deaths from Vashj. I’ll be third in line behind my Retribution Paladin and Enhancement Shaman but, I am excited about it. A close second is Talon of Azshara but there is much less competition for it!

Kayhinae: Thanks Mctwist ! Before we close this interview I wanted to ask your opinion 😀
Are Warglaives of Azzinoth Prio for Rogue?👀

Mctwistgodx: Glaives should always be prio to the player guild deems worthy. Who are we kidding? Rogue PvP prio, always! 🙂

Kayhinae: Haha, cheers Anything you would like to speak about?

Mctwistgodx: Bigglesworth NA is a great home for those on struggling servers looking for a new home! I’d love to see some new faces on our server! I am always open to talk about Rogue theory crafting and boss strategies, parsing, and PvP for those interested. I can always be found in the Silent Shadows Discord under the name Mctwist.

Thanks for reading this interview! Since it was my first one, feel free to let me know your feedback on Discord, you know how to find me 😉
If you want to follow Mctwistgodx, make sure to join his Twitch!
My next interview will happen next month, and before we end this article, make sure to read Sbkzor’s latest news about the Rogue’tober Fest video contest! 🎃 The prize pool is over 250€! Hope to see a lot of videos! Have a nice weekend!