The Colosseum: Jhazy of Blackrock

The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator (Relentless, Furious, Deadly, Brutal, Vengeful, Merciless, and otherwise), to interview some of the top Arena fighters on the battlegroups. Our goal is to bring a better understanding of the strategy, makeup, and work that goes into dueling it out for fame, fortune, and Frostwyrms. We're especially focused on the people who play these games, to further shed light on the world of the PvP player. If you'd like to be interviewed for The Colosseum, please feel free to contact us -- be sure to include your armory as a link!

We're in for a real treat this week. We interviewed Jhazy of Blackrock, one of the few players in arena history to achieve a 3,000 rating in 3v3. More impressive yet, he's done this on the very competitive Bloodlust battlegroup, and is currently holding that #1 spot by a margin of more than one hundred points. Jhazy's team STRAIGHT TO THE TOP is a protection warrior + marksman hunter + holy paladin composition. As a team, they are holding down the world's #1 3v3 spot!

Check out what Jhazy has to say after the break!

WoW.com: Who are your teammates right now?
Jhazy: My teammates right now are Ellihs, the baller paladin and Alloraan the worlds best protection warrior.

WoW.com: What's the general plan behind your composition?
Jhazy: We plan to take this team composition to the top once again in season 8 if our paladin feels up to it. Even after the protection [warrior] nerf we just intend to play better, though RMP [rogue-mage-priest] will be slightly harder.

WoW.com: What challenges does your team have?
Jhazy: Pre 3.3 we had slight trouble vs any wizard cleave [two spell dps casters + healer] on ring of valor -- and funny as it may sound, I'm the hardest target to kill. Our paladin or warrior usually dies if we do at all.

WoW.com: How do you prefer to run your comp?
Jhazy: We play our comp like a plate RMP [rogue-mage-priest] you could say. We make hard swaps with certain cooldowns up and go for quick kills on quick swaps throwing ccs in the proper spots while bursting down our target with stuns and silences placed accordingly.

WoW.com: What's your opening strategy?
Jhazy: We usually pick a dps out of the 2 dps (which is usually the case unless it's double healer) and we'll hit that. Alloraan will sit on something else or our kill target for a short amount of time depending on the setup. For example against RLS [rogue-lock-shaman] we'll go against the lock and swap rogue and go for a kill in a shockwave.

WoW.com: What do you like to do as soon as the gate opens?
Jhazy: Setup my focus target and pick two kill swap targets. and sit behind our pilar for a moment to setup our strat for that particular fight.

WoW.com: How do you work out target designation? (Does someone call it out, or is everyone on their own to figure it out?)
Jhazy: Alloraan and I will basically talk 95% of the time telling each other what's going on. We call out our swaps a lot and I usually lead off with a Serpent Sting.

WoW.com: Do you have favorite classes to kill on the opposing team?
Jhazy: Beast mastery hunters and enhancement shamans.

WoW.com: How do you schedule your playtime? Do you try and play at "good times to queue?" Is this different now than in previous seasons?
Jhazy: We usually just play whenever all three of us are on and when there are any teams worth queing against. We try to play smart about when we queue so we're not queing blindly (meaning not knowing who we could be facing). I've always que'd this way, even in previous seasons.

WoW.com: What signals to you that you need to radically change strategy midmatch? (And how do you accomplish that change?)
Jhazy: We'll usually wait for our stuff to come up off of cooldowns and we'll ask each other whether our stuff is up or not, if it's not we'll continue what we're doing if it is, we'll switch.

WoW.com: What's the biggest thing that differentiates a good player from a great player?
Jhazy: A good player is someone who knows their own abilities and can for the most part understand when to use them. A great player is one who knows their own abilities and how to use them in the correct timing and positions, and knows everyone elses abilities to make their own sync with theirs better.

WoW.com: What are you trying to improve?
Jhazy: Not making mistakes, and keeping my hands warm. :)

WoW.com: What motivates you to keep playing?
Jhazy: I find the competition very fun to play against, as well as the friends I have known as long as I have. I'm not too fond of drama so I try to avoid that part of the game.

WoW.com: What spec do you play? What advantages does that spec provide you that others do not? (If you switch between specs often, feel free to explain why you might switch)
Jhazy: I play marksman at the moment. I think this spec has double the cooldowns when needed on command with Readiness, Silencing Shot is a must for high caliber level of playing. The beast mastery tree is good for straight up pressure, but doesn't have the swap kind of burst needed to kill someone in a swap and a silence that marks has. The survival tree regardless of it's name has less survivability because of the lessened double cooldowns from the lack of Readiness, and just again has pressure, no real swap burst.

WoW.com: What do you think of the state of arena this season?
Jhazy: I don't think this season is balanced just like every other. Double healer warrior playing and climbing because they suck, yet arms warriors can solo players. Wizard cleaves globaling players with unbearable CC, as well as immense pressure. Beast cleave [beast mastery hunter + enhancement shaman + healer, usually holy paladin] still strong as ever just straight up sitting on something without remorse. And of course my setup, protection warrior + marksman hunter + holy paladin. Stun after stun with a crazy amount of control on any single caster and undodgeable burst.

WoW.com: What's it like playing on the world #1 3v3?
Jhazy: It's a lot of fun. We get tons and tons of tells saying how much we suck just "riding the prot warrior train" when we've been playing this comp since the beginning of season 6. It just puts a smile on my face seeing all the haters hating. This is just a video game after all, and if my comp happens to be rank 1 because of how we play it, then so be it. We are playing to win, and we're having a lot of fun doing so as well.

WoW.com: What are your thoughts about protection specs? Are they overpowered?
Jhazy: I think protection warriors at the moment are currently a little overpowered yes. They do need some sort of nerf. I don't know if this Warbringer and Shield Slam damage nerf is what it needs, but we'll find out after the season begins and we start to climb again. I think protection paladins in arena are slightly stronger in damage than they should be, but they need something other than the "support buffs" to their class to make it not just a whirlwind of damage.

WoW.com: What's your advice to players who just might be picking up arenas?
Jhazy: Practice, practice, practice. That's all arena really is as a beginner. You'll have to learn your class, study it. Study what every single other class can do and how it counters you. Dueling is a good way to find out other classes abilities. Then once you figure out the abilities, learn when to use them in arena for certain times to burst, and control the opposing players.

WoW.com: Is there anything else you'd like to say?
Jhazy: Just like to thank the people who actually aren't haters just because I run a specific comp. We all try very hard when we play and I think it's quite funny that everyone thinks this comp is "faceroll" when it's really not. If anyone else and prot warriors around the world climb up to a 3,000 rating and still tell me it's faceroll -- be my guest. Until then we have worked hard on our strats and how to play this comp as well as we do.

The Colosseum is WoW.com's interview series spotlighting strategies, compositions, and tactics from the Arena fighters who use them. For more PvP information, be sure to hit up Blood Sport and the Art of War(craft). If you'd like to be interviewed for The Colosseum, please feel free to contact us -- be sure to include your armory as a link!