The Colosseum: Apox, Warlock

The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator (Brutal, Vengeful, Merciless, and otherwise), to interview some of the top Arena fighters in 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 Netherdrakes.

Last week, we talked to Ryzer, who is a member of an unorthodox 3v3 Arena team. In that bracket, it's not uncommon to see Warlocks and it's not uncommon to Druids. What is much less common, however, is the Two Warlock, One Druid makeup of SUPER CUTIE FEAR SQUAD. (The caps are theirs, not mine.) In a bracket of Arena often reserved for Rogue-teams (including the feared Rogue-Mage-Priest composition), the over-time based gladiators have achieved the 10th ranking on their battlegroup.

After Ryzer's interview, several folks dropped me a line wanting to know more about this team. The good news is that Apox was also able to interview with your intrepid WoW Insider staff. Check out what he had to say behind the cut.

WoW Insider: Who are your teammates right now? What's the general plan behind your composition? What challenges does your team have? How do you prefer to run your comp?

Apox: Currently, the 3v3 I run consists of two warlocks and a druid. The general plan of our combo is to spread damage as much as possible. As soon as we can manage it, we rotate a combination of CC (usually involving fears, Cyclones, Bashes, Death Coils, and spell locks) on the healer to burn one of our opponents down.

Our main challenge as Warlock/Warlock/Druid are teams that can kill our druid very fast. Teams like this include Ret Paladin/Warrior/Resto Shaman, anything involving two Rogues (such as Rogue/Rogue/Mage, or Rogue/Rogue/Priest). We can also have trouble with classes that can dispel our druid's HoTs off easily.

I prefer to run our combo on the offensive side -- depending on what we fight -- so we can pressure healers faster and run them OOM.


WoW Insider: What's your opening strategy? What do you like to do as soon as the gate opens?

Apox: Our usual opening strategy is to run in early, so the opponents don't have time to react. Sometimes, we will go up against heavy burst teams, where we will usually have to stay back and let them come to us, but this is less common. As soon as the gates open, I like to run out and get into combat while my Voidwalker sacrifice is still active.

WoW Insider: Which mods do you use -- how have you customized your screen?

Apox: I use Xperl, mostly because it offers a focus frame, allowing me to get better control over the enemy team. Afflicted, a cooldown timer, is another important mod for me.

Beyond that, I use Proximo. I find it helpful in arenas where targets are spread out, and it helps in target switching. I use Bartender so I can organize my bars easily.

My screen is customized so that my main spells are in 3 rows in the lower half of my screen, with my cooldowns (Death Coil, Fel Domination, Amplify Curse, etc.) to the right of them. Target frames take up the top left area of my screen.

I also use other random vanity mods, but those don't do much as far as PvP goes.

WoW Insider: How do you work out target designation? (Does someone call it out, or is everyone on their own to figure it out?)

Apox: I usually call out targets just to clarify it for everyone, but for the most part we all know what to go for. Me and my warlock partner, Ryzer, ran double warlock in 2v2 to a rating in the low 2100s, so we have a good understanding of what targets we want to focus on, and when to go for a quick gib on someone.

WoW Insider: How do you schedule your playtime? Do you try and work during "good times to queue?"

Apox: We usually try to queue at peak hours, around 4pm or 5pm in the afternoon, and on days early in the week. This is so we can get reasonable queue times. However, this does vary sometimes.

WoW Insider: What's been the biggest change in your strategy between each bracket of ratings? (1500s, 1600s)

Apox: As we achieve higher and higher ratings, teams tend to play a lot more offensively towards us, so in turn we need to play more defensive than at lower ratings. Even against teams with two healers, we need to watch out for when they switch to our pets, so we can either pull it back and try to save it, or start summoning a new one, which can sometimes mess up our strategy.

WoW Insider: What signals to you that you need to radically change strategy midmatch? (And how do you accomplish that change?)

Apox: If the enemy team tries a different strategy than usual, we absolutely have to react to that, or we'll lose. More often than not, teams that have never run into our combo try many different strategies against us, so in turn we use different strategies against them.

For instance, if the opposing healer helps their partners with DPS, we can take advantage of that and do a hard switch to one of their DPSers. While their healer is exposed and trying to do damage, we can land some easy CC on him. We accomplish that change mostly just by calling it out, so nobody gets confused with a sudden, random target switch.

WoW Insider: What's the key for your composition's strategy? Are there multiple tactics you can use?

Apox: The key to our strategy, as stated before, is to spread around damage and cause massive pressure for the enemy healer. There are several tactics we can use -- we can go very offensive, and go all out burning cooldowns trying to kill someone, or we can go for control of the enemy team with fears, Cyclones, spell locks, and Curse of Tongues.

If we want to confuse teams that go too offensive, we can do a double Mana Drain on one of their DPS. (It works best when used on Shadow Priests, Mages, and Hunters.) That forces them to run away and drink, relieving a lot of pressure on our druid.

WoW Insider: You hear a lot about clicking versus binding. Which skills do you still click, which do you tend to bind?

Apox: I find it more efficient to bind almost every spell I can to a key, so I can focus my attention less on my interface, and more on the positioning of the enemy team, my partners, and my self. The only spells not bound are my pet summons, Fel Domination, Healthstone, and my bandages. I do this because I do NOT want to accidentally hit these keys, as that could guarentee a loss for us.

WoW Insider: What are you trying to improve?

Apox: I am trying to improve my weakest area - my judgement on when to use full cast, 6 second summons, and when to use fel domination summons. This has always been my weak point in arenas.

WoW Insider: What are you looking forward to in Wrath, for your class? What are you kind of dreading?

I don't keep up to date with Wrath of the Lich King too much, but I am looking forward to trying out the new destruction talent, Chaos Bolt, after Blizzard is done tweaking it in the beta.

The main thing I am not looking forward to is the overall condition of the Warlock talents, especially the Demonology tree. I know that Blizzard is not quite finished tweaking with the classes, and Warlocks could receive some major changes before Wrath is released.

The Colosseum is a new interview series by WoW Insider, meant to reveal 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).