Reaction test:
http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/allresults.phpX_5546X

I am currently on place 49 with 205.2ms as best series. Show me your results.

As you can see my average is 238ms at the moment. Let mee see your results. 

One of the first hundred followers of Hyuru's twitch.tv channel will get a free GW2 copy.

Good luck!

http://www.twitch.tv/hyuruX_5554X

Enjoy.

http://blip.tv/blizzblues-with-darnell/blizz-blues-55-glyph-of-ganking-6096692X_5424X

Have a laugh.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php/?v=333848383336798X_5379X
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php/?v=333849960003307X_5381X

So, I tried several methods to add a table, but finally decided to use an image.
Right click on the image and click "view image" to see it completely.

Yesterday we played badly. Currently we focus on three things to get better. We try to improve our openers, which failed. We try to coordinate interrupts better, which pretty much failed yesterday, too and we asked Nory to dispel faster, which improved from Tuesday quite a bit.

Still we fell to 1827, didn't manage to get enoguh points for Nory to buy weapon, offhand and wand and Foul Gift of the Demon Lord did not drop yesterday, when we tried to get it for Nory.

Also I had trouble getting xFire to work with WoW yesterday, but after some tries late in the night Nory and me managed to fraps again.

Other improvements:
- Added keybinds for redirect Arena1-3

After the last interview with Khuna we talked a bit over Skype and he said me, that recording his games really improved his game play. I decided to give it a try and actually improve my play. This thread is not for me only, but for anyone in the Waiting Room, wanting to improve. So post your videos here, if you are looking for help, for criticiszm, but be prepared to get flamed and ridiculed.

This is an attempt to find more players to try to get better, trying to gain rating without resorting to boosts.

Showing off matches on 1900 rating is certainly a bit embarrasing, but here I go.

Video 1: RMP vs. FMP
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php/?v=332832190105084X_5280X
Armory: http://eu.battle.net/wow/de/arena/…
Comment: Only recorded 3v3 match. I drop to about 20 FPS while recording, so I don't do it too often.

WoW's business value
WoW has become a very good way to make money for dedicated players. This results in more and more players treating WoW as a job, as basis for earning their living. Although WoW is not considered an E-Sport it has probably more players earning money from than any other computer game with the possible exception of SC:BW in Korea. Xandyn made an interesting comparison of boosting and drug trade. Boosting effects the player basis, as it removes the value of titles, access to ArenaJunkies and finding team members willing to improve.

Blizzards possibilities
As with drug trade, it is close to impossible to fight such a market on the seller side. Blizzard may ban accounts but twenty minutes and an IP reset later the next account maybe played. Some spoiled kid may loose his account, but it will not affect sellers in any real way. While Blizzard banned some big names like Vileroze, the effect is zero. Also most Blizzard employees are not allowed to talk about this problem and if so only state, that Blizzard tries this and that against the boosting business. On interviews Blizzard has very strict policies about questions and anything putting light on the shadier sides of WoW will not go public. In other words, no help is coming from this side, but this is not really the fault of Blizzard. Many governements tried to fight a war on drugs with massive ressources, billion dollar budgets and secret agencies with little to no effect. As the boosting business does not even force legal consequences the chances of anything changing on the seller side is zero.

The buyer side
While it astonishes many, that players pay for others playing their toons - WoW has always been a place where, among others, social outsiders and low self esteem hide behind the anonymity of the web. On many servers, especially the ones that are no pvp hubs, titles and ratings still give social recognition and humanity was always willing to do anything for recognition. Selling social recognition for some hundred dollars or euros is for many a very attractive product. Much like drugs do not solve problems, ratings don't give acceptance for long, especially if someone clicks and backpaddles. Means it is usually quite easy to see, who got boosted. Which means, that buying boosts means only more hiding and not acceptance.

Alternatives
WoW boosting is a multi million dollar market and so the players will try to get money out of it. Most of every player at tournaments or multiple gladiator titles is involved, many more by maintaining websites, managing adds or handle costumer contact. Let us not be hypocrits, most of those reading this post would do boosts, if they were good enough themselves. But as boosting kills the pvp scene the question is, if there are alternatives, that bring in money all the same. +

Alternative 1: streaming
Real money only comes for very high caliber players and also it can easily be combined with boosting for additional money. While it is a good and legit way without untieing it from boosting it remains ineffective. Here is a good chance to intervene from Blizzard, however. Players are identified by their channels and playing someones elses account is trivial to track. Viewers can also help by writing ingame tickets with links to the stream and the characters played.

Alternative 2: Coaching
Probably one of the best alternatives to boosting is coaching. Players actually get better, the pvp scene gets broader and competition increases. At the moment it is more expensive than boosting, as it takes time to improve. Many players offer this service, when being asked. Well made testimonials could increase the business volume here by a lot. Depending on the quality and reputation of the players offering this service prices range from 30€-60€ per hour.

Alternative 3: Playing with top players
While this often involves account sharing it is a way to improve players and help them get better. With alts of top players or even better on the tournament realm this is a very effective way to coach and to make players improve their play. The main problem is that it involves two players getting paid and is pretty expensive therefore. Depending on the quality and reputation of the players offering this service prices range from 30€-60€ per hour and player.

Alternative 4: Skill Capped
The idea is simple and good. Pay a low amount of money per month to access exclusive content, guides and get questions answered, videos reviewed and often even co-players in the official guilds. The main problem seems that the content providers are paid much less than for doing boosts. This could be extended to selling certain services, as reviewing binds and, improving the interface or something similar. Most players see these kind of things a something, that should be free of charge. But a lot of work goes into these things and many of them are worth it.

Alternative 5: Videos, blogs and adds
If not most video adds would be for boosts this could be another good idea. For sponsors to take this more seriously the scene needs to improve however. Chances of that happening are low, so this most likely not an option outside of "branding" for players.

Alternative 6: Online tournaments
Only NAO managed to pull a good tournament off by now. The prices are too low, although increasing, and the tournaments held to seldom in order to make a steady income. Also a lot of viewers turn away from the tournaments as the involvement of the organizers in boosting turns them away. A good way to promote pvp, but the organizers need to increase their hypocrisy-skills and perform better at showing a clean record.

Conclusion
Boosting will play a part in WoW as long as the game exists. There are good alternatives and if more players realize that increased skill raises their social acceptance a lot more and lot longer than increased rating the boosting business may draw less buyers in. As there is money in the market, it should be possible to find other means to earn it.

Monk Mistweaver healers look really fun. With an AoE stun (25 sec CD), interrupt (15 sec CD), Disarm, Gouge (15 sec cooldown), Knockback (a bit tricky), a teleport (30 seconds cooldown), a slow (expensive) and Blink they really have a lot of tools to work with. While I do not have any real PVP experience as Monk, yet, they look strong.

Big disadvantage is, that they have a lot of tools, that only work in melee range.

The knockback is tricky, as you have to hit the enemy swing timer correctly (procs on a channeled cast on first melee hit), so the timing has to be good or the interrupt (same school as heals) will land. It is possible, to eat the kick and knock the enemy back at the same time. It is also possible to use it with the AoE stun, so the enemy gets knocked back and stunned for 6 seconds. It has a 8 second cooldown and no DR.

Khuna plays rogue in World of Warcraft, participated in on- and offline tournaments and currently holds place two on the Cyclone 3v3 ladder with his team XMAS no presents GG. He is considered to be one of the best rogue players during Cataclysm and with his team one of the favorites for qualifying during the EU regionals. We talked about his attitude, RMP as a comp, coaching players and the upcoming tournaments. Enjoy.

Hildegard: Welcome to the "Forscherliga Interview" Khuna. As you may know the first question is always the same. What did you eat today?

Khuna: haha nothing fancy just some pasta

Hildegard: Probably too early in the day, but I hoped someone from France would give me a more tasty answer. Can you cook?

Khuna: Not really, I just make basic things to eat fast

Hildegard: When we first talked you had a piece of art, probably 18th century, as Skype avatar. Are you interested in art?

Khuna: ROFL. No, not at all. It was just a private joke with friends. haha sorry

Hildegard: Well let's get to World of Warcraft. Xandyn told me that the arena tournament in Korea would be played with S9 gear. Isn't it more likely to feature S12 MoP gear and rules?

Khuna: Well I knew from a friend few month ago that the tournament realm will be played in season 9 gear. I have no clue for the tournament in Korea since it is gonna be in the end of 2012 and we don't know yet when mop will be released, but I am pretty sure the regionals will be in season 9 gear.

Hildegard: Which could be a pretty big disaster, as the meta game will change a lot with the next addon.

Khuna: Yeah, but we've seen that happen before like the ESL tournament in 3.0 back in TBC so I don’t know

Hildegard: Your team is pretty confident to qualify for the Korean tournament, if I am not mistaken.

Khuna: Well it will all depend on how RMP will be on the TR with season 9 gear and the current patch. We were really confident to qualify for last BlizzCon because RMP was a really strong setup, but it got nerfed right before the regionals and it became a pretty bad one. Things have changed now, though. RMP might be good with the 25% ms buff in season 9 gear.

Hildegard: During many BlizzCon tournaments RMP was hard-countered and lost although a lot of players expected the RMPs to perform very well. SK US and Loaded Black come to mind, as well as Hydra/Kalimist/Another or your team during the qualifiers. RMP is probably the comp that was played the most over the course of the arena, but never won it.

Khuna: Well I think RMP was a really strong setup over the seasons. It was bad sometimes but I think the main fact is that very few team mastered it. It is a pretty hard comp to master because you need to play as a team and not as an individual player to succeed. Unlike you can do when you play a warlock comp. I play RMP since season 4(TBC) and I improved my game play on this comp pretty much every time I played it. There are a lot of little things, that you can improve to be more efficient for your team, while it is more about individual skills when you play comp with a warlock per example.
The strength of RMP is the damage you can pull out, if you do a great work with your partner in a short amount of time before your cooldowns run out. RMP was pretty bad in season 9 in a tournament play mainly because all the LSD were just stacking tons of resilience ( 1400+ back then ) to turtle until the RMP runs out of cooldowns and win eventually. The main reason why Buttonbashers were so successful was because their rogue was playing with 700 resilience ( was really low back then ) while their mage was leading swaps with his priest. That’s also why the nerf on TR affected us that much, because it was directly a nerf to the rogue's damage.
RMP was a bit different in season 8, though, because rogue wasn’t really dealing damage (with imp gouge etc ) he was more like a "stun bot" for his mage (with a lot of haste) and priest to kill people. It was a really fun comp to play back then, but unfortunately all the LSD could just wear 1400 resilience and been almost unkillable. I still think it was possible to beat this comp. We beat Enigmz, Fabio and Hrk as RMP when we were not even good. Our priest wasn't really good and Xandyn was far from being as good as now in WotLK, too. I just think RMP is a great and solid comp since many years but people just aren't good enough at it.

Hildegard: Can you give an example of what separates RMPs that perform very well on ladders from those that can win tournaments?

Khuna: I don't think you have to be good to perform as RMP in a ladder environment. I don't think you have to be good to perform well on the ladder no matter what your comp is.
You could just beat a lot of better teams and get a rank 1 easily by just having good pve gear and zerging people down or dodging people or queuing when no good team queues, like a lot of people did.

Hildegard: The next NAO tournament is in June. Can you play on those servers without lag issues?

Khuna: Yes, it's fine, I mean I lag a bit, which is quite annoying to backstab, ambushes, garrote or even sometimes hit my target, but I can still play with it. I don't think we would lose any game because of lag. Maybe 1 out of 10 or so. I just need to get used to it again, but obviously I am maybe playing in 80% of my capacities because of it because its harder to do things like prekick etc

Hildegard: Does "prekick" mean you kick before you see the cast bar, because you know the cast is coming?

Khuna: Exactly.

Hildegard: That of course is affected by lag a lot. On tournaments everyone is more stressed than on ladders, but your voice always sounds very calm, compared to other players. How come?

Khuna: I don't know. I used to stress a bit when I played against good teams for the first time a lot of years ago, but I just stopped stressing very fast. I am pretty much never stressed, even during the regionals. I can't explain it. I just don't stress, haha Maybe it has something to do with self confidence. I am trying to get my team pumped on Skype in a tournament play by talking loud, for example, butI always have a clear mind. I think that might help me to be good, because I always know what is going to come in the next few seconds. I can always think clear and it probably helps me to be more consistent.

Hildegard: That probably only happens because you feel in control. Means you are self-confident to the extent, that you perform best, even if you lose?

Khuna: It never happened to me since a long time to not know why I lost a game, so I don't really panic either when I do. Its either because of me, my team mates or a bad strategy (or game balance, which is very rare). I am self confident, yes, but I can admit my mistakes. I think you can't be a good player in any video game if you don't admit your mistakes and learn from it. Tell yourself, that you are at your best, too, because you can always improve. Every time I look at myself playing a few months ago I feel like I wasn't that good because I always improve.
The only time I raged or didn't know, what we could improve to win, were the few games I lost to triple dps or when I lost to rogue feral with vial, when vial was completely stupid. But I mean even if triple dps is close to impossible to beat for a certain comp, if they play it properly, I think it's overall a bad idea to cry and say, that you can't win. EVEN if its true. It's a way better attitude to adopt for me to try to play better even if we know we will probably loose but it is hard sometimes yea.

Hildegard: A very solid attitude of self-improvement, never giving up and working hard. Often players want to be good instead of constantly evolving and improving. How did you develop this attitude instead of seeing yourself as a genius?

Khuna: I think it is mainly because I started recording myself playing very early ( in the start of arenas pretty much ) so I could just watch myself and see what mistakes I did. When I saw that I did a mistake the very first thing I want to do is to never do it again. That is maybe because I am a perfectionist in everything I do.

Hildegard: What do you earn your living with?

Khuna: Well I don't really earn my living at the moment. The money I get is from everything related to WoWpretty much. I will have my own apartment in September and I think I can make a decent amount of money from WoW, if I try. I tried streaming before to see how much money I could make from it only and it was a really good amount. So I will start streaming way more when I’ll have my apartment and probably earn money from it and few other things related to wow.

Hildegard: It is no secret what those other things are. What always astonished me, was why players would pay for someone else playing a game for them. Do you have an explanation?

Khuna: Well I wouldn't personally do that, but a lot of people just care about what other people think about them. So they care about their rank in a video game. I don't really understand it to be honest but people do what they want

Hildegard: Did you ever encounter any player that was boosted at some time to perform well later?

Khuna: No, I don't think you can become any good if you ask other people to play for you instead of improving yourself. The only thing that could make you better is paying for lessons in my opinion.

Hildegard: Do you offer lessons?

Khuna: Yes, but not that much. I might do it more in the next few months, though.

Hildegard: How would that work? You check the interface/spec/gear and watch them playing?

Khuna: Well it could work in different ways. The most common one at the moment is just speaking with the persons that wants to learn about different aspects of the game or of their class in arena, in a certain composition etc.
It is sometimes also to play with them and tell them what they could improve, or to stream privately for them and explain them what you do and why you do that. Sometimes it is just helping them improving their UI or such things.

Hildegard: What I always thought would work really well was if someone was actually taken into a team. For example if you want to coach a rogue. Let your teammates play with him on the tournament realm and watch on stream. That would obviously be more costly, but pretty effective.

Khuna: Yes, some people actually pay other people to play with them and I think that is one of the best ways to improve.

Hildegard: How much does an hour of you coaching someone cost?

Khuna: Well at the moment it is something between 40€ and 50€, but I don't really do it that much like I said, like almost not at all.

Hildegard: So, moving on to some gossip. You ditched Hydra before playing with Xandyn and Zunniyaki. Why?

Khuna: Haha, well it's a long story. Ryan is my friend and I really enjoyed playing with him a lot on tr, was great fun. When we started he was kinda rusty on disc, but he improved really fast.
I chose to go with Xandyn and Zunniyaki in the end of the tournament realm mainly because I felt like we were stronger as RMP. Back then Xandyn understood the mage class, the RMP comp and the expansion way more than Raiku . Also Zunniyaki is an insanely good priest and we played a lot together before, too.

Hildegard: How did Ryan (Hydra) react? I guess he was not used to getting ditched.

Khuna: Well I saw him on regionals and talked to him before and it seemed like it was cool. Anyways, we didn't end up winning, because RMP got nerfed to the ground right before regionals so he didn't miss anything . We both had great fun at the regionals, so it was cool.

Hildegard: Is rank one title on Cyclone still worth something?

Khuna: I don't know. We don't really try anymore. Zunniyaki broke his fingers, Hydra's team is way above us because they queued really early in the season a lot more than us. The TR is coming soon.
I don't really care about rank 1 but I know Xandyn does. So maybe we will do it.

Hildegard: I think a lot of people would like to see the ladder matches of you team vs. Hydras team.

Khuna: We met Hydra's team on this GameSense tournament and ended up winning 3 - 1 cause we fucked up one game. Hydra doesn't play with Mir anymore anyway. I know Mir and Raiku are playing with a priest named Salv, but I am not afraid of them. If we loose a mirror that means we didn't play good enough, nothing else.

Hildegard: Which teams on the tournament realm do you think will compete for the top spots? Are you afraid of any of them?

Khuna: I can't really say which team will compete for the top spots on the tournament realm, yet. Simply because nobody can know, which comp will be good or not with the new patch and the old gear. I think PHD, TSG, ShadowCleave, MLS, and maybe RMP/RLS might be good, but we can't know for sure, yet. I am not afraid of anyone. I never was, even when I met a better team, than mine. I always think, that if I lose it is my fault or the fault of my team, not because the team against us is too good.

Hildegard: Is your current gear on the Arsenal tailored for 3v3 RMP?

Khuna: Yes my gear for RMP is around 4K resilience. PVE gear isn't that good for rogues in RMP, other than legendary of course, which are completely retarded. You would just take too much and don’t do that much more damage, because you can't take the hemo/recuperate spec as RMP.
Burst damage is also way more important, than consistent damage in RMP. Sometimes I don't do damage at all for more than ten seconds when playing this comp.
Even if rogue is a class, that has cooldowns to avoid damage, it isn't like a mage. You end up tanking damage in stuns, so you can't wear too few resilience.
I am only speaking about RMP, though. The hemo/recuperate spec is completely retarded in RLS for example. You are just unkillable even with low resilience.

Hildegard: You use the crit pvp trinket however, that astonished me a bit. Wouldn't other pieces be a better option?

Khuna: Well I don't have any other pieces on this rogue and crit is the most important start after AP in RMP. 3800 / 4100 resilience is enough don't need the resilience trinket.

Hildegard: The NAO tournament is well accepted and most participants agree that it is made professional. The GameSense tournament however was horrible, Athenes EOI Charity tournament didn't look too professional either. Why is no one able to make something similar in Europe?

Khuna: Because the NAO tournament is organized by more people, which are way more professional. They also took much more time to organize it and they are just more serious about it.
I don't think it is a continent problem or anything. I just think the people working on NAO put much more effort into it and they are doing a really good job cheers to them. They also had better commentators.

Hildegard: We come to the end of the interview and I always ask for a best of five list. As I know few things about the person behind the screen I chose something from WoW this time. Your five favorite arena team names are?

Khuna: Rofl this is so hard, those are French. You probably don't understand them, haha, they are private jokes with my homies

moha le serpent

jsuis un con

nettoyage en règle

plus the one i had on TR with Xandyn and Zunniyaki:

SURPRISE EFFECT

We took that name because we wanted to try to wear full pve gear before anyone else. Back then every mage was playing with high resilience. We wanted to pop every cooldown in the opener with full pve gear on mage and zerg the opposite shaman to SURPRISE EFFECT them during the regionals and make them cry haha.

Hildegard: Nice one. Thank you for the interview Khuna. Any shout outs?

Khuna: Thank you for interviewing me, yeah shout out to all of my french homies Flubbah, Alexis, Charlie, Cuentanamo, Shawir, Chubz, Skenz, Rod. To my partners Xandyn and Zunniyaki and to pretty much everyone on my Skype contact list, because I almost only have people I like on Skype
Also thanks to everyone supporting me. I am sorry, if I didn't stream that much lately. I will stream way more on the TR or around September.

Links:
Livestream: http://www.athenelive.com/KhunaX_5206X
Arsenal: http://eu.battle.net...un%C3%A5/simple
Khuna 5: http://www.warcraftm...w.php/?id=213277X_5210X
Khuna 4: http://www.warcraftm...w.php/?id=207657X_5212X

Former X_5221X
Xandyn: http://www.arenajunk...ew-with-xandyn/X_5223X
Kajn (German): http://eu.battle.net...opic/3313062248X_5225X
Hydra: http://www.arenajunk...iten-aka-hydra/X_5227X
Yiska (German): http://forscherliga-...pic.php?&t=8446