RWF Guild Spotlight: Liquid
With raid testing underway on the PTR for Amirdrassil, BlizzCon 2023 next month, and Patch 10.2 around the corner, we sat down to chat with Scott, Sanghelios, Atlas, and Emsy of World First guild, Liquid. Read on to learn more about Liquid’s plans for Amirdrassil, their reflections on the Race to World First (RWF) of Aberrus, and more.
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“The level of mutual respect everyone has for each other is amazing. We like to hold ourselves to Team Liquid’s values of having integrity, humility, pursuing excellence, and most of all, authenticity. We welcome everyone as who they are, as they are.” –Scott
Q-1: Hi! It’s been a while since we’ve sat down with Liquid to reflect upon the RWF. To kick us off, let’s take a look back at the RWF of Aberrus. What has been the best part about competing in the RWF on site?
Scott: There is no better feeling than killing hard bosses in WoW, ever since doing it in Pieces back in Emerald Nightmare getting a kill on a boss just feels amazing, doing it world first is just a plus. Doing it on-site with some of my very close friends just makes it even better. Meeting new players or older players that haven’t been to a race before in person is also a great experience. Meeting Xesevi and Impec after knowing them both for 6/10 years was made possible by the RWF events.
Sanghelios: I wasn’t at the last one, but for the ones I’ve gone, to it’s easy being able to chat 1-on-1 or as a group about stuff.
Atlas: World First raiding inherently creates such a deep bond between guildmates – you spend so many hours of the day playing together, talking together, and creating memories together. The fun that I have with my friends is one of the biggest reasons why I love competing in the RWF. I love being able to hug everyone in person when I first see them, and one of the traditions that I have continued every RWF is to give everyone a massage before we start playing on the first day. Being able to be on site in the same space as my teammates creates such a deeper and more intimate level of friendship, everyone starts to feel like family.
Emsy: The best part is just the convenience of it all. Being able to meet everyone and speak face-to-face, having three nutritious meals prepared every day as well as having people around to help you with anything you could possibly need is so incredibly beneficial to not getting burnt out from the long days. Additionally, as an EU player raiding PST NA hours, being able to keep a normal sleep schedule was massively helpful to me during the last race.
Q-2: What’s the first thing you do after arriving at the RWF venue?
Scott: I usually go and see the people who have already arrived. I get there after 12+ hours of flying, so I’m usually pretty tired. I set up my keyboard, mouse etc. and load up my UI and make sure the Alienware PC is set up with my settings etc. I also always enjoy paying our amazing chef Heidi a visit for some post-flight food, which is a good way of getting settled into the facility.
Sanghelios: I want to instantly find my spot and get fully set up. I can’t feel comfortable until everything is working just the way I want it.
Atlas: The first order of business is usually just dropping off my backpack full of peripherals at my station without even setting up and just going to say hi to everyone and giving them each a big hug.
Emsy: I set up my desk and UI, and then go around saying hello to everyone. 🙂
Q-3: Do you have any superstitions or traditions during the RWF? Anything funny to comment on from the last RWF? (Just please don’t tell us you wear the same socks every day.)
Scott: Well, after winning the last race, Team Liquid threw us a party at the facility and I’m unsure who was ordering the drinks however we ended up with a 10:1 ratio of spirits to mixers which seemed to be the wrong way around. Everyone walking around with their Thorne water bottles asking for “W refills” is always great as well, that’s one of Tagzz’s many jobs.
Atlas: One tradition that I started doing since Ny'alotha is to give everyone a massage before we start playing on the first day. For years we’ve had to deal with long maintenance times and would spend several hours waiting for servers to come up, so I would spend the time making sure everyone is feeling nice and relaxed before we start the grind of going for World First.
“I’m fairly excited but also worried about the Dragonriding boss in Amirdrassil, Tindral Sageswift. Penultimate bosses are often very unique but miss the mark. A Dragonriding boss sounds epic, but it will need to break the penultimate boss curse.” –Sanghelios
Q-4: We’d love to hear more about your upcoming RWF plans for the next tier. How has raid testing been going for Amirdrassil? Do any of the bosses stand out in particular?
Scott: We’ve only tested 4 so far but they have all seemed pretty good for Heroic bosses, Smolderon could be quite the fight as long as it’s tuned more like Rashok than Magmorax.
Sanghelios: I’m fairly excited but also worried about the Dragonriding boss in Amirdrassil, Tindral Sageswift. Penultimate bosses are often very unique but miss the mark. A Dragonriding boss sounds epic, but it will need to break the penultimate boss curse.
Emsy: I really like the raid so far, a lot of the bosses seem really interesting. We’ve seen most of the bosses on Heroic and I think there is a lot of potential for some fun Mythic encounters. I also adore how a lot of the raid looks aesthetically – such as on the penultimate boss, Tindral Sageswift. The fact that you are on a floating platform above a massive open world that you could in theory run around and explore is pretty cool. I was pretty skeptical about the inclusion of Dragonriding into a raid boss, but so far so good!
Q-5: Who would you love to see as a final boss in a raid? Are there any WoW villains that you would like to eliminate?
Scott: Thrall for cheating in a Mak’gora.
Sanghelios: I’m sure Gallywix has been plotting his biggest money scheme yet.
Atlas: I think that a council fight involving corrupted versions of the Aspects would be super cool thematically.
Emsy: I’m not great with lore, so I’m not too sure about which WoW villains are even really left, but anything related to either The Lich King or the Old Gods would be pretty cool to me. I was especially fond of all the WotLK lore back in the day, but I haven’t really kept up since then.
“I think the balance that they have now where they leave the end boss (and maybe some bosses towards the end of the raid) untested while still testing all the earlier bosses is a good compromise.” –Atlas
Q-6: In an ideal world, which would have a higher fun factor for you: Raid testing on PTR or going in “blind” into a new raid and RWF?
Scott: The content drought WoW is pretty dire at times for me since I only really enjoy raiding, so raid testing and spoiling the content gives me something to do during the build up to a race. But in an ideal world, if the bosses were 100% tuned correctly, (not including Raszageth, Kurog, or Dathea), it would be preferable to go in blind.
Sanghelios: Going in blind for sure will be more fun if the bosses can be tuned properly without testing, or at least very quickly tuned when guilds arrive at them.
Atlas: I have mixed feelings regarding the existence of a PTR when it comes to raid prep and raid testing. I’m someone who thoroughly enjoys the process of raid testing and tries to spend a considerable amount of time thinking about boss encounters after having experienced them briefly in order to come up with strats or ways to optimize things. On the other hand, the allure of going in “blind” and experiencing something for the first time is also extremely fun. I think the balance that they have now where they leave the end boss (and maybe some bosses towards the end of the raid) untested while still testing all the earlier bosses is a good compromise. The only concerns I have are tuning and polish when it comes to not having a PTR, some bosses are hilariously bugged during raid testing (i.e Council of Blood from Castle Nathria) or ridiculously overtuned (i.e Raszageth from Vault of the Incarnates).
Emsy: As interesting and exciting as going in blind sounds in theory, I definitely hate diving into the unknown, so I will always prefer having an idea of what to expect beforehand. We already have an element of that with the final boss of a new raid tier not being tested (although the Dungeon Journal exists and we can make assumptions of how mechanics will look and work), and that’s enough “going in blind” for me.
Q-7: What is the most important thing you do personally to prepare for the RWF?
Scott: I like to prepare mentally in the gym a lot, thinking of strategies and comp stuff while doing cardio. I also play a lot of League of Legends, as it prepares me for the race better than farm raids.
Sanghelios: I can’t say there’s one specific thing, but generally to be as comfortable as possible. Food, drinks, and a cozy seat.
Atlas: I spend a lot of my time rewatching testing VoDs, looking at timers on fights to think about ways my class can make the most out of its toolkit for a given encounter. Leading up to the races, I try to spend more time playing the game so that I don’t feel rusty in any way.
Emsy: I’m a huge planner, so ever since I started raiding at a higher level, before each new tier I would make myself a page of notes with boss summaries, important mechanics, healer-specific things to look out for, etc. More recently, I’ve expanded this to elaborate colour-coded documents with mechanics and screenshots/videos from testing, with more thought put into how different specs I might be playing could look dealing with certain mechanics and damage patterns.
Q-8: What’s the Liquid Roster looking like for Patch 10.2? Any new faces or players changing roles?
Scott: I think the one thing we’ve been slacking on is announcing new people joining via Twitter etc. I’ll list all the new players joining us since the start of the expansion:
- Yipz: a tank/DPS player joining us from vodka who played and won his first race in Aberrus.
- Emsy: a healer player joining us after MNM’s disband who played and won her first race in Aberrus.
- Daizr: a melee DPS joining us from BDG who played and won his first race in Aberrus.
- Spen: a ranged DPS joining us from BDG who played and won his first race in Aberrus.
We also have 3 new players joining after our recent win:
As for external help, we have 2 new amazing coordinators helping run coaching and sales: Orisa and Ashmeedel. Ash actually went to the same high school as Imfiredup.
We have done very well to maintain all of our roster from the last tier and haven’t had anyone quit on farm.
“I absolutely love the atmosphere in our guild. It really does feel like a big group of friends who all just enjoy raiding together, and it makes all of the preparation leading up to the RWF much easier. Everyone here is so welcoming and friendly, and I think it’s one of our biggest strengths as a guild.” –Emsy
Q-9: What do you see as your strongest traits as a guild? How would you define the culture?
Scott: We all get on fine. I’ve been here for over 3 years and not once have we had a heated discussion or fight between raiders. The level of mutual respect everyone has for each other is amazing. We like to hold ourselves to Team Liquid’s values of having integrity, humility, pursuing excellence, and most of all, authenticity. We welcome everyone as who they are, as they are. There are no pressures to fit in and we appreciate their uniqueness. We have a very laid back culture.
Sanghelios: We have a lot of people that are really good at things. For just about anything that goes on we have an expert or two on it.
Atlas: The atmosphere while raiding is definitely the best, we’re just a bunch of clowns having a good time together. Anyone who has watched us for an extended period of time will know the guild has a bunch of extremely strong personalities and at times it feels like watching a bunch of asylum patients who somehow broke loose and decided to play video games together.
Emsy: I absolutely love the atmosphere in our guild. It really does feel like a big group of friends who all just enjoy raiding together, and it makes all of the preparation leading up to the RWF much easier. Everyone here is so welcoming and friendly, and I think it’s one of our biggest strengths as a guild. We’re able to focus and get things done without compromising on having fun and being overly serious.
Q-10: How do you integrate new members into your guild? Do you have any cool or fun rituals?
Scott: It’s pretty simple, I always ask what their favourite film is and then myself and Mark “Malarkus” Closer decide if it’s good enough. If it’s not Lord of the Rings, then there’s going to be trouble. I don’t think many people have had any issues fitting in here, sometimes they get a few questions like, “Who’s your favourite/least favourite person in the guild” typical icebreakers.
Atlas: All it takes is a couple of farm raids for people’s ears to adjust to the chaos that happens in Teamspeak. Other than that, the integration is a pretty seamless process, we all get along and operate within a certain level of respect for one another that comes from raiding at this level.
“Raiding is such a collaborative experience. Raiding at this level demands a sense of respect and understanding between your teammates that all feedback and constructive criticism is taken as an effort to work towards the goal of wanting to win the race.” –Atlas
Q-11: How does Liquid handle feedback and constructive criticism? How regular is it, and how is it deployed? How are raiders evaluated and communicated with?
Atlas: We have analysts, coaching staff, and even players constantly evaluating performance and looking for things that people can do better both on a group level and individual level. Time spent on the “bench” can easily be spent deep diving logs or VoDs to provide feedback to one another – I spent almost the entirety of Raszageth progression not playing but I was still watching Lip so that I could offer advice or different perspectives on how to play the fight. Raiding is such a collaborative experience. Raiding at this level demands a sense of respect and understanding between your teammates that all feedback and constructive criticism is taken as an effort to work towards the goal of wanting to win the race.
Q-12: Do you have any closing thoughts to get us hyped for Liquid’s plans in the coming tier? Anything related to BlizzCon?
Scott: We will likely have 20 or so raiders/analysts visiting BlizzCon for fun, just doing this as a meetup for a lot of us visiting friends in other guilds (Instant dollars etc.). Although I’m sure we’ll be shooting some content for the Race to world first. Excited to see what Blizzard has in store for WoW after Patch 10.2!
Sanghelios: New tier releases and the raid races are rare, yet one of the most popular events of World of Warcraft. Enjoy yourself and make sure to have fun along the way.
Atlas: We have big plans for Amirdrassil and can’t wait to show everyone what we’ve been preparing. Many members of the guild will be attending BlizzCon, feel free to come say hi if you see us 🙂
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About the Authors
VitaminP (VP) is the Content Manager of Raider.IO. VP holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration and has worked for Raider.IO since the formation of its News Section in November 2018. VP specializes in tanking classes and has loved doing competitive Mythic+ on and off since early Legion.
Picco is an old-fashioned WoW gamer that started back in Vanilla and has played ever since. She is a healer by heart and is currently maining Restoration Druid. She loves Mythic+ and has a great passion for events like the MDI and TGP. Picco is part of the KeystoneMasters team and enjoys jiggling around with ideas for fun new formats of community tournaments. She is also a Mod for several streamers and guilds, particularly during the RWF. Outside of WoW, Picco is a Sprout in FF14, where she explores with her Lala Summoner.
