# Forum > News > OC News > Articles and Interviews >  Interview with Buddhist and Lewt!

## Glynbeard

Hey everyone! 

So, I've been thinking to myself lately.. What would be a really *awesome* early Christmas present for MMOwned?

And so I started looking around various sites until it hit me. Why not attempt an interview with the kings of PvP? *And that I did.*





*INTERVIEW WITH BUDDHIST AND LEWT!*




These two are known on the web for their synergy and unique gameplay. After releasing several videos they have become one of the most revered teams ever to play in arenas and battlegrounds. 

For those of you who live under a rock, Buddhist, is known for playing a rogue and Lewt plays a Druid. 

Information regarding where you can watch their videos and a link to their site will be posted at the bottom of the interview.

Ignore my crappy PS header, and Lewt's interview will be posted as soon as he gets back to me with a couple more questions I had  :Big Grin:  (hopefully 1-2 days).

Enjoy!


[BREAK=Buddhist's Interview]


*Buddhist:*

*
General Questions:*

*Q:* Would you be able to tell us a little bit about yourself in general. What are you doing outside of the gaming community? School? Work?

I'm mainly working on my website (The Kingdom Of Ernor (Offical Site)) and the webcomic in the comic section of the website.

*Q:* Maybe any specific hobbies?

Aside from gaming, I suppose 3d modeling could be considered a hobby. I use 3d studio max to model for the webcomic. I also video edit with Sony Vegas and Adobe Aftereffects occasionally for random videos.

*Q:* After releasing 32 movies on warcraftmovies.com, you still manage to get ideas. Where does this inspiration come from?

Random things, as its been since the beginning. If I see something particularly humorous unrelated to WoW, sometimes I'll adapt it to WoW, and then build the rest of the video around it. The inspiration though... I suppose the fun in video editing is really what inspires me to go through with it, as well as the response from the audience.

Many of my PvP videos really went down like this: I decided I wanted to make a PvP video (well, that was always the case, I never really played if not to FRAPS), I recorded footage, I deleted the bad footage, I came up with the most random inane storyline for the video I could think of, made an intro to showcase that storyline, and added in the footage + outro.

*Q:* The movies are always very highly rated, what do you think makes them better than the average rogue PvP video?

Humor and editing. I've never focused on the skill in my videos, never done cheesy slow mos to point things out (except as a joke). I think that costs me views, but gains me ratings.

That is, of course, when the humor doesn't fly over people's heads. *cough* fawn pvp *cough*

*Q:* We know the name, how the hell did you come up with it?

Well that requires kind of a long explanation but I'll try to keep it short: I'm agnostic atheist, meaning I don't believe in anything without evidence, including Gods and (if we want to get technical) the universe in general. However, if I had to be classified as one religion or another, it would be Buddhist, because of this: Desires cloud reasoning. Hunger, thirst, lust, they all make it more difficult to be completely logical. For that reason, it is logical to avoid doing anything which will give you more desires/cravings and thus cloud your reasoning. I realized that years ago, and then made the connection with the similar "Third Noble Truth" of Buddhism. TBH, if I recall correctly, I was going to go with the name "Pacifist", but the name was already taken.

*Q:* Other than WoW, are there any other video games you like to play? What makes them so special?

Starcraft, Ragnarok Online. I don't actually play RO anymore, but I think the combat system was very very fun. I loved playing a Spirit Champ with full dex in PvP. Starcraft is just awesome. The strategies and tactics of Starcraft are endless, and the skill cap is near impossible to reach. I'm definitely going to be playing SC2 when it comes out. I also sometimes play FPSs like L4D2 (I actually haven't been able to get it yet though, maybe someone can buy it for me ;D?) and CS:S, though I find most FPSs too RNG based for their own genre.

*Q:* What is the biggest challenge you have ever had to overcome in your gaming career thus far?

The HWL grind, I say without a moment's hesitation. That was the biggest challenge I've faced in my entire life, no joke. I honestly don't doubt the possibility that it will be the greatest challenge I will have ever faced for the rest of my life. It took more skill as a Rogue, five times more skill as a team, and ten times more dedication than Gladiator will ever require, at least for me.

*Q:* Do you ever sometimes wish you had never played WoW in the first place? Why or why not?

No. It's not like WoW is addicting (at least not outside of the world of alarmist mainstream news), and if I ever wanted to quit playing, I would have... which I did, about 6 months ago.

WoW taught me a lot of important lessons, about a lot of important things. I learned what it was like to master something, and what it's like to reach the point where you only do the activity to become better at it, and the improvements are so tiny that only you will notice. I made a lot of... well, I made ALL of my friends through it (logical minds, not the kind of people you'll likely find at school or work).

*Q:* You mentioned to me that you quit World of Warcraft about 6 months ago. What is the cause behind this decision?

The game simply got too bad (for PvP). In my opinion, the game really started going down hill when BGs were released. Yeah, I mean WSG and AV. I think the best time in the game was after the honor system released, but before BGs. BGs trivialize PvP. They all but destroyed world PvP. Arenas came and finished the job. Arena isn't a terrible idea, but it is for WoW. WoW was never meant to have Arenas, and the proof is the Rogue class. What good is stealth when the enemy knows your there? They aren't going to think the enemy team is missing a player. But I digress, the point is that the game has been declining for a very long time, and in WOTLK, it was kind of a joke to play. The developers really don't know how to balance, because they really aren't good at the game.

If I had to sum it up in one sentence, it would be this: WoW is balanced around average players, instead of the best players, and that means that, as a player improves, the game becomes more and more imbalanced for him and less fun to play.
*
Q:* Does this mean we've seen the last of Buddhist on warcraftmovies.com?

Pretty much. I'm about to release my final WoW video, which is pretty much a best-of mash-up of all my previous major videos, as well as a short bit of me talking at the beginning of it, covering some of the questions you've asked me here.

*Q:* When did you meet Lewt? What was your first impression of him?

I met Lewt in 2007 on Dethecus in Season 2, in Nagrand. My first impression was pretty much that "he's a qt, but his friends are douche bags". He had xfered to Dethecus right after me from Cyclone, with his two arena partners.

Near the end of the season, I had a 3v3 in the Glad range as Rogue/SP/Fire Mage. Lewt wasn't on a team that was going to get Glad at that point, and in risk of missing it, so we invited him, and took our Rogue/SP/Balance druid to top 5. We could have taken #1 if not for win traders, I have no doubt. Lewt also 2v2'd with his warlock xfer friend (as balance/demonology) on the very last night, and took it from 2k to 2600 in a single night. They would have also taken #1 if not for win traders. Well, to be correct, they did take #1, but it's a long and stupid story. Oh well, that's arena for you.

*Arena questions:*

*Q:* Throughout your arena career, you must have played many 2v2 compositions. Which would be your favorite and which your least favorite? Why?

-My favorite to play as? Shadow step rogue plus doomkin. That is just pure fun. It's lots of CC, and a game of about efficiency primarily, and burst secondarily.

-My favorite to play against? Things with shadow priests.

-My least favorite 2v2 comp to play as would be Rogue/Mage. This is because I'm a very map-control, CC player. I like to use gouge and kick on alternate targets a lot, and obviously gouge shares DR with sheep (or did when I played, dunno about now), which is major fail.

-Least favorite to play against would be Rogue/Mage in S1, Druid/warrior in S2, warrior/shaman in s3, I have no memory of s4 tbh, and uuuuh, pretty much anything in S5. I chose those because they're gay, simple as that.
*
Q:* Would you be so kind as to share a funny moment you may have experienced in an arena match?

The first thing that came to mind was a match with Lewt and I, where we were struggling in the high ratings, and I fell off the bridge, and then ran back up and fell off again (and lost). It was so horrible, we just laughed about it for like 3 minutes. Other than that, of course, are the matches from Ming Must Die, where the enemy team would lose 2 players in under 10 seconds and the third would leave.

*Q:* Do you have any advice for players who are just starting out in ranked arena matches?

Don't? Haha, I guess the best word of advice is to find a reliable partner, someone who can handle stress without raging or emoing out, and making a schedule to play nearly every day for a long time. Also, when you start losing games, just stop playing for the day, and pick it up the next. The biggest thing to WoW is working as a team and using good strategies. Player skill is far less important.

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

What ever the strategy is to do. What would I just want to do without a strategy? Probably sprint in there and start killing people. But then we'd lose (if it's a high rated match), lol.

*Q:* What would you say is the key to being successful in an arena match?

As I said above, it's 90% team work and strategy, 9% luck, and 1% player skill.
*
World of Warcraft Questions:*

*Q:* If you had to re-roll a new class, which would you choose and why?

Warrior, because it suits me better (for arena). As I said earlier, I love to gouge and map control, and warrior suits it better than Rogue to some degree. Intercepting/charging around the map would be fun.

*Q:* When you first started playing, did you have another player who was your idol? Someone who you aspired to be like?

No, not really. When I made my Rogue, I did learn from the PvP videos that came before me, and ironically one that comes to mind was by Ming. He wasn't very good, but I was worse.

*Q:* What was your favourite; Vanilla, TBC or WotLK? How come?

By now you know it's Vanilla, for the reasons above. BGs suck, Arena sucks.

*Q:* We know you're big into PvP, but did you ever get into PvE? Why/Why not?

Yeah I did, but only in WOTLK, when I formed my own raiding guild. It was kind of fun for a while, but I didn't get a sinister revenge in literally 30+ runs of Naxx.

*Q:* Pretend you were given the power to change anything in World of Warcraft for 5 minutes. What would you choose to change?

No BGs or Arenas, less RNG, create a reward system for world pvp, balance the classes around world pvp again, add collision for missiles (so that ig. frost bolts don't go through walls), and a lot of other things. If I could only change one thing, it would be to turn off the servers. Though I don't really care about WoW anymore. :3

Shout out to Mno!

[BREAK=Lewt's Interview]

*Lewt:*

*General Questions:
*

*Q:* Would you be able to tell us a little bit about yourself in general. What are you doing outside of the gaming community? School? Work?

I'm in Grade 12 of High school currently, while flopping at finding a job before I head off to University.


*Q:* Maybe any specific hobbies?

I used to play basketball and football quite a bit. Now I don't really have any serious hobbies, I generally end up hopping from one interest to another.

*Q:* Why the name? Is there any special story behind it?

I was normally known by the name of Shell/Ransem. When I went to Dethecus with Katashu and Psiphon (My arena partners before Buddhist), my name was already taken, so I went back to a name an old friend used on a UO shard called Neverlands. I'm not the most original person.

*Q:* Other than WoW, are there any other video games you like to play? What makes them so special?

I used to play warcraft 3 kind of seriously, capping out around 43 as Night Elf. I was always so intent at taking it even more seriously, and trying to go to some tournments. I loved the RTS genre more then any other type of game, but eventually it lost my interest. Now I just play the occasional console games at friends houses, or Halo 3/CoD on Live.


*Q:* How did you meet Buddhist? What was your first impression of him?

Oh... where to begin. I never heard of Buddhist before meeting him (I was pretty scrubby before Katashu and Psiphon taught me how to play, so I barely even knew about WCM). Our first real encounter was me dueling him i guess.


*World of Warcraft Questions:*


*Q:* When did you start playing World of Warcraft, and why?

I noticed my friend playing a warlock one day while I was at his house. After that, it was just a massive snowball effect from there. I was also going through a slump in WC3 so I made the switch

*Q:* Who are you in-game then?

I'm currently a Shadow Priest on Kel'Thuzad, having shelfed my druid.

*Q:* Did you always play that character?

I picked up Priests when the TR came out. I played shadow dueling people for hours. From there I couldn't stop and I eventually leveled one up.

*Q:* What would you say is the best thing about your class?

Back in the day, I loved druid mobility and the amount of control I could put out in games. For Shadow Priests, I love my ability to completely control a game for 30 seconds. My ability to do it can make or break most games.

*Q:* What was your favourite; Vanilla, TBC or WotLK? How come?

I don't really have a favourite, I like all of them for different reasons. I play the game to have fun, so even if people think WotLK is unbalanced, I still have found merits in it. If I didn't I wouldn't be playing it. If anything, my least favourite is Vanilla because I was so horrible back then.


*Arena Questions:*


*Q:* What is your favorite spec to play as in arena? Why is that?

Balance: Because I'm a terrible healer
Shadow: Because I'm a terrible healer

*Q:* Out of all the different arena maps to play on, which would be your favorite?

Nagrand. It's the only map I'm comfortable with avoiding hunters.

*Q:* Who are your teammates right now? What's the general plan behind your composition?

Worldz and Mahiko. Resto Shaman, Rogue, Shadow Priest. We really don't have a plan yet. With our total lack of strats, we end up just rushing and chaining things down CC at random. We're great players....

*Q:* What challenges does your team have? How do you prefer to run your comp?

Hunters and HIGH RISK GAMING. When we play, our skype channel is usually flooded with singing, rapping, chirping or joking. We play with our emotions and throw everything down on the table. When we lose, it generally gets knocked down a few notchs (Mainly Worldz), but we always pick it back up. Also Hunter with the new arrows/bullets like to rape me in the face.

*Q:* How do you work out target designation? (Does someone just yell a name, or is everyone on their own to figure it out?)

I'm the team leader right now, but eventually Mahiko will take over that role. I'll call swaps and we somewhat know now what to CC as we run out the gate.

*Q:* What are some of the addons do you use during a match?

I use 0 addons. I don't like to depend on something that I might not have after a patch or under other circumstances.

*Q:* What would you say is the key to being successful in an arena match?

Coordination and Synergy. If you can make sure you're all on the same page and you have a general idea of your teammates playstyle, you'll save eachother a lot of time. I like to do 2s on the side with my 3s partners. If you do it without vent, you usually gain something like better awarness or a more keen ability to predict whats happening next. Atleast thats what happened for me and Buddhist, and how we got so highrated.

*Q:* Are there any areas of your gameplay you are currently trying to improve? If so, how do you go about doing that?

I think I just need to focus on putting out my damage right now. I played such a CC oriented game before with bash, feral charge and cyclone. Now I just need to bring my damage to the table first, then interrupt the other teams heals.

*Q:* What motivates you to keep playing?

I've always found the game fun, if I didn't I wouldn't play it. If I get bored, I'll also take breaks. If you enjoy something so much, it's best to take it in moderation, so you can keep enjoying it.

*Q:* What would you say is the biggest thing that differentiates a good player from a great player?

Little things, from effective keybind to their motivation. But you'll never be able to compare two great players together and have the same reasons why they're great. The best example would be Worldz and Psiphon. Worldz put his heart into the game, and always calls out what hes doing. When I played with Psiphon, from WSVG to the end of season 3, he never said anything. He was really emo, but he just had so much talent at the game it didn't matter. I felt as if I could just leave the arena at some points, because he had such complete control of it.

*Q:* What do you think of the state of arena this season?

HOLY SHIT, GET BEHIND THAT PILLAR! ITS A HUNTER WITH THAT GOD DAMN ICC25 BOW. WAIT NVM, THE PROT WARRORS BEHIND THE PILLAR. OH SHIT, HES STUNNING ME, FUCCKUFUCFKKUCFUKFCKUKFKCKUFKUCFCKUF. Sorry Worldz... if I could prevent the 9.5k Sheid Slam crit when I have 25% damage reduction to him, I would.



Please check out their videos @ 
Warcraftmovies account

Website:
TKoE

I would also like to thank Reflection for helping me come up with a couple of these questions. 

I hope you enjoyed this MMOwned. This is the start of a new interview I'm am trying to do every other week with popular PvPers in the WoW community. If you have any suggestions for next time please post them in a comment below and I might choose them!  :Big Grin: 
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## Trollblod

Awesome interview Qhan! Love it, as he say, when BGs came out, wow suck, WSG and AV were fun ^^

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## Confucius

Another great interview! GJ and keep it up  :Smile:

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## Glynbeard

Sorry bout not having Lewts up yet guys. But I *really* wanted to post this and he should respond in about a day  :Big Grin:

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## Trollblod

Ye well, Lewt's just slacking!

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## rain321cz

RIP Buddhist  :Frown:

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## Chuck12345

Great interview!

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## alj03

Can't say i've heard of em... but i don't follow PvP.

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## Evolut

Good idea for an interview but you interviewed someone who doesnt even play wow anymore. I would have much rather seen an interview with akrios or even hydra as i see them as bigger icons in pvp.

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## blackfang500

I love Buddhist! Awesome.

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## nbk_cord

i have been following buddhist for a long time, learned alot of rogue pvp from him. Have all his videos on my ipod, watch em all the time  :Big Grin:  Ming must die was a great one.

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## laecki

yus, my arena heros  :Smile: 
think buddhist is my 3rd fav rogue, following unmercey and akrios. id say my favourite buddhist movie is buddhist enlightenment

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## Reflection

Very nice interview! Great work

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## phorentez

Buddhist! <3, i couldn't agree more to what you said. I think that vanilla wow was based on skills. If you did not had a 4 mages for Molten Core you couldn't take down Majordomo Executus. It's like in WotLK you can bring 1 good tank 1-2 pro healers and 7-8 DPS of same class and you can take down any boss in any instance.

It does not require skills to play world of warcraft anymore = No challange.

7 year old boy's who cannot either speak or understand english and cannot read the quests. Can end up with the best equipment in the game, just by pugging.


What comes to PvP im both agreeing and disagreeing. I think that in vanilla wow PvP was ****ing awesome, because it was all world PvPing, around silithus, EPL and other kind of places.

When the BG's came out it was just great, because now you could PvP anytime you want, with anyone you wanted. Instead of joining some group in a zone in any kind of levels. But it was your own level class, and it was 10 vs 10. Espcially WSG was my favourit.

I have seen all your video's and i admire your work. I got a bit of my inspiration for making wow video's myself by watching your's, didzi's and grims PvP video's from good old vanilla wow.

I did quit wow for 6 month's ago in 3 days. And arent planning to come back, for the reason that blizzard are more focusing getting more players into the game, than let the good old skilled players from vanilla wow stay.

There have been a vote going on about if blizzard could start a few Vanilla wow, and TBC servers, only for the old members with beta key's.


Ty for the inteview buddhist. I have been looking forward to this, in long time  :Smile:

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## Evilbuffy

Great interview Qhan!  :Smile:

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## JD

Great interview mate, I'm impressed.

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## 2dgreengiant

epic JD .

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## Ground Zero

You mean Qhan, 2d?

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## Glynbeard

> epic JD .


:P

For the guy who suggested Hydra to be interviewed, I tried him 2 days before this and he doesn't do interviews. I'll try again though, don't worry.

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## polarmike76

lol buddhist rants alot

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## laecki

ahhh screw hydra and interview drakedog that would be so ****ing epic  :Embarrassment: 
hell yeah, the best warlock ever is back  :Smile: 
http://www.youtube.com/user/Drakedog

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## mihaitza

I doubt that Drakedog speaks english lol...

Anyways, great interview and great arena videos bud, keep it up.

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## noes

Buddhist arf arf arf arf arf arf arf

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## Glynbeard

Updated with lewt's interview guys! Check it out!  :Big Grin:

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## Linkn

> HOLY SHIT, GET BEHIND THAT PILLAR! ITS A HUNTER WITH THAT GOD DAMN ICC25 BOW. WAIT NVM, THE PROT WARRORS BEHIND THE PILLAR. OH SHIT, HES STUNNING ME, FUCCKUFUCFKKUCFUKFCKUKFKCKUFKUCFCKUF. Sorry Worldz... if I could prevent the 9.5k Sheid Slam crit when I have 25% damage reduction to him, I would.


I feel his pain. Spriest vs hunter/dk is so aggravating.

I enjoyed reading this, thanks Qhan!

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## laecki

thx for this. <3

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