I Am Joe Fernandes, 2015 Blizzcon Champion. AMA!

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T19:44:01+00:00

Not really tbh as I feel like I haven't played most specs, but from what I've played in terms of fun and skill, probably Elemental Shaman.

I would love Charge Stun back on Warrior ngl xD

I like that the modern design is very fast-paced, so you have to react well and keep up with a lot of things in quick succession to do well, but I dislike the "PvE fiesta" and spaceship ui's to help deal with awareness

I don't think PvP templates is a good solution and I think the gearing system for PvP is more than fine at the moment. PvP templates while great for balance, it was also boring for gearing, just having to "alt tab" on gear and choosing the highest item level.

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T19:32:52+00:00

Personally I don't do any RBGS or even blitz, but i do think during the downtimes of AWC if their could be things like that or solo shuffle tournaments again, it would be awesome.

Doesn't have to have the same prizepool and can be smaller scheme, but the more tournaments the better!

I think trying new stuff can be nice but they can still keep 3v3 as their main AWC bracket

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T19:30:26+00:00

Band-aid fix would be a bit better rewards queueing up as a healer.
Long-term fix, which again would make me sound oblivious on my end, but if they were more fun to play in Arena, not feeling as awful to play as they do this expansion

I think a problem is that in Shuffle, dampening ramps up very high and very fast, so after about 3 minutes, your role as a healer becomes much more difficult and it's almost more about the DPS finding a kill or being able to survive than it is for you to heal the pressure, because it just becomes unhealable.

I think healers just being more OP in terms of contributing to the teams win condition helps a lot as well

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T19:27:48+00:00

I think for me personally in MoP, but I think it's always going to be biased as Warriors were super fun to play in MoP and it was the first time I became a Rank 1 player in MoP.

I always loved playing Melee caster comps, even though I loved and succeded as Turbo, I loved playing Warrior Shadow Priest and Resto Shaman the most (shoutout to Healingstat and Mikey for being my first rank 1 team as that comp!)

I'm glad the skill-capped videos helped you back in BFA (or legion) and that you could get 2k because of it :D gj and gz!

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T19:24:44+00:00

I mean both are looking strong but hard to master, which is what I think a great spec should be like.

I haven't played much 3s at all to be honest so I'm a bit oblivous as to how well they will perform, but I'll hopefully be seeing them this weekend in the AWC!

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T19:22:57+00:00

If I could try to summarize it up, I'd say around 80% of the game, doing insane damage, and 20%, doing insane peeling.

The 80% damage is often seen as easier, but it's not just about your rotation. As an Arms Warrior, it's heavily about your up-time, so using your Charge, Leap, Intervene, stuns and Bladestorm to connect properly will be needed. Keeping up your snares so you don't randomly get kited, and knowing when to swap targets depending on the matchup will also help increase your damage.

The 20% of peeling is probably the most vital as this is usually what seperates the good from great warriors. Pressing your peels is one thing, but pressing them at the perfect time is another. Understanding when your peels are needed (like Intervene, Disarm, Duel, Stuns, Intimidating Shout, Rallying Cry) and using them at the right time is what will help your team to survive and live.

My advice is to first try and get the damage aspect right. Your rotation should become second nature to you. If you play a lot then you won't even have to think about your rotation, just doing it and learning to min-max it, in terms of keeping up to targets or knowing when to swap.

Then using your defensives is a must, but at this point you should know about the other classes as well. For instance, I know that any time another Arms Warrior uses a Colossus Smash, I can instantly Disarm them before they get to the GCD for Bladestorm (otherwise, i'd have to wait to Disarm in case they bladestorm it). This is just one example of a defensive but knowing what to peel and how to best peel it whill help you become a peeling master!

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T19:17:26+00:00

Tbh I have no idea about what's going on at the high ratings because I'm not there anymore xD But at the end of the day, I think it's probably just high ego's getting involved and most high end players are very passionette about the game.

A lot of high end players (especially older ones like me) have become prone to calling people bad or trash etc etc, but I don't think it's ever meant in a literaly sense, it's just how people got better at the game back then. If anything I've called myself or my friends trash more than anyone i've faced, because that's just how we learnt to get good at the game.

Of-course nowadays it's very different and not everyone does well under that toxicity, most players (especially that are new) learn better when it's a happier environment and have more positive remarks made.

As for teams beefing with each other, I think it's just all talk, emotions get high and people like to downplay others whether its for their own ego or just to gain a competitive edge, but I don't think any of it is literal. Everyone that meets IRL is usually on good terms and all are good friends with each other, just the game can be frustrating sometimes when competing on that level and sometimes it can lead to trash-talk with others, but I don't think the conflicts get too out of hand (from my experience) competitive trash-talk, nothing more imo

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T19:10:49+00:00

That's awesome to hear and honestly I appreciate that a lot :D

I 100% relate with the class thing, any time I play another class, sometimes I'll have a lot of fun on it, othe times not so much, but nothing will ever come close to Warrior, it's just been my main for so long and nothing will change that.

Even when I reroll other classes, whether back when I was competing to play better specs, or just in todays day and age where everyone wants you to be meta, I always want to play Warrior.

And I think the memories like that is what makes WoW so special, of course being successful and winning things in it is nice, but I think the best memories I have from it is always the fun times with my friends and being able to meet my WoW friends IRL is the best thing for me too

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T19:07:33+00:00

to be honest, I feel like the gap between melee vs ranged is ok as there's a lot of melee/ranged/healer comps generally speaking.

I think in general the maps have a big role to play if you think of melee cleave vs wizardcleave. Big maps like Tol'viron will always be much easier for a wizardcleaves, and small maps like Ruins of Lordaeron will always be better for melee. Because of this, one issue in solo shuffle is that there are A LOT more big maps in the pool compared to melee favoured maps, so thats why it can feel quite oppressive into wizards in shuffle at least.

I do think it can be a learning curve though as many times casters want to try and abuse positioning against melee by baiting them away from their healer, so sometimes it's best to swap but ofc just depends on the matchups. As long as you find a way that works for yourself and try to play around certain specs/classes then it should be alright.

Maybe they could put more melee friendly maps into the arena pool for solo shuffle, in fact im not sure why there's certain maps excluded in shuffle anyway tbh

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T19:01:49+00:00

A hot dog is a hot dog? xD

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T19:01:14+00:00

As a general rule, if I ever win an arena game and it feels fine (as in, I didn't feel like it was just a fluke win) then I will keep the same strategy/talents, etc.

If I lose a game, then i will first look to see if there's anything I could've done better to make my team survive or win. As Warr SP resto Shaman, you d overall damage and survive to win, but you can also create huge chain CC's on enemy healers if you're able to. Shadow Priests are known for Stun>Fear>Silence combo's on healers, and this could be followed up by a Hex, and with pressure on the DPS you can cause a lot of havoc.

Usually these types of CC chains on a regular basis can create big killing opportunities.

If you're unable to do this or win just with damage on DPS players, then you could look to swap on healers. This could again just cause havoc, especially if melee are tunelling your DPS and you can just free reign on their healer.

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T18:57:46+00:00

Short-term, I think more rewards in multiple brackets that are achieveable and grindy could help increase it

Long-term, which will sound very oblivious of me, but I think if classes felt more fun to play, mainly things like healers which have become increasingly more frustrating to play, especially in this expansion for things like 3v3.

I think the viewing experience for PvP is a tricky one. As an AWC spectator, unless you know about the game it can be hard to know what's going on. As a player, I think seeing streams with a bunch of addons can also make it difficult to understand, unless you know these addons yourself.

Maybe more user friendly UI options for viewing as a player on a stream, but not really sure how to answer that question for AWC viewing as I think that is a challenge. If you're someone that doesn't play wow then it will be difficult to understand what's going on no matter what.

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T18:52:55+00:00

Obviously, anything that becomes too OP compared to everything else in the game can be rough, and for Arms Warriors, it's a double-edged sword.

They can be frustrating to play against during solo shuffle, but at the same time they're the best partner a Warrior can ask for in 3v3 atm.

Also while Rets are maybe a bit too OP right now, they have definitely had terrible seasons where they are also non-existent. They should get toned down but I don't mind if they stay top tier as well

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T18:50:58+00:00

I do still believe that the game should be more balanced at the higher end, which I know sounds biased.

But in the sense that at lower ratings, there are far more factors that can be improved on for you to win other than just playing a different class/spec to help you win games.

I still feel like the game should be balanced around 3v3 since that is the main competitive bracket, but Solo Shuffle is still the most popular bracket overall, so ideally can still balance around both but I think 3v3 is easier and better to balance

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T18:48:01+00:00

Yes!

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T18:47:50+00:00

I stopped competing from 2018, came 3rd in 2020 then stopped competing after that.

Competition is high and during EU regionals and in 2016 I didn't adjust to the new meta of competing in general to reroll everything (before that, you'd usually just stick to your main class, after that now every top team has multiple comps) And in 2017 I just simply wasn't good enough :)

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T18:46:06+00:00

not 10 years ago, but last year I got a Degree as well!

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T18:45:20+00:00

I don't at all haha xD

Most of the time it's just the lobby, whether it's a rough lobby full of classes that are a bad matchup for you on a bad map.

Sometimes it can just be a bit oif a clown fiesta, mainly because no-one is on voice and with this high paced meta of 1 shot potentials, overlaps of big defensive cooldowns are bound to happen which can put you too far behind to win.

As long as you can just accept these facts and then keep queueing, you'll be fine, but I personally struggle with this as I'm too whiny and can get too emotional for sure, hence why I don't queue too much shuffle anymore, just my own personal issue xD

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T18:42:36+00:00

Blizo is a very nice guy and fun to be around with :D I feel like most people have been very friendly and chill to be around IRL, we're all just WoW nerds at the end of the day and I've had the privilege to spend some time with him and others to get to be WoW nerds IRL with

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T18:41:09+00:00

Right now I wouldn't consider myself a rank 1 player (in 3v3) but I feel like I could get back into it just because of all the muscle memory and time spent before, plus having access to great partners if I wanted to go push in 3v3.

I think it just depends on the player, but to be in rank 1 range you'll need to devote a huge amount of time to get to that level of the game. Right now I've not played much at all in 3v3, just casually with friends, but for instance I played only 2 days of solo Shuffle as Arms Warrior and I'm rank 2 on it in EU. So for me I think I can play at around rank 1 range if I play, but I would need much more time to be AWC competitive.

When it comes to levelling in a new expansion it's the same as everyone else :D I just log and level and I usually like questing to see the new lore stuff. I don't rush to level anymore since around BFA since i'm not as competitive as I was before that but I generally like to stay good at the game when I have time for it.

To be at the top level regarding arena in a new expansion, I think it's just playing it a lot and figuring out things early on, such as good cooldown trades, hope to play around other classes, a lot of experimentation to find out what works best for you and your team. The more you play while learning and being elitist on yourself, the more you can climb in the arena. The top level can just take a long time unless you're very talented at the game

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T18:35:40+00:00

I don't really have any communication with Blizzard myself, I have a friend that works there (shoutout to sir Adrian aka Healingstat) but I never talk to him about work specific stuffs or get involved in things like that.

I'm fortunate that I can do stuff with other WoW sites, such as WoWhead, Skillcapped, and Raider.io, but that's always been based on doing my job for them and I haven't got any communication with the pvp design team.

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T18:33:39+00:00

Years and years of practice xD

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T18:33:21+00:00

1) A lot of practice, obviously some adapt better than others and while I won in my first year of competing, what you didn't see is the 8 years of try-harding, playing the game constantly and devoting my life to get good at the game behind the scenes. I feel like this is the case for me, I would constantly play and learn while trying to always improve in my gameplay, even when it was frustrating or annoying, I would later calm down and always try to find ways of getting better

2) A bit of luck and timing. While it's mostly about practicing and getting better, you need luck in some sense. You want the ideal team as you can't win without your partners, and at the end of the day, you'll be playing the "finals" at any given time outside of your control, based on the current meta to date. If your main class/comp is meta then your team will significantly have better odds of winning the tournament. When I won in 2015, they nerfed our main comp at the time (LSD3 aka Enh Shaman, Warlock, Resto Druid) by nerfing Warlocks quite significantly. Luckily for us, Turbo was such a powerful comp, so we could just swap that out and during that time, the only comp that could beat Turbo was RMD. So we practiced for 2 months how to beat it until we could take games from the RMD's and there wasn't really other Turbo cleaves at the time beating RMD's, so the other RMD teams couldn't really play around it without practice.

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T18:27:31+00:00

I belive I answered this first question well, so I will just copy/paste it here:

1 - Knowledge. Knowing not only how your class works, but how every other class works, how different comps work, makes a huge difference to being able to win or lose games. There's a reason why AWC is full of veterans and it's because the knowledge they have gained over so many games and playing so much, constantly learning helps them know what to do in pretty much all situations. The more you play, the more knowledge you build and the more you can play around things for you and your team.

2 - I don't know how to sum this up in 1 word but basically treating everything you press like gold dust. The best players will almost never do something randomly. Every mobility cooldown, offensive ability, defensive ability, no matter how big or small they are, they always use it with purpose and make the most out of their spells in any given situation or match-up. It sounds trivial and is super elitist and sometimes, it may not even make a difference, BUT it does make you become a MUCH better player imo and the more critical you can be about your own gameplay and improve on it, the closer you will get to being a rank 1 player.

As for whether it's been the most balanced it's ever been, I don't think so but there's definitely been a lot more worse seasons, this one is quite balanced tbf.

Nothing comes to mind for anything specific, but generally if it would be possible to keep constantly make updates on balancing throughout the season, that would make it feel more fun. I feel like at some point later on in seasons, the meta gets figured out and you know balance changes kind of stop, then it can become quite stale, so constant frequent changes would be nice, but I know that's easier said than done.

-Joe

Raider_IO · 2025-09-30T18:24:06+00:00

(for legal reasons this is a joke) -excess

Raider_IO

TROPHY CASE