apo: I'm from Germany and play on the EU server, but more or less migrated over to the US forums almost 2 years ago. I still read and post on the EU forums sometimes, but the US community is just so much more active and engaging. By now I feel very much at home over here. I don’t play very much, but I read the forums daily, try to answer questions and learn more details about how the game and the class work behind the scenes.

apo: I don’t know about "cool", but I play games, watch movies, anime and lots of US television series and generally spend my time being a big nerd.

apo: I started with the original Diablo and the Hellfire expansion some time in 1997 as far as I remember. I enjoyed it very much, but didn’t play it for that long. However when Diablo II came out I played that (and the expansion) for 5 years or something with only a few short breaks in between. So of course picking up Diablo III was not optional. And well, here I am.

apo: Hearthstone (casually). I also recently played through Portal and Portal 2. Those were amazing.

apo: I just “finished” my Monk. And by that I mean he’s level 70 and has defeated Malthael in story mode. The plan is to do this for all classes at least in Softcore. Demon Hunter is the last one missing. After that I will continue with Hardcore, but I don’t think I will ever get all of them done.

apo: No. I’m mostly a solo player.

apo: That would have to be my Damaged Slag Hammer with 0.6 attacks per second. In general I’m very proud of my wide selection of testing gear, but I think this is the most exceptional one.

apo: Can’t think of any. If there ever was an embarrassing moment, I have managed to suppress that memory.

apo: Defeating Diablo on Inferno mode for the first time, back in the day. I had this tanky low damage Monk and the boss fight took forever. When it was finally done, that felt like a real accomplishment.

apo: Gandalf. I can’t even explain why. Whenever I think of a wizard, my mind jumps to Gandalf.

apo: For the most part it was the interesting and complex game mechanics. It all started with the popular Critical Mass/Energy Twister perma-freeze build. Researching and analyzing the mechanical details of that build sparked my interest in Wizard skill mechanics in general. I started talking to people on the forums, learning from them and working with them to figure out more stuff. I kind of grew into the community. And after all I think the community is the main reason I’m still here.

apo: If it was purely about style and aesthetics, I think I would prefer Lightning. In reality, I just use whatever works best. Currently Arcane, but it could be anything based on what gear I have available and what's most efficient.

apo: Energy Twister. In my opinion it’s not a very good skill and in many ways never was. But it still defined a whole era of Wizard gameplay around the world. That has to count for something.

apo: A pretty generic Disintegrate build. But maybe patch 2.1 is going to change that. I have a decent Serpent’s Sparker in my stash, so maybe Hydra would be an option.

apo: I can't really point at one specific change I would like to see. But in general (and not only for Wizards) I think I would try to promote mixed-element builds. Right now, focusing on a single element is always the correct choice. Even if you want to use Elemental Exposure or the Tal Rasha set, you still focus on one element and use complementary skills like Familiar or legendary items or followers to trigger the missing elements. Maybe one way would be to expand on the idea of monster resistances and immunities. But that might just end up invalidating single-element builds. I might be completely wrong on this, but it feels like there’s room for improvement here.

apo: Embrace the forums. Use the search function, because there’s tons of information readily available. If you can’t find the answers to your questions, ask nicely and people will help you.

apo: I think they would be proud that I mostly abandoned the monster hunt in favor of a quest for knowledge (after saving the world of course).

apo: "My studies indicate that it's unlikely." (To Templar asking about the afterlife)

apo: Jaetch#1861

apo: Ask him if people should put rubies or emeralds into their weapon sockets. He loves answering this question.

How did I not see this here for so long?

09/02/2014 04:23 PMPosted by Grimiku
Grimiku: Pick a question to ask in the next interview:

apo: Ask him if people should put rubies or emeralds into their weapon sockets. He loves answering this question.

Got any questions yourself for apo? Post them below!

Posted by: BDF09/03/2014 12:10 PM

Flawless finish.

Posted by: Machado09/04/2014 06:08 AM

@Grimiku, I don't know if you realize how important is what you did. Choosing Apo for the first one of this series (or single, I don't know) is just perfect. Can't think of anyone who represents the class or the quest better than Apo.

Posted by: Jaetch09/08/2014 07:40 AM

We had this one, too: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/10196070657

It also happened to be named "Meet and Greet," except with the normal meet.