Malakai: My name is Erin. I’m 36 years old. I’m a Carpenter by trade and do contracting work during the warmer months out of the year. I’m also working on getting a degree as a Network Systems Administrator, although I’m starting to have second thoughts about continuing down that path.

PLAYER: Writing music mostly. I play guitar and drums, and write song lyrics. I can’t read music, so I play everything by ear. I also enjoy reading quite a bit.

Malakai: I believe it all started back when my family and I lived in Seattle, WA many years ago. We were visiting my Uncle who lived out in the boonies in a house he built. He had a TV set up with an Atari, and my brothers and sister and I spent the entire time there playing. My father saw how much fun we were having, so he bought the system and all the games from my Uncle. Videogames pretty much took over my life from there.

I was mainly a hardcore console gamer up until the tail end of the Xbox/PS2/Dreamcast era, but I also played a lot of PC games, mainly RPGs like Wizardry, Bard’s Tale, etc. I loved fighting games and shooters (the old school kind, like RType, Gradius, Radiant Silvergun… stuff like that), but RPGs were always my thing.

I became more and more focused on PC gaming when an ex-girlfriend of mine convinced me to try World of Warcraft one day. I pretty much gave up on console gaming from there and became a pretty hardcore WoW nerd. I helped run a guild that was the number 1 guild in the U.S. for quite some time (we had some “World Firsts” under our belt as well), so it took a lot of time and energy from me.

Malakai: So many. Radiant Silvergun, Street Fighter 2 and 3 (3rd Strike), Wizardry 6, 7, and 8, Baldur’s Gate 2, Super Metroid, Secret of Mana, the entire Phantasy Star series, Legacy of the Wizard, Diablo 2, all of the Panzer Dragoon games (especially Azel and Orta), Ninja Gaiden on Xbox (NES versions were great, too). I could go on and on. I love gaming.

Malakai: I first played Diablo 1 , but not on the PC initially. A co-worker of mine from when I worked for United Airlines many years ago let me borrow the PSX version, but I barely played it. I was just too into other games at the time.

Later on I bought the Diablo Battle Chest (or whatever it was called) which had Diablo 1, I think Hellfire, Diablo 2, and Lord of Destruction. I was immediately hooked on D2 and put more hours into it than almost any other game (pretty sure Wizardry 7 or 8 holds the crown, though). I played it quite extensively, yet off and on, all the way up until D3 came out.

I almost completed “The Holy Grail” in D2, which is to self-find at least 1 of every Unique and Set Item in the game. Only one item ever eluded me in all my years of playing, and it was Windforce.

Malakai: Wizard is my main (and probably always will be), but I also highly enjoy my Monk. I have a Demon Hunter with pretty good gear, too, but I barely play her. Crusader I mostly leveled and geared just for perspective. I just leveled my WD to 70 the other day but haven’t played her much. Not really a fan of the Barbarian archetype.

Malakai: I am. It’s a very small clan, consisting of just myself and a few others. Only two of us still play regularly, though (me and my good friend Gendehar). Most of the other people I used to play with are in another clan together. They’re all focusing on World of Warcraft right now, but we still hang out on Teamspeak every so often.

Malakai: Never really had one of those. Plenty of facepalm moments, though. Like when you realize you’re wearing 6p Firebirds AND your RoRG. Or when you keep dying over and over and then realize you forgot to put your Unity and immortal Token back on your follower after experimenting with stuff. Or when your Monk has the Unity passive on and you’ve been using Mantra of Conviction.

Malakai: Probably back in Vanilla when someone posted a challenge on the Wizard forum for us to kill all the Uber bosses solo without CM or Frost Nova. Only 3 of us did it. Yems did it with Power Stone + Blizzard. Loroese did it with Arcane Mines + LL + AD. I did it with Sleet Storm + Mirror Images. Pretty sure we all used Force Armor.

The Siegebreaker fight was a nail biter for me. I killed Kulle, and started working on Siegebreaker. He enraged toward the end and put the DoT on me, and soooo many times I was a sliver away from dying, but he eventually fell. It was a really good feeling. I recorded all of the fights and you can watch them on my YouTube channel if you want.

Malakai: Honestly? Because Necromancer wasn’t an option. I was a diehard dedicated Necro player in D2, but wasn’t very happy with the Witch Doctor aesthetics or kit in general in D3. I tend to gravitate toward the more “evil” magic user types in games (which is why I played Warlock in WoW), but without that option Wizard was next on the list. Stuck with it because it turned out to be a lot of fun and quite challenging at first.

Malakai: Although I’m mostly known among the veterans of the Wizard forum for my work on Sleet Storm builds back in the day, my first love is Lightning. The aesthetics of it really appeal to me, along with the “fast” nature of it. Arc Lightning and Forked Lightning are my two favorite spells in the game. Well, Forked Lightning was until you guys did the unspeakable and turned it into a Fire spell. I really hope you guys consider changing it back, or at least making an item that gives Chain Lightning the effect of the Forked Lightning rune in order to help bring back that awesome feeling that FL used to bring to a lot of us. Static Discharge is cool and all, but it’s just not the same, ya know?

Malakai: Arc Lightning, for sure. Especially back when it shook the screen as you channeled it. Really gave it a powerful feeling, even though it wasn’t very strong. AL looks and sounds amazing when you cast it, which is the entire appeal of it right now. Just wish it was stronger or had some great Legendary support to make it so.

Malakai: I have two Wizards that I play quite often. The first is a Wand of Woh fire build. It’s fun for speed farming T6 with because I don’t really enjoy the Apocalypse FB playstyle too much. My other Wizard, who is my pride and joy, is a Lightning based Static Discharge build. I put a TON of time and effort into her, trying to perfect her gear, and have recently completed GR39 with her setup. Once I get a sick Ancient Thunderfury or Shard of Hate, I should be able to finish GR40, which will be awesome. My goal is to try and break the top 1000 on the Leaderboard using a Lightning build, which is why I haven’t tried to progress with the usual Fire setup that everyone else uses.

Malakai: Like everyone else, I want to see more diversity at the high end of the spectrum. While I understand that we’ll never see perfect balance between the specs/elements/etc, it would be very nice if they were at least close enough to where individual skill and creativity when it comes to gear selection can tip the balance. Right now the gap between the builds is far, far too wide. Fire is currently sitting at 50-51, while our next best element – Lightning- will probably top out at 41 or maybe 42. That’s too wide of a gap for skill or ingenuity to bridge. And don’t get me started on Frost and Arcane. >_<

I’d also love it if you guys would start moving more away from the 6p sets, and move more toward 4p sets (like Sunwuko for Monks). 4p sets allow the player to have much more control over their gear selection, which makes room for creativity and individuality to thrive. 6p is far too restricting, even with RoRG. A huge part of the fun in games like this is figuring out the gearing puzzle. 6p just feels like one of those puzzles for 3 year olds that only have a few pieces and they’re all the same shape and size so you can’t really mess it up.

Malakai: Y U no Sleet Storm?

Malakai: “You look very pleased with yourself.”

Malakai: Don’t eat yellow snow.

That, and just have fun with the game. If fun is steamrolling content with OP builds, do it. If it’s playing underpowered builds strictly on T6 or lower, go for it. If it’s competing on the Leaderboard, or Epeening on DiabloProgress, then do your thing.

Don’t let others tell you how you should be enjoying yourself. But at the same time, respect the point of view of other people. Everyone has their own likes and dislikes and reasons behind them. Learn to listen to each other and appreciate the differences instead of trying to turn everyone into clones of ourselves. This game and the community would be boring if we all had the same views and desires.

Malakai: Kiza. He’s been around for a long time, and is super knowledgeable about the game and class. He’s done a lot for the Wizard community in the past, and even now with the “unofficial” Meet and Greet thread. It’d be nice to get to know more about the guy.

Malakai: “Choose a skill and come up with a Legendary item power (not a set) that augments it for the better.”

Malakai: The real question is, do you know yourself? Because to teach us that for the similitude of the thoughts and passions of one man, to the thoughts and passions of another, whosoever looketh into himself and considereth what he doth when he does think, opine, reason, hope, fear, etc., and upon what grounds; he shall thereby read and know what are the thoughts and passions of all other men upon the like occasions. ~ Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan