A Sit Down With Ely By

A sit down with Ely By: Cameron "fams" Carson Posted 2009-03-31 23:09:14 CDT

If you could please start off by introducing yourself to the community and telling us a little about yourself. Hi, I'm Daniel Vulis, and I play for Gravitas Gaming Duelists as 'Ely', the priest. I'm a student in New York City and enjoy playing games.

What did you plan on being when you grew up as a kid and did you ever picture yourself playing games professionally? Hmm..Well I wasn't really sure what I wanted to be, perhaps something with numbers because I've always been interested in that. I didn't really picture myself playing professionally, just a fun hobby.

Well I guess you were pretty fortunate in that sense, you have every gamers dream! Yea I guess we are pretty fortunate.

So Daniel, how’s the love life, do you have a girlfriend currently? If so, what is she like? I don't have a girlfriend at the moment.

Do you do anything extracurricular outside of World of Warcraft with your spare time? Yea a few things, I play chess pretty actively, and poker as well. Could call me a nerd I guess.

Haha, if that’s a nerd then I'm one too. Poker seems to be a very strong trend players in professional E-Sports participate in. Yea I don't play poker that often, just go to casinos for fun and try to theorize on it more than play.

So you mentioned you're currently enrolled in school in New York. What are you studying and at which college do you attend? I go to Hunter College (CUNY) and I’m a political science major.

Imagine yourself in 5 years, where do you think you'll be? Hmm I can't really say, perhaps law school, maybe something else. Hopefully I’ll still have time for games though!

What about your family, are they supportive of your E-Sports career? Yea they're pretty supportive as long as it doesn't interfere with school, but that's my stance as well.

Have they ever attended a major LAN or something and cheered you on? Nah, but they watched a few finals we were in.

That’s pretty cool. What drove you into becoming a pro-gamer? Hmm...Can’t really say I had a drive for it, the opportunity just presented itself for us and we went for it.

How often does your team practice and does it ever conflict with real life or school? We practice depending on demand (tournaments, upcoming events, etc) I don't think it's ever conflicted with any real life things though. Always important to keep a balance of your online time and school/family/social/etc

How long have you been playing WoW for now and what got you into it and arena? I’ve been playing since release (November 04 I think) on and off, pretty consistently for the past 1.5 years though. Anything that supports a competitive environment is something my team and I would be more interested in.

That brings me to my next question, what made you choose to play an MMO over a RTS or FPS? Well before WoW I played an MMO called Ultima Online which was a pretty PvP focused game. I also played WC3 and CS with my real life friends, and we all started playing wow together, but they eventually stopped playing/quit. It wasn't really a conscious choice I guess, just followed my friends.

I see following friends is probably why most people currently play WoW. I myself came from FFXI with a few friends back in Jan of 05. Yea that's what I figured, with its popularity.

So with more and more professional females popping up in big tournaments across the world such as Hafu of Fnatic, what is your position on female gaming? I think it's good for gaming, I don't think there is any difference between males/females except that videogames have traditionally been marketed towards males so you will have a disproportionate number of males to females with that.

Speaking only of your wow experiences, what has become the experience you remember most? MLG San Diego is the most memorable, the first time meeting everyone and just hanging out and having fun, all the events have been a blast really. I think it's important to take the opportunity we've been given to play a game we enjoy for free (plus the chance to win money) in stride and just enjoy every moment of it really.

Moving on to a Priest specific question, how do you feel about the Priest’s role in arena at the moment, are there any changes you would like to see made and are you happy about anything in particular at the moment? I think priests are pretty solid in arena right now, and they're only getting improved in 3.1. Some healing classes are better over priests in certain situations so it’s important to have a solid plan against teams that can exploit priest inefficiencies (mana and durability) either through knowing different specs or a wide variety of strategies or playing different classes.

Is there a certain attack or spell that you feel is most overpowered at the moment, anything you want Blizzard to fix? this is probably a bit bias from my point of view but I think the worst issue in arena right now is the dispel RNG with mass dispel on blessing of protection/divine shield/ice block/etc, and hand spells having a 60% dispel protection. I think they need to revamp it, and make it much less random.

As a professional arena player are there any changes you’d like to see in rules at tournaments or changes in the way things are done during them? Hmm, I think everyone's been pretty satisfied with the events so far I think ESL set a good precedent when they banned several talents at the finals, a few RNG stun talents.

How does traveling to these competitions affect your game-play? Do you ever suffer from fatigue at long events?

Nah not really, I think we're all pretty much full of adrenaline throughout the event. Even the late nights don't bring us down.

Which event that's out there would you like to win the most? Hmm probably an international event like ESL or the Blizzcon finals.

Were you watching HON's mage Orangemarmalade when he 1v2ed SK in ESL? Any views on how SK's priest handled the situation? I wasn't watching as my internet is pretty terrible and couldn't handle the ESL streaming, :X But I saw the reply after. That actually almost happened to us (me) once, we were playing PMR vs. WLD, and we killed the warlock and the warrior was raping on emo while I was talking to someone behind me and Emo was yelling "ELY WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" It was pretty funny. We won that game but I think we all learned the lesson that it's not over until it’s over.

What is your most hated 3v3 comp to go up against at the moment? Probably anything with a Hunter- Hunter Warlock Shaman, Hunter DK Paladin, Hunter Mage Shaman, etc., just because they counter all 3 of our classes so well. Viper Sting vs. Priest, frost traps and anti melee tools vs. Rogue, as well as extreme damage into Mages and Rogues.

Is Gravitas going to be sticking with PMR or are you guys going to be exploring new team make-ups post 3.1? I think we will be sticking to PMR, as well as playing a few other things to complement our weaknesses.

If tomorrow you had to choose a different team to play for, which would it be? Hmm..probably complexity or fnatic, if they'd take me!

They’re all awesome players and awesome people, but I think it would be hard to not play with my team at a tournament. :X

What is the next event we should look for you to be at? June 5-7, that is when MLG Columbus will be.

Do you have any final statements you would like to make? Be on the lookout for gravitas gaming this year, I think we will do pretty well this year. We made it to too many finals last year without taking it home, so I think this is our year

Well I wish you guys the best of luck! Thanks for your time. Thank you.

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