JBeck : JBeck here and today we have with us the leader of the team that won Steal Your Throne, the second Destiny 2 Raid Race. Why don't you introduce yourself to the audience first
Its Wami : My gamertag is Its Wami. I'm from The Netherlands and 21 years old. I have been playing Destiny since day one and started speed running about one year ago. I'm currently in the clan Euros that I made about 8 months ago together with some friends I met online.
JBeck : What brought you into Destiny originally?
Its Wami : It was mainly people I used to play with. I originally started gaming on PS3 and, as a lot of people do, I played Call of Duty. Call of Duty alone wasn't challenging enough for me so I started playing competitive matches. That's where I met a lot of people like me. Those people started playing Destiny and I wanted to buy the game, as well, to keep playing with them.
That's also why I bought an Xbox One. The competitive Call of Duty scene used to be on Xbox. That changed quickly to PS4 a couple months after the next gen consoles were released but I always kept my Xbox One.
JBeck : Are those some of the people from Team Euros or did you meet them along the way?
Its Wami : Yes, we used to be a small group of people with around 6-7 members. Some of them are still in the Euros, others have found their own other ways to go.
Funny story. Worthers91 (the previous DTR winner) used to be in Euros as well, but, he went his own way when the speedruns became really sweaty.
JBeck : I was curious about your name Team Euros. I was told you have a good story? Or was it just because you mostly reside in Europe ha.
Its Wami : Pretty much. When we started speedrunning we didn't think of a name and also didn't have a clan yet. Rpotts who helped us out with getting into those speedruns eventually called us Euros. More and more people were starting to do the same thing cause we were the only team that had six players in Europe. We didn't think much of it until we were getting faster and faster in those speedruns and felt like we should have a name like Route and Redeem to represent ourselves with. That's where we pretty much just said "why not Euros?" And that still stuck with us, even though, we picked up a lot of players from outside of the Europe.
At this moment we actually have more players from outside of Europe then within Europe. So the name may not be as relevant anymore but it at least has a story behind it.
JBeck : How did you get into the speedruns? I noticed your community has been around in Destiny for longer than most people realize.
Its Wami : I always wanted to do something "more" with PvE in Destiny. I had seen all the speedruns from clans like Redeem or the solo raids from people like Slayerage. The main problem I had is that I didn't have a team to play with. I eventually met another dutch guy while watching twitch called: "Obliviatum." That's where it all started. He had some friends that were interested in doing challenges and speedruns and we pretty much used LFG to find others like us.
We did our first speedrun on Wrath of the Machine and we were surprised how well it went and from that point we just started improving ourselves.
JBeck : When Destiny 2 dropped how did you guys practice for the leviathan raid. To be exact, how did you figure out the best routes and strats for each of them.
Its Wami : That usually happens along the way. We started speedrunning when we already had 20-30+ raids completions and pretty much knew what to do for every encounter. Now speedrunning is different off course. Redeem set the bar with a 24:19 in the beginning of Destiny 2 and watching that run helped us as well. For the best routes, we had an underbelly map and did some testing with running the routes and timing ourselves. In this raids there aren't a lot of unusual strats. We pretty much do different strategies and time them to see what is faster. Afterwards we practiced that strategy to optimize ourselves
JBeck : Did you have a personal favorite encounter or mechanic?
Its Wami : So for Destiny 2 there are a total of 4 encounter in the raid. I would say Gauntlet is the most fun for our team. It's usually the time where we joke around and have fun with the things we call out. The latest strategy from Big Hangry where 3 runners in the final round just stand still at the finish line made it even more fun.
JBeck : Could you tell me a bit about it?
Its Wami : Yea, So like I said this strategy comes from Big Hangry (as far as i know). It pretty much revolves around last round where all six players have to run. He figured out that the next set of orbs spawn as soon as you pick up the one in front of it.
So what we did is essentially cut out the running time. We sent one fast blink warlock forward that picks up an orb in the first grid and picks up an orb in the second grid. We sent one person back to already be at the third grid to immediately pick it up as soon as the orb in the second grid has been picked up.
We also have one person waiting at the fourth grid pretty much doing the same. The remaining three people wait the the finish line.
For this strategy to work fast you do need to have all previous rounds without any of the runners dying. It saves about 20-25 seconds.
JBeck : Speaking of times. What it's like knowing you have the world record for the raid? Did you guys celebrate after getting it?
Its Wami : Its really cool to have a good group of people around you that have fun speedrunning the raid. We were definitely happy about getting it. We usually celebrate with Chris Kaizer saying "that was a HOT BAKE." But we feel like the run can still be improved a lot. The unfortunate thing about this raid is that the rotation switches every single week. There are only two weeks that are capable of being fast. Pretty much all rotations with Dogs as the second encounter. That's mainly cause of the underbelly. We spend around a third of the entire speedrun just running in the underbelly so rotation makes a big difference.
JBeck : Makes sense. What would you say has been the most rewarding factor of Destiny 2 so far for you and your group. It's such a polarizing game for some.
Its Wami : That's hard to say. I get my satisfaction from doing challenges and speedruns in Destiny 2. Outside of that I don't really enjoy the game a lot anymore. Everything that we once in had in Destiny 1 to help to speedrun community has been taken away. We can't speedrun all missions cause they are not re-playable (except three per week), endscreen times have been taken away so we have to time speedruns manually , and the speed that a Titan had is gone.
JBeck : Do you and your team go back to Destiny 1 to replay those missions?
Its Wami : So far we did not go back to Destiny 1 but we are actually planning this week to do some raid speedruns on Destiny 1 again especially on Wrath of the Machine cause it's the raid where we started speedrunning and it's overall a fun run. Its also has a decent record that's challenging to beat.
JBeck : Are you looking forward to the Curse of Osiris raid layer and new boss? I know that seems to be interesting going forward.
Its Wami : Yes especially with the new raid layer and the economy changes. I am really curious what to bring us. I'm always excited for new content in Destiny in general.
JBeck : I think that's all we have for the interview but at this time why don't you give us some knowledge or something you were curious to say to those reading this interview.
Its Wami : Take Your Time is our motto. Coming from a speedrunning clan, you make think that it's interesting. We encourage everyone to go fast and challenge yourself in destiny. That's how we started. Just trying to speedrun and slowly improve and have fun in the process. We also think that taking your time and doing everything as efficient as possible helped us a lot.
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