The Enigma Order

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Age: 26
Gender: Male
Country: England
Occupation: Sales Manager EMEA
How good is your english: Very good.
Anything else about you, the person, we might be interested in:

I've been playing this game for nearly 7 years, I've managed 3 guilds and have played on 3 servers.
I've raided on a priest as DPS and Holy/Disc, also a Warlock, a Warrior as Tank and DPS and now my mage which I can play with any spec.

CHARACTER INFORMATION

Nickame: Cinderchord
Armory Link: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/r … d/advanced
Mainspec: Fire
Offspec: Arcane / Frost
Professions: Alchemy 600, Enchanting 600, Cooking 600

Regardless of its quality (ilvl), is you gear fully taken care of? Safe for some specific cases (eg. an item about to be replaced next week), we expect everything to be gemmed, enchanted and reforged optimally. We will likely consult your profile with Mr. Robot. If you're doing something different than it indicates, please explain the reasoning.


My gear is perfectly enchanted, gemmed and reforged. Mr Robot may tell you I have 14.8% hit instead of 15% that is because I believe my Draenei passive talent is not considered, but I'm not sure. It's 15% hitcapped.

Do you get enough valor on a weekly basis to upgrade your gear as much as possible?

I only use valor to upgrade my gear, so as soon as I have enough, it goes onto a piece that is likely to be future-proof for some time past 5.2, for instance my MH Weapon.

What do you consider the most significant pros and cons of your class/spec in the current state of affairs:

Fire -

Fire to me is probably where I am most comfortable with, and it is easy to be a reasonable fire mage but I think its rare that you find a good fire mage who actually knows how to handle timings correctly.
A lot of mages I have seen do not have a clue about combustion management. I created a guide on Cleave DPS with Fire Mages, if you'd like to take a look you can navigate here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL1BEq-lLWE

I believe Fire is not it's strongest at the moment, however it hasn't stopped me beating classes that I shouldn't be beating, if you check raidbot etc. The nerfs have been quite harsh in the last patch, however I have not noticed a significant drop in my DPS at all if I'm honest.

Arcane

I think Arcane has a major flaw with mobility, it is also a very boring spec to play. I can play it very well, but with 5.2 changes I believe it is going to become less desirable and drop below people's expectations.
If you're on a tank and spank boss with very little movement it can be excellent, however you have to ask yourself, how often is that?

Frost

I think Frost has potential, but it still isn't producing the DPS I expect out of the class. Some people use it, but it just doesn't perform that well in my opinion. It's extremely situational, can be useful on some fights however.


Tell us about your alts (armory links included), how good are you with them:

I don't currently have a level 90 alt, because I put all of my attention into my mage. However I am levelling a shaman which is currently level 88 and will be used as a resto shaman.
This expansion hasn't exactly thrilled me with regards to dailies, so I've not physically been able to put the time into having multiple 90s.

YOUR PERFORMANCE

Please provide a WoL log presenting your awesomeness. In absence of logs, post screenshots of recount/skada from an encounter of the current tier.
Without this, you will most likely be rejected.

http://www.wow-heroes.com/character/eu/Ravencrest/Cinderchord/  - Please check this link, if you scroll to the bottom it has all my current WOL ranks along with links to the WOL fights where you can see it for yourself. I think it's quite useful as it condenses everything into a portfolio.

Which pve addons do you use?

Ora3
Skada
DBM
ElvUI
Omen (rarely needed?)
ReforgeLite
MyBigIgnite


Show us your UI.

http://cinderchord.com/dawnstar/screenshot.png

Raiding Experience (be thourough here, the more information you give us, the better; both pre-MoP and present progress is interesting for us; tell us about previous guilds):

I'll list the guilds where I raided only:

TBC: Genesis, Immortal Crew. (Stormreaver)- Genesis - Guild died due to recruitment issues, IC - Guild died due to inactivity from raiders.

WOTLK: Cartel, Atrum Regina (Stormreaver) - Cartel - guild disbanded eventually, there were rumours of it surfacing in cata, never happened. Atrum Regina the recruitment hampered our raiding.

Cataclysm: Dark Ritual, Dawnstar (Stormreaver/Ravencrest) - Dark Ritual - I had some health issues for a few weeks so I quit and decided to create a new guild when I was well.
Enjoyed DR a lot, met some superb people there. (Merobo, Smoker, Kanute etc) Miss some of them still. Dawnstar (see below)

MOP: Dawnstar (Ravencrest) - Dawnstar - Created in November 2011, something I am very proud of. We have had a lot of superb players in the guild and unfortunately most of them at some point or another had personal/IRL issues which meant they had to stop raiding, so the need to recruit was constant. We flipped to 10 man a couple of times and then after stability we went back to 25m which worked quite fine as I am sure you saw on wowprogress, until once again we had some unreliable players so the progress shifted backwards and so I changed the guild to 10m once more where the guys I picked for the 10m group managed to get 6/16 hc which I knew they would achieve easily. The guild has stopped raiding. I can possibly bring some raiding friends over here, which is something we will talk about tonight I believe.

What attendence should we realistically expect from you (for the sake of clarity, please note that while our Monday and Thursday raids start at 19.30, the Sunday one starts at 18.45). If you can't make it on any of our raiding days on a general basis, do not apply.

I will always be available for the raids. I missed 2 raids out of 105 raids in Dawnstar. I guess that shows my dedication.

Any external factors affecting activity we ought to know about (some flexibility applies, but we really want players able to join all 3 raids a week):

Not really, maybe very rarely I might be late due to traffic, but I am sure you experience that yourselves sometimes. Some things we cannot control.

Why are you good at playing your class (don't qoute Elitist Jerks, don't give us the stuff every semi decent guide holds; convince us you're good your own way):

Well, I think the method is really in just watching me play. I can assure you that I play Mage very well. I wrote a guide about it (see above). I put in the effort to theory craft every time there is a change to the class, spending about 4-5 hours minimum looking through EJ, MMO-C, and method's forums. I have trained a couple of mages up that are currently in Civitas. It's not just about class though is it? I don't often make mistakes, I am used to leading people, I make decisions well and I do what is necessary to get the kill, its very simple to me.

When approaching new content, a fight that both you and the raid will try for the first time, how do you prepare (be precise here, "I read tactics on internet" doesn't cut it; we seen our share of players who" knew tactics for all bosses" and then failed miserably in terms of actual preparations):

Well, of course I read things on PTR forums and on MMO Champion, where I watch videos. I was on the MOP Beta for MSV which was quite fun. I don't know anymore then you do, however I also believe 90% of the learning is doing it, videos don't mean shit if you don't actually 'get' the fight. I agree I have also seen a lot of people telling me they know things, but I also know that you need to assist the guild with basic tactics otherwise you will have 25 people thinking their own tactics. So a part of it is Strategy, that you deploy. People also aren't perfect on their first try, but if they are still making mistakes after 3-4 wipes, that's not good.

Tell us about a single fight where you had some particular assignment, what it was, how you approached it, what research did you do (a good example for dps players used to be Spine of Deathwing heroic).

I managed Dawnstar for 1 year, I did 90% of the strategy development so its a little hard to pick anything in particular. I do think Spine of Deathwing was a painful wipe fest for us for a while, but we got there in the end.
I believe EO had some fun  on this boss also :-)

My favourite fight of all time is Teron Gorefiend because if you messed up there with the ghosts, you will screw up the raid big time. That might appear very simple now with Cata/MOP mechanics but in TBC it was a beautiful fight and I loved the buzz of having to do something right INSTANTLY, rather then having a while to think about it. People either fold or grow when they are put under pressure. Ultimate retard test.

GUILD RELATED

Why are you applying to The Enigma Order, what made you choose us, when and where did you first hear about us:

I'm applying to the Enigma Order primarily for myself, but also to hopefully bring a few guildies along with me. I've known of TEO for as long as I've played the game. It is still alive and well, and that I respect.
I think you have a very effective attitude to raiding, because you're getting hc's down quicker then some other guilds. This may well be the last guild I reside in before wow dies eternally or I have a stroke or something. (hopefully not)

What do you expect from us, as a guild:

I expect superb leadership and dedication from the GM or Raid Leader. I expect the players to know their classes inside out and to understand what they are doing in front of them. I do not like to see people make mistakes for weeks. I do however have some patience and I understand it takes wipes to get progress. I think we've all been in situations where we get frustrated, but if the team is working together, you will kill the boss eventually.

I hope that there is a friendly atmosphere also. I have a superb sense of humour and I also know some of your players, for instance Merobo and Smoker (raided with these guys in Dark Ritual ) (hey!)

Please confirm that you have read and understood our rules and they are ok for you (yes, this is our way to ensure we're not asked somewhat silly questions that are already answered in writing at the Rules section of the forum):

Look fine, I wrote all of Dawnstar's rules/policies so I am pretty good with these things.

When unsure about any aspect of the game, be that tactics, class specific assignments, how do you proceed:

Doesn't happen really, if the RL is clear, everything is stated. If I'm not sure i'll ask on ventrilo or a CL/Officer.

Why do you play WoW, what are your objectives, why commit more than 10 hours a week to a computer game:

Addiction? I am drawn to the game because of personal fond memories. It's been a constant in my life for a long time now.

Is there anything else you would like to include that may assist your application.

Not really, this application is mainly for myself but I would like to open up the possibility to discuss some of my fellow guildies joining us. I think Enigma Order will never be without a single raider if that occurs.

HARDWARE



Please post Speed Test results. Run it from your place to Frankfurt, Germany.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/2550498893.png

Give us a brief specification of your computer - enough to assure it can handle 25 man raids.

It can handle it. I also use fraps.

Intel i7 2600k
16 gb ram
GTX 670


Do you have a working microphone and are you able to connect to TS3 servers?

I have a wireless headset+mic and another headset as backup.

Should you be accepted, you will be asked to provide your cellphone number to the leading team. This is for the sake of on-going coordination, your number will not be made public nor used for anything not related to the game. Is this ok?

Of course.

Thanks for your time.

Last edited by Cinderchord (2013-03-04 23:02:49)