Curse of Years Application form.
Remember your application is the first impression we have on you.
General:
Your Name, Age, Gender and Location:
I'm Tom, I'm 25 and from London
Tell us a little bit about yourself (non-WoW related Interests, Hobbies etc):
I'm currently working as a Locum Community Pharmacist, with a plan to pursue taking an independent prescribing course in the next year or so and move on to GP based Pharmacist work.
I've played wow since a teen, starting on private servers and eventually joining retail during uni around WoD time. I would call myself a PC gamer, however regardless of the game I play, I like to focus on min-maxing and perfecting a single character; in League it's Garen, in Overwatch it's Roadhog, in WoW it's Warrior. This comes from my competitive side - I don't really like playing multiple characters to a mediocre level. People play WoW for many different reasons, but ultimately it's to have fun. Hence every time I log on, I have this in mind, and it enables me to always bring a positive mindset to everything I do in this game.
Outside of that I enjoy my sports (cycling, badminton), my music (guitar), as well as spending time with friends (which I'm looking forward to do after lockdown restrictions ease later this month).
Character Information:
Armory Link:
https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-gb/chara ... fire/Keats
Battletag:
Keats#2878
What strengths does your class currently bring to the raid (eg; Arms warrior bringing 2 target cleave and execute or Nightfae hunters bringing AOE burst):
A warrior of any spec is a requirement due to Battle Shout. Outside of that, given the limited number of melee spots, there's little reason to bring a 2nd warrior by choice. That being said, one of the reasons I enjoy playing warrior are the different things we can bring to the raid.
DPS-wise, although our 1 minute cooldowns aren't as impactful when directly compared to other classes' 2 or 3 minute cooldowns, it often gives us the chance to have a good window of damage every minute, which is both useful for burst dps required for certain boss mechanics, but also in providing steady dps throughout the fight. AOE through cleaving with Whirlwind doesn't hinder our ST priority damage much, and we've been lucky in this patch that our legendary of choice is the best for both ST and AOE, meaning we haven't had to sacrifice one for the other too much. For Fury specifically, one of our disadvantages is that if we're not hitting the boss we're not doing any dps, however the silver lining that comes from this is that target switching requires no ramp time. Warriors also benefit from having execute phase damage.
Utility-wise, we bring Rallying Cry which is super strong especially with the conduit. There's also the potential for a 13% DR through Safeguard tied to Intervene, although this is less applicable to raids.
Our mobility through Charge, Heroic Leap, and Intervene is also one of the reasons I enjoy playing Warrior. It's very satisfying to limit downtime through usage of these spells (e.g. for Sins and Suffering on Inerva, I can instantly leap to the furthest orb and then get back to the boss by intervening a ranged then charging back to the boss). From a survivability point of view, not only are we plate-wearers with a 1.5 minute cooldown 30% DR and a 25 second 20% magical damage DR (Spell Reflect also has a lot of other niche uses; clearing individual stray traps on Xymox, negating Blood Price damage), dual wielding means we have a slightly bigger health pool, an with Warpaint we have a passive 10% DR too.
How comfortable are you playing your offspecs?
In terms of offspec roles, I am pretty comfortable with tanking; more-so in 5 man content than raids, but I've had experiencing with stepping in when one of our tanks has been unavailable.
My main disadvantage is that I'm not as good of an Arms player as a I am for Fury. I've always preferred the high APM playstyle of Fury. However between now and 9.1, one of my goals is to practice and improve at Arms, in case a future boss really favours Arms over Fury.
Paste a your UI via [img]LINK[/img] IN COMBAT:
(Ensure that all Key Bindings are visible)
https://imgur.com/a/iyiGsbJ
The bottom 4 action bars are usually hidden.
Link to your raid logs using using [url]LINK[/url].:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/character/ ... fire/keats
Raiding History:
Describe your previous/current raiding experience:
Shadowlands 9.0 is the first patch that I've seriously pursued mythic raiding. I've always been on Hellfire Alliance, and having gone through various heroic guilds during my time. I've always been interested in mythic raiding; beating the last boss on the highest difficulty is definitely part of the game that really attracts me, and my experience in this patch thus far has solidified that yearning for me.
I joined Tre Lowen late-BFA when I returned to the game, and started raiding with them at the start of Shadowlands. I have been raid leading progression since Huntsman Altimore, as our previous RL lost interest in the game. Raiding leading mythic as a high APM melee class while simultaneously executing the harder mythic mechanics which I haven't really done before has been really tough, but also very rewarding. I remember feeling very overwhelmed at the start of Council progression, and leading my team to an eventual kill was a very proud moment for me. I know my lack of mythic raid experience, particularly when applying to a top world ranking guild like yourselves, is unfavourable. However, I believe that raid leading this tier has given me a really unique perspective on mythic raiding in the amount of prep that is required to kill bosses - both from the raid leading/officer perspective, but also from the perspective of the expectation on the amount of prep that raiders put in. At this point in the patch, it's quite easy to prep for fights from a raiders point of view by looking up logs or pov youtube videos of the countless previous kills that have already occured. I think it's worth mentioning that specifically for a higher world ranking guild, there may not be as many resources towards the start of a patch as there are now, meaning executing mechanics and optimising dps must come from a place of innate class knowledge and self analysis of performance, both of which I believe I am capable of doing.
It's been a couple weeks now since we made the decision to stop progress on Sludgefist. The increased personal responsibility required for this fight really showed in some of our weaker raiders, and hence I'm looking for a guild to progress with in future tiers that have the same goals that I have with mythic raiding; aiming for CE should be a given, but reaching that goal in a timely, competitive manner is the real achievement.
More Information:
Can you meet our raid schedule of Wed/Thur/Mon 21:00 to 00:00 server time with at least 90% attendance?
These raid times are perfect for me. Depending on where I locum, sometimes I'll finish at 20:00ST, which means the 21:00ST start means I'll always be available.
What encouraged you to apply to Curse of Years?
Curse of Years has been a name that I've always recognised as being one of the leading guilds on this server, even more so this tier as I've been more active on the mythic raiding scene. I hadn't really considered applying (since I was mainly looking at Alliance guilds) until one of your officers responded to my LFG post on wowprogress, informing me of a potential opening for a warrior. I do have a sense of attachment to Hellfire, so being able to stay on the same realm while reaching my raiding goals would be awesome. As well as the better PvE scene on Horde which I've heard a lot about.
The high world ranking that Curse of Years holds also attracts me, as I feel like I will find people here with a similar drive and passion for playing their character well and progressing together on the same page. Again, I know that my current experience does not match the calibre of your current raiders/potential trials, however I'd like to try anyway.
Do you play much outside of raiding?
I do. Regardless of what I play, I like to really only invest in one game at a time, and currently it is WoW. Outside of raiding I enjoy the mythic+ scene; it's a great way to constantly identify areas of my gameplay that need improving. I've done an obscene amounts of runs so far, of which maybe 15 or so have been boosts. The rest have been with friends/guildies getting weekly vault, gearing up alts, or just helping out. I don't do much rated pvp, and generally towards the end of a patch I like working on achievements.
Is there anything else you'd like to add to your application?
A few things I'd like to add.
Considering the fact I was raid leading, I'm fairly proud of my logs, however at heart I'm a performance-oriented dps player. I realised quite early on that with raid leading I would need to give up my personal performance for the sake of the performance of the raid, which I happily did, but I'm looking forward to going back to focussing and min-maxing my own personal performance. I'm mentioning this as I don't believe that my current logs are indicative of my maximum potential as a raider.
Secondly, I've been playing Kyrian since the start of the expansion, despite it not being the optimal or even 2nd optimal covenant. I just freaking love the Bastion aesthetic. But aside from that, I've also really enjoyed trying to achieve good parses/io score playing a sub-optimal covenant. Due to the nature of the guild I've been raiding with this tier, I didn't feel like switching covenant to increase my personal performance would be too impactful on us killing bosses, however I would like to mention that I'm open and very keen to play whatever the optimal covenant is going forward into future tiers in order to optimize my performance (it's looking like Venthyr again atm, although Kyrian legendary hasn't been announced yet so I'm secretly hopeful haha).
Lastly, as a raid leader this tier, I had a few people who I could always trust to turn up to raids fully prepared, who would execute mechanics consistently and always parse highly. People who I essentially didn't have to worry about. I'd like to think of myself as one of those raiders to you guys, if given the chance to trial.
Apologies for the long application, and thanks for your consideration.
