General:
Your Name, Age, Gender and Location: James Speirs, 20, Male, United Kingdom
Tell us a little bit about yourself (non-WoW related Interests, Hobbies etc)
I have a huge passion for football and Starcraft 2, I have recently competed as one of the top players in the UK after reaching Grandmaster in a series of tournaments, played Heroes of the storm professionally for 6 months under an American team called THC White (yes I played on American servers with 130 ping >_>). So a huge passion for gaming really, I workout in the gym but that's just standard protocol these days for me.
Character Information:
Armory Link: It appears armory is down for me, since it says their servers are on fire and will not show my character. Character is Called Selenagomez-Arathor, sorry for the inconvenience.
Describe your choice of talents and why you've chosen them:
Tier 1 - Chi Burst - I have taken chi burst due to it having the best HPS output aswell as HFC Currently is about stacking quite a bit, so it will benefit and have maximum efficiency, however on heavy tank damage fights I will take Zen Pulse for example challenge modes, this talent has the best single target healing output, which is why I take it for this situation.
Tier 2 - Chi Torpedo - I have been looking to either Tiger's lust or Chi torpedo speed buff. I have found that Tiger's lust is better on most fights, although Chi torpedo can be used on fights which require extended duration of movement speed for myself, so I'd rather alternate when possible.
Tier 3 - Life Cycles - Huge increase on one of the current patch and future main spells of Mistweaver, enveloping mist, our biggest and most cost efficient burst heal, it also significantly increases healing significantly from your Extend Life passive, from the research I have been putting in to top Mistweaver's, this seems to be their best heal (Extend Life) therefore going for the huge increase on HPS is a must. The other option is Mist Wrap, but the problem with this talent is, it does not benefit your mana at all, and with the current situation of Mistweavers mana, I'd only recommend it in dungeons where you can keep a stable mana pool for the party.
Tier 4 - Leg Sweep - Now this talent tier is preferential but for the most part I think Leg sweep has proven to me to be significantly better than the other two in CC Situations, 5 second stun on all enemies surrounding you is huge on certain fights, especially in Legion for example, Tichondrius is a fight where you need to control the bloods, Leg Sweep is a great way of separating them, leaving time for the tank to manoeuvre away with the main boss.
Tier 5 - Healing Elixer - 15% maximum HP and 2 charges, which have a 30 second cooldown is insanely good for large and predictable damage encounters. An example would be Kormrok's pound ability, leaves you room to not worry about your own health and knowing the passive will proc if needed, giving you time to heal others around you who don't have as good self CDs available at the time. The other two talents are viable, however only situational, Dampen Harm would be huge unexpected physical damage bursts, which would allow you to negate some of that. Diffuse magic is huge on Magic boss fights, Iskar is a great example of negating that magic damage to improve survivability. So as a result, I will switch between all three, my standard pick is Healing Elixer.
Tier 6 - Invoke Chi-Ji, the Red Crane - This new talent has hit Mistweavers by a surprise, everyone knew Xuen wasn't quite matching the healing needed for a talent at such a high tier, but this Crane has proven worthy in Mythic raiding and big raids with a huge HPS output in both Legion and 7.0 in WoD. The other two talents, Refreshing jade wind has always been too expensive and too little healing output for it to ever be worth it, I would never take this until they look at changing it. Summon Jade serpent statue can be good in small situations, for example, challenge modes again, or heavy tank healing on certain fights, otherwise the HPS output from Chi-ji is too high to give up for a little extra tank healing in Mythic progression.
Tier 7 - Mana Tea - My current talent choice is Mana tea, with having to gear up after a break, I feel this is the best talent situational for me because of my lower ilvl than some others, this is a great talent for fights that last longer than 2 or so minutes because you gain full efficiency of 20 seconds and sometimes more of 50% mana reduction, which is pretty huge in situations. When I have the gear (in legion) I will be taking Rising thunder, the reasoning behind this is because you gain a little HPS increase from fistweaving, now this doesn't matter to some people, but to me, having that little edge and maximising my HPS is very important to not only my guild and raid team, but myself as a player. Focused Thunder can be taken, but I'd only take it on fights that would be extremely hard for me to fistweave on, other than that, I will not spec into this talent.
How do you prioritize your stats and why?
Mistweaver stat prioritizing is different for two types of playstyles, the playstyle I aim for is fistweaving, therefore I will aim for Haste and my priority. I prioritize haste first because it reduces my global CDs on Blackout kick and Rising sun kick, lower Rising sun kick, more Thunder focus tea's which lead to a better HPS output. My second stat would definitely have to be Critical strike, crit healing as a mistweaver is a must, with your high AoE abilities you have a massive chance of doubling your healing output just from crits alone, it always has been a top stat for mistweaver, but since the change, I prefer the global cooldown reduction on my fistweaving, it's proving to be better HPS right now.
My two last stats are Versatility and then Mastery, Versatility not only increases my HPS and reduces my damage taken, it also increases the damage I do from fistweaving, but not a substantial amount to top Crit and haste. The new mistweaver mastery I find is extremely helpful however I don't think the HPS increase from stacking Mastery would be near the HPS numbers of Haste or Crit, therefore I would say Mastery is my least favoured stat.
What do you think about Artifact and how important it is for your spec (traits etc)?
I think the Artifact is an amazing Idea that blizzard have brought into this game, my main reasoning behind being excited for this is because it shows and proves how much effort you actually put into your character, if you don't put the effort in, don't expect to be raiding. I haven't been able to test Beta yet unfortunately but I have been looking at every class (Since I'm a multi class player) and how important it is to have the artifact powered up in every role, I don't think anyone should priotize things over the artifact and I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do with it.
Where do you acquire knowledge about your Class?
In the past when learning mistweaver I've had multiple top raiding Monks add me on Skype because I'd like to discuss certain questions and aspects of the class with them, there is now a group that revolves around top level mistweaver's theory crafting and working together to decide what is best.
Paste a your UI via [img]LINK[/img] IN COMBAT
(Ensure that all Key Bindings are visible)
http://puu.sh/qjs9A/8c6798b6a2.jpg - Current UI, I just use DBM in combat and will be using WA's for Legion most likely to track boss abilities.
Link to your raid logs using using [url]LINK[/url].:
Now this was my only problem, I took a break due to my mum having cancer, which led to me missing half of the expansion, I mythic progressed in a raiding guild called Affluence-Hellfire back in Highmaul on my mistweaver, but the logs are showing as error and ready for deletion everytime I click on them, I am more than willing to do some pug HFC's to show you my uptimes and specifics, to prove my knowledge of mistweaver this current patch.
Raiding History:
Describe your previous/current raiding experience:
I started casually raiding in Wrath of the Lich king, getting through most bosses on Heroic apart from the Lich king with my guild, we never killed that before nerf and struggled very hard, at the time I was a rdruid, but this is what sparked my passion for raiding, finally progressing Heroics, but I wanted more of myself, I wanted to be a stronger player, Only being young at the time made me slightly careless about theory crafting and working around my character, I just played the game.
When Cataclysm hit, I raided throughout the whole expansion with a guild called Mythical Honour, now the players on Arathor may have known them or may have not, but we were the top guild on Arathor at the time and cleared all content that patch first. I was playing Shadow priest in this expansion but towards the end when Dragon soul was released, we were in desperate need of a healer and we didn't want to fall behind in progression, so I took it upon myself to re-roll to disc/holy (switched depending on fight) so we could start progression instantly and get another trial dps in.
In Mists of Pandaria, where my Mistweaver heart exploded, I instantly leveled a monk to 90, I was the second monk on Arathor to get 90 and the first Mistweaver, Mythical honour by now, had sadly dissolved as a guild, I tried to stick by, rebuild and lead in certain areas when I could, however it just wasn't good enough and we disbanded. I then went on to join the guild Azys which I raided with throughout the rest of the expansion until the end of Throne of Thunder where I decided I'd take a break from the game for exams at the time and debating my WoW future. They ofcourse replaced me as any guild would have to, sadly I was not allowed back in due to a bust up between a friend of mine and their guild leader (I stuck up for the friend, which led to me being disliked by a few of their new members), we both decided it would not be a good atmosphere to raid in.
Now we get to WoD, the expansion I took a huge break in cause of family illness, I raided Highmaul Mythic progression with a guild called Affluence, I was playing Mistweaver / Windwalker at the time, I switched a lot depending on what the guild needed, I always have considered myself a flex player because I like to theory craft every class, so I was playing DPS some of the fights we did not need the heals on, unless we could not sustain our raid with the current healers. I missed the whole of BRF sadly with the ongoing illness and treatment, and missed the whole of pre-patch HFC, I decided to come back and look to raid mythic progression again with me having no priorities or school anymore.
Tell us about your previous guilds and your reasons for leaving them:
Mythical Honour I stuck with for years and years, all of Cata and most of Wrath, I'd like to consider myself as a very loyal player so when half of our players quit pre MoP, I tried to stick with the leader and make a new raid team, due to lack of population on Arathor with it being a pre-patch we found it harder than expected, in the end the Guild leader was not wanting the huge commitment and decided to dissolve until MoP (which I did not join or apply).
Azys I raided with for all of MoP as a Mistweaver, however I had huge exams coming up, that I needed to Study a lot for and it would mean for me studying at raid times, therefore I stood down as a raider, and got replaced, there was no conflict between us, everything was a happy goodbye and they respected my decision.
Affluence, this guild weren't the best of guilds, but I had friends in there and wanted to raid Mythic progression with them, see how it goes, they laid the opportunity when I returned on the table and I accepted to see exactly how Mythic was and how it goes, coming towards the middle of our Highmaul mythic progression, my mother sadly received the news that she had a brain tumour, I could not handle the raid responsibility of being there 3-4 nights a week, when I wanted to spend as much time with my mother as possible, predicting the worst, I tried to make the most of it.
More Information:
Can you meet our raid schedule of Wed/Thur/Mon 21:00 to 00:00 server time with at least 90% attendance? Yes, I'm currently fulltime WoW
We are raiding Sundays at start of each Tier for 3-4 weeks. Are you aware of it? Yes that's fine
Are you able to Listen and Speak on Teamspeak? Yes
What qualities do you bring to a Raid? I feel I give my own input to try increase our chances of defeating a boss in progression, which can become a huge influence when raiding mythic and fast progression. I love to Theory craft, whether it be for my own class or for others, since I'm a multi class player, I will always be able to switch role/class/spec and perform to the expectation of the raid team and of myself, also means I can give advice to anyone struggling with their class because of a new patch for example.
I bring loyalty to a guild, I feel loyalty is a huge aspect in raiding and WoW in general, if you have loyal players, whether they be mediocre or really good, you can make them what you want and make them the players you want them to be, aslong as they have the right attitude, which I do, then you can make a great raiding team out of loyalty alone.
How do you feel about progression raiding? I love the progression raiding patches, they're all about maximising your character and overcoming problems as a team, and a guild to push for the rankings you want and deserve. The harder you try, the better you succeed.
Where did you hear about Curse of Years and do you know anyone in the guild?
I heard about you from WoWprogress, I've spoken to a few people in your guild before, for example Electronicus I've had a few chats with in the past (mists of pandaria) under a different name, but a lot of these names are new to me.
What encouraged you to apply to Curse of Years? I feel your motto of wanting to prove that 3 days a week raiding is possible to aim high ranks is an incredibly good target, it caught my eye instantly, this tells me that you guys are the type of players I want to play with, that being good players who want to theory craft, who want to learn and who want to progress as efficiently as possible. I also didn't want to really move off Arathor because it's been my home for years and years now, I want to keep it that way, it's just a bond I have with the server.
Do you play outside of raid? Yes, I play a lot of Alts and gear them up to raid expectations, so I can do pugs/guild alt runs/farm gold or mats, in Legion this may change a bit due to Artifacts but I'll get there in the end.
Is there anything else you'd like to add to your application?
I'm a flexible player as I mentioned, so if you want me on any other healing role, I will be willing to do that, I have experience in them all and knowledge of them all current patch, mistweaving being my favourite however if it does not benefit as much as the others in Legion, then something else might be wiser to play. I can also play DPS characters, some of my alts aren't geared yet since I came back from a break, got my monk from 667 ilvl to 696 within a week, to try get into some HFC content to get the feel of my monk in the new patch, aswell as my DK and fire mage. So the main point of this is, I'm willing to switch to any class which will benefit you guys as much as possible, while having the same knowledge I do on the Mistweaver.
Tell us a joke: My log Link xd
Look forward to hearing from you :)
