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 Zainitopia Ret Paladin 
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Joined: Tue May 21, 2013 10:15 pm
Posts: 47
Post Zainitopia Ret Paladin
State your character name, class and server if you are transferring.

Zainitopia, Ret Paladin. Originally from Lightninghoof-US

Do you have any level 80+ alts? If so, please list their classes and spec.

Seltzerpleas Level 90 Shadow Priest over on Sargeras.

If you are over 18, how old are you?

24

Tell us a little about yourself.

I started playing WoW back in Burning Crusade and have played off and on since then. My biggest break was right after WotLK where I took the better part of 2-3 years off. I momentarily returned for Cataclysm but was not impressed with the raids and didnt last past a week or two. That was when I transferred to Aggramar to play with Royalite.

As far as my personal life goes, I work at an industrial supply company so I always have my evenings and weekends available to me. Its been an amazing change of pace compared to when I was in retail where I was working back-to-back closings/openings. At the very least, retail hell taught me how to smile through adversity and be quick on my feet in terms of reactions and critical thinking.

I recently purchased a 2013 Ford Mustang. It was the best moment of my young life. I never understood peoples attachments to their car but I definitely get it now. For someone like me who doesnt have children, Im surprisingly attached to it. Im also very attached to my cat Glitch. Most of you probably remember Reboot where Glitch got his namesake from. As a kid I would watch that show religiously and it really did make a huge impact on my life. For the age-group it was aimed at it was exquisitely mature, but I guess most kids shows back in the day were like thatAnimaniacs anyone?

We raid Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 7:00pm to 10:30 pm Server Time (CST). Can you make this time?

For the most part, yes. I sometimes have dinner meetings 1-2 times a month but I always have ample notice of it. When something like that does pop up though, I would be only 30 minutes late.

Provide a link to your armory profile. Please log out in your raiding gear!

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/a ... pia/simple

Tell us about your gear. Such as what are the weaknesses and strengths? What is the most important upgrade you are looking for next?
Gear is an interesting topic.


As you will discover on the next section of the application, I come from a very high-end raiding environment. Two things have been drilled into me since the very beginning;

1-Gear is a crutch. I dont mean this in the sense that only baddies worry about gear or that gear makes the player. What this means is that in a progression setting, what often gets you the kill is smart use of game mechanics. Whether that means abusing Holy Wrath back in WotLK to chain stun undead creatures or being on your feet and staying ALIVE, ultimately being smart about where you are and what you are doing has the greatest results. The mentality of we can kill this boss with more gear is outright wrong. That might sound elitist or douchey or whatever but fact of the matter is what should be on everyones minds instead is we can kill this bossperiod. Gear is a means to an end, NOT the end.

2-Never pass on an upgrade. Hording DKP points for that one piece of gear is counter-productive if you have to pass on multiple other upgrades in the process. An upgrade is an upgrade and in progression every little stat increase has a tangible result in the raid. Ive seen it first hand making a difference between a new kill and a 1% wipe for the umpteenth time.

All that being said, the biggest weakness with my gear is the ilvl. Quite frankly its not high enough to where it needs to be. I feel like Im doing respectable DPS for what I have and am making it work as much as possible but could easily be doing twice what I am given some key upgrades. As far as what upgrade I am looking for, there is not one in particular. Everything is an upgrade at this point in time but if I had my arm twisted for an answer, Id have to say something to alleviate my high hit and/or expertise.

Summarize your raiding experience.

This is going to be a long one so hold on to something. TL;DR Server/US firsts in WotLK, Server firsts in SWTOR
My first foray into raiding was back in BC when I hit 60 3-4 weeks before WotLK was set to release. I joined a pug of AQ40 thinking it would be a fun experience. I was told they needed healers (I had leveld as a prot/ret hybrid) at which point I noticed I had a bucket (yes, a bucket) that I had received from a quest that had intellect on it. They said good enough and the rest is historyfrom that point on I was hooked to healing and raiding. I decided at that point that I would put a more conscious effort into raiding.

WotLK hit and I quickly leveled to 80 and started running pugs in Naxx. I realized that if I wanted to get better at healing I had to find a stable home for myself so I joined a small 10 man guild. We worked through Naxx at a leisurely pace into Ulduar. Nothing too stellar here. As comes with a lot of smaller guilds there was plenty of drama and immaturity and Im not proud to say that I joined right in with them. I felt like they were my friends so it felt natural to act like that right alongside them. My best memory from that guild is still the time we spent 12 hours in Ulduar getting up to and killing Hodir(? The snow guy) for the first time. That feeling at 6 in the morning of killing a boss we had spent 6-7 hours on straight, was frankly exhilarating. I had never felt that rush before but it was something I started to crave. I had to have more of it, I had to get it somehow and my current guild was not providing it fast enough for me. I left soon after chasing that feeling, and ended up with Deus Ex.

Deus Ex was a 25 man guild (still on Lightninghoof-US) that used Suicide Kings as their loot distribution system. Until this point I had never even heard of anything past Need before Greed and was floored that such a complex system existed (in retrospect, it was very simple). The basic premise is that theres list for loot priority. When people bid, they bid their spot on the list. The higher on the list the person is, the better their chance of winning the item. If you were the highest bidder, you would sacrifice your position and drop to the bottom of the list and everyone else would move up 1 position. What I soon learned is that people were very reluctant in sacrificing their position. It was all about getting the 1 piece of rare gear for everybody. I made out like a bandit! Since I didnt care about my position on the list, I ended up with a LOT of upgrades upgrades that could have been used by anyone else because people were too stubborn to go to the bottom.

There were a LOT of frustrating nights. Some people just naturally take longer to hammer out their strats than others. I coped with the frustration by running alt raids and helping with strategizing on boss fights and how we could work with what we had. We were not a top tier guild and it showed. What we were though, was a family -- at least thats what it felt like. Ultimately I was promoted to an officer for my work and I stayed in Deus Ex for months, working through Ulduar. We never did get Yogg Saron down on 25 man before ToGC came out. I remember us being on Yogg, wiping on phase 1 clouds when something popped up on my screen that I had never seen before; Reckoning has achieved <Realm First! Alone in the Darkness>. I was awestruck.

Deus Ex had provided me with what I was looking for but only partially. Yes I was working on bosses on a regular basis but I never did find that feeling that was I looking for. I was frustrated that we werent doing better, I was frustrated that we werent doing it faster and I was frustrated that we werent doing it cleaner. Everything about my being screamed, I can do better. Seeing that server first message awakened something inside me that had been dormant since my days in the 10 man guild. I had to get better. I gave my notice to Deus Ex and to their credit they were extremely understanding and supportive of my decision. We were now working on ToGC and getting nowhere and while I stated my decision had nothing to do with the people around me, I would be lying now if I said that was true. It was everything to do with the people around me as I felt I was being held back from my potential as a raider. I didnt blame anybody in particular but I did feel weighed down. After a week or two of working on my application (you wont believe how long this app took), I submitted myself into Reckoning, arguably the best guild on the server. I felt like thats where I belonged but didnt feel up to snuff with the rest of them. The reality would turn out to be much different.

A little history about Reckoning They started out on Lightninghoof and was a mix-match of previous top guilds. They were a top 30 guild that was working on and close to killing Muru before he was nerfed. They went on to achieve server firsts in WotLK, Cataclysm and now Mists of Pandaria for anything that awards a title. They have a storied history and continue to be at the forefront of cutting edge progression. If I had not taken my break, I would probably still be healing with them.

After a lengthy app process and a long interview on vent, I was soon accepted into Reckoning. They were working on ToGC hard-modes and needed another paladin healer thats where I came in. I rode the bench quite a bit but I made it my mission to get on the main roster. I would sit in vent and listen to them raid, follow up with their healers to find out what they were doing on specific fights and would watch multiple videos on each boss from different perspectives. I had been in the guild for 2 weeks already and had not killed a single boss in ToGC yet. As a recruit I was being brought along on gearing runs but never on the progression raids. Finally it happened; They needed an extra paladin healer on AnubArak. My first foray into ToGC would be on the FINAL boss. We killed him with 45 attempts remaining on our first week of working on him. It was now time to get the 50 attempts achievement. Since I was one of the healers that had effort put in on him, I was brought back for all other attempts moving forward. We would reach him with 50 attempts remaining on a regular basis but would mess up here and there and lose our shot for 2-3 weeks. Eventually we got to a pull that was looking really good. Nobody had died, everyones mana looked good, health looked good, kiting looked good. We moved into the final phase with 2 tanks on each side and a third in the middle. The 2 tanks would be tanking adds and the middle tank on the boss. Everyones HP was super low (on purpose) and it looked like were about to do itand then the worst thing possible happened. The add tank that I was assigned to disconnected. His WoW completely crashed and would not let him back in. We panicked. Hunters had to misdirect onto him, I switched my beacon, staggered cooldowns and healed like my life depended on it. Next thing I know, a flash of gold materializes on my screen and everyone is literally blowing up in vent.

It was a great feeling. I had never cleared content before the next patch and was ecstatic. I could not wait for WotLK. We started farming ToGC in preparation, and started to do the beta servers more and more. We realized just how tough of an instance ICC was going to be. When it released, we worked our way through normal at a blinding pace and started on heroic. We achieved server firsts on every single fight in ICC except for LK himself who we were all simply excited to fight there was no title attached to the server first of killing him and as such there was no rush to kill him. It was during this time that I would depart from WoW, having achieved what I had set out to do. My priorities shifted and I no longer wanted to raid 7 days a week (25 man and 10 man).

The next MMO I picked up was Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR). I promised myself that I would not get too involved into it like I did with WoW and that I was only here for the story. I could not resist the call to raid. I joined a guild and we achieved server firsts in all introductory raids. The guild soon fell apart after that and I was left picking up the pieces as the de-facto leader. With a new raid out, I lead us to another server first which then moved into another new raid where again we performed admirably. All of our achievements in SWTOR were accomplished on a 2 day raiding schedule. Much of our success was due to me raid leading and innovating strategies that worked for us. I applied what I learned in Reckoning to what I was doing in SWTOR and it paid dividends. I eventually quit SWTOR after coming to the conclusion I was spending too much time on it again. Months later, Ive returned to WoW but with a different motivation. Im excited to raid with Royalite and ultimately feel I can do just as well if not better than your current raiders. Ive decided I want to DPS, this expansion and am looking for a roll in that. Most of my time has been spent grinding LFR and the few times Ive done regular raids I feel like Ive adapted successfully to mechanics which are foreign to me. When compared to similarly geared toons, I am killing the meters. When going up against toons that severely outgear me, I lag behind.

That was way longer than I thought it would be. TL;DR at the top

What do you believe is your class role in an endgame raid.

Ive seen a lot of people look at this question and not really understand whats being asked. The most common answer that Ive seen is My job is to kill things or My job is to heal everyone. Ultimately, my class role in an endgame raid is whatever the raid leader decides it to be. That could mean kiting adds to outright DPSing hard as I can and ignoring everything else. At the base of it all, my main role is to stay alive. An alive raider is a good raider, a dead raider is a useless raider. Battle Rez is not there to fix mistakes, battle rez is there for RNG.

What is your favorite boss fight and why?

The Lich King is a double-edged sword for me. It is my favourite boss as well as my least favourite boss all at the same time. Its my favourite from a lore perspective. In my eyes, everything has been built up to Arthas and his fall, so experiencing that was the best moment in my raiding life. I dont think anything will live up to that moment in WoW, ever.

At the same time, I fucking hate Arthas. Those fucking defiles man a second too late = instant death with the valkyrs picking up people. I still have nightmares about standing in defile.

How have you handled consumables for raiding in the past? Did you consider them important?

Consumables have always been provided. Anytime they havent I always make a point to bring my own. Do I consider them important? Lets put it this way: Weve killed numerous bosses on the last pull of the night with freshly used flasks and barely killed them. Without flasks and potions, it wouldnt be possible. Another example is on AnubArak everyone in the raid had health potions and even bandages, and we used bandages to keep ourselves alive during the final phase.

Tell us about your guild history. Where have you been, where are you now, and why did you leave?

Refer to raiding history.

Do you have ventrillo? Do you have a microphone?

Affirmative. I found out that you guys were hearing static because I had my mic muted. Forgot I muted it when talking to Royal on skype.

Did you read our guild charter? It's terribly out of date and no longer applies, but it was what we used to be.

In speaking with Royalite and Shintorg, I have a good grasp on what you guys are about and the type of atmosphere I should expect in a raid.

What else should we know about you?

I have literally talked about everything that is relevant. I know you guys are completely full on melee dps and I can respect that. However at the same time, I feel I am an exceptional player with an exceptional track record that could ultimately do nothing but benefit the guild. If you feel this isnt the case for whatever reason Id love to prove you wrong. If thats not an option, then no hard feelings. Ultimately I want to play with Royalite so if that means doing LFR every week and staying in the guild as a FAM & FRIEND invitee, so be it. At the same time, I am PERFECTLY OK with sitting on the bench for however long it takes.

Please attach a screenshot of your user interface:

http://imgur.com/a/tKUxk


Mon Jun 03, 2013 1:08 pm
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Joined: Tue May 21, 2013 10:15 pm
Posts: 47
Post Re: Zainitopia Ret Paladin
updated with armory and UI links


Mon Jun 03, 2013 5:16 pm
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