Hi there.
I am Tamarasmith, a rogue from Dark Iron. If you've read the application by Tnx (who I know as Scid, and will probably end up calling her by throughout this app), then you know me as the 'interim' GM of Final Boss, the guild she was in on DI.
From what Scid has told me, you're pretty well stocked up on rogues for the raid group, so this is mostly a social app, though raiding is my main thing and I would definitely like to get on the team for that. Given the fact that I can pug beyond what our progression was now that I'm on Stormreaver, I should be able to find enough to occupy me for a bit of time in terms of raiding.
There are two reasons I'm applying to a guild that I know is overburdened with my particular class. The first is, I think I'm good enough that I can stand out even among multiple other rogues. Second, and more important, is the description of your guild that is posted on your forums. It really reminds me of what Final Boss was about, with the friendliness and laid-back-yet-still-getting-things-done attitude. I really liked FB, and if I have to wait to raid it will be worth it to be in a guild that's just like FB.
Minor Final Boss history/my history with the guild: I joined Final Boss just after ToC came out, when my previous guild, for all intents and purposes, stopped raiding. When the GM and co-GM of FB had to stop playing because of their work schedules after Wrath, I was one of the people promoted to officer to fill the gap. I thought we did decently in 25m raiding, but right around the time we were starting to work on the end bosses people just stopped showing up. We didn't raid for a month or two, then reformed as 10m with the people we had left. We cleared everything and did about four heroic fights before Firelands came out.
Firelands went mostly okay, though Rag was a bit of a block, largely due to a volatile member situation at the time. When the 15% nerfs came, we basically blew up everything except H Rag. This was really what I believe caused the problems in MoP. With essentially full heroic FL gear, we killed Deathwing on normal the first week – a first for the guild. Heroic progression went okay, though it required a few rounds of debuffs for us to get some of the bosses down, and we ended up killing H madness with the 25% debuff and then clearing DS in one day every week from then on.
Then MoP came. Vaults went okay, cleared it on normal after 2 weeks, but HoF was a bit harder. Some people were apparently not happy with the speed of our progression (especially compared to how it went in DS, I am thinking), and then our GM – who I was 'co' GM with – disappeared one day without a word. This was followed by one person leaving for a more progressed guild and two people – one a friend of the GM – basically ninja transferring, and then two people going on 'break'. As Scid said, we tried to recruit, but with the way things are on our server we got maybe two bites in about two months; one who stopped showing up when we ended up not raiding due to a lack of people, and one who was not exactly raiding material. And now you know why I need a new guild on a more populated server.
Raiding/Guild History
I joined a guild, Prophecy, in vanilla when I met the friends in it while we were leveling (this was just after the server opened). We did instances to 60, I was made a veteran and then officer, and we started raiding while gradually picking up more people. We ended up clearing ZG, MC and BWL, killing the first three bosses + bug trio in AQ40, and clearing Spider Wing + Raz in original Naxx.
In the lead-up to BC and after its launch, there was drama, blah blah blah, and a bunch of us left to form another guild, Consequence. I wasn't particularly happy with the new guild, went back, then quit for a few months. When I came back, I unguilded myself and spent all of BC doing BGs alone. In Wrath, I was unhappy with PVP and started raiding again, during the Golden Age of pugging. I rejoined Prophecy for Ulduar, but we got bogged down on Yogg and the same exact drama as in BC happened again, and I learned it had happened another time in BC when I had been gone. So I went looking for another guild, and found Final Boss.
We had a few heroic kills in Ulduar 25, mostly the really easy ones like XT and Hodir, and in ToC 25 we only ever managed to get Heroic Beasts down once, largely due to the 'heroic mode is a different lockout' feature and people not showing up after normal was clear. In 10m, though, we got Heroic A'nub kills with 45 attempts remaining. In ICC, we eventually killed 9/12 heroic bosses (the 'easy' ones) in 25m, and about the same 10m.
As I said earlier, in Cata we did 4/13 heroic T11, 6/7 heroic T12, and 8/8 heroic t13. In MoP, we killed 6/6 Vaults and 4/6 HoF. There were some attempts on heroic dogs as well, which never got much further then 30% or so due to some people being unable to not step in mines.
Character History
I started playing in 2005, based on a recommendation from someone I worked with and because I needed something to do after getting surgery for a deviated septum. This is the first toon I rolled. I forget what I liked about the rogue description on the WoW website when I was deciding on a class, but I chose Forsaken because I wanted to play a zombie.
I am the Herald of the Titans, the Hero of the Zandalar Tribe, Master of Arms, Veteran of the Shifting Sands, Agent of the Shen'dralar, Scourer of the Eternal Sands, Insane in the Membrame, and the Hero of Shattrah. I have the Flametalon of Alysrazor, the Sea Turtle, the Time-Lost Protodrake, the Phosphorescent Drake and the Grey Camel. I can cook Dige's Kickin' Chimaerok Chops. I have bags full of items that are now unobtainable. I have two pieces of Tier 3 that I got from the raid at level. I have Old Crafty, Old Ironjaw, and I am Salty. I have more titles and Feats of Strength than I really feel like counting. Two hours before MoP launched I decided to get realm first 90 rogue by winging it, and I got it because I was literally the only rogue on my server who played straight to 90. I have 16.5k achievements points, 175 mounts, and 459 pets. I feel no pity, no remorse, and resistance is futile.
In short, I like this game and play it a lot.
Logs/UI screenshots
Armory:
http://us.battle.net...arasmith/simple
Logs:
http://www.worldoflo...heil7th83k92x6/
http://www.worldoflo...5c1f0eeqgdjcjv/
http://www.worldoflo...b3cyzi8h6y6x0k/
UI:
Normal: http://imgur.com/w3vcILN
In combat: http://imgur.com/pU5EeLZ
My logs only include LFR bosses right now, as that's the only raiding I've been able to do recently. I'm also missing two boss fights in there for a few reasons. Stoneguards is missing because I'd never made logs before and forgot to turn it on before the fight started. Spirit Kings is missing due to a shadowstep friendly-fire incident; I stepped behind the boss as the tank pulled and was instantly killed by his melee-cleave... you know, the one that hits everyone in front of the boss that I had just shadowstepped behind. There's also a death on Vizier, due to a bit of over-enthusiasm on my part when getting to the first platform, but I got battle-rezzed that time.
I think the biggest point I can improve on is using tricks on other DPS, which I started slacking off on a bit when MoP put the energy cost back in and I got rid of my set bonus. I could probably use more practice on vanishing on CD for the free ambush, too.
Raid Role
Obviously, as a rogue my role is to do the most DPS I can. However, being a rogue means I also have a responsibility to take as little damage as possible, which is something we excel at above pretty much every other class.
When starting off a fight, I would tricks the tank, shadowstep to the boss and open with ambush, use revealing strike to get the debuff going and start using energy, then get slice and dice going before proceeding with sinister strike spam. Eviscerate is the main finisher, with rupture woven in as it's a DPS increase due to the fact that it is free in terms of energy. Both only done at five points, of course. Rupture and slice and dice are both refreshed with two seconds, maximum, remaining on their durations.
Multitarget rotation is basically the same thing with bladeflurry turned on, due to our other AoE being worthless. Two refinements are no more rupture once using bladeflurry, as it will not be copied the way eviscerate will, and crimson tempest becomes the better finisher at three or more targets.
That's just the basic rotation, however. There are a few other tricks that can be done to tweak DPS a tad higher.
Finishers should basically never be done with zero insight, instead using anticipation to stack the overspill combo points while pushing insight up into green. Something similar can also be done with green and yellow insight, holding off on using a finisher until you get to the next level, essentially giving a free 10% damage on that finisher.
Revealing strike should also be kept up as little as possible. If using revealing strike would drain your energy, there's no point in using it and then sitting around waiting for your energy to fill back up so you can use something else. Instead, if you're at low energy and need to refresh revealing strike, you pool energy until at least 80 so that you can revealing strike and then immediately start using moves that benefit from it.
There are other smaller tricks too, like never using rupture while in the middle of adrenaline rush – no point using an energy neutral move when you're drowning in energy and it will cause you to cap, after all. Killing spree should also be used as soon as possible and used off CD after that, even holding off on adrenaline rush + shadow blades if killing spree is close to being ready so restless blades can immediately cut killing spree's CD in half when you get through AR + SB, which can get you an extra killing spree or two throughout a fight.
Damage reduction is one of the biggest benefits of a rogue as well. Feint (glyphed, of course) is probably one of the most overpowered things in the game for raiding, even with the energy cost is has now. It makes virtually every AoE in the game trivial for a rogue.
Cloak of shadows is, of course, the other half of our damage reduction. It actually does make AoEs trivial, which is amazing on fights like Ultraxxion and Elegon. Even better is it's ability to remove debuffs, which can be pretty useful on Ambershaper and Protectors. It's nice on Stoneguards as well, where a rogue with cloak and sprint can clear 5-6 mines if they're close enough together.
I'm also looking forward to smoke bomb in 5.2. Having PW: Barrier will be nice, especially considering we've never had a raid CD before. It will also be fun when it's part of the cd rotation on Spiritbinder when he enrages at 20%, and watching people who weren't paying attention explode from the adds.
Stats
Ask Shadowcraft what to do.
But seriously, cap expertise and hit at 7.5%, everything else into haste. Mastery over crit elsewhere whenever possible. Gem haste pretty much everywhere possible, as at my gear level and with gems giving double the budget to secondary stats, 2 points of haste beats 1 point of agi. Easy enough.
Talents
Tier one: Shadow focus for free ambushes with vanish, no real other choice.
Tier two: Deadly throw and nerve strike aren't currently very useful in PVE, though I usually run nerve strike as a kind of standard. Combat readiness has a few situational uses, however. I think it works on Vizier's Force and Verve, as it's physical damage, but I haven't heard anything about it and never quite checked. However, I am fairly confident from my experience that it does work on Windlord's Rain of Blades, which, along with a glyphed cloak of shadows and evasion, means you can combine a damage reduction spell with feint to take very little damage for every single Rain.
(skipping tier three for now)
Tier four: Generally, I go with shadowstep here. Prep is fairly useless in PVE, as while you could get two major CDs back-to-back with it, you can only do that once per fight generally, which limits its utility. Burst of speed is nice, especially with the energy cost reduction coming in 5.2, but there's no real place to use it currently. Even on Bladelord, a glyphed sprint will get you most of the way back to him, especially if there's a savage roar to start you off. Not to mention getting too far ahead of the healers isn't too great of a thing. Also, you can shadowstep to the boss as soon as you get close enough, skipping getting past the tricky bit where the tornadoes are spawning. Overall, I use shadowstep for everything.
Tier five: Again, not much good for PVE. Prey on the weak is my standard here, as its pretty awesome when there are things in a raid that can actually be stunned. Paralytic poison might be nice for things like Rages on Will, though shiv in that situation would just be a mildly complicated way to get yourself killed.
Tier six: Anticipation, hands down. Nothing else even comes close to it. Though shuriken toss in 5.2 would be fun on a fight like Atramedes, even in that situation I don't know if it would be worth taking over anticpation.
Tier three: This is the tier where there's actually two real choices.
First off, cheat death is right out. While it's a nice safety buffer, dying is something I typically try to avoid, so I don't think it would get much use. Also, the fact that it was changed to only absorb twice your HP means it can't even be used to stand in the really fun things.
So, the two choices: leeching poison, which makes all your melee hits heal you for 10% of the damage done, and elusiveness, which adds 30% blanket damage reduction on top of feint. I've seen some argument on EJ over which to use, but frankly I find it varies rather heavily by fight.
Leeching poison tends to be my standard, which means I use it when there's no really big AoE to deal with. Elusiveness, naturally, is my goto when there is.
For example, Elegon is a pretty obvious case where I would use elusiveness. Ditto Feng. Spiritbinder, however, has no AoE attacks, and both Voodoo Doll and the shadow bolts from the adds seem to ignore the 30% general damage reduction, so I would go with leeching poison there. Will of the Emperor is also another elusiveness fight. While leeching poison would be great during the gas phase, especially with the damage buff, the nonlethal poison slot is better used by crippling poison on that fight.
Vizier and Bladelord are easy candidates for elusiveness. Our first kill of Vizier, the tank and I basically killed him down from 7% or so, because with elusiveness I could use recuperate and outheal the damage from Force and Verve. Our first Bladelord kill was pretty much the same situation as well, not to mention elusiveness is amazing for Unseen Strike.
On Garalon, I tend to prefer leeching poison. While the constant AoE damage from Pheromones and the large spikes from Crush would seem to point to elusiveness, I find it not to work very well. Keeping feint up to deal with Pheromones is generally not viable, given the DPS requirements of the fight. Additionally, Crush doesn't do too extreme damage, making normal feint able to deal with it well enough. The pros of leeching poison, however, is that it's a constant source of healing on a fight where you are constantly taking damage, a nice mitigation to that damage. Also, as the the heals are in proportion to damage dealt, attacking the legs provides double the healing.
I'd also really love to use leeching poison on Windlord, with the extra damage he takes translating into extra healing, but with virtually all the damage I take coming from Raid of Blades elusiveness easily wins out on that fight. Leeching would also be awesome on Ambershaper, but it seems to trigger Parasitic Growth.
I could go on for each fight and what I'd use, but I feel it's better to stop on the fights I have experience with. Although I suppose throwing five more bosses in wouldn't even hurt that much. Real quick – Empress: elusiveness. Protectors and Tsulong: probably leeching. Lei Shi: elusiveness. Sha: tad bit of a tossup, but probably leeching.
However, I've also been giving this some thought recently, and in a 25m situation I think elusiveness would pretty much be the way to go in every situation. Compared to 10m, there are going to be many more people clustered around me, and a lot more AoE healing going out. That would make the slow healing from leeching poison basically useless, as the AoE heals would top me up before the leeching could do much for me. However, with elusiveness, taking virtually no damage from most sources would mean that just incidental AoE heals would end up topping me off with almost no need for direct healing. So, for 25m I think elusiveness would actually be the way to go for the majority of the fights.
Combat Vs. Mutilate
I felt a section on this subject would be necessary due to the fact that I'm playing the 'lower dps' spec. I don't have any problem switching between specs if a fight requires it, but there are a few reasons I basically only have a combat spec right now.
The first reason is that I simply love combat. It's the spec I played all through MC, and it's the spec I prefer to play. The fact that it's the inferior spec for singe target doesn't concern me too much, because the difference isn't completely horrible. If we were able to down all of ZG in blues with me spamming sinister strike with daggers, then my DPS definitely shouldn't be a problem now that I know what the hell I'm doing. The buffs coming in 5.2 should even things out quite a bit as well.
My gear is the second reason. I do have a pair of 489 daggers, but they aren't upgraded and neither are sha-touched. So while I could switch to a Mut spec with my gear right now, the gain in my DPS would be just above 1%, which just barely seems like it would be worth it. Even with equivalent weapons for mut, shadowcraft puts the difference slightly over 6%. Which, while significant, doesn't seem too extreme.
The last reason, which has to do with why I tended to focus on upgrading my combat gear, is that there are simply more fights where combat is useful. I count ten out of sixteen where I would prefer combat over mutilate, though some of those can admittedly be argued both ways – for example, while a lot of people say to use mut on Elegon, for the execute damage, I like to use combat so I can kill the first two sparks like normal and then have adrenaline rush and shadow blades up to bomb the last two down. And with four waves of sparks down, we never had an issue with DPS once we got to the final phase with things stable. Even for Spiritbinder, the closest thing this tier to a Patchwerk dps race, combat can be nice to cleave down adds in the other realm.
It's not that I have a problem with switching between specs. I always hearthed back to reforge for sub when we were killing Heroic Spine, and did the same to change to Mut for Heroic Deathwing. I was also planning on switching to mut for Heroic Feng whenever we got around to it. I just currently don't have the gear to make it worth it, and to a degree don't really feel it's necessary. I prefer combat, and frankly I feel that playing a spec I like and am skilled at is more important than playing a spec that is a bit more ahead on single target DPS.
Also, given that it was announced recently that 5.2 is coming very soon, and part of the goal for combat in the patch is that it will become competitive with mut, the odds are all this isn't going to matter much anyway.
About me
I am an unemployed graphic designer who lives at home, making money from a combination of helping my dad with his home business and doing whatever freelance graphic design jobs I can find. Diablo 3 is the only game I'm really playing at all now, and aside from video games I like to read, write and draw.
Personality-wise, I'd say I'm fairly relaxed. I tend not to take things too seriously when they go wrong, and generally tend to find it actually fairly funny when they do. Majordomo and chain-popping seeds comes to mind as a wipe I always enjoyed watching no matter how many times it happened. I also tend to be a bit shy, which I think mostly comes from having a bit of a speech impediment (which was a lot worse when I was younger) and that's made me not too excited about talking, but it's not like I won't talk at all or anything.
Conclusion
Well, that's about it. Thanks for the time, and I'm hoping you can find room for me on the raid team, but if not, I understand. I would still like a social spot in the guild, since as I mentioned before, I can pug pretty far beyond what we managed on our realm here on Stormreaver, and I can always hope for a chance at raiding with you guys.
