Aegon - Blood DK

[Aegon]

In Game Logistics

(Could list out things, all of which are located in......) Armory Link: http://us.battle.net.../Aegön/advanced

RealID: Schorse#1582

Out of Game Logistics

Name: George (Schorse, my RealID name is, I was told, the German nickname for George).

Age: 22

Occupation: I work on very mundane educational/government research projects.

Location: East Coast, United States of These Americas.

A very tiny little bit about myself in real life. edit: This is also my previous WoW history/previous expansions rundown apparently.

What I like:

LOST, BSG, A Song of Ice and Fire (game of thrones) Budweiser, I browse reddit now and then, and I'm starting to get into Star Trek thanks to Netflix.

Who I am:

I grew up in New York City and grew up ery cultured because of this. My family moved upstate for a few years, just adding onto the culture train (upstate new york and new york city might as well be different states). I was lucky enough to spend a year as an exchange student in Germany. Moved to Maryland for university (UMBC) and am working on a bachelors in psychology. I'm very sensitive to the people around me and am the type of person that can gauge the temperature of a room pretty naturally. This forum doesn't have spellcheck. I consider myself to be very modest, I say, modestly. I've been playing online games since I was nine. My first experience with MMOs was The Sims Online in which I birthed Smokeymcpott - a mullet waring playboy who flirted with female avatars via his tales of gangbangers. It was a pretty glorious time.

WoW came out in 2004, and I picked it up for christmas after my buds and I (who all played WC3 like mad) decided that was a thing we wanted to do. Made a gnome mage, because gnomes looked silly. Gandizzle was his name, and he was fortunate enough to be controled by an irresponible teenager who chose Molten Core and Blackwing Lair raids over schoolwork. This is starting to get pretty long, and I did say this was a very tiny little bit about myself. So eventually Vanilla ended, I stepped away from WoW to get back on track with school and missed the TBC craze (I heard it was pretty great). Snap back to that Germany exchange trip, well when I came home WOTLK had arrived and I wanted to do that so I did. I raided with a mixture of the old vanilla guild remnants and all the people they had herded during TBC. I was playing a resto druid for this. We weren't amazing, at least they weren't. Resto druids were pretty overpowered for this part, in my opinion, so of course I thought I was amazing and was being dragged down. Well I wanted to kill Algalon so I server transfered to a guild that was doing that. ToC was coming out along this time and I was also starting college - if you can do the math this is where I stopped playing for Wrath.

Cataclysm. I bought it. I subbed for the month that it came out. I played for two weeks, leveled a mage from 1-85 and maxed out professions and heroic geared him up and unsubbed. RIP

I was still playing computer games during this time, though! I got into Minecraft, Planetside 2 (hey, you guys play that) BF3, Skyrim, HoN, Dota2, and some other not noteable things. During these adventures I met up with the gaming community known as "Grizzly." They were some fun people, if not a little crude. Well, a few of the people in that guild I had gotten pretty close to and had made some substantial friendships with.

The four of us decided we wanted to try out Mists of Pandaria (honestly, because we had nothing better to do ><). So we did that, and went to a server that one of the friends said was very very good (it wasn't) and had tons of people (it didn't) and would be a really great place to start Pandas in. Magtheridon, Alliance, left little room for us to find a raiding guild that would meet our expectations/standards. We tried to make something out of it and got together a 10man with some people (one of our core literally came out of trade chat). We started raiding a few months into pandas and went 6/16 heroic in 10mans after two weeks. Suddenly, without warning, I got a call on the Grizzly batphone. Grizzly was going to play MoP! We transfered our characters to the server of choice (Argent Dawn, Horde) and joined the ragged crew of fresh 90's. This was January of this year, mind you, so we were pretty far behind.

The fresh 25man was able to clear 6/16 heroic as well before 5.2 came out, meh what can you do. So 5.2 comes out, we push hard the first week and full clear it (lei shen on 10man ofc). 2nd week we do it again but this time full 25man. 3rd week, heroic jinrok the breaker breaks up, repeadtly. 4th week, guild leader throws in the towel and raises the white flag - majority of the guild follows him out MoP's frontdoor.

And now I'm here! I'm pretty eager to get right back into raiding, leaving this break a small as possible.

Alright, so I threw away organization apparently. This can be the part where I try to tell you that I am not bad at this game.

Here are some logs:

Most recent 25man raid as blood DK: http://www.worldoflo...mivum558tsjg22/

Most recent raid (10man, one boss) as frost offspec: http://www.worldoflo...?s=9817&e=10064

Here are some UI Screenshots:

LFG Blood: http://i.imgur.com/XpmQrm3.jpg (Warkmage was talking about the tank I replaced, promise).

LFR Frost: http://i.imgur.com/6dMVuNS.jpg

What/how I play:

I mainspec, and have since MoP launched, as blood tank. It's definitely my most comfortable role. I constantly read up on my class on various theorycrafting forums, and check through WoL/Armory to see what others are doing. I know there are better players than me, so I have no problem seeing what others are doing and trying to reason why they may be doing that. With all of that said, I find that a full push Mastery build is most effective for me. I tank in a fashion that is easiest on healers first and fancy for the damage meters second. I always balance my dodge/parry to fit the diminishing returns factors, and I push hit cap/exp softcap for the added damage. On a pull, I will pop a str potion just because. During the fight I will typically use either a healing/armor/str potion depending on the encounter and how it is going (magic heavy/physical heavy/not damage intense in regards to potion uses depending on fights). I know the limits of my classes tanking. Tortos bats are not ideal things for me to tank. Magic intense fights will require me to regem my meta and runeforge differently. There's more I can say on this, I really enjoy talking about my class - I'd be happy to answer any specific questions regarding anything I've said here (or haven't said).

My offspec if Frost for PvE, Unholy for PvP. I enjoy the pvps. I've only recently really gotten into it, and I'm finding RBGs to be fanstically fun (except Temple of Kotmogu. That BG is terrible).

As far as dps is concerned, I am pretty comfortable doing this as well. It's not something that I'm as practiced with as blood tanking, but runes are runes and the buttons are buttons and encounter mechanics are encounter mechanics. My current gear set for frost is a hodge-podge of valor gear/LFR/tanking pieces with some actual ToT drops itemized for frost. The use of cooldowns as frost is a little more predictable than blood. In a 25man raiding environment, I keep myself alive while preforming the most effective rotation possible to max my damage done on the encounter. For deathknights, this includes managing RNG procs and dumping runic power effectively. Moving out of crap is something I don't have trouble with, abusing the amazing properties of AMS is something I'm familiar with.

I am able to play either spec.

What I'm looking for in a guild/why SoH?

I'm coming from a gaming community which honestly let me down. I had fun with them on other games, and probably still will in the future, but I've really gotten back into WoW with MoP. I wasn't the one that found SoH, my shaman friend did. The two of us (and a mage, actually) have been looking for a new home to play this video game with. It's been pretty tough, the game has changed drastically where community is concerned. After I read your guild's WoWprogress bio, I was pretty excited to apply. After touring your website, seeing the GW2 forum and PS2 forum, I became more excited to apply. After reading your policies/CodeofConduct, I started this application (I was shocked to read point 6, about the goldbuying. It's a good shocked, I can't stand the idea of goldbuying, and cannot recall another time I had seen a guild publicly denounce it). The PVP promotion is also a very big plus. And lastly, what I am looking for in a guild is a thriving realm. I have now played on two different realms for pandas, both of them barren wastelands in regards to population/economy. Stormreaver, as far as I know, is the oppisite of this which is very attractive to me.

Questions for SoH:

How opposed is your guild to taking in groups(3ppl) of players? Does the fact that they want to play on the same realm, and do not necessarily have to be in every single raid together affect this viewpoint?

What is your take on the how LOST ended?

TL;DR:

Has played games for a long time, WoW for a majority of this time.

Great DK.

Likes SoH from limited impressions.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, no I did not spell check it, and I understand if you read the TL;DR.

[Evgeny]

Thanks for the app & Welcome to the forums Aegon!

("Schorse" is the Bavarian/Austrian form of the German name "Georg")

[Ashin]

So, if I'm honest, I had huge amounts of fun reading this app. I'm really not sure you're the guy I want as my next tank - but I loved the app and would enjoy having a beer with you.

Except. You said Budweiser. If you have not already been informed, let me be the first to explain to you that this is not beer. It's some crap made out of rice. You need to begin drinking real beer if we're to have any kind of bond.

But, your poor taste in beer aside, I think you would be fun to have a beer with. You also applied to our guild for the right reasons. So you have two things in your favor and one against (the bad beer choice).

What is your actual HM raiding experience on the DK? Same question, but for tanking in general - how much tanking have you done in a 25m progression-oriented environment?

[Aegon]

Haha, I can understand how Budweiser would be offputting. I've only got so much extra cash to throw at alcohol, though .

I leveled this Deathknight a month before MoP's release. Did about four days worth of reading on the class, and spent another few weeks getting the rune resource down before Pandas actually launched. By that time I felt pretty comfortable with the class. So, actual hardmode raiding experience: 5/6 MSV, 1/6 HoF 10 and 25man (both in situations where the guild benefited from a knowledgeable tank. I'm not going to say I carried them because I don't like to believe that is actually a thing). In the same note, the first time our 25man guild did Stone Guard heroic and Feng heroic it was with an offtank who had JUST came back to the game... FROM VANILLA. So for stone guards heroic 25 I was playing traffic control cop in the middle of the room with dogs, while trying to catch the offtank up on what has changed, while doing my thing (I can explain this in greater detail if you'd like) to keep myself alive because the healers in the raid had just leveled 85-90/1-90 two weeks prior.

In general, tanking experience in 25man progression environment. I was 'main tank' for all of this.

January 21st - 5.2 launch (March 5th). The raid had never played MOP, with the exception of maybe five people. All 5.0 raid content was brand new to them, as well as many of the raid elements that came from cataclysm (ALL THE BRIGHT LIGHTS!).

5.2 release, up until now - All of 25man TOT normal, still as 'main tank'. Days of Jinrokh Heroic attempts. I can tank Jinrokh Heroic without any issue.

I guess it's important to note that in all of these situations I have been an officer and a step in raid leader. For the intial clearing of 5.0 10man I was the guild leader and organized the raids. For my reclearing of 5.0 content with the new 25man guild, I ended up explaining each fight and letting specific roles know what they would be needed to do without issue. I've always read up on fights before hand, I've always done extensive reading and research before anything until I'm confident I'm equipped to deal with it (ie. starting DK for the first time). I'm an adaptable player with the ability to theorize how my class can cheese an encounter. I'm also realistic in knowing that there are situations where my class is the less than ideal thing to bring (SEE: TORTOS BATS).

I hope that answered your questions!

[Ashin]

Okay, and simple question that I'll just ask once here instead of three times: are you guys a bundled deal or can we pick and choose?

[Aegon]

We'd prefer to all be in the same guild.

[Tinymanz]

Except. You said Budweiser. If you have not already been informed, let me be the first to explain to you that this is not beer. It's some crap made out of rice. You need to begin drinking real beer if we're to have any kind of bond.

Ashin...there are no words to express how upsetting it is to hear you say this.

I believe in Budweiser.

I also believe in Hobgoblin ale and Ciders...but still.

Budweiser is a beer.

[Estarriol]

I grew up next to a Budweiser factory (it is NOT a brewery). I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Budweiser is cat urine. Why cat urine? The factory always smelled like cat food, thus through immense scientific research, I was able to figure out the truth.

[Evgeny]

Poor Kittehs!!!

Stop Cat Murder: Don't Drink Budweiser

[Kem]

Poor Kittehs!!!

Stop Cat Murder: Don't Drink Budweiser

I agree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!