Raider Application - Mage (DPS) - Cylanthro

[Applicant]

Hello, Iron Edge!

I am applying for the main raid.

Character: Cylanthro
Armory: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/Kazzak/Cylanthro/advanced
Class/Spec: Mage (DPS)
Member Type: raider

Personal Info:

Name: Simon
Age: 26
location: Sweden
Work/School: Studying to be a teacher and working the occasional weekend at a forensic psychiatry ward.

Class/Spec:

Started raiding with my mage as my main during late ToS. Before that it had been an alt and it was poorly geared so in order to catch up on AP and gear asap I felt like I kind of had to pick a spec and stick with it (at least to begin with). I chose frost as it seemed competetive, had a playstyle that was easy to pick up and wasn't as dependent on specific legendaries as fire. I quickly realized that my capability to dish out AoE damage wasn't on par with most other classes/specs. As this was the case I decided to volunteer for the "shit jobs" in order to still be as useful as possible for the fights where AoE damage was important. The idea was to sit in cannons, go through portals, deal with debuffs and burst priority targets until I could get enough gear and expereince to swap to fire for the fights where that would be helpful. Sadly my raid team fell apart before I got there.

TL;DR -  Frost

Note that this is specifically for the frost mage using the talent Thermal Void and some of this might change on Wednesday when the pre-patch drops.

Stats: In general it's: Crit to 33%>Haste>Versatility>Mastery but it's much simpler to sim the character in order to find out specific statweights whenever you get a new piece of gear as it varies quite a bit.

Rotation: Outside of cooldown usage frost mage pretty much comes down to 3 simple actions.
1: If you have a Brainfreeze proc - cast a frostbolt->flurry->ice lance combo
2: If you have a Fingers of Frost proc - cast ice lance
3: Cast Frostbolt and pray for procs
If you do this and line up every other frozen orb with icy veins you'll pretty much be a decent frost mage.

I may be exaggerating a bit but it's very simple to play a frost mage and the mage class discord can answer any and all questions so there's plenty of resources.

Alts:

Got all classes except rogue, monk and DH at lvl-110 but most of them are poorly geared.

Professions:

I recently swapped my professions to Herbalism/Inscription and got them both maxed out in preparation for BFA. I had Tailoring/Enchanting before but from my understanding about BFA it seems like I can posslibly make inscription into a steady source of income by selling the class buff scrolls to mythic+ groups and vantus runes to raiders. I could probably have made Tail/Ench work as well but I wanted a gathering profession since I made a nice chunk of gold at the start of Legion this way.

I also got cooking and fishing at 800 and will continue utilizing them in BFA.

Raiding Experience:

I've played since vanilla but didn't get into any organized form of raiding until Mists of Pandaria. I did occasionally pug stuff before that but I doubt that's relevant.
MoP:     T14: MSV: 3/6H     HoF: 6/6N     ToES: 4/4N
            T15: 4/13H
            T16: 14/14H
WoD:    T17: HM: 5/7M     BrF: 4/10M
            T18 ---
Legion: T19: EN: 7/7M    ToV 2/3M     NH: 4/10M
            T20: 6/9M
            T21: 6/11M

Everything up to T20 was done as a tank. T20 and T21 as a frost mage.

Previous Guilds:

Unlimited Ltd - Frostwhisper:
Started the guild along with 2 friends at the start of MoP. Sometime during ToT I became the GM/RL. We were new guild with many unexperienced raiders (including me at the time) but we slowly got better as the expansion went on and eventually managed to get 14/14H SoO before they swapped to the mythic system. We made it through the conversion from 10man to 20man at the start of WoD but the increased need for recruitment and other managerial tasks eventually took the fun out of raiding from me. I felt like the roster became solid enough to survive without me during mythic BrF so I passed on the GM/RL mantle and stepped down. Unlimited Ltd is still alive and thriving today (perhaps even more than it ever did during the 2years I was with them) but none of the people I was raiding with are still active there so I can't take credit for that.

Fanatics - Ragnaros:
At the start of Legion I was in a very similar position to where I am now. I was looking for a guild to raid with and Fanatics fit the bill so I joined up. The GM turned out to be a bit of a jerk and eventhough we had a good start to the expansion we started hemorraghing players during Nighthold. Eventually the guild fell apart and I left when there weren't enough people left to raid anymore.

Issues with Tissues - Kazzak:
I took a break from raiding after stepping away from Fanatics. With Antorus around the corner I decided to get back in there. Issues with Tissues went pretty much the same way as Fanatics though. The GM was an okay sort for the most part but the leadership made some bad decisions. The largest mistake was that they decided to swap from raiding 2 days a week to 3 days when Antorus was released. This along with some social friction again lead to a situation where we were losing raiders faster than they could be recruited. In a last ditch effort to salvage the guild they tried to merge with the guild NANI. It almost fucking worked as well but ended in drama. I won't bore you with the details. I ended up jumping ship over to NANI but neither guild could support a functioning raidteam anymore.

I decided not to go looking for another guild to polish off the tier and instead to try my luck when BFA drops. Which would be right around now

Availability:

I'm not available Wednesday evenings. Other than that I might work a weekend or even a weekday every once in a while but this is something I can control and have to actively sign up for.

Communication:

Yes my english shouldn't be an issue. Haven't used Teamspeak in quite a while now but that's what I used to run during MoP so I'll be just fine. I can confirm that I do infact have a microphone. I am also quite proficient in pushing down my push-to-talk key and speaking at the same time so I think I got that covered

Computer / Connection:

Yeah I got a good rig. Upgraded it with a new Motherboard and CPU about a month ago as that was a bit of a bottleneck. Currently stable at 144fps in legion, it probably dips a bit in Dalaran and Large raids but currently not enough to be noticeable.

My ping is fine. Got a 100/100 connection that hasn't acted up more than maybe 2-3 times over the 2 years I've lived in this apartment.

Addons/UI:

Well I use quite a lot of addons but the ones that make up my UI or are otherwise relevant to raiding are:
Announce Interrupts, Bartender 4, Deadly Boss Mods, Details, Exorsus Raidtools, OmniCC, Quartz, Shadowed Unit Frames, Tell me when, Tidy plates and Weak Auras.

The following is a screen cap of my UI during my last mythic progress kill in Antorus. It's a bit blurry since I took it off the youtube video but you should be able to make it all out:
https://imgur.com/a/gqvrYXE

Relevant keys is probably only "§" (left of the number 1 key and above tab on a Swedish keyboard) that I use to put up a skull or other important marker as neccessary. Also push-to-talk which I have on a mouse button.

Other Games:

When I'm raiding it's mostly WoW but at other times I play a variety of games. Lately I've been playing some PUBG and a few survival games with a friend. Once in a blue moon there's a session of Civilization but me and my friends haven't taken quite as well to CiV VI as we did the previous instalment.

Why Iron Edge?

I'm looking for a mythic team that's well established and raids 2 times a week. This is not that difficult. I also can't raid Wednesdays so I need a team with a schedule that allows for that. This is almost freaking impossible. Also I like how you describe yourselves on your wowprogress page.

What can I offer Iron Edge?

I'm a dedicated raider that puts in the work to research my class and the encounters and always strive to better myself. I used to be a tank for a long time, a role that often requires you to have very close to 100% attendance in order to not screw over your team. I have always excelled in this aspect and very rarely will I miss a raid. I have experience as a GM/RL and know how to behave in order to make your job easier. I'm not adverse to taking special responsibilities in encounters (like getting in the cannons on High Command or going through the portals to carry the debuffs on Portal keeper). Lastly I'd consider myself easy to get along with. Never really any drama, quick to a laugh and I don't have a bad temper.

Where did I hear about Iron Edge?

I made a search on wowprogress for guilds raiding 1-2 times a week on Kazzak. Then I eliminated any guilds that raids on Wednesdays and finally settled on applying to you guys after reading through some of the pages of the guilds that were left.

Last Words?

I've been working nightshifts over the summer and will continue to do so until the 13th of August so if I'm accepted as a trial I won't really be able to show up every time. I can give you dates of the Mondays and Thursdays I'm able to show up if you want and I'm sure we can work something out. I'm not looking for any kind of boost through mythic Antorus though and would be more than happy just waiting out the release of BFA. After the 13th I'll be going back to school and we should be fine and dandy.

Last of all, in case you're full up on mages I'm willing to play just about any of the other caster dps classes/specs but it will be a learning experience.

[Vejeta]

Hi Simon,

It seems this application has been missed by the large forum activity we are having currently. Decent apply, has detail to it so that's nice, could you please provide some logs for our ranged officer to run over to help him make a decision.

Good luck

Vejeta

[Vivi]

Over all, it's okay. Not completely necessary to run 33% crit with your trinket choice...

The other question is, there are currently 4 active mages here, you would be the 5th. What do you think of that?

[Vejeta]

@vivi, he did mention he's willing to go a different range class if mage are full.

Regards

[Cylanthro]

Hey guys!

It's okay, I've been keeping an eye on the website and can see that you've had a lot to process with all the people returning to the game and raiding scene.

I'll link my mythic Antorus logs below. It ain't the prettiest thing in the world but as I said, on High Command, Portal Keeper and Eonar I took other responsibilities. (EXCUSES!??!?)
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/character/eu/kazzak/cylanthro#partition=1

Yeah I haven't been running on 33% crit with this setup either. I was speaking in broader terms. I'm uncertain whether the squish affected my percentages but I'm currently at 27.7% and I'm certain I was at least beneath 30% before (again if the squish impacted this at all). Been simulating my character so I shouldn't be too far off the mark at any rate.

Five active mages sounds like a lot to me. I applied with my mage as you're open for all classes on wowprogress but I'm okay with playing any caster. Got them all at 110 and about a month to prepare for BFA so there's plenty of time.

[Mooneclipse]

Hiyo Cylanthro,

This is quite a decent appplication, and I do like the attitude you've been showing throughout it. Currently we have 4 mages on our roster, but it would not be the first time a class has been heavily stacked in our raid, and do not expect it to be our last. Going into the expansion we will be having a lot of people and it will come down to competition for the raid spots.

If you're comfortable with proving yourself, either as a mage or any other class you wish, I would be more than happy to offer you a trial for BfA, so you can poke me or any other officer ingame 

[Cylanthro]

Fantastic! I’ll try to get into contact with an officer tomorrow. I’ll join up with my mage for now and will think about whether or not to swap to something different when I get an idea of what the roster looks like. I really don’t have any issues with competing for a raid spot but if I find some class I enjoy in the pre-patch which the roster has less of I may swap in order to put myself to better use.