» Zaphikel, Affliction Warlock Options

[Zaphikel]

First Name: Wes

Your Country / Time zone: USA, EST

Age: 21

Do you have Ventrilo and working microphone? Yes and yes.

Are you able to handle mature (or immature) content on Ventrilo and in guild chat?
Most certainly, seeing as I have a foul mouth myself.

Do you have the capacity to clearly communicate, yet have a knowledge of when it's appropriate to keep comments to yourself?
Yes.

Are you presently employed or a student? I am a student, currently. Will it interfere with your ability to raid?

I spoke with Sarkamos, and for what I would be raiding, it would not be an issue. (The Saturday alt run from 8 to 12 pm).

Will you be able to attend 99% of our raids? I see no issue with that.

Do you have any other Real Life obligations which might prevent you from attending 99% of our raids? My current class schedule has me in class until roughly 7:30 to 8:00 PM EST on most nights, although as I spoke with Sarkamos, I doubt I would ever fill in for a main raid anyway, so it won't be a conflict. If needed, however, I could potentially fill in.

Do you have any PC or disconnect issues we should know about?

None. I will be upgrading the current computer I play on around December time to something even better, but even now I run about 30-40 fps in raids. My connection is rarely if ever an issue, although there is occasionally a night where campus internet can screw with me.

Are you able to handle harsh criticism? You can, and will, be subjected to harsh criticism and you will be called out when you do not perform.

I prefer harsh criticism. If I make a mistake, it should be pointed out not for my benefit but potentially for others.

Class / Character Name: Zaphikel, Warlock
Race: Human
Professions: Alchemy and Jewelcrafting

Do your professions increase your performance in raids? Explain your choices.

Firstly, I have had Alchemy since I first leveled this toon after coming to the US servers as it was always the interesting profession to have when having some of the rarer flask patterns (Distilled Wisdom, for instance) prior to the release of the SSC/TK/Hyjal/BT Marks. 47 spellpower for my primary stat is of course the primary bonus, but also having 2 hour flasks is certainly a plus.

Jewelcrafting, of course, gives me a gain of 48 spellpower. The only potential alternative would be to switch Alchemy for Engineering, as the gain from Hyperspeed Accelerators during Lust for Drain Soul and Quick Decay'd Corruption would be massive.

Total time played (/played) and Time played at 80: 243 days played total. 100 days at 80.

Is this your first main character? No.
If not what did you used to play? I was a priest during Vanilla.
When did you start playing WoW? I began raiding when Blackwing Lair was progression.
Please provide detailed information about time spent on all your previous characters. Tell us as much as you can, the more the better.

I originally played a Holy Priest during Vanilla with friends from DotA that ended up moving over to WoW. At the time, they bought me a EU version of the game so I could play with them, so I ended up on EU-Mannoroth. I raided in a 4 or 5 guild alliance that ended up clearing BWL, AQ20, AQ40, and two wings of Naxx and change before BC came out. Around that time, I ended up coming back to the US realms to play with an ex of mine and I leveled Zaphikel on Whisperwind.


Main Spec: (56/0/15)
If you have a relevant offspec for raiding, tell us about that as well.

While I believe my current specs are both PvP, as my guild has since stopped raiding, my relevant offspec is Demonology. I am very proficient in the class, having raided with it primarily during progression content with Genesis. Now, however, I am far from the ideal raid DPS best in slot list, so my gear would be better suited for Affliction.

Also, I do [did] not currently have the point in Dark Pact, which would most certainly be more mana per execute than Life Tap because I was having some issues with knockback and positioning during Heroic Lich King, so I had the 1/3 in Fel Concentration, although I likely will change that point to DP.

Armory Link: [paste your link here] (Be sure to log out with your raiding gear on):

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.x...amp;cn=Zaphikel

What is your current guild? Obsolete on US-Whisperwind.

What were the last 3 guilds you were in? What are the reasons for leaving your last and current guild? Tell us about your time in each and how active you were in each.

The current guild I am in, Obsolete, was a guild I resurrected at the beginning of Wrath of the Lich King. I had previously raided under that guild tag for most of BC when I came to the US realms. When they went under at 6/9 in BT and 5/5 in Hyjal due to a raider attitude schism, I went to Chimera on US-Durotan, where we completed 5/6 in SWP prior to the 3.0 nerf. I, however, had obligations to school, so for 3.0 I went casual and didn't farm SWP until Wrath. Then, as I said, I returned to US-Whisperwind and began to raid with friends again, reviving <Obsolete> and slowly turning it into a raid guild, where we went from the dregs of the server to server first after attaining Immortal and Heroic: Glory of the Raider. This continued through to Ulduar where we obtained 6/9 of the Ulduar HMs before I needed to take a break due to ulcer surgery. While I was out, many of the close friends and raiders I had played with left, including close real life friends of mine, so I decided to cut ties with the guild, and I came to Magtheridon to raid with Genesis.

With Genesis, I raided from the end of Ulduar up until 9/12 ICC HMs, when it was decided that we had burnt ourselves out and decided to go casual. I took a break at that point, eventually getting convinced to return to Whisperwind to hang around and do 10 mans in ICC with Obsolete. I slowly came back to raiding, helping them get a number of their first kills from BPC to Deathwhisper to Putricide and Sindragosa and after the former GM, Spiritgemmed, stepped down, I decided to help out and step up and raid lead and guild lead from about 20% on the ICC buff onward. After helping to rebuild the raiding roster due to apathy and otherwise, we eventually pulled together and attained Light of Dawn at the 30% buff. However, due to my current class schedule, which has me in classes until about 7:30 - 8:00 EST on most nights, I decided to go casual, as I am currently taking 27 credit hours in an attempt to graduate a semester early and study abroad. At this point, most people had no desire to do Heroic Halion, and a few of our raiders had already begun to quit, so Obsolete went casual.

What end game raiding experience do you have? (This includes in vanilla WoW, TBC and WOTLK. be specific.) Be thorough. The more detail the better.

I have raided all of Blackwing Lair, AQ20, AQ40, 2 wings of Naxxramas with scattered kills prior to the release of BC. I had cleared up to 5/6 in Sunwell prior to the nerf. I have completed everything in Wrath of the Lich King except for Heroic Halion.

Any special Achievements / Titles / Mounts you have earned in PvE you would like us to know about?

Grand Crusader and Light of Dawn would be my two notable kills.

Link to WWS / WMO logs of recent raid(s) you have attended.

http://worldoflogs.com/reports/9jnc1xkm76rqu2c9/dashboard/
http://worldoflogs.com/reports/taox14ux824hxz1j/dashboard/

Provide a Quick Summary of your "Valuable" Stats (Healing, Attack Power, etc.) as you understand them for your class.

My most valuable stats for Affliction are Spellpower and Haste - spellpower being the primary stat and haste being valued only a little less than that, with spirit and crit being distant third choices. With the itemization of most of the ICC gear, spirit has essentially become a non-issue in the choice of Affliction gear, and the only reason there are spellpower/spirit gems in my gear are for the times I switch to Demonology, when the use of a spellpower/spirit gem with a 5 spellpower socket bonus becomes just slightly better than a Runed Cardinal Ruby. As an Orc (what I would likely switch to), I lose the human racial, and gemming spellpower/spirit in a blue socket for a 5 spellpower bonus is a loss of DPS.
- Which major glyphs do you currently use? Explain your choices:
My major glyphs are Glyph of Quick Decay, Glyph of Haunt, and Glyph of Life Tap.

Quick Decay grants my Corruption haste, so bringing the original duration from 18 seconds reduced by a value of 40%+ haste. This is exceptional, especially with Corruption going from ticking every 3 seconds to potentially every 2 or less depending on haste buffs. This makes Corruption likely my number one damage spell on most fights.

Life Tap grants me 20% of my spirit as spellpower with the buff active, so I gain roughly 60-70 spellpower while the GoLT buff is active. I can't argue with a boost to my primary DPS stat.

Lastly, glyph of Haunt grants the modifier of Haunt an extra 3% on my damage over time abilities, something which adds up over the course of a fight.

Do you have dualspec, and is your offspec something you could viably play in raids?

I do have dual spec, and for raiding it would be Demonology, which is a spec I am very familiar and proficient with.

What spec do you prefer? Are you willing to respec if an emergency arises? Are you willing to respec to the optimal spec for a progression boss?

I don't particularly have a preference at this point, having played all 3 specs for progression. However, I feel that to be most useful as Demonology, there would certainly need to be adjustments to my current gear set to maximize the raid's spellpower gain. I would always be willing to respec to whatever is most useful on a fight - I carry glyphs on me to switch to Destro if needed for a Shadowfury stun for Saurfang or Anub in ToGC or otherwise.

How do you feel about sitting out for any given encounter if we do not need you?
I am not opposed to sitting the bench of my class is not needed, as progression is always more important than me.

Are you willing to spend 400+ gold a night in repairs and consumables, stay focused and wipe for 4 hours straight, come back the next day and do it all over again until a new boss dies (even on "farm" content)?

Yes. I remember wiping for 11 hours on Deathbringer Saurfang on a Saturday with Genesis the first week of hard mode ICC. Despite the number of obnoxious wipes that were had, all the same it was enjoyable when the boss finally died.

- What is your reason for applying? What makes us more appealing that any one of the thousands of other raiding guilds out there?

I miss Magtheridon, if that can even be said. I'd prefer to be on a PvP server for Cataclysm, and I still have a few friends on the server from when I was in Genesis, namely Fajita. I want to return to what will hopefully be top tier raiding with WWA come Cataclysm, so all of those factors combined pointed me towards WWA.

Who, if anyone, will vouch for your abilities in WWA?

I'm not really sure if there's anyone in WWA that remembers me from when I was in Genesis, so nobody?

Post a screenshot of your UI.(If you are having trouble, use the free image hosting resources of http://imageshack.us)

http://a.imageshack.us/img6/7442/zaphui3.jpg

Last words: Show us what sets you apart from the rest of the candidates; what makes you better? What can you bring to WWA? What do you want us to know that wasn’t covered? Let us know why WE want YOU. This is your last chance to impress us, be thorough. Do not answer this question with one sentence. Once again, the more complete the answer, the better.

I have been playing WoW for a long time. I understand boss mechanics, raid composition, synergy, and I have been helping with strategies for new encounters as they are released for a long time. Other than my DPS, I bring to the raid someone who makes few mistakes, has been in high echelon raiding, and enjoys high pressure raids for server firsts and high US rankings. I have played many classes from Holy Priest in Vanilla and early BC to Shadow Priest to every spec of Warlock to Resto Druid to Prot Paladin, and I play them all proficiently. I pore over logs and constantly attempt to improve myself week by week even during farm content.

Sadly, I don't have any ranked Affliction parses in my current state of raiding save maybe a few in the 150-200 range on WoL, if even. However, back with Genesis, I had several US top 10 Demonology parses through Ulduar, ToGC, and early ICC. However, if able to fully focus on my DPS and not having to marionette some of the other players in my raid to do what they need to, I am positive that I can have higher DPS numbers.

As such, I spoke with Sarkasmos in whispers Monday evening about joining for a potential Cataclysm raid spot, as I imagine that the WWA roster is full, so this is me attempting to get a foot in the door now, as I doubt there is a need for another warlock currently. At this point, I am merely playing with friends that will likely transfer with me

[Sark]

looks good. i spoke to you in game, i think we're pretty much caught up and all that.

[Mystearica]

He doesn't have a 277 DFO Sark, you're supposed to deny him.

I remember competing with him for demo parses back in the day. He's probably better than me. (Not saying much I know.)

[Sark]

He doesn't have a 277 DFO Sark, you're supposed to deny him.

I remember competing with him for demo parses back in the day. He's probably better than me. (Not saying much I know.)

he can take a 277 dfo from the alt run. i can't, because i guess we "need a disc priest for LK heroic" or some horseshit like that.

[Ryuuzaki]

he can take a 277 dfo from the alt run.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[Sark]

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

i didn't mean just take in that sense, noobie .