» Shogunit - Paladin - Protection, New Application Options

[Shogunit]

- First Name: Ben

- Your Country / Time zone: United States / EST

- Age: 20

- Do you have Ventrilo and working microphone? Yes to both.

- Are you able to handle mature (or immature) content on Ventrilo and in guild chat? Absolutely.

- Do you have the capacity to clearly communicate, yet have a knowledge of when it's appropriate to keep comments to yourself?
Yes, as a tank you need to be able to communicate when the situation requires it, and yes I am able to keep unneeded comments to myself.

- Are you presently employed or a student. Will it interfere with your ability to raid? Will you be able to attend 99% of our raids? Do you have any other Real Life obligations which might prevent you from attending 99% of our raids?
I am currently a Sophomore in College. It has not and will not interfere with a hardcore raiding schedule. I will be able to attend 100% of your raids, I have never missed a raid and never will (as long as I can control it, meaning as long as I am not on my death bed, i will be there).

- Do you have any PC or disconnect issues we should know about?
I have only DC'd once and that was because of last years massive blizzard, the college I am attending lost power completely, but only for about 10 minutes.

- 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.
Absolutely, I like receiving criticism because I know it will help me perform better from that point forward. I would rather be called out than let the problem occur again without anyone saying something about it.

- Class / Character Name: Paladin / Shogunit
- Race: Dwarf
- Professions: Enchanting and Jewelcrafting
- Do your professions increase your performance in raids? Explain your choices
I have found enchanting and Jewelcrafting to be the best raiding professions, here's why:
Enchanting gives +120 stamina total while tanking, +80 strength while dpsing and +80 intellect while healing.
Jewelcrafting gives +201 Mastery while tanking, +201 Strength while dpsing and +201 intellect while healing.

- Total time played (/played) and Time played at 85
Total time played: 133 days, 4 hours Time played at 85: 51 days, 8 hours

-Is this your first main character? If not what did you used to play? When did you start playing WoW? Please provide detailed information about time spent on all your previous characters. Tell us as much as you can, the more the better.
I have been playing since TBC, the first character that I leveled was a mage. I did not play my mage for long because I did not like the idea of only being able to dps. I then leveled a paladin (the character I currently play). I fell in love with playing a paladin since I hit 70. I love having the ability to heal, dps and tank with one character and have done so since I began really focusing on raiding in the beginning of wotlk. During ICC progression especially, I was swapping specs almost constantly to fit guild needs. I was an officer, so in a way it was my obligation, and I was happy to do so. I also played my restoration druid and my rogue to meet guild needs even further. For example; I went holy when we were in dire need of healers, once I was able to recruit some solid holy paladins I then swapped to my druid to meet the raid healing role. That was only for a short time, when I wanted to play my paladin again and took over main tanking once again.

-Main Spec: (x/x/x) (include a link from http://www.wowhead.com if it differs from the spec you presently have on armory). If you have a relevant offspec for raiding, tell us about that as well.

Protection: 0/31/10 , Glyphs: As protection I am constantly swapping glyphs depending on the fight, The ones that stay in are: Glyph of Shield of the Righteous, Glyph of Seal of Truth, Glyph of Ascetic Crusader, and Glyph of Lay on Hands.
The glyphs that I often swap are: Glyph of Focused Shield, Glyph of Judgement, Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous and Glyph of Holy Wrath, with the occasional Glyph of Divine Protection but not often.
I use glyph of Judgement and Focused Shield on single target fights where hitting one target is more important that hitting multiple, examples being Baleroc, Beth'tilac and Shannox. I use glyph of hammer of the Righteous and glyph of holy wrath when the fight depends more on multi-taget damage. An example of when I use these glyphs is Lord Rhyollith.

Retribution: 7/2/32 (if you would like me to go into the same detail for Ret and holy as far as glyphs go please let me know)

Holy: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#scIbzrkuufzhbZco:VcmfasMcz

I have experience with all three specs in Firelands.

-Armory Link: [http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/executus/Shogunit/simple] (Be sure to log out with your raiding gear on)

-What is your current guild? I am currently unguilded

-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.

Lacuna (US-Mannoroth) - Slow Progress through heroic FL because people were not willing to focus on fights. The people inside the guild were nice, however none of them were willing to focus or cared about killing a boss before other guilds.

Meridian (US-Ghostlands)- Lied to me about their need for a tank. They said they needed a prot pally, so I applied and was accepted. I then transferred and found out they had two tanks that had been in the guild for a long time and a permanent spot was not available when they said it was. Was never even given a shot to prove myself because neither tank wanted to sit.

V A N Q U I S H (US-Executus)- Raiders were no longer interested in WoW as much as they were other games. Raiders were asking to sit to play Battlefield 3 and many were thinking of taking a break when Star Wars the Old Republic came out. I want to be around players focused on WoW during raid times.

Activity in each: I am an extremely active player, in all three I was on everyday for 8+ hours, and was willing to do anything for them, including farming mats for feasts and cauldrons come raid time. I did not miss a single raid with any of them and always pushed to perform 100% while in those raids. I was only in <V A N Q U I S H> for about a week and that was simply because my experience with them was not enjoyable, it was clear that their raiders interest in WoW had diminished, much like it did in wotlk when they all took a break to play other games after killing the Lich King on normal.

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

Vanilla: Was not playing yet.

TBC: Began to dip my feet into raiding, (Cleared a bit of Kara)

wotlk:
Naxxramas- Cleared
totc- Cleared
Ulduar- 12/14 while it was relevant
Ruby Sanctum- Cleared
ICC- 11/12 HM

Cataclysm:
During tier 11 I decided to take a break to PvP, the guild I was in at the time was incompetent, meaning no one had any drive to succeed in raids and kill bosses on hardmode, I took a break after I was 1/13 HM, I then went back once I joined Meridian and killed Council, Cho'gal, and Sinestra on hardmode (after Firelands came out), so its not like I couldn't have when it was relevant content. I have no plan to ever take a break again, raiding is my passion.
Firelands: 6/7 HM on farm for a long time now, I have gotten Heroic Rag down to 15% in phase 4 on 25 man, unfortunately no kill yet.

- Any special Achievements / Titles / Mounts you have earned in PvE you would like us to know about?
Glory of the Icecrown Raider
Glory of the Ulduar Raider

Although I may not have many great achievements to offer, I have never had the core group next to me capable of achieving those prestigious awards until recently.

- Link to WWS / WMO logs of recent raid(s) you have attended.
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/spkuxul...xlv/details/12/
Note: two deaths on that log were to Firestorm, it was not because I failed to LoS... it was because we were wiping so I stood in that and brushfire to die quickly so a mage could invis then mass ress. I don't want you thinking I stand in fire.

- Provide a Quick Summary of your "Valuable" Stats (Healing, Attack Power, etc.) as you understand them for your class.
Protection: Mastery > Parry/Dodge > Stamina, Mastery is currently the strongest stat for paladin tanks, it increases the chance to block and that is stronger than the chance to dodge or parry at the moment for shield tanks. Dodge and parry are very equal to one another for paladins, so I have chosen to keep both within 1% of each other. However as I understand from MMO blue posts, within the changes in 5.0, tanks will be focusing on hit and expertise, but I will worry about that when the time comes.

Retribution: Strength > Mastery > Haste, that is the stat order I follow while I dps and as most of the research I have done proves, it is the same stat priority that ret paladin's are supposed to be using.

- Which major and prime glyphs do you currently use? Explain your choices
Glyphs: As protection I am constantly swapping glyphs depending on the fight, The ones that stay in are: Glyph of Shield of the Righteous, Glyph of Seal of Truth, Glyph of Ascetic Crusader, and Glyph of Lay on Hands.
The glyphs that I often swap are: Glyph of Focused Shield, Glyph of Judgement, Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous and Glyph of Holy Wrath, with the occasional Glyph of Divine Protection but not often.
I use glyph of Judgement and Focused Shield on single target fights where hitting one target is more important that hitting multiple, examples being Baleroc, Beth'tilac and Shannox. I use glyph of hammer of the Righteous and glyph of holy wrath when the fight depends more on multi-taget damage. An example of when I use these glyphs is Lord Rhyollith.

- Do you have dualspec, and is your offspec something you could viably play in raids?
Absolutely, I have played Protection, Retribution and Holy since I began playing WoW and would be more than happy to swap my mainspec to meet guild needs, whether it be for a few months or just for a single boss one night. I do keep three updated sets (one for each spec) while raiding.

- 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 prefer to play Protection, however I have played holy and ret as well since I began playing and would be 100% fine with switching my spec in order to help the guild meet certain requirements. During ICC progression I was swapping almost every night to help meet guild needs.

- How do you feel about sitting out for any given encounter if we do not need you? It will happen.
I am fine with sitting, it is not something I am used to but would absolutely be fine with sitting to make a boss go down even quicker with another class or spec in my place. Even if you feel more comfortable with another tank (like your current protection paladin who wants to play Ret in 4.3) I will happily sit.

- 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)?
Hell Yes! I LOVE progression, and will spend as much time and money as it takes to kill a boss, even if it is farm content. I am extremely focused during raids and will never give up until every boss in an instance is dead.

- What is your reason for applying? What makes us more appealing that any one of the thousands of other raiding guilds out there?
Your raiding times work great for me, you are in need of a protection paladin, you have a strong core group and a very strong raiding background. I consider myself a hardcore raider and have been in many raiding guilds, but none with raiders as focused as I am and I know you guys are.

- Who, if anyone, will vouch for your abilities in WWA?
Unfortunately I do not know anyone in WWA.

- Post a screenshot of your UI.(If you are having trouble, use the free image hosting resources of http://imageshack.us)
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2n1zjm&s=7
Note: I do way more than 8.2k dps in raids (what it shows on my recount in the pic)... I could not even hit the boss when the other tank taunted or I would pull threat back.
Keybinds:
1-5,Q,E,R,T (attacks and Stuns)
F,G (Taunts)
Z= Rebuke
Shift+1-5= Primary Defensive CD's
Shift+ Q,W= Trinkets
Shift+ E= Divine Guardian (Raid Wall)
Shift Z,X,R= Avenging Wrath, Divine Plea, Strength Pot
Alt+ 1-5= Heals (only use holy radiance while in raids)
Alt+ Q= Inquisition
Shift+Spacebar= Lay on Hands
Alt + X,C= Divine Shield, Hand of Protection
6-9= Turn Evil, Hand of Freedon, Hand of Salvation and Hand of Sacrifice

- 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 am always looking to improve my play in any way that I can, and being in a hardcore guild will push me to be the best. I am looking to be a part of a very strong core group of raiders who can push through progression quickly and not have raiders die to stupid shit time and time again. To put it simply, I want to be the best while raiding with the best.
I have taken on the role of main tank since I began hardcore raiding in the beginning of wotlk, I am very comfortable with calling things out and making smart decisions on the fly. Being a tank is much more than just holding threat and getting smacked in the face. I take pride in knowing my class, maximizing my survivability and timing my defensive and offensive CD's correctly. I am extremely dedicated to WoW and raiding, I will do what ever it takes to progress quickly and I NEVER miss raids. I also just got the year long commitment for 5.0 beta (as I am sure many others did), so I would be with you guys for the long run as long as everything works out.

If I forgot anything in my application please let me know, it was not on purpose!

[Stommped]

Killmour just got hard

[Shogunit]

Stommped I love your comment photo, Snutz crying... I watched that while it was live.

[Hozz]

An officer in VQ said that you were kicked in the middle of your first raid because you were so bad. Care to elaborate on what he said?

edit:
Apparently you were kicked at the end of your first raid. my bad

edit2:
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-fgj6...&boss=52409

[Shogunit]

I would be happy to elaborate.
The first night raiding with them we blew though 6/7 HM obviously, then moved onto heroic rag, which was the first night I had really gotten solid attempts on him. What had happened was during P2, one of the sets of seeds spawned and we would move as a group, obviously on your screen you appear further ahead than everyone else, an officer called out for everyone to move together since some people were leaving late, i took that as I was to far ahead so I dropped back a bit, so when on my screen I was with the group, as with all others, you are actually behind the group so I ended up dieing to seeds because i listened to that officer who was evidently not speaking to me when he said stay together. Later on (a few attempts later) the GM/Raid leader was complaining that the dps was not killing adds quick enough after seeds exploded so when the off tank taunted off I would drop back to help out a bit, I dropped a bit to far back and had to dodge waves at a diagonal angle, evidently I was to close at that angle and got clipped, honest mistake, didnt happen again because i never went out of position again. In phase 4, when I moved out to Root rag during Empowered sulfuras a dps decided he would wait until a meteor was right in front of the raid then knock it back into me, not my fault. Those were the mistakes on my first night of heroic rag, i learned me lesson and came back the second night with that knowledge knowing exactly how to survive.

Second night, yes i was not kicked after one night... on the first attempt I died to rags melee damage, in which for the last seven seconds before I died all I got was 1 lifebloom from a resto druid and a few beacon of light heals from one of the holy paladins. I did not take any other damage other than melee swings and an explosion from Firetrap, I died with Guardian of the Ancient Kings up. (50% reduced damage taken) The GM then accused me of being "Squishy", so I reasonably accepted to sit out and when i tried to explain to him how i got almost 0 heals before death he chose to kick me, this was after raid when he said he would be willing to talk to me about it.

The mistakes I made were simply being new to the fight on HM, I had 3 stupid deaths, one of which was because a dps nailed me with a meteor instead of kiting it. I learned from each occurrence and assured the GM after the first night they would not happen again, which I fully planned on backing up, but he never gave me a chance. I highly doubt anyone can say they made 0 mistakes the first night that they did Heroic Rag. Unfortunately my first night was with people who had been doing it for a couple weeks. I am not the type of raider who dies to anything more than once (that is avoidable), I fix my mistakes.

What I said in my app was true, I was planning on leaving Vanquish anyways because all the raiders talked about was Battlefield 3 and what they were going to play once Star Wars released.

[Shogunit]

I assure you, I will not make these same mistakes in my next guild. I have seen the fight first hand and know what not to do, when to move and how to counter other raiders mistakes. I take my experience that first night not as a set back but as great development as a raider in the toughest fight to date.

edit: I was not the only one making a few mistakes. Nor was I the only one who died to seeds, and it was my first night on the fight, i got comfortable with all of the timers and abilities during the fight, but not quite fast enough I suppose. I am making sure the same will not happen in 4.3 by carefully studying MMO's boss layouts and PTR videos.

V A N Q U I S H was the first guild I have ever been kicked out of and had a bad experience with in raid, they caught me on an off night i guess, although I find it hard to call it an off night when it was new content, it does not make me "So Bad", things just did not work out and they did not want to give me a chance to make up for my mistakes, it is their loss to be honest. There are plenty of people I raided with for a long time who would vouge for me as a raider, especially during progression. Hopefully this one speed bump in my raiding background does not give you a negative image of the kind of person/raider I am.

[Donatist]

As Hozz pointed out, you already lied/were dishonest in your application. One of the things that is crucial to a progression guild is being able to admit to your mistakes without having to go through all the logs to call you out. Obviously, to get to the truth Hozz had to find out the hard way.

[zaratul]

Your UI is fucking atrocious, how do you manage to see anything outside the center of your screen?

[Shogunit]

I have customized my UI to meet all needs in raid, tracking CD's and being able to time them around one another is important to me as a tank, I have not found that my UI hinders my view on any given fight. I prefer to be able to see everything around my character rather then having to constantly look down at my bars.

[Shogunit]

As Hozz pointed out, you already lied/were dishonest in your application. One of the things that is crucial to a progression guild is being able to admit to your mistakes without having to go through all the logs to call you out. Obviously, to get to the truth Hozz had to find out the hard way.

The application is the first impression the guild has of the raider, I would rather leave out the night that ended atrociously. Would it have really helped my chances to say I raided with VQ once, tried a few things on a fight I did not have experience on, made some mistakes and got G kicked because I told the GM that it was actually the healers fault on the second night? If so I apologize, I do not want to make a bad first impression, and certainly leaving out this one hiccup in my background came back to get me. To be honest I should not even mentioned I was in VQ, I had great experiences in every other guild that I raided with. Of course if you go talk to someone in that guild they will shit on me, I had one off boss and it happened to be the only time they saw me play (other than the six other bosses).

The few mistakes that I did make occurred within the first few attempts on Heroic Rag, I made no mistakes after that, once I became comfortable with what needed to be done I was moving smoothly, unfortunately all everyone else remembers were the few attempts that I did make a mistake on.

[Killmour]

Obviously I'm eager to find someone to fill a tanking spot. I don't like that you lied about Vanquish, however I can maybe look past that since they are a bunch of morons.

The real crux of the issue is this: Last tier we took a chance with a recruit tank and it bit us in the ass. I ended up having to take over and we got lucky and recruited another tank. So right now we have 2 very qualified tanks.

I would obviously like to move out of that role, but I can't do that unless the person who is going to replace me is not going to end up holding us back.

If we give you a shot, you won't have as short of a leash as you did in Vanquish. You will know when you make a mistake though. We are absolutely ruthless when it comes to letting people know what they are doing is incorrect.

Sark will have to toss his say on this, but remember if we trial you and you choose to transfer and not play well, it is your own money lost.

[Shogunit]

I do not plan on wasting another 25 bucks like I did with VQ, if given a shot, you will not be disappointed. When I looked through your raiding background it was clear that you do have tanks who can do their job well and I would not want to hold you back in any way, shape or form, nor do I plan on holding you back, I would not have applied if I felt like I could not step into the shoes of your current tanks and perform at the same level.

[Killmour]

I'll poke Sark and he will give you a final answer.

[Hozz]

So you've explained how you were hit by one meteor, but what about the other two? This goes hand in hand with what Donatist said about being able to admit mistakes. We have enough people in our raid who struggle to do so as it is, I don't think we're looking to add another one, especially in a role of such importance.
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-fgj6...2Shogunit%22%29

You also take a ridiculous amount of Engulfing Flames damage.

You also lied about being brought back for a second raid.
http://www.worldoflogs.com/guilds/101948/character/

[The Palioh]

Palioh seal of disapproval.

[Zorrgon]

[Shogunit]

So you've explained how you were hit by one meteor, but what about the other two? This goes hand in hand with what Donatist said about being able to admit mistakes. We have enough people in our raid who struggle to do so as it is, I don't think we're looking to add another one, especially in a role of such importance.
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-fgj6...2Shogunit%22%29

You also take a ridiculous amount of Engulfing Flames damage.

You also lied about being brought back for a second raid.
http://www.worldoflogs.com/guilds/101948/character/

I did not lie about being brought back for a second raid, I will look up the log for you. I was in for one attempt the night after, I am not 100% sure if someone had logs running at the time but I 100% promise you that I was in for another night (one attempt only).

The other two meteors were not me running into them, they were wipes when dps were not paying attention to who the meteor was fixating on and it blew everyone up inside the breath of frost. It was not me who made the mistake on either of the other ones.

As far as the engulfing flame goes, I did take a few ticks throughout the night when it was in melee position because I had forgotten that Blizzard increased the melee range on heroic Rag so I was hugging the edges a lot of the time.

I did not lie or neglect to tell you about any of things that you mentioned in the quote above. I WAS brought in for a second night, the other two meteors were dps neglecting to knock back or kite and they blew us all up.

Edit: I looked at the logs and the second night that week they have four recorded attempts to kill Heroic Rag, however it took them at least nine or ten attempts to kill it, so there are several attempts not recorded. I specifically remember during the four hours on that boss the second night, they killed it after about three and a half hours, way more than four attempts.

[Shogunit]

http://www.wowprogress.com/character/us/executus/Shogunit

On my wowprogress link (above) you can see I "left" (was kicked) on November 3rd, the first night I raided with them was November first, the second night was November second and then I was kicked around 1AM on November 3rd (after November 2nd's raid). As I said, I was in for the first attempt on November second, however no one had logs recording at the time unfortunately.

The reason I was kicked was not because I made a few mistakes on Rag on November first, it was because when I was sat after the first attempt on the second night I told the GM that I did not receive much heals during that one attempt after raid, he was extremely defensive of his healers, and decided to kick me. I did not take damage from anything other than Rag melee, and magma trap's explosion. The GM seemed to have zero interest in hearing what I had to say about only receiving beacon heals and a single stack of lifebloom. Hopefully that clears things up a bit.

[Hozz]

The story that I have been told by a reliable source is that after your first raid, you were kicked. Sometimes WoWProgress takes its sweet time to update those types of things. After being kicked, you made a post on the forums basically begging to be reinvited. You then deleted that post. Said post can be found here:
http://www.vqguild.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3025

You're just too big of a risk, in my opinion. There's a chance that you could be good, but there's a much larger chance that you won't be.

[Shogunit]

I mean this with the most respect possible, your source is incorrect. I was not kicked after the first night, and yes I did make a post on the forums, not begging but explaining that I had just spent 25 dollars to come to the guild and was already kicked out of the guild, I wanted the chance to prove myself after the few mistakes I had made the first night. I made the post on my forums because the GM put me on ignore immediately after kicking me. I am sure the source has been reliable in the past, but I am telling you the truth, I was there for one attempt the second night. I wish there was some way for me to prove it to you.

I deleted it because after a few hours I decided I had no interest in another chance for the exact reasons I posted on my application. I had a bad experience with that specific group of people, and I really don't want it to keep me from a chance with you guys or anyone else for that matter.

I have experience as an officer, and a raid leader, I was both of those things during wotlk, in particularly ICC progression. I carry myself maturely in every aspect of the game and I have never had a bad experience with any guilds other than VQ.

Out of curiosity, is your source "Todes"?