Player information:
- Age & Location: 34 - Wisconsin
- Number of Testicles: 2
- Do you use a blizzard authenticator? If not, why? Yes.
- How long have you played WoW: Since classic beta.
- Endgame experience (What bosses have you killed): In this tier, I've gone 9/13 mythic as of last week.
Character Information:
- Name, & Class: Katokal - Mage
- Link to Battle.net Armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/malganis/Katokal/advanced
- Race & why you chose it:
I chose to be a Blood Elf back in MoP for the extra crit (as fire was so great in SoO), as well as the AoE silence for challenge modes last season. However, I am willing to switch it to Troll as that is better overall for PvE dps. Just haven't had a need to do it thus far due to the lack of motivation of my current raid group to actually try to push any content.
- Professions and why you choose them:
Tailoring and Engineering. For WoD, it doesn't really matter too much if you're not pushing realm-best times for challenge modes. I simply chose these for little helpful things for achievements, mounts, and pets. In Legion, dependent on what becomes finalized for professions, they should be changed accordingly.
- Spec, Dual spec. How often do you play other specs?
My current two specs are arcane and frost, I swap to frost generally for Mannoroth, Mannoroth, and of course for PvP.
- Explain your choice of gear for main & offspecs (include stat priorities and breakpoints):
For my arcane spec, my gear is setup to be sitting around 1900 haste unbuffed before raid, and the remainder is optimized toward mastery. With best-in-slot gear, you can stay around 1300 or 1800-1900 haste and focus primarily on mastery. This entirely depends on which breakpoint you want to hit with raid buffs. Priorities for stats accordingly: Int/SP > Haste (to breakpoint of your choosing) > Mastery = Multi (barely off from each other) > Crit > Vers.
For frost, I haven't gotten enough gear to set up a separate gear profile that would be somewhat respectable, but I do well with what I have. If I were to actually allowed the opportunity to acquire better gear for it, I would set my priorities as follows: Int/SP > Multi >= Crit (to 33% if you've got a hard on for 100% from shatter passive) > Haste > Vers > Mastery.
- Explain your normal rotation and spell/ability priorities:
Preface - Rotation generally depends on what talents/trinkets you're using this tier as a mage.
Generally, you want to get four stacks of Arcane Charge, drop your Prismatic Crystal if you're using it, then "burn" into the crystal until you need to evocate back to 93% mana (usually around 50-55% before hitting Evocation). Then you've hit the conserve phase, where you want to try not to go below 90-93% mana (depending on your haste breakpoint) while casting Arcane Blast. You dump Arcane Missiles to try and keep your 2pc/4pc procs up for maximum damage. However, the use of Arcane Misses though can held until you're around 90-93% mana to keep your four stack of Arcane Charge and still be able to get another 1 or 2 casts of Arcane Blast in when you're done casting Arcane Missiles to bring yourself back down to 90-93% mana before using Arcane Barrage. The basic priority is to keep yourself between 90-100% mana during this "conserve" phase, while prioritizing Arcane Blast, and using Arcane Missiles to keep your procs up if possible, Arcane Barraging to clear your stacks before going below 90-93% mana. Some of this is also dependent on movement and particular abilities that will be happening in whatever encounter you're facing. You would tailor this general approach as necessary for optimal DPS.
For arcane talents I primarily choose whatever is best for the encounter, dependent on the raid strategies employed. Generally this only entails me changing the tier 15 talent from Ice Floes to Evanesce (for Cavitation on Fel Lord), and then changing Tier 75, 90, and 100 talents accordingly. This is all with the idea of maximizing DPS with primarily the Tier 90 talent (Unstable Magic or Supernova [very minimally used with better gear due to proc chances on trinkets from Unstable Magic being better with better gear]); and Tier 100 talents being swapped from Prismatic Crystal and Arcane Orb, again dependent on where the focus of DPS needs to be for burst damage, or for particular strategies.
- Prior guild(s) & your reasons for leaving:
Going back to Vanilla days, raided with High Caliber, server first for Onyxia, Ragnaros, Nefarian, and C'thun. High Caliber decided to take a break and I ended up rerolling Alliance Mage to raid with top alliance guild on the server (Forceful Entry was the name) for Naxxramas. After that, I left to play with some real life friends on a different server for SSC, TK, Gruul, Magtheridon, getting server first end boss kills for each of those raids. Then for Sunwell, we ended up with server first M'uru pre-nerf kill (ultimately soul-crushing), and server first Kil'jaeden. Moving into Wrath, I played with a few friends on Mal'ganis for the re-vamped Naxxramas which ultimately ended before Ulduar. At that time, I apped to Aurora (pre-Vigil / Death and Taxes merger) on Mal'ganis. I raided with Aurora/Vigil for a while during Wrath from Ulduar on. My time ended with them prematurely due to real-life issues that came up and forced me to stop playing WoW for a while. I ended up leaving Vigil in May 2010, taking another break for a bit, then coming back to play in December, joining zZq for three years in early 2011. They were a very progressed 25m when I joined, later they transitioned to a 10m group that raided 3 nights a week for a few hours. I ended up leaving them because of attendance issues with filling raids, and wasting lockouts as a result. After that, I joined Vintage (who have since disbanded or moved on to other guilds) 20/25M guild who raided 3 times a week as well for a few hours, for 10 months of the Siege of Orgrimmar grindfest. In this tier, I have raided with a group of friends from Mal'ganis very casually. They don't take much of any of this seriously, and have not killed Archimonde heroic as a group yet. I have had to pug a lot to get the gear I have, and make some headway on the overall progress I want for my character before Legion. That being said, I dislike not raiding mythics for the best rewards, and that is primarily why I want to leave my current guild for a better raiding environment.
Other Information:
- A Screenshot of your character's UI (THIS NEEDS TO BE A SS IN A RAID):
http://i.imgur.com/TtuDyPD.jpg Not posting the full image here as to not bloat the screen, but this is from a pug in late December for Heroic Archimonde.
- Logs from warcraftlogs or worldoflogs:
This link is from <Serious Casual> on Mal'ganis, the primary group I've raided with for BRF and HFC. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/guilds/272/
This next link is for the guild I trialed with for the week of Dec 27 through Jan 2, for my 9/13 mythic progress.
Unfortunately, they seem to have only recorded the second night, which has me on fights for Socrethar, Fel Lord, and Gorefiend for Mythic kills. I was not a part of the heroic kills for those logs. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/DLJFQnZ8cC1bT6AV#fight=1
- Why Simple Math? How did you find us? Is there anyone you know in Simple Math?
I found you guys from a friend and knew of you from Wowprogress lurking. Also, I have a tendency to use the phrase: "... it's just simple math..." at work some days.
- What kind of computer do you use? CPU/Memory/Video Card? Typical FPS during a 25-man raid?
Running an i7 4790k slightly OC'd to 4.4GHz, 16gigs or DDR3 G.Skill PC3-10700 (2400MHz), MSi GeForce GTX 980 OC. Typical FPS is over 100. (in before missed opportunity to say "over 9000.")
- Run an internet speed test against New York at speedtest.net and pingtest.net. Link the results below.
Speedtest - http://i.imgur.com/jn9rLE6.jpg
Pingtest - http://i.imgur.com/wlHd3pu.jpg
- Finally, we ask that you draw us a picture using MS Paint (Windows) or Paintbrush (OSX). Link it below.
Kappa - Kind of looks like Bob Hope in his younger years, end result? I suck at paint.
http://i.imgur.com/sLljZ5d.jpg
- Closing Remarks
I just want to say thanks to Storm for taking some time with me late last night to talk about your guild, recruitment, and setting the right foot forward for making this application. Also, thank you for taking the time to read this as I'm sure a lot of it is TL;DR for most people. Regardless, I appreciate the time, and hope you all are having a good day when you read this.