How to get into the guild you want

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If you follow this post in detail, ad nauseum, to the "T," I 'guarantee' you'll get into the guild of your dreams!
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There have been plenty of posts out there in the blogosphere about how to get into a guild. I've even blogged about it before myself. Why am I posting on this topic?

Because I want to!

I was recently thinking about how happy I am with my current guild and how 'lucky' I was to get into it.
Luck had little to do with it.
If you want to get into a good guild, it's going to take some work.
But I can tell you that once I've decided I want in, I'm Getting In, Dammit!

So, take a seat because this post is going to get pretty long.

STEP ONE:
Decide what you are looking for in a guild.
Before putting in the time to create your application, you've got some homework to do first.
So, list what you want from a guild, and prioritize.

Here's what my 'wish list' looked like - roughly in order - of what I wanted:
-Raids after 8:30 pm PST
-Raids no more than 3 nights a week (preferably two)
-Progresses reasonably well. In my case my criteria at the time was that they were clearing Firelands normal and started on Heroic Modes (I'd never even seen FL).
-25-man raiding
-Guild values maturity. I personally can't stand guilds full of /general channel trolls, rascist/sexist jerks, or run around saying how awesome they are and everyone else on the server sucks.
-Needs a dps DK
-Alliance

The latter two weren't dealbreakers for me, but it definitely helps your chances if they need the class/spec you have to offer, and it helps your wallet/rp values to stay the faction you started with. I ended up with all of the above except staying Alliance. I nearly caved and applied to some 10-man guilds but was able to find a 25-man guild that met my needs and happily was accepted there.

So, you need to know what you're looking for before beginning your search. Do try to keep some realism in play here - if you've never raided hardcore, apping to the World #1 guild is probably an extreme longshot. Otherwise, the sky is the limit.

STEP TWO:
Decide what guild(s) you want to apply to.
This may sound easy, but it's not.
Spend some time on the internet researching guilds that meet your criteria. If one of your values was staying on the same server, you may look in /general, /trade, or /guild recruitment channels in game.
Otherwise, you'll be looking at the official wow guild recruitment forums. Literally thousands of guilds post their interest there, so it's a wealth of potential guilds. I look for threads that suggest what Iooking for: "Late Night PST guild" is a decent start. "Late Night (pst) guild LF DK for HM progression, 2/8" is better, but feel free to look at every thread on the offchance they may be what you want. You can create a brief thread of your own, but I prefer not to do so. Still, guild recruiters do sometimes respond to those and I've even found a few possibles myself looking at responses to player posts.
Other places to look for guilds: Elitist Jerks has recruitment forums and the guilds that usually post there are typically fairly well-established, progression-minded groups. On the other hand, not nearly as many guilds post there. Still, it's worth a look. Looking For Guild I believe still has some current guild postings, or you could try Wow Lemmings. You can certainly Google the main things you're looking for and sometimes hit on recruitment forums or even specific guild forums directly.
Done?
Not even.
Build a list of guilds you're interested in. It should be several - if not 10 or more - guilds long. I actually create a folder in my browser and put the links to all of them there. Go to their forums. Read their 'before you apply' and 'about this guild' posts. You want to know what they're about. If they're what you're looking for. And of course, if you're what they're looking for as well.
Done now?
Nope.
Next,  I read their application form and start thinking about how I might fill it out, but before I do, I look to see what previous applicants have written and more importantly, what responses they've received. A few guilds have fully private apps which sucks. Otherwise though, it can be very telling which applications were well-received and which ones were declined. Study that, and learn from your predecessors' successes and failures.
Find a few that get you excited? Great!
Let's get started Finally!
One caveat: I recommend that you apply to one guild at a time. If you're too impatient, you may choose to apply to multiple guilds, but it's generally a good idea to let them know you're also apping elsewhere (Good Form, Peter - but also if they find out and you haven't told them they probably won't be pleased).

STEP THREE:
Writing your application.
  A: Obtain the guild's required form
Some guilds have an online fill-in-the-blanks form (guildomatic, etc), some will have very specific questions, and some simply say: "convince us to accept you." Read their instructions carefully. I can't tell you how many rejected applications I've seen that were simply due to ignored instructions. If they tell you to include a WOL parse (World of Logs), then include one! If you can't, at least explain why you can't - DON'T ignore it.
  B. Fill out the application in detail.
Answer EVERY QUESTION. I even like to answer questions they don't ask - as you'll see on my most recent successful app below. I've never seen an app rejected simply because it was too long.
  C. DO
Be polite, check your work (I write my apps in Word so I can edit and spellcheck first before I paste into their forums), research your answers, use humor carefully, sound confident yet humble :), get fancy with colors, demonstrate your knowledge of your class, be honest, be earnest.
  D. DON'T
Be a jerk or arrogant, say you'll 'pwn' their meters if accepted, use leetspeak, use poor grammar, leave questions blank, Write ONE LONG PARAGRAPH, show your lack of class/spec knowledge, try to hide a spotty gear/spec setup, try to hide a past of guild-hopping or trolling forums/chat, give one-word answers, be dishonest, or expect that saying you 'were a hardcore raider in BC' will earn you anything. This list could go on and on.

At this point, let me offer a few examples of poor applications. I'm stealing all of these from fairly well-known and successful guild's site(s) (not my own) and obscuring only identifying information. Since this information is in the public domain, I have no problems stealing it.


"Hello,



I was a hardcore raider back in BC and WotLK. Between the time of Ulduar and Trial of the Crusader our guild lost raiding motivation. I played casually into Cataclysm but never raided anything. I took a break from WoW to get my life on track. Now I feel confident that I can balance college, work, and WoW.
Link to armory page: XXXXXXXXXXXXX
I am able to play Arms, and Tank. Both my sets are geared for DS. I am currently learning to master the fury-titans grip spec.
I am seeking a guild that is laid back but fun to get along with. I think having fun while raiding is very important. I am seeking a guild that understands what a life is and that it comes first over everything. I am currently on the Bloodhoof server, but I am willing and able to transfer.
Thank you for your time."
 
That's the whole application. All of it. It does not tell you anything about how the person is as a raider, nor does it tell you much about the person except to suggest that he/she is lazy.
 
 
1) What class do you play?
Surv Hunter
 
Response: "With our current roster there is zero chance of bringing in a hunter. Sorry."


Problem here? Their app was ok, but they proceeded to apply despite no vacancy in the guild recruitment post. Some guilds will post that they are always willing to accept exceptional applicants, but in practice, if they're full of a spec, it's very difficult to get in despite that. Not impossible, just very difficult. Your best bet at that point is to either: 1) get a current guild member to vouch for you, 2) accept a friends/family invite and hope to get a benchwarmer spot, 3) Have a truly stellar app, or 4) all of the above


1) What class do you play?

Holy Pally
(snip for demonstration purposes)
12) Are there any members that can vouch for you?

IDK nvr looked


Response 1: "3 unenchanted items. 3 Int/Crit gems. 2 Int/Mastery gems but you are reforging away from mastery. Power Torrent instead of Heartsong. Yellow gem in a red socket. Ember meta instead of Burning. Purple gem in a prismatic socket, and another bad yellow gem in another prismatic socket. 2 points in Blessed life. Only 2 Morchok normal kills, while we are working on heroic DS.

I would suggest reading http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3657280029 before trying to app to another guild.
App declined due to inexperience and gems/enchants/spec."

App response: "lol...gems and chants can be fixed in 2 mins...as for some of what you said....IF U READ WHAT U TOLD ME TO READ...playstyle really ....what works for u ,don't work for everyone. yes 3 items unchanted that i can fix EVERYTHING else...is a arguement of playstyle. as far what i have done and not that i can not fix so easily....thank u for your time and best wishes....try a positive approach u will get farther.. i'm a good healer and a quick study. but,huh better luck next time lol"



Response 2: ""What works for you won't work for everyone"
This is true, however if you want to stick to a certain playstyle you should be consistent about it. What you did isn't a certain playstyle, it is arbitrarily picking whatever gem suits your fancy, or whatever reforge. You didn't put time into your toon, to optimize or to learn how to be the best you can be. I don't have to be nice when you don't put any effort in."


Problem(s) here? Application was very brief, and demonstrated lack of effort (IDK if there are any members he knows). The officer reviewed the links the applicant did provide and commented on his poor gemming/reforging. The applicant was defensive and critical. When a guild provides feedback, feel free to defend yourself gently and with supporting evidence, but don't ever tell them they're wrong.
Most Importantly, Your application must prove you are a good player. DO research your class even before you apply (I didn't mention this earlier, because you should do it before you even look for a guild). Make sure you have the right enchants/gems/reforges, that your spec is 'right' given your role, etc.
If you're using heartsong on a crappy weapon, respond that you were saving for getting a better weapon before using power torrent, but you WILL put power torrent on that weapon if desired by the guild. When the guild reviews your armory, you want them to nod and say that you clearly know what you're doing. When they look at your WOL parses (provided you have them) you want them to be happy with what you see. If you don't know these things, take the time to research them on Elitist Jerks, any other applicable sites, and ask friends/guildies about them before trying to get into a new guild.

Ok, what about a reasonably good app? Well, here I'll link mine because it got me into my current guild despite severe gear and experience gaps. You CAN get into your guild of choice, but having excellent gear with the correct setup and spec will help tremendously. It's definitely TLDR: but I'll comment on the app at the bottom if you don't want to read it and just skim down:



Casual Corps App



Name: Hinenuitepo


Level: 85


Class: DK


Race: Worgen

Please take the time to answer these questions in detail. This is your opportunity to sell us on you. Generally answers should not simply be "Yes" or "No".


1. Provide a link to the Armory profile for your character. Since the armory can be unreliable, please also link both the talent spec you'd raid with and your current dual spec. PLEASE STAY LOGGED OUT IN YOUR MAIN SPEC AND RAID GEAR. Caveat #1: I am coming back from a 7-month ‘retirement’ from Wow, so my gear and character don’t look at that great at first blush. Yeah, I know. >.> Obviously, I’m apping for a server transfer, and would (for the first time ever) faction transfer as well if accepted. http://xxxxx/. Unholy main spec: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#xxxx, Blood Lichborne offspec: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#xxxx. Of course, right now Frost DW is fotm and while I prefer unholy I’m willing to give frost a shot.


2. Do you have any other characters you play regularly? If, so please list them (Name, Class, Guild, and Armory Link). If you don't disclose them here, we'll assume you're hiding something. Hinetitama, Shaman, unaffiliated http://us.hinetitama/; when I feel like healing a bit I hop on her. My only other 85 at the moment, as I quit playing not long after Cataclysm came out. In the past, I’ve played a number of other chars. Level 80s: Hirohubris (rogue), Hinemanu (hunter), Annunakis (DK). I have several other 60+ alts but not sure if I’d be playing them much at this point.


3. What time zone are you in? Are you available during our primary raid time? (8:50pm-12am server time, Wednesday and Sunday.) Will running late be a problem for you? How much are you likely to play outside of our primary 25-man raid times? I live in XXXXXX(PST). Your raid times are ideal as I play after the fam is tucked in. It’s conceivable I might be late very occasionally, although it should be very rare. In considering returning to Wow, I made a decision to make every effort to limit my outside of raid times. Short answer: only as much as is required to keep my consumables stocked and any initial rep grinds/point runs needed to prepare for raids. Permit me a short digression here. I’ve been playing Wow since Jan 2007. I was introduced to the game while (snip for excessive personal content) I pushed my DK as far as I could, regularly putting out first-page WOL parses and even starting a DK-centric blog (http://dkdeathgoddess.blogspot.com). I earned my first legendary – Shadowmourne - and had a lot of fun, but eventually the 4 late nights a week coupled with still playing 25-plus hours a week took a toll and a couple months into Cata I decided it was time to move on. Familiar story, right? After my 7 months off I’m still finding I miss the game and reactivated my account. There is no question I can perform at a very high level. I love to theorycraft, I study all the fights, and generally do whatever it takes to min-max my role as a raider. The question is, can I balance RL demands with raiding? Casual Corps looks like the perfect fit for me. Raiding – with what sounds like a mature, focused group – two nights a week = perfection. I’ll still log on enough to be raid-ready each night, but otherwise don’t plan to spend a whole lot of time online. If CC wants a raider who will come in, do whatever it takes to complete an encounter, but doesn’t expect him to be online all the time, I think we’d be a great match.


4. Please list your recent guilds and your reason for leaving them. Please include all of the guilds you've been a member of during this expansion. I was in Insomnia of Baelgun for most of LK and early Cata. I left the game because of burn out and too many hours required. Insomnia has apparently dropped to a 10-man guild with a 4-day schedule still, so I don’t intend to go back to them, although we’re still on friendly terms and I’m sure they’d take me back if I were willing.


5. What in-game activities do you partake in regularly (Raiding, PVP, Farming, Annoying people, Collecting Twill…) and what do you hope to find in Casual Corps to support these interests? Raiding is why I play the game. Additionally, I farm and play the AH. I NEVER grief or waste my time in /general and find the immaturity of most /general communities annoying and simply a waste of time. In the past I’ve levelled alts or done pvp, which I do enjoy but don’t anticipate doing as much in my return. As mentioned above, CC appears to be a focused raid group; perfect!


6. Do you have a functional microphone for use with Ventrilo, and are you able to use it quickly during combat as required? Yes


7. How much latency do you normally play with? What FPS? Do you crash or disconnect during raids? Around 100ms, about 30-50 fps, but never have problems with aoe-heavy fights. I almost never crash or d/c, but if I do, it’s thanks to our friends at Comcast. As I submit this, I’ll be creating a couple level 1 alts to see how I do with your server and to hold my name(s) for me.


8. Do you have any previous experience with members of Casual Corps? How did you find out about us? None: I’d be transferring if accepted. I saw your post in EJ’s /LFG. I had three criteria in looking for a guild: 1) competent raiders, 2) compatible raid times/lower hours total raiding (w/ decent progression), 3) mature individuals who aren’t continually posting that they ‘roll deep.’ It appears that CC is an ideal match from what I can see.


9. What Add-ons do you use while raiding? What raid frames do you use? Do you use an add-on for debuff monitoring, etc? This is your chance to explain how you utilize your UI elements to be an effective raider. Please provide a screenshot of your UI in-combat during a raid. I use DBM, Power Auras, DKI Runes, Omen, Recount, Tiny Melee Stats, IceHud, Grid, OneBag, SpartanUI, and a few others that don’t do much during raids. As far as debuffs applicable to DKs, Grid can be configured to do what I need. Essentially, I try to find the balance between keeping the screen as free of clutter as possible so I can see the fire to avoid, but enough information to ensure I do the best job I can. IceHud, for example, puts my health in big bold colors so I can see when I need to not tunnel-vision on dps and take care of myself. TMS tells me when to use my cooldowns optimally (when procs will optimally buff my gargie), Grid lets me brez if needed, general raid awareness, and debuffs, etc. I’m no purist – addons are ftw. I’m always open to new/improved addons that will help me do my job(s) better. Meh, here’s what I was able to dig up in terms of old screenies: http://imageshack...jpg/ & http://imageshack.jpg & http://imageshack..jpg and here’s a couple of ones since my return. I haven’t been in any raids yet but will get them to you if you want them and I can get in any (I was in BWD a week or so after Cata release downing bosses in my heroic blues, but two groups last night wouldn’t take me since my gear is sub-360).


10. Please give a brief description of your main spec gear (list the unbuffed stats pertinent to your class and spec) and your dual spec gear. Is your dual spec raid-ready? Explain why you've chosen the gear you're wearing, and how you've come to select it. If you have weaknesses in your gear, explain why, and what you hope to do about it. Please include Glyphs. As you can see from my armory, I’m primarily 359 geared, which as previously mentioned is due to quitting back in January. Therefore, my gear has lots of weaknesses. I actually explained my upgrade strategy in one of my last blog posts if you’re interested lol, but in general I’d go for ilevel upgrades first, try to get an early set bonus, and then try to get items that will have a longer shelf life before filling in the blanks. I’m upgrading fast now and spent the extra gold I had lying around to purchase a few upgrades to help me get caught up. My biggest weak spots are my blues that are harder to replace out of raids (head/wrists etc). In general both frost and unholy dps stat priorities are pretty simple: Str -> Str -> Str -> hit to cap -> haste -> mastery -> crit -> expertise, with expertise having relatively more weight for frost due to DW. Given that frost is currently predominant, I’ll be working on 1H weapon upgrades. I have a soul blade, but need at least one decent OH from one of the troll heroics. I’ll keep upgrading as much as I can, but I’m not particularly keen in joining BWD pugs and spending hours wipefesting with incompetent raiders. I’d definitely much rather join an established raid guild for additional gearing if at all possible. In any case, I’m first and foremost a dps DK. I’ve long preferred the unholy playstyle to dpsing any other way, but I’ve raided as blood (back in the day) and frost. The pendulum swings, and I often follow it. The Frost rotation is actually fairly simple right now and I’m more than capable of running it, but I’d rather see if I can get a shot/permission to run unholy. Like BRK in his Cata raiding return and ‘proving’ he can rock the BM spec, I think I’d be able to demonstrate my raid-worthiness as unholy, but could always go Frost if needed. I know you recently listed your preference for a tank. I’ll be honest. I won’t be happy as a full-time tank in perpetuity, but have raided as a main tank from time to time when one was needed (while a replacement was being recruited) and my off-spec is typically tankie/Blood. My raid off-spec gear is sad at the moment, having prioritized dps gear and not playing very long in Cata. That being said, I’m willing to fill in as a tank as needed and to OT whenever an encounter calls for it. I’d consider myself a moderately proficient tank in terms of raids – I’ve tanked most heroic LK raids (and all the normal ones) for example. In terms of glyphs, my preferences for unholy are pretty standard: Death Coil, Scourge Strike, Raise Dead, AMS, Pestilence, Blood Boil, Blood Tap, HOW, Death’s Embrace.


11. What consumables do you use while raiding? I’m partial to beer basted crocolisk, but I’ll sneak in the occasional fortune cookie – gotta watch my figure though! I generally keep lots of Flasks of Titanic Strength and/or Golemblood Potions on hand. If expected to tank, I’d make sure to have my alternate foods/flasks/potions on hand as well (Ironically, avoidance > stam for now).


12. Please provide combat log parses for at least two recent raids (http://worldoflogs.com preferred.). Parses from when I was raiding with Insomnia are all old they’ve expired . Not sure how I can provide a parse for you at this point. I can put up a few screenies which as we know are much less meaningful but perhaps better than nothing (see screens in ui section). If you want some ‘proof’ of my current raid competence let me know how I can do that and I’ll do my best.


13. Describe your raiding experience with this character and any other characters. Ooh, a question I could write a book about (please don’t, Hine)! I first started raiding on my rogue in BC at the tail end of T4. I loved getting up close and personal with the boss and slashing away. I have to be honest, I’ve loved topping the meters and endeavour to do so whenever I can. I learned early on, though, that a dead rogue does no damage and gradually got better at living to see the boss die. As the DK has matured as a class, I’ve become content with hybrid roles at times (such as controlling adds on Magmaw, etc). I’ve raided every boss in the game through LK and the first few bosses in Cata (I think we were around 7/12 in mid-January when I left). I’ve raided primarily on my DK and rogue, although I’ve spent time on my shammy (resto) and lock as well. Having played every role possible from healer to tank to ranged to melee, I admit my first love and last love remains melee dps. In general regarding Wow, I know we’ve all felt it, but there’s nothing like facing a challenging encounter, wiping but learning, and eventually defeating the boss!


14. Describe your favorite raid encounter in detail. Explain the mechanics of the fight, and your role in it. Wow, there are so many… well, I guess a few of the early Cata fights were fun, and I REALLY look forward to Rag, I’d say for now it was probably Lich King. As a dps we’d run in and NOT hit the boss until he was in position (lol), then focus on single target burn while keeping a disease up on the ghouls and running to the Horror tank when plagued. Dance outside the ring. Focus raging spirits down. Run back in, spread diseases to LK. Switch to designated Valkyr and burn/slow the Valk, being careful to bunch up when called, then spread out. Hit boss, avoid defiles, kill vile spirits (usually was able to spread diseases to them if times right), rinse repeat. 10%, profit! I still remember the euphoria of the raid on that first kill. 


15. Describe the most personally demanding encounter that you have learned. What made this demanding? How did you overcome the challenge? Honestly, I think the most demanding ever was Archimonde which I did on my rogue. There was so little margin for error with the loss of one raider starting the domino effect of a wipe so easily. Having to carefully slowfall when booted, avoiding that nasty fire (especially when disoriented), and so on! For me personally, and for raids in general, I think that’s when warcraft raiders started learning how to put together multiple fight elements, survival in tension with dps, and overall encounter complexity, and we’ve only seen it increase from there!


16. What does your ideal raid night look like? A night with enough difficult fights that you wipe until everyone focuses, learns their role, and nails it! A night with everyone focused but still loose enough to joke about the occasional fail. A night where at least one new boss goes down, but there’s some farming fun in there as well. A night in which that guildie (or myself) finally gets that hard to get drop and the loot gods smile on us. A night where we get that achievement/title we can proudly wear in Stormwind/Ironforge (er, sorry, Alliance habits die hard. I mean, Ogrimmar! FTH! ).


17. What can spoil the fun of a raid night for you? If normally consistent raiders no-show and we can’t take on that planned new raid encounter. If some guildie gets a stick up their butt and makes it miserable for everyone. A night where we’re not focused and continue to make the same mistakes over and over. I suppose, patch night as well…..


18. Can you take sharp verbal feedback during a raid, and respond to it in a positive and productive way? Absolutely. I’m not perfect and I always appreciate constructive criticism so I can get better.


19. What do you do to prepare for progression content? How much do you rely on leadership to explain what to do? On progression, I make sure all my gear is as good as possible, I have my buff foods/materials, I’m focused, and ready to go. I read up on the fight and watch video if possible. I admit, I learn best by doing, so it usually takes me a few attempts to get the picture on how the fight goes, but from there I’m usually golden. It’s always helpful to have designated people calling things out or marking them, but having filled that role myself at times, I’m usually heads up enough to not need much direction. No, you won’t have to tell me to run out for my seed on Staghelm – more than once ;)


20. What community websites do you read or participate in? EJ, TankSpot, MMO-champ, World of Logs, Wowhead, Mr Robot Pwnwear and quite a few more blogs and sites. I’m not at all fond of the official forums.


21. Do you have a 2 minute PVP trinket? Yes, and I’m not afraid to use it.


22. How old are you? XX


23. Do you live with your parents? No


24. Is there anyone other than yourself that can prevent you from making raids? It’s possible the wife or kids may need me, but the point of late night raids is to avoid this. In years of doing late night raids, I can’t think of a single time I missed a full raid due to family issues. I think I missed one or two due to a friend being in town, but those were th/fri/sat raids, which CC doesn’t have.


25. Our reputation is very important to us. Your past and present actions create the external image of our guild. Are you the type of person that ends up involved in a lot of in-game drama, trash talking, etc? Do you understand that we have a very low tolerance for this type of behavior? I’ve been in good guilds, and not so good guilds. There’s always at least a few idiots in every one of them. I can generally tolerate that stuff, but if CC prioritizes mature, adult behaviour and can get your members to avoid the idiocy of /general or official forums, icing on the cake, baby.


26. What Else? Define yourself. I’m a highly competitive person which has suited me well in raiding, but has occasionally lead to imbalance in my wow play vs real life. I intend to do better this time around and I hope this guild will be the panacea for it. I’m a busy guy with lots of RL stuff going on; I have a doctoral degree and run a clinic for my day job. I play soccer in a 20-something league twice a week. My family is very important to me. Of lesser, but not negligible importance, are: friends, reading, beer, watching sports, and other various and sundry pursuits.


27. ***BONUS*** How do you feel the introduction of gearscore has affected the community? Obviously there has been a brouhaha about this since the first GS addon became available. I’m more pro-GS than some haters I suppose. Granted, a high GS proves nothing about skill, but when looking to pug a group or attempt a boss with strangers, GS at least tells you if the person’s gear is likely to be sufficient to be successful. It also suggests (but does not guarantee) experience with raiding and a certain level of content. Obviously, on the other hand, it’s to be taken with several huuuge grains of salt as it doesn’t tell you if the person is talented, a team player, or simply any good. It doesn’t even tell you if they are wearing deodorant. So, buyer beware. In regards to effect on the community, it’s obviously lead to frequent snobbery and not allowing people in raids that probably would do fine, and lots of rancor on both sides, but them’s the breaks. If a raid leader is cobbling together a team and won’t take anyone below a 380 GS, I probably wouldn’t enjoy running with them anyway. The irony of this question isn’t lost on me, as my primary job on this app is to convince you to overlook my low GS and see me as worth a /ginvite. ;)


***DOUBLE BONUS*** Why would you pick up Hine as a raider when he hasn’t played in eons and his gear is so far behind and he hasn’t raided Firelands at all? I’ve read a lot of apps over the years. I know many guilds would look at my app and say: ‘the dude is articulate and talks a good game, but we really don’t need a DK right now,’ or: ‘we really want raiders who are geared and know the fights.’ I think I’ve already made the case that I’ve played this game for many years and know how it works and how maximize my contribution as a raider. I’ve been back a week and am already dramatically better geared than I was a few days ago; I’ll gear up fast. I’m willing to wait for a spot in the right guild (and I’d really prefer it to be yours) that I feel is a good fit for both myself and the guild. I’ll bring maximum raid performance, focused attention and attendance, and ‘good guildie’ behaviour/zero drama. I would expect if given a shot to most likely be sat on progression fights until my gear/experience catches up, although I’d be more than happy to contribute my best whenever called on. Eventually (very soon) though, I’m confident you’d find me worth keeping in on every progression fight where the Blizzard gods haven’t created a melee hell.


Thanks for taking the time to consider my app. I hope you’re willing to consider inviting me to your team and giving me a shot.



 
Ok, looking at this app (mine) It's obvious that a lot of time went into writing it. It portrays someone who's willing to expend considerable energy in preparing an application - probably someone who'd be willing to contribute to the guild as well. I posted considerable information about my class to demonstrate my knowledge of the class and ability to access current information about how to play it. I polished it as much as I could to demonstrate my ability to use the English language and a sense of humor as well. I answered every question in detail and especially anticipated those that demonstrated weakness to try to answer why despite some of my shortcomings I felt I would be able to contribute. I wouldn't expect every applicant to fill out an application in this detail, but a highly motivated one (such as myself), trying to convince a guild to take me, yes, it does nothing but help.
 
Bottom line: Guilds are looking at applications to give them enough information to make a decision about whether they want you in their guild. And what do they want? An applicant who is skilled, dependable, mature (usually), and hardworking. If you can convince them of these four things and they have room for you, you're in.
 
Good luck with your search for a guild!
 
-Hine

Heroic Grim Batol: a DPS DK Perspective

Similar to my raid posts looking at the role of the DPS DK in in ICC, I'll do some reviews of the heroics that most people are gearing up in for Cataclysm.
I know, some folks have moved on to raids, but I know the majority of players are still leveling and facing the challenge of heroics in their leveling blues and greens.

So, while it won't be long before epic-geared players are rofl-stomping the heroics for their random daily valor points, until then there are a few things that undergeared players need to know. I don't know if I'll do this for all the 5-mans, but I thought it might be helpful to talk about a few of them at least.

Grim Batol is a challenging 5-man in sub-359 gear. It's definitely doable, but each boss fight has several elements that make it more like a regular raid than past 5-man instances. Make a mistake, and it's easy to go from 100% to 0% very fast! Given the tuning and the raid-like mechanics, I have to say I really like this instance! In difficulty I'd put it about in the middle, somewhere between Stonecore (very DK/melee unfriendly) and Vortex Pinnacle, in which the boss fights seem quite easy (at least to me).

Instead of a separate article for each boss, I'll just put in a few comments for each boss from a DPS DK perspective.

General Umbriss:
  The first boss you'll face in the instance, he can be a tricky one for inexperienced/undergeared groups. Like all of the bosses in here, there are several things that will cause damage to you, but unless they're specifically a 'death mechanic' (they'll kill you instantly if you screw up) I won't say too much about them. Umbriss is a black dragonkin. He does two things that can kill you quickly. The first is Ground Siege which does a lot of damage in a frontal area - just move behind him when he starts casting it and you'll be fine. The second is Blitz - he'll target a group member and start to cast Blitz. As long as you move to one side about 10 yards you won't get hit. The third major element to this fight is when he summons a group of troggs. (Why did it have to be Troggs?) Most of the troggs can essentially be ignored - if they get on you, merely kite them to the tank and let splash damage kill them (feel free to pestilence/death & decay). But one of the troggs will be bigger and have a purple haze around him - a Malignant Trogg. These MUST be killed away from the boss because if they die close to Umbriss they'll frenzy the boss. In addition, they do a nasty aoe blast when they die. Be careful; if your AMS is up, use it. If not, hit them with chains of ice and move away before they die. There's no reason any ranged couldn't take care of the Malignant Troggs, but it seems I've always been asked to kill them.
If you avoid the two main attacks that will kill you, and control the Troggs, this fight will go much easier.

Dragha Shadowburner:
 The fight opens with a fairly quick burn on Dragha. Don't waste cds on this part, as it's pretty quick and of very little danger. The only thing to be aware of is the Invoked Fire Spirits that Dragha summons. There will be a fire patch that spawns the Spirits. The tank should kite the boss away from the patches and you should stay away until the Spirit appears. When it does, if it targets you (by a fiery line attached to you), run away! If not, hit it with a chains of ice, then run to it and kill it quickly. If it reaches it's target, people die.
After Dragha is dps'd down a bit, he calls his dragon, Valiona. When Valiona lands is a good time to pop your cooldowns. He hops on her and you'll need to continue dealing with Invoked Fire Spirits, as well as avoiding bad stuff on the ground, and staying out from in front of Valiona who does a conal flame attack to the front that can wipe you. Once Valiona is down, Dragha returns and is fairly quickly killed.
The main things to remember are quick target switches from killing the boss to the Spirits, and staying out of the fire/pools/cleave.

Forgemaster Throngus:
  Throngus is a giant ettin pathing past several smaller chained ettins. Be careful clearing the trash as he can pat to your group and fighting him and his trash simultaneously is often lethal.
Open with your cds and dps away. For the first 20 sec or so it's just a tank and spank. Then Throngus will emote that he is picking a weapon. Mostly, the tanks and healers will want to be wary of what he's doing, but as a dps you'll just want to be aware of what could kill you.
If he picks a mace, the tank needs to kite him slowly around the ledge. If you pull aggro here, you'll die as his mace hits hard. Also watch the fire patches on the ground. If he picks a shield, there will be aoe damage to the group, but not too scary. If he picks two swords, the damage to the tank will be high, but it won't affect the dps too much. Be on the lookout for falling rocks/ceiling throughout the fight as the damage can add up. In a pinch, you can pop army of the dead towards the end to keep him occupied. I finished a fight from 15% after the tank died by popping army and the shammies popped earth elementals and we survived barely. As a side note, be aware that while AotD doesn't taunt raid bosses, they DO taunt every 5-man boss in Cataclysm I've used it on.

Erudax:

  The final boss of GB is a Faceless One. Start in the middle of the room (doesn't really matter too much where), with normal dps. He does some aoe, but nothing big. When he drops a Shadow Gale focus in the room (looks like a dark whirlpool), the whole group stacks IN it to avoid dying to his Shadow Gale. As soon as the Gale is done, Erudax summons two Faceless Corrupters. They'll come from the hall you entered from. One each will head for the eggs. They need to be slowed and dps'd hard. If they're not dead when they get to the eggs, they'll start casting Umbral Mending. Try to interrupt it and/or finish them off quickly. If you don't, they'll heal the boss to full fairly fast. If your dps on the adds is fast enough, you can pop your cooldowns on the pull, otherwise save them for add phases. You should be able to kill Erudax within 2-3 Shadow Gale/add phases, but it can be done in more phases as long as you kill the Corrupters each time.

I hope that helps, and I hope you enjoy Grim Batol as much as I have!

Death Knight UI/addon 4.0 update

Over a year ago I wrote about the addons any good raiding dps DK needs. Wow, can't believe it was so long ago!

I've actually turned over more than half of my addons, so I thought I'd write a little about them now, realizing that at least some of these are likely to change as their authors may or may not update them for Cataclysm and we're likely to see some new shiny addons come out at that time as well.


I'll copy my format from that previous post and comment on any changes/updates here.


1. Raid Warnings/Events: Still absolutely essential for raiding, despite what some misguided snottydins might tell you. DBM (Deadly Boss Mods) is still the industry standard, but I've converted to BigWigs, as it is less memory-intensive. Both work very well for helping identify important events during a boss fight, and allow some customization of how you want to be alerted (BIG letters on screen? A sound? Both? you got it).

2. Proc Alerts: Blizzard's version is a very nice start, and quite a few bloggers have commented on how visually pleasing their HUD notifications are. As unholy so far, the Dark Transformation and Sudden Doom procs are very easy to identify by their visual alerts. So far, I'm not aware of the in-game system having a Runic Empowerment alert, which would be nice to know so that I could hold off on Death Coils for three seconds (unless runic power is capped and no runes are available). I haven't used Mik's Scrolling Battle Text for a long time: I used Power Auras for a while, but haven't loaded any proc alerts for 4.0 yet. If you prefer auditory alerts, one of these addons still might be best for you. I haven't tested Frost to see if their in-game proc alerts work as well - but I've seen screenies of Rime procs etc that look pretty good, so  you might be able to rely on the default system for now, although a Runic Empowerment alert is even more important for Frost than Unholy.

3. Rune/Disease Watch: I'm still a 'thowback,' although I'm not using Rune Hero any more. It remains as important as ever for you to know which runes are ready to be used, which ones are almost off cooldown, and how much runic power you have. Even more importantly, you need to know how much time is left on diseases so you can ensure they don't fall off. The default Blizzard interface fails hugely here and it's very difficult to use their rune display effectively.

I like DKI Runes, and even though my health bar (when I'm being targetted) superimposes on it, it doesn't cause problems with the rune display and I prefer to have it front and center as you can see from the big screenie below.
You have many options - try a few out and see what you like best. DDR is the very popular choice on Elitist Jerks right now (Docs Debug Runes) but I'm not fond of it at all. DKI Runes has (as you can see) a sword-looking addon that is more compact and well-designed than my old fave Rune Hero, and has a nice disease watcher as well. I was a BIG fan of Acherus Runes, but it hasn't been updated and doesn't work for 4.0. One advantage of DDR over DKI is it has a nice obvious display of Shadow Infusion stacks (it may be possible to do for DKI as well, I just haven't discovered it yet).

4. Communication: Ventrilo is still the gold standard. It's the one 'addon' not available at Curse.com. (But download is free at several sites). The in-game voice comm is horrible and I don't know of any raiding guilds that use it.

5. Threat Meter: Threat meters are again relevant for 4.0 and I've noticed it's easier to pull a mob/boss than it was before. We don't have any passive threat reduction, and misdirect abilities have been nerfed. Good tanks still hold threat, but as a raider, you're responsible to watch your threat. Omen is by far the most popular threat meter, and the one I still use.

6. Damage Meter: I realize quite a few players/bloggers out there like to demonize meter-watchers, and rightly so in some cases. If you attempt to simply max dps without paying attention to fight mechanics or what your role might be, you're a bad player. But, when your primary role is to dps, why wouldn't you want feedback on how you're doing? As I've mentioned before, the meter gives you instant feedback that you're doing something right - or wrong. I can't tell you how many times I've noted a drop in my dps - and thanks to the meter - realize that after that last wipe I forgot to summon my ghoul, or after changing specs to pick a presence, and so on. Damage meters for bad players? NO. Bad players are bad players. Good players use damage meters. By the way, I've dropped the resource hog Recount and now use Skada. I still prefer the useability of Recount and may go back to it, but for now Skada is what I use.

7. Attack Power gauge: I was VERY pleased with Bleeding Hearts and had a separate post on it previously, but it seems to cause huge lag problems and sometimes seems the culprit in disconnects. It hasn't been updated in a long time and sadly I've had to delete it. Tiny Melee Stats still works but it's not my favorite. I'm still looking for a good option here. In any case, it's very helpful to see how much attack power you have to help with determining when to summon pets. Now that they also get our haste, it would be nice to have a haste indicator as well. I'd love to see a thermometer type gauge like Bleeding Hearts for both stats somewhere on my screen.

8. Others: For the most part, any other addons are for personal preference and won't contribute to your performance as a dps DK.

-MetaHud, one of my long-time favorites, is currently not working in 4.0. *sadface* The HUD you see in my screenie is IceHud, which is fairly similar and not too bad.

-Grid. You don't need this as a dps DK, but I do like to see who's alive during a fight, or be able to quickly find someone to target their target etc. It's essential for healers/raid leaders, not so much for dps DKs.

-OneBag. This addon broke for me, although I think it works for others. I'm now using Bagnon, which also has a feature that lets you see your bank and/or alt's bags/banks.

-Postal. Makes mailing and opening batches of mail much easier, as well as keeping lists of who you've mailed.

-Carbonite. Somewhat dated these days, so I'm not using it any more. Questhelper addons can still be useful, but the in-game map and tracker work quite well for me now.

-Gearscore. I actually used GS lite for a while, now I don't have either turned on.

-SpartanUI. As I posted more recently, the UI mod I use. It also requires Bartender but the download comes preset for SpartanUI. nUI is also very popular and even has a DK skin, but I've tried it and didn't like it. It's not bad - and is very similar in many ways, it's more a matter of preference. These addons preferably clean up space on your UI and are visually pleasing as well. You can make a case for these helping your raid performance by allowing you to be more aware of your surroundings and being able to find your target easier. I used the default UI for many years and it works just fine if that's your preference.

-Bloodhound. A very lightweight addon for helping gathering (which a dps DK IS NOT, but at the moment I'm mining until 85). There's better ones out there, I just don't need them.

-AutoProfitX. There's a dozen small addons that will dump grey items either automatically or put a button in the vendor tab. Nice to not have to click each one to sell individually.

-AuctionLite. I'm not enough of an Auction House mini-game player to get into Auctioneer. AL does what I need. I dont load it for my DK though - just my bank alts.

-Parsing sites: over the past year I've made multiple mentions and uses of these sites. Back on my original post, I was using WMO Online, which is still in operation, although I prefer World of Logs these days.

-Achievement Screenshotter: I had forgotten to add this one back in and was bummed when I looked for screenies from a couple of achievements my guild got over the past few days. It's back now, and screens from all sorts of random achievements will be dumped in my folders over the next few months.
 
And there you go - an update on addons that are useful for raiding dps DKs in late Lich King 4.0! (and a few that don't matter, but make life in Wow easier/better). Enjoy!

Halion: a DPS DK Perspective

It's been a while since I had one of these posts, and yes, I know, most of you have killed Halion quite a few times by now. This is the type of fight that the mechanics are fairly straightforward, but there are a few tricks I can mention that might be helpful for maximizing dps nonetheless.

This is likely to be my final Boss review for DPS DKs prior to Cataclysm. I don't plan to discuss the three mini-bosses preceeding Halion, as they were puggable on day 1, and although you can still get ranked on World of Logs (I've been ranked on General Z a number of times), these fights aren't true boss fights.

Halion is is a fairly simple portal-type fight, in which your dps team is split in half for much of the fight. For most groups dps is not the primary concern - especially on normal difficulty - so your priorities on this fight actually are: 1) Don't die, 2) Balance dps in both realms, and 3) Do as much dps as you can given 1) and 2).

So, here we go!

Pull/Phase One: Tank runs in from just outside the circle, often perpendicular to the raid for optimal boss positioning.
As usual, it's helpful if your tank gives a decent count before the pull so you can summon your army. As most of you know I like to summon just in time to pop haste potion just before entering combat. Then, of course, run in and start hitting the boss.
It doesn't matter whether you're unholy or frost for this fight. For the most part there are no range issues to consider, and for heroic both specs do well on adds.
So, for phase one, you should simply dps your merry heart out. Depending on when your raid does heroism/bloodlust, you might want to save your pet cooldown. My raid heroes at start of P2, so some prefer to save their gargoyle/ghoul cd. Even with heroism in P2, however, I use my gargoyle at pull, because the cd is usually up again in P3 if I use it early. Two gargoyles without heroism > 1 gargoyle with heroism. I usually pop my second haste potion during P2 heroism.
During Phase 1 you'll be standing to one side of Halion hitting him with everything you can, and the only thing to watch out for is the Mark of Combustion; obviously, if you get it run to the edge of the circle until you are cleansed, then run back in. The flame trails after Meteor strike are actually very small and you can stand almost on top of them without taking damage. If you happen to have a few empty cooldowns, pop anti magic shield, stand on a flame, and death coil or frost strike away. Just make sure to stay in melee range when doing so.

Phase Two: Take the portal and start dpsing Halion in the shadow realm, but be sure to let the tank get agro first. We pop heroism here because we want to get through the phase as quickly as possible. The main ability to watch out for is the Twilight Cutter. On normal, you can survive getting hit with it, particularly with AMS up. On heroic, you'll usually die. Obviously, keep an eye on the orbs so you know where it will come from. There are two ways to do this effectively. One is to have the tank constantly turning the boss with the orbs, and the other is to have the tank stay still between Cutters, and only move when a cutter is about to start. On heroic, to be safe we just move the boss constantly. In any case, what I like to do is move as far to Halion's front left shoulder as possible without getting cleaved, stop, and dps. We can dps on the run fairly well, but, still we are at our best standing still. I stay in that spot doing dps until Halion has turned far enough that I'm on his back left hindquarter, just before I'm in tail swipe range. Then, I strafe to his front left and start over.

Strafe - DPS - Strafe - DPS.

During cutters, I try to stay pretty much in the middle of the cutters just to be safe (on normal there is more room to continue the strafe-dps-strafe-dps strategy if you want).
Drop Soul Consumption as far to the front left as you can, so you minimize running out time while still doing some dps.

Phase Three: Actually, DKs should almost always stay in the shadow realm, since melee are much less affected by the movement than ranged. If your raid is very melee heavy, you may be asked to move back to the physical realm. But for the most part, you'll be in shadow, where you'll continue the same mechanics as P2. The only wrinkle of course is you may need to slow dps is the physical realm falls behind. No additional tricks for more dps here, I'm afraid. If you popped your gargy early, however, you should have another chance to use it in P3.


DPS for DKs should be solid on this fight. There aren't any major dps buffs, but for the most part you should be able to stay in melee range and keep hitting the boss.

DPS Scaling in ICC: Another Angle

Curiosity struck again as I was wandering around in World of Logs, so I thought I'd do another post on dps scaling. My previous posts on the subject can be found here, here, and here.

One of the comments (among many good ones) was that looking at only the top 10 of a class didn't get at what was the 'typical' dps in a raid situation. To which I replied: I don't care about 'typical' dps, I'm interested in what can be accomplished under ideal conditions. I'm still not interested in 'typical' dps. I want to know what is the best dps each spec can do and how each class/spec has fared in regards to max potential as we gear up in Icecrown Citadel.

Another angle at the top end of dps performance is to look not at the average dps of the top 10 of each class, but to simply look at the top 100 dps overall, and see what the class composition for each boss fight in ICC is. If 50 of the top 100 dps on a particular fight are, say, arcane mages, then that suggests a couple things: 1) arcane mages do good dps on that boss (relative to other specs), and 2) that particular fight is very arcane mage friendly. If arcane mages are very well-represented in the top 100 for all the bossfights, that suggests that mages do very well overall compared to other specs, and that they have scaled well in current content.
My numbers aren't perfect, because there were a few scattered arms warriors that hit the top 100 here and there, and a couple of survival hunters or destruction warlocks on a fight or two. There were maybe a total of 7-8 of these specs combined, so when one of them was in the top 100, I just moved to the next dps below them to include in the chart.
Something else I glossed over last time was the sample size. In general, this 'sample' is fairly small - only 100 players for each boss, for a total of 1100 players on each difficulty. However, the number of potential players ranked - that is, how many rogues/shaman/druids/etc are parsed on WOL - is in the tens of thousands. There are typically 125 pages (40 each page) of ranked players for each bossfight. So, while my sample is not representative of what each spec 'typically' does, I think it's fairly safe to say my sample is representative of the 'best' each spec has to offer.

The number crunching for this post was, thankfully, far easier than for the last one. All I did was count how many of each dps spec was in the top 100 dps for each bossfight. The results are below:

As one would expect from this slightly different take on the same question, most of the same basic conclusions of my previous scaling examination remain the same. Still, take a look and see what your thoughts might be with this variation on the theme.

Looking at the 25 man normal difficulty, a few things jump out at me.

First, of course, is that fire and fury are just as dominant as the previous post suggested. 43% of the top 100 dps over all of the ICC bossfights was one of these two specs.
Combat rogues, in third place, didn't even make up 10% of top dps, and it went downhill from there.
Two specs, 43% of the top dps. The other 14 'viable' dps specs? 57%. Ouch.

And that's only on normal difficulty. Let's take a look at the heroic chart, where scaling really starts to take hold.
1) Fury is back on top by an incredible 2-to-1 margin over its nearest competitor.
2) Fury and fire now account for almost 67% of top dps for all of Icecrown, leaving a mere 33% for the remaining 14 specs. Um, something is not balanced in the State of Denmark.
3) On heroic Marrowgar, a whopping 79 fury warriors were in the top 100 dps. 11 specs didn't have a single player ranked. That means that the 79th-best warrior did more dps than the best hunter, warlock, DK, shammy, priest, .... well, you get the picture.
4) Overall, fury has more players in the top 100 than all 14 non-fire specs, combined!
5) Interestingly, it appears that unholy DKs and shadow priests did fairly well - as opposed to their showing on the previous examination. It's clear, though, that this is entirely due to the fact that both specs have 'specialty fights' - fights where they seem uniquely suited to a good performance (spriests on Valithria, DKs on Sindragosa and LK). Take away their specialty fights, and they combine for about 3% of top scores.
6) Six specs couldn't even manage an average of one score in the top 100, and poor enhancement shammies didn't have a single top-100 score in all of ICC.

EW. Dead horse. Beaten.
I'll continue to do the best I can  in my role as a dpser, and focus on competing with my spec peers, rather than bashing my head against the wall of superior warrior scaling.
That's all the have nots - everyone but fury and fire, really - can do.
And keep our fingers crossed for Cataclysm.

Best in Slot: Final Answer (ICC)

As most of you know, for the current level of content I've concluded that Unholy 2H is the best spec for dps DKs unless your raid doesn't have the haste buff.

As is the case with every tier, one looks at the 'new' stuff that's available and slobbers over the nice, bright shinies and hopes to accumulate as much of it as possible. Why? It's fun of course, and more importantly puzzing together the jigsaw puzzle of gear helps us do our job that much better.

At any rate, with things pretty well-settled in terms of stat valuation, I've settled on my 'ideal' gearset that I'm hoping to end up with now that I've obtained Shadowmourne.

For those not accustomed to the practice, I've assigned a value for each stat in terms of how much attack power it's worth (AEP) and then calculated the total value of each item. These values are based on simulators such as Kahorie's or Mr Robot. As you can see, in best in slot gear, haste is very good, second only to strength. With the Icewalker enchant on my boots, I can cap my hit (as a Draenei). For gem slots, I assigned a flat 60 AEP based on gemming for strength.

Strangely enough, the thing that immediately jumps out at me from this list is that it completely lacks expertise. Now, I'm usually a big advocate of capping stats like hit and expertise, but before you go getting all upset, here's the thinking. First, all the simulators I've used are currently rating expertise as a very poor stat, on par only with agility. I think this is mostly due to the fact that haste is so good. Haste scales extremely well, while expertise.... doesn't. Thus, if you can get enough haste on your gear or with gemming (around 250-300 rating seemst to be the break point), expertise becomes irrelevant. With enough haste, those dodges won't cripple your rotation. That is, as long as hit remains capped. Sims actually rate hit much higher prior to the hit cap, but I put in a semi-random number just to ensure I am capped when all is said and done. If you DON'T have a lot of haste, then you should try to keep expertise up a bit.

As you might have guessed, any time new content is released, I add to this spreadsheet to help me prioritize gear selections. In any case, for those of you who are interested, here's the BIS list I came up with. Arguments can be made for the gloves over the legs for non-set piece, but I think the legs' greater haste wins out. You'll also notice I find Halion's leather bracers to be the best, although the plate ones are quite nice, too, but the itemization is better with the leather piece.

Good luck to all in gearing up your Death Knights!

Correction: Heroic Lich King added

Yesterday I posted the top ten dps averages for each class in normal and heroic ICC-25, but somehow the numbers for the heroic Sindragosa fight got pasted onto the Lich King fight. I've now corrected the chart; see below:

Paint wasn't very cooperative, but hopefully it's clear enough.

Not much changed, as I predicted. A few classes/specs flip-flopped one spot on the chart, but rarely even as much as a 160-point dps difference that I used as my 1% criteria, so essentially the conclusions discussed yesterday remain valid. Just wanted to have the correct data up there.

-Enjoy!

DPS Scaling in ICC: The Numbers Are In

And it's not pretty!
I've crunched the numbers, and my primary question - how have DPS DKs scaled in relation to other classes - has been resoundingly answered. In addition, loads of additional findings and questions have been raised by my trip into Dataland.

THE METHOD:
I took the top ten dps of each class/spec for each boss fight on normal ICC25. I obtained an average dps for each spec on each fight. You can easily examine each boss to see which fights are 'melee-friendly,' 'ranged friendly,' and which classes do well on specific fights. While certain strange events occur and can skew the data, like Dusk's crazy speed kill of Lady Deathwhisper, there is enough data here to smooth out any bumps. Regarding the above, two marksmen hunters for the LDW fight did very well - doing more than 5k better than any other hunters. This made hunters look better overall, but averaged across all 120 data points (10 hunters for each of the 12 fights), hunters still were found to be about the 5th best dps class overall.
In the end, I hand-entered 4,200 points of data, giving a very good sample size from which to draw conclusions about how each class/spec is scaling as guilds continue to progress and gear up in ICC.
Remember, I chose the top ten dps because I'm interested in what the maximum dps potential is - so even if it's not realistic for every class to get power infusion, or tricks/hysteria all the time, or to have the luxury of staying on the boss the whole time, we're looking at what CAN be done under the right circumstances.

Destruction warlocks, survival hunters, and blood DKs did so poorly on examination of normal modes, that I saved myself the effort and didn't calculate their scores in heroic modes.

THE RESULTS:

EDIT:
I just noticed my Sindragosa data for heroic got pasted over the Lich King info. I'll check this and repost if anything changes. As far as DKs go, though, this will only hurt. Their best fight in ICC relatively speaking was Sindragosa.

1. DKs are in a sorry state. Unfortunately, my hunch was borne out, conclusively. On examination of Normal modes, DKs started in the middle of the pack through Festergut's tank n spank, and faded fast to the end. By the end of the 12 fights, the BEST DK spec, unholy, was beaten out by at least one spec from EVERY class except poor, poor shammies. Unholy came in as the 11th-best dps spec in the game, and frost was 14th. The by-now-abandoned blood spec came in dead last - 19th - of the specs I looked at.

By the way, I did eyeball beast mastery, arms, and subtlety, but as expected they were so poor I didn't even put in the effort to add them to the chart. (well, arms did ok on some fights, but fury is so vastly superior that it wasn't worth it).

In any case, the expansion-long public perception that Death Knight are overpwered can be conclusively rejected at this point. THEY ARE THE SECOND-WORST (OR THIRD, MAYBE) DPS CLASS IN THE GAME right now.

Heroic modes wasn't much better. All of the 'Shadowmourne classes' (Warriors, Pallies, DKs) did see some improvement in heroic modes, but DKs once again scaled the poorest, by far. In fact, they still ended up the third-worst dps class in the game, barely passing priests, despite the fact that if you don't have a Shadowmourne, you can't even get on these charts. I didn't look at every fight, but on every one I did look at (Saurfang, Festergut, Sindragosa), EVERY Warrior, Paladin, and DK on the charts had the legendary. Do you scale an entire class around the assumption that they have the (very rare) weapon? Even so, DKs come out smelling putrescent.

2. The rich get richer. It's been well-known from vanilla and through two expansions that warriors scale well with gear. The proof is here. Blizzard has stated their goal for all dps classes to be as close as possible - within about 1-2% of each other, with the 'pure dps classes' on top.

The 'pures' didn't do too badly with the four classes filling the 2nd through 5th spots on the class charts, with the exception of warriors. Warriors finished 2% better than the second-best class (spanning the stated goal for all classes from their nearest competitor) and more than 17% better than the poor enhancement shammies. On heroic modes, they got even richer, finishing a full 6% better than second-best, and over 25% better than enhance shammies. As a hybrid class, that's hardly in line with Blizz' goals, and hardly fair to other classes. I'm not QQing here - just presenting the information. I like warriors, but clearly their dps is out of line with 'balance' in the game.

In heroic modes, Retribution used their Shadowmournes to leapfrog several 'pure' classes to finish in the third spot. Unholy did benefit from the legendary, but just not nearly as much as the other two classes.

And as has already been stated, the dps for shammies was much worse than any other class. Obviously, Blizz' announcement that there will be other heroism classes paves the way for shaman to get a big boost - and rightfully so.

3. Other observations: (some of this I'm sure many of you knew already; I'm no expert on every class):
    -I was surprised fire mages did so much better than arcane, particularly in better gear. They were convincingly the second best spec in the game. Arcane did quite poorly in heroic modes, dropping six spots.
    -Overall, the melee vs ranged divide was well-balanced. There was a fairly consistent split between ranged and melee overall, and there are several fights in ICC which favored one or the other. Decent balance.
    -Rogues can't complain too much overall. I've seen lots of concerns with how they've scaled. Obviously, combat is doing fine, so one can't complain too much. Of course, if one is referring to mutilate, then yes, rogues have a point, but at least they have ONE spec that  is doing well.
    -Balance isn't scaling well. Balance druids did fairly well in normal modes, but hardly saw any increase in dps in heroic modes, and saw their relative position on the charts drop significantly.
    -Shadow priests aren't as bad as their reputation. But, they could do better. They still ended up as the second or third worst class/spec, down there with DKs on the junk pile.
    -Demonology warlocks aren't doing too badly. Yes, affliction is the 'best' spec in most cases, but Demo is actually viable, and proved itself to be better than destro. Destruction - once the 'only' spec for raiding locks, has fallen on hard times.
    -Blizzard needs to allow pets to benefit from buffs. Fights like Blood Queen Lana'thel really hurt when your pet doesn't get any help from the buff you get.

DISCUSSION:
I'm not going to try to cover nearly everything here.
In fact, I'm only going to talk briefly about DK scaling, so for additional discussion, please leave a comment, or link this post in a forum somewhere :)
Why are DKs scaling so poorly?
1. Pets scale poorly. As a pet class, we may benefit from increased crit or other buffs, but the pets don't.
2. Knee-jerk nerfs. I've written about this previously. Early in beta and to some extent in Tier 7 content, DKs were certifiably overpowered. Since then, throughout the expansion there has been a perception that DKs are too strong, and that doing good dps is 'facerolling.' More recently, two abilities that needed adjusting - Tier 9 set bonus, and Scourge Strike - gave the impression again of being overpowered, but were nerfed to the point that the class has fallen behind. Frost DW was nerfed during Tier 8 content and still hasn't recovered even with some 3.3 buffs.
3. Other melee classes get more benefit from gear. Because DKs are a hybrid melee and spell based class, improvements in gear do less for them than the other melee classes. There are several ways to potentially fix this, from buffing talents that increase spell damage more from attack power, to adjusting the percentage of physical damage on abilities like Scourge Strike even more. Increasing the coefficient on obliterate etc is also an option.
4. In any case, Blizzard has made a commitment to continue balancing the classes. I hope they're monitoring the data that's readily available, and can give a little help to the poor classes (which right now are shaman, DK, spriest, and balance druids) and bring warriors back in line with other hybrids. I know they're focused on Cataclysm at this point, but there's lots of time to improve the raiding experience in this expansion still, and I hope they don't abandon us to our plight.

Enjoy the data, all you nerds out there! :)

DPS Scaling in Icecrown Citadel: Intro

Some changes to DKs have been obvious.
The T9 four piece bonus was vastly overpowered and needed to be nerfed. Even after the changes, many DKs (including myself) had a hard time letting T9 go. Even after I had 4-piece T10, I still used T9 in aoe situations for a while. In other words, early T10 gear was underwhelming and DKs didn't get much better in it.

Other changes have been more subtle.
Over the past couple of months, my guild has progressed past normal Lich King kills deep into heroic modes. Our raiders are sporting many shiny new pieces of gear. My gear is solid; enough that not only does normal ICC10 hold nothing of interest gearwise, normal ICC25 has no upgrades, and HICC10 has only a couple of side grades. And yet, I've watched my perch on the dps charts slide from 1-2 for most full night's runs to 3-4 and it's to the point now that a 5th or 6th place finish isn't unusual. A guaranteed top-3 spot on tank and spank fights has turned into frequent forays onto page two (below 7th) on my recount.

Has my guildie's gear changed enough to cause this? No. Our gearscores have remained fairly similar for the past several months. Itemization? No, ICC is itemized quite well for DKs. Skill? Did I just start sucking, or my guildies get dramatically better? Doubtful.

So, with the slide of my spot on the charts, I've started wondering if this is consistently the case.

A while ago I briefly mentioned that a fellow DK had looked at melee and argued that mutilate rogues, fury warriors, and combat rogues were comfortably ahead on the Saurfang and Festergut fights, while kitties and ret paladins edged out unholy/blood DKs, followed by enhancement shammies and distantly by frost DKs. Skill/gear aside, shortly pre-3.3, I was happy with DKs being relatively close to other melee classes. Warriors were probably a bit high, and enhance a little low given that all but rogues are hybrids, but still in general with most raiders in 264 gear, the gap wasn't too bad. It was still possible for a good DK to keep up with most of the other classes.

Has it really changed that much since then?

So, I decided to take a look.

Information is readily available out there, and I chose World of Logs because it's the parser that my guild uses, and looking at different classes for each fight is very easy to do. Of course, not all guilds put their parses on the site, and not all guilds choose to make their parses public, but the sample is large enough to be considered fairly well-representative of the whole in my opinion.

I'll take ALL of the 'viable' dps specs this time including ranged as well as melee. I'm going to include EVERY boss fight in ICC25 (except gunship). I'm looking at BOTH normal and heroic, because the fight dynamics change from normal to heroic (just as one example, many melee classes can stay in and dps duing bone storm on normal but can't on heroic). I'll take the top 10 dps for each class/spec, and obtain an average. Would a larger number be 'better'? Perhaps. Here, I'm only interested in the upper range of what a spec 'can' do - so 10 seems sufficient.
________________
Since I wrote this part of the post, I've laboriously been crunching the numbers. So far I've looked at normal ICC25 Marrowgar through Putricide. And the results are interesting! Some, I expected, and others, I did not.

I'm going to keep crunching the numbers for now, and post them as soon as I can!
I'm afraid there's so much fodder for discussion that I'll probably have to break up my response to the data into more than one post.

For now, stand by.
More to follow!

DPS DK optimization: Heroic Mode review

Disclaimer: My guild has not yet cleared ICC-25 on heroic modes yet. We are 9/12 and thus have not attempted Lich King on heroic yet. However, I've dps'd all of the fights (with the exception of LK of course) and feel I can speak to how to optimize your play as dps DK even on Putri and Sindragosa who haven't fallen over for us yet.

I'll also just do this one post for all of them, since most of the suggestions for each fight are still valid.

Marrowgar: Actually, if you weren't doing it before, on normal mode with a full 264-geared group, you can stay in for Bone Storm, using IBF as needed. The damage isn't that bad, and healers can easily keep you up through it.
For heroic, however, I doubt you'll be able to stay in even in full 277 gear. It hits HARD. So, stay out. Mostly, stay alive. Second, dps the people in bone spikes since those continue during bone storm. Third, IF and ONLY if you have both health and no one needs to be broken out of spikes, you may Icy Touch/Death Coil Marrowgar. More importantly, know when the storm is going to end and start cheating back towards him so you can jump on him as soon as he stops.

Lady Deathwhisper: we found this a little challenging. Of course, the mind controls and adds continue throughout the fight.
In P1 we pull all the adds on top of the boss for aoe to get them down fast. You may be asked to help death grip or control adherents. I actually have an assigned adherent that I DG to the stage. Positioning can be a bit tricky with the pillars - the LOS can work both for and against you. Once I get them on stage I usually mind freeze the next cast and then drag them to the perfect spot if they weren't already. If you're on add duty, you'll be gaining aggro frequently, so make liberal use of interrupts and ams to ensure you don't die. You can aoe, but be careful to not kill your mind controlled fellows. Interesting finding: when you're on add duty, you don't seem to ever be picked for mind control. I've done dozens of LDW attempts/kills on heroic now, and never been picked once.
In P2 if you're on the boss/add duty I recommend speccing deep enough into frost for free mind freezes regardless of main spec because you DON'T want to miss and interrupt. I stay on add duty, so I continue to control adherents and keep them in the 'cleave team' for maximizing kill time. Pestilence is definitely your friend throughout the fight, but death and decay rarely is, since you don't want to kill mind-controlled fellows and there are rarely enough adds standing in one place to make use of it. As unholy, I usually leave my ghoul on the boss, but if we're falling behind on adds, I'll pull him off for a little extra oomf.
By the way, a simple /petattack macro is your friend. I don't believe I've mentioned it before, but on fights like this where you're switching targets often, it's really nice to just have a keybind to send your pet to your target.

Gunship. Really? Just kill stuff.

Saurfang: I don't do anything different on this fight. If you're unholy, be sure to pestilence the adds asap - they need to go down fast and giving your ranged more dps on the beasts really helps. If your raid leader says not to - they're wrong.

Rotface: Just be careful when running around to avoid people with vile gas. DBM is ok for some things, but AVR/AVRE really shines on this encounter, showing you the danger zone for those that are vile and also where the ooze explosion is going to land. However, dps optimization is the same as before.

Festergut: Just make sure to avoid getting goo. If you do, the haste debuff will KILL your dps. In a pinch, you can still easily survive a pungent blight without getting all three inoculations with IBF/AMS, but try to ensure you get all 3 anyway - save your healer's heart, and mana.

Putricide: A wonderfully challenging fight! If you enjoyed the fight in T9 gear, the heroic version is a nice challenge in 264 gear, too! A few differences here. I pop my army at pull but not my gargoyle. Why? Because the crucial part of the fight is the phase transitions where you get both a green and an orange ooze. You'll need your burst to get your assigned ooze/gas cloud down quickly (and yes, I know the encounter assigns it for you). Other than that, it may take some ingenuity on your part to ensure you don't die because there's damage flying around all over the place.

Blood Prince Council: Blizz laid the hate on for melee on this fight, heh. You'll get a DBM warning when you get to 6 stacks of shadow prison, but it won't be very dangerous until around 10. On last night's kill, I got to 19 and survived. AMS is your friend here. If you must run, do so under cover of your shield. If you don't have a shield, don't run. The only exception to this is empowered vortex. Even if it kills you, don't blow up a healer. Run, and die. :) But really, it's fairly easy to get the stacks to fall off when you're on a boss, and so when you switch targets you can run all the way across the room safely.
Incidentally, my fellow DK is a big advocate of run speed enchants on boots. I'm not. I'm 32 attack power all the way, but he swears by it. This fight and Marrowgar are two where I can see the point.

Blood Queen Lana'thel: Nothing really different here. Just moar dots (dps). During her air phase, it's even more important that you don't blow up squishies, and you might as well save your ams to ensure you don't die.

Valithria: same ol same ol. Seriously, on our kill last night someone commented at the end: "that was heroic?" Once your healers know how to travel as a pack in the portal, the fight goes very quickly. I don't care about dps on this fight at all, and just focus on doing things like keeping the mages from casting their frostbolt volley.

Sindragosa: There is zero room for error on tombs. Without AMS, you will be killed by the frost bombs. I initially was worried about running out after her 'death grip,' but I found AMS still adequately protects you. I still don't wear any frost resistance armor. Honestly, the fight requires clean execution from every person in the raid, but it otherwise doesn't seem to bad to me.

And then there was one. He'll have to wait for later. :)

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Yes, the title of this post is shamelessly stolen both from David Bowie and Jim Butcher's latest Dresden Files installment. Butcher, by the way, is my favorite current fiction author, and he must be doing something right as his last several books have all topped the NYT bestseller list upon release.

However, the Changes referred to here, of course, are all about the the Cataclysm looming on our Wow horizon.

If you haven't seen some of the changes planned for the next expasion, start at MMO-Champion.com. For class-specific info, there's quite a bit at Elitist Jerks, as usual. Consider's unholy thread at EJ has links to his alpha involvement and the Cata EJ discussion threads.

What to think, what to think?

First, the obvious.

1) Rune changes. As I understand it, the primary difference is that it will allow us to 'pool' resources a bit more. As we all know, in the current system if you don't use a rune within 2 seconds of it being available, it's 'wasted' and a dps loss. In theory at least, we can use resources as soon as they're available, but not using them to a point may not hurt too much.
I've let this change marinate for a bit and I've decided I like it. It may keep us from being quite as gcd-bound as we have been (although some people disagree). It should allow us to better time combinations of moves for best effect (as a long-time combat rogue, I remember pooling energy as slice & dice ticks down, then reapplying it and going to town with several Sinister Strikes - especially when paired with adrenaline rush and blade flurry).
What remains to be seen is exactly how the mechanic will work - especially on live. Still, if it goes forward, it will dramtically change the way we play our class.

2) AOE is getting nerfed. Hard. For DKs, diseases spread by pestilence are doing half damage. Wandering plague has been halved. Of course, it looks like every other class is getting the same treatment as well.
I guess this is okay in theory. People often complain that as one overgears content in particular everything will devolve into aoe-fests.
Make no mistake, we'll still see heroics - and some raids - being pulled en masse and aoe'd down, but Blizz' move of nerfing aoe may slow that approach somewhat. The idea, of course, is to force us to use strategy and cc to get past trash and boss encounters. I get it, and I think it's a good thing. Still, I'll miss some of those eye-popping numbers like we saw on Onyxia's or Sindragosa's whelps *sigh* :)

3) Coefficient changes. This one you may not be as well aware of, but most abilities are getting a significant overhaul. So far on alpha we see:

Wandering Plague has had its damage halved.
Diseases spread from Pestilence deal half damage.
Scourge Strike has a base 140% weapon damage modifier, up from the current 70%.
Heart Strike has a base 100% weapon damage modifier, up from the current 50%.
Frost Strike has a base 110% weapon damage modifier, up from the current 55%.
Blood Strike has a base 80% weapon damage modifier, up from the current 40%.
Plague Strike has a base 100% weapon damage modifier, up from the current 50%.
Icy Touch has had its damage doubled.
Howling Blast only costs a Frost rune, has had its damage doubled, and now deals triple damage against targets affected by Hungering Cold.
Death Coil has had its damage doubled.
Frost Fever and Blood Plague have a base duration of 30 seconds, up from the current 15.
Ghoul Frenzy now last for 1 minute and heals your pet for 120% of its health over the duration of the buff, up from the current duration of 30 seconds and the current heal of 60%.
Rune Strike is now instant.
Ebon Plague now increases magical damage by 8%, down from 13%.
Death and Decay now costs a Blood Rune, down from a Blood, Unholy, and Frost rune.
Corpse Explosion now costs an Unholy Rune, changed from runic power.

Besides the aoe ramifications, one may think "whoa, DKs are getting hugely buffed!" Most of the single target abilities are seeing their damage doubled.
The short version is: no, we're not getting buffed. Sorry. The rune system changes - if interepreted correctly - mean that the coefficient increases will equate to roughly 'equal' sustained damage.
The difference is, we should see much improved burst. I can live with that. In fact, I rather like the idea.


Obviously, with all of this in development, I'm sure we'll see tons of tweaks in the numbers before live. In fact, it's fairly likely that one or more of these major changes will themselves see a major overhaul.
As opposed to my rather 'meh' response to the reported 'new' abilities, I'm positive about our mechanics changes and look forward to seeing them in action.

One thing is certain.

Everything changes. But that's another song. ;)