NAME: Grimkol
Race/Class: Orc Shaman
Main Spec: Restoration
Primary Professions: Herbalism/Alchemy
Armory Link:
Fishing Skill: 0

What's your name and where are you from? Oli, Yorkshire, England

How old are you? Please give your answer in Reverse Polish Notation. I'm 19 and I don't know what Reverse Polish Notation is...

How long have you been playing WoW? (may also help explain strangely high fishing skills) 5 years more or less

Is this your main? How often do you play this character? Tell us about your other characters, including any serious alts.
This is my main character at the moment, I have a level 80 DPS/Tank DK, a level 80 Hunter, and a level 80 Holy/Prot Paladin

What's your guild history? Are you in a guild right now? Are you leaving that guild because of some drama you caused? Cause one thing we really don't want is drama... No, you say? Then why are you leaving?
I'm leaving my current guild because I am the GM but have 6 other characters in it.

Provide the names of some people we can get in touch with in-game as references. If you know anyone on the Path, either in-game or IRL, mention that here also.
Krungak, Thalarith, Amarahorn... Few others about I could russtle up

What is your role in raids? How do you judge whether you're doing a good job or not?
I heal usually, if everyone is alive im doing alright...

What's your PvE experience like?
Extensive, I have done every raid with one character or another. Apart from AQ40.

Describe your choice of spec, how you came to your current build, and any other things you feel we should know about why you spent your talent points the way you did.
I haven't been 80 very long so my resto build isnt pefect yet, but I'm working on it

Where do you go to read about your class outside of the game?
WoWWiki, then use the reference links from there.

Obviously you're here for the awesome PvE, but this being an RP realm, and us lot being total nerds, indulge us: end your application with a short biography, in-character note to the officers, or other story or statement about yourself. Effort is much more appreciated than length or content, and this section is not optional.
I'm still working on this characters history, I have the basics done and they are that he fought in the first war, he's part of the frostwolf clan, hasn't always been a shaman but has always been in the armies of the horde.

Additional notes. Optionally, mention anything else you'd like us to know about your application.

At least you acknowledged you don't know what Reverse Polish Notation is

I don't want to seem too harsh here--your application is not unattractive (if only for the fact we badly need both a shaman and a healer)--but seeing as how you just hit 80, and we're currently doing ToC 10 and aiming to start ToGC 10 pretty soon, it needs a lot of work. As it currently stands from what I see in the armory, I'm not sure we could even bring you along to Ulduar. What are your plans for getting geared, and how quickly do you think you can do it? More specifically, do you have any goals in mind (particular pieces from particular dungeons)?

I like how you've not completely skipped over the RP section, and obviously want to give your character's backstory due consideration. We'd love to learn more about him. No need to write a novel or anything, just give us an idea of what kind of Orc he is and what his personality is like.

We don't ask all our members to be top-level theorycrafters, but it does help to have an understanding of your role in the raid in general and your class specifically; I particularly recommend skimming the forums over at Elitist Jerks, and you may even gain something useful from the Blizzard forums. A little research goes a long way, and with such a situational job as healing, I'd like some indication you know which spells to apply at which times, and that you're capable of thinking quickly on your feet. After all, a good healer is worth a thousand wipes in terms of progression.

Thanks for the application, and we look forward to hearing more from you.

Going with Ekhan pretty much. Sorry for the textwall, but I hope you take the time to read it since I took the time to write it just for you. I say nothing about the RP part since it's mentioned and you know we require you to have the RP background for your character.

Your gear is bit odd, mostly ungemmed and uneanchanted (tho I understand all of your gear isn't maybe worth of enchanting yet unless you have enchanter character). I also understand gear doesn't drop from the sky and sometimes you need to actually grind for instances to get the desired loot. So I'm not saying "go and get this item X from place Z" since I know it doesn't work like that. People usually know where to get the gear, drop rate or getting groups are the issue.
But as I've played resto/elemental shaman pretty long I can give some other valuable hints for you what comes to shaman healing.

Stamina gems are no go in raiding generally. I don't know if even tanks choose pure stamina gems nowdays.
As shaman you should go to pure haste or haste + spell power gems. If you need blue gems for meta, choose something like haste + mp5. Intellect is ok if you think your mana pool is too small (even after mana tide & potion), wich is usually the case when you collect your first round of epic gear. Intellect also gives you crit so it's not 100% forbidden to have intellect gems on you, but biggest benefit you get from haste.

Your spec also needs bit improving but you said you're still learning, wich is ok. It just needs the last check, you've understood the build pretty nicely.
You could still use at least 5-8 more points in enhancement tree. Instead of (for example) Improved Reincarnation, you gain more from Thundering Strikes.
There's two commonly "accepted" resto shaman talent trees as "best talent tree for pve healing" 0 / 13 / 58 and 0 / 16 / 55.

For closer talent details, gear choosing, gemming, enchants etc I suggest you go to Elitist Jerks and Blizzard's own class forums like Ekhan also said. I have a feeling you'd get a lot of good information from them. The guides are pretty easy going and nicely written. You don't need to read them through at once, but get the most important stuff from there and read more when you've understood those.

I also have feeling you can't decide to pve or to pvp, just to see your gear and gemming. Pvp gear is ofcourse easy to get but no go in guild raiding unless you have highest season gladiator gear.
So if you seriously want to do pve, instead of spending time in honor farm go to heroics, see if you get lucky with drops, and if you don't at least you get some Emblems wich provide you pretty nice gear.

Good luck with your path, lighted by spirits of earth.
/Naru

I am currently building 2 sets of gear, I am in an arena 2v2 and 3v3 team. I will only be doing arena once a week. The gear that is on armory is probably my pvp gear, which is almost complete (I pvp elemental). The reason I am able to build both sets of gear at once is since I have achieved level 80 I (2 days ago) I have already raided VoA10, OS10, a bit of naxx(though the gear isn't really worth it these days) and have been doing the daily HC plus getting myself involved with a emblem farm group at least for a couple of hours a day. Once I've done that I have been building pvp gear. I will be completely focussed on building up my PvE gear within the next couple of days. By the end of the week I am sure I will be ready to raid Ulduar, meaning it won't be long untill I am ready to raid TotC. I have raided TotC before on different characters so my knowledge of the instance is not amatuer.

I've looked over the specs that you have suggested and with be revising it as soon as possible.

I healed all vanilla raids with my holy paladin and likewise with TBC. I have good mana managment and know which spells to use in which situation, i make sure my instant cast spells are always available and I keep my sheild and hot spells active as often as possible.

I've taken on board your advice and appreciate it, normally I wouldn't have applied so early into a max level but I played with a couple of your members and felt like it was a good guild that i wanted to be a part of.

I'd be happy to hear any more details you want me to go over, even ask me a few questions.

Hope to hear from you soon.

P.S thanks for sorting my post out :p

Grimkol,

Thanks for your app and your answers. As we do this question-and-answer stuff, we'll be watching to see how your gear improves, so if you think about it, please log out in your PvE stuff. A couplathree questions from me:

• You say you have good mana management, which aside from being a tongue-twister is also a bonus for any healer. Talk to me about how Resto Shaman mana regen differs from Holy Paladin mana regen and what you do on your shaman versus on your pally to make sure you don't go oom.

• Paladin healing has its fun and challenging bits, but choosing between healing spells is not one of them: you either push the Big Heal button or the Little Heal button, most of the time. On a shaman, however, you've got many more direct heals and some HoT and AOE heal action. Could you tell me a bit more specifically about how you decide which heal to cast?

and finally

• One of your biggest jobs in any Luminous Path raid will be to pop the ol' Bloodlust. For each of the fights in TotC 10 (Normal), review the tactics and tell me exactly when in the fight you would choose to pop Bloodlust.

I realize we're demanding a lot of reading and writing from you, so thanks for putting all the effort in and I look forward to hearing your answers!

Its okay, all these questions I am taking as a good sign for your guild.

Well personally I have always found that, especially on the paladin, using lower mana heals to keep on top of things is much more beneficial than waiting to use a large heal and spending more mana.

As for mana regen it depends on which classes we have in the group but usually I will pop a manaspring totem and make sure my water sheild is at its maximum number of orbs. Usually if I get down to about 40% of my mana and the fight is far from over i will use my mana tide totem, but with this having a 5min cooldown timing is important.

To be honest deciding which spell to use seems to come natural to me now, I will often try and keep hots and sheild on the tank as often as possible reducing the amount of healing he/she needs. One of the good things about shamans of course is chain heal, allowing to heal multiple targets at a mana cost of not much more than lesser healing wave. Obviously the more of our raid that is lower in health the more likely I am to use chain heal, most of the time I will use the tank as the inital target so she/he gets most of the healing. Depending on the fight, if I know that multiple targets of our raid are inevitably going to be taking some hits I will use the hot totem to try minimize mana usage. The down side of that is I need to watch my mana as it takes up the same slot as my mana spring totem, I will usually ask a paladin (if one is available) to give me bow instead of bok so that I am at less risk of going oom.

A lot of factors come into when to use BL, some people prefer it at different times and personally I think it depends on how compitent the raid is and how quickly we're downing the bosses. For example if the DPS is slow then I will obviously have more options as to when I can use BL and more oppertunity to use it than if the DPS is downing the bosses quickly. So in all honestly I would probably ask you guys when you would prefer me to use it rather than act on impulse.

Another shaman move which I have forgot to mention would be the ability to cure poison disease and curses which I am quite competent at dispelling as often as I can. aslo the purge ability will be very useful in totc10 and I will try my best to keep up on that spell too.

Thanks for your time, hope to hear from you soon

Just a short comment.
I'd suggest you to investigate how actually your mana totem and paladin's Blessing of Wisdom operate together. Improved talents for both to their mp5 buffings (in LP you'll be raiding with holy paladin 90% of the time)? Regeneration? Is the Blessing of Kings such a bad idea in the end at all?
You can test this easily with some friendly paladin if you don't want to google it up.

Edit: Otherwise your answers gave no reason to give any poking comments. Now I'm just waiting to see how your gear developes in next few days

Hey Grimkol,

The next time you and I are both online, /w me and let's have a little chat.

Hey Oli,

You've made an OK application and a reasonable effort to answer our questions, and on that basis we would probably take you. Unfortunately your gear isn't at a point where you'd be remotely useful to us at the moment.

What I propose to do therefore is not to deny your application outright, but instead to let it sit open for another week or so. I figure it's not too much to ask, if you're trying to work your way into a raiding guild, to run 2-3 heroics a day, including the daily dungeon. Assuming that nets you ca. 12 emblems, you'll have enough for two pieces of T8.25 after ten days. If you PuG a quick Naxx, it will go even faster. Use that time to show us that you're committed to this character:

• Properly gem and enchant your i219 pieces: epic gems and BiS enchants
• Seek out the right drops and upgrade as many items from heroics as you can
• Read up on TotC 10 tactics specifically and answer the question I posed to you above. If you had to be the one to choose (after all, Bloodlust is your spell, not mine), when would you pop it on each fight?

You can get an idea of the point your character is at by going to http://be.imba.hu/ and typing in your realm and character name. It will show you which enchants and gems to upgrade to, as well as give you an idea of what instances your character is ready for. We'll be watching your progress as well, and we'll revisit this application when you're closer to being ready to raid alongside us. Don't hesitate to /w if you have any questions in the meantime.