*Waves and quickly proceeds to the application*

NAME: Keln
Race/Class: Blood elf/Rogue
Main Spec: Assassination mutilate, yet planning to be combat PvE for some time, not sure of that yet.
Primary Professions: Jewelcrafting / Mining.
Armory Link: eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Defias+Brotherhood&cn=Keln
Fishing Skill: 100. Not much into fishin'. :>

What's your name and where are you from? My Russian name is kind'a long and may seem difficult to pronounce for a foreigner, and I actually introduce often as Mike. And well, as I mentioned, Russian Federation, GMT+3.

How old are you? Please give your answer in Reverse Polish Notation. Oh, not the maths again, I've had enough of it in the university. 2 15 6 - * - though, my birthday's soon.

How long have you been playing WoW? (may also help explain strangely high fishing skills) For about four years, different characters.

Is this your main? How often do you play this character? Tell us about your other characters, including any serious alts. Yes, Keln is my main character, currently I don't have any alts and concentrate my attention on gearing my rogue up for PvE and PvP.

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? Well, the matter is, I've returned to this character just 9 days ago, and the guildhistory can't be that long. Necessary to mention, I was forced by circumstances to leave WoW in April'09, and since then the majority of guilds I had been a member of, had changed, and I assume I don't have to list 'em. To add to the list, been in dozens of RP guilds.

Since my return I've been just in two starting guilds, just to see if any of them is really going to progress, however it didn't turn out so.

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. Got no friends among the members of the Path, yet. :>

What is your role in raids? How do you judge whether you're doing a good job or not? Well, as a rogue, my role is DPS, spamming the same rotation I had learnt by heart already. Although I sometimes become a Superman, removing enrage effects, slowin' down lots of adds, helping grannies cross the road, etc.

What's your PvE experience like? If we take in account the TBC content, I've been to all raids except MH, BT and Sunwell Plateau. What about WotLK raids, used to raid with only one guild actively, Grove of Eternal Balance (A), at that moment we were just getting attuned to EoE, so the only raids I've been to, are Naxx (10/25), VoA (Can't be considered a raid, even). Unfortunately, not more than that.

To be honest, I'm not that experienced in raiding, speaking about LK content, but I'm quite capable of learning. Have to admit, I don't know a single end-game raid tactic, nor have seen a single boss in ICC yet, however it's just question of time, isn't it?

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. Well, currently I'm mutilate both in PvP and PvE, however these two specs vary. To begin with, Blizzard leaves no other option for a spec at the moment, as a muti rogue all talents are kind of clear as there's no alternative option most of the time, apart from, maybe, just a couple of them.

I'm a standard PvE muti rogue, tank'n'spank fights are really all about spamming three buttons (mutilate, SnD, envenom) and pressing one more button, HfB, once every 55 seconds, and if it's really good timing, rupture. As mentioned before, not so familiar with the modern raids and tactics, but able to respec accordingly, should the raid require that.

Where do you go to read about your class outside of the game? Frankly speaking, I rarely check out such sites, and if I do, just due to being bored or in a desperate attempt to find some different spec from standard ones. Simply put, I usually plan my spec myself, depending on my DPS strategy.

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 an RPer myself, and this passage's not a problem for me. This story is the first chapter of my character's story, kind'a still working on it atm, but since it's required here, I'll post what I've written so far. ))

"The stones are cold" - springed up in his mind. To be exact, the climate at the eastern coast of Kalimdor suitable to Arki. You could always go climb the rocks at the Theramore castle and you'd often find him there, looking far into the distance at the fading ships. Dreaming about the sea, a common thing for him.

Arki pushed himself up, straining his hands and the chest, pulling them up behind self, as if trying to extend them even further, as he dropped them relaxed. Several seconds later, he realized that the shrill screaming of the seagulls disturbed his sleep. He crawled a little on the mat, seating himself in a comfortable way.

"I'll never get used to that-. . ." - Who'd argue. Even after living on the seacost in a city with active trade port he still couldn't get used to the scream of seagulls, while all other children of his age didn't pay attention at 'em seagulls at all.

He looked far up at the sky, trying to determine it's location and the time of day. Though that wasn't necessary - It was merely cold, therefore it was early morning. Some figure crawling the shore rocks, moving towards him. "Jason" - . . He shortly looked towards the pier. In spite of the morning it appeared quite alive and avid. Another ship, quite a usual vessel for this time of year, obviously dropped an anchor at the Theramore Harbor.

Theramore was founded on the coast of Dustwallow Marsh, Eastern coast of Kalimdor. It was literally on the edge of a vast marsh and forest. You could let yourself be outside the city walls if you're of hazardous character, yet venturing further than the North Point tower was barely possible due to the amount of wild creatures. Even if you're lucky to skip them, you'll surely encounter a marsh on your way, and who knows you'll get out of it safe. While your actions are limited in dirty, viscous water, such vicinity is an advantage to alligators.

Arki shuddered, returning to the reality, realizing someone's calling him.

- Arki, Arki! Are you damn deaf? Come down 'ere!

Letting out an annoyed sigh, not much fond of the disturbance, he leaned over a little, jerking his head slightly in a questioning way.

- A new ship's arrived
- An' I bet it they're lookin' fer' more to unload the shipment goods?
- Ye'! Don't you wanna get some money?
- Fine, I'll gain up on you! - He waved off slightly, grabbing the mat and fitting his white drapped shirt, apparently it should belong to an adult, it's not of his size.

"What about the chance he was talkin' about... Since the ship is from Menethil..." - He kept throwing guesses while rushing down to the pier. That was just another day-. . .

Additional notes. Optionally, mention anything else you'd like us to know about your application. In conclusion leaves me nothing than admit that my gear's not yet suitable for raiding. However, just to give a more clear picture, it's been just 6 days since I hit 80, and I'm gearing up as fast as I can. Apart from the furious gear I've got, I also have T8 leggings and a decent headpiece from a HC. Overall, not much to be proud of, but I aim to get basic PvE gear (I mean, heroics & Badges) by the end of this week.

Except for that, one of the reasons that I applied is, that I just seem to sympathize this guild, in general, as I can see serious attitude towards recruiting, maturity and adequacy from it's members.

Greetings Keln!

First thing, I think this was a well made application, I enjoyed reading it anyway.
I also like how you help grannies cross the road, very noble of you!

You are correct about the Pve Mutilate speccs, There isnt many of them. I can basicly only make up one perhaps two, But yeah, Mutilate is kinda, Dead on when it comes to the talents.
Combat got a bit more variation, depending on weapons etc etc. I've always prefered daggers on rogue, since day one. I have not seen many Pve Mutilate rogues at all, but those I have seen have done some awesome DPS. I hope you can provide the same.

But then we come to the gear, If what you told us about your Pve gear, You have quite some work to do, indeed. You can get rather godlike gear throug just running heroics, In fact Icc 10 ready gear once you got it all.

Oh, And make sure to get atleast one minor glyph in your Pve specc, Might give out the wrong signals, As in some people eye, if they see your are simply ignoring it, They might think you aint going fully serious about the specc, by being cheap on it. I'm sure there is atleast 2 or 3 handy minor rogue glyphs as i've had a few rogues my self, Just a suggestion!

I dont think I have much more to say, I bet someone else have something to say aswell!


Thanks for an nice application!
//Lortex Son of Lortharion

Greetings.

I liked your application tons. Finally someone who seems to know their class and have bothered to answer every part of the questions. Tho being in GOEB is some sort of trophy, I quess since they're in the better end of the raiding guilds on alliance side.
I personally don't know much about rogues since I've only done and aimed for pvp with mine, and even in that I'm quite crap since I have other, more serious characters to spend time with. So I don't comment your spec, gems and such. Someone more comfortable with melee class will propably do that.

If you don't check sites or anything for your class, how do you choose your gems, enchants and spec? Or the stat balancing? Ofcourse there's lots of things you can learn yourself, and most of the stuff ofcourse aren't rocket science as long as you know well the basics of your class. For example in enchants there isn't always much choise etc.
But for example hit cap is something I at least personally need to check for every character and spec again and again. Same is updating the info about stat weighting, since every big patch seems to change something. Crit looses its value compared to haste, talent change gives more value to spirit (I'm talking from casters point of view ofcourse) etc etc. At least I can't do all this theorycrafting in my head, so I let wiser people do that and check their results regularry from class sites and forums.
This question was just out of intrest. I don't say there isn't self learned players who can do their job well, I just wonder how they do it.

Anyways, the biggest question in your application is the gear part, wich you mentioned also yourself. That's good since you seem to have feet in the ground and I value that highly. I'm not going to write all the obivous stuff wich you propably know already yourself.
But I'd like to ask how much time can you spend gearing up.. let's say during the next raid period (Wed/tomorrow -> Wed/next week)? T9 is doable in 3-4 days if you're mad heroic grinder. If we ignore the droprates, how big updates you're aiming to get during that time?
In armory I see you in pvp-gear and I'm sure you know that's not acceptable in raiding. Few pieces won't harm if they're bis enchanted and gemmed for pve.

You don't need to type in the questions for these answers, but think about there: Considering your gear, and being reasonable otherwise, how fast you'd like to see yourself in serious pve-action? How many other guilds you've applied?
I throw this idea to the air since your application has impressed me and I'd think that as person and player you'd be good addition to the guild when you get the gear situation fixed. If Luminous Path is something you really want to be in, but you're afraid you can't gear fast enough, maybe you'd reconsider joining as social member and applying for raid-member later. I'm not in position to decide this, but I'm sure officers are ready to reconsider this if they see your application as exceptional as I do.

/salute
--Narushka

To answer Lortex,

Indeed, combat has more variations, and frankly speaking I've always liked the way daggers look on rogues, that's why I have been subtlety \ assassination (Changing sometimes) during TBC times. Possibly, the only time I respecced into combat was middle-late TBC, as daggers used to benefit a lot from combat due to several vital abilities, in PvE.

Currently I'm waiting just for tomorrow's patch to come out, to replace my jewelry 'n other lesser stuff, trying my best to find a spot in some PuGs and semi-guild raids to get some decent PvE gear.

And yeah, I seem to have just forgotten the minor glyphs in PvE spec, as I was changing it from time to time.

And if I have to add, currently got about 30 EoF and 150 EoT, willing to spend on PvE gear. However, if I'm not mistaken Garona's gear suits more a combat rogue (No haste rating there if I'm not mistaken, ArP that I-. . . well, wouldn't mind but prefer other stats to it). I'm going to check the vendors again soon and possibly going to add another item to my PvE gear.


Now to the second response, Narushka. :>

Speaking of GoEB, during my times there it used to be a lesser guild than now, doing just 10-player raids and semi-guild 25-player raids. I've recently checked 'em up on the armory, and they certainly got many more members than it used to have.

Well, speaking about my choise of gems, enchants and specs-. . . I think I explained about the specs, Blizzard leaves nearly no choise and I just seem to choose the appropriate talents. I believe it comes with time, the clear understanding of your class. You know the strategy, your rotation \ plan for DPS in the raids, and when you see a talent you just relate it to your spec and see whether it's needed or not.

Speaking of my gearing plan, you can call me a mad grinder since I've got a lot of free time (seeking for a trainer, university stuff goes just relaxed, and I currently have no mood for other entertainment than WoW), plus I'm trying to gain up on my previous alliance rogue (Though I'm not so far away from it, taking into account the facts that the gear's become cheap, available, not as it used to be).

Well, I just felt like answering these two, but as you asked -. . .

Simply put 'n shortly speakin':

1) Quite soon. If it's required I'll go for combat PvE for some time until I get decent gear enough for end-game raiding (Expertise rating, hit rating and undodgeable finishers is really a lot when it comes up to not-full, semi-epic PvE gear as mine - These talents are just as if created for starters). I can't really promise to be ready to a certain date, but I put all my efforts into the gearing process.

2) Haven't applied for any other guilds than this. Altough, in all honesty, I had one more option apart from Luminous Path, about a week ago - The Nephilim, since I found both guilds on WoW-europe realm site, these seemed most suitable for me from the first look. Yet, I didn't apply for any as I decided to hit 80 first, and The Nephilim wasn't recruiting any more rogues.

Probably it'd be reasonable to join as a social member for now, but I'm striving keen on getting into raiding as fast as possible. I realize that everything is just in my hands and I don't pretend to be provided any help in gearing up, I'm sure I'll cope.

Even though the final word is yours, I still have hope. :>

Hey Keln,

This is a nice application overall, but it's sort of my job to be Debbie Downer in these threads, so let's explore my concerns:



This is kind of defeating to hear as a raid leader. Although we're not facerolling hardmodes or anything, we have invested eight weeks of practice in Icecrown, and are, for the first six bosses at least, now at the point of going over key reminders at the start of the fight rather than me or anyone else dissertating on complete tactics. Would you commit to coming to your first ICC raid having at least watched Tankspot videos and read Wowhead or Wowwiki discussions so we don't have to explain everything from square one?

Second, a question I have posed to other rogue applicants (and not really gotten a satisfactory answer): what do you bring to the raid besides damage? What is the role of the rogue--or what can it be--other than churning out big numbers?

Third: how many raids per week do you generally plan on signing for (once your gear is adequate)? What are your expecations about getting a spot in these raids? Talk to me about how you feel about 10- versus 25-player raiding, and your relative enthusiasm for each.

I don't think tactics have become strictly secret and every piece of information is undisclosed, google's the best friend about tactics. Knowledge of raid he's signed for is a must-have for every raider, and I'm no exception here.



Well, it really depends on the raid, I'm not sure of end-game WotLK raids, but there're a lot of useful utilities in rogues' possession such as spell interruptions (kick, especially provided that the rogue is combat-specced), mass-slow (Crippling poison + Fan of Knives) in case of incredible amount of adds (as on the Gorehound boss in Naxx, not sure of the name - been 'bout 10 months since I've been there).

I don't really know what to add here apart from the examples, don't think I missed something out. Frankly speaking I dislike "tank and spank" bosses, due to being bored of following a simple rotation that's all about keeping my powerups (SnD + HfB) up, and mutilating from time to time. I rather enjoy active raids when I'm assigned to deal with some other problems, in other words - some activity.



Now regarding the raids-. . .

It depends on your schedules, but according to the current one, I can be in time for every raid, since I'm free at the evenings on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.

I don't expect to be accepted to every raid, or to be spoon-fed with gear, however it doesn't mean I'm careless about it, and I hope to be allowed to attend as many as I can. I realize that my chances are small, seeing that you've recently accepted another rogue (not so sure, possibly better geared than me), plus you have minimum 4 rogues of level 80, if I'm not mistaken once again (Checked the Path on armory about 5 days ago), however "Awesome PvE" isn't the only thing I'm after (And not the last one, by the way!), applying for this guild. What I see here, is an estabilished, mature community, and to be honest, that is probably the main reason I'm applying.

I believe I have to say, I get way more satisfaction from 10-player raids, but yet it's not a sign of being unable to execute my role in 25-player raids. Just can't pick the right words, shortly speaking, I feel myself more comfortable in smaller raids.

Thank you, Keln. I know Rogues aren't a support class, but it's good to see a general awarness that every class has a larger responsibility than just standing there and pew-pewing.

To the application as a whole: we will leave it open to give you a bit of time, and not make a decision either way until your gear is in a position such that you could reasonably be taken on an IC-10 run.

I'll contact you on Thursday-Friday if you don't mind, since I'm usually in PvP gear as I PvP a lot around the world map, and use PvE gear only when entering Heroics \ etc. Since, in my opinion, only boots, cape and rings need serious replacement. Speaking about the "possible" replacements, I could mention shoulders and head, yet they're more-less acceptable.

Greetings once again, it's been kind'a more than a week but it took me 8 runs to get ready at least for this gear. - The point is, my previous week was quite busy due to several exams (Passed all of 'em!).

I think my gear is ready for another inspection. It's not that awesome for ICC, but it's one of the best things I can get from Heroics for now, and it at least gives me an opportunity to pull enough DPS for ICC10.

You can still see the cloak that wasn't enchanted \ gemmed up, and the main reason is, I've got it about 10 minutes ago, and logged immediately for it to get updated on the armory. Apart from that, you can still see I've got PvP boots, but that's just due to no luck with drops in ToC last week, still running it daily to get decent PvE boots. The second ring, Hemmorhaging Circle is also an outdated, Early WotLK item, that doesn't suit ICC much, but I'm still working on replacing it as fast as possible. Darkmoon Card: Death isn't that useful in PvE, and I could actually replace it with PvE trinket for Triumph Marks, yet I'm not so sure of that yet.

Have to admit, daggers could've been better, and I didn't enchant them with Berserker yet since I expect them to be replaced in future, either with PvP daggers (They are quite suitable in PvE, if you don't have any other option, due to their damage and several useful stats), or PvE if I'm lucky to get any.

But if we take a look at my stats overall, end-game geared rogues (with better daggers 'n stuff) have an advantage over me in simple damage (it's more if I keep HfB up, though), and atk power, but I'm quite sure I'll gain up on them with these stats soon.

Yosh, looking good "thumbs up"

Banzai!

Yeah weapons are a pain in teh ass to get, just cross your fingers for ToC Heroic or try to get a TotC run