Jonathon Russell
Damage Control Guild Application
Jonathon Russell
Esopus
18
Central
No
Please provide more detailed information about yourself below
I recently came back to playing (I quit after I hit 80 because of personal/family issues). I'm currently in The Brutal Truth which is composed of family/friends who are very casual. Although I like the atmosphere, I'm interested in raiding end game content and being in one of the best guilds on the server.
I initially started playing on Suramar back in the day with a few family members (Nandina, Toastey, Umezawa), and was part of Da Playas and fear while they were more active.
After a while, I took over my friend's pally Drenel in the guild Impervious on Stormreaver and cleared all of Naxx with them (you know, back when it was hard :P).
I've decided I wanted to end-game raid again, and after browsing a few of the guilds on Suarmar I thought Damage Control would be an awesome fit - especially after talking to Kewi/Psuedo.
tl;dr - fear/DP on Suramar, left due to inactivity. Impervious on Stormreaver, left because of time constraints (I was a sophomore in high school at the time, staying up til 2 AM almost every night trying to progress in Naxx)
In both vanilla and BC I cleared all content as a holy Paladin. In WotLK, I've cleared ICC 10 and started ICC 25.
I've watched (and played a little) a few of my friends clear ICC 25 and I've cleared ICC 25 on my brother's rogue, and watched him do it countless times. Although my mage has not seen the instances, I'm familiar with most end-game fights. The fights that I don't know, I will gladly read up on and insure that I'm ready for come raid time. I also feel that having seen most if not all end game fights from DPS/Tank/Heal side, I understand how the fight works and what I need to do as DPS to insure that I don't cause unnecessary stress to both tanks and healers.
Initially I was convinced I would have no opportunity in getting in, but after talking to Kewi he convinced me there's no harm in trying. In addition, the raid times mesh perfectly with my availability and I should have no problem making most if not all raids. Having experienced how ass-tastic some guilds can get while pushing for progress, I am incredibly enthusiastic with the possibility of being in a guild that seems to have more fun while progressing
Considering that more than half my family plays WoW, and that a large quantity of my friends also play (albeit on different servers), I get a healthy dose of WoW in real life. I've talked WoW to death with all of these people and consider my knowledge of mechanics above average. I read EJ on a regular basis and have worked on improving my dps piece by piece with RAWR. I have a spreadsheet consisting of every single upgrade I can get. Because I'm a mega-nerd, the spreadsheet actually has each item rated specifically on how much it will upgrade my dps and how available it is to me. Because I have only recently started playing, my gear is rather lacking. But with the investment of time I am prepared to put in if accepted, can quickly become above-average.
As far as upgrades go, almost anything that has an iLevel greater than 232 and is itemized for a mage is an upgrade for me. I'm hit capped as arcane (not that it's hard to do) and am obviously prioritizing haste. Ideally, I'd like to also try running a TtW/FB spec (because it's more fun than spamming as arcane) but my gear is not quite there yet.
As a 475 Herbalist, I'm prepared to farm all herbs necessary to make any potions that may be needed in a raid, and have no problem farming for other guild mates. I always carry a healthy stock of Haste and Frost Wyrm pots.
Of course. If I'm available to raid but not needed, I will probably spend the time farming herbs or leveling alts until I'm needed.
Yes. After being in a guild like Impervious, I understand when it's okay to talk and when it's not. Although you'll see me joking outside of raids, I am very attentive/responsive and will react as quickly as possible to any changes that need to be made.
I consider myself an incredibly generous WoW player. If an alt needs to a run through an instance, or someone needs some gold/mats I have no problem helping them. Interestingly enough, this whole process started because I talked to Kewi after giving him 5 frozen orbs for free because I didn't need them.
I will try to post WOL reports from the Ony10 and Naxx10 raids I do tonight with TBT, though my 25 man DPS is obviously higher.
I love that you went into detail in responding to the questions we asked for. But, there are a few things that stand out to me, or rather, are of concern.
1) You noted that while you have only seen ICC25 in action, you've cleared ICC10. On your character sheet and achievement pages though, there's no note of this on this character. What is the name of the character (I'm assuming your holy paladin) who has cleared all of ICC10?
Additionally, seeing the fights isn't the same as fighting in them yourself, nor is seeing it from a rogue's standpoint the same as a mage's. What's your role as a mage on Lady Deathwhisper? What about Professor Putricide?
2) You do have 4 pc T9, but your first Emblem of Frost acquisition, according to the RSS, was a few days ago. This means that your gear levels are far below competitive levels for ICC25 heroic modes, which require just about the entire raid to be in 251 or better. What we've found with people in "lower" levels of gear is that oftentimes, they do not have the stamina necessary from higher levels of gear to survive the sometimes-20k damage spikes that could hit a raid for varying reasons.
What are you doing to improve this? Will you try to get the epic tailoring Leggings of Woven Death or some boots crafted? Are you running the daily heroic and weekly raid quest for frost emblems? Are you getting into VoA 10/25 for a chance at Tier 10 mage drops?
3) Enchants. You are missing a chest enchant. Is this an oversight?
I -was- going to mention the lack of Sons of Hodir reputation, but then I noticed you are a scribe, so that explains the lack of that rep grind.
Thank you for posting in the applicant forum. You are free to answer my questions there.
He's also one of the few applicants that states more clearly how he seeks to improve (EJ, RAWR, RL discussions) instead of "I pug ICC for gear" as the answer... also mentioned he brings pots and flasks and uses tools to improve dps.
Also shows raid-conscious decision making in terms of helping healers by reducing damage taken
we should honestly just say no were not recruiting cuz we dont have time to see if you suck or not.
please app back when we are 11/12 heroic or don't expect a trial run until then.