Tell us tell us a little about yourself.
My life outside of WoW isn't all that exciting currently. I work part time as a cleaning lady for elderly/disabled folk, and when I'm not doing that I'm either attempting to teach myself various art skills (namely digital art, but trying to bone back up on long neglected drawing skills in general) or being your typical internet bum.
Tell us about your WoW experience.
I'm applying as an Enhancement Shaman. While I've dabbled in both Restoration and Elemental in the past, Enhancement is where my heart, soul, and skill resides. In the past I've had various alts and "main alts" that I raided on along side my shaman in various pugging environments, being Feral Druid/Affliction Warlock in Wrath, Feral/Guardian Druid and to a minor extent Blood DK in Cataclysm, and Discipline/Shadow Priest, Destruction Warlock, and to a minor extent, Restoration/Elemental Shaman during Mists.
I started playing WoW regularly during mid Burning Crusade. I began my raiding career on my shaman during this time with a group of real life friends in a guild we created called School of Rock. We only managed to progress as far as Akama in BT, but we had a lot of fun along the way.
In Wrath I began raid leading. During 10 man raiding sessions we taught new players the various strategies, then during the weekends we'd take the group into 25 man content. We cleared out all of the 10 man content prior to Ulduar, and had the majority of 25 man content cleared as well, save for OS3D, which was pretty decent for us given that we were a limited hour, weekend raiding guild. Going into Ulduar I ended up making a guild of my own, Battle of Serenity. We cleared up through General Vezax on 10 man and Hodir on 25, no hard modes. Around this time I started pugging on my feral druid, having only slightly less progression on her than my shaman. The guild had TotC on farm for both 10 and 25 man normal, not going back for TotC 10H until sometime in early ICC, which we did successfully, though several pulls shy of the Tribute to Insanity achievement. The guild went on to clear ICC on 10 man, though I ended up stepping away from the game during Lich King progression due to real life circumstances, ending that tier being 11/12N and 6/12N in 25 man ICC.
I returned to the game midway through Firelands during Cataclysm and joined up with a guild called Too Soon Executus, with whom I achieved 7/7N status prior to the release of Dragon Soul. For Dragon Soul itself, I moved on to a guild that pushed heroic raiding, called Evil Deeds Inc. With that guild we achieved 8/8H Dragon Soul by the time the 10% nerf came in, plus we returned to Firelands about halfway through that tier to farm heroic Ragnaros for the mount. During this time I started a little crz raiding website called Twitterland Raiding and began raid leading various achievement runs, and continued to do so alongside my usual raiding schedule, up through Siege of Orgrimmar.
I continued raiding with EDI through part of tier 14, ending my stay with them with having achieved 4/6H in Mogu'shan Vaults. I stepped away from raiding again until Throne of Thunder was released, when I began raiding with a guild called Order of the Turtle as a fill in. With them I achieved 13/13N and we had both Jin'rokh and Ji-kun on farm in heroic. Sadly the group fell apart at the end of the tier and I ended up transferring servers. With the new guild, System Failure, we achieved 14/14H in Siege of Orgrimmar and managed to farm up enough mounts for our core team prior to 6.0 dropping.
Warlords has been a bit of a hit and miss for me on the raiding scene. At this point both myself and likely the majority of the guild was really feeling the burnout leftover from Siege, but we ended up finishing Highmaul being 3/7M. I was 8/10H Blackrock Foundry before I stepped down from raiding due to burnout. I did end up pugging the last two bosses in BRF prior to Hellfire releasing though, rounding out that tier with ahead of the curve. Currently I'm 6/13H on my main Shaman through being a fill in for a friend's raiding group, which has recently dissolved, and 7/13H on my alt Enhancement Shaman, Zarifruh, who is currently raiding with a group called Had One job.
TL;DR - Hi I'm Saz, I'm an Enhancement Shaman. I've raided too much and I like to write giant walls of text. I don't PvP much.
What is your Weakness?
While I wouldn't say that I'm at my absolute peak, I do consider myself a very solid player. I'm always trying to improve something, be it my timing (I've gotten a bit slack on defensive CDs running only normal and some heroic modes lately), or learning the slight variations in playstyle when it comes to talent choices.
What was your favorite gaming moment?
It's honestly hard to choose. There's been plenty of times over the years where either group or solo play has evoked the legendary nerd chills, so picking one moment is problematic. Beating Super Metroid was always a kick as a kid. For WoW, attempting Algalon for the first time (he whooped my group something fierce! It was awesome.), finally getting Ashes of Al'ar to drop after nearly two years of farming for it, and defeating Heroic Ragnaros are all up there. Soloing Kanrethad, beating Proving Grounds Endless as Enhancement in MoP (oh jeeze, the swearing on that one!), soloing the Earth, Wind, and Fire 25 achievement in VoA...so many amazing moments, both shared with others and done on my own. The best of the best though was probably watching my raiders accomplish things they thought and said that they could never do. Can't really beat that feeling as a raid leader.
Extra Credit
Main Shaman: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/character/637/latest/
Alt Shaman: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/character/269195/latest/
Interface (WeakAuras): http://i.imgur.com/IAuGuz3.jpg
Interface (Raid): http://i.imgur.com/riok65k.jpg
Super happy to see your application! Dys and I have missed you!!
Hey Saz, happy to see your app! We'll have to get you in on a raid, maybe Monday night?
Hi Saz! Nice to hear from you, Euphoric speaks highly of you. As Mutagen said, we'd like to get you into a raid soon.
The only concern I have (which I mentioned to Euphoric) is that we might run a little melee heavy, but there aren't too many fights in Hellfire Citadel where that would be a big problem.
For Science!
Hello Mutagen and Skarn!
I'll definitely be available Monday night for raid. I understand your concerns about running melee heavy, Skarn. Having run in nothing but melee heavy comps this tier, I know that certain fights get really interesting space wise (Tyrant in p1 is a prime example) and that other fights get really interesting if there isn't enough ranged (ghosts/adds on Socrethar, adds on Kilrogg, and the infernals on both Mannoroth and Archimonde specifically come to mind). As long as there's enough ranged to counter mechanics we can't touch easily and melee are on their toes, it shouldn't present too much of an issue.
We've got a pair of Hunters (sometimes 3), two Shaman, a Shadow Priest, a Boomkin and a Feral who can do Boomkin as needed, so we're in pretty good shape for ranged. Another couple sure wouldn't hurt though. :)
So sure, come hang out!
For Science!
Reject. I'll get very confused when Skarn says, "Saz pop heroism!" :D