Zara - Disc/Holy Priest

[Zara]

Who is your character?

Name: Zara
Class: Priest
Armory: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/t ... a/advanced
Specs: Disc & Holy, I consider neither my main or off spec, I am fully confident in both. Holy is performing very well on beta right now so it definitely helps to be a competent player of both.


Who are you?

Name: Megan
Age: 23
Nationality: Scottish
Profession: Currently doing a PhD in Immunology and working part time.



Experience

I have been playing since late TBC but did not start raiding until WoTLK hit. All of my WoTLK experience was gained as a Mdps. Since making my Priest in Cataclysm I have played in the 100-300 world rank bracket predominantly as a healer, aside from my priest I briefly played a Resto Druid as a main in T14 but my guild had no Priest for HoF progress so I switched back.

WoTLK:
Naxx: Full Clear
Ulduar: Full Clear with Meta
ToGC: Full Clear with Madness
ICC: Full Clear with Meta

Cata:
T11: Full Clear with Meta
T12: Full Clear with Meta (Rag was post nerfs)
T13: Full Clear with Madness prenerf & Meta

MoP:
T14: All 3 Cutting Edge Feats
T15: Lei Shen and Ra Den Cutting Edge
T16: 14/14HC Cutting Edge Garrosh



Raid role

As a Disc Priest my main role is mitigating damage, thus making other healers lives easier in healing back up damage taken and creating a safety net that spans further than someones HP pool. It's extremely important, as a healer, but more so as a Disc to prepare in advance for incoming damage and be aware of an encounters main events.

I prepare for this in a number of ways, I firstly do my research into encounters via reading about them and watching guides in order to understand the mechanics - as well as gaining my own experience through PTR or Beta where I can, followed by watching a number of streams from high end Priests or raid leaders to gain better understanding of what playstyle to adopt myself, and what the raid itself should be aiming for as a whole.

I judge my own performance in a number of ways, the most obvious being how successful the kill was or the reasons for wiping, followed by log analysis - not necessarily into HPS as it isn't really a reliable indicator of doing what you should be in a lot of circumstances, but damage taken by abilities logs, dispel logs, spell usage, uptimes, and mana regeneration etc are all very useful tools to determine whether I'm getting the most out of my character or not.

I stay up to date on my class in a number of ways also, I test things out for myself quite often as I enjoy doing the maths myself, as well as being active on a number of Priest forums such as HowToPriest, Tales of a Priest, Healnotes, and occasionally MMO or EJ if there is an interesting debate. I also use WarcraftLogs/WoL as a tool to compare my playstyle with other Priests and as mentioned I watch a ridiculous volume of streams.



Talent choices

T1: I generally run with Void Tendrils as they are the most useful of the lot for generic situations, they come in handy for rooting adds on Malk if you get healer aggro and fade is on CD, for ironblades on General,for rooting parasites on Klaxxi etc.

T2: I run Body and Soul as my generic talent because it offers the most control, but for Thok and Garrosh I would of course take feathers.

T3: I tend to run Solace as my main talent because it returns the most mana and offers a slight healing increase (100% of damage dealt converted to healing rather than 90%), however, if this were progress and I had any mana struggles I would take mindbender for situations where I won't want to interrupt SS blanketing to cast Solace. Right now it doesn't matter if I don't cast it off CD because mana is so comfortable. I use FDCL for a couple of encounters where my mana is so comfortable I don't need a regen talent and would rather have some instant heals to throw out such as Immerseus.

T4: I run Angelic Bulwark as it is just a passive safety net, however I do take Desperate Prayer in a few situations, for example if I know I will be Void Shifting actively ie on Immerseus adds, or if there is a high chance I'll keep proccing AB just from dropping low from specific mechanics and not actually be in any danger thus wasting it where I might need the panic button.
Spectral Guise is extremely useful in SoO for negating a few abilities such as Sawblades on Siegecrafter, Parasites & Aim on Paragons etc and I fully utilize this.

T5: I'm almost always using ToF, it is by far the most beneficial talent to most encounters and is very easily kept at a high uptime.

T6: I change my T6 talents constantly, the basic rule being if there are fights that have constant raid damage or some sort of aoe ability every X seconds(X<20) then you’d go for Divine star. If the spike damage was every 20~40 seconds you'd go for Halo. Halo would serve perfectly bosses with spike damage that occurs every 40 seconds and the closer it gets to 20 seconds you can blanket the raid with spirit shell. Cascade works well in situations where there is not ideal positioning for DS or Halo, but is generally the weakest of the 3 both for HPS and HPM.
To put these rules into examples, I run DS for things like Sha of Pride, Thok, Garrosh, Halo for things like Malk, Paragons if you don't CC, and Cascade for things like Immerseus, Nazgrim etc.

Glyphs: My glyphs are very straightforward and barely change, I swap out smite range for damage reduction at times but that's about it.

So with all of this explained, last 3 bosses:
Siegecrafter - Solace, Spectral Guise, ToF & Divine Star
Paragons - Solace, Spectral Guise, ToF & Halo/Cascade
Garrosh - Feathers, Solace, Angelic Bulwark, ToF & Divine Star


Off-specs and Alternative characters
As mentioned I have extensive experience raiding as a Holy Priest and have no issues with playing the spec, in fact in a lot of ways I prefer it, it just isn't viable at the moment. I stay up to date with Shadow but have no gear to sustain a DPS OS currently.

In terms of alts, I have all healing classes at max level but none are particularly geared. I've played Resto Druid as a main before and stay fairly competent at all healing classes. I have no objections to gearing a raiding alt of your choice, for now Druid was my planned alt for WoD.


Communication
I have a mic and no problems with being vocal where necessary.
I am very happy to use forums for tactic discussion etc and actually look for that quality in a guild, in the past I have always been active in tactic discussions etc.


Logs
I'm afraid I currently lack logs due to all of mine expiring, my current guild hasn't been raiding for the last few months after clearing content and summer hitting. Since they have started raiding again I have not been attending due to my job conflicting with raid times. I have no objections to logging something of your choice but I don't think flex logs will be of any use in determining my ability.


Your UI
http://i.imgur.com/fxfNMkp.jpg
It's an old screenshot but everything is the same really. I don't have my binds showing but they are very standard extra mouse button binds and basic keybinds all as mouseovers. I can list them fully if necessary.



Guild History

Side Effects - Azuremyst: This was my guild throughout WoTLK where I played a Mdps and raided properly for the first time. They sadly disbanded during LK HC progress.

Axiom - Chamber of Aspects: I took the oppertunity to reroll to my Priest and joined a 25man guild for Cataclysm launch. I remained here until they went 10man as Dragon Soul hit.

Prophecy - Darkmoon Faire: I then joined Prophecy where I remained for the rest of Dragon Soul before they ceased raiding and most players moved to other guilds.

Origin - Alonsus: I played in Origin for the first 2 Tiers of MoP. Due to high tensions many members left and the atmosphere was no longer enjoyable.

Grim Harvest: This is my current guild on The Maelstrom where I have cleared SoO. Due to my new job I cannot make their raid schedule anymore and was forced to look for a new home.



Raid availability
I can make all your raid days and times.

References
I found you via wowprogress, I'm sure a number of people would vouch for me but most of them are only playing Beta at the moment and would be difficult to get a hold of. You could contact Drasp in my current guild who is quite active still.

About you
Well as said my name is Megan, aside from being a basement dwelling no-lifer on WoW and at uni I like to snowboard and watch ice hockey, as well as going out on the weekends and consuming silly amounts of vodka. That's about it really!

Miscellaneous
I'd just like to mention I realize my lack of logs will be very off putting and that my lack of activity in the last 2-3 months will probably make you skeptical too, but its solely due to being busy with real life while I was changing job etc and I am now ready to return properly to raiding and active on beta for WoD. I'm behind on upgrades due to being on a mini break also but will be catching up on it, not that it really matters much at this point but worth noting I suppose.

Edit: I thought I should perhaps explain my gearing choices a little as well:
Like most Priests I run without 4set the majority of the time due to the sheer volume of Crit and Mastery I gain from off pieces outweighing the fairly lackluster 4set benefits. On a few specific fights I sometimes take 4set but it depends if I'm the only Priest or not, for example I'd consider taking it on Paragons for some extra Spirit if I were the only Disc due to the sheer volume of shielding I would be doing, and for Garrosh if my SS were being used as a major CD for weapon or something along those lines as SS is very strong there, but it is still a double edged sword due to gaining so much unwanted Spirit and sacrificing raw output.
I generally keep my Spirit around 8.5k on farm but I could stand to drop around 1k, I just don't gain much benefit as my gear isn't ideally itemized for crit gain.

[Beastaly]

Hello Zara! Thanks for you application. We've got many gnomes currently studying your app, please give us some time to let them come to a verdict!

[Youshi]

Hey Zara, thank you for applying to TRC. Very strong application (And the formatting is amazing! I didnt think anything could look pretty with this website! haha)

The talent run down was great. The raid role articulated near perfect. A refreshing read and a clear indication of someone who is more than competent at their class.

Logs are always helpful. As you can understand, however no logs is always better than rushed or desperate ones.

Is there an opportunity for us to perhaps set up a casual interview (more of a chat over mummble!). In which we could discuss things such as, what you are looking for, what we are looking for, availability etc etc.

I'll poke Bowick to hop along and perhaps Echoette if she isnt to busy (one of our current priests, both are healers)

[Zara]

Hi there, thanks for the positive feedback

I'm available all day today if that works or we can sort something else out, my battletag is Megan#2845 if that makes it easier to set something up.

[Zarell]

Hey Zara

Good application, now I can go and learn to play my priest too

Looking forward to seeing you on trails. Good Luck

[Bowick]

Hey Zara,

As discussed, we're happy to offer you a trial! And we can start this Thursday, if your PC isn't having a strop.. Otherwise, next raid will be Sunday.

In the mean time lets poke the gnome to set up your forum and raid calender access.

We'll be aiming for Immerseus -> Siegecrafter on Thurs, with fairly standard 25 man tactics.

There's a couple of addons you'll need, so please have fun downloading these delightful things:
- EPGP Lootmaster
- Angry Assignments

Hope to see you then!

And, it's totally up to you if you transfer now or after we pass your trial. Just make sure you steal a good name. >)

Cheers!
~Bowie

[Bowick]

Hey Zara!
Do you have any updates for us? Yoush mentioned you're getting your PC fixed up. Are they still slacking with that? Do we need to send in the Gnomengineers? :p