Tassager - Bear/Kitty Druid

Guest

Name : Tassager
Game : World of Warcraft
Server : Draenor - US
Level : 85
Gender : Male
Faction : Alliance
Race : Worgen (would change back to nelf with a server change)
Class : Druid
Spec 1 : Feral (Bear)
Spec 2 : Feral (Kitty)

Tell us a bit about yourself (the person, not the character.):

My name is Stephen, and I’m a few weeks shy of 28. Live in Phoenix, where I’m an Event Coordinator for a large multi-purpose event facility here in town. I finished my Master’s degree in December, and have a bit more time to myself now than I’d grown accustomed to these past few years.

I’m originally from Chicago, and love just about everything about the place, and I’ll tell you all about it if you’ll hold still long enough to listen. :-) Can’t wait to get back there eventually. I’m also a bit of a nut for politics and history... love to read about, debate about, and learn about those things pretty much whenever I get a chance. Also love sports, and am a total homer for all my Chicago teams (Cubs, not White Sox!!).

Not really a gamer outside of WoW. As I’m sure many of you can relate... once I gave the game a shot (for an assignment for school, believe that or not), that was it. Haven’t looked back since... and here I am.

Please describe your previous/current raiding experience:

Previous raid experience is quite limited next to so many of you, and so many of these applicants here! I’m almost embarrassed!

I joined WoW just as Wrath was going live. Rolled a gnome mage (mohawk then, mohawk now), and between the job, the school, and the girlfriend, I took simply an eternity to level him up. Hit 80 late in Ulduar. Raided a teeny bit of Ulduar for the first time, and really cut my raiding teeth in ToC. Was with a very casual raiding guild at that point, and we cleared ToC with a bit of time before ICC dropped. Stuck with that guild through ICC. Went 11/12 in ICC with the mage, at which point two things happened... Got tired of our poor tanks, and got tired of the never-ending ICC grind... So I decided to roll a bear and see if that changed how I saw things.

It did. I’m a tank now, and I’ll never look back. Hit 80 on the Bear, and started tanking ICC for the guild. Quickly went 11/12 as I learned tanking, and then got stuck on LK again. My two good friends and I decided to start off on our own for Cata, and formed our own guild just before it dropped. We leveled and recruited and got started raiding a bit late. Ended up going 9/12 in our first 5 weeks of raiding with me as the guild MT.

Then (which is where we are today), we hit a wall. Real life issues started picking off raiders one by one... and we can’t seem to find solid, reliable DPS to save our lives. We’ve stalled hard.

My Cata Experience:
- BWD - 5 of 6 - Experience with Nef well into the second phase.

- BoT - 2 of 4 - I was not present for what is, to date, our only Ascendant Council kill. However, I could write a book about the number of < 3% wipes I’ve tanked. I’m also very comfortable with the Cho’Gall fight, having tanked that on the lockout where we did down Ascendant Council.

- Tot4W - 0 of 2 - Literally haven’t set foot in here. Guild has spent one night in here, and I was out of town for it.

Holy cow I just wrote a lot there... Shutting up now, and moving on...

Why are you leaving your current guild (if applicable?):

I touched on a lot of this above. We’ve hit a wall, and I’m just not having fun right now. It’s work. I’ve been looking around for a short while for good options, but great opportunities for a tank that wants to raid 10’s are extremely limited these days. You guys seem to be such an opportunity.

Do you have an off-spec? How good is your off-spec gear, and are you willing to play it if needed?:

Yes, I do. My kitty gear is currently ilevel 349. Should improve pretty quickly at this point, as I’m one piece shy of having no more VP pieces to buy for my bear set. I’m happy to play it if needed, and have significant experience doing so on Magmaw (~18-20k DPS), Valiona (~14-15k DPS), and Atramedes (~14-15k DPS). I have a lot of learning yet to do on that spec (and as a melee dps), and there are a number of areas I am working to improve on. I’d expect those numbers to go up from where they’re at now. Happy to link to WoL numbers if you guys would like to verify.

Why are you interested in joining Business Time?:

You’re stable. You’re adults. You’re focused on progressing. You love to raid. Looking around the forums here, it’s obvious that you guys have fun and count one another as friends. You have raid times that work great for me. I love the way you handle loot. I love that you have active forums. I love that you care enough to keep up a great website. … And, you happen to need a fuzzy bear. wink

I do have hesitations about leaving my current guild, and taking a leap on a server transfer... But you guys fit very well what I’m looking for to be comfortable making that jump. If I get that far, I certainly wouldn’t make a final decision until I’d had a chance to talk to you all in vent, and would love to lurk in vent to hear how you run a raid.

Do you have Ventrilo installed and a working microphone?:

Absolutely.

Is there anything else you'd like to add not covered by the previous questions?:

My current healing lead (and Co-GM) has said that he’d be happy to talk to anyone if there were questions about how squishy I was, etc, etc. I completely understand that it’s tough to “try-out” a tank through an app and an interview, as so much of it isn’t hard numbers that you can check on WoL. I am absolutely confident of my ability to tank these encounters.

I haven’t been doing this tanking thing for all that long, compared to many, but I love it dearly. It’s why I play. I love being a raid tank. I love clearing content... And I’m ready to take a step up in the quality of raiders I run with.

Given that I work in the events world, it is pretty typical that my weekends get loaded up at work. Weekday nights are generally (but not always) the far better raid option. This is the main factor in my answers on availability below. There are also some seasons of the year where work really piles on me hard (October in particular).

Application Availability Info:
Sunday -> Various.
Monday -> Generally, yes.
Tuesday -> Generally, yes.
Wednesday -> Generally, yes.
Thursday -> Generally, yes.

Armory Link: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/Draenor/Tassager/advanced

Thanks!

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Millya

Hi Tassager, and thank you for your interest in BT. We'll be reviewing your application and getting back to you, during which time we may have some questions for you here.

Meraxiss · Member Wears Business Socks Joined: 28 Feb 2010 Posts: 486

Hi Tassager, thanks for filling out an application and talking with Fsob the other night. I do have a question on your availability, in order to make our tanking duo and soon to be trio work we need some flexibility on your part with matching one persons schedule, so when you say you are generally available how "general" is that? Believe me we all have other commitments and work but one of us has a very rigid work schedule that rotates every week, so we need someone who has that evening availability.

Alright so I have a few other questions too. What type of encounter do you think bear tanks excel at over say other classes? What is the issue your guild is having with ascendent council?

Guest

Millya - Thanks!

Meraxiss - In an effort to define "general" without being too, well, you know... general... I'll put it to you this way and hope this gives you a better idea. Given the Monday/Wednesday/Thursday schedule that Millya posted on the official forums, I can foresee right now that there could be Wednesday/Thursday conflicts with work for me maybe... 7 times a year? Monday would be far less than that... probably no foreseeable conflict (Mon/Tues is often my "weekend," after working Sat/Sun). There would be additional conflicts that popped up over the course of a year, but those would be travel, sickness, etc... and I'd always be able to give you guys notice on those.

As to where bear tanks excel... Due to the way our mastery is structured currently (some big changes on the PTR, but we'll see what makes it live)... It'd be on tanking single targets (preferably with slow swing timers), and not on groups of adds due to weak AOE threat when beserk is on CD and all but meaningless mastery shields on multi-mob packs (again, pretty interesting stuff on the PTR here, but we'll see...). Maloriak himself, not his adds. Nef himself, not his adds. Would be happy to go into more detail if you'd like (armor, dodge, pulverize mechanic, SD shields), but I realize I'm already being long-winded.

The problems we're having on Ascendant Council are simple... We're consistently losing the DPS race in the last phase. P1 and P2 are going too long due to low DPS, which is putting our healers into P3 without the mana on hand we'd like them to have... and then just dragging that last phase out far, far longer than it should go.

That final phase of Ascendant Council is also a great example of where bears can excel... Our Pally tank takes the monstrosity, and I go kitty. I can still do respectable damage in bear gear/spec, and have my tranquility on hand to assist where necessary (even my pathetic innervate!

).

Hope this is clear! Happy to answer anything further.

- Tass

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Millya

Hi Tassager, we'd like the chance to speak with you further in Vent. Are you available any time on Sunday?

Guest

Millya, yes, I'm available on Sunday evening. I work until 7ish PST, if everything wraps up smoothly with the event I'm working. Would be available after I get out of the office, and leaving a bit of wiggle room... does 8p PST work?

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Vosskah

Yes, 8pm PST will work for us. If you can, just create a level 1 character on Moonrunner and message any of us, we'll give you the vent info.

Guest

Sounds good! I'll talk to you guys then!

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Noodlestein · Joined: 21 May 2009 Posts:

Madness!

Guest

Gnome druid bare? Oh hell yes...

Thanks so much for talking with me tonight! Great to talk to each of you... except for Sinpree... it was great to talk AT you.

Best of luck in making your decision and continued progress!

- Tass

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Noodlestein · Joined: 21 May 2009 Posts:

What we really need are Dwarf bears.

Dwarves > All.

Guest

With beards?

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Noodlestein · Joined: 21 May 2009 Posts:

Tassager wrote:

With beards?

Well you can't have a dwarf without an epic beard...

I can see it now, bearded bears.

Millya

Hi Tassager and thanks for taking the time to chat with us this evening. I am happy to inform you that we'd like to extend a trial invitation to you. If you'd like to sit in on one of our raids before transferring you are welcome to do so tomorrow evening; otherwise a guild invite will be waiting for you at your earliest convenience.

If you could apply to the site using the "Apply to Guild" button in the sidebar I can approve your site membership as well. Speaking for the DPS, we look forward to getting into threat battles with you soon, the rest of the guild probably just looks forward to raiding with you. ;)

Vosskah

Congratulations and welcome aboard!

And don't worry about the mages' threat. We trained them to be quick with invisibility.

Tassager - Bear/Kitty Druid

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