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The Reality of Recruiting Part 2

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Here’s part 2! The finale will be published sometime over the weekend. How do some guilds handle the actual recruiting portion? What separates the pretender apps from the contender apps? What’s more important to guilds? Likeability or competency? Here’s what other recruiters and officers have said.

How does the recruiting process work for your guild from start to finish?

They first apply.  The officers then receive the application and discuss any issues in a private forum.  We ask guild members and ex-members from that person’s previous guild.  Finally, we will either:

a) Respond to them in-game
b) Decline them. Even if we respond, we can still decline them if something unsavory pops up.

Kitts

We try to use as many means of advertising that our guild is looking for good players while still avoiding the catch-all that is Trade Chat.  Of course, everyone used realm forums, but I’ve also used Guild Watch announcements, posted on PlusHeal forums and consistently post in GuildRecruitment channel while leveling my fishing in Org. Hilariously, for a while our guild website was getting quite a bit of outside traffic as a result of the number of women we have in our guild and the rest of the server population wanting to check out our RL Pics thread.  This got the guild name out there a bit.

Viktorious

The applicant places their application on the guild forums and are then asked to join our guild chat channel and disband any guild they are currently in. The applicant has 3 weeks to get to know us and secure a sponsor before voting begins. They have 3 weeks to get into groups and get to know the guild. In that time, a voting booth is opened up and the applicant must obtain 15 yes votes, if for a raider these yes votes must include a yes vote from both class leads. if the applicant receives 3 well justified no votes, the application is terminated. each no vote extends the probation period one week If thapplicant receives the necessary votes, they begin a probation period of 6 weeks. At the end of the period another vote is taken. 15 yes votes again are required, with fewer then 3 no votes. Again 3 no votes will kill the application and the person will be asked to leave.

Lodur

What is the most common mistake that recruits make when they apply to you?

We’re fairly forgiving, but we don’t like seeing people apply who obviously have no idea how to gear for their class/spec. Not taking the application seriously. We get a lot of applications that are very poorly filled out, featuring little to no capitalization/punctuation, skipped questions and incomplete answers.

Seri

They forget that we’ve been raiding successfully without them up to this point, and that their job with their application is to sell us on the fact that they’d make an excellent contribution to OUR team, not that we’d make an excellent contribution to their playing and loot-gathering experience. "I want to join because I’m tired of wiping with people who don’t know what they’re doing" or "You guys seem like a good way for me to see end-game content" are all red flags. I also hate seeing tanks/healers apply when that role is obviously not their passion and they’d rather be joining in a DPS capacity. As a healer myself, few things irk me more than someone who applies as a healer, but can’t wait until the raid ends to spec DPS or log onto a DPS alt, and is only healing so they can get into a raid guild. They never perform as well as people who love the role.

Cerinne

The most common mistake is the new 80 or 77 who joins expecting us to spend our time babying them to raid status or to help them run every group quest in the questlog.  We have no greedy goblins in our guild so they shouldn’t expect their epic flight to be paid for.  Also, another mistake is to join our guild as someone who isn’t 80 and spam chat to run every old world or BC dungeon.  The only dungeon I ever ran while leveling was ramps when I first got into Outland.  It wasn’t until Northrend that I tried to hit every dungeon possible.  It is much faster to quest to 80 then to run every dungeon.

Finnugen

Unprepared players who don’t know their classes as well as they should or higher level raiding, who use green quality gems or who don’t even now about consumables or what kind of consumables or optimal for them. And then there are the players who think that the less text they type the more we’ll like their application…

Fire

In contrast, what would you describe as the perfect application?

Well thought out answers which show in depth knowledge of the class and the realities of high end raiding. The ability to type properly (not as common as you’d think).

Sylly

Answers of 2-3 sentences.  Show me that you took 5 minutes to fill out our application.  After all, you’ll be spending 9-15 hours a week in the raid, what’s 5 minutes to apply?  Also, something that shows they have an understanding of the game and their class, beyond "uber-deeps".  Extensive vocabulary is always a plus.

Viktorious

The perfect application would be THOROUGH. It would convince me that they know their class, know their raid fights (even if they haven’t experienced them first hand), and know their place as part of a team–meaning willingness to rotate with their classmates, acceptance of criticism, and acknowledgment that top-notch raid performance is a journey, not a destination that they have already reached. If I look them up on Armory, I should see that this character really is their main and their pride and joy–this is especially important for tanks and healers.

Cerinne

What’s more important: Being competent or being likable? Why?

That seems to depend on our current needs. At the moment we’re looking for active raiders, so being competent is more important. However we’d still not invite someone we don’t feel will fit in, even if they are a class A raider.

Eid

I have to say at this point in the game, with Ulduar recently released, both are equally important. Before, it was likability > competence but in order to actually get anything done in Uld, new recruits need to be able to play or there’s just no point to them being in the guild when we’re trying to progress and there’s this new guy who needs help to get to where we are before he can help us succeed. It sounds terribly self-serving but it’s necessary to be a competitive raiding guild on any server.

Raesa

We have competent people who aren’t always very likable, and likable people who aren’t always competent. In the end, the likable ones stay longer. They may not raid with us often… but they stay.

Amber

Being likeable in a slim margin over being competent. I’d rather have someone who didn’t drive me up the wall personality-wise than suffer an asshole who played like a dream. Since I do heroics and raids with a large group of people, being competent in our guild is not as big of a concern.

Aislinana

You’ll notice a few common themes among answers. I’ll leave them open to your interpretation.

State of the Blog: Summer 09

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Dear friends,

Do not be alarmed. I know some prominent bloggers in the community have decided to call it a blogging career due to time and family concerns. I’m not quite done yet. There’s still a lot of bosses to kill and players to heal. I have always made time for writing, so that’s not the case.

No, the only reason I’d close these doors is if I run out of the financial resources necessary to maintain them.

A lesson for new bloggers out there: Success always comes at a cost. This particular cost happens to run into the 4 digit range. I’m just a university student. I don’t have a full time job. I’ve relied upon freelance writing to help offset the costs. That’s not enough anymore.

So now what?

World of Matticus is going to undergo some slight restructuring to maximize advertising. Plus Heal for the time being will remain ad free as long as possible. I’m not going to say no to advertising but I will have a strong hand in what is and isn’t displayed if I choose to go that route. I’ve stayed away from Google Ad Sense due to the plethora of gold selling and RMT ads that are shown and the short term benefit (money) does not outweigh the long term cost (you guys leaving and/or being pissed). Wouldn’t be surprised if I was called an idiot for walking away from such rather lucrative offers, heh.

For the time being, the blog’s going to undergo some shifting of content and real estate while I figure some things out. Incidentally enough, this means that header at the top is going to get changed up a bit.

The Store

I just opened up a store on Amazon recently. So if you’re an Amazon junkie who’s into action figures or Warcraft novels, check it out. If you also plan on picking up Warcraft III, or some gaming accessories (I recommend Sennheiser for headsets), I do manage to get a small cut. I also list several books on a wide variety of topics from business to writing to blogging that I’ve personally picked up (and recommend) if you’re looking for some reading material. It’s still a work in progress.

World of Matticus… premium?

Had a humorous suggestion from a fellow WoW Twitterati:

“You should launch premium content on World of Matticus. Include healing strats an idea for phase 1 and 2, and phase 3 and 4 be premium only. Or leave out certain key words from phrases (Example, remember to … stand in the fire!)”

While the idea is rather entertaining, that’s not the route I’d consider right now. Perhaps down the road I might toss up a subscription service for videos of dancing Dwarves on the Stormwind fountain. Not sure how well that would work out.

Blizzcon

No guarantees. But… I will try to attend this year. I’m also going to try to apply for this. What holds me back, you ask? Same thing that holds me back from everything else. Fear of failure. Now if I can just figure out who I can get in touch with specifically…

Donations

An overwhelming number of people on Twitter, IM, Plusheal and via EMails have asked me about this. I did run a donate page last year, it didn’t work out so I pulled it in favour of other features. I’m not going to ask for donations. I don’t know. I just don’t like asking for help until I really, desperately need it. I don’t think I’m at that point yet. The way I see it, if someone does a favor for me or gives me something, I’m indebted to them. As a result of that, this leaves me in a perilous position of somehow returning the favor.

This is why I’ve had so much difficulty shopping for birthday presents (especially for women).

So if donating is something you’re volunteering to do, head over to Plus Heal. Scroll down to the footer and use that link. I cannot and will not ask for it. The option is there if you choose.

If you want more details on the situation, I popped a thread open on Plus Heal about with more information (especially for the folks curious as to the actual numbers of cost and site demographics).

This is just another challenge. Just another encounter in the World of Blogcraft. Gotta figure out the right strategy and execution.

Healing Ulduar: Hodir

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creature_hodir

For other bosses in Ulduar, check the Ulduar Healing Strategy Page

Hodir is a fight that requires a lot of movement. This boss is a big cuddly snowman who likes to spread the love, and the iceblocks. This fight will keep you on your toes.

Notes about the fight:

  • Lots of movement
  • Raid wide damage

Abilities

Biting Cold – This is an aura like affect that pulses through the entire raid. This is much like the ability from Keristrasza in the nexus, you need to keep moving to keep it from stacking up on you. Each stack increases the periodic damage it deals.

Freeze – This deals about 5k frost damage to all players within 10 yards of the target, it also roots the targets in place.

Flash Freeze – This encases the entire raid in blocks of ice. This is prevented by standing on snowdrifts.ÂÂ

Icicle – Occasionally giant blocks of ice will fall from the ceiling. These deal 12,000 damage to anyone hit and have a knock back component. You can see which areas will be hit by a small circular glyph on the ground. If you are having trouble seeing the glyphs, go into your video settings and turn on Projected Textures. Before a flash freeze, a larger glyph will show on the ground before the ice falls and will leave behind Snowdrifts which must be used to avoid flash freeze.

Frozen Blows – Reduces Hodir’s physical damage but adds a frost damage component to his attacks. This also has a raid wide frost damage effect.

Enrage – Hodir has a 9 minute Enrage Timer

Ability Examples:

ice

Icicle

snowdrift

Snowdrift

freeze

Freeze

NPCs

Hodir also comes with a selection of NPC’s that must be broken out of their icy prisons. There will be four on normal and 8 on heroic. The npc’s consists of the following.

2x Druids: The druids are hard to miss, they’re in boomkin form. When you break them out they DPS Hodir but also cast Starlight which increases the attack speed of anyone standing in it by 100%

2x Shaman: The shamans DPS Hodir elemental style and will occasionally cast Storm Cloud on a raid member. This ability lets you buff several raid members with Storm Power which increases their critical strike damage by 135%.

2x Mages: The mages will help try to break fellow NPCs out of ice blocks and will cast a Toasty Fire. The fire is literally a campfire on the ground, but it fights off the effects of biting cold. Falling ice and Flash Freeze will wipe out the fire.

2x Priests: The priests will smite and occasionally throw out a heal, but most importantly they will cast Dispel Magic to free players from the effects of Freeze

Execution

Your raid will head in following the Main Tank. The tank will take Hodir back towards the rear of the room. DPS will begin by breaking out the NPCs. After all the NPCs have been broken out, DPS can start in on Hodir. When DPS first engages Hodir it is a good time to blow Heroism / Bloodlust. Healers should move into position near the Main Tank while everyone else needs to move into position around the raid. DPS continues on Hodir until he is about to cast Flash Freeze. Everyone needs to move to the Snowdrifts to avoid being frozen. After the Flash Freeze any raiders who were frozen should be broken free ASAP. DPS will then begin on the NPCs again until all are free, and then will resume DPS on Hodir. Rinse and repeat until the big guy is done.

Healing Hodir

Healing Hodir has two major components.

Main Tank – Three healers should be assigned to the main tank. They should be in close proximity at all times and moving with the tank as needed. Grace from a Disc Priest helps even out the damage from Hodir.

Raid – The rest of the healers should be spread out along the outside of the raid to cover as many raiders as possible.

All healers will be moving quite a bit during this fight, dodging falling ice and shaking off the effect of biting cold until the NPC’s are broken loose. Shamans will be using a lot of Riptide and Lesser Healing Wave, Druids will be right at home rolling HoTs, Paladins will be using quick Flash Heals, as well as priests utilizing renews and quick heals. It is possible to toss out a longer cast heal such as Greater Heal or Chain Heal and move before biting cold stacks, as long as you can find yourself a rhythm for move and cast. Your main goal as healers should be to find a Toasty Fire close enough to the raid to sit on. If you have the Toasty Fire buff, you can spam heals without the worry of stacking Biting Cold. Since the rest of the raid will be moving around though, be prepared to move to keep people in range. Once you learn to balance the movement and the heals the fight is pretty straightforward.

Until next time, Happy Healing.

Healing Ulduar: Freya

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freya_banner

For other bosses in Ulduar, check the Ulduar Healing Strategy Page

Freya offers everything a healing druid could ever want: pretty flowers, sparkly green trees, gnarled ents, angry seed bombs, and even friendly mushrooms of safety. This boss fight is a colorful, chaotic miscellany that asks healers to use all of their skills without overtaxing them in any one area. When you take on Freya, be prepared to react to whatever her tree-friends throw at you next. Keep reading for a healing-oriented rundown of her abilities.

The Pull

Conquest wiped this weekend in our 10 man because Yogi Ragadast, our bear tank, decided to eat a pickinick right in the middle of Freya’s patrol path. Beware that this guardian of the forest ranges far. Ideally, you want your tank to charge in and keep Freya occupied by the creek while the raid stands toward the center of the room awaiting adds. Note that attacking Freya before taking care of her trash waves does exactly nothing.

Phase 1:The Trash Roulette

In Phase 1, you cannot damage the boss and must instead deal with waves of adds. Freya will summon three separate trash events to keep raiders’ nasty paws out of her vegetable garden. Waves will spawn once per minute, and it’s possible to have more than one wave active at a time if your DPS is slow. They can appear in any order, and some will repeat during your encounter. I will explain in brief how to deal with each.

Type 1: Snaplashers, Ancient Water Spirits, and Storm Lashers
This wave is the most dangerous. Each mob type has a different amount of health, and all three must die at the same time or they will be rezzed. The Snaplashers have a stacking buff that makes them hit harder when they receive damage, so your dps will have to periodically switch away from them. In 25-man raids, two tanks may be used to deal with this phase. If that is the case, healers must keep an eye (or two) on the Snaplasher tank. In 10-man raids, one tank will take care of all these adds.

Type 2: Detonating Lasher
These little flowers may look sweet, but don’t be fooled. They’re rotten little skunkflowers at the core. These guys can attach themselves a healer very easily, and they’ll blow up when killed. If I attract too many four-petaled friends, I use Shadowmeld or Barkskin until they make like a tree and leaf. The Detonating Lashers are not particularly dangerous, though raid healers may have to clean up the mess that results if someone’s too close when one of these little suckers blows up.

Type 3: Ancient Conservator
This is essentially a tank and spank add. However, he spawns fun happy mushrooms that you absolutely must stand under in order to avoid his silence. Remember, mushrooms are a good thing.

Miscellaneous Phase 1 abilities:
During phase 1, Freya will also summon a glowing green tree, the Lifebinder. When it appears, the raid must kill it immediately in order to avoid its healing effect.

Healers must also be aware of the debuff Sunbeam. Freya will target a player and cast this ability, which does a weak AoE. It’s not disastrous in regular mode, but I expect that with hard mode it’s a different story.

Phase 2: Goddess on the Move

Phase 1 serves to wear down Freya’s HoTs and allow her to take damage. In Phase 2, your tank will need to kite her in a circle around the room. Why? You’ve heard of the druid spell Living Seed. Freya, the druid goddess, casts seeds of evil. These are small glowing seed pods that appear on the ground and then detonate after a few seconds. The raid will need to stay ahead of the chlorophyllic explosions. Aside from the Bad Seeds, the spawns of the Lifebinder tree, and the Sunbeam effect, Phase 2 is a tank and spank.

Healing Assignments

Much of the healing in this boss encounter is reactive, and it can either feel like catch-as-catch can chaos or like a perfectly orchestrated minuet. It all depends on the skill of your individual raid members at their jobs. A knowledge of movement and the basic raid mechanics like target-switching on demand will lead to a win. Everything might be messy, but it’s not difficult. Healing assignments can be fairly loose here, but we assign one specific healer to the main tank and one to each of two offtanks. Beyond that, healers work their magic on the move and cover players in their area. I’d say this is one of the least demanding fights healing-wise in Ulduar. Even though the adds phase can be hectic, it’s nothing like Thorim’s arena. I’d also say this boss is slightly more difficult on 10-man because there’s less redundancy in raid roles. In 25-man, you can still eke out a kill if, say, your players execute the different movements with something less than precision.
sydsignature

The Reality of Recruiting Part 1

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Last week I sent out an open call on Twitter for players who are involved in the process of recruiting for their guilds. Either they’re an officer or a GM or some other person in a position of leadership. I was able to get in touch with a myriad of personalities and guild types. There are numerous post in the WoWosphere about recruiting do’s and don’ts along with various tidbits of advice. The aim of this post is to outline their mentality and thought process when considering applicants.

This is part 1 of 3.

When recruiting, what are common characteristics that you value in players who you consider?

Aggressiveness and enthusiasm are a huge factor in how I perceive an application. I immediately discard applications that offer the bare minimum of responses–yes/no and even the occasional "maybe" to our questions. Even if they’re undergeared or inexperienced, an applicant who goes the extra mile to show us that they can keep up with us via WWS reports, their level of preparedness, or their devotion to theorycrafting has an advantage over a decked-out applicant whose attitude is blasé. One mage we recruited came from a no-name guild on our server, but his DPS was impressive for his gear and he was extremely eager to prove himself to be in our caliber. His application even noted that he had 50 stacks of fish feasts banked for new content–that’s some preparedness and willingness to wipe right there!

– Cerinne, Impulse (Cenarius US)
Blog: Spectrecles

We are looking for people who will stick with us, so we want them to be interested in progression at our casual but serious pace. Personality is important to us, as we want to enjoy one another’s company.  We look to see that someone knows their class and can demonstrate this both through their answers to their application and through their armory.

– Sylly
Blog: Rolling Hots

I like it when people are up front and honest about why they are leaving their current guild and willing to share the name of their current or most recent guild. Completely anonymous applications make me instantly suspicious. I want to know that their guild officers are in the loop about their desire to leave, because that is a pretty clear indication of how they’ll handle things down the road if they want to leave OUR guild.

Other characteristics include: Experience, demonstrated knowledge of their class/spec/role and maturity.

– Seri
Blog: World of Snarkcraft

Being articulate, someone who seems to be a good fit with our raid personality wise, someone who isn’t afraid to research their class in order to improve their abilities. We also do trial runs  in five mans and sometimes bring them to 10/25 mans to see how they do, but in general it’s actual trial time that usually gives us the whole picture, regardless of what we test/try out prior to accepting a trial.

Knowing one’s class and being able to play their character properly (It seems obvious, but then again…).

– Fire

What are some of the expectations that you set for recruits right off the bat?

I expect that within 2 weeks of joining the guild, any player should be able to compete equally with any other member of the raid.  While we do often invite friends of people we have recruited, we don’t want to carry anyone, no matter who they are married to/dating/best-friends with or how hilarious they are in vent.  Other specific expectations include 75% raid attendance, fully gemmed & enchanted gear, being self-sufficient (flasks, food, repair costs without complaining) and DPS above a given threshold; for Ulduar this is 3.3k right now.

We expect that our recruits know more than our raiders.  We also expect good rotations, solid knowledge of all encounters, the gear that they would like in the future, and know how to be kind and courteous to all folks.

– Kitts, Lowered Expectations
Blog: Blood Elf Priestess

That they sign up to our progression raids, come to the raid with appropriate reagents / pots / flasks and 100% repaired. We’ll also try to let them know which bosses we’re going to take on, so ask that they will keep an eye on the guild’s forums for tactics and / or look up the tactics by themselves.  We also use teamspeak and expect them to at least be able to listen in.

– Eid, Dead Poets Society

Pull your weight. If you are a new 80 then we expect you to research your class, know what heroics to run to get geared, do dailies to get rep, get gear enchanted, etc.

OR

Take the initiative. If you don’t know where to find this information ask a senior guild member to help find it. I am a Warlock, but as an admitted forum troll in the guild I know where to send someone if they are looking for the hunter hit cap or where to send a druid looking to dual spec Resto.

– Finnugen, Legacy of the Elite

Do you conduct any sort of background checks on recruits? If so, via what methods?

We don’t really go talk to their former or current guild masters, if that’s what you mean. But I do run a guild history check on the name at Warcraft Realms and WoWProgress to see if the person’s a guild hopper. I also sometimes do a search on the realm forums to see if the recruit is prone to trolling (a no-no). There’s also a question on the app asking if the recruit knows anyone or has played with anyone in the guild. I definitely make a point to ask the people named in those 2 questions. Amory, etc, but I think that’s pretty standard.

– Raesa
Blog: Violaceous Mana

Only if we suspect that there may have been issues in a former guild, or if someone mentions something to the officers about the person. Then we’ll talk to officers in the former guild. Usually, any issues will come to light very quickly, and we can gkick accordingly if necessary, or give them a chance to reform themselves.

– Trilynne, Dawn of Maelstrom

Since our guild has long had a "referral process" and requires vouches from other members and eventually from an officer, the background check usually comes from the people they associate with. If you’re in tight with a bunch of our members and they say you’re alright? Then you’re probably not going to be a bad match for us. However, complete unknowns usually never get in. Someone we’re on the fence about usually sits down and gets asked about what they are looking for in a guild, etc. We also ask prior guild members or ask around the community at large. We’re not a huge server, a history follows you most times.

– Aislinana, Northrend Commonwealth