Raiding application

[Lyndira]

Hello all,

hereby I wish to apply for a raiding spot in the guild.
I will apply with two characters, I'm happy to take either into the raid. It's more about fitting into an existing raiding comp, both are equally badly geared and I play both actively anyway. Might as well present options for you.

1) Name of character: Lyndira or Lyndeira

2) Class: Warlock or Paladin

3) Please provide an armoury link here: the Armoury is unfortunately down, so I'll try and add them later.

4) What is your prefered spec for raiding and why?:
Destruction for the warlock and Retribution for the paladin. I'm a DPS player and strongly prefer to play what I enjoy and like compared what is meta. I'm a firm believer in that you will always perform better in something you enjoy and know better than what you dislike just because it's better in theory. Which is why I throw around green fire. As for Ret, I like paladins and a big-ass greatsword. So there is that.

5) Tell us a little about yourself in RL (please include your age and note that we are an 18+ guild):
I'm from Germany, 42 years old, married with a 2-year old toddler. She will be the death of me, sooner or later. Most of my day is spent at work, I am the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) of a mid-sized company and thus work long and hard, when I'm home I take care of my family which unfortunately leaves little time for gaming these days. I only have 1-2 hours max each day, which is also why I am after very specific raiding guilds and times. Due to the stress of my RL I have become a filthy casual and - as mentioned above - prefer to play what I enjoy instead of what I "have to", I don't have the time for even more stress.

Unfortunately my RL actually does impact my gaming time from time to time: when the toddler wakes early and screams her little head off (teething is a bitch) I have to assist my wife, regardless of what I'm currently doing. Same for work, some weeks I'm on-call and when the alarm sounds I have to get working.

6) What kind of guild are you after?:
First of all I am looking for an active guild, second a guild that actually talks and sees itself as a community, not a raiding/progression force. That is unfortunately my experience these past few years, WoW has become primarily a progression-focused game and people in guilds barely chat with each other. I'm old-school, for me WoW is a community-driven game and I really want that back, otherwise guild chat might as well not exist. These days I'm also pretty intolerant when someone wants to tell me what to do and what is better (see above), I just want to relax, let off some steam and preferably have a good chat while killing stuff.

7) Why have you chosen to apply to Blackrock Diving School?:
Funny thing, over the last (almost) 20 years I was on the verge of applying multiple times but something always kept me from actually doing it. I remember the days when BDS was one of the premier raiding guilds on AD. The fact that the guild still exists after all those years and is still active and not a hollowed-out husk speaks for itself. These days I prefer a more laid-back approach, as mentioned above. I'm also getting older and both reflexes and concentration are not as good as they were in my 20s, so shorter raid times are more managable for me. Finally starting late at 20:30 is actually really important to me so I can get the little one off to bed first, that's really important for the family.

8) What guild were you a member of prior to your application to BDS and why have you chosen to leave them?
My "home" is Ebon Flame, most of my alts are there. We transferred over from Moonglade a few years back but these days the guild is just for oldtimers to talk and have a sense of belonging. It's not active anymore in any sense of regular content playing. I then took my raiding toon into Temporal Vortex, which is the raiding guild I am still a part of. Unfortunately there is basically no chat and it's mainly a raiding force, which is not what I enjoy.

9) As a guild, we have clear social expectations, including helping guildies, participating in guildchat, being polite and courteous, and generally fitting in with a group of fun loving raiders. What do you think you could add socially to the guild? What are the things you like to do most, outside of raiding?:
I touched upon some of the things above already. I'm polite but I snark a lot. Like A LOT. Talk about Germans not having a sense of humour... I speak sarcasm fluidly and well. Other than that I like to think that I'm just a (mostly) nice and helpful person that unfortunately has a lot more RL obligations than a few years back.

10) Tell us something about your raiding experience so far. This can include experience raiding with other characters:
Oh boy. I'm an old-timer, I play WoW for over 20 years. Yeah I know, "but WoW was not released in the EU until February 2004". True, but I had closed beta access. I've raided most tiers from Molten Core to Amirdrassil, though I took longer breaks in the last few expansions. Since the split into n/hc/m I have always raided heroic, it's the perfect middle-ground for me between too easy and too hard. My first raiding character back in vanilla was a female dwarven priest, good times that.

11) We raid 3 nights a week. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays from 20:30 (server time) to 22:30. Could you tell us a little about your availability to raid then? Note the more availability the better and that 50% minimum attendance is required!
The plan is to attend as much was possible of course. As mentioned above RL might make me skip on short notice or quit in the middle of a raid, but that's usually not happening too often. I'm very upfront about this, doesn't make sense to keep that to myself and surprise you guys with it down the line.

12) As part of raiding, we require good planning and forward commitment by our raiders, and an understanding that we have to rotate a little to ensure all raids are full and balanced. What would you do if you signed and we told you there would be no room?
Play an alt, go farming or play a different game. I've been benched before (lol, huntard player) and I've never had a problem with it.

13) Have you read, understood, and agreed with the Contracts on this website? This includes social rules, raiding rules, and miscellaneous rules.
Of course.


I hope I could give you an overview about me as a person and what I want out of the game (and guild) these days. Sorry for the wall of text, but I prefer not to hold back so there are no nasty surprises. Unfortunately BBCode is off so I'm not able to format the text better. if you have any questions please feel free to contact me on battle.net or discord, I'm happy to PM the contact details.

Thank you for your time and consideration and may you stomp all the spiders you need to.

Regards
Lyn