Exceptional Players

[Splug]

Presentation is everything. You're talking to people who have possibly never met you, likely have absolutely no evidence of your playing capability, and only have limitted tools to predict your ability. Your competition will be in a similar state. The goal, then, is to encourage them to at least give you a chance to present your playstyle by presenting a competant personality. About all recruiters will have to go off initially are what you or the armory provide them with: gear, reputations, achievements, and your application. You need to exert as much control over what you can of that list.

Before you even start to fill out an application, check your gear relative to BoE upgrades - if you can get better off the auction house, assume your competition already has. Check your gems and socketting - are you skipping any socket bonuses? Are those the best options to skip, particularly if you have to use a gem of that color to activate a meta anyway? Is the 1850 pvp weapon better than what you're using? These are all things that raid guilds consider the general population to have access to without applying to a raid guild; a lot of us will waive top notch raid gear because... well, if you're already in a raiding guild, why are you applying?

Once your character is prepared, make sure you are. There are a lot of guilds out there; do your homework, and make sure you're not applying to a guild with raid hours you can't attend. With server transfers as available as they are, there's no excuse for trying to "make things work" with a guild whose schedule is incompatible. Make sure they have a loot system you are comfortable with.

The last step is actually writing the application. Put a lot of time into it; answering the questions and spell checking yourself is just the beginning. Explain and justify any deviations in your character from a cookie cutter setup. Point out long-term goals, and benchmarks you'd need to make them (common examples I've seen: "I don't have enough equipment to support armor penetration gems yet, but I plan to resocket once I reach a few more upgrades." "I want to play fury, but my offhand is from heroic HoL and my mainhand is from Ulduar 25. I am applying as arms, but once I procure a suitable offhand I would be interested in a respec if the utility changes are not an issue.") if you know your class has strange gear scaling or multiple specs for the same role. If you have access to recent WWS information or a UI screenshot, include those as well.

Finally, be careful of the obvious mistakes. You may be applying to more than one guild - don't copy and paste your application. Every once in a while, we get applications claiming they'd fit in perfectly into <insert guild here>'s schedule/community. If that's a different guild's name, most recruiting officers will just dismiss the application out of pure disgust. Even with search and replace, most guilds have varying application formats anyway. You're better off starting over for each one, or at the very least going question by question. Make sure you actually logged out in the spec/gear you're applying as, rather than spending all that time to prepare it only to go pvp'ing the night before. If your armory is not updating correctly, note it in your application, and then post a link to your character in a sandbox site. Make sure any links you include are working correctly.

-Splug

[ttocs]

What Splug said. Your Application is pretty much the entry point there. Show that you know the class, show that you have initiative on what you need to work on.

Remember, they might be a good player in a bad guild. They don't have the gear because they couldn't get the boss down, and in some cases, because the gear simply didn't drop. Gear doesn't determine how good they are, though it can provide a very loose guideline. There are plenty of people in full T8.5 that couldn't heal/DPS/tank their way out of a paper bag. I've raided with people in Sunwell who had a bunch of T6.5 and were terrible players that couldn't think on their own.

Make sure you use the template supplied by the guild, and keep it simple. Colors might attract interest with some guilds, but it might be an instant deny with others (like mine). Know who you're applying to when you write your application, and set your tone accordingly. Your ability to follow directions to the letter in the guild app show that you're able to follow instructions the first time when you're issued them in a raid.

When you're in the guild as a trial, an exceptional player is more than just a guy who comes prepared. He's the guy that isn't repeatedly dying to environmental damage, and if he makes a mistake, he adjusts and doesn't make the same mistake again. Ask questions if you don't know. Be vocal when you need to be, but don't be annoying.

Also, it's a really good idea not to belittle current members when applying. I don't care if you're better geared than our current prot pally, or if you think our offspec moonkin's 4K DPS is trash. You're not going to earn the respect of any guild that way.

[Selyndia]

I always considered gear to be a secondary or tertiary concern, as long as they are intelligently equipped, enchanted and gemmed.

Gear can be replaced; skill, willingness to learn and general attitude can not.

I would much rather an up and coming person, in iLevel 200 epics that show they understand their class and are willing to both learn and put in time, than one in all 219/226s with a mix of questionable choices, and with either arrogance that they know everything, or so lax that they don't really care.

[Octavissi]

Most guilds will have classes they are actively recruiting and will also say they are always on the lookout for exceptional players of any class to add to their raid team.

There are many things said by people in this thread that I consider standard for all raiders and shouldn't put you in an exceptional standing. Things like showing up prepared with consumables knowing the fights isn't exceptional. Those are very basic things that every raider should be doing especially trials. If you are going through farmed content with the guild on your trial you had better know the basic strat of the fights.

I have played with a number of exceptional players. These players are a force of nature. These are the people who never die to void zones or fire. They squeeze out every last drop of performance out of their gear. They are in for every progression kill and if it wasn't for loyalty they could easily join a guild on a higher tier of progression.

You could be the best player in the world but if you don't have someone in the guild with good standing say you are then you aren't going to be exceptional to that guild. If you are downgrading in progression you might get in based off gear alone (ie going from an Ulduar 25 hardmode guild to a Naxx 25 guild)

I hope this helped and good luck on your search for a new guild.

[Griff]

Other qualities which define an exceptional player:

Situational awareness: An exceptional player will usually be highly aware of the dangers in their environment and be able to anticipate where and when new dangers might arrive, positioning themselves appropriately to minimize their exposure. While this is a skill that comes easily to some folks, its learnable and in large part a byproduct of experience. When you know the content, you have a good idea of where new adds are going to spawn, where the trash patrols path, the frequency of void-zone spawns. Exceptional players will consciously think about these factors during an encounter.

Adaptability: An exceptional player will be on that is highly adaptable. This includes being able to switch roles between tanking, dps, or healing and being effective at it. It also means that the player knows their class and abilities intimately and can employ them to best effect in a dynamic environment. A good example of this would be the feral dps who's quick transition to bear and taunts saves the raid when the addtank gets spiked.

Resilience: I don't mean the pvp stat. By resilience, I mean a player's ability to pick themselves up after a tough wipe, get back in to the rally point and get buffed quickly. A good player keeps trying, but an exceptional player is analyzing the previous failure and looking at what they can do to improve their performance. They don't let their frustration show on vent when the chips are down and they encourage their raid mates.

[Theotherone]

Exceptional players... generally willing to push the edge a little, pull the extra DPS while staying alive. BiS gear is irrelevant, except insofar as it shows you've been raiding recently.

But an exceptional DK will have to be a real star. There are 1-2 DKs in most raids, while there are generally about 12 raid spots available for a ranged dps and 6 for healers. So you are competing on an entirely different level. Competing for a very rare raid spot, among a huge population of DKs. For that tanking spot, you are also competing with all the warriors, druids and pallies.

As a DK, I expect you will have to be both an expert tank and an expert DPS to get into a raid spot. Dual spec, and do them both very well. Be unfailingly polite, and never blame your healers.

Do you expect the Druid to be an expectional tank and an exceptional healer? Do you expect that of a Pally? If then answer is "no" why do you hold a DK to a higher standard?

While my DK is dual speced, my focus for gear, gems, 'chants etc is my tank spec - my DPS spec gets taken care of second; and, frankly, just because I tank doesn't mean I like melee dps'ing or really care to excel at it. If I want to dps, I'll bring my hunter which will do 4K+ dps depending on movement in the fight - the hunter also gets the best gear, gems, 'chants etc. Pays to be leveled in JC, BS, Mining and Enchanting at times,but keeping two toons geared, gemmed, etc is time consuming and expensive.