[Hunter] Joemama

Hi there, I'll start this application with a little bit about myself.
My name is Gert, I am a 21 year old male living in Belgium and I am currently in my last semester of college getting a master's degree in electrical engineering.
Next year I will be attending another two years of university to get a second master in computer science.
In my free time I obviously play WoW, I play a variety of instruments (guitar, drums, viola). I am also a frequent airsoft player.

My nickname is Joemama, but I prefer to be just called Joe. All of my nicknames over the 6 years that I've played WoW have started with Joe. Joecatshoe and Joeshoe being the most prominent.
I am applying as a Hunter, though this wasn't my main until recently. I am rerolling from Retribution Paladin whose armory you can find here:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/karazhan/Joeshoe/

And my Hunter's armory:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/kazzak/Joemama/

As you can see my Hunter's gear is not spectacular. I recently rerolled because my previous guild, Exquisite, quit raiding. All of the officers decided to quit raiding because of roster problems. Because Karazhan is quite dead it was hard to get good raiders. This lead to the decision to quit raiding in MOP. I decided to start fresh on a new server together with Amalisa, who is also applying with me.


So, why would you want to take a not-so-great geared Hunter such as myself? The answer to that question lies in the experience that I've built up over the years.
Here's a short summary of my experience to give you an idea.

Me as a raider:

TBC:
I got my most noticeable experience during TBC. I didn't start with serious raiding until T5 and T6 content. I did some dicking around on my Rogue (Daggerspine) during T4 and early T5 content, killed a few bosses but the guild I was in couldn't handle the more difficult encounters. I did get a good taste of raiding and was hungry for more, though I had trouble finding a proper guild being the noob that I was back then.
Because character transfer did not exist at the time I decided to completely reroll to Priest on another server (Burning Steppes). I ended up in a guild called Carpe Diem where I met Amalisa. In this guild I did my first serious raiding in T5 content. I eventually made officer and raid leader in this guild, on which I will elaborate later in this application.
Later, because of trouble in Carpe Diem, me and Amalisa joined a hardcore T6 raiding guild on Bladefist called Neverenders. This guild had world rank 200 on Illidan. Here I got a taste of hardcore raiding, pretty much all of my time went into WoW and raiding. Here we cleared all of the relevant content (SSC, TK, MH and BT). This was all pre 3.0, the patch that nerfed everything.
After the patch, I continued raiding and raid leading until the end of the expansion, though everything was so tuned down that it wasn't a challenge anymore.

WotLK:
In WotLK I dialed down on the hardcore raiding. I did clear all of the content in 25 man when it was relevant (Naxx, Ulduar, ToC, ICC pre nerf), but at a more relaxed pace. No more 19:00-00:00 raiding, 5 days a week like I did in TBC. Halfway through WotLK I took a break from WoW, for reasons I don't exactly remember. Mostly because I was just bored with the content, I think. Somewhere around the release of ICC I came back and cleared that, most of it on heroic. I played a few character during WotLK, mainly because I couldn't really find my taste. I cleared all of the content when it was relevant with Rogue, Druid, Paladin and Warrior. I can say I was pretty good at all of these classes at the time. I can provide armory links for them if you like, but none of my older chars are level 90.

Cataclysm:
My casual period. No proper raiding at all. I just casually strolled through content with two small guilds, having fun with friends without much pressure. I did this because by this time I had been hardcore raiding for close to three years and it was time for a break and I also had to focus on school more.

MOP:
I didn't buy MOP right away at the release because of my casual approach in Cata. Eventually though, MOP was looking pretty good and I gave in to it. So far I've been enjoying it a lot.
Somewhere around November of last year I dinged 90 on my Paladin, who had been covered with dust since WotLK. After some casual raiding I applied to the hardcore guild Exquisite on Karazhan. This guild was realm rank 1, though that wasn't exactly hard because the realm Karazhan must be as dead as the instance it's named after. But my friend Amalisa was there and they were doing good.
You can check its progress here:
http://www.wowprogress.com/guild/eu/Karazhan/ExQuisite
It wasn't a top guild, but as you can see we had some ok world ranks considering the server we were on.

This bring us to present time. I have obviously cleared all of the normal content together with 6/6 MSV HC and 4/6 HoF HC. If you require proof you'll find it in the achivements on my Paladin's armory page.


Me as a raidleader:

Like I mentioned earlier, I was raid leader for a long time during TBC and WotLK. In TBC I was officer and raid leader of the guild Carpe Diem. This was a semi-hardcore 25 man guild, raiding 5 times a week.
It was under my lead that we progressed through T5 content (SSC/TK) and later T6 (MH/BT) because of my experience with the content. Later in WotLK I lead for a while in Ulduar and ToC, before taking a break from wow.

I have always gotten positive feedback about my raid leading. I enjoyed doing it and I can say I was pretty good at it too. I took being an officer very serious, taking care of the guild and its raiders and being there to help where needed. I'm a very mature person and can handle with problems in an adult way.

Needless to say I have absolutely no problem speaking on ventrilo and I have a very good knowledge of the English language.


Me as a player:

You'll notice that I have rerolled a few times over the years, but I have never abandoned my guild to reroll elsewhere. Almost all of my server switches or rerolls were caused by events that I had no control over, guild disbands being the most frequent one. When I make a commitment to a character and a guild I will stick to it the best I can. I'm a fast learner and I always try to play to the best of my ability, no matter the class.
Like I stated earlier I am a student. I am pretty good at compartmentalizing my time. This gives me plenty of time for WoW and raidig after school. However, during exam periods I do not raid on nights before an exam to keep my head clear. But if I don't have an exam the next day I will be online and ready.


Me as a hunter:

A picture of my UI in combat can be found here:
https://i.imgur.com/8I8g8ny.jpg

I use an azerty keyboard and as you can see almost everything is keybound. Weird keybinds such as 0 and ) are bound to buttons on my mouse. Most of the addons that I use can be seen in the screenshot. I only use a few since I am not a fan of very graphical UI's, I like most of the basic stuff.

My hardware specs:
Intel Core i5 2500K slighty overclocked to 4GHz
GTX 570
8GB RAM
120GB SSD for WoW
30/5 Mbit unlimited internet connection

Like I said, I am aware of the current state of my gear, but as you can see everything is gemmed, enchanted and reforged properly. I'm also capping valor every week to get the rep items. I will always come to a raid prepared with pots/flasks/food would they be required.
For reforging I use the addon reforgelite which gives me the best reforge for my stat weights. Currently hit/exp > crit > mastery >= haste for survival. Gemming and enchanting is also pretty straightforward using these weights.

For my rotation and playstyle in PvE I did some research and read some theorycrafting threads on mmo champion to maximize my DPS. I found survival to give me the best stable DPS at the moment and it's also the spec I enjoy the most, but as my gear progresses I will probably switch to BM since it seems superior for most fights.
Since this application is pretty long already I won't go into detail regarding my talent and glyph choices, but I'll be happy to answer any questions about it. I chose these according to the information that I found on various forums and sites on the interwebs and my general knowledge about hunters in PvE. I am an extremely fast learner and I constantly try to improve myself.

Logs:
Here is a LFR log for your enjoyment:
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-z3movewpv8hfbms4/

It is the only log I have of my hunter. Should you require more logs or if you'd like to view some from my Paladin, feel free to ask.

Final words:

If you read through this application I hope I have achieved two things. First of all, it should be clear that I am a dedicated player. If you choose to accept me you will see me almost every day with a 100% raid attendance. Secondly, even though my current character might not look fantastic gear wise, I hope you can look past that and give me a chance to prove myself. With my experience it should be clear that I can handle myself in a (heroic) raid enviroment.

As a final note I'd like to mention that this is a dual-application together with Amalisa. We would like to continue to raid together and we hope there is a spot for both of us in your guild. I'm aware of the fact that accepting us both is a risk for you, but if you are willing to take that risk I can guarantee that we will not be a disappointment and that we can, and will, prove to be an asset to your raid team.

Thank you for taking the time to read this application and I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

I've been going over the &iles for the msv log on your char and after looking at them I'm closer to believing in the hunter reroll. There is potential there sitting between 60-80%ile with 474. If it really is there or not is something you would need to work extra hard for because of the lack of gear.

I wanted to look at your retris epeen but maybe im too tired to find you on it as typing in your name on that server just gives me a priests log
There's two reasons I wanted to look at it, besides the obvious one a retri paladin would perhaps fit our roster a bit better.
Let me know if your old main still is a choice.

I'm however not sold on the monks performance from last night. The druid which also would fit nicely to the roster deffo looks much better around the numbers &ile. I'm not saying Allie wouldnt be able to pick it up on the monk but has not picked it up from the start as well as preffered and with the shape up we currently are going under I don't believe we could afford to give both of you enough time to get there.

We are considering both your chars and I'm sure we can continue talking bit more on mumble in the days to come. It was helpful that you both joined in for the msv run.

Yes I do feel I did not preform exceedingly well on the monk last night. Quite a learning experience for me. But as mentioned if the offer still stands I don't mind joining in my Druid. I mentioned to lakita last night just before I logged off. I am more then willing to do this so joe can stick to his hunter. my Druid also has a resto offspec I am happy to use and overly confident in too. >< I will be around today after 7 server time and I'm happy to talk to you on mumble doing some game testing for extra bucks tonight :p.

Now that I'm home, I can commiserate over the typing error I made from my cellphone without noticing! (and add to what I wrote, sorry for the double post, I can't seem to find the edit button)

I do feel that I have room to improve on my monk, but I also feel I can improve quickly on her with some practice, though I do see your point about two people with a small class learning curve as you revamp your guild, can hurt sometimes more then it can help. If you would like to see my druid in action in an LFR, I don't mind running it with someone.
Again, sorry for the double post I couldn't write everything on my phone as my taxi had arrived. He's quite the chatter head, and I wouldn't want to be rude to him!

Those logs are in fact from my paladin. My priest used to have the same name and it got bugged, but the logs are correct.

I would prefer not to go back to my paladin because I wanted to switch from a hybrid to a full dps class.

Like I said earlier, I'm confident of my ability to put out the numbers required and I'm willing to work for it. There's only so much dps you can do given the gear you have and at the moment I'm roughly 3k under my simulated dps on practice dummies, which I think is a pretty good indicator that I'm on the right path.