Aftonio, Mage LFW.

Aftonio — Thu, 05/08/2008 - 12:59

Character Info

Information about the character.

Character Name:

Afton

Race:

Human

Character Class:

Mage

Character Level:

lvl 70

Total play time at level 70:

71 days, 17 hours.

Total play time:

91 days, 5 hours.

Average play time per week:

Everyday of the week. Unless I'm out of town or out on the town. ;]

Good computer/internet connection?:

Yes

What is your average latency?:

Around 200.

Server you are currently on:

Gorgonnash

How long have you been on the above server?:

I'd say going on two years.

Raiding

What talent build do you use to raid?:

I use 2/48/11 right now but I like arcane better. I'll use whatever you want me to use.

Tell us a little about how your class contributes to a raid.:

Well, let me make this short and to the point, I kill bitches.

What role are you most comfortable/geared playing?:

DPS

Would it be a problem if you had to wait 3 weeks or 3 months to get into raid?:

I would get a little discouraged but I think I could handle it. I mean, that's what's happening right now.

List the instances you have experience in, and the farthest you have been in that instance.:

Full clear SSC, TK, Hyjal, and up to Relinquary of Souls 1%.

What is your favorite 25-man BC Boss encounter, and why?:

I really like the Leotheras the Blind fight. I've never seen an encounter that needed a warlock for a tank so it was pretty different for me. I liked killing my own demon. =O

What is your least favorite 25-man BC Boss encounter, and why?:

Kael'Thas. There's too much going on at once. So everyone gets confused and we end up wiping a few times because people don't know how to pay attention.

General Questions

List your pertinent alts, as well as their classes and levels:

Well, I have a 70 priest named Triilyn, but, her gear is a little lacking. All my other alts are < 20.

Is this app for your main alone, or would you like to bring alts over as well?:

Main only

Why should we recruit you?:

I try as hard as I can to do as much damage as I can. I bring fun to the guild/raids. I'm a prtty laid back person and I learn pretty fast.

Why have you chosen to apply to Downfall?:

Well, you guys have gotten pretty far in the game. Which is where I am/should be.

What do you expect to get out of Downfall membership?:

Another chance to raid and progress in the game.

How do you feel you will contribute to the downfall community?:

I'll bake cookies. Also, I provide fun and games. I start sing alongs and what not. But, if it gets annoying just tell me to shut up.

Do you have any references in Downfall?:

Grovinski is my homeboy.

How long do you intend to stay in Downfall?:

A pretty long time. It takes more than an insult to get rid of me.

What things might cause you to leave?:

If I was a main raider since the guild started and then all of a sudden you stopped inviting me and not telling me why. Other than that, nothing.

If you are applying to raid, which nights can you raid?:

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Sunday

Are you going to burn out?:

What timezone are you in?:

East Siiiiiide.

How often do you think you would have to miss raid?:

Not that often. If I have a school function to go to then that's really it.

What might the typical reasons for missing raid be?:

School function or homework.

Read everything here: http://www.downfallguild.org/loot Does that seem fair?:

yessir.

If Shihli tells a joke (good or bad), will you laugh?:

Yes

Your ass, or a hole in the ground?:

My ass

How do you feel about mods, particularly in a raid setting?:

They help a butt load.

Are you willing to change mods that don't interface well with ours in raid?:

Yes

Personal

How long have you been playing WoW?:

About two and a half years.

How old are you?:

17 years old.

Tell us about yourself.:

I'm a senior in high school right now. I plan to graduate in June and go to community college for two years majoring in photography. Once I'm done with that I plan to move out to California to be with my boyfriend and continue going to school.

Are you in school or working?:

School sucks. I'm trying to get a job right now. A girls got bills.

What Country/State do you live in?:

USA/Virginia

Any other significant hobbies?:

Photography.

We got Afton in on the

garreth — Wed, 05/28/2008 - 08:51

We got Afton in on the recommendation of the LF1M raid. Sounds like she kicked ass and chewed bubble gum. We like bubble gum. Welcome aboard :) App closed.

/agree I don't know her but

Ardea — Tue, 05/27/2008 - 10:33

/agree

I don't know her but she makes me smile... possibly because Pancakes > waffles IRL.

Bump...give this woman a

Aidin — Tue, 05/27/2008 - 10:05

Bump...give this woman a Ginvite already!!!!!

Fun Times in IRC:
[15:27] Dragonfork: aidin hates me this I know, for my repair
bills tell me so. many times my health is low, aidin laughs when i
explode. yes aidin kills me, yes aidin kills me.

Personally, my dearest

Aftonio — Sun, 05/25/2008 - 11:01

Personally, my dearest Ratgirl and wedded WoW husband, I like pancakes better. You would know that if you were ever home in the morning for the family breakfasts we had always dreamed of. But, nooooo, you have to traips (spelling?) around Outlands with those filthy Blood Elf women doing Elune knows what with them.

"Afton" is to "people whom

Ratgirl — Sun, 05/25/2008 - 09:05

"Afton" is to "people whom you should invite" as "waffles" are to "answers you should choose in the waffles vs. pancakes debate".

Here's lookin' at you, kid.

Aftonio — Sun, 05/25/2008 - 08:10

Here's lookin' at you, kid. ;] I'd raise a beverage at you, but I don't have one handy right now.

AFTON=AWSOME Nuff

youshouldrun — Thu, 05/22/2008 - 21:34

AFTON=AWSOME

Nuff Sed

nonono.. let me be more specific

Nicest most compliant helpful hilarious interesting thought provoking female hard working wow player ive ever met.

Id love to see her in guild.

No trees were harmed in the making of this message.

However, innumerous electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

I would like to note my

carno — Wed, 05/21/2008 - 21:53

I would like to note my experience with Afton, as I raided with her in Mayhem for a little more than a year. This includes from KZ all the way through Supremus in BT and down to 35% on Archimonde in MH.First thing is first, Mayhem would never ever take the time to go over things like this for a guildie, LET ALONE, in an app. Mayhem's entire objective is to place the best-geared, highest-XYZ player in a raid spot, no matter attendance, dedication, or skill.There were never any problems with Afton; she plays well with others and brings her A game.Afton is dedicated, skilled, and has good attendance and attitude at raids. She's a solid player and if DPS isn't showing up at the same level as other Downfall players, I'm sure it's only a (small) matter of time till it does.

I respecced and got pyro and

Aftonio — Tue, 05/20/2008 - 14:16

I respecced and got pyro and blastwave. I also got belt of blasting made.

Rock on. We all still have

garreth — Tue, 05/20/2008 - 14:57

Rock on. We all still have you on our friends lists for a mage fill in spot. Thanks again for yoru patience as we try to make sure you'd have a good home here.

No, thank you. BTW, I won't

Aftonio — Tue, 05/20/2008 - 16:15

No, thank you. BTW, I won't be locked to Hyjal or BT from Mayhem because as you may know, they've stopped raiding completely as of late. So, I'm free for whatever adventure you may want to take me on.

Okay Afton, I'm going to

karlizeth — Fri, 05/16/2008 - 16:26

Okay Afton, I'm going to guess you were expecting this, but to be very blunt the parses are not all that impressive. Now, that being said, that doesn't mean that we are going to kick you to the curb. Rather, these parses are what is going to serve as a baseline for comparison from here on out. What I would like to see from you is some significant in your overall dps.

You're over hit cap by far, and your spell crit could really use some love. Switch out a few of your gems.

I have a feeling two major things are contributing to your lowered dps.

First, I suspect that you are not using the best spells at the right time. Here's my rule of thumb for scorch: Take the number of people in your group and multiply it by 10,000. If a mob has LESS than that number of HP (i.e. a 25 man raids, mobs with less than 250,000 hp), DO NOT scorch. Just use fireball. If it's more, build your regular 5x debuff.

Paired with this is chain casting and not being afraid of aggro. Don't wait until a spell has completely left your hands to try and start casting the new one...Blizzard has built in latency and you can start smashing your buttons anywhere from 1 to .5 seconds before they are supposed to complete, and you'll end up casting roughly .2 seconds sooner.

When a mob is close to dead, switch to shorter length spells. I generally stop fireballing at less than 60,000 hp (scorch) and stop scorching less than 25,000 hp (fireblast).

The other big thing is managing your trinkets/icy veins/combustion/destruction pots etc. TRY TO TIME IT SO ALL YOUR FANCY STUFF IS AVAILABLE TO USE WHEN A MOB HAS LESS THAN 20% HEALTH. Doing this will significantly increase your dps. If you can persuade a shaman in your group to pop heroism at that time, even better.

In short, keep working on your gear, squeeze in more dps, and keep up the good work. I'll be eyeballing your future parses to see what you've learned.

P.S. - IMHO flamestrike = fail on aoe. I do far better dps with arcane explosion/blast wave/occassional dragon's breath (when it will hit a lot of mobs).

Had a chance to run with

Aidin — Wed, 05/14/2008 - 20:19

Had a chance to run with Afton tonight. Was a pleasure to have in raid. She knew her stuff, and even got some phat lootz!

Check over the parses, I'm sure there's all sorts of great advice to help her out (insert Karli wall of VERY GOOD text here). I noticed through each fight she steadily improved. (First DF raid jitters maybe? lol) Look forward to seeing you in more raids!

http://wowwebstats.com/5xlpsnbghjefm?s=8038-8098

I was pretty jittery, lol. I

Aftonio — Fri, 05/16/2008 - 12:48

I was pretty jittery, lol. I wasn't actually expecting to get into the raid, so I wasn't ready with all my consumables when you guys summoned me the first 10 times.

I kept getting knocked into the catapolts during Supremus and I was afraid that if I went through it, I'd get stuck and he'd kick my tooshie. So, I went around it.

PS: I got Subtlety on my cloak, and I'm going to redo my spec sometime this weekend. I'd do it right now, but I'm running a bit late to hang out with some friends. Thank you again (so much) for giving me a chance to raid with you guys. It was deffinately a different, and good, experience.

I know Gruul/Mag is a little

Aidin — Tue, 05/13/2008 - 07:37

I know Gruul/Mag is a little "old" but it's also a great raid to sign up for to get your face in the crowd!

Oops...guess I better get it posted...lol

We generally encourage guild

karlizeth — Tue, 05/13/2008 - 07:11

We generally encourage guild apps to sign up for events like this, so I would say go ahead and put your name on the list and be online! (Does not guarantee an invite, but strongly helps).

Am I allowed to sign up for

Aftonio — Tue, 05/13/2008 - 06:40

Am I allowed to sign up for SSC/TK runs? I know you'll bring people in the guild before me, but I'd like to be considered. =P

I know afton vaguely through

youshouldrun — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 05:55

I know afton vaguely through vent chats while talking w/ other mayhem friends. Afton is awsome. I've never met anybody that didn't like afton and i doubt i ever will.

Afton=awsome

No trees were harmed in the making of this message.

However, innumerous electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Moar chicks FTW!!

Aidin — Thu, 05/08/2008 - 15:41

Moar chicks FTW!!

I

Mavandon — Tue, 05/20/2008 - 15:37

I agree...

Excellent...

WARNING: This post will probably contribute absolutely nothing to the conversation, it will only waste a few seconds of your life. Mavandon's shenanigans should not be taken by children 10 and under or adults over the age of 70.

Hello, I'm Hamfists

Disrupter — Thu, 05/08/2008 - 17:08

Hello, I'm Hamfists legendary frost mage <.< lawl.

I was just curious about your gem set up as well... I can completely understand the hit gems but spell crit is something I normally get as I go as either spec.

My dps bible - Hit to cap > Haste > Damage > Crit > Intellect > Spirit.

That being said , I heard some good things about your dps , and some bad things about your dps in the past. I personally don't know anything for sure, or seen any parses showing so, so I'll assume I didn't hear any of that.

Do you have any WWS parses that we can pour over? And what made you decide to gem 8 hit/8crit gems instead of gems like, 4 hit 5 damage and such? (Out of curiousity)

Do you know about Rawr? If not, you should do a little google for it, it's an amazing program that (amongst other things) helps you decide what gears best for you with which spec, what items are an upgrade, what gems to pick. It's amazing so, if you get nothing else from this, get Rawr ^^.

I'm still learning and

Aftonio — Thu, 05/08/2008 - 17:19

I'm still learning and experimenting with gems. My crit is so low becuase I was trying to get hit capped. I'm used to working on one this at once but I guess I kind of can't lol.

I pretty much get whatever gems i can find on AH if noone is online to cut it.

Spell penetration is fine

karlizeth — Thu, 05/08/2008 - 14:47

Spell penetration is fine when it's passive (i.e. [Hatefury Mantle] but gemming and enchanting for it is just not worth it. And as fire, threat is much harder to manage. When you're arcane, mana is your cock-block. When you're fire, it's threat. Or at least, if you're doing it right it is.

About the penetration

Aftonio — Thu, 05/08/2008 - 14:54

About the penetration enchant, I can't remember doing that. So I think my ex boyfriend probably took over. He did all my enchants for me when I first started raiding. I just never changed it. =P

Side note: a 50/11/0 build

karlizeth — Thu, 05/08/2008 - 14:24

Side note: a 50/11/0 build is kinda nice in that you can still do well in raid and lolpvp, but builds using icy veins are proven to be more dps (50/0/11 or 40/0/21). Not only that, but arcane missiles is a pretty draining "filler" spell for the AB debuff time, and considering your gear is still very low on int i would not recommend you use the arcane/fire build. I do cringe at an arcane/frost combo (namely because I'm fundamentally against frost, but moreso because they pair arcane with fire). But, frostbolt x 3 is a far less mana intesive filler than 1 x AM 1 x Scorch, so it's something to keep in mind.

But, I wouldn't even think of being arcane w/o a 2 piece T5 bonus to be honest.

Oh, I have my t5 shoulders,

Aftonio — Thu, 05/08/2008 - 14:51

Oh, I have my t5 shoulders, I just don't really use them for fire since the set bonus is mostly for arcane.

Hello there, I'm Karli,

karlizeth — Thu, 05/08/2008 - 14:18

Hello there, I'm Karli, Hamfist's (our Sunwell/BT/Hyjal raid) lone female dps-er. No Cisper, Holy Nova does not count.

Anywho, beings that 1) you play a mage and 2) you are a chick, that makes me especially interested in your app.

Okay so first off, I promise I am nice. Bratty, but nice. And this is actually a rare opportunity for me to tell a short story. Once upon a time, I was doing dailies in the netherwing mines, and saw a mage walk by from <Mayhem>. Knowing that Mayhem is relatively progressed, I inspected the mage and one of the first things that caught my attention was the belt off of Anetheron, which I had been drooling over for ages.

Imagine my surprise when I see said belt gemmed with *gasp* a [Radiant Talasite]. I think I must have cried a little inside.

So like....it's nice to finally meet you .

Alrighty back to your app. To put it kinda bluntly, you still have a lot of upgrades to get. At this point in the game, raiding mages need to take things that are a 2 spell damage upgrade, even if it takes you hours to get it. I can already think of a few things you could and should snag if you want to remain competitive:

-Some new bracers, purchased with pvp points, badges, or crafted (haste)
-A new cloak (pvp points, or even the Kara one off Prince for the hit)
-T5 helm off Vashj, which I know would be difficult, but it would give you the two piece T5 bonus and allow you to go arcane and drop all your not-so-great spell hit stuff.
Something other than the Eye of Mag for your first trinket. I would suggest the [item]Serpent-Coil Braid[/item] if you can manage to snag it, but if not, something like the Blessings Deck works well, especially in AoE fights. I like to wear [Sextant of Unstable Currents] during single target trash pulls or very short boss fights.

Please put Subtlety on your cloak, the penetration is probably making more than just me shake my head in shame.

Okay, next thing: spec. First starters, your crit is especially low for a fire mage. Mine creeps up close to 40% with raid buffs, even at hit cap. This is namely due to the fact that you don't have much gear with both hit and crit, and while it's awesome that you're at hit cap, you should work on upgrading those particular pieces that have hit only and/or only hit gems. An item like [Boots of Blasting] or [Belt of Blasting] can be crafted and have a lot of +dmg, crit, AND hit. Crit is really a fire mage's bread and butter, so if you don't feel like you've been keeping up on the meters I would suspect this is the one thing you'll want to keep an eye on to help you improve.

I'm with Dufe here, the points you put into Improved Fire Blast are really not worth the trade off for Dragon's Breath and Blast wave. Fire Blast should never really be seen as a "regular" part of a spell rotation, only as a situational filler. It's just not damage-per-mana efficient enough to justify. And the damage potential from aoe is just ridiculous for a mage these days in Hyjal, so it truly is a waste to not spec into them.

Alright so now that the whole "bla bla bla mage" stuff is out of the way, let's get on to other things. As you may or may not know, Downfall has a uniquely high number of female players, notably at the raiding level. Several of our top healers are women in their late teens to early 30s, and our other 25 man raid has a female main tank. So, in a nutshell, girls are generally welcome here with open arms.

Grov's a cool guy, and I would trust his referal any day. So that being said, mass points for being a girl end-game raider. Now let's work on your gear and maybe get you a little more knowledgeable about some of the inner workings of your class and give you a chance to show your stuff.

Last but not least, please feel free to browse through the mage guide I wrote in our handbook. It might have some stuff that could help you out. http://www.downfallguild.org/node/106

I've saw that alot of bosses

Dufe — Thu, 05/08/2008 - 14:38

I've saw that alot of bosses have been given small (1-3%) resist levels to certain schools, so I decided to look into it a bit. Spell Penetration does help overcome this extra resist (seen on Supremus, Rage, some of Kael's advisors, etc). What I'm getting at is that if you're threat capped, then subtelty is definitely the better enchant, but if there's never a threat issue, then it is possible for small amounts of Spell Penetration to actually be helpful for certain bosses. Just depends on how your threat gen compares to the tank's.