For some guilds, all you need to do to get an invite is whisper someone and they’ll invite. For others… you have to apply. Now this apply may take many forms, for some its a simple forum written application, for some its an interview, for others its a dark ritual taking place late at night in the middle of the woods with people wearing black hoods and carrying serrated knives… Ok maybe not serrated knives, dinner knives most likely.

The general idea though remains the same and when applying to a guild there are some simple steps you can take to give yourself a better chance and some easy to make mistakes that’ll shoot yourself in the foot.

How to fail in your application and how not to.

Question: Why do you raid?

The wrong answer: FOR THE PHAT PURPLEZ

Nobody likes a loot whore. They are a cause of drama and headaches for the raid leaders. They’d rather reject you even if your class/spec is needed than risk causing problems for them and others in the future. Don’t mention loot. At all. Like ever. No seriously. Ever. Never. Ever. Ok?

Question: What addons do you use?

The wrong answer: Recount so I can see my DPS.

METER-CHASER FAIL!  Why not answer like this:

For raiding I use X-perl unitframes, Bartender 4, as well as Omen, Deadly Boss Mods, Ora3 and Recount. X-perl and Bartender are mostly asthetic I like being able to relocate where my player and target box is on the screen. Recount is mostly used for personal DPS on dummies and comparing myself to others of my class to see where I can improve and if the ratios of our spells are similar. I also use it to see how players in the raid died for improving later attempts. Ora3 is for displaying cooldowns of combat resurrects etc and also who the tanks are.

For general play I have Atlas Loot so I can, with a few clicks, bring up the details of any rep faction, crafted item or world event without having to log my alts or wowhead to see materials (and yeah seeing dungeon/raid loot is handy too).

Necrosis is important for my Warlock, I use it for handling my Conjured items and summoning demons or players, also before the 32 shard limit was imposed, it controlled my shards putting them all into my soul bag and destroying extras.

See the difference between just listing them? If you just list recount normally with no explanation you leave open the possibility of being thought of as a meter chaser. But by explaining how you use it you remove that chance and leave the impression of “wow, this guy takes raids seriously.”

Noone will complain if you give them a wall of text full of good details. Guilds want a lot of information to work with. Think of details like lottery tickets. The more of them you have, the greater your chances of hitting the jackpot.

Question: When are you available to raid (our raid nights are Mon/Tues/Wed, from 8pm to 11 server time)

The wrong answer: I can raid over the weekend, I can’t do week nights because I have school.

The guild is not going to change their times to suit you. If you can’t make their times, why apply?

Question: What is your spec and why? If you have dual spec, answer for both.

The wrong answer: I’m boomkin and tree druid. I chose them because I can use the same gear for both.

No you can’t. Boomkin needs Hit, Resto uses Spirit and mp5. This question is an opportunity to show your class knowledge, to tell them the benefits of your spec and why you chose it, Boomkin gives 3% spell hit for example.

If you chose a non-optimal spec it’s even more important. Currently Arcane > Fire for Mage DPS. But if you apply to a guild as fire they’ll want to know why. All it takes is one line of “I tried Arcane, but I prefer the Fire playstyle and I perform better as Fire” is all that is needed.

Question: Why did you leave your previous guild?

The wrong answer: I got kicked cause I called the GM a F@#king tosser. All I did was leave the instance to buy my tier, it would’ve helped me to do more DPS on the next boss. He removed me from the raid for that so I told him what I thought of him.

Inconsiderate and verbally abusive. Nice. I can see you’ll go far in the world. [sarcasm off].

Question: Why do you play WoW?

The wrong answer: i play wow cus it vry fun n I like getn gud gear n stuf. i play wif my m8s a lot n I wna raid wid u guys

It isn’t hard to run over your work and check for spelling and grammar. Most guilds aren’t going to penalise you if you mix up their and there or your and you’re, but if your application makes the recruiters eyes bleed your chances are slim to none.  Run your application through a spell checker, almost everyone has MS Word and Open Office is free if you don’t. If you really do struggle with english maybe you’d be better in a guild that speaks your main language in gchat?

Observation: Gear rating

Officer – We’re heading to Icecrown Citadel 25! Oh what’s this, a new raider applicant? Let me see here… ROFLMAO he’s in questing blues. /Decline app

Your armoury will be checked. That is a fact. With the release of the Icecrown Heroics, you have access to ilev 232 epics and Triumph badges from every heroic. Getting high level gear has never been easier than now. Do some heroics, do some badge run raids, make sure your gear is appropriate for the content the guild requires. If they’re doing Icecrown 25, you’ll want TOC 25 level gear as a minimum. Running around in Naxx level epics or blues won’t do you any favours.

Observation: Gems/Enchants

Officer – Hmm, this Warlock has gemmed for Stamina and Intellect. He’s also got a Spell Penetration gem. What the hell? His Hunter alt has gemmed for Spellpower? /Decline app

When looking at your armoury all it takes from an experienced raider is a moment’s glance to tell if you know your class or not. A Beastmaster or Marksmanship Hunter can gem for Attack Power, A Survival Hunter should never gem Attack Power, only Agility and at higher gear levels Armour Penetration surpasses AP or Agility for Marksmanship hunters. These subtle distinctions show the difference between which player is knowledgeable in his class and which is not. While you can still use Attack Power for all three, having proper gemming is something that really gets you noticed in a good way.

Where possible, use only epic gems. They’re easy enough to get that a full gear set of epic gems isn’t as time consuming as it was in TBC. High level enchants help too, 50 spellpower on weapon is good, 63 spellpower is better.

Your head and shoulder enchants should be the best. If not, getting Exalted with the Sons of Hodir in Storm Peaks should be your top priority, the PVP enchant will be seen as laziness and not a filler. If you are using the PVP enchant, then say in your app that you know the Hodir one is better and you’re working on it.

Conclusion

Most of these are really common sense. You need to exercise your communication skills, have good spelling, be polite and give sufficient detail that the guild feels like they have an idea who you are. Your character should be the best you can get it to be without the guilds help, this means running heroics and getting gems and enchants done, you might even want to read up Elitistjerks.com to find out what good specs/gems/enchants are available to you. Above all be thorough! Make this application yours. They’re going to get dozens of generic half-hearted applications. Instead put some time into yours, making it amusing or serious or silly or whatever it is you like doing. Take it and make it your own.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a new recruit to invite.

/pulls over cultist hood and retreats into dark eerie woods brandishing a dinner knife.

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