Caveat 1: There has been lots of talk over the past years about applicant testing. I hope this topic is different enough to warrant it's own thread. If not, I'm sure the moderators will see to it that it doesn't clutter the forums ;-)

Caveat 2: Before jumping to conclusions, please read the reasoning behind this discussion. I know that level 57 non-elite mobs are not raid bosses :p

Caveat 3: This would only work for DPS classes at the moment, but I'd be interested in hearing suggestions for other roles as well.

PURPOSE
To have a baseline pre-screen for applicants to your guild so that you do not waste their time, your time, and a raid spot in a trial run.

METHODOLOGY
Require the applicant to submit a 20 min WWS parse of blasted lands (for melee dps) or Dr. Boom (for caster dps) to the guild ahead of time. The person would be required to be unbuffed, using raid gear.

ANALYSIS
If we have enough people on this (or other) forum submit baseline dps figures such as that for class/gear-level permutations, also unbuffed, we can get a feel for how much dps is standard for a person who has Learned2Play.

Discussion and Thoughts
I am very well aware that there is not perfect scaling with gear and attributes. +Hit will help melee more on blasted lands mobs (until capped) than it will on bosses (relative to +crit). However, if you can show that RogueLeader in your guild does 560dps on blasted lands mobs, and the applicant does 540, that person is likely a good person to have as an app. If the applicant submits a 400dps parse, that's probably worth saying - gear up and/or learn to play, then re-app later.

Part of the problem when comparing dps results from person to person on these boards is that we always have to account for different raid buffs and debuffs. As bad a proxy for raid bosses as blasted lands mobs are (Dr. Boom less so), they do at least give us a common platform on which to test.

Also, would there be similar tests to common-size the tanking or healing aspect of pre-clearing applicants for guilds?

I think it's tough for tanks at least, usually I ask people about their threat rotations, gem choices, and opinions on the current position of tanking. At best it gives me a little bit of information about if they have the basic clues. I do like this idea for dpsers, but I would be very shocked if someone came up with a good way of doing this for tanking.

You forgot mana, some specs (Affliction warlocks/melee) can go on forever, while other specs/classes (hunter/mage/destruction warlock/etc) would run out of mana fast. It would be very hard to replicate mana intake not in a raid, and a destruction warlock only using damage spells will appear to be doing more DPS than had he life tapped regularly, like he would in a raid.

Also, last time I tested my DPS on Dr. Boom there was a random mob that pathed close to me and forced me to kill it, that would also lower DPS.

One thing that springs to mind immediately is that dagger rogues would never get a guild invite >.>

Other than whether or not the applicant knows a good dps rotation for his/her class, I'm not sure what else you might glean from these tests. Even that can be obtained through a short little interview asking questions pertinent to raiding, e.g. (for a mage) "I see you are arcane specced and have 2 piece T5, what type of rotation do you plan on using for xxx fight and why?" where you can ask for several different fights that require different approaches.

Honestly, looking at the person's app to see his gear/gem/enchant selections and talent spec usually give you a good idea of whether they know how to play their class. Talk to some people who have raided with the person before to try and get a general idea of whether or not they've been good in the raids they've previously been in.

Beyond a trial run, I don't think there is anything that can give you a definitive answer of whether or not someone is good or not. They could have chosen the best enchants, spec, gems and gear available to them and can put out crazy DPS on the common test, but if their situational awareness sucks, then you don't want them. We've had some apps who got trial invites, came on a few raids, and despite their good gear/spec/enchants/gems, they absolutely sucked (ie, warrior dying to stupid stuff on Al'ar and after getting B. Rezzed asking the other add tank to "taunt these off me so I can execute spam").

I fear this would not be a time saver, because anyone who can read a decent theory crafting post will know the ideal rotations for their class. Whats more important is how the applicant reacts to situations in the raid environment, dodging doomfire, knowing when to nuke, when to spellsteal, when to kick, when to move etc. And for that you would still need to bring them to a raid. I realize this would be on a pre-screening of applicants, but it would only eliminate the same people that you could cut with a glance at their application, without a 20minute WWS.

I had this same idea about 6 months ago, and went through a few different ideas, starting with the "dummy" mobs of Dr. Boom / Servants, but quickly realizing that these weren't good examples. I do think that 20 minutes is pretty unrealistic for most, if not all casters in the game, at least going solo.

However, the one test that you might like that I found to be pretty useful is taking a tank/healer/dps to the Abyssal Shelf and pulling a solo Fel Reaver-Type mob, giving the tank a slight head start, and then letting the DPS kill it. He has about 1.2 million HP iirc. The few times we did this we were able to pull L72 versions of these mobs, and there is a spot in the south where you won't aggro any other Cannons/Overseers/Peons. Obviously this takes quite a bit of time trying to kill this solo, but the Tank/Healer should be able to keep this up indefinately. He hits hard enough to generate enough rage to have a good threat level, meaning the DPS shouldn't have any problem going all out, and the healer should be able to keep up the tank the entire time without using mana pots if he's a good healer. It seemed like a very good test for any type of new app you have, considering you can use two of the positions of the triad as static members from your guild, and test the healer/tank/dps spot that you'd like to test. This even allows you to test multiple DPS at the same time, or bring any combination of what you'd normally run with that person if you wanted group buffs for them.

In the end we decided that it was a little too static of a test for us, and preferred running a speed-run heroic with our applicants to see how they react when we throw chaotic situations at them.

I think that's a rather good way to go, bosses in heroics are all pretty much too easy, but forcing chain pulls on a tank put him on pressure(especially if he's not the one initiating those pulls, which simulates adds popping mid fights and going for healers/spriests). DPS have to worry about positionning/CC, and while some dps are at a disadvantage in some situations(affliction locks might have trouble getting full dots rotations out if the other dps are going too hard), it should still give a good vision. As for healers, sadly that's probably where you don't see much, most heroics only involve spamming the most efficient heals on your tank so he doesn't die and you don't run out of mana. There's barely any positionning or healing prioritizing.

I think this could have some potential, as it removes a lot of the hands-on component of making sure an applicant isn't absolutely terrible.

In the past, we used to do the 'take each applicant through a tough Heroic!' thing, but it became time inefficient - I don't have enough hours in a week to take every app through some kind of trial run. We've recently gone to the, 'if their app doesn't make it sound like they're a mouth-breathing nitwit, give them a guild invite and take them to farm content to make sure they don't fuck up!' theory, but that bloats our roster and inevitably ends us up either a) doing content we shouldn't be wasting time on to test apps, or b) sitting out raiders who want their shot at the rare drops off any given boss so that we can test apps.

As pointed out, though, there are obvious limitations.

With that said, mind you, I like this idea for a number of reasons:

1. It forces the applicant to do something totally mind-numbing, which can equate to farming raid consumables;
2. It serves as a pulse-check; the applicant actually read, and understood, what was expected of them; and
3. It requires the applicant to demonstrate a reasonable understanding of game mechanics and the tools at their disposal (WWS, various addons).

If benchmarks (for various classes, gear levels, talent specs, etc.) existed, and we could actually create a reasonable standard on which to do such a test, I'd be all for it.

I would argue that there has to be a comparable way to test tanks and healers, too - I'll have to think on it.

Let's assume that there is some litmus test that produces a WWS parse that pretty clearly shows whether a player has the ability to play their role correctly. I can see two reasons for wanting to pursue this. (I understand that your test only works for dps classes, but I'm speaking more generally here.)

The first reason is that people who talk the talk seem unable to walk the walk. That is, they can give you a rundown of a dps rotation, a threat gen rotation, or different healing methods, but for some reason they come up short on a trial run.

The second reason is that you have a bevy of apps, so you want to place a significant amount of the burden of the first-tier application process on the applicant.

I don't find the second compelling in general. There's already a thread about recruiting shortages for BT/Hyjal guilds, so I assume that there aren't a glut of applicants for relatively few spots in guilds, and I'm sure the opposite isn't true for guilds working on other content. The time from around now until mid-January is particularly bad, so I can't see a reason for guilds not to give ample time and attention to potential recruits.

The first reason is a little trickier, but in my experience, the large majority of players who profess sensible knowledge are able to turn that into solid performance, so I don't necessarily see this as a valid substitution of some sanity check questions. A few guilds may profess an exception to this, but I think that some level of recruit turnover is to be expected.

Perhaps something that would be useful is a list of those "sanity check" questions for each class and spec, with a range of acceptable answers. I can't see that list being useful for everyone, as I could imagine some greenhorn guilds' core raiding members might not even be able to give correct or complete answers. I just find the "describe your role in a raid*" questions a little too broad.


* e.g. from EJ's own feral druid application: "Explain what you perceive your character's role in endgame content to be. Explain how your current gear and talent choices mesh with performing that role, and any ways in which you are still working on improving your character. Links to WWS parses to illustrate your points are welcome."

For Dr. Boom dunno if there's any other caster class other than affliction warlocks that could fo gor 20 minutes. Unfortunately there still are some problems. Any affli lock from FS and above should kill it in way less than 20 min, no problem, if he has the mana to last.
Any affliction warlock at the same gear level won't be able to have enough regen to kill Boom without the FS set bonus and CoS, that hp return is simply the threshold for enough regen to go on for a long time and not being able to kill him.
Above that gear level, never tried so don't know if 2 pcs T6 is needed for full regen but quite probably isn't, due to dps increase.
Any other caster will simply go oom in the first few minutes. Destro locks take ~1 minute/mana bar, this with Cataclysm, and won't get much more than 3 mana bars if potting, even with soul leech.

I've found that just asking them to explain their basic damage / tanking / healing strategy will make it painfully obvious who to invite and who to ignore. A quick armory check is also enough to screen over half of all applicants. Using any green quality gems? Have unenchanted gear? Missing key talent points? Focused your gear on the wrong stat (eg. shadow priest with crit, rogue with dodge)? At least 75% of applicants have a profile that betrays their basic ignorance of the class (poor choices) or lack of dedication (cheaping out on enchants).

Of course, you could take this one step further. Observe the wonder of my favorite Guild Application site: Alpha of Ysera's Application Forum Here are the application instructions. This is not an except; it's the entirety of them.

It's essentially a free-form application. So how many people actually take the time to explain how they play their class? Almost none. Most of the applications are truly terrible, like: 70 Rogue - Alpha Forums

But it makes the truly good applications stand out.

My guild is currently in the works of dropping the whole "class captain" roles and as someone who may be taking over my guild's recruiting job, I feel this is a great idea.

Since I know very little about class mechanics outside of Hunters and to a much lesser extent Shamans, having some quick reference numbers at different gear levels and specs would be very useful for weeding out...well scrubs basically.

Granted, taking the applicant on a trial run will prove almost the same thing while at the same time showing their awareness/reaction time abilities, I think the test could still prove a useful tool for recruiters.

As StreetJustice pointed out, 20 minutes of straight DPS without raids buffs, oils, pots and what not is basically impossible for many specs/classes due to mana usage. Maybe something like 10 minutes for the mana users and give them Blessing of Wisdom, Mana Stream totem, and a couple of pots to make sure they reach the needed time.

It is a small price to pay, but I think sacrificing 10 minutes and a couple of mana pots to make sure the applicant knows how to utilize their classes strengths is good information to know before finding out in the middle of or after a trial run. It would also give recruiters a chance to give suggestions for improvement before the trial run to see if the applicant is capable/willing to take suggestions and improve themselves.

Try flying up to the perch just above and behind him.

Take the applicant on an instance run, do a few pulls like you know what you're doing, and then very deliberately fuck up the pull. Get a double pull, break all of the CC, whatever, just make sure they need to think on their feet. Repeat until you've come to a conclusion. I suggest one of the pulls in the room for the first boss of Shadow Labyrinth.

While I don't do this on purpose, I find the way bad pulls go generally sets the tone for the rest of the run.

The "bad pull" is a great thing to throw at a recruit; I like Heroic Ramparts and the 'combat practice' packs from the Shattered Halls hallways (the ones where the 2 dangerous guys beat on each other) for this too.

However, I wouldn't start off with a bad pull, but rather start making 'risky' pulls until you get a bad one. I think it's worth finding out whether a recruit will speak up and mention that there's a problem with the pulling strategy/choices.

Nor would this methodology work for ferals.

This is true, and there're also other factors to be considered, like dropping totems (is this unbuffed? self-buffed? What's fair? Should everyone drop as the start of their timer or drop, drink up, and go)? but if there were baseline standards for each class/spec based on EJ input here, perhaps this could be adjusted for?

For example, lets say that we wanted to baseline Elemental Shaman DPS out of a raid. We could set up parameters for a test (Drop totems to start your timer) and have a few people here do it informally. We find that several BT Elemental Shaman say they can dps for around 3 min 30 seconds without going oom (as an example... I'm not sure what it would be). So, we set up parameters for the other shamans' tests based on that. Would this be accurate to their DPS in a raid situation? No, because Shadowpriests, potions, and Judgements extend longevity and buffs from raid members increase your damage. But we could look and see that the average dps for the baseline T6 people was X, the baseline for T5 people was Y and see how the people who applied to us fell on that spectrum based on their gear.


This could also be beneficial in another sense. I.E. if you could establish baseline tests for these things, you could use them to set goals for your members, and perhaps even offer bonus dkp to people who can exceed the average by a certain amount, encouraging people to improve (though for fairness' sake something would have to be arranged to provide equivalent compensation to healers/tanks).


Edit to respond to:
While you are accurate in what that thread states, I'd say that you make some incorrect assumptions here. =) The issue isn't getting applicants per se. The issue is getting -quality- applicants. We a sprinkling of apps from people who are keyed--at least a few of whom had guilds that probably were not sorry to see them go, or are secret e-bays. We get a fair amount from people who need Vashj or Kael vials but have seen both fights. Then we get a fair amount from people who swear blue that they're awesome at the game but haven't gotten far to this point for circumstantial reasons but if only we could key them...

We do request WWS meters from people. Some have them some don't. They're helpful, but not something anyone can get (i.e. if your guild's disbanded you can't easily get a WWS of your raid dps) and they're nonstandardized which makes them only rough guesses at a person's skill.

Something like this would make things more precise for high-end players (and would hopefully pre-screen out bad players) and would allow those players who require additional investment from the guild to prove their worth--if you say you're excellent... we've heard it before. If you say you're excellent and exceed the average dps for players at your tier of gear by 20%, well, that's pretty interesting.

Definitely have to be careful how you do the instance run, if I'm apping for a guild there is a very low chance that I'm going to question how they do things unless they have suggested that I do so. Shit even now I'm in a guild I try not to go against the flow, the GM explains the strat he wants to try and I shut up and do as I'm told. Obviously if there are any glaring flaws in the plan I'd be a retard not to speak but if it's just a slightly less optimal strat I'm not going to say anything. A lot of what I know about the game isn't set in stone, it's mostly just word of mouth, I don't want to be saying things that I think are correct only to be shot down and made to look like a tool when apping.

The only thing this static test is good for is to save yourself the trouble of taking complete scrubs that pass the armory check to a raid and wasting a spot. So if they can talk the talk and they havn't made terrible talent/gear choices throw this test at them, if they pass then take them to a raid if they fail then they can go on their way and you won't be wasting a spot in your next raid.

I used to (back when MC was the big thing) make all new Shaman apps solo heal DM North and offtank the Observer at the end while they did it. At the time it was a really good test of healing efficiency, gear selection, situational awareness and reaction times (using Grounding Totem/Earth Shock to minimize your incoming damage while healing).

The only thing I can think of for tanks is to measure incoming dps on a WWS, but that really doesn't provide a good metric. If they over-geared it, the tank probably swapped in threat gear, and if they under-gear it, they probably got rocked and wore a max mitigation set. For healing, I find WWS generally useless as well. Just because they have high healing throughput or a ridiculous amount of overheals, it doesn't make them a good or bad healer.

I've always thought that tanking and healing are more of an art form, and therefore it's difficult to measure skill through WWS. While this probably isn't the answer you're looking for, what I've said below is easier than wasting a raid spot on a person for a whole evening.

For tanks, I'd look at the gear, spec, gem, and enchant choices, then quiz them about the theorycraft and threat rotations. Then, I'd recommend a heroic SH with no CC. It's not that hard now, and the large pulls will let you know pretty quick if they know what they're doing. If you're at a gear level where heroic SH isn't trivial, try regular SH, or anything with large pulls and don't use CC. Also, every couple pulls, "accidentally" attack the mob that isn't the kill target. Make the tank run the 5 man, mark targets, and call kill targets on vent.

I'd also suggest the same type of trial heroic for healers. No CC, chain pull, and see how long it takes them to run out of mana. Pull aggro off the tank, or attack the targets that aren't the kill target, and see how they handle it. Last time we tested a healer, I intentionally tried to parry gib the tank on a boss, pulled aggro every few pulls, and did everything I could to make it difficult for the healer.

(and the comment about ferals)

I don't think it's *too* much to ask of an app to get a friend to help out for 20 min as a tank, if they're serious.