Raid Rx: Identifying and avoiding insane applicants

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host, Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus, is on vacation. Today, Allison Robert pens advice concerning recruitment policy that you would probably be better off not reading.

Unlike Dawn, I did not consult Matt Low prior to writing this article, because he would have told me to quit screwing around and write something helpful. I think we can all agree this serves as an important lesson to all WoW.com columnists -- namely, going on vacation leaves your column to the mercy of people like me.

Healers, like nuclear fission, are prone to instability and drama. This is perhaps understandable because the rest of the guild holds us responsible for the collapse of fishery stocks, split infinitives and the raid's survival through enormously stupid gameplay. Because we exert an equivalent amount of influence and control over all three issues, pressure eventually builds to the point where we crack and start screaming obscenities at the height of the raid hour, or else sit at our computers muttering to ourselves, oblivious to the stares of nearby friends who make a mental note to refill the Percocet when they are next in town.

So. As this process inevitably consumes most of your healing team, it will eventually become necessary to recruit. Healer recruitment is a process fraught with danger and heartbreak, as it involves the repeated casting of one's line into Yoohoo Lake in the hopes of fishing up the least terminally incompetent player therein. Officers are subsequently obliged to make distinctions between different applicants, some of whom may be legitimately crazy and nearly all of whom are lying in some respect.

The following guide should prove useful to any player who wants to know when someone can be comfortably incorporated into an existing healing team, and when an applicant should be shuffled in the direction of the nearest KFC selling two-piece and a curb stomp.

Disclaimer: Portions of the following guide may actually resemble a guild application I wrote to get into my present guild. I'll let you guess which bits and why they let me in.

Character name

Good: Anything that is not from the following category --

Bad: Thundernuts, Manjuice, Pwnsyoo, or any reference to genitalia, bodily fluids or no-fault auto insurance

Previous guilds

Good: Ensidia

Bad: (character limit exceeded)

Explain your reason/s for leaving your previous guild

Good: A decision was made to end raiding due to poor attendance from other members. I would like to finish this expansion's raid content and am looking for a new guild with the blessing of my guild leader.

Bad: Knife fight with guildies over the role of the Community Reinvestment Act in the subprime mortgage market and subsequent financial collapse.

Really bad: Accused of cannibalism

Previous raid experience

Good: I am currently 11/12 heroic Icecrown Citadel.

Bad: Raided up to Mr. Smite, guild disbanded after wiping on adds.

What do you have to offer the guild?

Good: Rainbows.

Bad: Herpes.

What do you expect from the guild?

Good: Table scraps. A lack of open hostility from fellow guildies. If no one else wants it and it's about to be sharded, I also enjoy gear, if it's not too much trouble. Don't bother if that means you have to move your mouse more than an inch or two, though. I don't want to put anyone out.

Bad: An obsequious attitude, worm.

We require Omen and Deadly Boss Mods or Deus Vox Encounters. Can you comply with this?

Good: Yes.

Bad: F&%$ you.

Tell us about your computer and internet connection.

Good: I built my computer with parts salvaged from a recent NASA auction in Houston. It is capable of playing WoW without my assistance, has a full tier 10 holy priest on Thunderhorn and sequences genomes in its free time.

Bad: 1998 Dell threatened into running Vista at gunpoint. Sports a handsome cardboard chassis and 500 MB RAM. Internet provided by Hamsters Local #1187, the same ISP that has successfully powered Allie Robert to several spectacular wipes.

Are you acquainted with any current guild members?

Good: I saved your main tank's life in a Beijing alley, introduced your leading DPS to his wife and delivered your raid leader's child when her car broke down on the highway.

Bad: I'm the ex of your current heal lead and the break-up wasn't amicable, but we are both very professional and will never allow it to interfere with the quality of our work.

Do you own and use a Blizzard authenticator?

Good: Yes.

Bad: I am very pro-authenticator and have added one to each WoW account I've successfully, um, borrowed.

How would you evaluate your abilities as a healer?

Good: My healing prowess has single-handedly saved raids in heroic raid content. I am worshiped as a minor god by an Indian sect. Blizzard calls me before each content patch to request permission to change the class that I alone among players have perfected.

Bad: My keys are bound to max-rank Rejuvenation yoked to mouseover macros. During raids I roll my fist across the keyboard from left to right and back again while swiping my mouse over raid members at random. After repeatedly topping heals on several heroic Icecrown encounters, I have been asked to mentor other druids on my realm.

Is there anything you would like to ask us?

Good: No, I am 100% in agreement with whatever decisions rendered by guild leadership and will never express any individual opinion of my own.

Bad: How many fertile women does your guild have?

Want some more advice for working with the healers in your guild? Raid Rx has you covered with all there is to know! Need raid or guild healing advice? Email matticus@wow.com and you could see a future post addressing your question. Looking for less healer-centric raiding advice? Take a look at WoW.com's raiding column, Ready Check.