Semper Dius

Personal info:

Name (optional): Marschant E.
Age: 36
Location: South Africa (GMT+2)
Job / education: Self-employed web developer specilised in design and frontend integration
Hobbies: Gaming, Reading (SciFi + Fantasy), Photography (Landscape + Street + Candid), Dog Training (Border Collies 4 Life)
Do you own a microphone?: Sure do.
What are your system specifications?: Windows 7 64bit, i5 @3.4GHz, 8GB DDR3, GTX460, SyncMaster T260 1920x1200


Gaming information:

Describe your average gaming week to give us an idea about your playtimes, with approximate hours for each day, in GMT time zone.

Being self-employed gives me a fair amount of flexibility, however I'll be the first to admit that I should work more and play less frequently. Generally speaking and based on GMT0 I'll log in around 4pm for an hour or so and catch up on things like dailies, repairs, shitchat etc. until supper time with my wife. Thereafter I'm on from 7pm to around 2am (I need to change my sleeping habits). Saturdays I spend with my family and only start playing in the evening around 9 or 10pm. Sunday's depend on my schedule and the weather but as you can see I spend most evenings playing.

Our most active playtimes are between 7 and 10 PM GMT, do these suit you?

Not only would they (the times) be better for my health but my wife would be much happier too!

Do you consider yourself as a casual, semi-hardcore or hardcore gamer? What is your ingame age for instance (type /age in game)?

I'm semi-hardcore but leaning more toward the hardcore side of things. I dislike the label though as it conjures up images of teenagers in underpants sweating on their keyboards with a rabid glint in their eyes ready to scream vitriol reserved for the devil at any person not playing up to their expectations. Strangely enough it's usually the hardcore crowd who rage quit first. Yeah, let's see how long they live in their 40's.

I try to play at my best and enjoy challenges, hence leaning more toward hardcore but at the end of the day I don't give a toss about APM or crap like K/D ratios. As long as you bring your best, are open to cummunication and a team player then things are good in my book.

Which MMOG's have you played and how did you fare in them?
EVE Online for four years, 3 accounts with full character rosters on each. Two dedicated to funding my lowsec pirating habits where I was a member of various criminal corporations. The most infamous being The Bastards where I partook leading fleets/scouting/logistics etc.

LOTRO for 3 years. Mostly in a PvX guild on Withywindle. Officer in TrueBlood/Hands of Tulkas we were well-known as one of the top raiding guilds without being elitest.

The Secret World for 6 months. Not much regarding accolades but I enjoyed all aspects of the game and especially pvp being part of the least represented faction.

Guild Wars 2 since BWE1. Reformed as Attack Fight Kill [AFK] after I took over leadership of Hands of Tulkas. Been on Desolation since BWE1. I resigned from [AFK] and took a 6 week break, returned during October and joined Extraordinary Gentlemen where I am currently a WvW Officer. I don't really care about accolades but thought I'd mention them.

Describe your character in GW2 (name, race, profession, level, crafting, style (damage, support, control)).

880 hours played in total.

Lhylyth, Human Female, 80 Elementalist, 500 hours
Having played an Ele as a main since beta it's the class I'm most comfortable with. I switch weapons and trait allocations depending on the situation but enjoy D/D the most. I have three different trait setups being the standard 0/10/0/30/30 bunker with p/v/t and cleric's exotics and two dealing more damage without giving up defence. 0/15/0/25/30 and 0/20/0/20/30 both using p/v/t armour slotted with soldier crests and a mix of knight's/valk/berserker trinkets, the goal being 18k HP, 2600 armor, 30% crit. chance (without fury), 50% crit. damage and close to 500 healing power. Playing in tier 1 and 2 sadly doesn't leave much room for heavily offensive builds as I'm usually in the frontline push along with the warriors and guardians.

Apart from my main I have an 80 Guardian, Mesmer and Thief and a 40 Warrior. I'm not as familiar with them in a pvp environment as I am with my ele but will briefly mention them. The majority are geared in 80 rares, playing wvw as much as I do doesn't generate enough cash to fully gear them all in exotics yet.

Serene Breeze, Sylvari Male, 80 Guardian, 110 hours
0/10/30/30/0 Altruistic healing build

Tryn Yty, Charr Female, 80 Mesmer, 100 hours
ShatterCat or Seven Mirror build.

Thorn in the Shadows, Sylvari Female, 80 Thief, 80 hours
0/30/30/10/0 Prefered weaponset being s/p, s/d and sb offhand.

Anvil of the Storm, Human Male, 40 Warrior, 30 hours
Goal being a s/x + hammer 0/0/30/30/10 Shout heal build with Omnomberry Ghost for heavy frontline fighting.

Describe what you enjoy doing the most in GW2 and why?

I troll the wvw forums and mos matchup site during the day. WvW is my focus and I get the greatest enjoyment while playing there. Having played since beta the golden nimbus of the world has worn off. While I'll run dungeons and fractals when necessary I don't find pve particularly challenging when compared to proper raids where I either main or off tanked or played a healer. I don't enjoy the nature of sPVP and find standing around in glowing circles boring when looking at the controlled environment you fight in.

WvW presents sooo many different challenges, the dynamic nature always keeps you on your toes. There is nothing more satisfying charging into a mass of enemies with your raid group. I'll often jump into difficult situations to test myself, you win, you lose but you always gain something from trying. Tier 1 & 2 have grown stale, running into a 40man camp capping team every few minutes is boring as hell and playing against point pinchers like Vizunah is dull. I'm looking for a solid team who enjoys wvw as much as I do, who aren't afraid to push themselves while having fun doing so.

What previous experience do you have in a Guild environment?
I've been either a high ranking officer, team leader or guild leader in the majority of the MMO's I've played. I'm a firm believer that a team supercedes the individual. I don't believe in belittling, I'd prefer in building up and strengthening. Positivity goes a long way in building a better group.

What do you expect from a Guild?
Treat each other with mutual respect. Trust that we have each others backs. Be willing and tough enough to take criticism. Don't use criticism as a tool to break someone down. Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. Understand people have different opinions and they're all valuable. Give praise where praise is due. If you have a problem speak up and be willing to defend your view. Above all else have fun together, laugh at the silly things, don't sweat the small stuff.

How did you hear about Semper Dius?
Reading the recent Gandarra matchup threads, doing a little research and having watched some of the videos you released. Also receiving thanks and praises from Judge who recently transferred from Deso counts for a lot in my books.

Are you currently in, or applying to, another GW2 guild?
Currently a member of Extraordinary Gentlemen [EXG] on Desolation.

How active do you use forums & TS3?
Daily abuse is mandatory.

Is there anything else you would like to share?
Well not really anything to share but more a question on my part. Being a WvW focused guild do you at least do dungeons and fractals together when not in WvW. Gearing my alts is a concern for me and I don't like pugging dungeons. Would I receive support from guild members for such activities?

Other than that the main reason why I'm looking to transfer is due to tier 1 and 2 being annoyingly zergy (40+) and i dislike the meta involved with those numbers. Furthermore our wvw raid leader has aspirations to be like Red Guard and is only interested in warriors and guardians to the point of pushing people to levelling alts for that purpose. I'm not here to be someone else's ego bitch. And for the love of pewpew please be mature enough not to rage quit if things don't go your way.

Hello MarzAttakz,

Welcome to the forums and thank you for applying! I have no questions at the moment.

Good luck!

- IDarko

Thanks iDarko, good luck with your cheat reports, people hate being caught and shamed when they're up to something questionable!

post #7325688:

Well not really anything to share but more a question on my part. Being a WvW focused guild do you at least do dungeons and fractals together when not in WvW. Gearing my alts is a concern for me and I don't like pugging dungeons. Would I receive support from guild members for such activities?

Certainly, most of us do dungeons/fractals. Some do them quite a lot even, and a few of us do them far too much

post #7329275:

Thanks iDarko, good luck with your cheat reports, people hate being caught and shamed when they're up to something questionable!

True, but i should have just worked via the private message system from the start. The thread derailed way too much because of that little drama!

And there are indeed plenty of dungeon runners in our guild. I'm doing CoF speedruns almost every day and also try to do Arah path 3 often. AC and fractals are also very popular in our guild.

Thanks for your responses guys, sounds great and sets my mind at ease. Such a pity the matchup threads devolve into such drama at the drop of a hat, although I must say the last two involving Gandarra have been mostly a pleasure to read compared to the trolling that happens in practically every high tier matchup.

Any further info I need to provide or questions needing to be answered, please ask away! Looking forward to hearing from you.

Hey MarzAttakz, I got a question for you!=)

Let's say we're having a WvW night. We're playing against a more organized set of guilds who have been dominating us for an extended amount of time and pressures are consistently rising. As a team member, how would you best predict yourself to behave during such conditions?

Otherwise I wish you good luck with your application!

Welcome and good luck. No game related questions!

Off-topic. What kind of dog training is it you do? I have a Collie cross that I run Agility with.

We also have a ninja police dog trainer (I think?).

#7331590 Darthdoggy wrote:

We're playing against a more organized set of guilds who have been dominating us for an extended amount of time and pressures are consistently rising. As a team member, how would you best predict yourself to behave during such conditions?

It's a TARRRPPPPPP question! Hmmmm... well that's a tough one to answer if the goal is to beat them. How I'd behave is easier to answer first. Obviously those types of situations are frustrating and I'm a human being with Latin blood, I'd likely swear alot and call them silly names like "tea bagging soggy biscuit midget munchers" or "corpse jumping necrophiliac french fries" but underneath all that pent up anger I'd be trying to figure out why they are dominating.

Is it due to better class composition, are they running heavy offensive or defensive builds, are they abusing culling and rendering and then onto the harder questions like "what are we doing wrong, and what can we do to improve our game". One thing for certain is that I don't give up and if possible you do what any force in history would do and that's call for reinforcements!

#7333007 Svenbjierd wrote:

What kind of dog training is it you do? I have a Collie cross that I run Agility with. We also have a ninja police dog trainer (I think?).

Agility all the way combined with some advanced obedience and nose work! I'm not the trainer but have the good fortune of working with a fantastic guy who's been a trainer since 1976, first in our police force and followed by military dog training, he's even taught dogs to walk tightropes in preparation for jumping out of planes with our parabats.

Shadow is almost three now and he's been in training since he was 9 months old. He's damn fast although he needs some work on his contacts. I built my own wiggles, seesaw and 3 jumps so work with him at home during the week but haven't competed with him. Wish we had some sheep though, closest thing to herding he's done is treib ball, the german version of herding involving covered pilates balls!

Yeah, obedience is a massive help to Agility. I swear my dog knows Left and Right better than my wife!

Archer is 5. We started competing a couple of years ago, but medical drama has had me out of the game for about a year now. Will hopefully return in spring. His other half is greyhound, so speed isn't a problem! I'd love to have my own kit for practice!

Pilates herding! Brilliant.

Will you leave your existing guild?

Hi Mizaki, yes I would, they're planning on staying on Desolation and I don't believe in splitting my loyalties. While being able to represent multiple guilds is a nifty feature, I don't agree with it from a social standpoint.

Good I liked your application, so the very best of luck!

Thank you Mizaki Waiting on the go ahead to apply or further questions from your members.

We'll give you an answer later today Marz, for definite

Wow they forgot you... xD

Okay I'll get one of the officers to respond xD

#7336542 Lloantix wrote:

Wow they forgot you... xD Okay I'll get one of the officers to respond xD

A scholar and a gentleman

They're offline, I'll berate them tomorrow for this!

Hello Marz

I'm happy to inform you that you've been accepted to join Semper Dius.

You can now use the "apply to guild" button in the upper right corner, right under the menu. You'll have to make a Shivtr account first, after that you can fill in our application form. As soon as that is reviewed and accepted by us you are a full Semper Dius member.

Welcome!

Miz