If you have been playing a while
If you have two or more expansions behind you, the criterion we suggest is your position inside the guild you play in now. If you are above your group's average consistently, and not for a single night, it probably makes sense for you to apply.
That holds regardless of your current guild's absolute level. In our experience, being above average in a context lower than ours still matches, in most cases, being a fit for us. Bear in mind that the average here is higher, so do not expect to hold the same relative position once you are in.
The criterion is independent of the class you play: we do not need you to cover a specific role in order to apply.
If you are a one-trick player, the expectation on that single class rises accordingly: we expect you to be very strong at what you play.
If you play several classes, we ask you to attach something that shows it when you write: logs from tiers played on different classes, videos, or any other material you have. Not much is needed, but we do need to be able to verify.
If you are a new player
We are interested in new players and actively look for them.
You must have completed at least one full tier, in any guild, in the phase before the one you are applying in.
The reason is not performance but reliability. Someone who finished a tier already understood what kind of commitment it takes and sustained it to the end, instead of dropping out halfway through progress. We have no other way to verify this before taking you on trial.
If you meet this requirement, even if it is your only experience, you can write to us. The trial will probably be harder than average, because you will be in an environment different from the only one you know and with different standards. The group is relaxed, though, and only performance counts in the assessment.
Communication
We are not interested in what you do outside the game. We ask for no justifications and no details, and we do not question anything a player or a trial does not intend to share.
What we ask is that you flag unavailability promptly, whether short or extended, with the minimum context we need to tell an evening from a longer period.
Nights missed without a word, last-minute cancellations with no explanation, and repeated communication failures in general are among the things that most quickly reduce an application's chances. The reason is that the guild runs flat and delegates a lot to individuals: that only works if everyone takes their own responsibility and knows what they are doing. Organisation is therefore something we are not very flexible about.
Time commitment
We raid three nights a week, and it is the only fixed-schedule commitment we ask for.
We require no other scheduled activity: no Mythic+, no mandatory sessions at the start of a season, nothing else.
We do expect our players, trials included, to play outside raid too. A player who only logs in for the three nights cannot arrive as prepared as the rest of the roster.
How and when is yours to decide. You do not have to play with other guild members, there are no mandatory windows at the start or the end of a season, and there is no list of activities to complete. What we ask is that you turn up to raid as prepared as your time allows. People who work or study have fewer hours available and that is not a problem: the point is maximising results against the time you have, not having a lot of time.
Alt
We ask every player for an alt in the same role as their main: a ranged DPS for a ranged DPS player, a healer for a healer, and so on.
The reason is that we typically run a round of splits at the start of a tier, so a second character is needed, and having it in the same role as the main makes composing the groups simpler.
Gearing the alt is supported by the guild: on farm we run mixed raids that bring alts along too. The main part of the work still falls to the individual.
Boss preparation
For every boss our raid leader records a dedicated video guide, built on the way we approach the fight and not on a generic strategy. Written summaries come with it.
There is also a dedicated Discord channel per boss, where assignments and strategies are discussed.
All the material is available from your first day of trial and we expect it to be read. The way we run fights can differ substantially from how you ran them in your previous guild, so getting aligned in advance avoids wasting time in raid.
How the trial works
There is no fixed number of raids and no list of requirements to complete.
A trial is treated as a member in every respect: same bank access, same access to the communication tools, same loot priority. There is no difference in treatment, and the assessment therefore happens on performance as it does for anyone else.
One bad night does not end a trial. What ends it quickly is a consistent negative signal: nights with frequent deaths, with performance well below the group's average, or with turning up unprepared.
If instead you show willingness, do not die and put up even merely normal numbers, that is enough for us to carry on. The longer a trial lasts, the better the signal: it means we consider a place on the roster likely for you.
In short
If you are still unsure after reading this page, write to us anyway. An application that does not work out costs nobody anything; one you never sent is a missed chance for both of us.
The social side
We ask for a minimum of interaction with the rest of the group. It does not have to be forced and we do not expect everyone to be active in chat, but we do want to know at least a little about the people we play with.