So Here's a Toast

 As I've alluded to over the past few months, my questing buddy has continued to raid in Wrath Classic by joining a Friday night semi-pug put on by a mutual friend of ours. I call it a "semi-pug" because it has a regular group of about 10-15 people and they pug the rest of the spots. Initially the pug was for a full size 25 person raid, but after enough failed raids due to puggers simply not having the gear or the basic skills needed to understand things like "don't stand in fire", the raid lead dropped the pug down to a 10 person raid so that the regulars could get the gear they need to once again ramp up to a 25 person raid.

So... For the past month, that 10 person raid has pretty much worked according to plan. The raid has been getting clears of Ulduar, which my questing buddy was thinking she wasn't going to see at all given how the 25 person raids had been going. That doesn't mean they've gotten to Algalon, because they've not met the requirements for that*, but they have been downing Yogg-Saron regularly now.

I've been proud of her given that she's new to healing for this expac, and I know from experience that she's gotten really good at it. Part of this is that she attacks the game like a puzzle to be solved, figuring out how to get the BiS gear she needs, and picking the brains of people she knows and respects who are better at healing than her.**

That she does this with three kids --and their associated demands on her time-- is even more impressive.

(And have I mentioned that she puts up with my quirks and foibles? I'd not blame her if she threw up her hands and declared "You're impossible!!" but she just keeps hanging in there.)

The two of us back in early January,
when we were clowning around
in Shattrath before raid time.

So on the eve of the Trial of the Crusader raid, here's to my questing buddy and her success!

*Whatever those requirements are. No, I'm not going to look it up, because when our 10 person raid team broke up I simply stopped caring at that point. Okay, that's not entirely true, because I didn't care all that much to begin with in Wrath Classic, as I was determined to not do what I did in TBC Classic and go all hardcore about it. For me, that meant only giving just as much of a damn about raiding as would pass the minimum requirements to actually get into the raid. (I think I can hear my questing buddy screaming, because for her part of the love of the game is all the plotting for gear.) I know enough about the cadence of raiding that it typically takes a few tries to get the positioning and whatnot correct, and unless you're hardcore enough to get into the PTR to practice, those first attempts "to work out the kinks" will be on live servers.

**This does spill over into Classic Era, too, as she'll frequently drag me along when I'd be more inclined to simply just screw around and fish or something in game. That's how we discovered we could two person significant portions of Gnomeregan as Hunter and Mage at level, and the same with Scarlet Monastery: Library and Uldaman.