Tuesday (30 Mar) - Talking with an old Friend

Tuesday (30 Mar) - Talking with an old Friend

As usual Wild signed up for the Tuesday night guild 25 man raid. As usual Wild was in game and on time. As usual the horde have captured the Wintergrasp Fortress and the raid would begin in VoA. As usual Wild made his way to WG in hopes of getting an invite. As usual Wild was assigned as a standby. As usual Wild did not get an invite, and as usual the raid leader failed to let the rest of the guild know when invites had been completed - until Wild asked about it.

What wasn't usual is that an old friend and guildie who had left the game for more than a year had come back, and we had time to chat. The friend, Bf, is a shaman, and for the last week he's been working on getting into shape.

It started when Wild decided to join a PUG VoA once it was clear that I wouldn't be getting into the guild raid. Bf was already in the PUG and saw Wild join it. He whispered me, asking if I was taking the night off, assuming that I would otherwise have been in the guild raid. I explained that Wild wasn't a regular anymore, and joked that they only needed Wild on their wipe runs now against new or still unmastered bosses.

Bf and Wild go way back, before either of us had reached level 60. We grew with the guild and mastered the greatest of the level 60 dungeons in what was the heyday of our guild. Bf could be a bit of a flake, going afk and being late to come back for the next pull, not the least bit punctual, and prone to relax when the challenge was light. But when you needed the best out of him, he always delivered, and he was an awesome anchor in our level 60 raiding.

Bf asked about our old guild leader, Jo. Had Wild seen her or talked with her recently? Sadly, the answer was no. Her and her husband were rarely in game, and when I thought back it had been weeks and weeks since she'd last popped in game while Wild was around.

We reminisced a bit, and then he asked, "What what has become of the guild?" It was unrecognizable to him. Of course, a lot has happened. In short, though, I told him that the guild was now focused mostly on raiding, and had brought in new guildies who likewise put raiding first. The guild is far from being a hard core raiding guild. However, the family/casual element that once balanced our raiding is gone, because all those who had kept it alive had left the guild.

Things are what they are. The PUG we had joined downed both Toravon and Koralon, and it was a good night for mail wearers. Bf picked up two nice pieces. And Wild got some badges.

Wild also got the weekly frost raid completed, against Noth in Naxxramas. DER would be ok on this one and should give it a try. It's a relatively easy boss. Noth is tanked normally, but periodically ports out of combat range while a number of mobs spawn that must be killed. Usually an off tank sweeps up the adds to be AoEed down, but this group just zerged 'em all, throwing aggro management to the winds. Wild pulled aggro a couple of times healing all those idiots, but I could heal through it, and Noth went down. If DER gets into a 25 man and just assists one or both of the tanks on the target they are actively tanking, he should do fine.

Philly was in and out of action, looking to catch a couple of WG battles. On one battle, Philly did not get an invite to WG. There is a limit to how many players the system will admit into the raid, but that was the first time a Wild family toon had every not gotten the automated invite. I guess it had to happen at some point. Philly did get into a later WG, successfully defending the fortress and going over 70k honor. The max honor that can be carried is 75k, so Philly needs to spend some of it, and soon. She's trying to decide whether it would be better to buy two pieces of ilevel 245 gear, or one of the more expensive ilevel 264 pieces.

EZ, even in her very uneven set of gear, is liking her face bashing spec. She spent some time in Stonetalon Mountains and then moved on to Thousand Needles, questing from level 28 to level 29, and then into level 30, and getting 11% of the way to level 31. The Wild family again has a 30s bracket pvper.