Saviour of Azeroth.

Undying Resolution has finished up T13 as the number one 25 man guild on Elune. That's... phenomenal. The feeling is far beyond my depth of expression; awestruck is probably the best adjective to label it. When Deathwing fell and the achievement spam blew up guild chat, I turned to Beef and whispered, "This is by far the most amazing thing I've experienced in WoW."

(No offense, Shadowmourne, you're still a wonderful milestone!)

As someone who raided sporadically and was more enraptured by lore prior to joining UR, I'm still pinching myself in disbelief. We did it! We worked cohesively to beat the hardest content that Blizzard has published to date, while the other raiding guilds on our server splintered off into running Heroic DS in 10m because it's easier.* This accomplishment is exceptionally kick-butt because a good chunk of my guildmates, too, have never experienced the feeling of being a raider in a top guild. So there was a general sense of wonder in the air rather than jaded boredom. I hope we keep that same sense of wonder, and our drive to accomplish bigger and better things, as we progress in the next tier of raiding.

Bring it on, Pandaville - we're Saviours of Azeroth!

* "Easy" is subjective; I don't look down on people who choose to raid in a strict 10 environment, nor do I personally think that 10m equals automatic easy mode because personal accountability is key. But your mileage may vary.

I was also a very lucky Death Knight who won one of the two Life-Binder's Handmaidens that dropped that fateful night.

Heroic Camaraderie.

As of June 28th, I can say that I have a Heroic Warmaster Blackhorn kill under my belt! This was actually Undying Resolution's second H Blackhorn kill, but I was absent from their first. But hey, it's still exciting!  

The kill itself was hard won. As Rebirther in the left hand corner of my UR states, I personally ate up 2/3 of our battle resurrections. Twilight Barrage is no joke! Death #1 came from me eating the Barrage by myself while my health was low. Death #2 came from stacking with everyone else for Twilight Onslaught while retaining the debuff from Barrage. Ouch! Nonetheless, I now know what not to do in the future so I can an asset, rather than a floor board connoisseur. 

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Sunday, July 1st was an "Old World" night. The main event was Icecrown Citadel (10), which I'm sure survey would say that I am absolutely insane for trekking back into ICC after assembling Shadowmourne. I say pshaw to that! 

I didn't personally need any achievements other than Neck Deep in Vile, but these days, I'm just happy to hang out with my guildies. :-) Several guildies got their Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquishers and I got to "off-tank" both Heroic Lady Deathwhisper and The Lich King, since I was the only Plate wearer in the group.

Off-tanking Lich King was actually one of the more "OMG, yay!" things I've done recently. I'm still scratching my head at how we were able to pull off Been Waiting a Long Time for This with my crappy Frosty aggro management, but it made me feel accomplished that we did. Tanking, even in this silly DPS-form, is scary to me. I don't like to disappoint, so I shy away from roles of leadership because of the anxiety riding on that feeling of potentially letting down a group of people.

Ironically, I had no problems with healing for all the years that I did. *shrug* The human mind is a strange thing, indeed!

 

Since ICC doesn't take a full two hours, we did several other mini-raids to occupy ourselves. Since a chunk of us lacked the achievement, we went into Vault of Archavon to get Earth, Wind, & Fire. It was a great success!

Vent led to reminiscing about Wrath and how this achievement was way too hard to obtain. I always feel a little sad when people share memories about expansions past because my ability to raid was so sporadic, due to bouncing from sever-to-server, guild-from-guild. Fiannah, my former healer, was only able to see Naxx and Trial of the Crusader before Cataclysm hit. Hell, Aesadonna didn't even step foot into any Wrath five-man dungeon while they were current content!

Those were dark days.

After VoA, we slayed Sartharion (25) and I was the lucky winner of the Twilight Drake. Score!

Considering that I also won anything I rolled on for transmog the entire night, Venat teased me about my luckiness. I really should have bought a lottery ticket that night, haha.

This and that.

Remember when I said that UR is currently 3/8 in Heroic Dragon Soul?

I lied.

4/8, baby!

With our Heroic Ultraxion kill, Undying Resolution is officially ranked 3rd on Elune for 25m Heroic progression! As we function on a lightweight, two mandatory raiding days a week schedule, I find it most impressive. 

Other than UR's super-awesome-heroic-progression-of-amazingness, all's been quiet on the Aesadonna front. Why? Because these two little ladies have caught my attention.

Vakarian, my baby Fury Warrior, is who I've been playing about 85% of the time. She's part of a (mostly) dungeon leveling duo; Beef's Hunter, Kirrahe, is her other half. I haven't ran consistently dungeons as a lowbie toon since Vanilla and I think I've witnessed pretty much everything now. Rogues in cloth heirlooms? Check! A Mage beating my Need roll on a BoP Strength/Stamina necklace? Yep! Tanks who can't hold aggro to save our lives? All too frequently. But despite the minor bumps, it's relaxing to spend some time on WoW with Beef that isn't dedicated to raiding.

Oh, and there's nothing cooler than when a random PUGer comments positively on our toon names--WE ARE LEGION. *cough*

And then there's Fiannah.  Killing people with my mind instead of a sharp, pointy object is a fun change of pace! I've been dragging her to UR's alternate 10m Dragon Soul since it makes me feel bad when I let her collect too thick of a layer of dust. Our little group achieved our Destroyer's End titles last Monday after a flawless run, which was extra satisfying as the team were so damn close to downing Deathchin the week before. 

But don't worry Aesa, you're still my favourite. ♥ 

At last, Shadowmourne.

After several months of everyone becoming very sick of ICC, Undying Resolution finally has their first (and probably last, haha) Shadowmourne. I feel honoured that so many of my guildmates came together and helped me obtain my dream weapon. Eloquence remains a weak point of mine, but know that I sincerely mean it when I say that any contribution made toward Shadowmourne really and truly means more than I can express in words. You guys are the best and I am damn proud to call UR my WoW home! :-)

Elation.

 

Wednesday, the Reins of the Blazing Drake dropped. I was having a terrible, no good, very bad night... and it showed in my performance. Not feeling as if I deserved it, I sighed and rolled, expecting to lose...

...I rolled a 97. As soon as I heard "Grats, Aesa" on Vent, I completely flipped my shit! I screamed so loud, I made my sister's dog go nuts, barking her furry head off. I am still in disbelief! Needless to say, my bad mood did a complete 180, haha.

This is Undying Resolution's second Drake; the first went to our fabulous bear tank, Ariano.

Littlest Pet Shop!

Here is another major achievement I can cross off of my bucket list! I am thrilled, to say the least; the Celestial Dragon has been my dream pet since its introduction.

In Happier News!

When I logged into WoW this morning, Beef had a Swift Lovebird waiting in my mailbox! *cheesy grin* It is an in-game tradition for him to send me a shiny during Love is the the Air, stemming back from when we were wee little level 40 Blood Elves and he surprised me with a Pink Hawkstrider for V-Day '07. (You may know those elves as the Draenei Duo Nathadan and Fiannah. We go way back!)

I'm Alive, I Swear!

Due to my Spring Semester of classes very recently starting up, my WoW blogging has came to an almost near halt. *sadface* I am relatively active on Twitter (@Aesadonna), so feel free to follow if you are not already if you can stomach emoticon spam and occasional derpocity. ;-)

(As an aside, I finally updated my kill shots page! With Deathwing down, how could I not?!)

Shadowmourne...

"Shadowmourne... A great two-handed axe fit for a giant, born of sacred and corrupt powers, host of a thousand dead souls and able to be wielded only by the most stalwart armsmasters of Azeroth. Its creation seems nearly impossible; and yet, the rumors do not cease."

Shadowmourne, adj;
1. Aesadonna's biggest pipe dream.

Week in Review #2.

This past week has been pretty eventful, even for it being the holidays. :-)

Week in Review #1.

In the spirit of wanting to become a more active WoW-blogger, I've decided to post either a weekly or bi-weekly recap of things that Aesadonna has accomplished or awesome happenstances. So, here's Week in Review #1!