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.

Transmog: Personal Sets #2.

Throughout Firelands, I coveted the Paladin tier something fierce. Those shoulders! That alien-esque helm! The ensemble as a whole was strange, yet beautiful. (And far less crustacean looking than the DK tier! *grumble*) 

When UR ventured back into T12 content to work toward their Corrupted Egg of Millagazor mounts, I was able to attend one of the runs. Happily enough, I won the Spaulders of Manifold Eyes -- those lovely T12 Paladin look-a-like shoulders! I immediately knew I had to fashion a 'Mog that celebrated the aesthetic that I could make my own at long last. 

Shoulders: Spaulders of Manifold Eyes
(Firelands - Beth'tilac)

Chest: Shattered Hand Breastplate
(World Drop - Outland)

Waist: Blinding Girdle of Truth
(Valor Points - 1,650)

Gloves: Overlord's Gauntlets
(World Drop)

Legs: Shattered Hand Legplates
(World Drop - Outland)

Feet: Sapphiron's Scale Boots
(World Drop)

Left Tabard: Tabard of the Lightbringer

Right Tabard: Knight's Colors

 As a warning, this look is quite risqué without a tabard on. :-P

(Booty rockin' everywhere!)

A little more personal.

As of now, it has been sixty-nine days since I have updated Derp Kn00b. I've chided myself over a lack of blogging momentum in the past, but this absence truly takes the cake. Though, I promise that said silence is not without reason; I'm just now easing back into the swing of raiding regularly after an extended hiatus. 

The month of May was extremely hard to deal with on the real life spectrum. Beefbus, who had been battling sickness off-and-on since February, caught pneumonia and ended up being hospitalized for nearly three weeks. Pneumonia is scary enough when it's plaguing a relatively healthy individual, but Beef has Cystic Fibrosis, which helped lend a hand in creating one of the scariest situations that I've lived through thus-far. 

I'll spare the gory details and happily say that one surgery later (and with the aid of a lot of different medication), Beef's almost himself again. I'm ecstatic that he's made such an impressive stride toward healthfulness so quickly and that his sickness didn't do any permanent damage to his relatively high lung function. You see, lung function is absolutely paramount to a CF-er's general health and lifespan; the longer you can avoid getting a lung transplant, the better.

Another thing that I have the utmost gratitude toward is community. I am a realist who swings on the side of pessimism too much of the time. Beef's health has always been impressive for a CF-er... seeing him so sickly was brand new to me. I felt helpless and utterly alone. I, however, was proven wrong on that second count -- both my wonderful guildmates and Twitter followers lent me their ears and made me feel like I was no longer going through this situation alone. So many well wishes poured in from across the interwebz, even from people who have had no interaction with Beef himself! It sincerely warmed my cold, Frost-y (har har) heart. 

So, thank you all. Really! I just hope that I can reciprocate the kindness that was poured upon both Beef and I during some of the darkest days that I've known.

With lots of big squishy hugs,
Aesadonna / Heather

PS: I've got a Paladin-inspired Transmog post and a Heroic kill reflection post in the works. :-) It's good to have a return to normalcy!

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. ♥