Of World of Raidcraft

Last weekend was quite an unexpected one.

Don had put up a weekend event in the in-game calendar for the weekly raid, which happens to be Marrowgar. And the timing is good too - it's scheduled for an early morning run for me. After making sure that all stuff in RL won't interfere, I signed Aenur up as a Tentative. I've thought about bringing Aelyra at first since I prefer to learn a place beforehand then bring in the favorite toon, but Aenur is the better equipped among the lot and so was the best choice for a foray into ICC.

In the days leading up to the weekly raid, I brought Aenur over into a couple of Wintergrasp matches for a taste and feel of PvP madness. I quickly found despite my incompetency with PvP, I managed to down quite a number of Alliance toons and secured a few achieves. Not to mention that afterwards I got her into a 10-man VoA that downed Toravon and Koralon (no loot for her, sadly). So in all, it appears that I've been bitten by the raid bug, and it feels... good.

Aenur - As mentioned earlier, she got into a 10-man VoA and downed two of the bosses with no loot awarded (darn rogue and SP leather drops) and then later in the weekend managed to get into a guild 10-man weekly raid, which happened to be Marrowgar in ICC. The run was exciting, and we manage to down him after a few wipes. It was Aenur's first time in ICC, so she had to learn fast and DPS even faster to ensure success. A few more runs and she should be able to survive and afterwards excel. Among the loot Marrowgar dropped was the Citadel Enforcer's Claymore, which is superior to her current hammer from Garfrost. It was won by Acid though (grats man!) so I'll wait for the next opportunity.

Not content with a single victory, everyone decided to push on to the next boss, Lady Deathwhisper. It was decided early on to try for the 'saving the Argent Crusade's Dara-guy' but that caused a wipe due to adds running around and also Aenur forgetting that she need to focus on one type of add and not the other. The second time, Krae switched arrangements - me and Acid gets to hammer the mana shield down while the rest of the group go after the adds. A healer was knocked out just as the mana shield is at 4-5% and we wiped. The final attempt, we got the encounter down and knocked Deathwhisper out.

Afterwards, I found that the forays into VoA and ICC had brought my Frost count up to 120 emblems, enough for my two T10 pieces. Immediately I went for the vendor, bought the Lightsworn Shoulderplates and Lightsworn Gauntlets, enchanted and socketted and gemmed 'em, and voila - instant power-ups!

...although to be honest, I've yet to wear them on Aenur because I'm waiting to assemble the entire set. What? I'm a sentimentalist, so sue me!

Aelyra - Due to the attention given to Aenur, I did not do much with Aelyra aside from doing the Venomsaur mount daily and the Argent Tourney dailies. She managed to get enough to buy a Polished Spaulders of Valor, the final heirloom for my future Pally, so now she can focus on getting something for herself.

Aerhandor - Has managed to get enough Triumphs for his fourth T9 piece, the Runetotem's Raiment of Conquest. That would leave his leggings for last, so aside from that the other things I needed to upgrade on him would be the trinkets, the idol and the necklace. His Champion's Seal count is 79 at the moment, and since he needs nothing from the Tourney aside from the Pony Bridle, I'll switch him someplace else when he's done.

Aergor - Is now level 66. I managed to grab a load of Unidentified Plant Parts from the AH at a cheap price, pushed Aergor's rep with the Cenarion Expedition to Honored and then do all of their quests at Zangarmarsh (excluding the ones leading into the Steamvaults). Also, he got into a Blood Furnace PuG and Legion Blunderbuss dropped. Since there's no other Hunter around, naturally it went to him (squee!).

Aeyrin & Aerdread - No change.

On a different note: I would like to hereby express my profound and express gratitude to all of you healers out there, be you Holy Pally, Tree, Resto Shaman or Priests of Discipline and Holiness. I humbly thank you most sincerely for every time I was healed by you and for every time you send a HoT my way.

I had this insane PuG run through heroic Gundrak last Sunday. A DPS apparently had dropped out of the group after the first few trash pull and Aenur got in to replace him. Thinking it should be an easy run, I went along... and just when we got to Moorabi things went south. Healer got killed and before I know it I was cornered into healing the group. And the same thing happened again during Galdarah. With my puny 6k mana pool and Judgement of Light, I frantically try to keep everyone alive long enough to get the job done. I blew LoH on the tank when I had to use Holy Light to heal the dangerously low mage, and had to quaff a mana pot in order to sustain my mana. Being in a healer's shoes for that long, agonizing 7 minutes have given me appreciation for those healers out there.

I salute you!