All good things...

Must come to an end.

No no, not my love affair with World of Warcraft. Hah, are you kidding???

What must come to an end is my short flirtation with end-game content. Since I joined the guild Katipunan a month ago, I've attended every single raid of theirs and become a regular fixture in the top 3 dps, alternating with a hunter and the warlock classlead depending on the encounter.

They've helped me get some great gear, helped me hit my spell hit cap and push my dps to the max with my socketing, and I've seen results in that I've reached near 1500 dps on straight-up tank and spank bosses. 1500! I couldn't even break 1000 regularly prior to this guild! Actually, the warlock classlead was never certain how I reached that high a dps and damage output based on my gear, and never understood why my average non-crit shadow bolt was over 3000 while his always hovered around 2700. I claim it's my trinkets, but more on that some other time.

They've helped me see Black Temple and actually down two bosses and try a third. I've tried Archimonde! I've downed all SSC and TK bosses except for Vashj and Kael'thas.

And I was loving it. This is why I played, this is why I researched my class so much. And with the raid finally seeing it's identity forming and the same people showing up night after night, I have to call it quits. The week before we were to start attempts on Vashj and Kael. The week before we downed Akama and discussed what we needed to move on to the next part.

Why? See my previous post here where I discuss raiding or death. I chose raiding at the time, and you know what, I was spot on with my assessment of the situation. I looked at myself in the mirror, and things were wrong. My hair was thinning. I'm 25. I have a history of receding hairlines in my family. But this was different, this was hair thinning all over. And you know what? That set off alarm bells instantly. Age, stress, whatever... LACK. OF. SLEEP.

That's all it is. I cannot stay up until 4:00am and wake up at 7:00am to go to work. Since I started raiding I have been getting on average 3 hours of sleep a night. That's 18 hours of sleep in a 7 week day. Some people get that much in two nights! To me, that was Monday-Sunday.

Nothing else matters, unfortunately, so I cut back on raiding right away. I ceremoniously attended a last BT raid (destroyed the dps charts on Naj'entus, fell in love with the Supremus fight.. ah good times). Then I claimed September gave me a new work schedule and I could not attend the raids, but that once in a while if my dps was needed I could make an exception.

I feel terrible for the group of 25. Hence the offer to show up when dps was absolutely needed.

Sad panda.

I WANT MY HAIR BACK!

[disclaimer: my hair isn't actually gone. It's not noticeable yet, but I know it's weaker than it ever was. That's all. And that's all I need as a warning sign.]