So long, no thanks for all the puns

Well.
I've decided to take a break from WoW, on the grounds of temporary sanity. My final exams are about a week from now, and since I've so far failed 3 out of the 4 stage 3 bio papers I've done (it's ostentatiously one of my majors), I think it's time I got my a-into-g and did something other than level my paladin and attempt to get the stupid squashling. So the next 2.5 weeks are going to be dedicated very heavily to studying for my exams, and therefore I've decided that a blanket ban on playing World of Warcraft is in order (I'll still read stuff and try to keep moderately up to date with what's happening, e.g. the zombie plague, and hope BRK still does a podcast this week).

Final thoughts on 3.0.2:
The patch is nuts, almost every class and spec feels pretty OP. The last couple of days have seen: me 2-manning the headless horseman, a ret tank do 1.4k dps and still be easy to heal, Selin Fireheart's room cleared in a single pull, Vexallus being 4-manned with a ferocity pet tanking, and also a wipe-less pug'd clear of Kara in a few hours (with quite a few people not having done it before; somehow the hunter managed to not move during Flame Wreath on Shade). And none of these are particularly noteworthy achievements.

The real changes are things like the absolute insanity that is a retribution paladin in both pvp and pve, and the crazy aoe goodness of prot warriors, balance (and resto) druids and hunters of all persuasions. Last week saw Quantum Butterflies clear, for the first time, ZA and also do Kara in 3 hours, while Kryptik (a guild a number of ex-Butterflies defected to for 25-man... whatever it is that 25 men do when they get together for 4 hours at night) downed Lady Vashj, and Ajantis, the premier raiding guild on Aman'Thul, finally downed Kil'Jaeden.

Ultimately 3.0.2 changed a lot of things (no ****), and has totally altered the status quo, balance of power, etc. I approve of a lot of the changes (although what's with Steady Shot not scaling with haste?) and it has definitely made the last two weeks a joy to play, and heralds well for what Wrath will bring.

On that note, a few things I'm looking forward to in Wrath of the Lich King:
- craftable PvP gear (yesplz, make money from leatherworking, kkthx)
- Rhino pets
- what looks to be really nice level of interaction with the overall plot (that Undercity questline looks totally jawesome) - I've always been a bit of a lore-junkie, and, damnit, I should've raided more
- Warcraft 3 Human mission 7: The Culling, aka Stratholme in the Caverns of Time
- 10 man raids all the way up to Icecrown Glacier
- being able to do arena pretty much from the start (as opposed to starting halfway through season 3 on one character, and early in season 4 on the other)
- death knight questlines

Anyway, my last exam is on the 12th of November, giving me all of a day before Wrath hits stores here (I'm hoping my computer can actually run it).

Regrets now that I've finished playing TBC:
- not actually downing a 25-man boss (closest I got was a wipe on Gruul at 1%)
- not trying to kill a Fel Reaver since the patch
- not making it to a 1600 rating in any arena team
- not getting The Hallowed title (Darksentinel has the helm, but not the squashling and Beathooven has neither)
- not getting my paladin to 70 before Judgements of the Wise is nerfed to 15% of base mana (from 33%)
- not getting a Netherdrake
- not replacing Darksentinel's Cloak and Rings (who wants to wear blues going into Northrend)
- not ever entering Mount Hyjal
- knowing that my last activity was logging in this morning to collect a Flimsy Male Gnome [Mask] and Penny Pouch
- various other things that will come to me as I'm trying to remember the factors that lead to variation in antibody recognition sites

So yeah, from now on out I'm going to study and find out what it's like to get 8 hours of sleep a night (as opposed to last night, where I went to sleep around 2 and got woken up just after 6am by my friends' kids). Wish me luck in Project Study (I really don't want to do a 5th year of u-grad) and I'll see you all when Wrath is nigh (although I have some scheduled posts that will appear over the next two weeks).

STOP UDDER MADNESS OUT STOP

/wowquit

/bye

PS: bets are up for how long it will be before I'll start wishing I was playing WoW. My personal bet is on about 8 o'clock tomorrow morning

PPS: I kind of didn't mention anything to my guild so now I'm awol. Oh well, they can check their feeds, and if they don't read this then that's their own fault, right? Anyway, half of them (you) have exams of your own to study for, so stop reading this (to the other half: either get back to work, or find a job).