Every time I drive to and from my parents' house, I pass my town's Memorial Hall. For the first few years my folks lived where they do now, I didn't really pay it much mind. It's about 40'x30', brick, 2 stories, not really anything out of the ordinary, especially to a middle school kid. One day, on my way to the library (2 buildings over) it occurred to me that they built it right off the town green, on the corner of the intersection of the two main roads in the town. Upon further reflection, and after learning about the age of the various buildings surrounding the green, I realized that it was both the largest building of it's age, but also the only one made of brick and granite, even the church being constructed of wood.
One day while waiting for the light, I actually read the text above the entrance. It's weathered text indicates that the hall was built to remember the dead from the town, killed in the Civil War. There are 35 names listed. Tonight, after reading this TNC post I did a bit of digging. The total population of my town in the 1860 census was 1,906. Based on the statewide ratio, the military aged male population was around 360. The town lost 10% of their men between the ages of 15 and 40; they must have had nearly everyone fit for duty serving under arms.
Now, I don't know, and can't know the motivations of the people who lived here over a century ago, but I know that Vermont made slavery unconstitutional in 1777, that there are houses in this very state that I have visited that contained hidden rooms to hide escaped slaves on their way to Canada, that many of the people of the state were active in the abolition movement before the war. So I think that by writing, "3) African-Americans who explicitly sought the destruction of slavery and the end of systemic white supremacy." Ta-Nehisi's implicit exclusion of all whites from the category that wanted to end slavery and systemic white supremacy, he did a disservice to those that fought for the right reasons. After all, The Atlantic itself published The Battle Hymn of the Republic, which originated from the marching tune John Brown's Body. There were certainly some abolitionists serving in the Union ranks.
When I started writing this, I was certain that those men from my town who died died for the right reason. After all, given all that I know about the state and the time period, it's incredibly likely that at least some of those men were abolitionists but then I found the actual text from the side of the Hall, rather than just what my memory was telling me.
"In grateful remembrance of the brave soldiers of Essex who lost their lives in service of their country during the war for the preservation of the Union. 1861-1865"
It was built by their contemporaries in 1871, brick by brick. Men and women who pooled their money to afford to build the grandest building in the town in memory of their fallen friends, fathers, brothers, husbands. Fellow soldiers who marched with them, fought with them, and watched them die. Who am I to argue with them?
Friday, April 16, 2010
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Why is my first post[!] about WoW?
The first round of 3.1 patch notes came out this week and they announced a nerf to Titian's Grip, one of the signature abilities of my current spec. In response to the predictable uproar on the forums, one of the devs stated that Fury was doing too much damage currently and with the known problems of warrior scaling it needed to be toned down. This didn't all all jibe with my experience, but it wasn't until the ride home from dinner that I realized why.
Currently, I run in a 10 man raid and I've been hitting around 2400 dps the last few weeks. That requires a bit of context. 2400 dps is really, really low for a raiding warrior. Good is up past 4k and the best players can push 5k or higher depending on the fight. Now admittedly I don't even have full 10 man gear much less 25 man gear but in this case the gear differential doesn't make that big of a difference, maybe 30% if I'm being generous. Where does the rest of the difference come from? Initially I thought it was something I was doing wrong, but a fury warrior has ~5 buttons to push and it's not hard to make sure they are pushed at the right times. I checked my rotations and while I could probably get another 10% out of tightening them there is still a large increase unaccounted for.
Hop on over to maxdps and pull up the fury warrior section (I've put in my gear, glyphs, and spec). Astute readers will notice that on the right hand side, about half way down the site lists my total dps as 1,529.8. That's much lower than 2400, so either I'm full of crap, the site is wrong, or something else is going on here. Go to the buffs tab in the middle and note that every single buff is unchecked. Obviously not the case in a raid situation, so let's fix that. Make it look like so:
What should pop out for total dps is 2,663.5. Interestingly enough, those are the buffs that I have on a given raid night. So adding my self buffs (Attack Power and Melee Crit) and those of the Death Knight (Strength and Agility), Druid(Mark of the Wild), and Draenai (All Hit) Shaman (All Crit) the maximum dps has increased by a bit over 1100 or a factor of ~1.75. Checking all the boxes give us 3,983.8 dps or a 160% increase over our unbuffed state or a "good" dps number with no change in my play at all, just based on who comes along to the raid with me. What this means is if our shaman decides to respec to enhancement (gaining us the 10% attack power, and haste buffs, but costing us the All Crit buff) my dps would increase to 3,115.1 an increase of ~17%.
Now let's take the elemental shaman from my raid. Note the vastly fewer buffs. In his case going from unbuffed (2,770.22 dps) to fully buffed (3,426.92 dps) yields a 23% increase in dps. The addition of one classes' buffs for me is nearly the same as the addition of an entire raid worth of buffs for my buddy.
I think we've found part of the problem with warrior scaling and the reason why I probably don't need a nerf but a 25 man raiding warrior does need one. Now with 10 classes and ~20 damage buffs we can't just remove a buff wholesale without dramatic impacts on the performance of other classes or their desirability (take away the buffs from a shaman and you are left with a crappy rogue). That said, rather than directly nerfing a warrior ability (which affects all warriors, well geared or poorly geared, with every buff or solo) nerfing the way the buffs stack in a way that's unique to warriors (or at least mostly restricted to warriors) would help with the scaling problems without hurting warriors that aren't pushing the dps ceiling.
Off the top of my head making Rampage (5% crit) required for Titan's Grip and preventing the 10% attack power buff from applying when it's active might work. Alternately putting a haste cap on Titan Grip to prevent windfury, flurry and haste from all stacking at the same time. The real issue isn't that all fury warriors are doing too well, it's that fury warriors that are buffed to the gills do too well. Rather than hurting the warriors on the low end of the gear spectrum (like those leveling up or recent hitting the level cap) nerf scaling directly.
Currently, I run in a 10 man raid and I've been hitting around 2400 dps the last few weeks. That requires a bit of context. 2400 dps is really, really low for a raiding warrior. Good is up past 4k and the best players can push 5k or higher depending on the fight. Now admittedly I don't even have full 10 man gear much less 25 man gear but in this case the gear differential doesn't make that big of a difference, maybe 30% if I'm being generous. Where does the rest of the difference come from? Initially I thought it was something I was doing wrong, but a fury warrior has ~5 buttons to push and it's not hard to make sure they are pushed at the right times. I checked my rotations and while I could probably get another 10% out of tightening them there is still a large increase unaccounted for.
Hop on over to maxdps and pull up the fury warrior section (I've put in my gear, glyphs, and spec). Astute readers will notice that on the right hand side, about half way down the site lists my total dps as 1,529.8. That's much lower than 2400, so either I'm full of crap, the site is wrong, or something else is going on here. Go to the buffs tab in the middle and note that every single buff is unchecked. Obviously not the case in a raid situation, so let's fix that. Make it look like so:
 | Mark of the Wild | |
  | Physical Critical Strike | |
  | All Critical Strike | |
  | Attack Power | |
   | Attack Power (10%) | |
  | Haste | |
  | All Haste | |
  | Strength & Agility | |
  | Bleed Increase | |
  | Armor Debuff (Major) | |
 | Armor Debuff (Minor) | |
  | Damage Percentage | |
 | All Hit |
What should pop out for total dps is 2,663.5. Interestingly enough, those are the buffs that I have on a given raid night. So adding my self buffs (Attack Power and Melee Crit) and those of the Death Knight (Strength and Agility), Druid(Mark of the Wild), and Draenai (All Hit) Shaman (All Crit) the maximum dps has increased by a bit over 1100 or a factor of ~1.75. Checking all the boxes give us 3,983.8 dps or a 160% increase over our unbuffed state or a "good" dps number with no change in my play at all, just based on who comes along to the raid with me. What this means is if our shaman decides to respec to enhancement (gaining us the 10% attack power, and haste buffs, but costing us the All Crit buff) my dps would increase to 3,115.1 an increase of ~17%.
Now let's take the elemental shaman from my raid. Note the vastly fewer buffs. In his case going from unbuffed (2,770.22 dps) to fully buffed (3,426.92 dps) yields a 23% increase in dps. The addition of one classes' buffs for me is nearly the same as the addition of an entire raid worth of buffs for my buddy.
I think we've found part of the problem with warrior scaling and the reason why I probably don't need a nerf but a 25 man raiding warrior does need one. Now with 10 classes and ~20 damage buffs we can't just remove a buff wholesale without dramatic impacts on the performance of other classes or their desirability (take away the buffs from a shaman and you are left with a crappy rogue). That said, rather than directly nerfing a warrior ability (which affects all warriors, well geared or poorly geared, with every buff or solo) nerfing the way the buffs stack in a way that's unique to warriors (or at least mostly restricted to warriors) would help with the scaling problems without hurting warriors that aren't pushing the dps ceiling.
Off the top of my head making Rampage (5% crit) required for Titan's Grip and preventing the 10% attack power buff from applying when it's active might work. Alternately putting a haste cap on Titan Grip to prevent windfury, flurry and haste from all stacking at the same time. The real issue isn't that all fury warriors are doing too well, it's that fury warriors that are buffed to the gills do too well. Rather than hurting the warriors on the low end of the gear spectrum (like those leveling up or recent hitting the level cap) nerf scaling directly.
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