As
previously mentioned, I have been playing Star Wars: The Old Republic since
around the launch of 3.0. One of my earliest characters was Phaestus, named
after the Greek god Hephaestus (god of fire and the forge), a Powertech (specifically
a Pyrotech).
Somewhere along the way, Pyrotech has suffered in the
performance department. I can’t really figure out where, and I have gone
through all the patch notes with a fine tooth comb and found no major nerfs
during 3.0 and 4.0 . I can only assume that Pyrotech has simply not kept pace
with other classes’ buffs. Certainly the forums and uploaded dummy parse data
have indicated a comparative drop in performance.
Mindful of this and the old adage that burst beats DOT
for levelling and all single player content, I switched to Advanced Prototype. Despite
the improved performance, I found it extremely boring to play and slowly lost
interest in poor Phaestus.
Patch 5.3 has changed all that with some very
respectable buffs which make Pyrotech a contender once again. I switched
Phaestus back to Pyrotech and have once again been having great fun with him!
What does it say about me that I thoroughly enjoy the notion of playing a
lunatic who just wants to watch the galaxy burn? Maybe it’s just because my country is
currently experiencing one of the coldest winters I can remember. People are
complicated.
I remember thinking, when I first created him, that
Flaming Fist sounded really cool (not like that! You know what I mean). Engaging
the flame thrower and the jetpack simultaneously? That is some twisted
brilliance!
I suspect that this taps into our primal fears as a
species. There seems to be a psychological correlation between this and the
notion of being the one to wield a terrifying power, rather than have it
wielded on oneself. Of course, there is a third option, but fear also often
prevents us from making use of the high road (“we can’t stop… because what if they
don’t?”). This also explains every arms race ever.
Consider this thought process: “our enemies are going
to develop these weapons, so we need to develop better versions and pray the
threat of us using a superior version prevents them from using their version”. Mutually
Assured Destruction, which conveniently acronyms to MAD (in case anyone was
wondering what the technical term for an arms race was).
While the basic concept of a flamethrower has been
around for centuries, first being deployed by the Chinese in the form of Pen Huo
Qi (translated roughly as “spray fire device”). The first modern man-portable
flamethrower was invented in 1901 by the German scientist, Richard Fiedler, who
named the device “flammenwerfer”, in
his native German. This gave us our English loan-word translation of flamethrower. I am not sure how accurate
that translation is, although Google Translate supports it. I would enjoy
hearing comments from a native German speaker as to its veracity. I am
fascinated by language and etymology. The word werf, for example, also exists in Dutch. Although the meaning there
is Shipyard or simply Yard, which gave another local language in my country,
Afrikaans, the word werf, which
refers to yard (as in garden). This version of the word has also been
appropriated into the English language as Wharf,
which is obviously related to the root meaning of shipyard.
Back to flamethrowers. Fiedler’s invention benefited
from some improvement and collaboration from another German, Bernhard Reddeman
(who was an officer in the German Army and interestingly a firefighter; also, after the war he wrote a book on the
flamethrower’s history).
The flamethrower saw its first modern use in 1915 at
Verdun. After having flamethrowers used against them, the Allies quickly
developed the technology for their own use, finding extensive use for them in
the Pacific Theatre of World War II. They continued to be used until the 1970s
in Korea and Vietnam. The US Department of Defense stopped their use in 1978.
Then, in 1980, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (signed in Geneva)
placed restrictions on their use. They have since mostly fallen out of favor
with many armed forces around the world (although other incendiary weapons continue
to be used, albeit with more of an awareness of their negative public image).
Contrary to popular belief, however, the use of
flamethrowers is not technically banned, except against civilian targets. In
many parts of the world they are not even restricted for private use (though some
territories require a license).
So, that topic got away from me a little… just further
reinforcement, I suppose, of the blog’s title: Jerzy’s Journeys.
In closing, I wanted to apologise to those reading
this blog (all three of you ;) ) for my inconsistent posting schedule. I have
been struggling with some personal issues lately and I am also wrestling with finding
the blog’s direction. These issues are probably related to me being new at this
and will hopefully resolve themselves going forward. However, if you are
reading this, any feedback would be appreciated. Constructive, thoughtful,
criticism is always appreciated!
