Ugh. Why did work have to go so long, tonight? The feedback here has got me thinking, and I have a few ideas on what do next and how to wield Sick Burn effectively within the current metagame.

@eXtine: Considering just how deeply I've had to delve into SourceMod so far, and how far I plan to go in the near future, buffing the Detonator likely within my ability as a mod developer. Just for you, I'll make it a point to implement that in version 4, though I can't promise anything just yet. This is just fatigue-induced rambling here; but what if friendly collisions were detected, and the Third Degree applied damage to its own wielder when used on a healing Medic (with no damage done to the Medic, and the present block removed, of course)? That would be pretty elegant, if it's even possible, and lacking the benefits of the Axtinguisher/Homewrecker/Back Scratcher would be counter-balance enough…?

Warning you now, nobody here will take the mod seriously because we don't want a "promod" in this game. And people hate pyros already anyways, but they fill in a very small niche that's fine.

Well, besides the fact that people hate pyros, seeing a pyro in a midfight WOULD be something really interesting to watch, like how it changes the dynamic of the game and the entirety of the flow itself.
Hate on me all you want, but I'm legitimately fascinated by this idea of "Pyro at mid," not that it's necessarily a "good" idea.

Pyros can already be run to mid and can be effective if lucky. Airblast is a huge potential WTF skill, and a flame/airblast/flaregun combo kills scouts extremely fast if they're caught in range.

if pyro gets to mid before soldier and people did it constantly, then there would eventually be almost no reason to run roamer to mid on half the maps in the game because they'd completely shut down anything the roamer could do.

Obviosuly the OP hasn't seen Bloodsire go pyro on Gpit. Game winner right there.

Additionally,
Would the OP consider doing this for other classes, like sniper, that don't see a lot of competitive play? I think the best way to make sniper viable in 6v6 is to remove the 200ms delay for headshots.

Why don't we give heavies a weapon that slows down enemies so its easier for them to aim because heavy needs to be more viable in competitive.
Oh Wait.

Thing about pyro is it takes VERY little skill to hold down mouse1 and hope to hit someone with the flame thrower. Look at reddit mge for christ sakes. It's ridiculous lol

I thought reddit MGE was about airblast spamming and critwhoring.

Huzzah, I am now vaguely awake! Let's see if I can get these thoughts out all at once, eh?

Reading over the comments, I'm seeing that the common line of thinking in this situation is to liken the Pyro to the Soldier; a reasonable move, considering how severely airblasting affects Soldiers, but it's not the direction Sick Burn is going in. Instead of the conforming to the common paradigm of moving quickly, the Pyro's design subverts it; being effective by quickly moving others. Where others can operate largely independently from a healer, the Pyro (like the Heavy) shines as an escort... in theory.

In reality, the Pyro is basically a gimp unable to do a terrible lot at mid without extraordinary effort. The supposed domination of narrow corridors is really just so many particles as the Pyro is done away with in a hallway: to the end of reversing that, the stun was implemented, allowing the Pyro to defend the Medic as they fallback in one of the choke points commonly surrounding mid. Scouts can still very easily drive back Pyros, so the game is far from broken at this point. If anything, the Pyro is still a bad choice, on account of losing either a Scout or a Soldier.

The next problem is to give the Pyro real offensive options, to go along with the defensive viability affored by reversing rockets. Jerry brings up a very good point, in that a ham-fisted accommodation of the competitive scene simply isn't going to work. What's needed is a change in perspective. With damage over time, Spy-checking, the ability to reverse attacks, and anti-Sapper functionality throw in to boot, it's clear that the Pyro is meant to be a little different: it's not a tanking kill-seeker, it's a "spellcaster"; doing more with special effects than raw damage. In that vein, version 4 of Sick Burn (should it be possible to do so) will have afterburn dampening victims' attack-power by 15-20%. (This will be done in lieu of affecting damage-spread, as projected in the original post.)

The effect is enough to be noticed, but not enough to through a spanner into the any- and everything a player could hope to do. With as many ways to undo burning as there are, it shouldn't be nearly as disastrous as the Natascha experiment. ^^;

Anyway, I've got a job to head out to. Have fun tearing me apart as you have been: it's been... "enlightening," let's say. :)

WELL WHATEVER let's just ban pyro from comp and be done with it because nobody loves pyro.