Wow, someome called me stupid on the internet!

i wish there was a "magic gun" that stopped you from making posts

thats one weapon unban i could get behind

Speaking from the perspective of a non top player, couldn't agree more.

Were the ban/unban votes somehow weighted by the previous questions, such as division played and what a person wants out of a whitelist? I seem to remember the survey was not purely ban or unban questions, so how do the other sections factor in?

Not a big fan of the "test it" option on the poll. "Test it" as an option is very vague, as it's potentially containing voters from both other options. You could be like "doubt this is gonna work, but test it for the sake of trying" or "most definitely fine, but it hasn't been put in before so we should test it". Furthermore what seems weird to me is that for the immediate effect both the "test it" and "unban" option have the same outcome. How was this handled? Overall I feel like the way this survey was done bears very little amounts of significance and the "test it" option basically just distorts the results imo. Also publishing your full data set and providing some insight as to how decisions were made and answers were weighted, because right now all of this is very blurry to me.

I know, right?

from the Global Whitelist January Update:

Scorch Shot & Detonator
After last year’s Jungle Inferno update, afterburn damage was increased to compensate for the reduced afterburn time of flamethrowers. This meant that the Scorch Shot and Detonator received buffs without the introduction of any downsides.
With their increased AOE damage, extreme spammability, ability to remove stickies and afterburn’s effect on healing rates, we feel these weapons are now out of place and will be banned as a result.

To begin with some technicalities, their AoE damage wasn't increased, their DoT DPS was increased but their DoT total Damage remains the same. 20 ticks of 3dmg changed to 15 ticks of 4dmg, 60dmg both in 10 and 7.5 seconds respectively.

Extreme Spammability.
Grenade Launchers Rate of Fire: 0.6"
Stickybomb Launchers Rate of Fire: 0.6"
Rocket Launchers Rate of Fire: 0.8"
Flareguns Rate of Fire: 2"
e x t r e m e l y s p a m m a b l e
edit: even if you shoot-reload-repeat GL is 1.24, SL is 1.09 and RL is .92

Ability to remove Stickies is a decent point, though by placing traps on walls or above doorways the Scorch Shot can't hit them, and the Detonator needs to self detonate with a correct timing to actually hit and break the Stickies. I won't go on about if it's strong or not because I'm definitely not in the skill level needed to judge this for top level competition.

And last but definitely not least, "afterburn’s effect on healing rates" is just false. It has been tested and verified that only the Flamethrowers' Afterburn (even excluding the Dragon Fury's) inflict this debuff. No Flaregun does.

I think that keeping these Weapons banned is wrong. I won't argue for the Scorch Shot, because fuck its borderline stun mechanic knockback, but the Detonator is the most interesting Pyro Secondary and by banning it we just lose out on interesting gameplay and interactions.

its spammable because its incredibly easy to hit, has no damage falloff, and has copious amounts of reserve ammunition, not its fire rate.

Detonator and Scorch Shot AoE Radius: 110HUs
Rocket, Grenade, Sticky AoE Radius: 146HUs (that's 2.3 times the Flaregun's AoE in volume)

Detonator Damage: 23/30 Direct, 11-25/33-38 Splash, +60 over 7.5", can be reduced or removed
Scorch Shot Damage: 20/46 Direct/BothHits, 10-20/13-26 Splash, +60 over 7.5", can be reduced or removed
Rocket Launcher Damage: 48-112 Direct, 24/48-56/112 Splash
Grenade Launcher: 100 Direct, 50-100 Splash
Stickybomb Launcher: 60/120/144

Detonator and Scorch Shot Total Ammo: 16
Rocket Launcher Total Ammo: 20
Grenade Launcher Total Ammo: 16
Stickybomb Launcher Total Ammo: 24

Detonator and Scorch Shot Projectile Speed: 2000HU/s
Rocket Launcher Projectile Speed: 1100 HU/s
Grenade Launcher Projectile Speed: 1216 HU/s
Stickybomb Launcher Projectile Speed: 925-2409 HU/s

So with lower fire rates, significantly smaller AoEs, similar or less spam Damage, similar or less total Ammo and only faster Projectile Speed, I really don't see why how are so extremely spammable that the are ban worthy.

More DPS is worse than longer afterburn. Hitting a flare every 7 seconds for maximum dps isn't the most difficult task in the world.

I'd also like to point out here that for the detonator it's 20 initial damage from the flare plus another 60 damage of afterburn, making it 80 damage from any range without really aiming at all, and with the possibility of hitting multiple people at once. This goes up to 30 initial damage and 75 afterburn on minicrit making a total of 105 damage.

To put out those kinds of numbers on demoman you need to get within spam range, putting yourself at risk of being punished, and even then stickies are harder to hit than the brainless detonator spam.

I remember seeing viaduct pyro logs with 400dpm just from spamming detonator, and that is the kind of hell I don't want to return to.

Detonator does this extremely easily, and honestly the ability to remove stickies on any weapons besides hitscan is just awful.

Would a combination of "Afterburn Duration Fall Off based on Distance" and "Minimum Afterburn Duration on Splash Damage" make this issue disappear? Or would an additional Flare direct damage Fall Off be needed?

Why though. I only see this as a counterplay to poorly placed Stickytraps, which in turn would just enforce better placement and create interesting mindgame interactions between Trapper and Minesweeper.

you're a pyro main upset your weapons are being banned. the flares are all brainless and require no skill, along with being unfun to play against. that alone is enough of a reason to ban it.

This doesn't need to be discussed because we don't have the power to influence weapon balancing

The counterplay to poorly placed stickytraps is not dying to them? If it's shit the demo wasted time not doing damage looking at this trap that nobody is gonna die to.

People that lose to pyro on product only have themselves to blame.

Breaking News: Spamming takes no skill

flares are nowhere near as good as everyone here is pretending (especially bc you have a pyro instead of an actual good class), but scorch shot being able to hit people twice and splash remove stickies is dumb

hey that's my expertise,

thing is detonator is really strong and open many possibilities, good weapon overall
it requires skill whatever people say, as you do your own det every time you shoot
However, spamming flares are easy to hit, and the afterburn you can put on a medic, who has no other sources of healing than medi packs is a cheap way to use it.

About the 400dpm pyro, which i'm certainly related to, is not only because of the detonator, there is many factors :
1- i believe i spent many time working on the 6's pyro to gain some experience, and as i'm not brainless, i was doing my job
2- the ennemy team, ORA ELEKTRO, did not really try to adapt, as there is a lot of counter play :
- Sniper with darwin danger shield (not used on this match)
- Heavy with a banana (sounds funny but it allows your medic to avoid afterburn ticks way more often, and heavy is also a massive class having the most hp, being the slowest which means your medic can rely on his arrows to heal him)
- Even engineer is a good answer. as pyro cannot really do anything when he's facing a sentry

problem is many people of the community do not play this game in order to change classes every time they face of something new, which is fine, it's not a professional league. Maybe in the future mentality will change but nowadays, if ETF2L wants to ban it, in order to avoid frustration from his player base then it's fine.

I'm just a player who plays by the rules. yes i was disapointed that they banned detonator, but that's for satisfying his player base so that's fine.

I believe nowadays, more and more people wants to try no restriction rules, so feel free to try it there !

man, that's just pathetic

.

On one hand pyro with detonator/scorch shot sucked balls anyway but imo they are stupid weapons for 6s. Could be because I play demo tho. Just find it annoying that there is le funny class that counters me at close range in fights and in stalemates can remove sticks off point / choke and walk through, as well as make sure no one ever has a proper buff just because they aren't hiding behind cover. Obviously it's easy to say that in a forum post in magical theorycraft christmas land but ye.

EDIT: Strongly agree with Gaz about losing to pyro tho. I can't fathom how you can lose to current pyro with shit flames in a way where you wouldn't have lost to that team playing standard 6s anyway. Last time I lost to it was when it was OP in the months after jungle inferno (funnily enough against gaz). I can't recall losing to perma pyro outside of those few months, and even there it didn't happen often.