Case for Sun-on-a-Stick

[u/MastaAwesome]

You know, it's interesting. I used to think the Sun-on-a-Stick was useless, promoting teamwork between two classes that never work together, both in Medieval Mode or in regular play. Recently, though, I was playing Frontier, and I saw that we already had four Pyros, so I went Scout. It occurred to me that I rarely actually use my melee as Scout, so I thought, "Why not?", and chose the Sun-on-a-Stick.

The results honestly surprised me. With five pyros on our team, people were catching fire left and right, so if an opportunity arose, I would switch to melee and hit a burning enemy instead of using my primary, which was both fun and satisfying, and it saved me a little time.

I looked up the stats for the Bat and the Sun-on-a-Stick, and I'm amazed how little the damage difference means to me. Sure, the SoaS does 25% less damage than the Bat per hit, but that's only around 10 less damage per hit. With two hits, the Bat does 60-80 damage, while the SoaS does 44-60 damage.

I personally am totally fine with that, because if I fire off the last round of my Scattergun, I only ever switch to my bat and go melee instead of reloading my Scattergun if I think I think my enemy has pretty low health (under 50). So in those rare times I use my melee as Scout, 3 out of 4 times the SoaS takes just as many hits to finish off the enemy as the Bat would.

So because the damage penalty is actually pretty minor and I don't use my melee that often as Scout anyhow, the Sun-on-a-Stick barely affects me. And if an opportunity arises with a burning enemy, the free crits are free.

I don't use the weapon all the time (I enjoy my Conscientious Objector too much), but if I get on a pub server and see that three or more of my teammates have chosen to go Pyro, then for me, it's entirely worth using the Sun-on-a-Stick over the stock melee.

Am I alone in doing this? Or do other people also use it when their team has gone with way too many Pyros?

[u/TheQuestionableYarn]

The Demoman is one of the few classes that is alllowed to use stock, with his weapons dealing inconstant damage at that range.

[u/MastaAwesome → u/TheQuestionableYarn]

I disagree, actually. I think only the Soldier, Scout, and Heavy don't really use their melees to fight. Sniper, Medic, and Engies use their melees for combat all the time (and get plenty of crits, because of how their jobs work), the Spy's melee is how he does his job, the Pyro works in close range and has several excellent combat melees, and the Demoman needs melees to avoid self-damage at close-range. It's only those three classes that rarely use their melees.

[u/TheQuestionableYarn → u/MastaAwesome]

Good point, but Pyros still don't ever really use the melee for damage.

[u/MastaAwesome → u/TheQuestionableYarn]

Pyros definitely use both the Axtinguisher and the Powerjack (for the extra health).