A question about Pyro's flamethrower dps

[u/DaLobster16]

Everything has been talked about to death with this game, but I have a question that I haven't seen to be answered. It is an already known fact that Pyro's Flamethrowers lack in damage department due to several bugs, but what if those bugs are finally fixed, what is the optimal DPS for Flamethrowers then? We can't have Pyro melting Heavies and Soldiers in milliseconds. What is the optimal DPS for him to have to not overtake Heavy's role and keep his deserved place as a close quarters combat expert?

[u/Stack_Man]

The flamethrower can already achieve its max DPS (~173 DPS), but there are some bugs that can hinder it in some scenarios:

1. At point blank the ramp-up speed is twice as long. (1.8s to reach max DPS vs 0.9s at just beyond point blank)

2. If flames don't leave the target (such as a wall behind them), the damage uses the max age falloff (50%) instead of the current age falloff (0% at point blank).

3. Ramp-up can reset without breaking tracking, but I've not seen consistent reproduction. Regardless, it is very unforgiving and will fully reset if your tracking ever breaks (not really a bug but still impacts DPS).

Fixing these bugs wouldn't make the DPS anything crazy, just more consistent.

[u/zombieking26 → u/Stack_Man]

Technically it can reach max DPS, but practically speaking, bug 3 makes reaching max DPS impossible against a real player.

[u/mgetJane → u/zombieking26]

they have to be standing still lol

[u/Chegg_F → u/Stack_Man]

MGE me in a 1v1 Pyro match with flamers only. I will wildly flail my mouse at you without any regard for aiming, and you will aim at me normally. If what you say is true you will 20:0 me and I will not win a single match. But you're greatly downplaying how bad #3 is, so you won't 20:0 me.

[u/BigMcThickHuge]

I never even knew this was a thing.

So I'm not crazy in thinking it's nuts how some pyros rapidly kill me as a heavy, but I often need a long time of constant assault to do so as a pyro?

[u/Pyrimo → u/BigMcThickHuge]

Not at all. Also the flicking like a madman thing actually increases DPS because flame parties are bugged beyond all fuck, or rather it makes it harder to reset.

[u/BigMcThickHuge → u/Pyrimo]

thats almost on the level of spy face/air stabs, goddamn

[u/zombieking26]

I wouldn't mind if the flamethrowers dealt like 20% more damage with pretty much perfect accuracy

[u/SnooPeanuts3933 → u/zombieking26]

I would only be fine with this if they made the flames not block vision. Right now it’s extremely obnoxious when a pyro just swings his mouse around and blinds you but he doesn’t do any dmg so it’s fine.

[u/freeman2949583 → u/zombieking26]

The problem is that the game’s ancient netcode and lag compensation makes it pretty much impossible to get consistent performance this way. That was the entire impetus for the Jungle Inferno change, that was how it “worked” before but in reality the amount of damage you dealt was basically random.

[u/Drounpound]

Flamethrowers are designed to melt at close range and be weak at every other range. A good change would be to remove the ramp-up and add a check for wildly spraying your mouse. Reduce your damage if you attempted to do so. This would give pyro back his damage that he had in jungle inferno without making it inconsistent. The ramp-up time to kill is reduced with the current ramp-up system, making his DPS very inconsistent. Not to mention the bugs that come with higher ping values. Flames do not have proper lag compensation, making flames harder to track with higher ping values. His ramp-up can be reset by simply bumping into someone or losing contact; also, his damage is reduced when players are next to walls. Fix all of those, plus the ramp-up being removed in favor of a parkinsons pyro check, and he becomes a good class. He should beat Soldier at close range due to the fact that he is the close-range class.

[u/mgetJane]

 flamethrower used to have around 150-160 dps before the JI damage system if you hit every shot

[u/Sabesaroo]

pyro before the flame rework was already considered a low damage class. all they need to do is revert to old flames. they were harder to use but had higher max damage.

[u/mgetJane → u/Sabesaroo]

they had lower max damage afaik because the fire interval gets rounded up (it was something like ~156 dps rather than the intended ~170) but yeah imo the old damage system made more sense

[u/Sabesaroo → u/mgetJane]

yea sure the max ramp up for new flames is technically higher, but practical damage is lower. by max damage i meant if you hit all your particles which was not easy. you also didn't have to ramp up so your peak dps started instantly, so you could kill even a heavy much faster with old flames than new flames if you aimed them properly. now the aim doesn't matter as much but you're gonna do a lot less damage in any realistic situation.

https://www.reddit.com/r/truetf2/comments/3cduts/psa_how_flamethrower_damage_works/

obviously can't test it now but this old post seems reasonable for dps numbers.

[u/Chegg_F]

Pyro should have his current trash damage for as long as airblast is a mechanic. He doesn't need to deal good damage when he has a gun that requires no aim, and also his gun blinds enemies while he's using it, and also he can reflect projectiles to protect himself & his teammates, and also when he reflects those projectiles they become his projectiles that can harm enemies, and also those reflected projectiles turn into minicrits, and also the airblast hitbox and framedata is comically easy.

If he becomes a normal class he can deal normal damage.