The panic attack is easily the best secondary for pyro

[Radial]

Change my mind

[GhostyOsty]

I can't

[Dominic]

I kind of like the Flare gun more myself.

[skooma]

+soldier

[Dominic]

Originally posted by creamytea!:

Originally posted by Dominic:

I kind of like the Flare gun more myself.

same. puff and sting ain't dead

I mean I do not puff and sting I just sometimes use the flare gun as a primary sense the second hit will be a crit anyways.

I mostly just love the super red or super blue color it has.

[Uscari]

The Panic Attack is strong on Pyro but I wouldn't say it's the best Pyro secondary.

It is competetive with the Shotgun and Flare Gun in close-quarters, since you can combine degreaser flame damage with shotgun damage for effectively 225+ DPS.

Still, the higher base spread makes Panic Attack noticeably worse beyond flamethrower range compared to the Shotgun or Flaregun.

It's stronger within flamethrower range, but worse outside of it. With Pyro, his secondary is often used to give him some teeth outside of flamethrower range, which opens up more engagement options against the scary combat classes.

Panic Attack deviates from this strategy, instead expanding on Pyro's strengths, rather than compensating for his weaknesses.

I think the weapon is balanced and satisfies a distinct purpose, but generally I'd say the Shotgun or Flaregun are better for general use. Although ultimately it depends on your own playstyle.

[76561198357292090]

I agree with Uscari on this one

[Heatmaker]

Originally posted by Radial:

The Scorch Spam is easily the best secondary for Pyro

That's better

[Moist Painis]

Well yes, but actually no.

[fromgdog]

Originally posted by MC Heatmaker | Baguette Boi:

Originally posted by Radial:

The Scorch Spam is easily the best secondary for Pyro

That's better

Yep, stun lock + free mini-crits.

[76561198357292090]

The stunlock with a free minicrit tumble only happens if you land a direct shot and the direction of the player was directly towards you. Meaning in pubs and casual where people don't strafe it's really strong and easy to abuse at times I must admit.

[fromgdog]

Originally posted by Glycomere#RRC:

The stunlock with a free minicrit tumble only happens if you land a direct shot and the direction of the player was directly towards you. Meaning in pubs and casual where people don't strafe it's really strong and easy to abuse at times I must admit.

Flares are one of the most fast projectiles in the game. They're pretty easy to hit.

Regardless stunlock shouldn't be in the game.

[Vlad the Impala]

Originally posted by Uscari:

The Panic Attack is strong on Pyro but I wouldn't say it's the best Pyro secondary.

It is competetive with the Shotgun and Flare Gun in close-quarters, since you can combine degreaser flame damage with shotgun damage for effectively 225+ DPS.

Checking out the numbers, I don't think that the combo is anywhere near as powerful as you claim. For instance, there's a nasty bug with the Degreaser holster bonus that's been around since Tough Break that requires that you hold it out for at least 1 second before the holster bonus works. By itself, this completely butchers any DPS gain you might get out of this.

Now let's assume that the bug doesn't exist, say we stack the degreaser holster and PA deploy bonuses multiplicatively. That is, 0.175s (0.5s base switch and 50%*30% bonus). Now, the PA has no holster bonus, so we take the degreaser's deploy bonus (60%) alone, which is 0.2s switch time. That's a total of 0.375s of dead switch time, of which you have 0.25s to flame to make up the damage between 0.625s firing interval shots. Even assuming max rampup to start with and perfect accuracy (173 DPS) which is practically impossible to attain, you get around 43 damage on top of the 172.8 DPS of the PA. Add that together and that's ~216 DPS for a sequence that both gimps your effective range and reflects without accounting for flamethrower rampup (with all of its bugs) and the degreaser switch bug.

At this stage, you're flat out better off with just holding down M1 with the PA. It's decent as a pyro secondary because it's a shotgun, but otherwise it's seriously limited.

[Expedition 33]

Originally posted by Radial:

Change my mind

Play open maps

[Moist Painis]

Gas Passer's existance completely debunks your statement.

[Gentlest Giant]

Originally posted by Staplerfahrer Klaus:

For instance, there's a nasty bug with the Degreaser holster bonus that's been around since Tough Break that requires that you hold it out for at least 1 second before the holster bonus works. By itself, this completely butchers any DPS gain you might get out of this.

Huh, this is pretty damn serious. I remember that I took a long break many years ago and when I came back the reserve shooter just did not shoot properly, I was clicking the weapon switches faster than the weapon got ready.
I assumed that my muscle memory just needed to be retrained and went on to learn the pattern.

Hm.