The one loadout where the Manmelter is actually viable. (Long read)

[Uscari]

Primary: Dragon's Fury
Secondary: Manmelter
Melee: Anything (Preferably Powerjack)

The Manmelter is normally a bad weapon with most flamethrowers because it lacks self defense capabilities, and it's signature mechanic is dependent on too many variables to make use of consistently.

However, what if there was a loadout that compensated for the self defense penalty, made use of the MM's passive stats, and increased the utility of it's extinguishing mechanic?

Dragon's Fury is the weapon that makes MM work. With the DF you can use the MM's faster projectile speed to your advantage by lighting up people with it outside of DF range, then finishing them off with fireballs.

I consider the 50% faster projectile speed the most important part of this loadout, because when you compare the Manmelter to the other 2 flares best for setting up kills using the Dragon's Fury, the Scorch Shot and Detonator, you notice 2 weaknesses in both of them:

1. Scorch Shot is great for lighting up people on middle ground or when your enemies are below you, but struggles to light them up when they're on the high ground.

2. Detonator can light up people from any height, however the requirement for manual detonation reduces the uptime of your primary which cuts down on self defense.

The Manmelter can moderately achieve both of these, being superior than the Scorch Shot at dealing with opponents on higher grounds, and superior to the Detonator in terms of reducing uptime, all due to it's very fast projectile speed.

The Manmelter also notably deals more damage than both the Scorch Shot or Detonator, and although it might not be much, the extra 10-15 damage you get from a Manmelter is just enough to change damage thresholds against Demoman, a key counter to the DF pyro.

A 30dmg MM bolt, followed by even the max range 69 dmg DF fireball, with the combined 9.5 seconds of afterburn (76 damage, or 19 ticks) is just enough to kill a full health Demo.

Furthermore, this weapon has infinite ammo, and when you're using this weapon as a setup tool to soften every target you come across, you'll basically be firing this thing every 2 seconds. I've found especially with the Scorch Shot, when I can fire and forget, I run out of ammo more often than you might imagine, so infinite ammo is a nice bonus.

Finally, lets talk about the extinguish mechanic. Most flamethrowers with the exception of the phlog can extinguish and return to fighting faster than the time it would take to switch to your Manmelter, extinguish, and switch back. However the Dragon's Fury, which has a 1.6 second cool down before using again after airblast, takes longer than the 1 second it takes to switch to Manmelter and switch back.

Additionally, it saves ammo, as the Dragon's Fury takes 1/8th of it's ammo capacity to airblast, compared to Stock's 1/10th.

Is the Manmelter superior to the Scorch Shot or Detonator as a combo tool for the Dragon's Fury? No I wouldn't say so. However, if you're on a dynamic map with both low ground and high ground opponents, it genuinely can be the better deathmatching tool, regardless of whether or not a Pyro is on the enemy team.

For these reasons, I believe manmelter can be a genuinely viable full-time weapon if paired with the Dragon's Fury, primarily on the basis that the higher projectile speed and infinite ammo alone make it a solid roaming DM-centric companion.

[Scout]

cries in phlog

[tits_magi]

Originally posted by Scout from Team Fortress 2:

cries in phlog

:C

[Plastic]

Why do i have vibes that this loadout's gonna be viable?

[★C0pe★]

It actually sounds not bad, the problem is that I can't aim with flare and dragon fury D:

[Banshee]

The thing that bothers me about Dragon's Fury is that the projectiles are straight up bugged and lose their hitboxes in certain map areas, or when the enemy is shooting projectiles at you (syringes and rockets can delete the projectile hitbox too just by being too close).

[trash]

sc/det are better for this
flares are already incredibly fast, there's no situation where the mm speed benefits the fury more than the more useful flares

[tits_magi]

im bad at pyro

[Spartykins]

Originally posted by Mitsune the E-Heavy:

By the way, what do you think of the Dragon's Fury compared to the Flamethrower?

Originally posted by Banshee:

The thing that bothers me about Dragon's Fury is that the projectiles are straight up bugged and lose their hitboxes in certain map areas, or when the enemy is shooting projectiles at you (syringes and rockets can delete the projectile hitbox too just by being too close).

between what was said here and the visuals of the flame projectile not being consistent with what is actually being fired

play it with the particle fix mod on servers that have sv_pure off and the DF becomes much much easier to use

[Uscari]

Originally posted by trash:

sc/det are better for this
flares are already incredibly fast, there's no situation where the mm speed benefits the fury more than the more useful flares

I think it really depends on the terrain. I don't like running detonator with Dragon's fury because it's already such a cumbersome and clunky weapon, the detonator's requirement to keep it active to utilize the splash damage just makes you even more vulnerable to explosive classes.

Meanwhile although Scorch Shot is the king of lighting people on fire who are on equal ground or below you, it's splash is difficult to utilize when your enemies are on higher ground.

Moreover, all 3 of the pure combat classes have access to high ground due to their higher mobility.

Also, the damage bonus of hitting direct flares can reduce the amount of direct and indirect hits you need from the DF to kill them.

Originally posted by peanut butter jelly:

Why do i have vibes that this loadout's gonna be viable?

I think this would the most 1v1-centric loadout in Pyro's arsenal, for it's very precise, narrow damage potential. It would no doubt be a lot of fun for MGE.

Originally posted by Mitsune the E-Heavy:

By the way, what do you think of the Dragon's Fury compared to the Flamethrower?

I think DF is about equal to Stock, perhaps just slightly worse only because of the collision bugs. Even then it has a pretty substantial niche in making Pyro more competitive against Scouts, Engineers, and Heavies.

Originally posted by Banshee:

The thing that bothers me about Dragon's Fury is that the projectiles are straight up bugged and lose their hitboxes in certain map areas, or when the enemy is shooting projectiles at you (syringes and rockets can delete the projectile hitbox too just by being too close).

Yeah, unfortunately I've been denied many kills because a Soldier's rocket made contact with my fireball. It's very unfair and totally bizzare.

[Uscari]

Something else I like about this loadout is that both the DF and the MM have identical projectile speed. I find it's easier to aim both weapons when I don't have to adjust my leading for varying projectile speed.

[Hell-met]

flare splash is more reliable than a direct hitter as mr. trash said.

either way if you're using DF against any remotely serious opponent you're gonna need hitscan backup hard.

[Police Constable Niko.]

This actually makes sane sense (unlike most stuff on these forums) and it really, really, Really get destroyed by completely broken DF. Come on, even degreaser is better, and this is the ultimate insult you'll ever hear from me, and this makes me really sad. Nerfing the actually fun weapon, because it was dealing decent damage, by completely breaking it?

And don't get me wrong, but it seems that this loadout relies heavily on long afterburn time, right?
This ain't much efficient, unless there are no medkits around and enemy team doesn't have a medic (like mine 90% of the time). Sounds like a "gamble gun" a bit.

[Uscari]

Originally posted by Hell-met:

flare splash is more reliable than a direct hitter as mr. trash said.

either way if you're using DF against any remotely serious opponent you're gonna need hitscan backup hard.

I agree fire splash is more reliable unless your enemy is on high ground, and while the detonator is more reliable on hitting enemies on high ground than the Manmelter, the increased uptime in having to manually detonate hurts a DF pyro's ability to deal with an aggressive opponent who wants to close the distance.

I personally don't see a lot of synergy between the DF and shotguns, because outside of the Dragon's Fury's max range of 500 HU, your shotgun isn't going to do much, and within that range, it doesn't even work as a supplement to your damage because the DF has a fast firing rate.

You could argue that shotguns are important for when you get off a reflect and can't use your weapon for another 1.6 seconds, but if you're up against a serious opponent, they aren't going to just feed you that reflect, especially since you can't airblast at any point during your primary fire, preventing you from pressuring them into firing predictably.

What they'll do is fire their projectiles at a range you couldn't possibly hope to hit them back with, and then you're in a situation where it's shotgun vs rocket launcher, or grenade launcher, or sticky launcher. That's just not favorable.

I prefer to approach Demos and Soldiers by really not doing a lot of reflecting at all. Just light them up with a flare and out damage them. The only problem is the bugs that allow projectiles to nullify fireballs when they make contact.

Originally posted by Police Constable Niko.:

This actually makes sane sense (unlike most stuff on these forums) and it really, really, Really get destroyed by completely broken DF. Come on, even degreaser is better, and this is the ultimate insult you'll ever hear from me, and this makes me really sad. Nerfing the actually fun weapon, because it was dealing decent damage, by completely breaking it?

And don't get me wrong, but it seems that this loadout relies heavily on long afterburn time, right?
This ain't much efficient, unless there are no medkits around and enemy team doesn't have a medic (like mine 90% of the time). Sounds like a "gamble gun" a bit.

Degreaser is Pyro's #1 Primary, in fact I consider it overpowered.

I don't think the DF is completely broken at all. It needed a serious nerf because on release that thing was virtually impossible to miss with.

It doesn't really rely on afterburn at all. Afterburn can potentially make the difference in some deathmatching scenarios but by no means does this rely on it.

It relies on using your secondary to pre-emptively ignite your opponent before you get in range, setting them up to get 1-shot or 2-shot by your primary once you do get in range.

Scorch Shot and Detonator are great for this strategy but I think Manmelter is honestly a viable alternative due being effective against low and high ground opponents alike, higher damage, as well as being a strong counter against enemy pyros.

[Police Constable Niko.]

Originally posted by Uscari:

Originally posted by Hell-met:

using your secondary to pre-emptively ignite your opponent before you get in range, setting them up to get 1-shot or 2-shot by your primary once you do get in range.

Scorch Shot and Detonator are great for this strategy but I think Manmelter is honestly a viable alternative due being effective against low and high ground opponents alike, higher damage, as well as being a strong counter against enemy pyros.

Huh, this makes sense. But I rely on ambushing enemy more, so, I am used to my stock+shotgun combo. I just don't find degreaser's swap speed that useful, the usual one is rather quick, yet a few extra points of DPS do the trick to end the enemy with a shotgun quicker.

Not to argue, ofcourse, it's just me to find degreaser "meh". I reject many popular weapons and strategies in games, Im just kinda strange.

[Uscari]

Originally posted by Police Constable Niko.:

Huh, this makes sense. But I rely on ambushing enemy more, so, I am used to my stock+shotgun combo. I just don't find degreaser's swap speed that useful, the usual one is rather quick, yet a few extra points of DPS do the trick to end the enemy with a shotgun quicker.

Not to argue, ofcourse, it's just me to find degreaser "meh". I reject many popular weapons and strategies in games, Im just kinda strange.

Stock can be a good choice, especially if you expect to run into crowds and light all of them up, the afterburn can and for me often does net kills I wouldn't have gotten with degreaser afterburn.

However, the real benefit of the Degreaser's swap speed isn't doing combos, it's having immediate access to your airblast.

When you're closing the distance against Soldiers and Demos, you want to be able to deal damage to them, but you also don't want to miss out on the ability to reflect their explosives on your way. Degreaser solves this problem by allowing you to deal damage with your secondary outside of flamethrower range while always being able to switch back for airblast just in time to land a reflect.

That's why many including myself consider the Degreaser to be the best Pyro primary. That 60% faster deploy stat is just so strong in Pyro's matchups against Soldier and Demo.