So this thread's purpose is not exactly to make a tier list of pyro's secondary, but rather to give my opinion on which one of the three strongest secondaries is the best one for pyro: the panic attack, the shotgun or the flare gun.
First of all, I'll briefly talk about the detonator and the scorch shot. Those two are both really good secondaries for pyro, but they are in my opinion just barely not enough.
-the detonator offers the best mobility features for pyro. The damage is balanced by the flanking and repositioning possibilities given, as well as obviously buffing pyro's travel speed. It also provides the best way to spam as the detonation does not require a surface to deal splash damage. The problems are two: damage and self damage. Sacrificing long/mid range damage for pyro is a big risk since you'll be relying on getting close to the enemy team to deal decent damage, and to get in that range you'll be constantly dealing damage to yourself. The main weakness here is risk.
-the scorch shot, otherwise known as lung cancer offers great spamming and defensive potential, a but of mobility, some decent damage and even inhibits movement .Yet, the problem I see with this piece of ♥♥♥♥ is that while it gives a bit of everything it doesn't really specialize in anything, being decent at many things but not giving pyro a clear advantage in a certain aspect. It's strong, but to truly excel pyro has the three best options I'll compare in this thread.
Disclaimer: the flamethrower's damage is taken from a graph made by another steam user, Love straight sex, the black graphs represent the stock flamethrower and the blue ones represent the degreaser.
https://www.desmos.com/calculator/0m0ckrmdo7
so the flare gun is used on the puff and sting combo or at long range. Starting with a close range engagement, we can see the difference between the usage of degreaser or stock flamethrower.
with stock the switch speed is 0.5 seconds, so to minimize the time required to take down someone we'll need to see how much the enmy needs to be flamed before the flare usage.
-light classes: 125hp-90hp=35hp. To reach that damage the flamethrower needs around 0.32 seconds, so summing the two times we get a 0.82 seconds time requirement to kill a light class with stock + flare gun. To do so with stock you would need barely more than 0.9 seconds, and that is without considering the inconsistent nature of parcticles.
-medic: 150 hp-90hp=60hp. To reach that damage stock needs around 0.5 seconds, so we get an overll 1 second time. To reach 150 damage with stock alone you would need almost the same amount of time, but 0.042 seconds more. This again, without counting inconsistency.
-pyro/demoman: 175hp-90hp=85 hp. To reach that damage stock would need around 0.67 seconds, giving us an overall 1.17 seconds time requirement. Here stock alone still doesn't outclass this result, requiring 1.18 seconds.
-soldier: 200hp-90hp=110hp. Stock requires 0.82 seconds to achive that damage, giving us an overall 1.32 seconds requirement. Stock alone achives 200 damage in 1,31 seconds. We conclude that, using stock, every class with less than 200 hp dies more quickly with the puff and sting.
with the degreaser the thing changes. The switch speed is a whopping 0.35 seconds
-light classes: 125 hp-90 hp=35hp. 35hp. To reach that damage the degreaser needs around 0.32 seconds, so summing the two times we get a 0.67 seconds time requirement to kill a light class with stock + flare gun. To do so with degreaser you would need barely more than 0.9 seconds, and that is without considering the inconsistent nature of parcticles.
-medic: 150 hp-90hp=60hp. To reach that damage degreaser needs around 0.5 seconds, so we get an overall 0.85 second time. To reach 150 damage with degreaser alone you would need 1.042 seconds. This again, without counting inconsistency.
-pyro/demoman: 175hp-90hp=85 hp. To reach that damage degreaser would need around 0.67 seconds, giving us an overall 1.02 seconds time requirement. Here degreaser alone still doesn't outclass this result, requiring 1.18 seconds.
-soldier: 200hp-90hp=110hp. Stock requires 0.82 seconds to achive that damage, giving us an overall 1.17 seconds requirement. Degreaser alone achives 200 damage in 1,31 seconds. Here, we see the degreaser's superiority
-heavy: 300hp-90hp=210hp. Degreaser deals 210 damage in around 1.3 seconds, giving an overall 1.65 seconds time requirement. Degreaser alone deals 300 damage in around 1.9 seconds. Degreaser is the best flamethrower for a reason after all
So we can see that the flare gun gives a resonable edge in close range combat, and this without counting for the long range combat it's suited for, where no falloff and fast projectile speed makes it consistently outclass the shotgun and the panic attack.
Yet, while the flare gun does a decent job at covering pyro's range weakness, it doesn't enfatize enough his close range power and is way more inconsistent compared to the two rivals. Also the flare gun's power comes from burst damage, not DPS, where the shotguns instead shin.
For these reasons the flare gun gets the 3rd place.
To see the panic attack's performance, this section will be divided in the calculation of DPS at 2 different ranges.
To see the point blank range power of the pa, we'll need to calculate dps of a single clip.
single clip is calculated as AxB/((A-1)*C) where A is shots per clip, B damage per shot and C the attack interval
6*108/(5*0.625)=207.36 DPS for one clip
That's a lot even for point blank, but it becomes even better when using the degreaser+panic attack's combo:
when calculationmg the panic attack + degreaser's dps you would need to consider the amunt of flames disposable in the 0.625 sec fire rate of the pa. In this case we have a 0.2 sec switch speed to the degreaser + a 0.1 sec because of holster speed bonus + deploy speed bonus of degreaser and pa (0.25 sec + 0.15 sec = 0.4 sec, 0.5 sec-0.4 sec=0.1). That would make it so that for 0.3 seconds of the 0.625 seconds fire rate you can't flame, making 0.325 sec the maximum time limit.So we have in 0.325 sec a damage of 35 in between panic attack shots + 1 damage of afterburn each second.
Overall the dps become 242.36, making it a deadly combo for anyone unfortunate enought to step in pyro's hell.
Yet, this enourmous damage is only effective at point blank. say you want to get damage at 340 hu, the maximum distance covered by your flames.
first of all, now your degreaser's puffs only deal only half that damage, 22.5 + 1 damage per second because of afterburn.
To calculate the damage of the panic attack I'll use heavy's hitbox, because f*ck that class and because it's the biggest, showing just how weak the pa is even with such a big target. It's 75hu tall and 25hu wide.
After some testing the medium result was 49 damage, the dps in that case would become 6*49/(5*0.625)=94.08 DPS. If we sum it with the degreaser, the damage is 116.58 DPS.
That's just barely more than the degreaser's dps at that range, and the calculation doesn't count the wider spread caused by successive shots with the panic attack, making W+M1 almost superior at the maximum flamethrower's range.
We can safely assume in this case that the pa sucks past a really short range, the weapon's role is in fact to prioritze pyro's strength while not covering his weaknesses. For this reason, the panic attck deserves the 2nd place.
DPS (point blank): 6*90/(5*0.625)=172.8 DPS, usually paired with previous afterburn form the degreaser or stock.
We see that at point blank (pyro's optimal's range) the panic attack has way more potential damage. But let's look at 340hu.
With some testing, the medium damage is 66, the DPS become 6*66/(5*0.625)=127.488. Even more than panic attack+degreaser at a fairly close range, and the difference becomes even more significant if we count pellet spread and the panic attack's inaccuracy after consecutive shots.
the shotgun is an all rounder. Superior to the panic attack because it doesn't just amplify pyro's strength, but also cover his weakness, and superior to the flare gun because it works better up to mid range, where fights are more common and more realistic, while still being able to deal more consistent damage except for long range. This is why it gets the 1st place as pyro's strongest secondary.