I think going from banning scorch to banning det is a bit too much of a leap. The detonator gives control and actual specialized play compared to the scorch, for the price of actual mechanical investment and timing, even if not all that difficult in the long term.
The scorch allows for you to pick up and use it, with a stupid amount of value and artificial versatility for the price of very little investment. A lot of pyros end up using scorch shot as somewhat of a crutch without really developing their own playstyle and become overly reliant on spamming it.
To be able to effectively spam the detonator on a similar level to the scorch, a certain amount of time investment is required to learn how to properly time it’s detonations across range and for each sort of task you’d have in mind with it. Before this point, you would see a lot more inefficiencies and misplays, such as peaking sightlines for longer in the moment to attempt to properly detonate it.

Det in general is a lot more punishing than scorch if improperly used, while also not having an oppressive stun mechanic, and also provides some actually interesting options for play on the class.
I do not think detonator should be banned, and I think the scorch promotes unintuitive play that is neither fun to play, nor to use. Not only this, but it promotes poor playstyles, and I would also reason it also hurts the long term growth of the class.

Other secondaries such as the det/shotty/flare etc promote more specialized sorts of playstyles and mechanics outside of just spam.
For instance, with the detonator you may see controlled spam and timed midair detonations, such as around the cascade rocks to hit people, and are rewarded for smartly using it while not putting yourself in as much risk. Alternatively to this, you can much more aggressively and actively position yourself, even with something such as a bomb.
Shotgun allows for you to deny more efficiently, and promotes a generally protective sort of play, while also being perfectly suitable for a lot of combat engagements.
Flare gun promotes high single target focus and combo plays. While somewhat oppressive, I do not think it is nearly as much of a menace as the scorch is.
Scorch promotes mindless spam, stunning, and in general results in a lack of commitment to and specialization in particular pyro mechanics/roles.

I think the scorch is a bit more pressing than something like flare/det in terms of getting banned, as I believe it trickles into a pyro that’s plagued pyro as a whole for a bit now. This problem I would say, is that there tends to be a lot of a lack of specialization and intuitive play by newer pyros and a lot of pyros as a whole; as they tend to just parrot what they’re told to do by the community and mentors, and tend not to be very proficient at it. By having a secondary such as scorch that a lot of newer pyros can cling to and get a lot of value out of as a crutch, one that also does not intuitively teach good mechanics, the problem is further amplified.

In short, while the detonator can do some things that the scorch can not and vice versa, the detonator requires actual investment to be able to realize it. It is not nearly as oppressive, as there are more options to counterplay against it than oh hey I’m stunned I guess I’ll die now, and is not nearly as broadly problematic. It provides a lot of options, but those options require vision to utilize, and results in very intuitive play, atleast when compared with the scorch. You get a higher potential as a result of being able to control the det, while having a higher floor as well. Is it unfair? Possibly, but scorch is entirely in a different league, and you can argue for days about other weapons that are unfair if you put time into becoming proficient at them.

also yeah I think this tangent should go to a new thread

The scorch shot discussion has always been a little funny to think about because there’s really nothing overpowered about the weapon besides it being annoying to people

The versatility it provides compared to other secondaries, which results in a lack of more specialized play, as well as generalized playstyles. I don’t think having some super applicable jack of all trades option is a good solution to the weaknesses of the class, one which only serves to sugarcoat and hide the issues at that.

The entire class would have been banned years ago if people screeching “annoying” had ever been an effective argument. Especially considering axtinguisher and puff and sting meta ran the table for years.

I find this point irrelevant. There are other arguments that’ve been laid down that have more depth to them than just the weapon being annoying. It is also unrealistic to imply that the class would ever be banned in highlander, a 9v9 mode with one of each class.

Pyro has been downgraded so significantly over the years that its role has dwindled to a mere backline watchdog, and if anything the sc meta is the first move in a long while to improve an otherwise extremely range limited class’ utility to further aid the team

The scorch shot does little to resolve this. It by nature promotes poorer play than the other secondary options. If you already have good mechanics, you can get a stupid amount of value out of it. If you do not have good mechanics, it becomes harder to actually develop important pyro mechanics with the scorch shot. Pyro’s role has indeed dwindled, but the emphasis should be on more divergent and branching playstyles in response to this; a redefinition of the class and it’s roles. The usage of scorch shot results in more cookie cutter playstyles to try and get the maximum value out of all of it’s many uses. This reduces the importance of individual mechanics, and in my opinion will only lead to further issues with the class down the line. Using a mechanically unintuitive option that promotes less specialized play will not solve the issues of the class.

But what I found is that there are many circumstances where you can assist in denials, albeit small ones, on maps where pyro otherwise has a limited role. This can be on sniper, or flank, or doing the final damage in a koth midfight where you’d otherwise have no role but to chill in the back

Again, I feel like having such easy access to all of these options results in a much less dynamic metagame for the class. Detonator allows for you to do similar things, while being more specialized, and requiring more mechanical input and development.

but not many stop to consider what it brings to a team on an otherwise shit class.

It brings an artificial level of enhancement to pyro’s versatility and utility, while requiring a lot less mechanical input. Bandaging an issue is not resolving it.

Not to mention, the scorch/det are direct downgrades in close range combat to the shotty/flare among others, which is significant when you consider the degreaser already has the lowest dps of any primary weapon and every second matters in trying to protect a combo at range

I disagree with this. Options can often be more valuable than a higher source of direct damage. Scorch shot gives a mechanically lacking way to control movement via bounce/stun, to and dictate the terms of an engagement. The detonator allows for you to control movement by timing detonations and smartly placing your shots, and also gives you the option to jump in and out of an engagement. The shotgun and flare gun are indeed better for sheer damage, but operating under the framework of secondaries being tools to provide options, scorch and det can easily help out more than a higher source of direct damage.
If I’m going to be honest on this, I find that the degreaser ends up training you to be reliant on the switch speed. There are cases where you will legitimately find value out of it, such as denying a bomb with shotty and the degreaser switch speed on ashville. But my argument is, the less access to an easy spam and back method of secondary usage you have, the less you’ll end up finding yourself in said poor positions. If you are to be punished for making poor decisions, you’ll naturally learn not to make them as much.
I personally find the stock and detonator to be a very effective and synergistic combo, as the weapons play to eachother’s strengths. The secondary being the tool to augment the primary, and the stock being able to effectively inflict a lot more chaos during exchanges. The slightly reduced airblast cost on paper is somewhat insignificant, but the extra afterburn can absolutely make the difference in something such as a detonator bomb. As in that case, you wouldn’t want to find yourself swapping to the detonator from the degreaser to spam it for the extra afterburn anyways.This sort of loadout results in a very space and chaos oriented style of play, which while not a style for everyone, is absolutely valid in it’s own right. To wrap back around, the detonator gives more options, while being more punishing than the scorch shot if you wish to get value out of it. Yet again, I think this trickles into a larger issue with the typical approach players take to the class.
I’m not a top player or anything, but I think it’s important to have these sorts of more niche and developed playstyles, that aren’t as reliant on the utility provided by the scorch shot.

Not to mention, it one of very few weapons that can contest snipers at range, if anything else but to force them on to darwins

The detonator can also fulfill this purpose, while requiring much more mechanical investment and possible punishment/misplay.

The way to fixing pyro’s issues begins with evaluating the average perception and mentality applied to the class (which in my opinion somewhat stagnates innovation), and how various playstyles and roles of pyro fit in with differing teams and components. I think that this whole argument about the scorch shot best represents these flaws.

Pyro has had flawed metas in the past, and I think it’s time to try and tackle the issue in a comprehensive way. By removing the scorch shot, you’ll see more divergent playstyles with the generalized utility of the scorch shot being taken out of the equation. This would only go part of the way, but I think that not jumping on this possibility for change would be a mistake. If people want to see pyro as anything but a backline watchdog, there needs to be something that.

A. Forces an extent of immediate change towards more specialized play
B. A shift in perception that goes along with this

The downgrades given to the class did a lot of harm, and I think it’s time we as a community reevaluate the roles and mechanics of the class; rather than relying on a secondary that stunts long term growth to fix the class’s weaknesses and issues.

I fully agree that it being annoying is not a good enough reason for it being banned. That being said, I think it’s certainly worth discussing for other reasons.

@Grynn said in [Harassment in the RGL Community](/post/

It’s not all on RGL though, we have to do it as a community. No one is gonna give you shit for banning a toxic person from your discord server.

As much as I’d like to agree with you, I do not believe that ends up being the case in actuality. There is only so much the league can do compared to the individuals in a community. People virtue signal all day, but when it comes down to actually backing up any meaningful action or change, the reception tends to be rather silent and temporary.
People love to support these sorts of moral sentiments, but turn a blind eye to the behavior if it concerns their friends or people they associate with. Wittingly or otherwise, continuing to involve people who cause these sorts of issus in the community makes yourself part of the problem. This is why association is something to be considered. While it is not good to entirely form your opinion on someone based off of their friends, I think it is safe to say that involvement with certain individuals is a clear sign of a lack of character and moral standards.
Every time you try to do something good, you’ll end up experiencing more blowback than you do any form of support or encouragement. You’ll see a small portion of people showing token support on threads and friend discords, but that is never going to be enough. I do not feel like this is a sustainable social structure whatsoever.
I am of the mindset that people who harm the community should be isolated rather than embraced.

People can speak all they want and these discussions are not a bad thing, it’s always great to see more people coming forward. But at the end of the day, none of it means anything if they aren’t prepared to burn bridges and pay a personal cost to see real change through. The vocal minority will always overpower the silent majority unless these systematic social issues are responded to systematically wherever they happen to show. There is no excusing or justifying these behaviors such as harassment whatsoever; every single person who turns a blind eye directly contributes to said issues, and should be held accountable by the community. As long as we have people who still rationalize and defend these behaviors, we are not going to see change.

There is no such thing as casual racism, and there is no such thing as justified harassment. These behaviors should not be seen as normal or acceptable in any form. There is no moral gray area here, there are only individuals who put the conscious thought and effort into behaving like individuals deserving of any respect whatsoever, and those who do not. I feel nothing but disappointment and contempt towards individuals who refuse to hold themselves, their friends, and their peers accountable to their own actions. These people go around harassing. apologizing, and talking about how they’ve changed, but fail to realize that true change shows through actions instead of words they never intend to follow through on. They ask for chances time and time again, without ever wanting to change how they act; only speaking to get what they want. This primarily comes in the form of seeking forgiveness from victims to avoid punishment, as well as in the form of pleading to get into groups.

I speak all of this in reflection of my own experiences in running community groups. It is a matter I have seen a lot of and experienced personally. I apologize if this is somewhat incoherent, it is a collection of my loose thoughts and experiences. I do not intend ill will towards any one person or group of people, but this is a very real issue regardless of whether people think it is or not, regardless of if they know they contribute to the cycle or not. I do understand that a lack of maturity plays into this, but it is very much not an excuse for individual nor collective behavior. I am not claiming to be entirely fair in how I treat individuals in my groups, but I do not think standing by and knowingly allowing for harm to happen is fair. Every platform these people get only serves to validate them and their actions. Things such as pug groups are a part of the community, and should hold themselves to standards.

I understand that you want attention, fine, I feel the need to convey some thought of my own.

If you want to talk about being fake, I’d advise you to reread your own post.
I’m going to point to behavioral patterns here. Typically speaking, if a person has to say that they’ve changed due to a lack of actions to back it up, they haven’t changed and are only saying it to get something they want.
The terminology here is insignificant, however to match it with yours:
You “trolled” sakura and apologized for that to avoid repercussions
You “trolled” rona and apologized for that to avoid repercussions
You act like an ass to melon and apologized for that afterwards
Every time I’ve seen something like this happen with you, you get called out on it, you then apologize to the person, and then proceed to do the same things. I wonder why.

You raid lou’s server while talkling of how you simply failed to defend her from being harassed. I would like to note how you throw harassment around here when it’s involving others, but not with your own actions. You were also directly involved with harassing rona. There is no standing up here; you were not some innocent bystander.

You also conveniently also forgot to bring up how you peer pressured “friends” into raiding a pug group with you. We just do a little trolling, right? These are totally actions that everyone in the community just casually decides to do. Do note that the whole telling a player to kill themselves and the leaking of dms happened in response to information of the raid being leaked to staff of the group. This led to rene deciding to raid lou’s server, as well as lashing out at others within his social group. I’m not going to go into any further detail on this matter, any sort of attempt at excusing is quite frankly irrelevant regardless of mental state.

I’m not so sure I’d write a pattern of targeted “trolling”, immediate backpedaling, and then going on to do similar things again off due to impulse/instability alone. Your actions absolutely reflect on yourself as a person, far more than any words do. No matter what excuse you try to use, actions end up being rooted in behavioral patterns, and these behavioral patterns define us as people.

I believe telling someone to kill themselves and leaking a dm is the worst thing you could do. These were towards MALE players, to clarify.

The fact that these things were directed towards male players doesn’t make it any more or less wrong than if it were towards a female player. I suppose bringing that aspect of it up better suits the narrative that you don’t harass women in specific though. I don’t care if you’re being accused of harassing women only and feel the need to clarify here, the fact that you find it relevant to clarify speaks for itself.

There’s a reason why the phrase “we do a little bit of trolling” is tossed around a lot.

This speaks for itself in regards to how you try to rationalize and defend your actions without understanding the actual harm they do.
If you describe actions as indefensible, you shouldn’t try to defend them.
I’d think that if you had any understanding of your wrongdoings, you wouldn’t jump right into judging bonesaw for judging your past actions, one’s which you try to downplay the harm of.

Stop talking about change and how sorry you are when you quite frankly have no intent of changing and simply want sympathy from others. Given your responses in the thread so far that try to redirect things, you are clearly not sorry in the slightest for your past actions. If you had any shred of genuineness, you wouldn’t keep acting the same way as you did before.
If you want other people to value your word, you have to value your own word.

The pattern remains the same
Do something awful
Try to downplay the action with friends and or redirect the fault onto the other person
Apologize for it
Repeat

Your last paragraph really makes the lack of genuine remorse all the
more clear.

Stop using your mental state as an excuse and hold yourself accountable, you might end up changing once you get around to doing that.
Turn this around on me like you usually try to do, I’m done. I’m not going to stay silent on this matter, and I’m not going to give it any more attention than this.

#fixing his mistakes

Looking at options for the next hl season, probably wanting to main?

Second place challenger s8, Soldier, DCMC
Third place on pyro in advanced s4, 1K9K
Rang spy for the money team in the s3 advanced grandfinals

Soldier or Pyro in invite/challenger, Spy or Demo in challenger.

I support team cat. I will unleash the wallcat upon team dog.

I’ll start with my favorite, the tumor shark. Unfortunately I can only bring this one out when Halloween mode is on.

This was my original cursed set

This one has become a recent favorite of mine for a specific loadout

Mouse: Glorious Model O
Mousepad: SteelSeries QcK Prism (Having a different surface type on each side is neat, though I tend to end up using the cloth one only, discord/game integration with the lighting on the mousepad is also a really nice touch)
Keyboard: Corsair K70 Rapidfire Mk 2
Headphones: Corsair Void Pro (I’d probs upgrade this next and replace it with a nice set of headphones if not my hardware, but then again sound quality tends to not be the most important with the headset around my neck)
Microphone: ModMic USB (Yes I still have the base headset mic for the funnies)
Monitor: Some Asus 144 Hz monitor (I forget the model but it’s quite satisfactory)

Resolution: 1920 by 1080, Fullscreen
Tf2 Sensitivity: 4.14 for solly/pyro, 3 for every other class; 3200 dpi
Conig: Mastercomfig Medium-High
Hud: Flawhud
Extras: Wearing headsets tends to irritate my ears so I always wear my headset around my neck. Very farsighted hence the monitor being further back.

He’s gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse

really nice person, solid mental game

need. highlander.

decided to play an australian higlander scrim with me the other day, a true lad indeed. he always just sorta instantly makes whatever atmosphere he’s in more tolerable and puts in a lot of effort to adapt to whatever team dynamic he’s faced with. i feel like he could benefit from being more assertive as a person and player at times though.

Takes the initiative far more than most players which already puts him near the top in my books. This is not to mention his mechanical skill and ability to corral players into a state of sentience.

Has large reserves of experience to draw from and has a rock solid mentality. Pick him up and force him to play cooperative games with you.

i want to main now.

help they’re making me play tf2 again

You still have to maintain a degree of focus on detonator if you try to spam and that’s easily punishable, no fire and forget spamming. If you’re telling me the pyro should have a zero focus and stunlocking way to spam people, I don’t know what to tell you.

It’s not all about just spamming into a sniper either. If you view the pure spam potential, you see this: Detonator is a bit less consistent, but has more reach and control. You shoot around cover and det it midair to bypass things. It rewards you playing smartly. The scorch shot on the other hand, promotes just shoot directly into a cluster of mass every time, and rely on the stun/bounce. One of these inspired you to think, the other does not.

If you do want to get good use out of constant detonator spamming, it means it’s a lot more time spent timing and waiting tor the moment to detonate to have effective spam. This is time that you aren’t denying or doing your other tasks.

The key idea here is the focus it takes. Scorch gives insane spam value with minimal focus being taken away. This is in no way healthy, and punishes the good pyro, while rewarding the bad. If you have issues with a pyro detonator spamming and don’t do anything off it, that’s on your team, plenty opportunity to have your spy go in or bombers/demo spam to initiate. If the pyro is scorch spamming, all that time spent timing and thinking is negated, and they have a lot more room to be looking around and playing their roles.

It’s never been about the weapon just being annoying. If you’re able to do all of this, while barely impacting your focus, it’s an unhealthy weapon. Pyro is a class predominantly determined by your own focus and mental play. Deciding what to focus on denying and when. When to run a secondary to deal with a certain type of threat and when. If running detonator to spam, where to send it and when, when to detonate it.

You take scorch, you can spam a spot and hit a player, completely ruin their momentum, and leave them in the open to be sniped and picked off. Take a combo aggressing in hazard. You try doing that with detonator or any other secondary, and that happens differently. Should the pyro be able to deny like that without any real risk to himself, compared to thinking about it and potentially trading his life to deny, compared to sticking closer to combo to try to deny jumpers there? You don’t need to make that choice with scorch sho. You analyze the uses of the scorch shot, and you find a lot of cases like this.

The less of a choice you leave pyro to make, the more reliant on the weapon they become in place of actual mechanics and brains. The more worse pyros can do, and the less better pyros have to actually set themselves apart and do things on their own merit. Why should a class based off of focus, have a weapon that negates your own need to focus?

The unfairness of longer range stunning completely imbalances the flow of fights against the pyro, by removing your best means of avoiding damage by the pyro. If you switch to airblast to gain control, you aren’t using your secondary. If you can do everything with your secondary vs something like a scout, there’s much less skill required in direct fights. If you’re using a shotgun, you’re rewarded there. If you use the detonator, you can control them into your range and hit them indirectly. If it’s a combo class, you can flare them. But none of these cases involve the flat out stalling of a person unless you airblast. There is no counterplay to having your movement removed from a distance. Either don’t touch the ground entirely and play a game of the floor is lava, or just fuck right off because you’re playing poorly ig, just be better and don’t get stunned l o l! minimal commitment stunlocks are so intuitive.

Put simply, effective usage of the scorch shot flat out ruins the reward of smartly choosing your secondary. Less thinking on a thinking based class aint good chief. I am left to ask myself, is the scorch shot just annoying? I’d think not.

Keep scorch banned, unban darwins. Reward pyros for helping their team with spam, but at a cost if they keep tunnel visioning it. It’s never at a cost with scorch in comparision. Important to maintain the tradeoff nature of pyro play imo. If the sniper is the biggest issue, let the pyro help the team out with it, and let the enemy sniper play around it if it becomes an issue. Then from there, both players keep adapting and adjusting. All of it comes at a cost, a conscious thought the players are left with. Still need to peak longer and or time better to get comparable spam value to the scorch shot is the bottom line. More risk involved.

all of dcmc

bump, kinda interested in hl again