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 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.
Let’s think about this. Pyro is already the weakest class in the game, made significantly more so by the fact the dm potential of the class was nerfed significantly by the pyro update/degreaser nerf a few years back. I want to imagine that people have gone so long without feeling the impact of pyro’s afterburn that the fact that they’re now on fire a bit more often is that agonizingly annoying to them that they’re screeching more now than they ever did about being stun-locked in old airblast.
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. It doesn’t have to be a full time weapon, and this was the first season I branched out from my typical lineup to even experiment with its use on most maps. 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. People are complaining about what it detracts from the game, which REALLY isn’t much especially if your considering its pyro and it doesn’t begin to scratch the other weapons that are arguably way more (actually) OP/banned… but not many stop to consider what it brings to a team on an otherwise shit class. 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. 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. Imagine wanting to ban one of a few counters to sniper (lol) while vouching how much shit like the wrangler adds to the game. The weapon is a deterrent, and with the opposing pyro/healthpacks around it usually doesn’t come into significant play that often outside of hassling at range. I main shotgun so honestly I’ll probably just go back to that more often regardless of a ban, I just think the fact that its even up for discussion is stupid as hell because there are genuinely few reasons for a ban besides people bitching about minor inconvenience from a class that should otherwise be useless