The Fire Axe.

 What happened? It's ironic that a close range combat class rarely uses it's melee. Well the flamer is usually a more popular choice, I chose to cast those assumptions out for a more, personal feel.

 The axtinguisher now completely demolishes the fireaxe. Who wouldn't trade a decent weapon for a practically instant-kill melee. I was a believer of this logic. But now I wish to invest my time in the fire axe. Much Cypher did with his wrench. But there is a difference. With the unlockables, the fireaxe can become even deadlier, or more useless.

 Comparing the fireaxe to the flame thrower is not at all simple. The fireaxes range is about 3ft infront of the pyro. But this range increases if the opponent is moving backwards and the pyro is moving forwards. Axe does about 40-90 and hits about 1.3 times per second. The flamer is a bit more eratic so to average it out at the same range it does about 130dps. The fireaxe does about 84.5dps.

 Though the axe has a *hidden* crit. Yes it is not an actual crit but because there is a large range of damage you run the chance of doing almost 90dmg a hit! Considering one attack is a 'crit' and one attack isn't thats 155dmg! All in 1.3seconds. Ofcourse that only ties with the flamethrower.

 But I have to mention this; the flamethrower is very erratic and it's damage spikes and drops constantly in battle. So it is unreliable.

 Though the fireaxe does do one thing the flamer can NEVER do. Mindgames. There is are 2 reactions when it comes to the fireaxe. Panic and underestimation. When someone panics they usually try to hit you with their best weapon. And they usually panic because you snuck up on them and chopped half their hp down. Underestimation is when they assume that you are easy food and so challenge you to a melee fight. This can be turned against them by switching tactics immediately.

 Another mindgame employed by the fireaxe is the stealthiness of it. Getting hit by the fireaxe doesn't immediately make the person say, "PYRO TURN AROUND OR DIE!" No they are a bit calmer. And it often only takes 2-4 hits to down an enemy, more than enough time.

 I made this post as a sort of announcement that I am no longer using the traditional weapons. My current loadout is Flamer, Flaregun, and Fireaxe. I am not saying go exclusively fireaxe, I am merely saying it's a tactic that is underused and underappreciated. And when used with other tactics, can be the most deadliest. I just wanted to share my thoughts and hear yours.

PS: Ironic isn't.

Ninjadude-C4Cypher-(Mibbok)
Pyro-Engineer-Pyro

I am in no way comparing myself to the greats. I just want you to see what I am trying to accomplish.

I don't think you understand the word "Ironic".

=o

The problem I have is that the Flamethrower does more damage, plus burn damage, plus longer range, plus faster firing rate. You covered the doesn't immidietely know it's a Pyro thing, but with the Flamer, you could often just kill them in that time.

Good article, though. Really covers anything you can say about the Fireaxe

k

The flamer does more damage than the axe if you aren't bad, period. If you would just light them on fire you would get much more damage out of the axtinguisher. As for hidden crits, relying on the RNG is bad. You could have just as easily hit two 40s, and then you have done pathetic damage compared to your 155 damage example.

"When someone panics they usually try to hit you with their best weapon." I usually want to avoid people hitting me with their best weapon. I don't see how this is a positive.

The 'stealth' is meaningless. If anyone hits me with anything and I didn't see where it came from, I think "turn around or die". I'm not going to ignore you simply because you are using melee.

I'd say its underused and underappriciated for a good reason.

Quote:

That is an awsome picture, and is true (for both the game, and rl)

Just use the flamer. Its safer and more efficient.

The reason that no-one uses the fire axe is because they already have a better "melee" weapon.  The Flamer.  The only time someone pulls out their melee weapon is A) they're having fun, B) they want to humiliate someone, or C) they're fuckin' desperate.  Certain classes with updates have bonuses if they use their melee weapon properly (backstabs, ubercharge, 5 seconds of crits, etc) but there had better be a very good reason for any of them to actually pull out the melee and swing with it.  In the case of the Pyro, this is instantaneous massive damage that makes the difference between a dead Pyro and a dead Soldier.

Fire Axe sucks.
Sorry :[

But feel free to have fun with it.  When you kill people they'll be really confused. Lol.