Well after doing a different weapon analysis yesterday on the manmelter in a different thread, I thought about this pyro melee quite a bit afterwards. The main reason being, it's what I call a "flawed upgrade." Let's start with the stats. It's valve official stats, along with most other melees, have it doing 65 dmg on a base hit, 88 on a mini crit, and 195 on a regular crit. It has a 0.8 swing speed, and It's upside states that All players connected via medigun beams are hit. It has no downsides, so statistically, it is a direct upgrade to the fire axe. Problem is, this weapon sees a 70% ownage and a 5.5% usage rate. So, I want to know why a direct upgrade has no usage, even less than the regular axe. And to that I propose a theory I call "The New and the Old" The main reason why the fire axe has usage is because it is the stock weapon that all newer players use, since they don't have an alternate melee to use. That's the new part. The old part is for older players, who have the weapon and don't necessarily dislike it, but prefer other melees. For example, the powerjack gives great utility when going to the front lines with its speed boost and the homewrecker is a pybro's best friend. In summary, the real reason for this weapon's usage rate is due to the fact that either old players choose other melees and that new players just use stock because they don't have anything else. Of course, the analysis is opinionated and I am welcome to disagreements. But, that's just my input.
