A while back a youtuber named Po10tial made a fairly well thought about how a simple balance change Valve could make is having the grordbort weapons deal fire damage instead of bullet.

Basically his main argument was that many of the worst weapons in the game rely on fire damage a damage type that only pyro really uses while most of the grordbort lack any real use case so having them do fire instead of bullet damage would be a basic solution to both problems and add some more strategy to the damage types

Now obviously the afterburn for most of these weapons should be kept pretty limited (maybe like 2 seconds of afterburn) and weapons like the pomson and bison would still need buffs to their projectile speed to be even remotely viable but I don't see any inherent issues with make the laser weapons do fire damage.

Link to the video

The problems they have are usually garbage projectiles.

The pomson has slow garbage projectiles, the bison has slow garbage projectiles, the manmelter is a less consistent/lower agency flare gun and the bison has slow garbage projectiles. Changing the damage type doesn't really interface with the core issues these weapons have.

bro only read the title before commenting

I think it would be cool but it wouldn't come into play very often (as long as regular cowmangler shots don't do afterburn)

I guess it would make vaccinator medics have to think slightly harder and demoman shields are slightly buffed?

This "balance change" only helps against 1 weapon isn't it?

I did, I think fire damage doesn't at all do anything to solve any of their issues and adds no value as a balance change.

bison so ass you brought it up twice

I would actually kill myself if there was any more way for afterburn in the game. i earnestly believe afterburn is a worse mechanic than random crits.

"8 seconds of bleed" ass buff

Pomson could actually be good if they gave it more projectile speed and piercing through teammates and enemies

Most gordbort weapons are good though, it's just the Bison and the Pomson that are truly terrible and borderline unusable. Giving them faster projectiles that deal a second of afterburn would be something I guess but I don't see it being great.

The Cow Mangler shouldn't deal afterburn on it's primary and I don't know how you'd give the Eureka Effect that in a way that fits.

trvke

Any discussion about balance is pointless atp