I am so glad they nerfed the axtinguisher. Now you can actually survive longer than .4 seconds in a hallway with a spammy crit-pyro.
It seems bizarre how Valve are actively nerfing strategies that involve actually ambushing enemies. The Axtinguisher perfectly reflected how Pyros were supposed to be played; you can only ignite and hit someone if you catch them off-guard. If you seriously can't kill a Pyro in a hallway then that's your problem.
The new mechanic of hitting enemies from behind is ridiculous. You have to ignite them first! Who the hell is not going to turn and shoot at the person setting them on fire? Not to mention the fact that minicrits do jack shit. An Axtinguisher hit against a burning player does only 8 damage more than a Backscratcher hit against a non-burning player.
Each Axtinguisher hit vs a burning player now deals 44 damage on average. That means it takes 6 hits to kill a full-health Heavy, ignoring the flame damage which is basically negligible if you only do a puff. The Axtinguisher can swing every 0.8s so it will take 4.8 seconds to kill a Heavy, provided you don't miss. Heavies do not take 4.8 seconds to notice a Pyro has ignited them.
Now all of the Pyro players will migrate to the Powerjack- you watch. People will become head-on rushers and then everyone will complain that nobody is playing Pyro properly. The Powerjack will get nerfed and Pyro will be totally useless again.
