The Third Degree...

Is the third degree good?

  • Yes

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • No

    Votes: 7 63.6%
  • It's overshadowed

    Votes: 4 36.4%

  • Total voters
    11

Captain Weeb

Oh Captain My Captain
★ Donor ★
Honorary Member ★
Dec 31, 2017
361
104
138
New York, United States of America
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.
 

Captain Maxxy

Perfect Member
★ Donor ★
May 10, 2018
306
68
123
While it might be a direct upgrade to the stock weapon, the third degree's upsides are actually not good enough which would result in players using other melees obviously.
This might also lead players to discard this weapon completely even just using regular fire axe. The upside to the third degree is rather useless in practice.
Lets give a scenario, You are a pyro with the third degree and in the base there is a heavy + medic, what do you do?

I don't think whipping out your melee starting to hit the heavy to kill the medic is the first thing that comes to mind, because that seems like a bad choice.
You'd rather use a proper weapon if you're faced with someone who has a medic.
 

ToadBrawler

Active Member
Dec 6, 2017
33
10
13
Canada
The Third Degree, despite having no downsides, has only one upside and it's incredibly situational to the point where it's basically just a reskinned Fire Axe. There's many better choices for a Pyro melee, which is why not many people use The Third Degree.
 

RulerOfTheFae

Forum Activist
Aug 26, 2017
135
20
18
Canada, Ontario
The upgrade is so situational, that the rare time I would use it, I don't think to start meleeing the pocketed heavy. Also, the fire axe has nothing special about it, so I'd rather be able to use powerjack for utility, or professional killstreak stock reskin. I don't use the third degree not because I think stock is better, but because I think of it as if it were another stock reskin due to how useless it's upgrade is, and I'd rather just use a ham shank.