The weapon's main trait, however, is it's eponymous detonation ability. Whilst a flare is in flight, pressing secondary fire will cause it to explode, creating a small blast radius which damages and ignites nearby enemy players. Flares will also explode upon contact with the world; this has a smaller radius than a manually detonated flare. The knock back from the explosion can also be used to flare jump in a manner similar to rocket or sticky jumping, however, Pyros wielding the Detonator will suffer an additional 25% damage taken from their own explosive weapons, reducing the usage of this technique. In addition, manual flare detonations will destroy enemy sticky bombs.
February 11, 2011 Patch (Beta)
- The Detonator, a new Flare Gun, has been added. Its stats are:
- Alt-fire detonates flare in flight
- Creates a small explosion that catches players on fire
- 20% explosion damage vulnerability
March 9, 2011 Patch (Beta)
- Detonation particle effect increased to better match the radius
March 18, 2011 Patch (Beta)
- [Undocumented] Added a new sound effect for projectile.
March 23, 2011 Patch (Beta)
- Hooked up new Detonator sounds
June 17, 2011 Patch (Beta)
- Flares now detonate on impact with the world, but with a greatly reduced radius (manually detonated radius unchanged)
- Replaced +20% increased blast damage with +20% increased self blast damage
- [Undocumented] The Detonator will now deal mini-crits, instead of crits, on burning targets
- [Undocumented] Flare jump height has been made more consistent and no longer fluctuates based on latency
June 23, 2011 Patch (Über Update)
- The Detonator was added to the main game.
- [Undocumented] Self blast damage increased to +25%
- [Undocumented] Maximum flare jump height greatly reduced
June 28, 2011 Patch
- Added/Refined recoil/draw/crit/reload forces for all of the new weapons in the Uber Update
August 23, 2011 Patch
- Refined reload force for the Detonator
November 10, 2011 Patch
- Optimized the Detonator's materials to improve performance
December 15, 2011 Patch (Australian Christmas 2011)
- [Undocumented] Jumps made with the Detonator are now higher
December 21, 2011 Patch
- Fixed a problem that would sometimes allow the Detonator projectiles to crit on burning targets
January 11, 2012 Patch
- [Undocumented] This item was added to the crafting blueprint for the Manmelter.