Still mini-crit with the Detonator if the hit is not direct

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If I fire my Detonator at a flaming opponent, I automatically get a free mini-crit (45 damage), but, if I fire my Detonator and then right-click to manually detonate it, am I still guaranteed the mini-crit, or do I do normal damage?

The reason I am confused is that, according to the TF2 wiki, mini-crits are not affected by damage falloff (meaning that I should, in theory, always deal mini-crits with my Detonator to burning foes, regardless of whether the hit was direct or indirect), but, sometimes I've noticed that indirectly hitting burning foes only seems to deal 10 damage.

Could I get a clear answer to this?

Best Answer

Yes. As of the July 2nd 2015 update, both a direct hit with the Detonator's flare and the explosion will result in a mini-crit on burning opponents.

I've kept the old outdated answer to this question in the quote block below, as it still explains the initial confusion.

No. You have to get a direct hit with the flare for it to be a mini-crit, the explosion does not count.

You are understandably confused over the term "damage falloff" and how it applies to explosions and mini-crits. I'll try to sort this out with a bunch of bullet points.

  • "Damage falloff" refers to how most weapons deal less damage at long range (based on distance between attacker and target). A better term would be "distance falloff", but whatever.
  • In addition to damage falloff, explosions have splash reduction, with reduces their damage the farther out the target is from the explosion's center. So long-range explosions effectively deal less damage twice.
  • Crits and mini-crits are immune to damage falloff, but not splash reduction.

Those are the general basics. These are the specific ones:

  • The Detonator does not have damage falloff. It does the same damage regardless of range.
  • The Detonator explosion does not become a mini-crit when it hits a burning opponent. Only the flare itself does.
  • Even if the explosion could mini-crit, the weapon is already immune to damage falloff, and it would still suffer from splash reduction. So the damage increase would be very minor.
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