>>720195204
They raised the damage, then lowered it, then added ramp up. Currently it does more damage than the vanilla TF2 flamethrower, Go into itemtest and test it for yourself.
There is no reason to carry a shotgun on Pyro in TF2C because the flamethrower does the same job easier which is apparently intentional because they want to AOE flame particle weapon that requires minimal aim to be on par in damage with other weapons. Which is a stupid decision because the counter to Pyro is doing damage to him with your hitscan shotgun faster than he can do damage to you.