What mostly annoys me about it is their resistance to damage when activating the crit effect.

Oh, and thats it a totally no brain weapon. Its basically another case of a weapon that isn't really overpowered, it just doesn't reward skillful play and lets unskilled players be more succesful than they really should. I'm not sure if this is deliberate or just poor design...but there it is. Perhaps the nerfs will encourage newer players to use the airblast.

The visual and audio cues are pretty bad, but I'd honestly rather it remain like this than get some flashy ott effects.

Enforcer change seems ok. Doesn't penalise people for not using the DR. It'll still be a bit better than the vanilla revolver in my estimation. More front loaded damage, 2 shotting 125 classes at close range and the ability to do more damage before reloading still edges it over the Revolver imo, but its close.

With the phlog, if you really want to be good with it, you have to get excellent at dodging projectiles instead, there's also the reward for staying alive long enough to use the charge, but your defensive options are so weak without the blast that that just ends up frustrating. That in itself is quite a skill, but the thing is, there's little reward for doing so. Everyone with a brain can see your crit charge and just legs it.

I always considered the phlog as "Backburner 2.0"

At least they gave the Backburner the combustion blast

Combustionless pyro play? Sounds like a much lower skill ceiling for me.

Compression?