With the Pyromaniac perk, you do +50% damage with fire-based weapons, like flamers and Shishkebabs. This only increases the base damage done by these weapons, not the lingering "burn" effect.
The Burnmaster, the Nuka-grenade, and the Zhu-Rong v418 Chinese pistol are unaffected by the perk. The guide lists these as being affected by this perk, but the weapons aren't on the form list - this is most likely an oversight by the developers. [verified]
Any flamers that are brought back by the Gary-23 glitch from Operation: Anchorage are also unaffected. The reason for this was probably because weapons from the expansion were not meant to be brought back, thus they are not affected by this perk. [verified]
Fallout: New Vegas
“With the Pyromaniac perk, you do +50% damage with fire-based weapons, like the Flamer and Shishkebab.”— In-game description
With the Pyromaniac perk, you do +50% damage with fire-based weapons, like the flamer and Shishkebab.
While fire-based, ammunition is not affected by the Pyromaniac perk.[verified]
Even though weapons like the Shishekebab are affected by the Pyromaniac perk, the additional burning damage is not boosted.[verified]
While this perk requires an Explosives skill of 60 to be unlocked, the only explosive items affected by the perk are the incendiary grenade and the fire bomb. This was confirmed by Joshua Sawyer to be unintentional; the perk was meant to be dependent on the Energy Weapons skill, which governs most ranged fire-based weaponry.[1]
This perk does not affect the cosmic knife super-heated, despite it being capable of setting enemies on fire.[verified]
Each level of this skill increases the player characters Critical Chance for +5% (up to a maximum +25) when using fire-based weapons. To take it, the player must be Level 5.
↑Question: "Hey Josh can you help settle a little debate.In FNV was the Pyromaniac perk meant to be governed by the Explosives skill and not EW or is this a small oversight."Joshua Sawyer: "It was meant to be governed by EW because that's where the Flamer was, skill-wise. Also, early in development we didn't have a way to display OR conditionals for perks in-engine. Pyromaniac could have benefited from an Explosives OR EW requirement." Joshua Sawyer on Formspring (Archive)
