Infernus needs a full rework.

TL:DR: Infernus is a character with massive rewards that are not balanced at all by the risk of his gameplay, making him uniquely problematic and require significantly more work than most heroes to balance.

The character who absolutely takes the place for the least balanced throughout the game's lifespan so far is Infernus. He's sat at the top of the game for months at a time, and has never been a poor pick. Even now when other heroes are shining, he's not a particularly bad option against anyone.

Most heroes dominate the meta when their numbers are turned up too high. Bebop is a good example; he wasn't considered to be too broken for a long time (annoying, sure, but not broken) until he received a major readjustment in his damage numbers, mainly his bomb, which just took it too far. Another adjustment of his numbers will likely bring him down to an acceptable state again.

The reason why a simple change in numbers will work for a hero like Bebop is that using his abilities all come with risk.

To punch/bomb someone, you have to get close, to hook someone, you bring them within melee range, to use your ult, you're basically immobilized, opening yourself up to flanks & debuffs & dog piles. His lack of range apart from hook also means that if you miss a hook, you're super exposed to long-range heroes who can snipe you. If you miss your abilities you have some down-time where the enemies can capitalize. Enemies can also counter-build effectively, as debuff remover or counterspell can remove a significant portion of his damage and allow you to escape easily while he's on cooldown. So if they re-balance his damage numbers, the reward he gets for taking risks (which is too high right now) can be easily brought back into check, since his kit is built with inherent, exploitable flaws.

Infernus, on the other hand, is built without a single weakness in his kit. He hardly ever has to take risks to achieve what he wants in a match.

Firstly, about down-time, his main source of damage is never on cooldown. Regardless of the time you choose to engage infernus, he will be able to fight back. If you see a bebop in your jungle wasting his abilities on a camp, you can easily catch him with his pants down. If you see infernus doing the same thing, you still need to proceed with plenty of caution because he absolutely possesses the ability to do massive damage at any time.

Now you might think the same thing of gun heroes, because guns aren't really on cooldown either. But don't forget, if a gun character in the same situation wants to hurt you, they have to turn and shoot you (which will cut into their ability to run away, creating risk). If infernus wants to do half your health while escaping, he just needs to shoot you 13 times to proc afterburn. Then he's free to turn and run away WHILE doing damage. He can do the same damage as your average gun hero (hence getting the same reward), but the risk he has to take for dealing damage is so low that he doesn't even have to be there to deal half of it.

Now we can bring up counter-items. Yes, you can buy debuff remover to get rid of afterburn. No, it's not actually effective. Debuff remover is a safety net. You use it to clear debuffs, and then also to have some time to engage while the debuffs they used are on cooldown. You're not just trying to stay alive, you are also trying to capitalize on whatever it is they just wasted. But as we previously mentioned, Afterburn does not have a cooldown. You need to fully disengage infernus before you can even hope to use it so he doesn't just shoot you again (oftentimes forcing you to dip out of the fight) and then also hope he doesn't see you again because it costs him nothing more than 0.25 seconds and 13 bullets to apply it to you again and do half your health. Using debuff remover does not put Infernus at risk because it does not take anything away from him. It's not a counter item you buy to have an edge over the character, it's one you buy to keep him from killing you instantly. It's like buying a car in the states, it ain't a tool that helps you thrive or get ahead, it's something you need to live due to the circumstances of where you are. You're not thriving when you get one, you just need one not to be fucked.

What about counterspell though? I mean, sure, if you want. Just remember, when he ults, there's a 90% certainty he's gonna use flame dash too. And when your counterspell wears off, you're gonna be standing in 3 stacks of his flame dash and taking 300 damage per second. So i guess you could ALSO buy debuff remover for that if you wanna spend $6400 on weakly countering one hero.

Meanwhile characters like lash, wraith, calico, holliday, bebop (all with similar damage output as infernus) get absolutely WRECKED by counterspell because they don't have a safety net under their feet. They all have to position themselves in a way where they're at severe risk if they get counterspelled since whatever skill their using is their main source of damage (which they also need to get close to deal) and it'll be going on cooldown now. Infernus can just choose not to cancel his duration-extended flame dash and leave.

I'd also be remiss not to mention the fact that he's a master of all trades. He is one of the most effective farmers, roamers, lane pushers, 1v1ers, group fighters, 6v6ers, anything really.

Another way to impose risk on heroes is to put them in macro situations that they're not great in. McGinnis is great at pushing waves but is fairly immobile. If she's splitpushing in a game, you can take her out of her comfort zone by sending deathballs after her and then initiating a counterpush once she's dead. It pushes her lane up making her splitpushing job harder, and also punishes her poor mobility when she's overextending. Assuming you can do this while keeping other waves up, you're golden. Playing like this makes it risky for the McGinnis to play the way she wants, forcing her to re-evaluate.

You CANNOT force infernus out of his comfort zone because his kit is comfortable with everything. If you're teamfighting, he can pick up a splitpush super easy. If you're pushing, he can kill your waves instantly. He also has the mobility to move into these new roles quickly. There's no way to force him into a disadvantage because he isn't bad at anything.

He's also not at a geographic disadvantage anywhere. Some heroes fall flat on their faces when they have to fight in certain locations. Lash in the subway, Mo 'n Krill on rooftops, etc. Infernus, due to afterburn, is good everywhere. Even if he's not able to use flame dash due to location, his afterburn allows him to hang back and snipe. Afterburn does the damage damage regardless of how far you procced it from, so his damage is great even from a distance.

Overall, Infernus is just fundamentally broken due to a complete imbalance of risk and reward, and in my opinion, he will never balanced without a full rework. Afterburn is a completely alien ability in deadlock that does not seem to follow the rules of it's balance, and needs to be majorly retouched, along with the rest of his kit.