Pyro critic plays pyro

Headshot Yoshi · 10-27-2008, 02:40 PM

This is a wall of text, I've tried to be detailed about this. If you're not interesting in reading all this just read the summary below. Post would of probably been shorter if I had just posted that however some people out there enjoy detail and I'm right now bored and waiting for a class to start.

SUMMARY:
- Pyro is easy, best pub load out for me was flamethrower/flaregun/axtinguisher.
- Why don't pyros bother to master airblast? It's brilliant.
- Kills light classes way too easily.
- W+Mouse1 pyros are easy to kill while playing pyro.
- Incentive to play W+Mouse1 is high.
- Pyro has a okay skill ceiling however it is still too easy to be good with the class.
- More pyros doesn't mean worse team all the time, although it should.
- Axtinguisher kills heavy/medic combos really easily. Perhaps too easily.
- Ambushing is too forgiving. If something goes wrong with the ambush pyros should have to run away.
- Flaregun is actually fun and useful in the right hands, however most pyros don't bother mastering this either.

I've gotten the hang of every class and can preform above average in most pub games, some better than others, but pyro is one I've never really enjoyed playing, so I've played the least with. I've been a critic of the pyro changes here and there for a while, most of the pyro critics either only play the class or don't play the class at all, so I figured I was being a bit hypocritical by complaining about a class I never play.

First off, I'll mention that I thought pyro needed a buff prepatch. He was a bit weak yes, but the unlocks, airblast, perhaps a slight range upgrade was all I thought he needed. Valve took it a slight bit overboard by upping the damage, perhaps too much range, and the +50 hp which has been removed. This post is a result of playing 6 hours in total of public games within the past couple of days. I've only tried scrimming as pyro once, it's obvious there he has a very "niche" role if used against decent players, therefore I figure the best way to use him is in 9v9 vanilla servers.

I've tried out different load outs. Here's what I've basically found.

Flamethrower/Backburner: I've tried them both, but there's almost no situations where I've found that I'm attacking from behind that I would actually think "man I wish I had the backburner" (maybe one time when a heavy turned around while I was flamethrowering him). The airblast however is a brilliant mechanic and I have no idea why most people don't bother to master it. I do however think that the airblast was essentially a nerf for the solider because even though I have barely played the class I knew I was forcing soldiers who were outright had way more experience with their class to use shotgun. I did get killed a few times from soldiers mostly when I was being stupid, however with a bit more experience I know that I could literally disarm most pub soldiers. It's any wonder to me why most pyros don't try to master this.

Shotgun/Flaregun: Once again, tried both, I actually leaned more towards the flaregun. For a few reasons. First there was only one situation where I actually needed the shotgun, when I had low health in an arena match against another pyro. The extended range of the flamethrower literally makes the shotgun not necessary in many situations. While you can switch your play style to set people on fire and run away while pelting them with the shotgun, that simply isn't a requirement anymore. The flaregun however, I could set people on fire from long range, and since I had played so much sniper I leaned towards this because I could actually aim it and kill people with it (hitting a spy or something 3 or so times with the flaregun to kill him is actually pretty fun), it'd get me so many easy assists, and it'd piss people off since they'd have to immediately run back for healing and halt their advance. It's a better weapon then some people give it credit for. I think the problem is that it doesn't kill everyone and doesn't give instant gratification, which is what people have a problem with. However I've played a lot of sniper with uncharged shots so I know that one well placed hit doesn't instantly mean that someone should die, it just means he may need several more. Therefore with a bit of patience the flaregun is actually a pretty decent weapon for a class that isn't supposed to have any long range capabilities.

Fireaxe/Axtinguisher: Fireaxe is a just for messing around weapon, or if you haven't got all the unlocks. If you're actually playing seriously then there's no reason not to equip the Axtinguisher. I was told before that flame/sting or whatever was the best way to take down a heavy, I disagreed back then but now I stand corrected. I actually think the Axtinguisher is a bit too powerful. A few games I ended up harassing a heavy/medic combo so much that they would literally be paranoid about me. 2-3 melee hits is all it takes to take down a fully buffed heavy, and if i didn't take him down I'd at least injure him enough so that someone else could take him down. Spies and snipers should be the ones taking out heavy/medic combos, not pyros.

Ambushing: Most of the time I tried to play like real pyros should, by ambushing. I found however that if my ambush ever went wrong, like someone saw me, I would never have to retreat unless the odds were very highly against me. Apposed to the spy class where if one or two players saw you that usually means you cloak and run, with pyro it just means "kill them first". I felt that the game rewarded me for ambushing incorrectly, and I didn't have much of an incentive to improve my ambushing technique or to ever make any tactical choices. However there were a few ambushes that went wrong simply because somebody got a lucky crit the second I was near them. I'm not sure if the reasoning behind valve making ambushing easier was a direct result of the fact that pyros get killed by crits easier. Maybe. Generally I never used the backburner because simply the air blast was more valuable to have, always.

Airblasting: I did a fair bit of airblasting. I can't seem to time it and aim it at the same time, so I learned to aim where I wanted the rocket to go and then focus on timing it. This resulted in many airblast kills, or at least weakening the soldiers so they had to run away.

vs light classes: I felt that all the light classes - sniper, scout, spy, medic, engineer - all did not stand a chance against me, and I felt sorry for them. When I play any other combat class, it's evident that the light classes do have a fighting chance, maybe I'll miss a bit or something and that'll give them the upper hand. It's happened. However as pyro, the player had to put me at a severe disadvantage or get really lucky to take me out. Scouts had to try REALLY hard to kill me, I know they're fragile but they shouldn't be THAT fragile. Even though the scout is faster than me, he would often misjudge the flamethrower range and I'd take him out anyway. That's not really fair for scouts, who now have to have already practically mastered the class to stand any chance in pub games now. Any new players are driven away from scout simply because he's too difficult to get any kills with for most people.

Other pyros: I've actually found that in 95% of situations I'll be able to kill other pyros. Most of them w+m1, I have not actually changed my opinion of that. But all you simply have to do to kill them as pyro is s/a/d+m1, with a bit of jumping. I've killed pyros and not taken any damage at all.

W+Mouse1: A lot of people say all pyros do is W+M1. There is more to the class than that but I have to say that the simplest way to take someone out that you know doesn't stand a chance is, yes, W+Mouse1. The urge to do it is simply too great because you know that nothing can go wrong and you know, if there's many ways to deal with a situation, naturally people will deal with it in the easiest way possible. W+Mouse1 doesn't work in EVERY situation, it does work however disturbingly a lot more than it should.

Pyros + Medics: Besides buffing, I've come to realize why medics don't stick with pyros. I mean, they don't live for long so I figured they should need all the help they could get. They simply are suicidal. Pyros will run into anything, sentries, heavy/medic combos, etc. I tried to play more conservatively with the medic so he could charge ubers, however I realized that I wouldn't kill anything this way. Simply put, pyros make horrible patients, because they simply do not put any effort into keeping their medic benefactor alive, because there simply is no incentive to.

Moar pyros: When there are 4 pyros on a team instead of 1 or 2, I feel that the team doesn't suffer enough. I mean if your team has 4 snipers then you're more likely to lose, but not when it comes to pyros.

Skill ceiling: While I only have a grand total of like 12.5 with pyro, I feel that there is not much more to master with the pyro. Out of all the classes, it is the easiest. Simply because with all the other classes so much can go wrong, but with the pyro he can come out of it most of the time a winner anyway. Even in death he can win with the after burn damage. The class is not an evolving class, because even the most silliest and stupidest of strategies will work with a high success rate. I can see why he's played so much in pubs, and why people defend him and hate him. There are a few things that I could spend some more time mastering, such as borrowing rockets to rocket jump or getting better at air blast, but these two things don't make or break the class. I can easily maintain a good positive K/D ratio unless my team is getting totally rolled and I can top the scoreboard with minimal effort. I can't stay I'm GUARANTEED to top the scoreboard, however I've topped it many times when I felt that my contribution and experience to the team was significantly less than other people.

My opinion: It has changed slightly and I've grown to view him in a slightly more positive manner however my overall opinion still remains that he should still be nerfed a bit to make him more difficult. This would at least make it so that less people play him, make it so that ambushes can go wrong more often, and make it so that the only people who make MVP at the end are the people who have more experience and cunning.

Suggested nerfs:
- Decrease flamethrower/backburner range slightly (gives light classes a better chance to run away, and makes shotgun more useful).
- Decrease flamethrower damage, perhaps reduce backburner drop off (makes backburner more valuable when actually ambushing multiple opponents).
- Increase time between Axtinguisher swings (makes it so I can't kill heavy/medic combos as easily, it shouldn't make a huge difference since one swing is usually all it takes to take down most enemies).

**Tarenth** · 11-04-2008, 05:14 AM

Something I should point out with your point about pyro stacking not hurting a team. By its very nature the pyro class does what you always want to do in TF2. Move forward. Because they have a weapon that rewards forward movement while charging into the enemy (even an ambush is charging into an enemy from the flank or rear) and never requires a reload they have an exceptional amount of forward momentum. Heavies are the only other class with that attribute, but they move so slowly that they can't really be seen as a charging force.

When you charge at the enemy position one of four things takes place. If you're attacking then you push the enemy back and push your team forward when you succeed or you die and nothing significant happens when you fail. If you're defending then you push the enemy back and give your team more breathing room when you succeed or die and nothing significant happens when you fail. This is not the case like if you were a demoman your stickies would vanish or if you were an engineer your constructables would be left unguarded/repaired.

If any of the other classes were to try such a charge forward and attack strategy there is one serious problem they would encounter. Ammo. Once your weapon runs out of things that go boom you have to stop and reload. Stopping means no more forward movement, no more forward movement means you've stalled, and stalling means you give the enemy the oppertunity to push back.

Lastly 4 snipers on a team is fail simply because of their nature. Snipers sit back and support the team, they don't push the line forward or hold the line back. If they succeed the line stays where it is and if they fail the line advances for the enemy. The same could be said of 4 medics, 4 engineers, or 4 spies. I added engineers to that list because of their personal firepower, but it should be noted that as a 'defensive' class instead of support there is some merit to having combat engineers push the front, just not in such large numbers. If 4 engineers make it to the line and have enough breathing room to build up their assets that line is no longer a figurative tactical reference but something defined by a 10 foot wall of solid bullets and rockets the enemy has to surpass.