Headshot Yoshi

I don't know which one is faster, what I do know is that I get randomly hit by them from time to time, and fire from the flare makes aiming the sniper much much more difficult for a good 10 seconds, rockets do not.

Fish #641

Negative. Crit Flares do 60 damage base (tested against a pyro), and regulars ones do around 20.

ROCKS

I get the feeling they are a little bit faster than rockets. Still think that if they dropped off 20% more their very long range efficiency would drop some as the pyro would have to adjust upwards and calculate distance, rewarding very good pyros who can do these adjustments before the sniper can take him out. No where near the drop off of the needle gun though.

RandomGuy

Flares are way faster than rockets.

Fish #641

I think they're slightly faster. We should do a test (as soon as I typed that, I literally checked youtube; didn't find anything). Not by that much though; I had no problems playing tennis with them.

MagnaCentipede

Base damage on rocket is 90. How the damage is figured exactly I can't say, since once I survived a splash and a direct hit, but most of the time I'm instagibbed by them.

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Tarenth

Flares are slightly faster than rockets. I'd say they're about as fast as a fully charged sticky bomb shot. They also have a bit of a drop off and tend to randomly swirve to the side from what I saw. It's kinda like firing the syringe gun long range since you have to not only compensate for the side to side deviation but the drop as well. Of course, its a lot easier to readjust the flare since its pretty huge and easy to see the trail.

Oh yeah, you can air shield flares back at the opposing team for some good laughs.

That said with the reload time being on par with reloading a single demo grenade its very easy to saturate an area with flares against someone who doesn't move very much or have the wit to run away. And of course if your saturating an area you're probably also readjusting your aim on the fly to hit what you aim for.

Oh, and Yoshi? My arguement are all tailored towards your comments in regards to the video you posted. Since I don't have many oppertunities to watch you play as a sniper I took what I saw in the video and your comments on your playstyle to form my own rebuttals. Though I must admit its pretty easy to get into the 'arm chair commander' perspective with 20/20 vision and say "This is what they should've done".

From my perspective if I'm playing a pyro and I see that little glowing dot of death somewhere I'm going to do one of two things.

1) Hide and let some other hapless wit charge out there and take the bullet. (after giving proper warning of course)
2) Try to obstruct the field of vision with an around-the-corner flame burst to provide a bit of cover and then make a break for the nearest cover possible while praying the sniper is a bad shot.

Though honestly most kills snipers get against me are out of left field when I don't even know where they're standing and hiding until I get the nice screenshot of them reloading their rifle. And I believe that's exactly how it should be.

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ROCKS

The side to side movement compensates itself around the aimed position. If I remember correctly there is really no random "vear." Its more a visual effect. Ill check again next time I play though. As for the stickie speed, I think stickies are slower and have serious drop off. Thats why you dont hear yoshi complaining about the flying stickies of death. I think the flare gun is fine, just make it drop off a bit.

By the way, my comments on pyro flame drop off where gladly taken into account in the last patch. Lets see if this one makes it there too.

Headshot Yoshi

Its not my video, I don't agree with all of the points he makes but some of them I do.

Stickies don't have a dropoff, however a demoman has to be much closer to me to use it effectively, and even if he does get closer I know its time to move away when im about to be bombarded by explosives. If I get killed, the demoman deserves it.

The other point is, stickies don't set me on fire. They will at most, take off a chunk of my health but my ability to retaliate remains intact. Flaregun takes away my ability to use the sniper rifle effectively, since its only really for headshotting. Machete and SMG are bad weapons. So I can run around for a healthpack, but in a lot of situations by the time I do that and get back, I probably could of just died and respawned already.

The speed also isn't the issue. I CAN dodge them, theres no doubt about that, but it costs a pyro nothing to run towards me spamming it, if they suck at aiming it they'll get lucky, if they're good they'll hit me a lot.

You might as well remove the sniper class from the game because that's absolutely useless in a team based game.

ROCKS

Maybe I didnt make myself clear on what I mean by Drop Off. I know I used them in two different sentences to mean very different things. On the pyro flame I meant that the closer to the tip you get the less damage it deals. With the stickies gravity affects the object as it travels forward causing it to drop towards the ground. Last I checked stickies DO have drop off, making them very dificult long range weapons to aim and use.

Headshot Yoshi

Oh, then yes you are correct. Call it something else like gravity or something.

TheSkudDestroyer

You're still bawwwwing about the flare gun?

BEFORE: Snipers could easily take out pyros - they had normal health and limited range capabilities.
NOW: Pyros can engage a sniper at range and survive. Or they can use backburner to get a health boost and survive 1 headshot.

Is the kevlar helmet in CSS unbalancing because it can help you survive 1 headshot? No. Is the kevlar in CSS unbalancing? No.

And when you die.... You respawn in 10-20 seconds and can go back to playing.

How is any of this unbalancing the game again? I'm really having trouble understanding how the pyro update has unbalanced anything. The flare gun was put in for the very reason that pyros needed a good way to engage at range!

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Headshot Yoshi

Oh, does that mean when sniper unlocks come out I'll be able to engage a pyro at point blank and survive? Must be.

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TheSkudDestroyer

No, because that is not the intended role.

Pyro still fits it's intended role by valve.

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Headshot Yoshi

But yet pyros can disable snipers from long range. What is the pyros role anyway? Be able to kill everything with minimal effort?

I know I'm being a jerk but it bugs me.

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