MagnaCentipede

...but standing directly in front of guys is behind-enough for precious pyro poofles.




GG.

__________________

Fish #641

It seems that the spread is going behind them and killing them. Like edging an SG.

RedForman

That can't be working as designed...

__________________
"I've been working since I was sixteen. I fought two in wars. Hell, I've killed people. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy it..."
-- Red Forman

|TG-Irr|RedForman

Atra

Magna, please post this on the steam TF2 forums. This makes me angry.

MagnaCentipede

I guess I should've cut the video before I let the demo be overwritten because it didn't do this on a second trial. I noticed that the bots were facing differently; note in these screenshots they face East when they should face North. On the second trial they faced North, so perhaps there was a greater bug that was causing the directions to be calculated improperly.

Loneon, I guess hooked on smartass is super-effective. Maybe when I tried this it wasn't spontaneously critting from the front, but critting from the front while I mow down 185 bots in succession.

The theory I held from the intial experiment was that it counted a crit whenever I was behind anyone, and with bots roughly behind me as they spawn in that it kept the crits running. However, I could be against the East wall and still facecrit them. Attacks from North and South never wanted to crit, except at the angle in the first shot.

__________________

Ferris Bueller

Regardless of experimentation, after a good two hour jaunt on the -F- server, I can tell you that you have to be RIGHT behind the guy to get the crit off with the backburner. However, the advantage in health that you get, plus the ability to get much bigger crit runs on a constant basis makes it the new weapon of choice.
The flaregun sucks by the way, stick to the shotgun.

__________________
|TG-6th|Ferris Bueller

Fish #641

Yea, you basically have to line up perfectly with them. 2 weapon set-ups that complement well are FT/FG/AT and BB/SG/FA. When you're using the Axetinguisher, you'll want the Flare gun to keep them aflame. But when you have the Backburner, you don't have a reason to switch to the Axetinguisher expect in emergencies like a lack of ammo, so Fireaxe is a better choice. Plus the poof improves your survivability for going axe-kill-hunting.

Tarenth

I'm curious, is the Backburner worth the loss of the air shield from the normal flamethrower?

+50 health is a nice boost and will bring the pyro up to 225 which is slightly more than a soldier's 200. However there's something just beautiful about air bursting a demo man's stickies and grenades back at them. The stickies don't detonate until they loose the blur affect from being blown and the grenades turn coat immediately once hit and detonate on touch against anyone not wearing the same color as you. Best part about blowing grenades on the ground is since they change color they also do no team or self damage.

The soldier always gets a WTF expression when you blow their rockets back at them and I was also playing around with readjusting rockets around corners or into dodging targets. Takes a bit of practice, and a lot of luck, to get the air shield just right in close quarters, but doing so will almost certainly kill/seriously injure the soldier in question.

The last two projectiles that can be bounced would be sentry rockets and pyro flaregun grenades (I missed those BTW since pyros had them in classic Team Fortress). The flaregun grenades will change color just like demo grenades, but since they don't have splash damage its harder to use them. Handy to defend snipers or long range attackers from a badgering pyro though. Sentry rocket bounce is just a thing of beauty. Since the sentry fires 4 rockets that do a 'tad' more damage than a soldier's one the splash damage is rather nasty. With a bit of juggling around corners you can get the sentry to kill itself while only eating a few shells in the process. Again, just like turning demo nades and soldier rockets because it registers as your team's rocket barrage it'll no longer do any splash damage to your team which is so very nice.

Personally I especially love bouncing the sentry rockets around corners because they're easy to predict.

__________________
My sanity is not in question...
It was a confirmed casualty some time ago.

ROCKS

SPOILER* GRIPE TO FOLLOW:
I understand the need for the gas shield. But why the hell does it launch a heavy 10 feet up in the air? Im sorry but we lost a Goldrush 1st point second cap cause every time I aproached the sentry with an uber 1 stinking pyro would run up and bounce me in the air. . . FAR I understand a puny scout doing this but a HEAVY should not get more than a little bump. Target the medic and he should fly a little further. So anyway next time I want to take down a sentry as a heavy ill have to first make good work of the pyro and then hope theres some uber juice left to take down the sentry. Concluding, the gas shield should be nerfed vs class weight.

Tarenth

Never used it on a person so I didn't know that bit. Aside from ubers at close range (at which point you're probably dead anyways) if you're close enough to bonuce someone you're probably close enough to give them a case of the 'burning death' as well.

Personally I wouldn't mind if instead of bouncing people it allows you to cause ignited enemies blow up while removing the burning affect. You have a person on fire and you puff them with highly compress (enough to bounce rockets) flamable gas. You'd hope they go boom and not go flying still on fire. Not sure if that'd be over powered though since each blast takes 1/8th of your ammo (25 gas).

__________________
My sanity is not in question...
It was a confirmed casualty some time ago.

Fish #641

See no Pyro, Hear no Pyro, something bad's gonna happen. If we nerf the air shield (which really anyone only gets angry about when they get bounced when ubered), then every pyro will immediately use the backburner. If we let everything play out, I have a feeling a lot of pyros will get skilled with deflecting rockets, leading to much more diverse gameplay. And the leafblower shoots you more UP than OUT. Just kill the pyro before he gets to you.

ROCKS

All Im saying is make the effect of the air shield on players dependent on their weight. Heavies get bounced around some and scouts get a good tossin', thats all. May be biased but trying to look at it objecively I dont think its unfair. I am after all a HEAVY and as such an object of equal force should result in a lesser opposite reaction due to my inertia. Stop me if I get a little to technical. . .

Tarenth

You know, with that arguement then if a heavy jumps on you from above you should be gombaed to death and when you airshield a scout they should go into orbit.

On two semi-related notes:

1) I learned how to juggle people in the air from the focusedgaming server. Its a crapload of fun to bounce someone in the air and then juggle them so others can shoot at them.

2) Yesterday I FINALLY bounced a crit rocket back (they're so shiney I kept hitting the shield early). The soldier dodged and the medic healing him ate it in the face and the splash damage also killed a scout passing the two of them. I laughed so hard I didn't noticed I only had 15 gas left and my attempts to bounce back rockets was failing until I had to dodge 4 more shots and run away to reload.

__________________
My sanity is not in question...
It was a confirmed casualty some time ago.

MagnaCentipede

Aside: Judging by the white dragon avatar, Tarenth is the mysterious |TG| Fred that friended so many people out of the blue that he was suspected to be trojan activity.

__________________

Arhurt

I still need to get that as well... I guess it's more luck than actual skill. Yours sounds amusing though


But I think that Rock's suggestion of tiyng the effect to the wieght of the class is nice, as it's something very obvious and somehow already in the game (speed and jump distances)

__________________
-- Arhurt

"Lo! There do I see my father
Lo! There do I see my mother and my sisters and my brothers
Lo! There do I see the line of my people back to the beginning
Lo! They do call to me
They bid me take my place among them
In the halls of Valhalla
Where the brave may live forever"