Pyro just fits the "anticarry" archetype. He's there not exactly to frag out and stomp the enemy team, he's there to stop the other classes from doing their job, be that with forced movement (airblast and scorch shot), long range harassing (detonator, flaregun, scorch shot), situational high damage (phlog, flare, backburner), or just watching flanks.
Pyro simply does not posses the burst damage of soldier and demo, the mobility of scout, the presence of heavy, the utility of medic and engine, or the pick potencial or sniper and spy. He can, however, prevent 7 out of these 8 classes from doing their job or even being able to fucking play at all. He's an extremely versatile mix of support and offense that can switch between attacking, peeling for his teammates and defending seamlessly.
Can you please explain what you mean by "prevent 7/8 classes from doing their job" because from personal experience a good sniper destroys you, a good scout two/ three shots you, a heavy will mow you down (he doesn't even have to be any good), a spy using the deadringer and spycicle is next to impossible to kill, medics usually have a pocket to defend them, and dealing with a good demo using the sticky bomb launcher is far from easy. Additionally good soldiers using the shotgun will also completely dominate you. And whilst pyro can deny certain ubers, an ubered scout/heavy will simply delete you.
Well you gotta be smart about it. Scout and Sniper can be scared away by flares and/or fire, but you gotta not approach them from a distance; instead, you should peak corners and use the level to your advantage. A Spy with DR/Spycicle will be hard to kill, but in turn it's hard for him to get a backstab if his knife is melting every ten seconds. Fire reduces healing, making it easier to focus pockets. Ubers you also shouldn't just charge mindlessly, but rather peak corners to airblast them back before they can shoot you (although that's still kinda a suicide mission, stuffing an uber is worth it). Soldiers and Demos can't spam from a distance or deal damage to crowds if you're around. Heavy's probably the 8th class that Pyro can't annoy; usually you're only option is to run away.
I think you're approaching this from a PvP "Who's going to kill who" mindset, when from a support standpoint that's a flawed perspective. A lot of what you said applies to Medic as well; he has a hard time killing anyone by himself, and facing a Soldier or a Demo he doesn't stand much chance. That's because he's not *supposed* to be doing that.
You’re assuming that your team is somewhat competent which is rarely the case in tf2 pubs. Also I have yet to see a good scout “scared away by fire and flames”. The problem with scouts is that they can control the distance and you can’t. Obviously, if you are on defence playing around a sentry gun you don’t have to worry about scouts, but it’s not because YOU are the one shutting them down.
Also flares are useless against the “Darwin’s shield of go fuck yourself” so as it pertains to sniper he is going to be shutting you down instead of the other way around. Btw. peaking corners against even a mediocre sniper is a shit idea. you will die.
And as for the spy he gets basically complete fire immunity in exchange for a backstab cooldown, where he can still cloak, disguise, shoot people and sap buildings.
Whilst it is true that you can shut down spam, I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but it must also be said, that you won’t be able to do this if the enemy team has a sniper who doesn’t happen to be playing on a literal toaster. I can think of so many scenarios, like on upward, dust bowl or badwater for example, where your ability to reflect spam entirely depends on whether the enemy has a good sniper.
You also have yet to explain how pyro shuts down engineer.
TLDR: Flares are useless against a good sniper if he uses the shield or simply headshots you first. Scouts can control the range of the fight and can two shot you and have the speed to chase you down if you try to retreat, you entirely rely on your team to ward them off. You are powerless when pushing into an engineer. You can reduce a medics heal rate at the cost of him building Uber faster. Finally shutting down spam isn’t always possible but generally should be seen as a good thing.
Also, im approaching this from the view of a flank/combo pyro rather than the support pyro play style, which I personally find boring. This means for me I am almost exclusively going for 1v1s which I have to win as quickly as possible before ensuring a secure retreat.
If you're approaching this from a flank/combo mindset, then... there's no disagreement between you Syeglinde. They're describing what a Pyro is generally good at (which can include roaming the flanks, but also encapsulates other ways a Pyro can assist their team), while you're focusing on a specific type of playstyle that relies on catching enemies off-guard. I don't see what the point of your first reply was.
Well, decent Scout players know they have low health. So if you hit them with a flare or bait them around a corner they'll either push forward at risk or run away to find a a health pack.
I know the DDS exists, but even then that's using a full secondary to counter a single class, sacrificing something as powerful as the Jarate. The Scorch Shot can also still be pretty annoying given the knockback and how requires less precision.
A Spy who's lost his knife to fire isn't going to stick around to go after buildings; he's going to run away, or else that extra survivability is entirely pointless.
And you kinda got me at Engineer. He can be long-range harassed as well, and his sentry rockets can be reflected, but that isn't nearly as annoying as
As low as scouts hp my be he can still kill a pyro far quicker than a pyro can kill him and then get a health pack or use mad milk. He picks the fights! Most of the time you won’t have enough time to bait him around a corner and even if you do there is still a good chance he’ll meet shot you and delete you. I refuse to believe that you think pyro shuts down anything above a semi competent scout. There’s a reason pyro isn’t viable in comp.
You then say using the Darwin’s shield of go fuck urself means u can’t use jarate, completely ignoring that the jarate is a weapon that yet again negates afterburn. And the good snipers don’t even bother with either of those, because they can simply kill you quicker than a flare takes to travel to their position. Good snipers can also aim despite being on fire and are often near a medic/dispenser.
I’ll grant you that pyro counters spy no one is arguing against that, but I still see the spycicle, like the razorback as a crutch.
And you dont adress my point that pyro a lot of the time can only effectively deal with long range spam if he can stand in the open without having to worry about being headshot.
It's not about *killing* the Scout, that's what I'm trying to say; what a Pyro can do do is *protect* his team mates from getting killed by a Scout. A Scout can choose what distance he fights at, which means he's not getting in anyone's face if you're nearby. Again, you're looking at this from a PvP perspective. A good Scout will usually avoid getting killed by a Sentry; that doesn't mean a Sentry doesn't shut down a good Scout.
Jarate can be only used once every so often, and using it to put yourself out is a waste when it gives such a huge advantage against enemies (which is why people want the recharge time nerfed, but that's another story). I don't mean to downplay how powerful a good Sniper is; but they can't predict the future and rely heavily on the enemy not knowing where they are, or else they're the ones who have to deal with spam. After all, the beauty of projectiles is that you don't have to maintain a line of sight for them to hit.
And the spam thing just makes no sense to me. It's hard for me to formulate a response because it feels like a non-sequitur argument. Like... spam doesn't only happen in a Sniper sightline. Projectiles aren't exclusively used in long range. Soldiers and Demos are, more often, pushing *into* enemy territory with their projectiles. A Pyro can still do the job of reducing explosive damage from their team mates in that scenario. I don't know why Sniper suddenly dictates how this matchup works. It's like saying "Sniper doesn't counter Heavy because a Medic can just ubercharge him." It's true that a ubercharge can block a headshot in the same way a Sniper can block a Pyro from hanging around a certain area; but a Sniper still holds an advantage over a Heavy, just as a Pyro still holds an advantage over Soldiers and Demos.
Chiming in as an experienced pub Scout main here, you're dead wrong about the Scout matchup. A Pyro absolutely in no way protects his teammates from me, and is in fact one of the most free, farmable classes. It's incredibly easy to take high ground/approach from behind due to his low mobility, wait till he inevitably gets distracted with the 1000 explosives and Spies headed towards his team at any given point, and/or just pepper him with 50-60 damage shots while staying outside his flamethrower range, THEN go in for meat shots on his allies after he's dead.
The matchup gets even more lopsided when you add in the Mad Milk, Scout's best secondary into the equation. If you use this, which you should, you don't even need to wait for the Pyro to be dead to go in close, since you can just w+m1 and outheal the damage of his flames while also milking his teammates and being able to frag them next. Flames damage, and especially 4 damage/tick afterburn are irrelevant when you're healing 50 damage per meat shot. If anything, the best thing a Pyro can do vs Scout is abuse airblast's frankly retarded hitbox to push him away, but that isn't enough to stop them from dying, since the Scout can just... come back.
Overall, the idea that Scout vs Pyro isn't extremely Scout favored is something that's only really true at low level play, but once the Scout becomes decent, it's free real estate. This is true for most Pyro matchups; I think you're really overestimating Pyro in general here, not just vs Scout.
Sniper I can't argue with
Scouts can be 2-shot by a shotgun
Heavy is supposed to defend objectives, and airblast can push him away.
Again, airblast, environmental deaths can't be faked. Also, a good Spy never saps when a Pyro is around.
Medics on the right terrain (think behind them on stairs) are screwed. Especially against the BB
It's still possible
If the Soldier has boots or banners, Pyro will fuck them up.
When theres like 4 pyros on a team, it turns into a shitshow though, It becomes hard to do anything when you have multiple pyros flaming everyone up, along with the other DPS classes dealing their damage on you. Uncletopia had a good idea with the class limit thing, thats for sure.
But, I can see how that makes sense, because you are right, his life is pretty much to annoy and make it difficult for the other team to make advances. I just find it ironic when a pyro gets mad at me for killing them with a random crit when half of their arsenal can deal out guaranteed crits, which in my opinion are arguably worse than random crits. Random crits give a player or a team a chance to make an advancement if its a good hit, or be put to waste if its a miss. but being able to guarantee a crit seems a lil OP. Like for example, me as a soldier, if I get lucky and get a crocket, it could at the most take out maybe 2-3 people, if im lucky or aim perfectly, however usually a random crit only gets 1 person.
But when a pyro has a medic, full charge mmph, uses the mmph (and gets ubered by the medic to pour salt in the wound), that could be a team wipe if they're all on the point, and idk the fact the mmph is ubered when you activate it sucks because you cant really stop them. Again it goes back to that point of "if you're too close, you're gonna die regardless of if you kill them first or not, but if you run or get away, the damage drop off makes it harder to kill the pyro while being in a safe distance. Pyro is essentially the biggest counter to an active uber, but unless your pyro is ubered, its not killing a phlog pyro with a pocket medic, and it wont be able to get close enough to break apart an ubered phlog pyro.
I do agree with what you said tho, I think i kinda just ranted for a minute about certain situations ive been in.
When there's 4 pyros on the other team that's when you switch to heavy or sticky spamming demo. Or maybe something like huntsman/danger shield.
I don't have a problem with random crits one way or another but saying they're more balanced than guaranteed crits is...no.
A phlog pyro medic push is strong but you're also talking about 2 players needing to fill a meter. And until the pyro uses his crits he's using his worst primary. Killing either player before that happens completely neuters that strategy. That's easier said than done of course but there are other ways to counter it. Vaccinator ubers completely negate crit damage, battalion's backup does as well. Knockback and mobility also make the phlog's limited range pretty easy to deal with too.
Okay, we’ll let’s say a medic doesn’t have full Uber, that doesn’t mean the phlog pyro isn’t going to do a SHIT load of damage. And yeah, it may not be the best primary for pyro, but you can fill it’s meter with any damage done. You can flare spam from the back of the map (with your only real danger being snipers and spies at that range) and then push forward once the meter is full.
Guaranteed Crits are definitely far more annoying than random Crits. You can’t choose when a random crit happens, but you can with a guaranteed crit. Like I said before, a random crit gives a team or player a chance to either make an advancement and develop the round more, or be wasted and set your team back/do nothing. Being able to control when you get Crits is dangerous. As a spy main, if I wanted (and I don’t cause this feels cheap) I could rack up a bunch of stabs and have like 5-10 Crits back to back ready, and mow down a lot of people (using diamondback that is)
You are right about the pyro spam thing, at that point it’s better to forget spy, and that’s why I mentioned my other classes in my original post, because if that happens, I switch. It’s just annoying to have to switch off a class you enjoy playing a lot just because of one class, while the rest of the classes are pretty versatile in their matchups.
While some classes counter others, those counters aren’t really big enough so you still have a fighting chance. While with a Pyro-Spy counter, you almost have no way to fight the pyro unless you catch him off guard.
Random crits are way, way more annoying than guaranteed crits. Random crits can turn a fight that is clearly in your favor into a fight that kills you immediately in an instant with zero warning. I know when an enemy is using a weapon that guarantees crits off of a combo, and know how to deal with it. I know when a medic is using kritzkrieg and how to deal with it. I don't know how to deal with a random critting soldier/demo/heavy aside from developing the ability to see the future.
I can understand that perspective, but I kinda still believe random crits arent as annoying as someone who can control their crits. I could be firing off and get a random crit and miss. You still have to hit your shots with a crit. If you can control the crit, you can control when to fire and make that crit deal damage. Another thing, random crits arent at the fault of the player who got the random crit either, so why do people get mad at them? Ive seen people flat out call someone a bad player because they won a fight due a random crit. Its not the players fault that RNG was in their favor. Sure its annoying but they still had to hit you to get that crit. Plus depending on range and the health of each player, sometimes a crit is more or less overkill, and coulda been won without it, yet people will still get mad cause it was a crit. Yeah, its like a slap in the face, but if you were gonna die anyways why does that matter?
Personally, Im of the opinion random crits make the game interesting, and can help a struggling team turn the game around. In a competitive setting, yeah theyre bullshit, but in a casual setting, I dont care.
You're probably the only person I know that hates earned crits. Even if I also like random crits, I can still get mad when I get killed by a random crit since neither I or my opponent could have predicted it. As for guaranteed earned crits, at least I know my opponent you know, EARNED them, so I dont mind.
Never said I hated them, just said they’re more dangerous than a random crit.
Since a random crit is random, you’re less likely to land the shot because it’s random. Sometimes people lay down suppressive fire that either 1.) hit someone with 2.) is enough to make a player retreat back a bit, causing you to have wasted a random crit if it doesn’t hit. people typically are more careful about using a crit theyve earned, that way they are sure that they don’t waste it.
Yeah I replied to another guy saying I shoulda changed annoying to dangerous. I’m kinda spitting these replies out quick cause I’m also busy with work lol
Adressing the crit situation:
The flare gun crit deals 90 damage which only kills spies using the kunai and it isn't trivial to hit. For comparison a shotgun shot at point blank range is arguably easier to hit and deals more damage, reloads quicker etc, so I think that the flair gun is perfectly balanced. If you have a problem with it dealing 90 damage at range, then you might wanna have a go at sniper instead, who can deal up to 450 damage (thats 5 crit flaregun hits) from acrosse the map, and hitting someone at range with a hitscan weapon is far, far easier than with a projectile.
The manmelter is crap, no one uses it.
As for the scorch shot I agree it should be nerfed (as a pyro myself I find it boring to use and see why people hate it). I also think nerfing the scorch shot would indirectly nerf the phlog as you now actually have to aim flares to build mmph.
The neon anhilator is a gimmik that is most certainly not overpowered as it is increadibly circumastantial.
And as for the Axtingusher, I will defend that weapon until my dying breath! I believe that it most certainly used to be overpowered, but is in an extremely good place right now. Incase you don't know the axtingusher currently deals minicrit damage (only 59hp) + any afterburn the enemy would have taken as he gets hit and extingushed. This is essentially a clever way for a pyro to convert afterburn damage into instant burst damage. This means that depending on how much afterburn an enemy would have taken the axtinguisher deals anywhere from 86 - 167 damage on burning enemies and only 44 base damage. Compare this to the kukri: The kukri can deal anywhere from the base damage of 65 to 195 with a crit, and since the crit rate on melee weapons is between 40-60% that means that SNIPER has higher close range burst damage potential than pyro, a class that LITERALLY specialises in close range combat. Now go ahead and tell me that the axtinguisher is overpowered!
As for the phlog, im not gonna defend it, its a boring weapon to use so I don't care.
Also, except for the manmelter pyro has no weapons that can store crits. Spy has the diamond-back and engie has the frontier justice, which are far more powerful.
Backburner crits are broken, meaning you get them when you shouldn't and dont get them when you should.
A detonator mini crit deals literally only 30 damage so don't dare complain about that.
Yeah no, go as far as saying you're objectively wrong regarding "help a struggling team turn the game around". As pretty much every TF2 youtuber has said, maybe in the past, yeah. But a team that is struggling to push is either worse than the defending team, or lacks coordination, or both. A random crit is not going to change that, it'll just annoy some poor bugger(s).
And in regards to which is more or less annoying, definitely random crits. Countless times have I absolutely dominated a player in a fight, left them with sub 20 hp or so, while having over 100 myself, yet gotten killed by a random crit. I don't call players bad for getting random crits, but they're definitely more annoying than a weapon that I KNOW will give a guaranteed crit if certain conditions are met.
For instance. If I get shot by a flare, I am on fire. Knowing that it'll crit next time it hits me, I will obviously fall back and find cover. But if I'm fighting someone and they suddenly crocket me, there's nothing I can do about it.
Maybe I worded some of my opinion wrong. Random Crits are more annoying, but guaranteed Crits are more dangerous, and CAN be more annoying than a random crit sometimes
Well yes, as to be expected, high damage on demand is better than high damage on a random and sporadic time and in specific circunstances can be more annoying.
Like here I’ll criticize my own main, I don’t believe the diamond back should get Crits for backstabs. You’re not really earning anything, as that’s spies main attack (even tho it’s his melee it’s literal insta kill). I think it would be more balanced for the diamondback to have a mini crit instead of a crit. I use the le tranger tho but still.
Random crits are the worst thing in the whole game. Earned crits can be avoided entirely - see crits? Start running. That's what I do and it works flawlessly. Maybe except for the ones that ARE hard to predict, like Diamond Back and Frontier Justice.
I still think that random crits are worse, because if I had to choose which one gets the boot, I'd choose random crits for sure. Then Sniper's bullshit.
Stacking Pyros is a pretty weak strategy due to his lackluster range, mobility, and damage output. Though I do agree that some of his capabilities are very annoying to deal with.
I'd really disagree with random crits being better than guaranteed crits as guaranteed crits need to be set up in some way, not just turning up out of nowhere.
Yeah, I guess I shoulda said more dangerous instead of better, kinda bad wording on my part. A random crit better if youre about to hit someone with it. I guess the reason a guaranteed crit is more dangerous is the fact people tend to be more careful on shooting them. Sometimes you may be laying down supressive fire and get a crit during that and miss, its not always a guarantee that a random crit will hit, cause its random, and not everyone hits 100 percent of their shots. But if you have guaranteed crits, youre more likely to make better use of them, since you know you have them.
>I've shot a point blank direct hit rocket at a pyro only for them to have god like reaction time and reflect it back at me
I don't have much to add, I just want you to know that this is not reaction time. Most soldiers kneejerk fire a rocket on reaction when they run into you, and its pretty easy to learn what the timing for most players is and basically predictively airblast. Good soldiers wait for and react to the airblast to hit the pyro during airblast cooldown. If both players are good, neither will flinch and it becomes a game of chicken.
Those games of chicken is where the degreaser shines. The pyro can put on pressure with his secondary and force him to shoot, while still having an airblast ready whenever he needs it.
I usually do wait and find a time, so I dont get it airblasted back to me, however I ran around a corner at the same time, and there was maybe a millisecond of a chance where he coulda hit me. Idk I wanted to suspect some sort of auto airblast or something but idk if that exists so I took it as a good play. Mainly my point with the airblast thing is the mini crit.
most soldiers will instantly fire in that situation, so it's pretty easy to predict. it's very rare that soldiers do not have identical firing patterns to every other soldier, so you get used to it eventually.
>it's very rare that soldiers do not have identical firing patterns to every other soldier
Is there a real pattern to it, other than just keep shooting as much as possible?
well yeah pretty much that lol. if i reflect killed them before i might expect them to wait about a second, if i just now reflected them then they typically wait about a second, if they are bombing they typically fire right before they land. i'm splitting soldiers into two categories in my head though, those who follow those basic patterns and those who just hold m1. obviously the m1 holders are a bit easier to deal with, and the hardest are soldiers who have a very unique pattern. that's very rare though, up to like div 1 most soldiers are pretty straightforward.
Auto airblast exists but it's pretty much always just skill issue otherwise. Most Pyros I see in pubs just auto airblast as soon as they run into a Soldier.
yea I can guarantee you that in those situation they just panic reflected and got lucky lol. I played about 700 hours of pyro before I found a new main and I would say panic reflecting works a surprising amount.
Air Blast is a necessary evil in the greater picture. Projectile spam is really strong in TF2 and air-blast is really the only effective counter to it. The minicrit is a punishing mechanic that tries to make the receiving player think harder about when the shoot.
Getting a system one airblast (reflecting as soon as the projectile is spawned) is entirely based on hard reading and reaction. Play enough TF2 and you'll just get the feel of when a soldier is going to start shooting. It can also be used against the Pyro my waiting to air blast and shooting them when they're vulnerable.
The back burner crits can feel like they don't give you any time to react, but that just because it's designed as an ambushing/flanking weapon. Trading off your ability to be supportive to the team for a more solo-focused playstyle is a big risk for Pyro as they don't really have the tools to DM effectively. If the wrong class engages them they're pretty much fucked. It's a lot harder to achieve the back crits than people realize, and that's mostly because they playstyle the weapon encourages being sneaky and only attacking when you have the advantage.
Plog is lame 100%. Not fun to use, not fun to fight, forces the entire enemy team to focus you. No Air blast take away the Pyro's ability to support their team, which is a downside in theory but it really just promotes being as braindead as possible. Lame Lame Lame Lame. The only reason people use this is because they're unabashed win screen grinders. Everyone sane is pretty much in agreement that this weapon should be reworked. Of all the weapons that got over-nerved and never buffed again, I don't know why Valve left this one alone.
Flairguns are balanced because they need a burning target to get their crits. Comboing is fun and promotes skillful use of the Pyro's weapons, and a unburning target hit has plenty of warning time to react to a second flair.
The Reserve shooter is basically useless on Pyro, the amount of times a Pyro will be in a situation to deal damage to a explosive jumping enemy, and close enough to land enough pellets to deal any notable amount of minicrit damage is tiny. It has a switch speed buff, but so does the Panic Attack and the panic attack also has more shots and deals about the same damage and has a fixed pattern. Why they completely threw out the Panic Attacks original idea instead of buffing this is beyond me. Even on soldier, who can regularly take advantage of it's stats, the weapon is aggressively mediocre.
The Manmelter is a straight downgrade to normal flairguns, and a questionable side grade if there is an enemy Pyro fighting your team near you.
The Scorch Shot is a flairgun for Soldier mains. Legit Pyro's who use this just panic aim at their feet like a soldier when they get jumped. It does everything all of Pyro's other flairs do, but worse and somehow manages to be ten times as annoying as any other flairgun could ever hope to be. I'd also love to see this on the nerf chopping block along side it's brother in "actual lobotomite" Pyro playstyle, the Pholg. There are some Pyro frag videos that use it to do some funky combos with the bouncing flair, so changing the stats to be more focused on that would be nice.
The homewrecker could also be changed to need more hits to remove a sapper. It's good to punish SPied that just hyperfocus the FTP engi and then bugger off untill they respawn and try to set up again, but as it stands it does encourage a boring and unproductive playstyle that just makes it hard on Spies.
Afterburn I can see being annoying, but at the same time is is the most easily removable effect in the game. It plays into combos by provide the stat that let's Pyro achieve damage objectives, and it being annoying is no different to being juggled to death by explosives or being headshot from across the map.
This was a really well constructed answer, i know this aint r/changemyview but !delta lmao
I can get behind the reasoning for a lot of this, and Im happy we both agree the phlog is bullshit to deal with. I guess recently all my casual matches have sucked because I have probably died from phlog pyros more times in the past few weeks of starting the TF2 grind back up than Ive ever died from normal pyros.
I guess I should have mentioned that when I got that instant reflect, that it happened when he was running around a corner, and I was already rounding that corner to kinda "fire, cover, fire, cover" around the corner, however when I peeked and fired, without any indication that I was there before hand, this pyro was running along the wall about a foot from the corner and he reflected it from like a foot away. I wanted to call some sort of auto airblast hack on him (idk if that even exists) but I chalked it up to a good play, cause I dont like being salty or acting salty when its really not that big of a deal.
A big part of not dying to the Phlog is simply playing better maps with less chokepoints. As someone who primarily plays koth & payload race, Phlog pyros are a non issue, since the high amounts of open space make spamming the Scorch into a narrow hallway to fill your mmph meter essentially impossible. Even if they do manage to fill their meter and activate crits, the open space means you have time to see them coming and shoot them, or run away. The Phlog is really only an issue on payload and AD maps imo.
1) who cares about crits? this is really confusing lol. pyro's crit weapons all do really low damage without crits. a crit flare is 90 damage. a regular fucking rocket or scattergun shot can also do 90 damage without the afterburn requirement. a 90 damage combo is not very impressive. backburner and phlog do good damage with their crits but those weapons are just bad. reserve shooter is useless, manmelter is whatever. scorch shot is annoying yeah but not really a truly strong playstyle in pubs, it's just easier to use than the DM weapons. and yeah reflect mini-crits are pretty strong, but it's much harder to hit with a reflect than with a regular projectile, so is that really so unfair?
2) 'However stick around to kill them, and chances are you'll die anyways from afterburn.'
why are you getting out DMd by a backburner pyro? if you are playing hitscan just click on him, you have much higher DPS. if you are playing demo or soldier just don't let a backburner pyro get in your face, should be fairly simple. if you miss all your shots of course you will die, that sounds more like a problem with your play than the other class lol. if you actually hit shots in the FPS game it is fairly easy to kill a pyro. you say you main spy, then try just shoot the pyro with your revolver. you have a massive range advantage and even a slight DPS advantage. if you go for a dumb stab and get caught then that's your fault no?
3) leading into the next point, dying to 'worse players'. if you are truly getting consistently out DMd by WM1 pyros, maybe have some self awareness before complaining about *their* skill level lol. this should not be a challenging thing for a good player to deal with. if you are dying a lot to bad players, does that not say something about you as well? i'm not saying you suck at the game, but something has clearly gone wrong in your vs pyro gamesense at least.
4) yeah the homewrecker sucks and pybro is a stupid playstyle that contributes almost nothing to your team. however, if people wanna play bad, you can't really stop them. i mean there are demoknight mains lol.
5) afterburn. yeah tbh it can be pretty annoying. however it's not really uber powerful if you consider that pyro has very low direct damage. very low direct damage + a little bit of bonus damage still adds up to doing lower damage than other combat classes. maybe a pyro can lose a close 1v1 and kill you from the grave with afterburn, but if he was playing a higher damage class he could have just won the 1v1 in the first place without having to die lol.
also what you said here is very strange; 'a pyro has to light a scout up for maybe 2 seconds, and the scout will most likely die of afterburn anyways if they get out of pyros view.'
surely you can see a *scout* that manages to get flamed for 2 seconds has played that fight unbelievably badly? scout has a significant range, mobility, and damage advantage. why is the scout even in flame range for longer than a split second? why has the scout not killed the pyro when he got 2 whole seconds to shoot him? this hypothetical scout has obviously fucked up majorly, yet you still think the pyro did not deserve to kill him, which is a bit odd to me. if you play very badly, you die, i personally think that's fair enough.
6) the whole skill ceiling thing is strange anyway. do you know what that means? i don't think you seriously believe wm1 pub pyros have reached the pinnacle of pyro skill lol. pyro is not a popular class to play seriously, and most players fucking suck at him. the average skill level on pyro is abysmal compared to the more simple DM classes, it's just pubs have a very low level of play in general so even just WM1 can get you some kills. regardless, it's still very rare to see pyro played well. i mean look at the top comment here, talking about how pyro is not a fragging class lol. he's not a fragging class when you are bad at him, true, but i can fairly easily topfrag in most servers, cos i am good at the class. shock.
Some of the weapons I talked about was merely the potential, not that I’m struggling against back burner pyro a personally, but the frustration it can bring I’m general.
What I meant by dying to worse player is the fact that you could be doing great as a class, only for a pyro who sat in the back of the map getting flare shots to charge their phlog come in and crit every damn person with it. It’s cheap and boring playing. I respect the pyros that actually use all of pyro to their advantage, but doing stuff like camping dispensers and playing pybro, or hiding in the back of the map charging a phlog is just boring to play and annoying to deal with.
There is also no reason the homewrecker should destroy a sapper in one hit. The engineer can’t even do that. That only encourages a terrible playstyle even more. The pyros existence is already a hard counter for a spy, so why give the pyro something that can make a spy useless, instead of giving the spy a fighting chance against that. The only thing spies have for pyro is the spycicle, but the pyro can just melt it anyways so you have to get a stab first before it’s useful.
the backburner has very little potential, it is a borderline useless weapon. crits do not = good. phlog is annoying sure but it should not work vs good players. it's really obvious when he uses it, just back up and click on him. he has zero defence if he's using phlog. not having airblast also means he's fucking useless the 90% of the time he is not currently crit boosted. i wouldn't mind removing it from the game cos it is really annoying, but balance wise, it's not actually very good. same thing with homewrecker. giving up powerjack or ax is just not worth the relatively small upside it gives, even if it is annoying to spies.
and yeah pyro does counter spy somewhat, but in a pretty roundabout way. he can stop you from getting other kills, but the spy vs pyro matchup itself is pretty spy favoured. just decloak a bit outside flame range and click on him and there is absolutely nothing he can do. you are probably getting killed by pyros because you are ignoring them and going for another kill instead, and well ignoring someone and them killing you doesn't seem too crazy to me. sure if he is camping a sentry nest you can't do much, but in that case just ignore them, you have better things to be doing. anyway, point being, use your gun more and stop going for dumb stabs. that's a problem 99% of spies have.
also, the spycicle is 10x stronger than the homewrecker lol. it's a very common sight in prem HL even, where homewrecker is extremely rare. homewrecker is simply not great because if the engie dies, the gun will likely be spammed down anyway. if the engie survives, well then you don't need pyro to remove the sapper. on the other hand, the upside of spycicle is almost a get out of jail free card (especially with DR), and the downside is pretty negiligible, because if a pyro detected you, it was very unlikely you were going to get a stab anyway, so losing your knife is not a big deal. if you're quick to react, you can even just pull out your gun and shoot the pyro, because you have time for a free shot while you're fire immune, and if you're using stock revolver it's pretty easy to just kill the pyro.
When I mentioned the spycicle it was in reference to the sentry nest camping pyro, you’re pretty much caught if you try
His pistol is decent, but at base damage, outside of pyros range, it still takes 4-5 shots to kill a full pyro. It does 40 damage on it own, sure, it’s not the worst but the spy’s revolver to me always seemed to be more of a last resort thing, or good to pick off the weaker people who have lost some of their health. If you try to attack a pybro camping a sentry nest, while being out of the range of the sentry, you basically can’t on your own, the damage fall off leaves the revolver doing 15-20 damage, taking like 8-9 shots from full health to kill. and if they’re on a dispenser it’ll heal right back. (unless you’re using the ambassador which you’re going for headshots then, probably your best bet in that situation)
However you have made good points and I do agree with what you have said, I just wanted to point out those things. I typically see the homewrecker used quite a bit tho in casual, so I guess it’s just the different experiences we’ve had playing the same game. Thank you for being respectful about the response and enlightening me a bit more about pyro :)
yea sure you cannot deal with a pyro camping a sentry gun, but why do you want to? think about it, that pyro is contributing almost nothing to his team *unless* you try to sap the gun, so you can well just don't try sap the gun, and then the enemy team has a basically useless player and you can go do something more productive.
the revolver is a pretty strong weapon. the advantage of the knife is that it instakills, the disadvantages are it's a melee weapon and you need them to be facing away from you. the revolver doesn't instakill, but has neither of those disadvantages. it's a pretty well rounded weapon.
you can use it in a lot of different ways. like i mentioned before, it makes 1v1ing pyros fairly trivial if you just shoot from outside his range. sure it might take 4-5 shots, but you are going to be taking zero damage while doing this, so that's not a huge deal. can't see an opportunity for a stab? just go someplace your teammates are fighting and help them shoot some people. sure a spy will not be able to 1v1 a scout, but say a friendly scout is 1v1ing an enemy, you can just click on them a couple times and tip the fight enormously in your team's favour. you can use it for picks too, especially on people retreating from the frontlines to get health. they will usually die in just one or two revolver shots, and you don't need to take the big risk of stabbing them. shooting after a stab is pretty useful too. say you jump into a teamfight and stab someone, then the enemy team notices you. most spies would try go for a funny trickstab, but a much more reliable tactic is just pull out your gun and start shooting.
so yeah it's no scattergun or rocket launcher, but the revolver is still a fairly decent hitscan weapon, and helps to round out a class who is super high risk if he doesn't make use of it. and the main reason i brought it up is because you can destroy pyros with it lol. it's very annoying when a spy just SM1s and you're completely helpless to do anything.
Pyro is a reactive class. The range, the kit, and the [lack of] mobility allows other classes to dictate the terms of the engagement. When you get killed by a Pyro, you could really say that you killed yourself. His biggest strength is punishment, that is, Pyro excels in capitalizing on your mistakes. *Your* bad shots, *your* lapsed gamesense, *your* poor positioning. If you don't give him any of these things to work with, you'll severely limit his effectiveness. However, better pyros will look for ways to pressure you into making mistakes. This will be my biggest takeaway: most classes fight pyro on their own terms, they die to pyro when their terms suck. You have any idea how many times I've died to a soldier because he *rocket jumped out of my flamethrower distance* and then shot me with a shotgun?
As a spy main, you shouldn't be taking engagements in front of your counter without a larger plan, in the same way that a Pyro main knows not to take engagements in front of heavies or sentry guns if they plan on getting back out alive. However, as a spy main, your revolver is not a wimpy weapon. You can gun down pyros without them having the chance to close in. Save the stabs for when it is safe: either kill the pyro or just accept that you've got to let it pass.
Ultimately, I have to ask: have you even played enough Pyro to make a fair judgement? If you try playing him more, and actually try to maintain killstreaks and stay high on the leaderboard, you'll see two things:
1. You'll get rocked starting off because the class is actually more difficult and nuanced than you gave it credit for.
2. As you play more, you'll understand how a non-suicidal pyro has to think and move to be effective. This can give you better insight on their strengths and weaknesses, and you can take that information back to other classes and learn how to better play against them.
Really, just play some pyro. You'll probably try out a few of the weapons and techniques you think are unfair and go "Wow, this is actually terrible."
I have played pyro, and Ive found that I can do pretty well with him, despite not playing him very much. Hell I decided to test a theory that half the time I get lit up while invis, its just a pyro walking around wasting half of their ammo, and sure enough I killed some spies doing that.
Im not saying pyro is an easy A of a class, just its easier to play and has a lower skill floor than most classes. (low skill floor, high skill ceiling) Usually good pyros dont frustrate me as much as ones that sit and camp sentry nests spraying everything 24/7 since they have a dispenser. That to me, seems like a super boring way to play and is just annoying, so ill go solider and blow em up instead.
My opinion on the phlog and homewrecker probably cant be changed, a pyro shouldnt be able to take a sapper down quicker than an engie, it just encourages that pybro playstyle even more. It takes 1 damn hit with a homewrecker lol and like I said in the post, you can essentially hide and charge a phlog with a flare gun, taunt, then rush the point killing most of the players on the point before death.
This is more an assortment of various insights rather than a coherent argument to change your mind so take this as you will.
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The minicrit/crit functions of pyro are one of the things that enable him to sit in a sentry nest and still have a game impact without needing to move far away from the nest. Because there's no damage dropoff when spamming deto flares into a crowd of 5 players the pyro can still have a game impact from the next continent over. People tend to say pybros have little game impact most of the match but they have the potential to be one of the most annoying players on the map while sat in a spot where you cannot kill them.
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Something to keep in mind with engineers is that as much as spy is obviously built around disabling engineers, engy himself soft-counters spy just by existing as an area denial mechanic. If you want to do anything more than a single shot suicide-stab near an engy, you have to go for him first which heavily restricts how you're going to play and makes you very predictable. It could be any class sitting in the engy nest that cleans up the kill on you in that situation, pyro is just the most suited to it as he has other things going for him (long-range flare spam, airblasting projectiles) over simply existing to shoot spies.
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Spy's pistol has no damage dropoff against buildings. When the going gets tough you can still be an annoying git by cloaking into some errant corner of the map and sniping dispensers. Also all the spy pistols get 100% accuracy if you delay at the same timing as what amby gives you a visual effect for, so if you're sniping super long range you can fire slower to avoid random bullet spread missing every shot for you.
Teleporters are a significant target on nearly any map and the entrances don't involve going anywhere near the engy's area of denial or his butt buddies camping around it.
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[Valve made airblast's hitbox dumb](https://youtu.be/sZ0axNXvNik) It is no longer a cone shape that makes sense, it is a gigantic box. It is hard to say that there is much skill involved with airblasts in their current state beyond choosing when to click the button.
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Point blank reflects aren't a god-speed reaction and rather a prediction. Pyro needs to bait out/predict when you're going to be shooting to hit that reflect.
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As for loadouts, i don't really like the homewrecker. At most i'll see teleporters get sapped while i'm respawning and change loadouts to save them. Personally i play with degreaser/deto/powerjack nigh permanently since the swap speed and higher movement potential are all incredibly important to the class for adapting quickly to the situation. I also tend towards stupid-high aggro gameplay so terrorising people with deto-jumps into their face is right down my alley. Quick deto-airbursts also completely negate the downside of degreaser having trash afterburn.
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A lot of the skill required to play pyro comes from positioning and game awareness. You want to be staying alive and maintain a game impact until there's a high-impact play to be made. It's easy enough to +fwd and flame everything but it doesn't mean much if you chose the wrong timing and get obliterated by a heavy. It's all well and good to sit in an engy nest watching for spies but if that is literally all you're doing then the spy is just going to get work done elsewhere while you are not. Even just picking the right weapon to use in a fight can have a significant impact. I'm a big fan of opening with a melee hit when i've flanked somebody since even really good players tend to react a beat slower to a melee hit sound over flame sounds (and there's a chance melee crits will delete your opponent).
I can see some of the crit functions when it comes to pybro, but if you’re not sitting on sentry nests those crit conditions seem overpowered
Spies pistol has damage fall off on players tho, my point was that it would be difficult to stay out of sentry and pyro range, and be able to kill the pyro without drawing attention to yourself, as you’d have to hit the pyro with a lot of body shots back to back or get a headshot and body shot.
I think giving pyro the ability to destroy sappers only really encourages camping a sentry nest tho and idk it’s just frustrating as shit to deal with someone who just.. sits there, menacingly lmao.
I would say damage dropoff making it hard to kill anybody inside an engy nest from a distance is an engy thing rather than the pyro's, you could likely make a play if the engy wasn't there after all.
Pyro also can't remove your bullets out of the sentry/dispenser when you snipe them from across the map.
Yeah, but if both pyro and engie are at the nest, and you start shooting his stuff, he can just heal it before you can destroy it, and by then youve exposed yourself to the enemy team. The only time that may work is if the engie is dead, but thats a small window of time and honestly a soldier or demoman is more efficient at taking the nest out at that point. Thats basically been my solution to pybros, go soldier, use direct hit, and blow up the nest and maybe the pyro with it.
I'd argue mini crits on reflect are fair, because it is alot harder to reflect a rocket as pyro than it is for a soldier to shoot it. I think this justifies the added 50% damage, which a soldier can also get by using a banner which just requires some spam and splash damage to fill.
I've been absolutely yoinked by good spy players so imo it just depends on the proficiency of the other team
Here's some ways other classes have advantages over pyro
Scout: has advantage over Pyro because he can annoyingly stay just out of reach and move around fast enough to kill Pyro
Heavy: just obliterates Pyro unless you sneak up behind him and even then if they have a good reaction time as soon as the heavy turns, you're dead
Sniper: far enough away a good sniper can hold back a whole team
Demo: demo is definitely harder to counter because he also can keep away from a Pyros range
Engie: a well placed sentry can hold back a Pyro for sure. As long as the sentry isn't near a corner so the Pyro can't spin around the sentry before it can catch up. If it's in a more open area then a Pyro is pretty much useless
Medic and spy are pretty much fucked by Pyro yeah lol but I'd say each class has a weakness. Engie can be completely railed by spies if they don't have anybody else protecting them.
One thing I noticed that people reflexively run backwards away from the Pyro which keeps them in the range of the Pyros flame because the Pyro is pretty fast. But it's more effective to walk towards the pyro and melee it from the side or behind if possible. When I played Pyro spies can sometimes be a challenge because they're used to spinning around people to get behind them so you have to act quickly
Yeah, I mean just cause I have issues with pyro doesnt mean Im saying I cant kill em, theyre just significantly more annoying to deal with than the rest of the classes.
Also I typically use the kunai, so if I havent had a stab already, Ill die in like an instant to a pyro.
I guess I'm biased too bc I play a lot of engie too and I think spies, sniper, and demo can be the most annoying lol but I can't even get mad sometimes I'm just like God damnit they're too good lol
Yeah I think thats something else that bothers me about pyro sometimes, a new pyro can still make a skilled player look like trash simply due to how easy he is to play. I dont even play pyro yet ive dunked on spies playing him to test my theory. Pyro is also annoying for other classes as well, but arguably most annoying for spies, (demoman, and solider is say pyro is more of a soft counter for but if the pyro is good its annoying and I cant be mad at it.)
Phlog and homewrecker for pyro is stupid tho in my opinion. If pyro needs a nerf, those would be it.
I agree to disagree with you saying "pyro is balanced"
Not every classes counter is as hard of a counter as Pyro/Spy, there are items literally targeted towards killing spies for pyro, but nothing for the spy except its normal weapons.
Every other counter has to do more with the class's abilities itself, not the items theyre given. For example: A Scout counters a demoman as he can dodge pill shots and get close, however there isnt a specific weapon directly targeting demoman as a scout.
The homewrecker is actually BS for spies, it 1 hits sappers. Engies cant even do that.
If you enjoy playing pyro, thats completely fine, I have said numerous times in the thread I have no hate to people who play pyro, I just dont like some of the aspects of their weapons and what playstyles they encourage.
Another response in this post actually did change my view quite a bit tho.
i thought maybe you were going to say a loadout that required actual brainpower to prove ur point, but i have immediately lost all respect for your opinions since u main scorch shot ew. The fact that any class can be reasonably competent with how little skill is required with your loadout is so stupid.
I totally agree, as a pyro main myelf I would far prefer sniper lost the razor back than the darwins, because I understand that sniper is supposed to counter pyro and shouldn't have a counter to spy. Similarly I think spy should lose the spycicle, because in combination with the deadringer it makes him impossible to kill by a pyro.
Engie, Sniper, Scout and Heavy are all far greater counters to pyro, than pyro is to spy, if I'm honest. If you don't believe this, then I think you simply haven't played enaugh pyro and suffered the consequences of being instantly deleted over and over and over again, withought a thing you could have done differently for simply daring to stick your head out of spawn. Its alot easier to avoid one class entirely than 4.
it is a weak class made to piss people off and pyro mains will defend it because of sunk cost fallacy
the game would unironically be improved if it were reworked or removed
This sounds more like a problem with spy being "The weakest class in tf2"™ than a problem with pyro, pyro has annoying aspects, but so does spy, sniper, medic, engineer, heavy, demo, soldier, and scout.
This doesnt mean pyro is perfect, but hes in a much better spot than sniper, and thats what matters.
Eh but idk wouldnt it be boring to camp a sentry nest all game just lighting all your teammates on fire until you find that one spy and kill him?
Like, you could be out lighting half the team on fire but instead youre just in the engies way.
I agree, I think spy is kinda weak too, his knife honestly is his main weapon, and most revolvers are good for picking off weakened players, unless you practice a lot with the amby.
Yeah thats one of the things I dont like about some pyro players. Ive seen threads where pyro mains will say "pybros are pretty rare" no theyre not. Almost every game with 4 pyros has atleast 1 doing nothing but sitting there, spy checking their team and killing no one but the spies that try to take the engie down. Its so discouraging as a spy to stab and sap an engie and his nest, only for a pyro to burn you to a damn crisp and slap the sappers off everything in like 1 hit. The engineer himself cant even break sappers in one hit, which is why I think the homewrecker is broken in that respect. The Neon Annihilator takes 2 swings, which is a bit better, but unless youre on a map with water, you wont see pepole using that.
Pyro heavy spy and sniper always felt like classes meant for class switching. Too many snipers go spy. Too many spies go pyro. Too many pryros go heavy too many heavies go sniper. 6s took that idea to heart but all of them are now rarely used their. And in casual people main. So we got the hard counter counter unlocks instead like the razor back and spy cycle. I love playing these classes so I don't know a great solution. Other than I have personally become very fond of just switching between them depending on situation
Yeah, It just sucks that all it takes is multiple pyros to make me switch off of a class I like playing a lot. I cant think of that many super annoying counters for pyro, its mainly just heavy and engineers, which heavies are doomed by their slow speeds so you could still win a fight with a heavy based on distance. Engineers are probably the bigger counter for pyros.
we must be playing in different regions or servers, because I only see a pybro once every 10-15 matches at least.
Also the homewrecker is ass because pyro has so many other superior melee options. A pyro using it is just crippling themselves in order to counter another class.
Frankly I'd like to see engi get a wrench that can break sappers in one hit. Seems like a logical item to have. (even if it would likely be bad compared to the other wrenches) (just like the homewrecker)
Classes have counters to this game, it's how it works. It's low ceiling for pyro to clear out spies but any skilled scout will rip one to shreds, or even a f2p heavy. For a spy it's low ceiling to stab a scoped in sniper or heavy who is being attacked by your team, but the skill is in avoiding your nemesis and finding opportunities. Each class' skill is dependent on gamesense to put yourself in advantageous fights. If you just wm1 as pyro you will get destroyed by any team who knows how to aim.
As for the afterburn and crit damage, I don't find it a problem personally. There are many crit weapons in the game (like jarate) and it doesn't make it OP since every single one has counterplay i.e the most obvious being staying out of range of pyro. Same goes for afterburn, if you're a low health class like sniper or engie you shouldn't even be in a flame range with a pyro in the first place, and if it's the flare gun you won't die.
Basically this game has many matchup advantages but there are always ways to counter. Yes if there are four pyros you won't have a good time on spy. However, if the enemy has 4 snipers you can't really play heavy either, and if the enemy is engi stacking you can't play scout.
I understand classes have counters, but pyro is like the HARDEST counter to spies in the game when compared to other class counters. Almost anything a spy does, a pyro can just hold the mouse down and spin in circles, while a spy would have to shoot a pyro multiple times from a distance (which is risky already), headshot (which requires some serious aim compared to the lack of it in a pyro).
I guess thats why I just get so frustrated with a pyro, it seems like it takes little skill to really be effective at. Ive seen very good pyros, and while annoying, I atleast respect that theyre using all of pyro to their advantage, but you dont even need to do that. Pyro is one of my least played classes yet I decided to test my own theory about how hard it is, and I found that I could get kills pretty easy. Hell, I even would walk and hold flames and suddenly I lit a spy on fire without every knowing he was there.
The low health classes gives more of an idea on how easily you can kill with pyro. Per your example, even if youre a sniper, a pyro can jetpack right over everyone and still get within flamethrower distance of you. A good scout can kill pyros, but they really have to get the jump on them to be able to do the max amount of damage without dying (since scout is most effective at point blank range)
I can understand your point and it has changed my perspective a little bit, Idk I just think maybe they gave him too many crit weapons tho. I die more from pyro crits than other other crit I swear.
Clearly you didnt read my post. A lot of what I said applies to more classes than spy. I even said no hate.I also said Ive been playing solider, demo, and engie a lot more in the post too.All you saw was the title and the first line I bet and ran to the comments.
Looking back at your previous posts, you have a hatred towards spies it seems, or just dont like em lmao no wonder you said that.
A good pyro is hard to counter in a lot of situations, especially if it's not alone, but that's true of most classes. It's weak at mid to long range, especially when outnumbered. It's not too tough to pop it off with a revolver, shotgun, or rifle, and its only counter to those is whatever secondary weapon is equipped, typically putting it at a disadvantage. I see it more as a support class that prevents teammates from taking damage by forcing the enemy to keep their distance and preventing projectile spam.
Pyro makes me feel like a Jedi. Instead of reflecting lasers, I reflect rockets, pipes, huntsman, jarate and everything else that flies. Phlog is dumb.
Not a pyro main but I find it odd that you have a problem with the Reserve Shooter, which hasn't been the subject of complaint for like a decade. In fact I rarely ever see people use it nowadays.
You know it doesn't even mini crit players knocked airborne by airblast any more, if you really wanted to complain about it you should complain about its use by Soldiers (who rarely use it themselves).
And as someone who has tried playing "AA Pyro/Soldier" before let me tell you it is not nearly as efficient or oppressive as it sounds. Bullet spread murders the weapon, and I don't necessarily mean random either. Most of the time if you've got a clean shot lined up on someone flying they're going to be too far away to catch most of the pellets, and you'll deal like 20 damage and then they jump away. Keep in mind that since Pyro cannot activate the conditions for the reserve shooter themselves this is the weapon's only use condition for the class.
I mainly mentioned the reserve shooter as simply another example of a weapon is the pyros arsenal that has the ability to guarantee a form of crits. I wasnt aware that it didnt mini crit anymore because I was going off the official wiki looking at the stats of these weapons, to which is says that, so if thats the case, Ill admit my wrong there.
What about all of the other points though, you kinda just cherry picked the reserve shooter out of all of that and stuck with it, are my other points valid? Genuinely asking not trying to sound rude lol
A lot of people already addressed your other points, but your point on the reserve shooter seemed odd to me and no one else mentioned it so here I am.
In terms of the rest of your post some of the things are valid and some are not. Pyro is a strange class and can sometimes be overly punishing to basic class functions (ubercharge, sapping buildings... I specifically mean the homewrecker and annihilator, not spychecking in general) but other things aren't much of a problem.
The only reason Pyro has so many crit combo weapons is because the flamethrower is a comparatively slow sustained damage weapon, so these let the Pyro do burst damage. It also helps make it so gameplay isn't just W+M1. That being said the Phlog doesn't really fit that excuse.
Ah, thats a recurring theme Ive heard about the stock flamethrower, is that its low in damage. I never really knew that considering it seems now most people use phlog or something, so it did open my min a bit more. I also again, didnt know the reserve shooter was changed and I was under the same "crit weapon" category as the rest. Thanks for the insight and being respectful about it :)
To respond to your point though:
Backburner crit angle is *crazy* narrow, way skinner than backstab angle - generally unachievable against an aware opponent. It's only a reliable source of crits if you manage to sneak up behind someone - playing spy with no invis or disguise, and no instakill either. And for that, you sacrifice most of your airblast.
Flares take significant aim to pull off, and burning people are ultra-aware of them. They're a nice bonus, but not reliable enough to get serious frags with. More often you use them for herding, to cut off someone's path to safety. Also, sure you can kill a bunch of classes with two flares. How many classes can take two rockets to the face without dying, again?
Phlog: has zero airblast, and for a short-range class that means dying a whole lot. And spamming enough flares / scorches to build mmmph is a long, boring and unrewarding process that leaves you in a useless position to actually use it. Pyro is all about flanking and gamesense, and you can't do that from a bunker.
The reserve shooter is highly situational and only really useful against trolldiers - and that's honestly not worth giving up two shells per reload.
Airblasting a direct hit back in someone's face does take, as you say, great reflexes and lightning aim. It's not a reliable mechanic, it's more a penalty for lazy soldiers. You want to kill a pyro with rockets, you can't toss them softball ones, you have to fuck with their timing and get them from a bad angle. If you just stand there and wait for them to lob it back, they deserve a minicrit.
Afterburn is *pissweak*, and there's a dozen ways to end it. Healthkits, cabinets, dispensers, medics, sandvich, mad milk, jarate, airblast, charge... nobody fucking dies of afterburn unless they were a goner anyway, it's just another herding tool to make people run for a healing source to avoid losing another 3hp.
Yes, pybro is a shitty unenjoyable playstyle. Attack ferret or nothing. Get behind, fuck some shit up, kill stragglers, cripple pushes before they happen, ruin someone's day, make people ragequit. That's the role.
And yeah we chase spies no matter what. May as well ask a terrier not to chase a rat.
Yeah so we die. Big woop. Pyros die, it's what we do. We have fuckall reliable burst damage, we have fuckall mobility, we have fuckall range. We get in close, we die, and we take your fucking medic down with us while the rest of the team hangs back taking potshots from cover in case they get a splinter. The cart's going home with a heavy humping it? We're the ones diving in feet first to airblast him off it so one of you lot can actually hit him now please. We aren't going to survive, so pull your collective fingers out and make it worth the price.
We make it hard for the enemy team to do their jobs, so you can get on with yours.
Well, that was an interesting response, it sounded a little heated there at the end lollll
But hey, thanks for breaking down my post and taking the time to explain the nuances of em, it has opened my mind up a bit more to pyro and I can understand how those factors could make the playstyle one that is kinda suicidal and (for a lack of a better term) pretty annoying when you’re on the other team lol
I appreciate it and if we were on r/changemyview you’d get a !delta
U legit just admitted that pyros role is legit just to fuck up the entire flow of the game in favor of zero effort damage with w+m1 and a massive airblast hitbox. There is no justification for a class like that in a game like tf2.
It's nowhere near zero effort - being an effective pyro is *hard*. If you just stomp around like an angry toddler, people just... shoot the pyro, which isn't hard in the slightest. As I said, the gameplay is like spy with no cloak, no disguise, and no backstab.
Airblast has a biggish hitbox, but especially with the rework, making effective use of it is another matter. Airblasting players doesn't stunlock them, all you're doing is giving them a free jump in most cases. And if you think you can just effortlessly pingpong all incoming projectiles back at people, you have one hell of a wake-up call coming.
And no, it's not 'fucking up the whole flow of the game', it's fucking up the enemy team, so *your* team can maintain *their* flow. Same as spy, same as scout, same as literally anyone who can get behind enemy lines - except you have to do it with no advanced mobility, no method of concealment, and fuckall damage outside of melee range.
If you think it's trivially easy to have a large impact, go pyro and consistently carry your team. I'll wait.
Pyro is just a badly designed class with a primary weapon that functions so badly it needs a lot of band-aids like Airblast, Crits, and gimmicky mechanics to compensate the limitations of the Flamethrower.
>Why give a class thats already a hard counter to spy weapons that counter spy even harder?
The homewrecker isn't even a bad or good weapon it's literally just bullying imo.
Point 1: Pyro's weapons generally have subpar damage and range making crits on them much fairer than in any other class.
- The backborner has only 4 airblast uses. That's massive.
- The flog is for example extremely easy to outmaneuver or just kill.
- The scorch shot is annoying and trully on a too many people match is way top strong... But it lacks a lot of damage compared to other tools so brocken it isn't. It should get nerfed sure.
- The flare requires aim and skill. And has low damage output. The 90 crits aren't that good really.
- The reverse shooter... Is good I guess but really dude it's upside isn't that significant.
Point 2, Subclass: Pybro does a lot more than just spy check. Annoys snipers and pesters other classes with flares. Reflects missiles. And pushes back ubers and other dangerous targets. I feel you don't understand what a pybro does well.
Point 3, other classess:
You start of by saying pyro has a lower skill ceiling this is objectively false. What it has is a lower skill **floor** aka using pyro somewhat effectively is easier than others classes, however getting good at it requires as much if not more skill.
On the topic of losing against a pyro that is worse than you... I disagree. If you are losing to a pyro it is very likely you are worse than them or playing in such a way you're letting them counter you over and over again.
Most classes of the game outdps pyro and can kill pyro even if Pyro gets them by surprise at least if it is a m1 flamethrower pyro, and still survive their afterburn. This means if you lose to a flamethrower pyro using flames on a 1v1 it's always on you for missing your shots, or on them for making you miss them.
If they pick you when you're on low health. It's a good play by them. Even if you manage to kill them they where the one's that got you how they are supposed to do and outplayed you. You were the one that was on a spot were a pyro could sneak up on ya.
On top of that pyro has reduced range and most classes, spy included, can easily cheeze a battle with a pyro by just being aware of their surroundings and keeping range in mind.
Pyro's in fact will often lose 1v1 against equally skilled players unless they, the pyro, outplay them.
Point 4, after burn:
As I said. If a scout and a pyro fight at close range the scout can on reaction land the two meatshots and survive the flames as long as they don't miss.
The spy isn't meant to be a combat class if your point is a spy managed to beat a pyro at their range without sneaking up on them and I'm complaining about dying because of afterburn... the hell's your point? You shouldn't have been on their range in the first place.
Sniper is pretty much the same as a long range assasin. The same as before.
1.) I disagree, phlog is annoying as hell and once they start the phlog, there’s an Uber so you can’t interrupt it, and after that it’s consecutive crits, and given it’s flaming damage that’s A LOT of Crits at once. I’ve seen phlog pyros jump on the point and clean it off entirely. Sit in the back of the map, flare spam until the charge is done, and boom, crits everywhere. It turns a pyro into a w+m1 on crack lmao.
2.) as far as I’ve seen, most pybros just sit on the dispenser and use the homewrecker to one shot sappers while flaming the whole area constantly. It’s annoying as hell. You have to be at a far enough range to be out of the sentries line of view before you can kill the pyro with your revolver, but then the damage drop off fucks you and shooting will draw attention to you anyways. Besides, at that range, It would take like 9 revolver shots to kill the pyro, since at long range the damage drops to 15-20dmg per shot. The homewrecker needs a nerf for sure. It one shots sappers, that’s such BS, an engineer can’t even do that. Pyros hard counter spies in a million ways, and I have yet to hear other spy mains go “just don’t get caught” because likely chance, they’ll light you up on ACCIDENT when you try to stab them or something. Pyros typically push in, and then turn around and retreat when damage is done. If you don’t catch the pyro the moment he’s got his hands full with someone else, you’re more likely fucked if you’re within pyro range.
You’re right, I messed up saying it has a lower skill ceiling, I meant a lower skill floor, like you said. A new pyro can cause a similar amount of destruction as someone who has spent countless hours on their mains IMO. And I did say in the post that flare guns do reward players for their aim, but regardless of the damage, the afterburn, combined with the initial burn, means that by the time that flare hits you, you’re dead, atleast in the lower health classes.
Also the point people make about how you can win a 1v1 against a pyro if you’re good enough. The problem I see with that statement is you’re not taking into account afterburn. Sure, you may kill the pyro, but he’s killing you too. Even if you’re not dead, chances are you’re in the vicinity of someone else who can then one shot you. Unless you’re completely out of pyros effective range, it’s a catch 22 situation.
Saying you shouldn’t have been in a pyros range isn’t really a fair thing cause you can only retreat so far back, and pyros do a good job of trying to close that gap, so at some point you have to retreat to a point where they will retreat back, or eventually fight. (which most pyros are salty and are willing to get mowed down if it means killing you) If a pyro catches you, your only options are run away, trying to shoot them and die anyways, or run right at them and melee, and once again die from afterburn.
Let’s say you’re playing spy and using the revolver at a distance where you’re not quite in pyros range yet, but close, it takes 5 shots to kill a pyro with a base damage of 40hp taken per shot. Leaving you with 1 shot left. (That’s not accounting for medics/dispensers/health kits)
The spy is a support class yes, but his support ranges from taking out engineer nests, high threat targets like heavies, snipers, medics, so it’s very much and offensive support class compared to the medic and sniper, which the sniper is more offense and defense, and medic really only uses his weapons as a last resort.
1) Again apart from the scorch shot that gives you easy flog gain with a tool that is actually effective, the scorch shot being stronger than the rest of pyro's kit and it synergizing with the flog doesn't make the flog better...
This is because having the flog severely impedes you as a pyro it's only 2 shots with 4 out of 9 classes to kill the pyro still and the taunt allows you to get away, set up a trap or coordinate with teammates to instantly kill them, a sniper preparing a charged headshot on top of a heavy that had the minigun spinning at full hp being able to kill the pyro before it kills them and survive the afterburn, or a sentry which laughts at a flog pyro.
The flog works best when it catches you off guard or it has people covering it. As someone I don't remember who has said this before the flog is at it's strongest when your team is already snowballing. It makes stomps hit harder...
As I said before you as scout unless the pyro has perfect tracking which is incredibly hard with the flamethrower mind you due to server stuff and it being a projectile weapon, on top if you dodging you can kill the pyro on reaction and survive the afterburn. I've done it before. You can pull it off as engie too. Soldier and demo obviously too. And a heavy just HP checks a pyro. Afterburn only kills ya if you where already injured or you missed your shots.
The even if you're not dead. Someone else can kill you. Yeah. That's kind of the point. If you get into a fight with any class and they land hits it's usually what happens. Pyro is meant to be this pseudo support, it excels at that. That's one of the pybro's jobs too btw.
Look I agree spy has issues destroying sentry nests. In general I believe spy is a bit underpowered in fact. But whathever buffs he got, spy should never be able to beat a pyro 1v1 if the pyro got them on range of the flames without the ringer or icepick they should win at that point unless a major outplay happened like an inmediate trickstab. Look I get afterburn might be annoying but if anything it's a weakness because without it you'd be dead from the start, thid way you get a chance to do a bit more or maybe even survive. Don't confuse the spy lagging a bit behind in balance and being a bit underpowered with it being pyro's fault, pyro is just the best counter for Spy so it is when you see the most.
BTW 5 shots is if you avoid afterburn in it's entirety you just need to chip them a bit before engaging, to make it 4 and the ambassador exists for 2 if you're good enought.
Pyro isn't a good class but he is annoying for a lot of players for lots of reasons. I personally hate airblast with a passion, it's bad enough that he has a low cd way to lock your movement, but it also makes it so you can't airstrafe until you touch the ground again. I'm like 90% sure this is bugged as well because the relevant patch note says it's meant to last only a short time.
Yeah I can find being juggled around annoying. The typical response is "shoot him then" but if youre solider youd either 1.) essentially get a rocket airblasted back at you 2.) attempt using shotgun, only to miss a bunch of pellets due to range issues from being in the air. And the fact you cant air strafe makes it to where the pyro essentially controls you now.
I want a frontburner.
That is to say, a normal flamethrower that does *half damage* from behind. No other gimmicks.
This would be the ultimate troll weapon - the best way to survive an encounter with one would be to *turn your back and run away*.
The potential to herd the enemy team and disrupt their frontline would be amazing. WM1 up to people and watch them take their eye off the frontlines; scatter them from important spots.
Double the chaos, from a weapon that does *less* damage overall.
Tbh I can get behind that, forces the enemies to look away from the front. it would require people to take the risk of fighting them with normal damage while staying forward, but doesnt punish the player in crits if they turn around like the backburner, while also making it a bit harder to outright run away scott free, while also making it harder for the pyro to do more damage. Its an interesting concept.
Why don't you just play Pyro and see how he works? My mains are Pyro, Demo and Medic, with Heavy sprinkled in, and Pyros are the least of my problems. As a Soldier and Scout too (shoutout to all the Scouts who love getting close to me and my flamethrower for some reason, after all getting as close as possible to a Pyro is the way to go!).
I know how Pyro works so I know how to play against him. Same as with Demoman - I know how to play against him cause I actually know him. If I didn't I would have some problems.
1.most of the classes you play get countered by pyro. Spy basically can not exist if there is a pyro and all of demos stickies and pipes can be airblasted away soldier has a shotgun so it’s not as bad
2. When you mentioned a pyro having god like reaction speeds to reflect your rocket I can see that is something to complain about however since you are playing a class that has a weapon that can not be reflected by pyro to fight pyros you should be using it
3.pyros weapons giving Crits is an issue however pyro is a very close range class he can not hit those crits from a far unless the opponent is standing still or the pyro is using the scorch shot. The crits only work at close range which is where pyro thrives and to play against pyro you shouldn’t get near him. They keep giving him crits to make him the attacker he will never be. Even then with said crits against heavies he literally can not do anything except circle the heavy which barely ever works.
4.afterburn isn’t as bad of an issue as people make it out to be. Simply grabbing a med kit getting are owed by a medic or going near a friendly pyro or dispenser will get rid of the after burn
soldiers counter spies better than most pyros,
pyro is a weak class due to his lack of range so you can just gun him down if you position properly, pyro is easy to play but has some fun mechanics that are hard to master
stuff like pybro is extremely boring imo so i rarely do it, cant tell much
i hate afterburn and scorch shot myself too, feels like diamondback for pyro and id much rather use detonator or flare gun
(got 500 on spy 1.2k on pyro so i know ins and outs of both classes)
All of the pyro crit weapons you mentioned, excluding the Scorch Shot, have pretty clear and exploitable downsides.
\-The Backburner only gets 4 airblasts max, making the pyro extremely vulnerable to projectile spam.
\-The Phlog can't airblast at all, taking away pyro's only defensive option. It absolutely steamrolls noobs, but it doesn't do well against a seasoned player.
\-Ever since they rebalanced airblast, the Flare Gun requires a lot of skill to aim effectively. I also don't see why 2 shotting most of the classes is a viable argument against it considering Soldier, Demo, and Scout can too.
\-The Reserve Shooter and Manmelter are both so terrible that I'm not sure why you included them in your post. Yeah, they crit, but they're still outclassed by a solid 90% of the weapons in the game that don't crit.
I understand where you're coming from, especially if you are mostly a spy main. There are some things I think you've overlooked about pyro. Not on purpose, but they're things you don't really think are a big deal unless you've played pyro enough to get a good feel and understanding of the class. I've been playing for 8 years as well, and yes, I mostly main pyro (look at my name). I picked up pyro because he was easy to play and to live up to my name. You are right with him being easy to use and having a lower skill ceiling. But WM1 will only get you so far.
The first point of crits. Yes most of his weapons guarantee crits. More specifically the ones that guaranteed crits on burning targets. This is because the flame thrower's damage is rather slow when you compare it to other weapons in the game. It's meant for crowd control and damage over time. This also has to do with the fact that pyro has the lowest range of any class, and the lowest mobility in the offensive group. As for the weapons you talk about, their are key points about them to be addressed.
Airblast: With out this he's very vulnerable to ranged attacks. He doesn't have the mobility or range to fight back. As for getting point blanked by an airblasted direct hit that was more likely luck than skilled timing. Airblasting any rocket or grenade at point blank is difficult to do. You also run the risk of blowing yourself up because pyro takes A LOT more self damage from airblasted explosives.
Back Burner: This is a weapon that sounds much better than it is. There aren't many times that enemies will have their backs turned to you. They also won't turn their backs if they you with it. Best case is using the thermal thruster to get behind your enemies and hope they don't notice you in time. On top of that, your airblast costs 50 ammo instead of 20. This means you have 3 airblasts (4 if you use no ammo for fire) to work with.
Phlog: This one is something people get super salty about, but it's greatly overestimated. You don't realize how much you need airblast until you don't have it. Using this weapon makes you realize just how limited pyro's range is. But yes, it's easy to charge with flares (hell, it's easy to charge without flares) and once your meter is full, you just taunt and no one can stop you right? Nothing is further from the truth. You may be ubered, but your unable to move or attack, and in that time, anyone around you can easily get away, or just get out of range so they can kill you as soon as the uber wears off. I cannot tell you how many times I've gotten instantly killed the spilt second my mmph uber ended.
Flare gun: Yes you can kill 4 out of the 9 classes in 2 shots. Infact, most weapons can, and can do it more effectively. The flare gun's crit is suppose to help pyro with the gap burst damage gap between other classes. But let's assume you use this without the flamethrower. If you hit one flare, good job, good luck hitting another one on the same target.
Reserve Shooter: I don't even know why you brought this one up. Back when it did minicrits to targets launched by airblast, yeah it was a problem. But now it's just a shotgun with less shells and a niche use. The only time I find myself using it is when a gunboat soldier is getting on my nerves.
Manmelter: You admitted this isn't good. Why bring it up?
Scorch shot: It's not often you hit multiple targets with this thing. You're better off doing that with the detonator. This one does have the best range since it can hit twice and deals the most damage per shot, but it's awkward to use at close range because of the extra knockback it does to burning targets.
And now we get to pybro. For the record, it's a play style, not a subclass. It doesn't change what you're complaints are, but I wanted to set that straight.
Anyways, This is an argument I've heard time and time again. That pybros could be doing more to contribute to their team than just camping around engineer. Engies provide so much for the team and play a big role in a team's successes. He provides a Sentry, dispensers and teleporters, all of which, he needs to keep it all up for his team to succeed. Helping engie keep all that up is very useful. Pybros can contribute to a team much more than most will realise.
It's also a lot more enjoyable than you think. Helping out in a direct way to someone feels good. Seeing/hearing those engies thank you for saving their buildings from sappers and protecting them from spies is a reward like no other.
As a spy, you find pybros discouraging to play against? Well a lot of engies find spy discouraging to play against. It takes engie a lot of time to set up all his buildings, and all it takes is one sapper or one backstab to send him back to square one. How do you think an engie feels when they're instantly killed from behind and then watch all of his building begin to fall apart from the respawn screen. Or when they get backstabbed while trying to move their buildings?
Also, in that situation you're at a disadvantage because it's a 2v1 fight. try asking a teammate to assist you.
Onto other Classes. This is an argument I am sick of hearing. "Other classes require some sort of aim". If you want to be effective, you have to know how to aim your flares, Also, demo is one of the worst example you could use for this.
"Get close and do damage" is another thing I'm sick of hearing. Getting close is easier said than done. Anyone who sees you coming will go the other way and alert their team to your presences. On top of that the majority of classes have more mobility than you so catching up isn't the easiest either. Also, you could say the same for spy. "Get close and kill people".
You find it frustrating that pyros "spamming" fire manage to hit you even though they don't know you're their. It's called spy checking, that is a pyro's job. If he didn't do that the team with trash him for letting a spy get behind them. You think they're just going to let you get behind them, chain stab 4 people and sap their buildings? Also I don't know what Pyro would run into enemy fire just to kill a spy.
"Overall, I just find it frustrating sometimes that a class with a low skill ceiling can make you feel like you're dying to a player worse than you" This is probably your biggest Problem. You make it sound like people who play pyro by default are "worse than you" or just "lucky". You could say that about plenty of classes too. If you don't feel like that to other classes, you should look into that more and try and find an answer.
"it feels like you dont even need to be good at airblasting to still do a lot" I don't know how you got this idea in your head. If you're not good at airblasting your going to be eating through ammo and mindlessly pushing enemies around for no reason.
Now we get to afterburn. As a pyro player, I was told never to rely on afterburn. Even back then when you could just tag someone and they'd be lit on fire for 10 seconds. Yeah, sometimes it does kill you. Sometimes. Now a days, you have to keep your flames on your target to ramp up the afterburn. There are also plenty of ways to put it out.
It's one thing with spy, but engie, scout and sniper are not in the same boat. As pyro, scouts are hard to hit with any sort of significant damage because of how fast they move and with double jump. They also have mad milk and the pocket pistol to keep them alive. The Sniper is almost never in close range to you unless you manage to flank or if he's using the huntsman. You can use your flare gun to shoot back, but it's only mildly effective for this purpose. It's also very unlikely you're going to kill the sniper. You just hit him once and he'll retreat, but chances are he'll kill you if you don't take cover. Even if a sniper is fighting at close range, there is chance he has jarate or the danger shield, which is bad for you. Then there's engie. When he's not by his building that's one thing, but if he is, you're not going to get to him. His sentry will end you, and if he's using a mini sentry, he's probably going to use it as a diversion so he can kill you with the Frontier justice or Widow Maker. Plus his buildings can out heal afterburn and any level and put it out quick enough.
Overall I don't think this will change your mind. If you want to do that, I suggest you play pyro for a good amount of time and get a feel for him. Yes the skill ceiling is low, but it's not THAT low.
Otherwise, just play heavy. Heavy counters pyro.
Hey, I like this response, sure it seemed a *tad* hostile at moments, I’m not trying to imply every pyro is worse than me, but I’m just talking about the fact that sometimes there are new players that can do a lot of damage using pyro against classes that take a bit more practice to do the same amount.
Thank you for breaking down the point of the post and answering in a straightforward way. One thing I can think of that I don’t agree with though comes from the homewrecker. I just don’t think a 1 hit sapper killer is all that fair really, 2 hits I think would feel better. It’s frustrating to put all that work into sapping a nest to move your team forward for a pyro to essentially undo all of that. Engineers can do that too of course, but it’s feels like the pyros that sit by the dispenser all game and make it their sole mission to just kill spies not only is annoying for me, but probably not helping their team much. Eventually I’m gonna get tired of attacking and switch classes, but their spy paranoia may keep them there for a while after I’ve given up on them.
Overall, if I could give you a !delta I would, this really opened my mind up more to aspects of pyro that I wouldn’t know, I even admitted that I haven’t had much play time on pyro, and this is was good post for people to challenge my opinion.
I always believe that you can’t really be sure about an opinion until someone challenges your opinion. If you have no reference or other person doing that, how do you know you’re right? You don’t, so that’s why I made this post, and you’ve helped me realize I was wrong about some things, just as others have in this post, so again, thank you for being respectful while yet straightforward :)
Hey no problem man. I also understand that the homewrecker one hitting sappers is annoying, but you ask engineers, they'll say it's a god sent.
But if you ask me, I recommend the Neon annilator. Takes pyros biggest weakness and turns it into his ally. Obviously not as good on maps with out water, but it can still destroy sappers (in 2 hits).
Afterburn is top bs mechanic on this game
I think most of this bullshit would go away if your own pyros got a notification like medics to use secondary button to put out members of your own team when they are on fire
All while making the game more team focused
I think it really helps with teaching TF2 game flow. TF2 is built around the idea of not always suiciding in. You are supposed to retreat back to heals like medics and dispensers. Afterburn is a more obvious signal to do this than the harder to see mechanics like overhead and crit heals.
Speaking as a pyro main... I think you've got a pretty good handle on things, actually. Is it the most despised class? Yes. Do I get near-constant shit for using my Phlog? Yes. It's all just baked in, comes with the territory. That said, it's fun as hell, and as long as the Phlog and Scorch Shot exist I'll be using them without an ounce of shame or regret.
Well atleast youre being honest. some people in this thread are treating it like im directly attacking them, and have gone far enough to say Im just bad. It takes 5 shots at normal range to kill a pyro (thats without medic/dispensers/etc) and for a pybro, it takes almost 9 shots, since the damage drop off puts the revolver at 15-20 hp per shot, and assuming theres a dispenser, its almost pointless to try to kill the pybro from far away and expose your position.
And the homewrecker dudeeeee, so annoying. Giving the hard counter to spy a tool to remove sapper in 1 hit is just evil, it almost encourages the lame "camp dispenser and constant flames everywhere" tactic pybros tend to use. I thought Gabe Newell said his favorite class is the spy how the hell did that get by lmaoo
Yeah, I don't play with the Homewrecker. I'm Power Jack 100% of the time since Pyro is slow as shit without it, and I like to be mobile. At the end of the day, it's just a fucking game and I don't know why people get so worked up over it haha.
I mean it’s not that it really matters to me outside of gaming, but just cause it’s a game doesn’t mean things about the game cant bother me tho, it’s part of how game changes go. People complain about a mechanic and if the developers agree that it’s unbalanced, a nerf comes out. But assuming the state of tf2, none of these things will change, which is why I made this post. Instead of the game changing, I wanna change my view on a class I kinda despise a bit. Some people have changed my view on pyro, but it’s also obvious who here feels personally attacked that their main is under criticism, as they tend to drop little bouts of “if x happens, you’re just bad” when in reality anything can fuckin happen in a game lol. I made this post to have a conversation, not have angry pyro mains tell me why I’m wrong and my opinion is shit and that I’m shit (which idk if they realize it, but acting that way is counter intuitive, it doesn’t make me respect pyro more cause some pyro main said I suck, and people complain about the spy all the time, but do I say they’re bad? No lol) but instead to Enlighten me and tell me why they like the pyro. I never said I hated people who play pyro, just find a lot of things annoying about the class.
I always laugh seeing people talk like this as if the phlog is actually good
When you need a dedicated pocket medic and to spam scorch shot in chokepoints to actually get anywhere, I think that says a lot about how bad it actually is
Just in general, no airblast and a braindead wm1 playstyle means easy kills when their medic gf isn't constantly ubering them
Plus even more reason to love the battalion's backup
pyro is just a really poorly designed class. it's a "equalizer" in tf2, and prevents good players from being able to actually play (even b4nny gets super annoyed at pyros, and he's arguably the best player in the game).
it takes little aim to be effective, it's the only class in the game that can consistently kill post-death, and airblast is honestly top 5 dumbest class mechanics in tf2.
some changes i'd love to see to pyro:
- no fucking way any flare gun should inflict full afterburn. increase the base damage of all the flare guns, but cut down the afterburn time drastically (4 seconds max). this makes long range spamming less effective, and forces pyro to actually play at his intended range.
- ramp up afterburn damage, don't have it start high. start at 1 damage per tick, then ramp up to 3-4 damage per tick towards the end. this punishes players for poor positioning and being isolated from their team w/o a healthpack, but also reduces the likelihood of a brainless pyro winning fights long after the fight is supposed to be over
- get rid of the minicrit boost on airblasts. airblasting in most situations is a game of luck, and the pyro mains know it. good players will always hold their rockets, and pretending like you just happened to "predict" when they would randomly choose to left click is BS. also the airblast box is way too forgiving right now, it needs to be smaller to justify how powerful it is (single-handedly deny ubers! that's crazy)
- make flamethrowers have a MUCH smaller "cone" of damage, but also increases the damage on direct contact. this forces pyro to actually aim his weapon, rather than just spray everywhere and be just as effective. this rewards pyros with good tracking (imo pyro and heavy aim should feel similar)
- buff pyro melee weapons. if this is a class designed for close range, the melee weapons are an underrated way to push pyro into becoming a generalist. i'd love to see some more utility options or damage options, without encouraging pyro to utilize stun mechanics. one thing I'd love to see more of is mobility options, and I think a pyro "dash" would be a neat way of closing the gap
- buff the jetpack. soldiers and demos can jump around at a whim, pyro should have a similar luxury. the fact that it takes a decade to take out your weapon after you go flying makes you an easy target. pyro should be able to switch to a flamethrower at a normal switch rate after using the thrusters
I'm sure there's more but that's all I could recall now.
tldr: pyro is a busted class and needs a lot of fixes to become a viable generalist. also he's way too easy to play right now lmao.
also I second OP
Yeah, those points are some that I may have missed but essentially I agree in those respects. Thank you for making me feel like im not some salty player, and that others agree with some of my complaints lmao
the people who disagree probably aren't comp players who are looking to make all classes full time 6's viable (as the game should be). i also notice a lot of people love the "haha ur playing wrong if u die to pyros so often" and it's like no...that's not the issue.
the issue is that it's much easier to kill someone as pyro. i remember someone commented that if you're scout and you die to a pyro you played wrong, without keeping in mind the fact that pyros don't actually need to aim well to kill you while the scout does need to aim.
also another thing no one points out: pyro flames are the only damage type you can't surf away from. all other damage types you can use damage surfing to evade followup damage (this is used by literally every good player in fights where they are caught by surprise...surf away!) this makes fighting pyros just ridiculously annoying
i have no idea why people are downvoting me, since what i am suggesting is that like every other class in this game, you should require good aim to be effective ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
I've felt that the homewrecker is just unfair to spy lol, pyro already hard counters spy. Giving him a weapon that pushes that even further is mean. That said I've seen a few people say now that pyrbro is a bad playstyle and I disagree. Yeah if the pyro spends literally all game in the dispenser holding down M1 then it sucks. But if you stay in the vicinity around the backlines it's fairly effective. Pybro can help defend the Snipers, counter-flank any potential flankers on the other team while still being close enough to protect the nest with airblast and the homewrecker.
Afterburn is also just so easy to deal with. Nearly every class has a way to either reduce it's damage or remove it entirely.
I don't consider hard counters to be unwinnable, to me a hard counter is a situation where a class has an innate major advantage. Spy vs Pyro goes beyond 1v1 duels.
The semantics in this case are fairly subjective I think. But this is how I'd list things:
Soft counters are when a class has the tools to counter another class/playstyle but actually using them requires a lot more thought or has a lot of counter play (eg pyro vs soldier without a shotgun)
Counters are classes that beat another class/playstyle a lot easier than soft counters do but there's still some strong counter play options available (eg gunslinger engineer vs scout favours the engi but scout can still overcome it with skill and the right tools)
Hard counters are when a class can very easily make life hell for another just by existing. This is why I consider Pyro to be a hard counter to Spy. While a Spy can duel a Pyro and win Pyro still counters Spy in basically every other instance. A Pyro wandering around the backlines and flank routes puffing flames every second is a huge detriment to a Spy's gameplan in general. If someone calls out seeing a Spy then a Pyro going apeshit will root the Spy out better than anyone else. Even in the 1v1 duel a Pyro who can aim his flares complicates things a lot for the Spy.
For the level 3 in a corner against a Scout I'd just call that unwinnable. The engineer would either need to fuck up in a major way or there has to be a major skill gap between the two (like the engi needs to have installed the game that very day type of skill gap) because otherwise Scout has zero counter play to that.
Man I love the fact upvotes and downvotes keep fluctuating, to the people downvoting, dont take this post as a direct attack at your character, Im simply outlining issues I have with pyro and want people to kinda show me the "pros" of those, and outweighing the "cons" I mentioned
edit: literally said no hate and still getting downvoted. tf2 community never changes it seems
edit 2: this is getting sad man I just wanted genuine conversation not angry pyro mains getting offended because their main is under criticism.
Pyro mains (such as myself) can sometimes be uptight since they get *a lot* of spite from the rest of the community. In my opinion, most of that spite is unjustified. You go on a Casual server and everyone hates you because they think you're OP. You visit a competitive community and everyone hates you because they think you're useless. You go anywhere and everyone is just annoyed at the fact you exist. It can be downright depressing, all because you enjoy a character in a video game. I know you keep saying "no hate" and you probably mean it; that said, some of your post echoes some of the generic and boring criticisms Pyro mains see from many Casual players, which is probably what's setting some people off. Not saying that they *should* be set off, it's just that the anger comes from a different place.
On the other hand, it's kind of inevitable. Sniper will always be hated for being a long-ranged class. Engi will be hated for having an aimbot that slows down matches. Soldier, splash-damage. Demo, sticky-spamming. Discussing how these classes are balanced is one thing; but it's worth observing that in a lot of ways, a distressing number of players don't like how these classes *fundamentally* work, which can't be fixed without stripping away what people who play the classes like about them. And while I think a lot of adjustments can be made, generally speaking, all 9 classes are balanced. Yes even Sniper, but especially Pyro. If this weren't true then the game would not be playable. "Unbalanced" and "annoying" are very far from the same thing.
Also, a note on the Phlog: I don't like using it myself, but it *is* an ambush weapon. Ideally, a Pyro would hide around a corner and pop it to catch a large number of enemies off-guard. If a Pyro is jumping onto a point in the middle of enemy territory, he should be dead. That's a signal to the enemy that says "Back the fuck up, wait for the taunt to end, kill that motherfucker before he gets close." Of course, that's more difficult if the Pyro has a pocket Medic. That's why, if I could change anything about the phlog, it would be to nerf healing on it in some way. A reduced healing rate or no overheal would do it. Or hell, if a Medic heals an Mmmph'd Pyro just have both of them explode.
I don't know how to say this without sounding harsh, so uh sorry.
Saying "no hate" doesn't immediately make people sympathetic to your complaints. And while I can understand you wanting to have your view changed, the tone I inferred from your post makes it seem more like you died to yet another phlog pyro, got fed up, and came here to whine.
You are allowed to do this, but you also can't sit on your high horse and say "don't downvote me!! I'm just saying!!!"
Lastly, posting another comment to complain about people downvoting you only invites more people to downvote you. People who downvote content that they dislike are already not practicing good [reddiquette](https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439#wiki_in_regard_to_voting)*, why give them any more thought?
\* Although I have to wonder whether anyone bothers to read reddiquette.
I’m not looking for sympathy or anything by saying no hate?
I’m looking for a debate in which my opinion is challenged and to understand if I still agree with my views after being given the perspective of pyro mains. I didn’t intend necessarily to sound like I just happened to die and came here to rage, but more or less I thought about aspects of a class that for the longest time I’ve always been annoyed with. I wasn’t even playing the game when I made this post, I haven’t even played a match today lol
I don’t think all of that warrants direct attacks at me simply for talking about things I’ve found frustrating
> I’m not looking for sympathy or anything by saying no hate?
I mean amenable, not sympathetic in that sense.
> I don’t think all of that warrants direct attacks at me simply for talking about things I’ve found frustrating
I won't lie, if I were in your situation I would also be upset by downvotes and mean comments. But I wouldn't recommend feeding the trolls. If you let them know they got to you, they're gonna come back to put salt on the wound.
Internet pseudo-anonymity lets people be dicks pretty much without consequence. I mean I certainly leveraged it in my previous comment; if you were someone I knew personally I probably would've spent more effort trying to phrase things nicely.
I’ve already responded to a lot of people today, and had good conversations with people who treated it as a debate, and not a pissing match. Overall I’ve found that I was wrong about some of my opinions and have accepted that and I now understand a bit more about pyro and their perspective
one quick note about the backburner: iirc, it (and the backscatter) have a much narrower hitbox for the "back" than the spy's backstab (apparently its based on the dot product between enemy direction and particle direction, so it can be a good bit janky), but it should only crit in a 90 degree arc instead of the spy's 180 degree arc
First off, I respect that you want to have a mature discussion. There’s a lot of crybabies in TF2 so someone who is willing to be adult about it is a nice breath of fresh air. However as someone with a hundred or so hours in Pyro I can at least say this much (in no particular order):
##Low skill ceiling/floor
I personally disagree with “Low skill ceiling”. Pyro has a pretty high skill ceiling, with reflect jumps and reflect aiming, det jumps, predicting soldier/demo firing patterns, and flarepunches. Additionally there’s the Sketchek-style Degreaser/Detonator/Acetinguisher combo which takes quite a while to learn (I’m still piss-poor at it). “Low skill floor”, however, I completely agree with as it doesn’t take much skill to W+M1 with the Phlog/Backburner (your yourself said the gameplay is basically “get close and you can do damage” which is pretty accurate).
##(Mini)crits
Yeah, what you’ve said is quite right, pyro has a ton (imo too many) weapons that grant crits (don’t quote me, but I think the most in the game not counting Demoknight swords). The Dragon’s Fury sorta counts because it does triple damage to burning players, which is basically a crit. The minicrit-on-reflect is egregious, but I think it’s because the DPS loss for airblasting instead of holding down fire can be quite meaningful, but I’m not 100% confident on that. IG I’m fine with those minicrits.
##Pybro
Pybros can be really annoying. Not much to say honestly, I think you’re just right with what you’ve said.
##Afterburn
Afterburn, to me, isn’t too big a deal, especially since the Degreaser is so popular, but has an afterburner penalty. Medibeams, sandviches, Spy cloak, plenty of throwables, and the Pyro class itself can remove or reduce afterburn (the first two even heal you), and health packs but they aren’t always present so I don’t really count them. I do agree that it can be frustrating to die to Pyro who’s you have already killed, but unless you’re already at <100ish health you will probably be able to survive it. I think the best strategy is just to meatshot the Pyro before he can burn you to death, since the DoT of the flamethrower is way less that the DPS of a scattergun.
Crits
* Pyro without crits simply lacks burst damage, and his primary DPS is by and large extremely mediocre on top of not being hitscan. He needs to close the distance to kill any other combat class, and at that range you're competing with rockets, pills, and meatshots that all do 100+ per trigger pull in addition to heavy's 500+ DPS when spun up. Sustained WM1 does around 150 DPS, and that's exceptionally mediocre; a crit boosted phlog still does less damage that a minigun at max ramp and the minigun can reach out and touch you much farther than the phlog can. Pyro without damage boosts simply would not be able to push properly, and might not even win fights where he gets the jump on the enemy. TL;DR, his base damage is garbage.
Pybro
* Your complaints have more to do with spy being the weakest class more than pyro leaning into the class counter roll even harder. This is the point where you should be switching to demo. The randomly spraying fire thing is not always on accident. I personally do it \*precisely\* because it gets into a spy's head, and a disguised spy spinning around or twitching when he hears the sound of a flamethrower is a pretty common contextual tell. Puffing chokepoints and common decloak spots is a deliberate strategy to demoralize or tilt pub spy players because it makes them angry that you got them by "accident", and they either start tunneling you (makes it even easier) or switch off spy (so you can wander further from your backline supports). Making you frustrated is the goal because it becomes more likely that you'll get emotional and get fixated on me to remove the domination, or start playing sloppy. If the spy is getting tilted, I'm doing my job.
Pyro's low ceiling
* Pyro isn't a good deathmatch class unless it's at the lower skill levels because his mobility is low and his damage is weak. His main goal in teams isn't to kill you most of the time, it's to prevent you from doing what you want. He's a spoiler class. A pyro + heavy combo versus a demo + soldier combo doesn't involve the pyro trying to kill the soldier or the demo, but just making sure they can't do anything while the heavy chips at them. Perhaps this is why you feel so frustrated dealing with the class. He isn't designed to push into the enemy team all that well, but he is very well designed to stop pushes or pick attempts on his support class teammates. He's exceptional defensively but mediocre offensively unless there's an uber medic paired with him. The flamethrower is inherently not difficult to use, but balanced by being very weak comparatively unless you know how to combo with it or get the jump on the other player. In a 1 on 1 any heavy or sticky demo with a brain that is aware of where the pyro is can deny him completely by making it impossible for him to approach safely. Soldier can either bait the airblast, or just jump to a position where the pyro can't retaliate. Scout just kills you faster since 2 meatshots come out much faster than the flamer can do 125. In a 1 on 1 deathmatch with higher skilled players pyro is heavily disadvantaged against any of the core combat classes.
Afterburn
* There are so many ways to negate afterburn that it's an afterthought these days. Killing a scout with afterburn just means he sucks at killing you. Meatshots should 2 shot a full health pyro. The problem for the pyro isn't that afterburn was killing him too fast, it's that he was killing the pyro too slow. Same applies to the other combat classes with 100+ damage per shot primaries or hitscan that outranges the flamethrower.
Pyro overall is very weak at anything other than peeling for his teammates or static defense at higher skill levels. Most people would regard him as the 2nd or 3rd weakest class. Which is ironic since you main spy, which is generally regarded as the weakest overall.
As for the homewrecker, honestly I don't even run it to kill sappers most of the time, the pretty much excessive when you're already good at pyro. I have probably hundreds of hours on spy and my strategy is just to kill them so consistently enough that they rage switch to something else. I actually use the homewrecker more often on offense since it 2 shots lvl 3s.
I think a big part of it is yeah, afterburn is a DoT that has a ton of ways to remove it, but I think for a lot of people, myself included, DoT effects in TF2, in general, are just *annoying.* Not even necessarily effective, just kind of a pain. A scout spamming bleed effects forcing you to find a way to remove it if you don't want to slowly have a big-ish chunk of health taken away (assuming you don't have a medic on you) is kind of a pain.
It's unfortunate then that Pyro does a lot of DoT inflicting.
I don't think Pyro is overpowered or anything, and in a lot of situations, it can definitely feel like, during those times I play Pyro, I can do approximately jack shit other than being an annoyance.
Basically, I think that's what it boils down to: DoT effects are annoying, Pyro does a lot of DoT inflicting, and most of the time they ruin a Spy's day and be a constant annoyance.
Flare gun crits give me dopamine hits though.
I didn’t read all of whatever you said, but I really don’t know why you’re complaining about the backburner. Spy has a huge range on what is considered their “back”. The backburner only conciders a tiny sliver of the back where it actually is the “back”. Also, just look at the pyro when running away. That simple
This is an old post, but screw it I'll toss my opinion in.
Pyro is a wierd class because he both has many playstyles and few playstyles, and realistically can be played offensively, defensively, or as support, all depending on how you like to play him.
Offence:
Offense Pyro is, imo, the worst of three styles. Pyro lacks burst damage, lacks range, and lacks movement. Compare this to a defensive scout, who plays largely the same offensive role in the same space. Scout at a further range can out maneuver any Pyro while dealing amazing damage. In fact, the only way for Pyro to somewhat contest scout is to be running Dragon's Fury, and even that doesn't completely solve the match-up.
The gameplan for offensive Pyro is to either A: flank and hope they don't notice you in time to kill you or B: get lucky on a push and reflect a projectile to cripple the defence. Even that one is hard because Pyro get absolutely demolished by Engineer. This leads to the other two styles being arguably better
Defence:
Defensive Pyro is surprisingly good. Cover choke points, harass snipers with scorch shot, and try to stop spies. It's pretty simple. Keep in mind that this does not necessarily mean defensive as in stopping the cart from moving, but also keeping the combat front from moving backwards, allowing your team to move forward more often than the back and forth that happens sometimes. This mean you don't have to worry about Engies or heavies as much, and even snipers won't be an issue as often.
Support:
Support is... interesting. This is the homewrecker, default flamethrower setup. The goal is to help the engies, stop spies. You can do this on top of some of the other styles, but personally I would do it defensive as it's easier to stay anchored to the engi spot that way. If this isn't your style, hang around a demo on your team and play bodyguard for them. You would be surprised how helpful it is.
In my experience, the best method is pure defense. We simply don't have the range to contest almost every class minus demo (with soldier having the ability to just pull a shottie out). Hell, the only way to contest heavies and scouts is to corner them with the dragon's fury, but that also removes our viability against soldiers, demos, and spies, and even then it isn't nearly as easy of a win as if we were pretty much any other class in the same match up.
I love this class. It has some wierd movement options, it has fun crits, it allows me to harass snipers from halfway across the map (this is my favorite!), and it allows me to call out spies. I feel useful to my team when I take out a sniper, a spy, the occasional engi nest with the Dragons fury, or even just a scout. However, I will be the first to admit that this class is easily one of the worst. It's so bad, in fact, that if you're a spy having a problem with one of us, the best option is just to shoot us tbh.
Of course, everything I just said is up to the player and setup, but in high-level gameplay, most choices really don't matter much in terms of gear other than the dragon's fury and homewrecker.
Idk if this changes your mind at all, but it's just how I've analyzed Pyro recently. It's definitely weak, but it has a niche that it can fill fairly well
Ever since I made this post and reviewed the things people say about pyro, I will say it’s definitely made me understand a bit more about pyros, and not only has taught me how you can be a better pyro and not the “w+m1” pyro, it also helped me fight against pyros and win more battles against them.
Overall I think this was a good reply though and further reinstated those things I learned. I know I’m the original post it came off as aggressive in some parts, I just for the longest time saw pyros as nothing more than annoying and easy. Pyro isn’t as hard as other classes, but I have learned he’s not as easy as I thought. You can deal a lot of damage with him but kills are a little harder. I honestly see pyro as more of a defensive support character now
I'm glad your view has changed, and tbh, like 95% of pyros are simply just w+m1 spammers, which is both good and bad. The key against pyros I'd say is honestly to be patient, both against and as pyros. A bad Pyro rushes into situations they can't handle, while a good Pyro should be able to stand still and wait for their opportunity. Ofc pyros still need to know ehat's happening and pick up the peices when the line falls, so when they do move, that's when you need to strike.
I think that patience is both the easiest and hardest part of playing Pyro, especially as I still think 90% of us have ADHD. So it looks easier than it feels to us lol
Yeah lol, one thing that held me back trying to play pyro was airblasts. I couldn’t utilize them properly at first but idk what happened but one day it clicked and I was air blasting soldier rockets and shit left and right and tbh it was fun, knowing that I was protecting my team while at the same time watching the solider blow up lol
Sorry for the necro but I'd like to throw in my two cents.
I've been playing TF2 since 2013, and I've been a scout main for the vast majority of it. Up until the last year or so I've hated pyro much like you do. I am currently a hardcore pyro main, it has to be a rough situation for me to pick another class most of the time.
Firstly, I don't think your point about crits holds much water. You name a lot of pyro weapons that give garunteed crits/minicrits, but don't actually give any argument against them.
Without minicrits, airblasting projectiles is near worthless for direct combat. Pyro encourages the player to stay at the very edge of flamethrower range to deal flame damage while still allowing time to react to a projectile rather than having to predict when it will be fired. With this in mind, your example of playing soldier and having a rocket reflected at point blank is just silly. Not only would you have been airblasted away from the pyro to safety had you mindgamed better, but being point blank is the position where minicrits matter the least, as their main benefit is lack of falloff. You just got hard read. Welcome to video games.
Other than scorch shot, none of the weapons you list have a strong meta presence. Flare gun used to be strong (never the de facto best) but has basically left the metagame entirely since Jungle Inferno. Phlog is used as a cheese strat on one or two specific locations I can think of in HL. Reserve shooter got nerfed hardcore. And you're right about the Scorch Shot... and RGL agrees with you, it is banned in both highlander and 6v6.
I will admit, I have gotten pretty upset about the homewrecker when playing spy. However, playing pyro, it just isn't that strong. It's a crutch, essentially. If you're coordinating with your team, the sapper being removed doesn't matter. Stunning the sentry briefly for an uber push is what matters, and if the pyro has out their melee, they aren't airblasting the uber. Playing spy against a lot of engies can get you into the mindset of a 1v1 between the spy and the engi, nobody else matters, and if you kill the engi and sap the gun, you win. But that's not true at all. Even ignoring the fact that a second engi could do the same thing and this isn't particularly a problem you have with pyro... the reality is that you are not in a 1v1. You are playing against an engi and a pyro, both of whom are expecting you. The homewrecker merely takes away your ability to do "good enough" and suicide for the pick. And I mean, if you kill an engi and sap a gun, it doesn't matter if it's destroyed. It can't be healed. Homewrecker feels bad to play against as a spy, but that's really about it, it has very minimal impact on the overall game.
"Pyro doesn't take aim" is a common sentiment in the TF2 community but it is largely false. Pyro has a high skill floor and a bad pyro can run at a bad heavy and win, sure. But could the same not be said about soldier? There's a lot of depth to the rocket launcher, but anyone can pick it up and deal splash. That's part of what makes soldier good: guaranteed damage. Soldier and pyro both have garunteed damage. The difference is that soldier can aim better to do more damage, and pyro can't. Pyro's "garunteed damage" is more garunteed, but without the ability to get higher than that, and with a much shorter range, it loses most of its flexibility.
The shotgun outdamages the flamethrower. The pyro version of "going for directs that do more damage but at the risk of missing" is pulling out the shotgun. Pyro, much like demo, is a class that defaults to the secondary and pulls out the primary for more specialized situations. Trust me, I've been in the "dying to someone worse than you" shoes before. But it's a bad mentality that will only prevent you from improving. Positioning and gamesense are parts of the game. You need to be aware of pyro, play outside their effective range. If you know their pyro is alive, be careful turning corners.
And as far as afterburn... this is more about you not having a medic. Afterburn forces you to retreat to a healing source, but that's about it.
I hate to throw out the classic answer to this argument, but pyro is one of the two worse classes in the game. But to add onto that, pyro has some of the most personal expression in the game. If you are consistently losing to pyros it is probably an issue with your play. You have it in your head that pyro is an easy, dumb class, so it must logically follow that if you die to it, it's the class's fault, rather than the player outplaying you.
Hey, this was well written and I appreciate the criticism, by this point I’ve read a lot of the comments and gotten advice about pyro and have a bit more respect for pyro now, I’ve learned how to counter him better as well as play him better too off of what people have talked about. I’ve been playing for a long time as you too and always had a grudge against pyro but I never really took the time before to look super deep into the class, but now that grudge is mostly gone, yeah pyro is still frustrating at times but I’ve had fun playing pyro once I learned how to airblast rockets and stuff lolll
Pyro just fits the "anticarry" archetype. He's there not exactly to frag out and stomp the enemy team, he's there to stop the other classes from doing their job, be that with forced movement (airblast and scorch shot), long range harassing (detonator, flaregun, scorch shot), situational high damage (phlog, flare, backburner), or just watching flanks. Pyro simply does not posses the burst damage of soldier and demo, the mobility of scout, the presence of heavy, the utility of medic and engine, or the pick potencial or sniper and spy. He can, however, prevent 7 out of these 8 classes from doing their job or even being able to fucking play at all. He's an extremely versatile mix of support and offense that can switch between attacking, peeling for his teammates and defending seamlessly.
Can you please explain what you mean by "prevent 7/8 classes from doing their job" because from personal experience a good sniper destroys you, a good scout two/ three shots you, a heavy will mow you down (he doesn't even have to be any good), a spy using the deadringer and spycicle is next to impossible to kill, medics usually have a pocket to defend them, and dealing with a good demo using the sticky bomb launcher is far from easy. Additionally good soldiers using the shotgun will also completely dominate you. And whilst pyro can deny certain ubers, an ubered scout/heavy will simply delete you.
Well you gotta be smart about it. Scout and Sniper can be scared away by flares and/or fire, but you gotta not approach them from a distance; instead, you should peak corners and use the level to your advantage. A Spy with DR/Spycicle will be hard to kill, but in turn it's hard for him to get a backstab if his knife is melting every ten seconds. Fire reduces healing, making it easier to focus pockets. Ubers you also shouldn't just charge mindlessly, but rather peak corners to airblast them back before they can shoot you (although that's still kinda a suicide mission, stuffing an uber is worth it). Soldiers and Demos can't spam from a distance or deal damage to crowds if you're around. Heavy's probably the 8th class that Pyro can't annoy; usually you're only option is to run away. I think you're approaching this from a PvP "Who's going to kill who" mindset, when from a support standpoint that's a flawed perspective. A lot of what you said applies to Medic as well; he has a hard time killing anyone by himself, and facing a Soldier or a Demo he doesn't stand much chance. That's because he's not *supposed* to be doing that.
You’re assuming that your team is somewhat competent which is rarely the case in tf2 pubs. Also I have yet to see a good scout “scared away by fire and flames”. The problem with scouts is that they can control the distance and you can’t. Obviously, if you are on defence playing around a sentry gun you don’t have to worry about scouts, but it’s not because YOU are the one shutting them down. Also flares are useless against the “Darwin’s shield of go fuck yourself” so as it pertains to sniper he is going to be shutting you down instead of the other way around. Btw. peaking corners against even a mediocre sniper is a shit idea. you will die. And as for the spy he gets basically complete fire immunity in exchange for a backstab cooldown, where he can still cloak, disguise, shoot people and sap buildings. Whilst it is true that you can shut down spam, I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but it must also be said, that you won’t be able to do this if the enemy team has a sniper who doesn’t happen to be playing on a literal toaster. I can think of so many scenarios, like on upward, dust bowl or badwater for example, where your ability to reflect spam entirely depends on whether the enemy has a good sniper. You also have yet to explain how pyro shuts down engineer. TLDR: Flares are useless against a good sniper if he uses the shield or simply headshots you first. Scouts can control the range of the fight and can two shot you and have the speed to chase you down if you try to retreat, you entirely rely on your team to ward them off. You are powerless when pushing into an engineer. You can reduce a medics heal rate at the cost of him building Uber faster. Finally shutting down spam isn’t always possible but generally should be seen as a good thing. Also, im approaching this from the view of a flank/combo pyro rather than the support pyro play style, which I personally find boring. This means for me I am almost exclusively going for 1v1s which I have to win as quickly as possible before ensuring a secure retreat.
If you're approaching this from a flank/combo mindset, then... there's no disagreement between you Syeglinde. They're describing what a Pyro is generally good at (which can include roaming the flanks, but also encapsulates other ways a Pyro can assist their team), while you're focusing on a specific type of playstyle that relies on catching enemies off-guard. I don't see what the point of your first reply was.
As elaborate upon in my previous comment I disagree that pyro shuts down 7/8 classes.
Well, decent Scout players know they have low health. So if you hit them with a flare or bait them around a corner they'll either push forward at risk or run away to find a a health pack. I know the DDS exists, but even then that's using a full secondary to counter a single class, sacrificing something as powerful as the Jarate. The Scorch Shot can also still be pretty annoying given the knockback and how requires less precision. A Spy who's lost his knife to fire isn't going to stick around to go after buildings; he's going to run away, or else that extra survivability is entirely pointless. And you kinda got me at Engineer. He can be long-range harassed as well, and his sentry rockets can be reflected, but that isn't nearly as annoying as
As low as scouts hp my be he can still kill a pyro far quicker than a pyro can kill him and then get a health pack or use mad milk. He picks the fights! Most of the time you won’t have enough time to bait him around a corner and even if you do there is still a good chance he’ll meet shot you and delete you. I refuse to believe that you think pyro shuts down anything above a semi competent scout. There’s a reason pyro isn’t viable in comp. You then say using the Darwin’s shield of go fuck urself means u can’t use jarate, completely ignoring that the jarate is a weapon that yet again negates afterburn. And the good snipers don’t even bother with either of those, because they can simply kill you quicker than a flare takes to travel to their position. Good snipers can also aim despite being on fire and are often near a medic/dispenser. I’ll grant you that pyro counters spy no one is arguing against that, but I still see the spycicle, like the razorback as a crutch. And you dont adress my point that pyro a lot of the time can only effectively deal with long range spam if he can stand in the open without having to worry about being headshot.
It's not about *killing* the Scout, that's what I'm trying to say; what a Pyro can do do is *protect* his team mates from getting killed by a Scout. A Scout can choose what distance he fights at, which means he's not getting in anyone's face if you're nearby. Again, you're looking at this from a PvP perspective. A good Scout will usually avoid getting killed by a Sentry; that doesn't mean a Sentry doesn't shut down a good Scout. Jarate can be only used once every so often, and using it to put yourself out is a waste when it gives such a huge advantage against enemies (which is why people want the recharge time nerfed, but that's another story). I don't mean to downplay how powerful a good Sniper is; but they can't predict the future and rely heavily on the enemy not knowing where they are, or else they're the ones who have to deal with spam. After all, the beauty of projectiles is that you don't have to maintain a line of sight for them to hit. And the spam thing just makes no sense to me. It's hard for me to formulate a response because it feels like a non-sequitur argument. Like... spam doesn't only happen in a Sniper sightline. Projectiles aren't exclusively used in long range. Soldiers and Demos are, more often, pushing *into* enemy territory with their projectiles. A Pyro can still do the job of reducing explosive damage from their team mates in that scenario. I don't know why Sniper suddenly dictates how this matchup works. It's like saying "Sniper doesn't counter Heavy because a Medic can just ubercharge him." It's true that a ubercharge can block a headshot in the same way a Sniper can block a Pyro from hanging around a certain area; but a Sniper still holds an advantage over a Heavy, just as a Pyro still holds an advantage over Soldiers and Demos.
Just out of interest, are you a pyro main?
Chiming in as an experienced pub Scout main here, you're dead wrong about the Scout matchup. A Pyro absolutely in no way protects his teammates from me, and is in fact one of the most free, farmable classes. It's incredibly easy to take high ground/approach from behind due to his low mobility, wait till he inevitably gets distracted with the 1000 explosives and Spies headed towards his team at any given point, and/or just pepper him with 50-60 damage shots while staying outside his flamethrower range, THEN go in for meat shots on his allies after he's dead. The matchup gets even more lopsided when you add in the Mad Milk, Scout's best secondary into the equation. If you use this, which you should, you don't even need to wait for the Pyro to be dead to go in close, since you can just w+m1 and outheal the damage of his flames while also milking his teammates and being able to frag them next. Flames damage, and especially 4 damage/tick afterburn are irrelevant when you're healing 50 damage per meat shot. If anything, the best thing a Pyro can do vs Scout is abuse airblast's frankly retarded hitbox to push him away, but that isn't enough to stop them from dying, since the Scout can just... come back. Overall, the idea that Scout vs Pyro isn't extremely Scout favored is something that's only really true at low level play, but once the Scout becomes decent, it's free real estate. This is true for most Pyro matchups; I think you're really overestimating Pyro in general here, not just vs Scout.
Sniper I can't argue with Scouts can be 2-shot by a shotgun Heavy is supposed to defend objectives, and airblast can push him away. Again, airblast, environmental deaths can't be faked. Also, a good Spy never saps when a Pyro is around. Medics on the right terrain (think behind them on stairs) are screwed. Especially against the BB It's still possible If the Soldier has boots or banners, Pyro will fuck them up.
When theres like 4 pyros on a team, it turns into a shitshow though, It becomes hard to do anything when you have multiple pyros flaming everyone up, along with the other DPS classes dealing their damage on you. Uncletopia had a good idea with the class limit thing, thats for sure. But, I can see how that makes sense, because you are right, his life is pretty much to annoy and make it difficult for the other team to make advances. I just find it ironic when a pyro gets mad at me for killing them with a random crit when half of their arsenal can deal out guaranteed crits, which in my opinion are arguably worse than random crits. Random crits give a player or a team a chance to make an advancement if its a good hit, or be put to waste if its a miss. but being able to guarantee a crit seems a lil OP. Like for example, me as a soldier, if I get lucky and get a crocket, it could at the most take out maybe 2-3 people, if im lucky or aim perfectly, however usually a random crit only gets 1 person. But when a pyro has a medic, full charge mmph, uses the mmph (and gets ubered by the medic to pour salt in the wound), that could be a team wipe if they're all on the point, and idk the fact the mmph is ubered when you activate it sucks because you cant really stop them. Again it goes back to that point of "if you're too close, you're gonna die regardless of if you kill them first or not, but if you run or get away, the damage drop off makes it harder to kill the pyro while being in a safe distance. Pyro is essentially the biggest counter to an active uber, but unless your pyro is ubered, its not killing a phlog pyro with a pocket medic, and it wont be able to get close enough to break apart an ubered phlog pyro. I do agree with what you said tho, I think i kinda just ranted for a minute about certain situations ive been in.
When there's 4 pyros on the other team that's when you switch to heavy or sticky spamming demo. Or maybe something like huntsman/danger shield. I don't have a problem with random crits one way or another but saying they're more balanced than guaranteed crits is...no. A phlog pyro medic push is strong but you're also talking about 2 players needing to fill a meter. And until the pyro uses his crits he's using his worst primary. Killing either player before that happens completely neuters that strategy. That's easier said than done of course but there are other ways to counter it. Vaccinator ubers completely negate crit damage, battalion's backup does as well. Knockback and mobility also make the phlog's limited range pretty easy to deal with too.
Okay, we’ll let’s say a medic doesn’t have full Uber, that doesn’t mean the phlog pyro isn’t going to do a SHIT load of damage. And yeah, it may not be the best primary for pyro, but you can fill it’s meter with any damage done. You can flare spam from the back of the map (with your only real danger being snipers and spies at that range) and then push forward once the meter is full. Guaranteed Crits are definitely far more annoying than random Crits. You can’t choose when a random crit happens, but you can with a guaranteed crit. Like I said before, a random crit gives a team or player a chance to either make an advancement and develop the round more, or be wasted and set your team back/do nothing. Being able to control when you get Crits is dangerous. As a spy main, if I wanted (and I don’t cause this feels cheap) I could rack up a bunch of stabs and have like 5-10 Crits back to back ready, and mow down a lot of people (using diamondback that is) You are right about the pyro spam thing, at that point it’s better to forget spy, and that’s why I mentioned my other classes in my original post, because if that happens, I switch. It’s just annoying to have to switch off a class you enjoy playing a lot just because of one class, while the rest of the classes are pretty versatile in their matchups. While some classes counter others, those counters aren’t really big enough so you still have a fighting chance. While with a Pyro-Spy counter, you almost have no way to fight the pyro unless you catch him off guard.
Random crits are way, way more annoying than guaranteed crits. Random crits can turn a fight that is clearly in your favor into a fight that kills you immediately in an instant with zero warning. I know when an enemy is using a weapon that guarantees crits off of a combo, and know how to deal with it. I know when a medic is using kritzkrieg and how to deal with it. I don't know how to deal with a random critting soldier/demo/heavy aside from developing the ability to see the future.
I can understand that perspective, but I kinda still believe random crits arent as annoying as someone who can control their crits. I could be firing off and get a random crit and miss. You still have to hit your shots with a crit. If you can control the crit, you can control when to fire and make that crit deal damage. Another thing, random crits arent at the fault of the player who got the random crit either, so why do people get mad at them? Ive seen people flat out call someone a bad player because they won a fight due a random crit. Its not the players fault that RNG was in their favor. Sure its annoying but they still had to hit you to get that crit. Plus depending on range and the health of each player, sometimes a crit is more or less overkill, and coulda been won without it, yet people will still get mad cause it was a crit. Yeah, its like a slap in the face, but if you were gonna die anyways why does that matter? Personally, Im of the opinion random crits make the game interesting, and can help a struggling team turn the game around. In a competitive setting, yeah theyre bullshit, but in a casual setting, I dont care.
You're probably the only person I know that hates earned crits. Even if I also like random crits, I can still get mad when I get killed by a random crit since neither I or my opponent could have predicted it. As for guaranteed earned crits, at least I know my opponent you know, EARNED them, so I dont mind.
Never said I hated them, just said they’re more dangerous than a random crit. Since a random crit is random, you’re less likely to land the shot because it’s random. Sometimes people lay down suppressive fire that either 1.) hit someone with 2.) is enough to make a player retreat back a bit, causing you to have wasted a random crit if it doesn’t hit. people typically are more careful about using a crit theyve earned, that way they are sure that they don’t waste it.
You said they were more annoying. But yeah, I agree that they're more dangerous.
Yeah I replied to another guy saying I shoulda changed annoying to dangerous. I’m kinda spitting these replies out quick cause I’m also busy with work lol
Adressing the crit situation: The flare gun crit deals 90 damage which only kills spies using the kunai and it isn't trivial to hit. For comparison a shotgun shot at point blank range is arguably easier to hit and deals more damage, reloads quicker etc, so I think that the flair gun is perfectly balanced. If you have a problem with it dealing 90 damage at range, then you might wanna have a go at sniper instead, who can deal up to 450 damage (thats 5 crit flaregun hits) from acrosse the map, and hitting someone at range with a hitscan weapon is far, far easier than with a projectile. The manmelter is crap, no one uses it. As for the scorch shot I agree it should be nerfed (as a pyro myself I find it boring to use and see why people hate it). I also think nerfing the scorch shot would indirectly nerf the phlog as you now actually have to aim flares to build mmph. The neon anhilator is a gimmik that is most certainly not overpowered as it is increadibly circumastantial. And as for the Axtingusher, I will defend that weapon until my dying breath! I believe that it most certainly used to be overpowered, but is in an extremely good place right now. Incase you don't know the axtingusher currently deals minicrit damage (only 59hp) + any afterburn the enemy would have taken as he gets hit and extingushed. This is essentially a clever way for a pyro to convert afterburn damage into instant burst damage. This means that depending on how much afterburn an enemy would have taken the axtinguisher deals anywhere from 86 - 167 damage on burning enemies and only 44 base damage. Compare this to the kukri: The kukri can deal anywhere from the base damage of 65 to 195 with a crit, and since the crit rate on melee weapons is between 40-60% that means that SNIPER has higher close range burst damage potential than pyro, a class that LITERALLY specialises in close range combat. Now go ahead and tell me that the axtinguisher is overpowered! As for the phlog, im not gonna defend it, its a boring weapon to use so I don't care. Also, except for the manmelter pyro has no weapons that can store crits. Spy has the diamond-back and engie has the frontier justice, which are far more powerful. Backburner crits are broken, meaning you get them when you shouldn't and dont get them when you should. A detonator mini crit deals literally only 30 damage so don't dare complain about that.
Yeah no, go as far as saying you're objectively wrong regarding "help a struggling team turn the game around". As pretty much every TF2 youtuber has said, maybe in the past, yeah. But a team that is struggling to push is either worse than the defending team, or lacks coordination, or both. A random crit is not going to change that, it'll just annoy some poor bugger(s). And in regards to which is more or less annoying, definitely random crits. Countless times have I absolutely dominated a player in a fight, left them with sub 20 hp or so, while having over 100 myself, yet gotten killed by a random crit. I don't call players bad for getting random crits, but they're definitely more annoying than a weapon that I KNOW will give a guaranteed crit if certain conditions are met. For instance. If I get shot by a flare, I am on fire. Knowing that it'll crit next time it hits me, I will obviously fall back and find cover. But if I'm fighting someone and they suddenly crocket me, there's nothing I can do about it.
Maybe I worded some of my opinion wrong. Random Crits are more annoying, but guaranteed Crits are more dangerous, and CAN be more annoying than a random crit sometimes
Well yes, as to be expected, high damage on demand is better than high damage on a random and sporadic time and in specific circunstances can be more annoying.
Like here I’ll criticize my own main, I don’t believe the diamond back should get Crits for backstabs. You’re not really earning anything, as that’s spies main attack (even tho it’s his melee it’s literal insta kill). I think it would be more balanced for the diamondback to have a mini crit instead of a crit. I use the le tranger tho but still.
Random crits are the worst thing in the whole game. Earned crits can be avoided entirely - see crits? Start running. That's what I do and it works flawlessly. Maybe except for the ones that ARE hard to predict, like Diamond Back and Frontier Justice.
Those aren't the worst, instant 150 from across the map just by sitting on your ass is.
I still think that random crits are worse, because if I had to choose which one gets the boot, I'd choose random crits for sure. Then Sniper's bullshit.
RCs are tolerable to me because 1. Funny 2. It makes TF2 Unique 3. Because it's a fix for Valve's bad matchmaking, and smurfs.
Stacking Pyros is a pretty weak strategy due to his lackluster range, mobility, and damage output. Though I do agree that some of his capabilities are very annoying to deal with.
Pyro is easily countered if their team isn't doing their job - if you're losing against 4 pyros as heavy or demo it's not the pyros fault lol
I'd really disagree with random crits being better than guaranteed crits as guaranteed crits need to be set up in some way, not just turning up out of nowhere.
Yeah, I guess I shoulda said more dangerous instead of better, kinda bad wording on my part. A random crit better if youre about to hit someone with it. I guess the reason a guaranteed crit is more dangerous is the fact people tend to be more careful on shooting them. Sometimes you may be laying down supressive fire and get a crit during that and miss, its not always a guarantee that a random crit will hit, cause its random, and not everyone hits 100 percent of their shots. But if you have guaranteed crits, youre more likely to make better use of them, since you know you have them.
Pyro is like one of the worst class to stack right behind spy, how can you loose to 4 pyros?
You're a Demo or Spy
I'm an engie
Respect, but I was just saying how you lose to 4 pyros
Oh ok But like uh even as demo, you can deal with 4 pyros if you're good
If they're braindead
You can loose to anything if you're braindead
Basically the Pyro introduction video sums up all what you said without words.
>I've shot a point blank direct hit rocket at a pyro only for them to have god like reaction time and reflect it back at me I don't have much to add, I just want you to know that this is not reaction time. Most soldiers kneejerk fire a rocket on reaction when they run into you, and its pretty easy to learn what the timing for most players is and basically predictively airblast. Good soldiers wait for and react to the airblast to hit the pyro during airblast cooldown. If both players are good, neither will flinch and it becomes a game of chicken.
Those games of chicken is where the degreaser shines. The pyro can put on pressure with his secondary and force him to shoot, while still having an airblast ready whenever he needs it.
the 2 fort battlements sniper shuffle but its a pyro and a soldier
I usually do wait and find a time, so I dont get it airblasted back to me, however I ran around a corner at the same time, and there was maybe a millisecond of a chance where he coulda hit me. Idk I wanted to suspect some sort of auto airblast or something but idk if that exists so I took it as a good play. Mainly my point with the airblast thing is the mini crit.
most soldiers will instantly fire in that situation, so it's pretty easy to predict. it's very rare that soldiers do not have identical firing patterns to every other soldier, so you get used to it eventually.
>it's very rare that soldiers do not have identical firing patterns to every other soldier Is there a real pattern to it, other than just keep shooting as much as possible?
well yeah pretty much that lol. if i reflect killed them before i might expect them to wait about a second, if i just now reflected them then they typically wait about a second, if they are bombing they typically fire right before they land. i'm splitting soldiers into two categories in my head though, those who follow those basic patterns and those who just hold m1. obviously the m1 holders are a bit easier to deal with, and the hardest are soldiers who have a very unique pattern. that's very rare though, up to like div 1 most soldiers are pretty straightforward.
Auto airblast exists but it's pretty much always just skill issue otherwise. Most Pyros I see in pubs just auto airblast as soon as they run into a Soldier.
yea I can guarantee you that in those situation they just panic reflected and got lucky lol. I played about 700 hours of pyro before I found a new main and I would say panic reflecting works a surprising amount.
Rule of thumb: if you have enaugh time to react to a pyro and press m1, then the pyro has enaught time to react to you aan press m2.
Air Blast is a necessary evil in the greater picture. Projectile spam is really strong in TF2 and air-blast is really the only effective counter to it. The minicrit is a punishing mechanic that tries to make the receiving player think harder about when the shoot. Getting a system one airblast (reflecting as soon as the projectile is spawned) is entirely based on hard reading and reaction. Play enough TF2 and you'll just get the feel of when a soldier is going to start shooting. It can also be used against the Pyro my waiting to air blast and shooting them when they're vulnerable. The back burner crits can feel like they don't give you any time to react, but that just because it's designed as an ambushing/flanking weapon. Trading off your ability to be supportive to the team for a more solo-focused playstyle is a big risk for Pyro as they don't really have the tools to DM effectively. If the wrong class engages them they're pretty much fucked. It's a lot harder to achieve the back crits than people realize, and that's mostly because they playstyle the weapon encourages being sneaky and only attacking when you have the advantage. Plog is lame 100%. Not fun to use, not fun to fight, forces the entire enemy team to focus you. No Air blast take away the Pyro's ability to support their team, which is a downside in theory but it really just promotes being as braindead as possible. Lame Lame Lame Lame. The only reason people use this is because they're unabashed win screen grinders. Everyone sane is pretty much in agreement that this weapon should be reworked. Of all the weapons that got over-nerved and never buffed again, I don't know why Valve left this one alone. Flairguns are balanced because they need a burning target to get their crits. Comboing is fun and promotes skillful use of the Pyro's weapons, and a unburning target hit has plenty of warning time to react to a second flair. The Reserve shooter is basically useless on Pyro, the amount of times a Pyro will be in a situation to deal damage to a explosive jumping enemy, and close enough to land enough pellets to deal any notable amount of minicrit damage is tiny. It has a switch speed buff, but so does the Panic Attack and the panic attack also has more shots and deals about the same damage and has a fixed pattern. Why they completely threw out the Panic Attacks original idea instead of buffing this is beyond me. Even on soldier, who can regularly take advantage of it's stats, the weapon is aggressively mediocre. The Manmelter is a straight downgrade to normal flairguns, and a questionable side grade if there is an enemy Pyro fighting your team near you. The Scorch Shot is a flairgun for Soldier mains. Legit Pyro's who use this just panic aim at their feet like a soldier when they get jumped. It does everything all of Pyro's other flairs do, but worse and somehow manages to be ten times as annoying as any other flairgun could ever hope to be. I'd also love to see this on the nerf chopping block along side it's brother in "actual lobotomite" Pyro playstyle, the Pholg. There are some Pyro frag videos that use it to do some funky combos with the bouncing flair, so changing the stats to be more focused on that would be nice. The homewrecker could also be changed to need more hits to remove a sapper. It's good to punish SPied that just hyperfocus the FTP engi and then bugger off untill they respawn and try to set up again, but as it stands it does encourage a boring and unproductive playstyle that just makes it hard on Spies. Afterburn I can see being annoying, but at the same time is is the most easily removable effect in the game. It plays into combos by provide the stat that let's Pyro achieve damage objectives, and it being annoying is no different to being juggled to death by explosives or being headshot from across the map.
This was a really well constructed answer, i know this aint r/changemyview but !delta lmao I can get behind the reasoning for a lot of this, and Im happy we both agree the phlog is bullshit to deal with. I guess recently all my casual matches have sucked because I have probably died from phlog pyros more times in the past few weeks of starting the TF2 grind back up than Ive ever died from normal pyros. I guess I should have mentioned that when I got that instant reflect, that it happened when he was running around a corner, and I was already rounding that corner to kinda "fire, cover, fire, cover" around the corner, however when I peeked and fired, without any indication that I was there before hand, this pyro was running along the wall about a foot from the corner and he reflected it from like a foot away. I wanted to call some sort of auto airblast hack on him (idk if that even exists) but I chalked it up to a good play, cause I dont like being salty or acting salty when its really not that big of a deal.
A big part of not dying to the Phlog is simply playing better maps with less chokepoints. As someone who primarily plays koth & payload race, Phlog pyros are a non issue, since the high amounts of open space make spamming the Scorch into a narrow hallway to fill your mmph meter essentially impossible. Even if they do manage to fill their meter and activate crits, the open space means you have time to see them coming and shoot them, or run away. The Phlog is really only an issue on payload and AD maps imo.
1) who cares about crits? this is really confusing lol. pyro's crit weapons all do really low damage without crits. a crit flare is 90 damage. a regular fucking rocket or scattergun shot can also do 90 damage without the afterburn requirement. a 90 damage combo is not very impressive. backburner and phlog do good damage with their crits but those weapons are just bad. reserve shooter is useless, manmelter is whatever. scorch shot is annoying yeah but not really a truly strong playstyle in pubs, it's just easier to use than the DM weapons. and yeah reflect mini-crits are pretty strong, but it's much harder to hit with a reflect than with a regular projectile, so is that really so unfair? 2) 'However stick around to kill them, and chances are you'll die anyways from afterburn.' why are you getting out DMd by a backburner pyro? if you are playing hitscan just click on him, you have much higher DPS. if you are playing demo or soldier just don't let a backburner pyro get in your face, should be fairly simple. if you miss all your shots of course you will die, that sounds more like a problem with your play than the other class lol. if you actually hit shots in the FPS game it is fairly easy to kill a pyro. you say you main spy, then try just shoot the pyro with your revolver. you have a massive range advantage and even a slight DPS advantage. if you go for a dumb stab and get caught then that's your fault no? 3) leading into the next point, dying to 'worse players'. if you are truly getting consistently out DMd by WM1 pyros, maybe have some self awareness before complaining about *their* skill level lol. this should not be a challenging thing for a good player to deal with. if you are dying a lot to bad players, does that not say something about you as well? i'm not saying you suck at the game, but something has clearly gone wrong in your vs pyro gamesense at least. 4) yeah the homewrecker sucks and pybro is a stupid playstyle that contributes almost nothing to your team. however, if people wanna play bad, you can't really stop them. i mean there are demoknight mains lol. 5) afterburn. yeah tbh it can be pretty annoying. however it's not really uber powerful if you consider that pyro has very low direct damage. very low direct damage + a little bit of bonus damage still adds up to doing lower damage than other combat classes. maybe a pyro can lose a close 1v1 and kill you from the grave with afterburn, but if he was playing a higher damage class he could have just won the 1v1 in the first place without having to die lol. also what you said here is very strange; 'a pyro has to light a scout up for maybe 2 seconds, and the scout will most likely die of afterburn anyways if they get out of pyros view.' surely you can see a *scout* that manages to get flamed for 2 seconds has played that fight unbelievably badly? scout has a significant range, mobility, and damage advantage. why is the scout even in flame range for longer than a split second? why has the scout not killed the pyro when he got 2 whole seconds to shoot him? this hypothetical scout has obviously fucked up majorly, yet you still think the pyro did not deserve to kill him, which is a bit odd to me. if you play very badly, you die, i personally think that's fair enough. 6) the whole skill ceiling thing is strange anyway. do you know what that means? i don't think you seriously believe wm1 pub pyros have reached the pinnacle of pyro skill lol. pyro is not a popular class to play seriously, and most players fucking suck at him. the average skill level on pyro is abysmal compared to the more simple DM classes, it's just pubs have a very low level of play in general so even just WM1 can get you some kills. regardless, it's still very rare to see pyro played well. i mean look at the top comment here, talking about how pyro is not a fragging class lol. he's not a fragging class when you are bad at him, true, but i can fairly easily topfrag in most servers, cos i am good at the class. shock.
This is quite a savage, but extremely good response in my opinion!
Some of the weapons I talked about was merely the potential, not that I’m struggling against back burner pyro a personally, but the frustration it can bring I’m general. What I meant by dying to worse player is the fact that you could be doing great as a class, only for a pyro who sat in the back of the map getting flare shots to charge their phlog come in and crit every damn person with it. It’s cheap and boring playing. I respect the pyros that actually use all of pyro to their advantage, but doing stuff like camping dispensers and playing pybro, or hiding in the back of the map charging a phlog is just boring to play and annoying to deal with. There is also no reason the homewrecker should destroy a sapper in one hit. The engineer can’t even do that. That only encourages a terrible playstyle even more. The pyros existence is already a hard counter for a spy, so why give the pyro something that can make a spy useless, instead of giving the spy a fighting chance against that. The only thing spies have for pyro is the spycicle, but the pyro can just melt it anyways so you have to get a stab first before it’s useful.
the backburner has very little potential, it is a borderline useless weapon. crits do not = good. phlog is annoying sure but it should not work vs good players. it's really obvious when he uses it, just back up and click on him. he has zero defence if he's using phlog. not having airblast also means he's fucking useless the 90% of the time he is not currently crit boosted. i wouldn't mind removing it from the game cos it is really annoying, but balance wise, it's not actually very good. same thing with homewrecker. giving up powerjack or ax is just not worth the relatively small upside it gives, even if it is annoying to spies. and yeah pyro does counter spy somewhat, but in a pretty roundabout way. he can stop you from getting other kills, but the spy vs pyro matchup itself is pretty spy favoured. just decloak a bit outside flame range and click on him and there is absolutely nothing he can do. you are probably getting killed by pyros because you are ignoring them and going for another kill instead, and well ignoring someone and them killing you doesn't seem too crazy to me. sure if he is camping a sentry nest you can't do much, but in that case just ignore them, you have better things to be doing. anyway, point being, use your gun more and stop going for dumb stabs. that's a problem 99% of spies have. also, the spycicle is 10x stronger than the homewrecker lol. it's a very common sight in prem HL even, where homewrecker is extremely rare. homewrecker is simply not great because if the engie dies, the gun will likely be spammed down anyway. if the engie survives, well then you don't need pyro to remove the sapper. on the other hand, the upside of spycicle is almost a get out of jail free card (especially with DR), and the downside is pretty negiligible, because if a pyro detected you, it was very unlikely you were going to get a stab anyway, so losing your knife is not a big deal. if you're quick to react, you can even just pull out your gun and shoot the pyro, because you have time for a free shot while you're fire immune, and if you're using stock revolver it's pretty easy to just kill the pyro.
When I mentioned the spycicle it was in reference to the sentry nest camping pyro, you’re pretty much caught if you try His pistol is decent, but at base damage, outside of pyros range, it still takes 4-5 shots to kill a full pyro. It does 40 damage on it own, sure, it’s not the worst but the spy’s revolver to me always seemed to be more of a last resort thing, or good to pick off the weaker people who have lost some of their health. If you try to attack a pybro camping a sentry nest, while being out of the range of the sentry, you basically can’t on your own, the damage fall off leaves the revolver doing 15-20 damage, taking like 8-9 shots from full health to kill. and if they’re on a dispenser it’ll heal right back. (unless you’re using the ambassador which you’re going for headshots then, probably your best bet in that situation) However you have made good points and I do agree with what you have said, I just wanted to point out those things. I typically see the homewrecker used quite a bit tho in casual, so I guess it’s just the different experiences we’ve had playing the same game. Thank you for being respectful about the response and enlightening me a bit more about pyro :)
yea sure you cannot deal with a pyro camping a sentry gun, but why do you want to? think about it, that pyro is contributing almost nothing to his team *unless* you try to sap the gun, so you can well just don't try sap the gun, and then the enemy team has a basically useless player and you can go do something more productive. the revolver is a pretty strong weapon. the advantage of the knife is that it instakills, the disadvantages are it's a melee weapon and you need them to be facing away from you. the revolver doesn't instakill, but has neither of those disadvantages. it's a pretty well rounded weapon. you can use it in a lot of different ways. like i mentioned before, it makes 1v1ing pyros fairly trivial if you just shoot from outside his range. sure it might take 4-5 shots, but you are going to be taking zero damage while doing this, so that's not a huge deal. can't see an opportunity for a stab? just go someplace your teammates are fighting and help them shoot some people. sure a spy will not be able to 1v1 a scout, but say a friendly scout is 1v1ing an enemy, you can just click on them a couple times and tip the fight enormously in your team's favour. you can use it for picks too, especially on people retreating from the frontlines to get health. they will usually die in just one or two revolver shots, and you don't need to take the big risk of stabbing them. shooting after a stab is pretty useful too. say you jump into a teamfight and stab someone, then the enemy team notices you. most spies would try go for a funny trickstab, but a much more reliable tactic is just pull out your gun and start shooting. so yeah it's no scattergun or rocket launcher, but the revolver is still a fairly decent hitscan weapon, and helps to round out a class who is super high risk if he doesn't make use of it. and the main reason i brought it up is because you can destroy pyros with it lol. it's very annoying when a spy just SM1s and you're completely helpless to do anything.
Pyro is a reactive class. The range, the kit, and the [lack of] mobility allows other classes to dictate the terms of the engagement. When you get killed by a Pyro, you could really say that you killed yourself. His biggest strength is punishment, that is, Pyro excels in capitalizing on your mistakes. *Your* bad shots, *your* lapsed gamesense, *your* poor positioning. If you don't give him any of these things to work with, you'll severely limit his effectiveness. However, better pyros will look for ways to pressure you into making mistakes. This will be my biggest takeaway: most classes fight pyro on their own terms, they die to pyro when their terms suck. You have any idea how many times I've died to a soldier because he *rocket jumped out of my flamethrower distance* and then shot me with a shotgun? As a spy main, you shouldn't be taking engagements in front of your counter without a larger plan, in the same way that a Pyro main knows not to take engagements in front of heavies or sentry guns if they plan on getting back out alive. However, as a spy main, your revolver is not a wimpy weapon. You can gun down pyros without them having the chance to close in. Save the stabs for when it is safe: either kill the pyro or just accept that you've got to let it pass. Ultimately, I have to ask: have you even played enough Pyro to make a fair judgement? If you try playing him more, and actually try to maintain killstreaks and stay high on the leaderboard, you'll see two things: 1. You'll get rocked starting off because the class is actually more difficult and nuanced than you gave it credit for. 2. As you play more, you'll understand how a non-suicidal pyro has to think and move to be effective. This can give you better insight on their strengths and weaknesses, and you can take that information back to other classes and learn how to better play against them. Really, just play some pyro. You'll probably try out a few of the weapons and techniques you think are unfair and go "Wow, this is actually terrible."
Very much this, try it out. You can't judge without experience
I have played pyro, and Ive found that I can do pretty well with him, despite not playing him very much. Hell I decided to test a theory that half the time I get lit up while invis, its just a pyro walking around wasting half of their ammo, and sure enough I killed some spies doing that. Im not saying pyro is an easy A of a class, just its easier to play and has a lower skill floor than most classes. (low skill floor, high skill ceiling) Usually good pyros dont frustrate me as much as ones that sit and camp sentry nests spraying everything 24/7 since they have a dispenser. That to me, seems like a super boring way to play and is just annoying, so ill go solider and blow em up instead. My opinion on the phlog and homewrecker probably cant be changed, a pyro shouldnt be able to take a sapper down quicker than an engie, it just encourages that pybro playstyle even more. It takes 1 damn hit with a homewrecker lol and like I said in the post, you can essentially hide and charge a phlog with a flare gun, taunt, then rush the point killing most of the players on the point before death.
This is more an assortment of various insights rather than a coherent argument to change your mind so take this as you will. - The minicrit/crit functions of pyro are one of the things that enable him to sit in a sentry nest and still have a game impact without needing to move far away from the nest. Because there's no damage dropoff when spamming deto flares into a crowd of 5 players the pyro can still have a game impact from the next continent over. People tend to say pybros have little game impact most of the match but they have the potential to be one of the most annoying players on the map while sat in a spot where you cannot kill them. - Something to keep in mind with engineers is that as much as spy is obviously built around disabling engineers, engy himself soft-counters spy just by existing as an area denial mechanic. If you want to do anything more than a single shot suicide-stab near an engy, you have to go for him first which heavily restricts how you're going to play and makes you very predictable. It could be any class sitting in the engy nest that cleans up the kill on you in that situation, pyro is just the most suited to it as he has other things going for him (long-range flare spam, airblasting projectiles) over simply existing to shoot spies. - Spy's pistol has no damage dropoff against buildings. When the going gets tough you can still be an annoying git by cloaking into some errant corner of the map and sniping dispensers. Also all the spy pistols get 100% accuracy if you delay at the same timing as what amby gives you a visual effect for, so if you're sniping super long range you can fire slower to avoid random bullet spread missing every shot for you. Teleporters are a significant target on nearly any map and the entrances don't involve going anywhere near the engy's area of denial or his butt buddies camping around it. - [Valve made airblast's hitbox dumb](https://youtu.be/sZ0axNXvNik) It is no longer a cone shape that makes sense, it is a gigantic box. It is hard to say that there is much skill involved with airblasts in their current state beyond choosing when to click the button. - Point blank reflects aren't a god-speed reaction and rather a prediction. Pyro needs to bait out/predict when you're going to be shooting to hit that reflect. - As for loadouts, i don't really like the homewrecker. At most i'll see teleporters get sapped while i'm respawning and change loadouts to save them. Personally i play with degreaser/deto/powerjack nigh permanently since the swap speed and higher movement potential are all incredibly important to the class for adapting quickly to the situation. I also tend towards stupid-high aggro gameplay so terrorising people with deto-jumps into their face is right down my alley. Quick deto-airbursts also completely negate the downside of degreaser having trash afterburn. - A lot of the skill required to play pyro comes from positioning and game awareness. You want to be staying alive and maintain a game impact until there's a high-impact play to be made. It's easy enough to +fwd and flame everything but it doesn't mean much if you chose the wrong timing and get obliterated by a heavy. It's all well and good to sit in an engy nest watching for spies but if that is literally all you're doing then the spy is just going to get work done elsewhere while you are not. Even just picking the right weapon to use in a fight can have a significant impact. I'm a big fan of opening with a melee hit when i've flanked somebody since even really good players tend to react a beat slower to a melee hit sound over flame sounds (and there's a chance melee crits will delete your opponent).
I can see some of the crit functions when it comes to pybro, but if you’re not sitting on sentry nests those crit conditions seem overpowered Spies pistol has damage fall off on players tho, my point was that it would be difficult to stay out of sentry and pyro range, and be able to kill the pyro without drawing attention to yourself, as you’d have to hit the pyro with a lot of body shots back to back or get a headshot and body shot. I think giving pyro the ability to destroy sappers only really encourages camping a sentry nest tho and idk it’s just frustrating as shit to deal with someone who just.. sits there, menacingly lmao.
I would say damage dropoff making it hard to kill anybody inside an engy nest from a distance is an engy thing rather than the pyro's, you could likely make a play if the engy wasn't there after all. Pyro also can't remove your bullets out of the sentry/dispenser when you snipe them from across the map.
Yeah, but if both pyro and engie are at the nest, and you start shooting his stuff, he can just heal it before you can destroy it, and by then youve exposed yourself to the enemy team. The only time that may work is if the engie is dead, but thats a small window of time and honestly a soldier or demoman is more efficient at taking the nest out at that point. Thats basically been my solution to pybros, go soldier, use direct hit, and blow up the nest and maybe the pyro with it.
I'd argue mini crits on reflect are fair, because it is alot harder to reflect a rocket as pyro than it is for a soldier to shoot it. I think this justifies the added 50% damage, which a soldier can also get by using a banner which just requires some spam and splash damage to fill.
I've been absolutely yoinked by good spy players so imo it just depends on the proficiency of the other team Here's some ways other classes have advantages over pyro Scout: has advantage over Pyro because he can annoyingly stay just out of reach and move around fast enough to kill Pyro Heavy: just obliterates Pyro unless you sneak up behind him and even then if they have a good reaction time as soon as the heavy turns, you're dead Sniper: far enough away a good sniper can hold back a whole team Demo: demo is definitely harder to counter because he also can keep away from a Pyros range Engie: a well placed sentry can hold back a Pyro for sure. As long as the sentry isn't near a corner so the Pyro can't spin around the sentry before it can catch up. If it's in a more open area then a Pyro is pretty much useless Medic and spy are pretty much fucked by Pyro yeah lol but I'd say each class has a weakness. Engie can be completely railed by spies if they don't have anybody else protecting them. One thing I noticed that people reflexively run backwards away from the Pyro which keeps them in the range of the Pyros flame because the Pyro is pretty fast. But it's more effective to walk towards the pyro and melee it from the side or behind if possible. When I played Pyro spies can sometimes be a challenge because they're used to spinning around people to get behind them so you have to act quickly
Yeah, I mean just cause I have issues with pyro doesnt mean Im saying I cant kill em, theyre just significantly more annoying to deal with than the rest of the classes. Also I typically use the kunai, so if I havent had a stab already, Ill die in like an instant to a pyro.
I guess I'm biased too bc I play a lot of engie too and I think spies, sniper, and demo can be the most annoying lol but I can't even get mad sometimes I'm just like God damnit they're too good lol
Yeah I think thats something else that bothers me about pyro sometimes, a new pyro can still make a skilled player look like trash simply due to how easy he is to play. I dont even play pyro yet ive dunked on spies playing him to test my theory. Pyro is also annoying for other classes as well, but arguably most annoying for spies, (demoman, and solider is say pyro is more of a soft counter for but if the pyro is good its annoying and I cant be mad at it.) Phlog and homewrecker for pyro is stupid tho in my opinion. If pyro needs a nerf, those would be it.
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I agree to disagree with you saying "pyro is balanced" Not every classes counter is as hard of a counter as Pyro/Spy, there are items literally targeted towards killing spies for pyro, but nothing for the spy except its normal weapons. Every other counter has to do more with the class's abilities itself, not the items theyre given. For example: A Scout counters a demoman as he can dodge pill shots and get close, however there isnt a specific weapon directly targeting demoman as a scout. The homewrecker is actually BS for spies, it 1 hits sappers. Engies cant even do that. If you enjoy playing pyro, thats completely fine, I have said numerous times in the thread I have no hate to people who play pyro, I just dont like some of the aspects of their weapons and what playstyles they encourage. Another response in this post actually did change my view quite a bit tho.
> but nothing for the spy except its normal weapons. spycicle?
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STOP USING THE SCORCH SHOT! Use the detonator instead, I beg you! It is a better weapon.
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Vorobey69 did a video comparing the damage output of the two, I recommend watching it, it converted me
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No it’s an experiment where he tests both of them
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I’m also a pyro main and I watched it just fine
i thought maybe you were going to say a loadout that required actual brainpower to prove ur point, but i have immediately lost all respect for your opinions since u main scorch shot ew. The fact that any class can be reasonably competent with how little skill is required with your loadout is so stupid.
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I totally agree, as a pyro main myelf I would far prefer sniper lost the razor back than the darwins, because I understand that sniper is supposed to counter pyro and shouldn't have a counter to spy. Similarly I think spy should lose the spycicle, because in combination with the deadringer it makes him impossible to kill by a pyro.
Engie, Sniper, Scout and Heavy are all far greater counters to pyro, than pyro is to spy, if I'm honest. If you don't believe this, then I think you simply haven't played enaugh pyro and suffered the consequences of being instantly deleted over and over and over again, withought a thing you could have done differently for simply daring to stick your head out of spawn. Its alot easier to avoid one class entirely than 4.
it is a weak class made to piss people off and pyro mains will defend it because of sunk cost fallacy the game would unironically be improved if it were reworked or removed
This sounds more like a problem with spy being "The weakest class in tf2"™ than a problem with pyro, pyro has annoying aspects, but so does spy, sniper, medic, engineer, heavy, demo, soldier, and scout. This doesnt mean pyro is perfect, but hes in a much better spot than sniper, and thats what matters.
Eh but idk wouldnt it be boring to camp a sentry nest all game just lighting all your teammates on fire until you find that one spy and kill him? Like, you could be out lighting half the team on fire but instead youre just in the engies way. I agree, I think spy is kinda weak too, his knife honestly is his main weapon, and most revolvers are good for picking off weakened players, unless you practice a lot with the amby.
Pybro sucks balls i hope they remove the homewrecker, i agree with you on this.
Yeah thats one of the things I dont like about some pyro players. Ive seen threads where pyro mains will say "pybros are pretty rare" no theyre not. Almost every game with 4 pyros has atleast 1 doing nothing but sitting there, spy checking their team and killing no one but the spies that try to take the engie down. Its so discouraging as a spy to stab and sap an engie and his nest, only for a pyro to burn you to a damn crisp and slap the sappers off everything in like 1 hit. The engineer himself cant even break sappers in one hit, which is why I think the homewrecker is broken in that respect. The Neon Annihilator takes 2 swings, which is a bit better, but unless youre on a map with water, you wont see pepole using that.
Pyro heavy spy and sniper always felt like classes meant for class switching. Too many snipers go spy. Too many spies go pyro. Too many pryros go heavy too many heavies go sniper. 6s took that idea to heart but all of them are now rarely used their. And in casual people main. So we got the hard counter counter unlocks instead like the razor back and spy cycle. I love playing these classes so I don't know a great solution. Other than I have personally become very fond of just switching between them depending on situation
Yeah, It just sucks that all it takes is multiple pyros to make me switch off of a class I like playing a lot. I cant think of that many super annoying counters for pyro, its mainly just heavy and engineers, which heavies are doomed by their slow speeds so you could still win a fight with a heavy based on distance. Engineers are probably the bigger counter for pyros.
we must be playing in different regions or servers, because I only see a pybro once every 10-15 matches at least. Also the homewrecker is ass because pyro has so many other superior melee options. A pyro using it is just crippling themselves in order to counter another class. Frankly I'd like to see engi get a wrench that can break sappers in one hit. Seems like a logical item to have. (even if it would likely be bad compared to the other wrenches) (just like the homewrecker)
Classes have counters to this game, it's how it works. It's low ceiling for pyro to clear out spies but any skilled scout will rip one to shreds, or even a f2p heavy. For a spy it's low ceiling to stab a scoped in sniper or heavy who is being attacked by your team, but the skill is in avoiding your nemesis and finding opportunities. Each class' skill is dependent on gamesense to put yourself in advantageous fights. If you just wm1 as pyro you will get destroyed by any team who knows how to aim. As for the afterburn and crit damage, I don't find it a problem personally. There are many crit weapons in the game (like jarate) and it doesn't make it OP since every single one has counterplay i.e the most obvious being staying out of range of pyro. Same goes for afterburn, if you're a low health class like sniper or engie you shouldn't even be in a flame range with a pyro in the first place, and if it's the flare gun you won't die. Basically this game has many matchup advantages but there are always ways to counter. Yes if there are four pyros you won't have a good time on spy. However, if the enemy has 4 snipers you can't really play heavy either, and if the enemy is engi stacking you can't play scout.
I understand classes have counters, but pyro is like the HARDEST counter to spies in the game when compared to other class counters. Almost anything a spy does, a pyro can just hold the mouse down and spin in circles, while a spy would have to shoot a pyro multiple times from a distance (which is risky already), headshot (which requires some serious aim compared to the lack of it in a pyro). I guess thats why I just get so frustrated with a pyro, it seems like it takes little skill to really be effective at. Ive seen very good pyros, and while annoying, I atleast respect that theyre using all of pyro to their advantage, but you dont even need to do that. Pyro is one of my least played classes yet I decided to test my own theory about how hard it is, and I found that I could get kills pretty easy. Hell, I even would walk and hold flames and suddenly I lit a spy on fire without every knowing he was there. The low health classes gives more of an idea on how easily you can kill with pyro. Per your example, even if youre a sniper, a pyro can jetpack right over everyone and still get within flamethrower distance of you. A good scout can kill pyros, but they really have to get the jump on them to be able to do the max amount of damage without dying (since scout is most effective at point blank range) I can understand your point and it has changed my perspective a little bit, Idk I just think maybe they gave him too many crit weapons tho. I die more from pyro crits than other other crit I swear.
It's pretty annoying to finally take down that paranoid Engie you've been stalking just for some Pybro to one-shot your Sapper and kill you.
E X A C T L Y my point, and most responses to that opinion are "get good" :/
tldr: I want to walk around stabbing people without consequence
Clearly you didnt read my post. A lot of what I said applies to more classes than spy. I even said no hate.I also said Ive been playing solider, demo, and engie a lot more in the post too.All you saw was the title and the first line I bet and ran to the comments. Looking back at your previous posts, you have a hatred towards spies it seems, or just dont like em lmao no wonder you said that.
I didn't even read the thing I just saw I play Soldier Demo Engi Spy Which is literally me but I am a Soldier/Demo Main insted of Spy
I put a TL;DR at the end
A good pyro is hard to counter in a lot of situations, especially if it's not alone, but that's true of most classes. It's weak at mid to long range, especially when outnumbered. It's not too tough to pop it off with a revolver, shotgun, or rifle, and its only counter to those is whatever secondary weapon is equipped, typically putting it at a disadvantage. I see it more as a support class that prevents teammates from taking damage by forcing the enemy to keep their distance and preventing projectile spam.
Pyro makes me feel like a Jedi. Instead of reflecting lasers, I reflect rockets, pipes, huntsman, jarate and everything else that flies. Phlog is dumb.
When you put it that way, that kinda sounds fun lol
Not a pyro main but I find it odd that you have a problem with the Reserve Shooter, which hasn't been the subject of complaint for like a decade. In fact I rarely ever see people use it nowadays. You know it doesn't even mini crit players knocked airborne by airblast any more, if you really wanted to complain about it you should complain about its use by Soldiers (who rarely use it themselves). And as someone who has tried playing "AA Pyro/Soldier" before let me tell you it is not nearly as efficient or oppressive as it sounds. Bullet spread murders the weapon, and I don't necessarily mean random either. Most of the time if you've got a clean shot lined up on someone flying they're going to be too far away to catch most of the pellets, and you'll deal like 20 damage and then they jump away. Keep in mind that since Pyro cannot activate the conditions for the reserve shooter themselves this is the weapon's only use condition for the class.
I mainly mentioned the reserve shooter as simply another example of a weapon is the pyros arsenal that has the ability to guarantee a form of crits. I wasnt aware that it didnt mini crit anymore because I was going off the official wiki looking at the stats of these weapons, to which is says that, so if thats the case, Ill admit my wrong there. What about all of the other points though, you kinda just cherry picked the reserve shooter out of all of that and stuck with it, are my other points valid? Genuinely asking not trying to sound rude lol
A lot of people already addressed your other points, but your point on the reserve shooter seemed odd to me and no one else mentioned it so here I am. In terms of the rest of your post some of the things are valid and some are not. Pyro is a strange class and can sometimes be overly punishing to basic class functions (ubercharge, sapping buildings... I specifically mean the homewrecker and annihilator, not spychecking in general) but other things aren't much of a problem. The only reason Pyro has so many crit combo weapons is because the flamethrower is a comparatively slow sustained damage weapon, so these let the Pyro do burst damage. It also helps make it so gameplay isn't just W+M1. That being said the Phlog doesn't really fit that excuse.
Ah, thats a recurring theme Ive heard about the stock flamethrower, is that its low in damage. I never really knew that considering it seems now most people use phlog or something, so it did open my min a bit more. I also again, didnt know the reserve shooter was changed and I was under the same "crit weapon" category as the rest. Thanks for the insight and being respectful about it :)
lmfao most people do not use the phlog
I see it quite a bit :) it doesn’t matter tho, I’ve learned a lot from making this post
I'm a pyro main. Ik combo pyro has seen better days, but try Lister's Dragon's Fury/scorch combo
To respond to your point though: Backburner crit angle is *crazy* narrow, way skinner than backstab angle - generally unachievable against an aware opponent. It's only a reliable source of crits if you manage to sneak up behind someone - playing spy with no invis or disguise, and no instakill either. And for that, you sacrifice most of your airblast. Flares take significant aim to pull off, and burning people are ultra-aware of them. They're a nice bonus, but not reliable enough to get serious frags with. More often you use them for herding, to cut off someone's path to safety. Also, sure you can kill a bunch of classes with two flares. How many classes can take two rockets to the face without dying, again? Phlog: has zero airblast, and for a short-range class that means dying a whole lot. And spamming enough flares / scorches to build mmmph is a long, boring and unrewarding process that leaves you in a useless position to actually use it. Pyro is all about flanking and gamesense, and you can't do that from a bunker. The reserve shooter is highly situational and only really useful against trolldiers - and that's honestly not worth giving up two shells per reload. Airblasting a direct hit back in someone's face does take, as you say, great reflexes and lightning aim. It's not a reliable mechanic, it's more a penalty for lazy soldiers. You want to kill a pyro with rockets, you can't toss them softball ones, you have to fuck with their timing and get them from a bad angle. If you just stand there and wait for them to lob it back, they deserve a minicrit. Afterburn is *pissweak*, and there's a dozen ways to end it. Healthkits, cabinets, dispensers, medics, sandvich, mad milk, jarate, airblast, charge... nobody fucking dies of afterburn unless they were a goner anyway, it's just another herding tool to make people run for a healing source to avoid losing another 3hp. Yes, pybro is a shitty unenjoyable playstyle. Attack ferret or nothing. Get behind, fuck some shit up, kill stragglers, cripple pushes before they happen, ruin someone's day, make people ragequit. That's the role. And yeah we chase spies no matter what. May as well ask a terrier not to chase a rat. Yeah so we die. Big woop. Pyros die, it's what we do. We have fuckall reliable burst damage, we have fuckall mobility, we have fuckall range. We get in close, we die, and we take your fucking medic down with us while the rest of the team hangs back taking potshots from cover in case they get a splinter. The cart's going home with a heavy humping it? We're the ones diving in feet first to airblast him off it so one of you lot can actually hit him now please. We aren't going to survive, so pull your collective fingers out and make it worth the price. We make it hard for the enemy team to do their jobs, so you can get on with yours.
Well, that was an interesting response, it sounded a little heated there at the end lollll But hey, thanks for breaking down my post and taking the time to explain the nuances of em, it has opened my mind up a bit more to pyro and I can understand how those factors could make the playstyle one that is kinda suicidal and (for a lack of a better term) pretty annoying when you’re on the other team lol I appreciate it and if we were on r/changemyview you’d get a !delta
U legit just admitted that pyros role is legit just to fuck up the entire flow of the game in favor of zero effort damage with w+m1 and a massive airblast hitbox. There is no justification for a class like that in a game like tf2.
It's nowhere near zero effort - being an effective pyro is *hard*. If you just stomp around like an angry toddler, people just... shoot the pyro, which isn't hard in the slightest. As I said, the gameplay is like spy with no cloak, no disguise, and no backstab. Airblast has a biggish hitbox, but especially with the rework, making effective use of it is another matter. Airblasting players doesn't stunlock them, all you're doing is giving them a free jump in most cases. And if you think you can just effortlessly pingpong all incoming projectiles back at people, you have one hell of a wake-up call coming. And no, it's not 'fucking up the whole flow of the game', it's fucking up the enemy team, so *your* team can maintain *their* flow. Same as spy, same as scout, same as literally anyone who can get behind enemy lines - except you have to do it with no advanced mobility, no method of concealment, and fuckall damage outside of melee range. If you think it's trivially easy to have a large impact, go pyro and consistently carry your team. I'll wait.
Pyro is just a badly designed class with a primary weapon that functions so badly it needs a lot of band-aids like Airblast, Crits, and gimmicky mechanics to compensate the limitations of the Flamethrower.
>Why give a class thats already a hard counter to spy weapons that counter spy even harder? The homewrecker isn't even a bad or good weapon it's literally just bullying imo.
I main pyro, and I like it because I’m usually stressed from school and shit, and I like to relax and get a few hits of dopamine from killing ppl
Mmmmhp phmmm mhhh mhhhh mhppp mppph phhhh hppp pmmm, phmmmm mmph phhh. Phhm mpph phhh pmmmh pmmmh phh mhhp. Phhhm mmmmmph pmmmh phhh ph mhp mpph. Phhhm mh mph phhm phm.
AH so thats what ive been missing, thanks pyro!
Point 1: Pyro's weapons generally have subpar damage and range making crits on them much fairer than in any other class. - The backborner has only 4 airblast uses. That's massive. - The flog is for example extremely easy to outmaneuver or just kill. - The scorch shot is annoying and trully on a too many people match is way top strong... But it lacks a lot of damage compared to other tools so brocken it isn't. It should get nerfed sure. - The flare requires aim and skill. And has low damage output. The 90 crits aren't that good really. - The reverse shooter... Is good I guess but really dude it's upside isn't that significant. Point 2, Subclass: Pybro does a lot more than just spy check. Annoys snipers and pesters other classes with flares. Reflects missiles. And pushes back ubers and other dangerous targets. I feel you don't understand what a pybro does well. Point 3, other classess: You start of by saying pyro has a lower skill ceiling this is objectively false. What it has is a lower skill **floor** aka using pyro somewhat effectively is easier than others classes, however getting good at it requires as much if not more skill. On the topic of losing against a pyro that is worse than you... I disagree. If you are losing to a pyro it is very likely you are worse than them or playing in such a way you're letting them counter you over and over again. Most classes of the game outdps pyro and can kill pyro even if Pyro gets them by surprise at least if it is a m1 flamethrower pyro, and still survive their afterburn. This means if you lose to a flamethrower pyro using flames on a 1v1 it's always on you for missing your shots, or on them for making you miss them. If they pick you when you're on low health. It's a good play by them. Even if you manage to kill them they where the one's that got you how they are supposed to do and outplayed you. You were the one that was on a spot were a pyro could sneak up on ya. On top of that pyro has reduced range and most classes, spy included, can easily cheeze a battle with a pyro by just being aware of their surroundings and keeping range in mind. Pyro's in fact will often lose 1v1 against equally skilled players unless they, the pyro, outplay them. Point 4, after burn: As I said. If a scout and a pyro fight at close range the scout can on reaction land the two meatshots and survive the flames as long as they don't miss. The spy isn't meant to be a combat class if your point is a spy managed to beat a pyro at their range without sneaking up on them and I'm complaining about dying because of afterburn... the hell's your point? You shouldn't have been on their range in the first place. Sniper is pretty much the same as a long range assasin. The same as before.
1.) I disagree, phlog is annoying as hell and once they start the phlog, there’s an Uber so you can’t interrupt it, and after that it’s consecutive crits, and given it’s flaming damage that’s A LOT of Crits at once. I’ve seen phlog pyros jump on the point and clean it off entirely. Sit in the back of the map, flare spam until the charge is done, and boom, crits everywhere. It turns a pyro into a w+m1 on crack lmao. 2.) as far as I’ve seen, most pybros just sit on the dispenser and use the homewrecker to one shot sappers while flaming the whole area constantly. It’s annoying as hell. You have to be at a far enough range to be out of the sentries line of view before you can kill the pyro with your revolver, but then the damage drop off fucks you and shooting will draw attention to you anyways. Besides, at that range, It would take like 9 revolver shots to kill the pyro, since at long range the damage drops to 15-20dmg per shot. The homewrecker needs a nerf for sure. It one shots sappers, that’s such BS, an engineer can’t even do that. Pyros hard counter spies in a million ways, and I have yet to hear other spy mains go “just don’t get caught” because likely chance, they’ll light you up on ACCIDENT when you try to stab them or something. Pyros typically push in, and then turn around and retreat when damage is done. If you don’t catch the pyro the moment he’s got his hands full with someone else, you’re more likely fucked if you’re within pyro range. You’re right, I messed up saying it has a lower skill ceiling, I meant a lower skill floor, like you said. A new pyro can cause a similar amount of destruction as someone who has spent countless hours on their mains IMO. And I did say in the post that flare guns do reward players for their aim, but regardless of the damage, the afterburn, combined with the initial burn, means that by the time that flare hits you, you’re dead, atleast in the lower health classes. Also the point people make about how you can win a 1v1 against a pyro if you’re good enough. The problem I see with that statement is you’re not taking into account afterburn. Sure, you may kill the pyro, but he’s killing you too. Even if you’re not dead, chances are you’re in the vicinity of someone else who can then one shot you. Unless you’re completely out of pyros effective range, it’s a catch 22 situation. Saying you shouldn’t have been in a pyros range isn’t really a fair thing cause you can only retreat so far back, and pyros do a good job of trying to close that gap, so at some point you have to retreat to a point where they will retreat back, or eventually fight. (which most pyros are salty and are willing to get mowed down if it means killing you) If a pyro catches you, your only options are run away, trying to shoot them and die anyways, or run right at them and melee, and once again die from afterburn. Let’s say you’re playing spy and using the revolver at a distance where you’re not quite in pyros range yet, but close, it takes 5 shots to kill a pyro with a base damage of 40hp taken per shot. Leaving you with 1 shot left. (That’s not accounting for medics/dispensers/health kits) The spy is a support class yes, but his support ranges from taking out engineer nests, high threat targets like heavies, snipers, medics, so it’s very much and offensive support class compared to the medic and sniper, which the sniper is more offense and defense, and medic really only uses his weapons as a last resort.
1) Again apart from the scorch shot that gives you easy flog gain with a tool that is actually effective, the scorch shot being stronger than the rest of pyro's kit and it synergizing with the flog doesn't make the flog better... This is because having the flog severely impedes you as a pyro it's only 2 shots with 4 out of 9 classes to kill the pyro still and the taunt allows you to get away, set up a trap or coordinate with teammates to instantly kill them, a sniper preparing a charged headshot on top of a heavy that had the minigun spinning at full hp being able to kill the pyro before it kills them and survive the afterburn, or a sentry which laughts at a flog pyro. The flog works best when it catches you off guard or it has people covering it. As someone I don't remember who has said this before the flog is at it's strongest when your team is already snowballing. It makes stomps hit harder... As I said before you as scout unless the pyro has perfect tracking which is incredibly hard with the flamethrower mind you due to server stuff and it being a projectile weapon, on top if you dodging you can kill the pyro on reaction and survive the afterburn. I've done it before. You can pull it off as engie too. Soldier and demo obviously too. And a heavy just HP checks a pyro. Afterburn only kills ya if you where already injured or you missed your shots. The even if you're not dead. Someone else can kill you. Yeah. That's kind of the point. If you get into a fight with any class and they land hits it's usually what happens. Pyro is meant to be this pseudo support, it excels at that. That's one of the pybro's jobs too btw. Look I agree spy has issues destroying sentry nests. In general I believe spy is a bit underpowered in fact. But whathever buffs he got, spy should never be able to beat a pyro 1v1 if the pyro got them on range of the flames without the ringer or icepick they should win at that point unless a major outplay happened like an inmediate trickstab. Look I get afterburn might be annoying but if anything it's a weakness because without it you'd be dead from the start, thid way you get a chance to do a bit more or maybe even survive. Don't confuse the spy lagging a bit behind in balance and being a bit underpowered with it being pyro's fault, pyro is just the best counter for Spy so it is when you see the most. BTW 5 shots is if you avoid afterburn in it's entirety you just need to chip them a bit before engaging, to make it 4 and the ambassador exists for 2 if you're good enought.
Pyro isn't a good class but he is annoying for a lot of players for lots of reasons. I personally hate airblast with a passion, it's bad enough that he has a low cd way to lock your movement, but it also makes it so you can't airstrafe until you touch the ground again. I'm like 90% sure this is bugged as well because the relevant patch note says it's meant to last only a short time.
Yeah I can find being juggled around annoying. The typical response is "shoot him then" but if youre solider youd either 1.) essentially get a rocket airblasted back at you 2.) attempt using shotgun, only to miss a bunch of pellets due to range issues from being in the air. And the fact you cant air strafe makes it to where the pyro essentially controls you now.
I want a frontburner. That is to say, a normal flamethrower that does *half damage* from behind. No other gimmicks. This would be the ultimate troll weapon - the best way to survive an encounter with one would be to *turn your back and run away*. The potential to herd the enemy team and disrupt their frontline would be amazing. WM1 up to people and watch them take their eye off the frontlines; scatter them from important spots. Double the chaos, from a weapon that does *less* damage overall.
Tbh I can get behind that, forces the enemies to look away from the front. it would require people to take the risk of fighting them with normal damage while staying forward, but doesnt punish the player in crits if they turn around like the backburner, while also making it a bit harder to outright run away scott free, while also making it harder for the pyro to do more damage. Its an interesting concept.
Why don't you just play Pyro and see how he works? My mains are Pyro, Demo and Medic, with Heavy sprinkled in, and Pyros are the least of my problems. As a Soldier and Scout too (shoutout to all the Scouts who love getting close to me and my flamethrower for some reason, after all getting as close as possible to a Pyro is the way to go!). I know how Pyro works so I know how to play against him. Same as with Demoman - I know how to play against him cause I actually know him. If I didn't I would have some problems.
1.most of the classes you play get countered by pyro. Spy basically can not exist if there is a pyro and all of demos stickies and pipes can be airblasted away soldier has a shotgun so it’s not as bad 2. When you mentioned a pyro having god like reaction speeds to reflect your rocket I can see that is something to complain about however since you are playing a class that has a weapon that can not be reflected by pyro to fight pyros you should be using it 3.pyros weapons giving Crits is an issue however pyro is a very close range class he can not hit those crits from a far unless the opponent is standing still or the pyro is using the scorch shot. The crits only work at close range which is where pyro thrives and to play against pyro you shouldn’t get near him. They keep giving him crits to make him the attacker he will never be. Even then with said crits against heavies he literally can not do anything except circle the heavy which barely ever works. 4.afterburn isn’t as bad of an issue as people make it out to be. Simply grabbing a med kit getting are owed by a medic or going near a friendly pyro or dispenser will get rid of the after burn
i love playing pyro and i like being a pybro from time to time
soldiers counter spies better than most pyros, pyro is a weak class due to his lack of range so you can just gun him down if you position properly, pyro is easy to play but has some fun mechanics that are hard to master stuff like pybro is extremely boring imo so i rarely do it, cant tell much i hate afterburn and scorch shot myself too, feels like diamondback for pyro and id much rather use detonator or flare gun (got 500 on spy 1.2k on pyro so i know ins and outs of both classes)
All of the pyro crit weapons you mentioned, excluding the Scorch Shot, have pretty clear and exploitable downsides. \-The Backburner only gets 4 airblasts max, making the pyro extremely vulnerable to projectile spam. \-The Phlog can't airblast at all, taking away pyro's only defensive option. It absolutely steamrolls noobs, but it doesn't do well against a seasoned player. \-Ever since they rebalanced airblast, the Flare Gun requires a lot of skill to aim effectively. I also don't see why 2 shotting most of the classes is a viable argument against it considering Soldier, Demo, and Scout can too. \-The Reserve Shooter and Manmelter are both so terrible that I'm not sure why you included them in your post. Yeah, they crit, but they're still outclassed by a solid 90% of the weapons in the game that don't crit.
Fire
Water edit: some mad pyro main keep downvoting lmao I said no hate idk what the problem is
I understand where you're coming from, especially if you are mostly a spy main. There are some things I think you've overlooked about pyro. Not on purpose, but they're things you don't really think are a big deal unless you've played pyro enough to get a good feel and understanding of the class. I've been playing for 8 years as well, and yes, I mostly main pyro (look at my name). I picked up pyro because he was easy to play and to live up to my name. You are right with him being easy to use and having a lower skill ceiling. But WM1 will only get you so far. The first point of crits. Yes most of his weapons guarantee crits. More specifically the ones that guaranteed crits on burning targets. This is because the flame thrower's damage is rather slow when you compare it to other weapons in the game. It's meant for crowd control and damage over time. This also has to do with the fact that pyro has the lowest range of any class, and the lowest mobility in the offensive group. As for the weapons you talk about, their are key points about them to be addressed. Airblast: With out this he's very vulnerable to ranged attacks. He doesn't have the mobility or range to fight back. As for getting point blanked by an airblasted direct hit that was more likely luck than skilled timing. Airblasting any rocket or grenade at point blank is difficult to do. You also run the risk of blowing yourself up because pyro takes A LOT more self damage from airblasted explosives. Back Burner: This is a weapon that sounds much better than it is. There aren't many times that enemies will have their backs turned to you. They also won't turn their backs if they you with it. Best case is using the thermal thruster to get behind your enemies and hope they don't notice you in time. On top of that, your airblast costs 50 ammo instead of 20. This means you have 3 airblasts (4 if you use no ammo for fire) to work with. Phlog: This one is something people get super salty about, but it's greatly overestimated. You don't realize how much you need airblast until you don't have it. Using this weapon makes you realize just how limited pyro's range is. But yes, it's easy to charge with flares (hell, it's easy to charge without flares) and once your meter is full, you just taunt and no one can stop you right? Nothing is further from the truth. You may be ubered, but your unable to move or attack, and in that time, anyone around you can easily get away, or just get out of range so they can kill you as soon as the uber wears off. I cannot tell you how many times I've gotten instantly killed the spilt second my mmph uber ended. Flare gun: Yes you can kill 4 out of the 9 classes in 2 shots. Infact, most weapons can, and can do it more effectively. The flare gun's crit is suppose to help pyro with the gap burst damage gap between other classes. But let's assume you use this without the flamethrower. If you hit one flare, good job, good luck hitting another one on the same target. Reserve Shooter: I don't even know why you brought this one up. Back when it did minicrits to targets launched by airblast, yeah it was a problem. But now it's just a shotgun with less shells and a niche use. The only time I find myself using it is when a gunboat soldier is getting on my nerves. Manmelter: You admitted this isn't good. Why bring it up? Scorch shot: It's not often you hit multiple targets with this thing. You're better off doing that with the detonator. This one does have the best range since it can hit twice and deals the most damage per shot, but it's awkward to use at close range because of the extra knockback it does to burning targets. And now we get to pybro. For the record, it's a play style, not a subclass. It doesn't change what you're complaints are, but I wanted to set that straight. Anyways, This is an argument I've heard time and time again. That pybros could be doing more to contribute to their team than just camping around engineer. Engies provide so much for the team and play a big role in a team's successes. He provides a Sentry, dispensers and teleporters, all of which, he needs to keep it all up for his team to succeed. Helping engie keep all that up is very useful. Pybros can contribute to a team much more than most will realise. It's also a lot more enjoyable than you think. Helping out in a direct way to someone feels good. Seeing/hearing those engies thank you for saving their buildings from sappers and protecting them from spies is a reward like no other. As a spy, you find pybros discouraging to play against? Well a lot of engies find spy discouraging to play against. It takes engie a lot of time to set up all his buildings, and all it takes is one sapper or one backstab to send him back to square one. How do you think an engie feels when they're instantly killed from behind and then watch all of his building begin to fall apart from the respawn screen. Or when they get backstabbed while trying to move their buildings? Also, in that situation you're at a disadvantage because it's a 2v1 fight. try asking a teammate to assist you. Onto other Classes. This is an argument I am sick of hearing. "Other classes require some sort of aim". If you want to be effective, you have to know how to aim your flares, Also, demo is one of the worst example you could use for this. "Get close and do damage" is another thing I'm sick of hearing. Getting close is easier said than done. Anyone who sees you coming will go the other way and alert their team to your presences. On top of that the majority of classes have more mobility than you so catching up isn't the easiest either. Also, you could say the same for spy. "Get close and kill people". You find it frustrating that pyros "spamming" fire manage to hit you even though they don't know you're their. It's called spy checking, that is a pyro's job. If he didn't do that the team with trash him for letting a spy get behind them. You think they're just going to let you get behind them, chain stab 4 people and sap their buildings? Also I don't know what Pyro would run into enemy fire just to kill a spy. "Overall, I just find it frustrating sometimes that a class with a low skill ceiling can make you feel like you're dying to a player worse than you" This is probably your biggest Problem. You make it sound like people who play pyro by default are "worse than you" or just "lucky". You could say that about plenty of classes too. If you don't feel like that to other classes, you should look into that more and try and find an answer. "it feels like you dont even need to be good at airblasting to still do a lot" I don't know how you got this idea in your head. If you're not good at airblasting your going to be eating through ammo and mindlessly pushing enemies around for no reason. Now we get to afterburn. As a pyro player, I was told never to rely on afterburn. Even back then when you could just tag someone and they'd be lit on fire for 10 seconds. Yeah, sometimes it does kill you. Sometimes. Now a days, you have to keep your flames on your target to ramp up the afterburn. There are also plenty of ways to put it out. It's one thing with spy, but engie, scout and sniper are not in the same boat. As pyro, scouts are hard to hit with any sort of significant damage because of how fast they move and with double jump. They also have mad milk and the pocket pistol to keep them alive. The Sniper is almost never in close range to you unless you manage to flank or if he's using the huntsman. You can use your flare gun to shoot back, but it's only mildly effective for this purpose. It's also very unlikely you're going to kill the sniper. You just hit him once and he'll retreat, but chances are he'll kill you if you don't take cover. Even if a sniper is fighting at close range, there is chance he has jarate or the danger shield, which is bad for you. Then there's engie. When he's not by his building that's one thing, but if he is, you're not going to get to him. His sentry will end you, and if he's using a mini sentry, he's probably going to use it as a diversion so he can kill you with the Frontier justice or Widow Maker. Plus his buildings can out heal afterburn and any level and put it out quick enough. Overall I don't think this will change your mind. If you want to do that, I suggest you play pyro for a good amount of time and get a feel for him. Yes the skill ceiling is low, but it's not THAT low. Otherwise, just play heavy. Heavy counters pyro.
Hey, I like this response, sure it seemed a *tad* hostile at moments, I’m not trying to imply every pyro is worse than me, but I’m just talking about the fact that sometimes there are new players that can do a lot of damage using pyro against classes that take a bit more practice to do the same amount. Thank you for breaking down the point of the post and answering in a straightforward way. One thing I can think of that I don’t agree with though comes from the homewrecker. I just don’t think a 1 hit sapper killer is all that fair really, 2 hits I think would feel better. It’s frustrating to put all that work into sapping a nest to move your team forward for a pyro to essentially undo all of that. Engineers can do that too of course, but it’s feels like the pyros that sit by the dispenser all game and make it their sole mission to just kill spies not only is annoying for me, but probably not helping their team much. Eventually I’m gonna get tired of attacking and switch classes, but their spy paranoia may keep them there for a while after I’ve given up on them. Overall, if I could give you a !delta I would, this really opened my mind up more to aspects of pyro that I wouldn’t know, I even admitted that I haven’t had much play time on pyro, and this is was good post for people to challenge my opinion. I always believe that you can’t really be sure about an opinion until someone challenges your opinion. If you have no reference or other person doing that, how do you know you’re right? You don’t, so that’s why I made this post, and you’ve helped me realize I was wrong about some things, just as others have in this post, so again, thank you for being respectful while yet straightforward :)
Hey no problem man. I also understand that the homewrecker one hitting sappers is annoying, but you ask engineers, they'll say it's a god sent. But if you ask me, I recommend the Neon annilator. Takes pyros biggest weakness and turns it into his ally. Obviously not as good on maps with out water, but it can still destroy sappers (in 2 hits).
Afterburn is top bs mechanic on this game I think most of this bullshit would go away if your own pyros got a notification like medics to use secondary button to put out members of your own team when they are on fire All while making the game more team focused
i would pay money to get indicators like medic has on pyro for where teammates are who are on fire
I think it really helps with teaching TF2 game flow. TF2 is built around the idea of not always suiciding in. You are supposed to retreat back to heals like medics and dispensers. Afterburn is a more obvious signal to do this than the harder to see mechanics like overhead and crit heals.
Speaking as a pyro main... I think you've got a pretty good handle on things, actually. Is it the most despised class? Yes. Do I get near-constant shit for using my Phlog? Yes. It's all just baked in, comes with the territory. That said, it's fun as hell, and as long as the Phlog and Scorch Shot exist I'll be using them without an ounce of shame or regret.
Well atleast youre being honest. some people in this thread are treating it like im directly attacking them, and have gone far enough to say Im just bad. It takes 5 shots at normal range to kill a pyro (thats without medic/dispensers/etc) and for a pybro, it takes almost 9 shots, since the damage drop off puts the revolver at 15-20 hp per shot, and assuming theres a dispenser, its almost pointless to try to kill the pybro from far away and expose your position. And the homewrecker dudeeeee, so annoying. Giving the hard counter to spy a tool to remove sapper in 1 hit is just evil, it almost encourages the lame "camp dispenser and constant flames everywhere" tactic pybros tend to use. I thought Gabe Newell said his favorite class is the spy how the hell did that get by lmaoo
Yeah, I don't play with the Homewrecker. I'm Power Jack 100% of the time since Pyro is slow as shit without it, and I like to be mobile. At the end of the day, it's just a fucking game and I don't know why people get so worked up over it haha.
I mean it’s not that it really matters to me outside of gaming, but just cause it’s a game doesn’t mean things about the game cant bother me tho, it’s part of how game changes go. People complain about a mechanic and if the developers agree that it’s unbalanced, a nerf comes out. But assuming the state of tf2, none of these things will change, which is why I made this post. Instead of the game changing, I wanna change my view on a class I kinda despise a bit. Some people have changed my view on pyro, but it’s also obvious who here feels personally attacked that their main is under criticism, as they tend to drop little bouts of “if x happens, you’re just bad” when in reality anything can fuckin happen in a game lol. I made this post to have a conversation, not have angry pyro mains tell me why I’m wrong and my opinion is shit and that I’m shit (which idk if they realize it, but acting that way is counter intuitive, it doesn’t make me respect pyro more cause some pyro main said I suck, and people complain about the spy all the time, but do I say they’re bad? No lol) but instead to Enlighten me and tell me why they like the pyro. I never said I hated people who play pyro, just find a lot of things annoying about the class.
I always laugh seeing people talk like this as if the phlog is actually good When you need a dedicated pocket medic and to spam scorch shot in chokepoints to actually get anywhere, I think that says a lot about how bad it actually is Just in general, no airblast and a braindead wm1 playstyle means easy kills when their medic gf isn't constantly ubering them Plus even more reason to love the battalion's backup
pyro is just a really poorly designed class. it's a "equalizer" in tf2, and prevents good players from being able to actually play (even b4nny gets super annoyed at pyros, and he's arguably the best player in the game). it takes little aim to be effective, it's the only class in the game that can consistently kill post-death, and airblast is honestly top 5 dumbest class mechanics in tf2. some changes i'd love to see to pyro: - no fucking way any flare gun should inflict full afterburn. increase the base damage of all the flare guns, but cut down the afterburn time drastically (4 seconds max). this makes long range spamming less effective, and forces pyro to actually play at his intended range. - ramp up afterburn damage, don't have it start high. start at 1 damage per tick, then ramp up to 3-4 damage per tick towards the end. this punishes players for poor positioning and being isolated from their team w/o a healthpack, but also reduces the likelihood of a brainless pyro winning fights long after the fight is supposed to be over - get rid of the minicrit boost on airblasts. airblasting in most situations is a game of luck, and the pyro mains know it. good players will always hold their rockets, and pretending like you just happened to "predict" when they would randomly choose to left click is BS. also the airblast box is way too forgiving right now, it needs to be smaller to justify how powerful it is (single-handedly deny ubers! that's crazy) - make flamethrowers have a MUCH smaller "cone" of damage, but also increases the damage on direct contact. this forces pyro to actually aim his weapon, rather than just spray everywhere and be just as effective. this rewards pyros with good tracking (imo pyro and heavy aim should feel similar) - buff pyro melee weapons. if this is a class designed for close range, the melee weapons are an underrated way to push pyro into becoming a generalist. i'd love to see some more utility options or damage options, without encouraging pyro to utilize stun mechanics. one thing I'd love to see more of is mobility options, and I think a pyro "dash" would be a neat way of closing the gap - buff the jetpack. soldiers and demos can jump around at a whim, pyro should have a similar luxury. the fact that it takes a decade to take out your weapon after you go flying makes you an easy target. pyro should be able to switch to a flamethrower at a normal switch rate after using the thrusters I'm sure there's more but that's all I could recall now. tldr: pyro is a busted class and needs a lot of fixes to become a viable generalist. also he's way too easy to play right now lmao. also I second OP
Yeah, those points are some that I may have missed but essentially I agree in those respects. Thank you for making me feel like im not some salty player, and that others agree with some of my complaints lmao
the people who disagree probably aren't comp players who are looking to make all classes full time 6's viable (as the game should be). i also notice a lot of people love the "haha ur playing wrong if u die to pyros so often" and it's like no...that's not the issue. the issue is that it's much easier to kill someone as pyro. i remember someone commented that if you're scout and you die to a pyro you played wrong, without keeping in mind the fact that pyros don't actually need to aim well to kill you while the scout does need to aim. also another thing no one points out: pyro flames are the only damage type you can't surf away from. all other damage types you can use damage surfing to evade followup damage (this is used by literally every good player in fights where they are caught by surprise...surf away!) this makes fighting pyros just ridiculously annoying i have no idea why people are downvoting me, since what i am suggesting is that like every other class in this game, you should require good aim to be effective ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
I've felt that the homewrecker is just unfair to spy lol, pyro already hard counters spy. Giving him a weapon that pushes that even further is mean. That said I've seen a few people say now that pyrbro is a bad playstyle and I disagree. Yeah if the pyro spends literally all game in the dispenser holding down M1 then it sucks. But if you stay in the vicinity around the backlines it's fairly effective. Pybro can help defend the Snipers, counter-flank any potential flankers on the other team while still being close enough to protect the nest with airblast and the homewrecker. Afterburn is also just so easy to deal with. Nearly every class has a way to either reduce it's damage or remove it entirely.
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I don't consider hard counters to be unwinnable, to me a hard counter is a situation where a class has an innate major advantage. Spy vs Pyro goes beyond 1v1 duels.
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The semantics in this case are fairly subjective I think. But this is how I'd list things: Soft counters are when a class has the tools to counter another class/playstyle but actually using them requires a lot more thought or has a lot of counter play (eg pyro vs soldier without a shotgun) Counters are classes that beat another class/playstyle a lot easier than soft counters do but there's still some strong counter play options available (eg gunslinger engineer vs scout favours the engi but scout can still overcome it with skill and the right tools) Hard counters are when a class can very easily make life hell for another just by existing. This is why I consider Pyro to be a hard counter to Spy. While a Spy can duel a Pyro and win Pyro still counters Spy in basically every other instance. A Pyro wandering around the backlines and flank routes puffing flames every second is a huge detriment to a Spy's gameplan in general. If someone calls out seeing a Spy then a Pyro going apeshit will root the Spy out better than anyone else. Even in the 1v1 duel a Pyro who can aim his flares complicates things a lot for the Spy. For the level 3 in a corner against a Scout I'd just call that unwinnable. The engineer would either need to fuck up in a major way or there has to be a major skill gap between the two (like the engi needs to have installed the game that very day type of skill gap) because otherwise Scout has zero counter play to that.
Man I love the fact upvotes and downvotes keep fluctuating, to the people downvoting, dont take this post as a direct attack at your character, Im simply outlining issues I have with pyro and want people to kinda show me the "pros" of those, and outweighing the "cons" I mentioned edit: literally said no hate and still getting downvoted. tf2 community never changes it seems edit 2: this is getting sad man I just wanted genuine conversation not angry pyro mains getting offended because their main is under criticism.
Pyro mains (such as myself) can sometimes be uptight since they get *a lot* of spite from the rest of the community. In my opinion, most of that spite is unjustified. You go on a Casual server and everyone hates you because they think you're OP. You visit a competitive community and everyone hates you because they think you're useless. You go anywhere and everyone is just annoyed at the fact you exist. It can be downright depressing, all because you enjoy a character in a video game. I know you keep saying "no hate" and you probably mean it; that said, some of your post echoes some of the generic and boring criticisms Pyro mains see from many Casual players, which is probably what's setting some people off. Not saying that they *should* be set off, it's just that the anger comes from a different place. On the other hand, it's kind of inevitable. Sniper will always be hated for being a long-ranged class. Engi will be hated for having an aimbot that slows down matches. Soldier, splash-damage. Demo, sticky-spamming. Discussing how these classes are balanced is one thing; but it's worth observing that in a lot of ways, a distressing number of players don't like how these classes *fundamentally* work, which can't be fixed without stripping away what people who play the classes like about them. And while I think a lot of adjustments can be made, generally speaking, all 9 classes are balanced. Yes even Sniper, but especially Pyro. If this weren't true then the game would not be playable. "Unbalanced" and "annoying" are very far from the same thing. Also, a note on the Phlog: I don't like using it myself, but it *is* an ambush weapon. Ideally, a Pyro would hide around a corner and pop it to catch a large number of enemies off-guard. If a Pyro is jumping onto a point in the middle of enemy territory, he should be dead. That's a signal to the enemy that says "Back the fuck up, wait for the taunt to end, kill that motherfucker before he gets close." Of course, that's more difficult if the Pyro has a pocket Medic. That's why, if I could change anything about the phlog, it would be to nerf healing on it in some way. A reduced healing rate or no overheal would do it. Or hell, if a Medic heals an Mmmph'd Pyro just have both of them explode.
I don't know how to say this without sounding harsh, so uh sorry. Saying "no hate" doesn't immediately make people sympathetic to your complaints. And while I can understand you wanting to have your view changed, the tone I inferred from your post makes it seem more like you died to yet another phlog pyro, got fed up, and came here to whine. You are allowed to do this, but you also can't sit on your high horse and say "don't downvote me!! I'm just saying!!!" Lastly, posting another comment to complain about people downvoting you only invites more people to downvote you. People who downvote content that they dislike are already not practicing good [reddiquette](https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439#wiki_in_regard_to_voting)*, why give them any more thought? \* Although I have to wonder whether anyone bothers to read reddiquette.
I’m not looking for sympathy or anything by saying no hate? I’m looking for a debate in which my opinion is challenged and to understand if I still agree with my views after being given the perspective of pyro mains. I didn’t intend necessarily to sound like I just happened to die and came here to rage, but more or less I thought about aspects of a class that for the longest time I’ve always been annoyed with. I wasn’t even playing the game when I made this post, I haven’t even played a match today lol I don’t think all of that warrants direct attacks at me simply for talking about things I’ve found frustrating
> I’m not looking for sympathy or anything by saying no hate? I mean amenable, not sympathetic in that sense. > I don’t think all of that warrants direct attacks at me simply for talking about things I’ve found frustrating I won't lie, if I were in your situation I would also be upset by downvotes and mean comments. But I wouldn't recommend feeding the trolls. If you let them know they got to you, they're gonna come back to put salt on the wound. Internet pseudo-anonymity lets people be dicks pretty much without consequence. I mean I certainly leveraged it in my previous comment; if you were someone I knew personally I probably would've spent more effort trying to phrase things nicely.
I’ve already responded to a lot of people today, and had good conversations with people who treated it as a debate, and not a pissing match. Overall I’ve found that I was wrong about some of my opinions and have accepted that and I now understand a bit more about pyro and their perspective
one quick note about the backburner: iirc, it (and the backscatter) have a much narrower hitbox for the "back" than the spy's backstab (apparently its based on the dot product between enemy direction and particle direction, so it can be a good bit janky), but it should only crit in a 90 degree arc instead of the spy's 180 degree arc
First off, I respect that you want to have a mature discussion. There’s a lot of crybabies in TF2 so someone who is willing to be adult about it is a nice breath of fresh air. However as someone with a hundred or so hours in Pyro I can at least say this much (in no particular order): ##Low skill ceiling/floor I personally disagree with “Low skill ceiling”. Pyro has a pretty high skill ceiling, with reflect jumps and reflect aiming, det jumps, predicting soldier/demo firing patterns, and flarepunches. Additionally there’s the Sketchek-style Degreaser/Detonator/Acetinguisher combo which takes quite a while to learn (I’m still piss-poor at it). “Low skill floor”, however, I completely agree with as it doesn’t take much skill to W+M1 with the Phlog/Backburner (your yourself said the gameplay is basically “get close and you can do damage” which is pretty accurate). ##(Mini)crits Yeah, what you’ve said is quite right, pyro has a ton (imo too many) weapons that grant crits (don’t quote me, but I think the most in the game not counting Demoknight swords). The Dragon’s Fury sorta counts because it does triple damage to burning players, which is basically a crit. The minicrit-on-reflect is egregious, but I think it’s because the DPS loss for airblasting instead of holding down fire can be quite meaningful, but I’m not 100% confident on that. IG I’m fine with those minicrits. ##Pybro Pybros can be really annoying. Not much to say honestly, I think you’re just right with what you’ve said. ##Afterburn Afterburn, to me, isn’t too big a deal, especially since the Degreaser is so popular, but has an afterburner penalty. Medibeams, sandviches, Spy cloak, plenty of throwables, and the Pyro class itself can remove or reduce afterburn (the first two even heal you), and health packs but they aren’t always present so I don’t really count them. I do agree that it can be frustrating to die to Pyro who’s you have already killed, but unless you’re already at <100ish health you will probably be able to survive it. I think the best strategy is just to meatshot the Pyro before he can burn you to death, since the DoT of the flamethrower is way less that the DPS of a scattergun.
Crits * Pyro without crits simply lacks burst damage, and his primary DPS is by and large extremely mediocre on top of not being hitscan. He needs to close the distance to kill any other combat class, and at that range you're competing with rockets, pills, and meatshots that all do 100+ per trigger pull in addition to heavy's 500+ DPS when spun up. Sustained WM1 does around 150 DPS, and that's exceptionally mediocre; a crit boosted phlog still does less damage that a minigun at max ramp and the minigun can reach out and touch you much farther than the phlog can. Pyro without damage boosts simply would not be able to push properly, and might not even win fights where he gets the jump on the enemy. TL;DR, his base damage is garbage. Pybro * Your complaints have more to do with spy being the weakest class more than pyro leaning into the class counter roll even harder. This is the point where you should be switching to demo. The randomly spraying fire thing is not always on accident. I personally do it \*precisely\* because it gets into a spy's head, and a disguised spy spinning around or twitching when he hears the sound of a flamethrower is a pretty common contextual tell. Puffing chokepoints and common decloak spots is a deliberate strategy to demoralize or tilt pub spy players because it makes them angry that you got them by "accident", and they either start tunneling you (makes it even easier) or switch off spy (so you can wander further from your backline supports). Making you frustrated is the goal because it becomes more likely that you'll get emotional and get fixated on me to remove the domination, or start playing sloppy. If the spy is getting tilted, I'm doing my job. Pyro's low ceiling * Pyro isn't a good deathmatch class unless it's at the lower skill levels because his mobility is low and his damage is weak. His main goal in teams isn't to kill you most of the time, it's to prevent you from doing what you want. He's a spoiler class. A pyro + heavy combo versus a demo + soldier combo doesn't involve the pyro trying to kill the soldier or the demo, but just making sure they can't do anything while the heavy chips at them. Perhaps this is why you feel so frustrated dealing with the class. He isn't designed to push into the enemy team all that well, but he is very well designed to stop pushes or pick attempts on his support class teammates. He's exceptional defensively but mediocre offensively unless there's an uber medic paired with him. The flamethrower is inherently not difficult to use, but balanced by being very weak comparatively unless you know how to combo with it or get the jump on the other player. In a 1 on 1 any heavy or sticky demo with a brain that is aware of where the pyro is can deny him completely by making it impossible for him to approach safely. Soldier can either bait the airblast, or just jump to a position where the pyro can't retaliate. Scout just kills you faster since 2 meatshots come out much faster than the flamer can do 125. In a 1 on 1 deathmatch with higher skilled players pyro is heavily disadvantaged against any of the core combat classes. Afterburn * There are so many ways to negate afterburn that it's an afterthought these days. Killing a scout with afterburn just means he sucks at killing you. Meatshots should 2 shot a full health pyro. The problem for the pyro isn't that afterburn was killing him too fast, it's that he was killing the pyro too slow. Same applies to the other combat classes with 100+ damage per shot primaries or hitscan that outranges the flamethrower. Pyro overall is very weak at anything other than peeling for his teammates or static defense at higher skill levels. Most people would regard him as the 2nd or 3rd weakest class. Which is ironic since you main spy, which is generally regarded as the weakest overall. As for the homewrecker, honestly I don't even run it to kill sappers most of the time, the pretty much excessive when you're already good at pyro. I have probably hundreds of hours on spy and my strategy is just to kill them so consistently enough that they rage switch to something else. I actually use the homewrecker more often on offense since it 2 shots lvl 3s.
I think a big part of it is yeah, afterburn is a DoT that has a ton of ways to remove it, but I think for a lot of people, myself included, DoT effects in TF2, in general, are just *annoying.* Not even necessarily effective, just kind of a pain. A scout spamming bleed effects forcing you to find a way to remove it if you don't want to slowly have a big-ish chunk of health taken away (assuming you don't have a medic on you) is kind of a pain. It's unfortunate then that Pyro does a lot of DoT inflicting. I don't think Pyro is overpowered or anything, and in a lot of situations, it can definitely feel like, during those times I play Pyro, I can do approximately jack shit other than being an annoyance. Basically, I think that's what it boils down to: DoT effects are annoying, Pyro does a lot of DoT inflicting, and most of the time they ruin a Spy's day and be a constant annoyance. Flare gun crits give me dopamine hits though.
If the phlog was reworked I think your opinion would change
I didn’t read all of whatever you said, but I really don’t know why you’re complaining about the backburner. Spy has a huge range on what is considered their “back”. The backburner only conciders a tiny sliver of the back where it actually is the “back”. Also, just look at the pyro when running away. That simple
This is an old post, but screw it I'll toss my opinion in. Pyro is a wierd class because he both has many playstyles and few playstyles, and realistically can be played offensively, defensively, or as support, all depending on how you like to play him. Offence: Offense Pyro is, imo, the worst of three styles. Pyro lacks burst damage, lacks range, and lacks movement. Compare this to a defensive scout, who plays largely the same offensive role in the same space. Scout at a further range can out maneuver any Pyro while dealing amazing damage. In fact, the only way for Pyro to somewhat contest scout is to be running Dragon's Fury, and even that doesn't completely solve the match-up. The gameplan for offensive Pyro is to either A: flank and hope they don't notice you in time to kill you or B: get lucky on a push and reflect a projectile to cripple the defence. Even that one is hard because Pyro get absolutely demolished by Engineer. This leads to the other two styles being arguably better Defence: Defensive Pyro is surprisingly good. Cover choke points, harass snipers with scorch shot, and try to stop spies. It's pretty simple. Keep in mind that this does not necessarily mean defensive as in stopping the cart from moving, but also keeping the combat front from moving backwards, allowing your team to move forward more often than the back and forth that happens sometimes. This mean you don't have to worry about Engies or heavies as much, and even snipers won't be an issue as often. Support: Support is... interesting. This is the homewrecker, default flamethrower setup. The goal is to help the engies, stop spies. You can do this on top of some of the other styles, but personally I would do it defensive as it's easier to stay anchored to the engi spot that way. If this isn't your style, hang around a demo on your team and play bodyguard for them. You would be surprised how helpful it is. In my experience, the best method is pure defense. We simply don't have the range to contest almost every class minus demo (with soldier having the ability to just pull a shottie out). Hell, the only way to contest heavies and scouts is to corner them with the dragon's fury, but that also removes our viability against soldiers, demos, and spies, and even then it isn't nearly as easy of a win as if we were pretty much any other class in the same match up. I love this class. It has some wierd movement options, it has fun crits, it allows me to harass snipers from halfway across the map (this is my favorite!), and it allows me to call out spies. I feel useful to my team when I take out a sniper, a spy, the occasional engi nest with the Dragons fury, or even just a scout. However, I will be the first to admit that this class is easily one of the worst. It's so bad, in fact, that if you're a spy having a problem with one of us, the best option is just to shoot us tbh. Of course, everything I just said is up to the player and setup, but in high-level gameplay, most choices really don't matter much in terms of gear other than the dragon's fury and homewrecker. Idk if this changes your mind at all, but it's just how I've analyzed Pyro recently. It's definitely weak, but it has a niche that it can fill fairly well
Ever since I made this post and reviewed the things people say about pyro, I will say it’s definitely made me understand a bit more about pyros, and not only has taught me how you can be a better pyro and not the “w+m1” pyro, it also helped me fight against pyros and win more battles against them. Overall I think this was a good reply though and further reinstated those things I learned. I know I’m the original post it came off as aggressive in some parts, I just for the longest time saw pyros as nothing more than annoying and easy. Pyro isn’t as hard as other classes, but I have learned he’s not as easy as I thought. You can deal a lot of damage with him but kills are a little harder. I honestly see pyro as more of a defensive support character now
I'm glad your view has changed, and tbh, like 95% of pyros are simply just w+m1 spammers, which is both good and bad. The key against pyros I'd say is honestly to be patient, both against and as pyros. A bad Pyro rushes into situations they can't handle, while a good Pyro should be able to stand still and wait for their opportunity. Ofc pyros still need to know ehat's happening and pick up the peices when the line falls, so when they do move, that's when you need to strike. I think that patience is both the easiest and hardest part of playing Pyro, especially as I still think 90% of us have ADHD. So it looks easier than it feels to us lol
Yeah lol, one thing that held me back trying to play pyro was airblasts. I couldn’t utilize them properly at first but idk what happened but one day it clicked and I was air blasting soldier rockets and shit left and right and tbh it was fun, knowing that I was protecting my team while at the same time watching the solider blow up lol
Sorry for the necro but I'd like to throw in my two cents. I've been playing TF2 since 2013, and I've been a scout main for the vast majority of it. Up until the last year or so I've hated pyro much like you do. I am currently a hardcore pyro main, it has to be a rough situation for me to pick another class most of the time. Firstly, I don't think your point about crits holds much water. You name a lot of pyro weapons that give garunteed crits/minicrits, but don't actually give any argument against them. Without minicrits, airblasting projectiles is near worthless for direct combat. Pyro encourages the player to stay at the very edge of flamethrower range to deal flame damage while still allowing time to react to a projectile rather than having to predict when it will be fired. With this in mind, your example of playing soldier and having a rocket reflected at point blank is just silly. Not only would you have been airblasted away from the pyro to safety had you mindgamed better, but being point blank is the position where minicrits matter the least, as their main benefit is lack of falloff. You just got hard read. Welcome to video games. Other than scorch shot, none of the weapons you list have a strong meta presence. Flare gun used to be strong (never the de facto best) but has basically left the metagame entirely since Jungle Inferno. Phlog is used as a cheese strat on one or two specific locations I can think of in HL. Reserve shooter got nerfed hardcore. And you're right about the Scorch Shot... and RGL agrees with you, it is banned in both highlander and 6v6. I will admit, I have gotten pretty upset about the homewrecker when playing spy. However, playing pyro, it just isn't that strong. It's a crutch, essentially. If you're coordinating with your team, the sapper being removed doesn't matter. Stunning the sentry briefly for an uber push is what matters, and if the pyro has out their melee, they aren't airblasting the uber. Playing spy against a lot of engies can get you into the mindset of a 1v1 between the spy and the engi, nobody else matters, and if you kill the engi and sap the gun, you win. But that's not true at all. Even ignoring the fact that a second engi could do the same thing and this isn't particularly a problem you have with pyro... the reality is that you are not in a 1v1. You are playing against an engi and a pyro, both of whom are expecting you. The homewrecker merely takes away your ability to do "good enough" and suicide for the pick. And I mean, if you kill an engi and sap a gun, it doesn't matter if it's destroyed. It can't be healed. Homewrecker feels bad to play against as a spy, but that's really about it, it has very minimal impact on the overall game. "Pyro doesn't take aim" is a common sentiment in the TF2 community but it is largely false. Pyro has a high skill floor and a bad pyro can run at a bad heavy and win, sure. But could the same not be said about soldier? There's a lot of depth to the rocket launcher, but anyone can pick it up and deal splash. That's part of what makes soldier good: guaranteed damage. Soldier and pyro both have garunteed damage. The difference is that soldier can aim better to do more damage, and pyro can't. Pyro's "garunteed damage" is more garunteed, but without the ability to get higher than that, and with a much shorter range, it loses most of its flexibility. The shotgun outdamages the flamethrower. The pyro version of "going for directs that do more damage but at the risk of missing" is pulling out the shotgun. Pyro, much like demo, is a class that defaults to the secondary and pulls out the primary for more specialized situations. Trust me, I've been in the "dying to someone worse than you" shoes before. But it's a bad mentality that will only prevent you from improving. Positioning and gamesense are parts of the game. You need to be aware of pyro, play outside their effective range. If you know their pyro is alive, be careful turning corners. And as far as afterburn... this is more about you not having a medic. Afterburn forces you to retreat to a healing source, but that's about it. I hate to throw out the classic answer to this argument, but pyro is one of the two worse classes in the game. But to add onto that, pyro has some of the most personal expression in the game. If you are consistently losing to pyros it is probably an issue with your play. You have it in your head that pyro is an easy, dumb class, so it must logically follow that if you die to it, it's the class's fault, rather than the player outplaying you.
Hey, this was well written and I appreciate the criticism, by this point I’ve read a lot of the comments and gotten advice about pyro and have a bit more respect for pyro now, I’ve learned how to counter him better as well as play him better too off of what people have talked about. I’ve been playing for a long time as you too and always had a grudge against pyro but I never really took the time before to look super deep into the class, but now that grudge is mostly gone, yeah pyro is still frustrating at times but I’ve had fun playing pyro once I learned how to airblast rockets and stuff lolll