Pyro Guide

[Larry]

I'll let you in on one of our trade secrets YNWA - all pyros die constantly. Pyro's have one of the shortest life expectancies in the game - 37 seconds, last I saw the numbers (only Scouts die faster). The nature of the assignment is to charge towards people who have superior weapons in order to reach a place where your f/t will work, to charge towards uber charges where your weapon cannot possibly work, and to put yourself between incoming projectiles and their squishy targets as often as possible.

To really play the class offensively (regardless of which team you're on), you need to think and move like a spy, but without the benefit of invisibility or long-range secondary. Take their routes, trying to remain unseen, and imagine your approach like it's an uncloak - if they spot you, you're going to get fragged painfully without doing anything useful.

Relying on your f/t for damage in most cases will be a questionable to bad option - it's great for chaos and superb for airblast, but it really doesn't do much against decent players. Instead, use it to prep the victims for your follow-ups with secondary and/or melee. A good Backburner flank is an exception, but the trade-off for airblast cost is nowhere near worth it, in my opinion.

As Pyros, we're great at buying time for other people to get out of Dodge, but we're not good at surviving ourselves. That's fine - the team can afford to lose us much more readily than a medic or engy, so protect them with your life - it's a worthwhile trade. Diving headlong at your foe in a hopeless situation, airblasting them and puffing flame, might only get you one or two seconds, but that's long enough for somebody else to either get out or show up, and that helps the team.

Pyro does have one huge glowing positive, and that's ubers. We are the ultimate in uber blocking, and situationally the best uber patient as well. When blocking ubers, we're likely to die, but it's either us or a whole swath of more valuable people/things. Look for doorways, chokepoints, and ledges, and use them to airblast the hell out of incoming ubers, either forcing them back through a door that blocks their fire, or off a ledge so they lose time. Separate medics from patients to break the connection, or if they get close to a sentry gun, airblast the patient straight up, and the gun will sky-walk them (lift them to the top of the skybox) in a heartbeat. The inverse of this is that Pyros are one of the strongest Uber attackers there is. For defense a heavy can be better, and for something up on a ledge a Demo has the advantage, but on the flat against players or SGs, a Pyro will get more done than anybody else.

Anyway, I'm typing a lot more than I meant to, and most is probably already covered earlier in this thread. What it comes down to though is stealth, thinking really fast, switching weapons even faster, and not worrying one iota about KDR.

pssh, i still airblast with the backburner

[YoullNeverWalkAlone]

Well playing mostly medic KDR is a non issue to me for sure. pyro the way you describe it, is how I've tried to play it, I just always thought I was doing something wrong.

I'm not great with a weapon switch, but I may have to think about the use of something instead of the RS. I do tend to light people on fire a bit and not be able to kill them, I might benefit from the detonator or the flare. I think when i used to use the flare, I was using it wrong and not taking advantage of setting someone on fire first, then hitting them, mostly just long range hits (and not very accurate in my case)

I used to own the third degree and man melter, but gave them away to Mateo because I couldn't see how I could use them well. I don't melee well, so the idea of me being able to hit a guy who has a pocket medic was unlikely. And having to giveup the homewrecker seemed like a bad tradeoff for me with my poor melee skills. The man melter was needed when using the phlos... because I feel obligated to put people out who are on fire (the other reason I got away from the backburner, I felt like I let too many people down because I couldn't airblast an uber or a flaming team mate when I ran out of ammo).

I think I will try the flare again (or detonator if I find one) and perhaps the regular shotgun. I don't get people in the air much, so the RS isn't a huge help to me(and my aim could use the extra ammo)

[THE Flying chihuahua]

As a pyro, you must never forget this one word. Ambush. You are the ambush class after all. A single pyro coming out of nowhere and setting everyone in a group on fire seriously messes with a push.

[Boss Llama]

Moving fast, catching people off guard, and airblasting like mad is a deadly combo, that's for sure. I just parsed the stats from a one particularly good life on Dustbowl 1-2:

VIEW CONTENT:

Kills
12 Axtinguisher
1 Shotgun
1 Deflected Arrow

Kill Assists
1

Airblasts
15

Destroyed Buildings
3 Teleporters
2 Mini Sentries
2 Sentries

Notice the lack of kills from fire - there are none whatsoever. The one Kill Assist was probably somebody who was on fire, and most of the destructions were fire (At least one of the mini SGs was shotgun), but none of the actual kills. Now notice that the number of airblasted enemies is equal to the combined number of kills and kill assists. That isn't a coincidence. Light 'em up, use your airblast, and go after them with something better than fire! I realize of course that this is reflective of my own playstyle, but I do feel it's among the more effective ways for a Pyro to play its part.

[Zork Nemesis]

It is playstyle dependant. While I do airblast here and there with the Backburner, I don't do it nearly as often as other pyros (primarily due to ammo constraints, but even when I used stock flamer I didn't airblast too much). I have the belief that air doesn't kill, and while weapon switching remedies this, I've run into many a pyro who've airblasted me three or four times without lighting me or even having a reason to puff me into a corner, and the look on their face when I land on them and put my Eyelander through their head. Then there are the incompetent pyros who do know how to light and airblast, but can't aim their attacks. In my case, I take all the complications out of the matter, sneak around back, and just burn through everyone as much as I can. Does it always work, no, but I get what I put into it and can usually kill someone unaware relativly quickly if I line up the critical.

In the four or five months i've had it, i've gotten 5250 kills on my Strange Backburner, it's my highest ranked strange weapon overall, and I feel it says something: even when you don't airblast you can still be a threat.
-That said, I have a tendancy to level up odd/uncommon weapons anyhow, as my next best stranges include the Eyelander (3350), Brass Beast (2200), and stock Shotgun (1850, with a majority of the shotgun kills coming from Engineer)

[One_Medic_Army]

If you're trying to kill low hitpoint classes, go for the fire.
Melee just gives a skilled opponent a chance to crit you, whereas with fire you will just win against anyone of equal speed and fewer hitpoints.

Many a time have I killed pyros as sniper/medic who were trying to axtinguish me, when flame would have done the job just fine.

[Flaming Cheese Wheel]

The Axetinguisher is most effective with surprise (and if a Pyro comes up favorably in the whole melee hit detection thing). But flaming people and then running off to shoot them with other weapons is safer for the Pyro, and causes the target to waste time running off for healthkits/waste throwables/look for allied Pyros/etc.

[Zork Nemesis]

look for allied Pyros

If I had a nickel for every friendly Pyro I ran into that didn't know the compression blast can extinguish fire, i'd have a lot of nickels.

[YoullNeverWalkAlone]

So using theories presented here, I went "spy" pyro mode tonight for a few maps and had a blast! I don't have the backburner so I used the phlos. I looked for flanks, got behind the other team and tried to cause havoc. We had another pyro, so I wasn't worried about spy checking all the time, but I tried to occupy people enougth that my team could push the cart with less resistance. I killed more people than I thought I would and looked for medics, engis, snipers and scouts in that order. I didnt get to taunt crit too often as I didnt stay alive long enough most of the time. I think if I play with the phlos like that again, I'll hit and run for health more.

Thanks for all the help folks, that was the most fun I've had as pyro!

[Plinko]

I wish I had a nickel for every player that burned to death while running away from me while I was a pyro yelling furiously to come back so I could put them out.

[Boss Llama]

@YNWA - Awesome! Keep up the good work

@Plinko - I'm with ya on that my friend.

[Fano]

this is the extent of my experience as pyro:

[El_Hefe]

As Pyros, we're great at buying time for other people to get out of Dodge, but we're not good at surviving ourselves. That's fine - the team can afford to lose us much more readily than a medic or engy, so protect them with your life - it's a worthwhile trade. Diving headlong at your foe in a hopeless situation, airblasting them and puffing flame, might only get you one or two seconds, but that's long enough for somebody else to either get out or show up, and that helps the team.

Pyro does have one huge glowing positive, and that's ubers. We are the ultimate in uber blocking, and situationally the best uber patient as well. When blocking ubers, we're likely to die, but it's either us or a whole swath of more valuable people/things. Look for doorways, chokepoints, and ledges, and use them to airblast the hell out of incoming ubers, either forcing them back through a door that blocks their fire, or off a ledge so they lose time. Separate medics from patients to break the connection, or if they get close to a sentry gun, airblast the patient straight up, and the gun will sky-walk them (lift them to the top of the skybox) in a heartbeat. The inverse of this is that Pyros are one of the strongest Uber attackers there is. For defense a heavy can be better, and for something up on a ledge a Demo has the advantage, but on the flat against players or SGs, a Pyro will get more done than anybody else.

Anyway, I'm typing a lot more than I meant to, and most is probably already covered earlier in this thread. What it comes down to though is stealth, thinking really fast, switching weapons even faster, and not worrying one iota about KDR.

^^^ that brought a tear to me eye.....

I do ALL of that....

Ask anyone thats played with me, and they'll tell you i'm always screaming at them (mainly medics who just ubered me) to run away and i'll stay to cover their escape... then die...

[OmgOhnoes]

I wish I had a nickel for every player that burned to death while running away from me while I was a pyro yelling furiously to come back so I could put them out.

Oh this is the most true thing said so far...

[barrychen]

hi im barry im just new here thank u for sharing guides and info here this would help a lot to me. I'm liking this With such detailed tahnk u again