Thread: Backburner the true pyro?

Originally Posted by DPyro

Originally Posted by K0nTANK3Rous

it all depends on the map and the situational awareness...if there are tunnels and caves and I'm traversing those I swap to backburner to catch the other side from behind going through another tunnel. If it's an open area map, i switched to the reg w/ airblast simply because it's more dangerous and i love giving soldiers a steaming pile of rocket shit.

But all they ever have to do is turn around (spycheck!) - and it's game over. With a backburner you're relying more on the incompetence of your enemy than your skill at bburning.

Agreed, if going against people that have their shit together.

Overall the backburner is situational, and in my opinion too situational. I never use the backburner, but every once in a while I find my self undetected behind enemy lines and I wish I had the backburner handy. As others have pointed out it is just too easy to counter the backburner if the pyro is detected before he gets in range.

Originally Posted by sickwookie

Overall the backburner is situational, and in my opinion too situational. I never use the backburner, but every once in a while I find my self undetected behind enemy lines and I wish I had the backburner handy. As others have pointed out it is just too easy to counter the backburner if the pyro is detected before he gets in range.

Your fucked if they see you anyway.
The airblast *might* kill on enemy, maybe 3% chance of killing someone if they see you. And heck, if you are in a fight with someone, and they turn they're back for even a second, you crit them.
So I really do think the back burner has it's uses.

If you know how the use the airblast, you will escape many situations the backburner would've gotten you kiled in, and there's no contesting that axeblasting is nothing if not consistent at dropping sollies, demos, scouts, and anyone else unfortunate enough to be near a corner you can shove them into.

Couple this with the fact that you can extinguish burning teammates with the airblast now (next time that medic dies scrambling to get to the medkit in time and you had backburner, realize how fucking selfish you're being) and a competent pyro can tie up uber rushes for precious precious seconds (if not stop them cold) and there is almost no reason to bring the backburner to field against competent opponents.

It's fun to torch people who don't know how to watch their flanks, but if I'm playing pyro (which isn't often these days... I much prefer heavy), I always run with the regular flamer.

Originally Posted by PizzaSHARK!

If you know how the use the airblast, you will escape many situations the backburner would've gotten you kiled in, and there's no contesting that axeblasting is nothing if not consistent at dropping sollies, demos, scouts, and anyone else unfortunate enough to be near a corner you can shove them into.

Couple this with the fact that you can extinguish burning teammates with the airblast now (next time that medic dies scrambling to get to the medkit in time and you had backburner, realize how fucking selfish you're being) and a competent pyro can tie up uber rushes for precious precious seconds (if not stop them cold) and there is almost no reason to bring the backburner to field against competent opponents.

It's fun to torch people who don't know how to watch their flanks, but if I'm playing pyro (which isn't often these days... I much prefer heavy), I always run with the regular flamer.

OR, competent sollies and demos will kill you even with your airblast, whereas noobs wont. And true it offers better survivability for running away. Axetinguisher can still take down big targets quickly, but a backburner can do it faster, and to multiple opponents via splash.

Backburner is riskier, and more aggresive than the airblast pyro. Not better or worse.

I never said the airblast was proof against sollies and demos. A good solly will still skullfuck you and a good demo will force you to run away or at the very least stop chasing him. But whereas a backburner running into a solly is going to be splattered all over the pavement, an airblast pyro may be able to safely retreat and possibly even hit the solly with his own rocket (most good sollies seem to prefer switching to the shotgun against an airblast pyro after popping them with a rocket, though.)

You can say the backburner can rip through people you flanked, but almost every class can do that. Ever seen a heavy with natascha get behind people? They get mowed down incredibly fast and have a very difficult time escaping. If a demo gets behind you unnoticed, your only means of noticing him is after your team's dead from a sticky trap he baited you all into when he started spamming you with nades.

Against a competent opponent, the backburner is a liability.

Air blast all the way. After all, what could be more fun than airblasting someone off a bridge to their doom? sure you dont get credit, but you get lolz. lotsa lolz.

Originally Posted by PizzaSHARK!

Airblast makes you more useful to your team.

Backburner just makes you a selfish point-farming prick.

Unlike CSS or other games where K is a stat thats tracked, TF2 tracks points. And if someone on the team has more points than you, then they are being more helpful to the team than you are (usually).

So, "point-farming" is helping your team to win, because the way you earn points is through kills with bonuses for killing medics healing the enemy, assists, defenses, captures, etc. Anyone who is "point-farming" in TF2 is helping the team.

imo air compression is one of the most valuable assets to the team.

The airblast can be used to extinguish allies on fire, reflect damn near all types of projectile (grenades, flares, arrows, rockets, stickies, etc), a pyro can truly be labeled as a support class imo for this reason; they can even literally, defend their medics. Not to mention using the air blast to free/defend a cap-point. Finally the airblast allows the pyro to disorient (launch them in the air) the a-blazed opponent allowing for a lethal strike from the axextinguisher.

recap:

airblast:

• extinguish allies
• reflect projectiles
• air-blast opponents off of cap-points
• disorient opponents

vs

bb

• crits from behind

I suppose it does come down to personal preference. For me, id gladly give up the extraneous damage gained from the backburners-crits in order to utilized the airblasts many delicious, unique capabilities.

Originally Posted by PizzaSHARK!

Airblast makes you more useful to your team.

Backburner just makes you a selfish point-farming prick.

fully agree! took the words out of my mouth