Pyro: The Fighting Game Class

**sleeepy** · 05-16-10, 12:33 AM

I made a long post on the steam forums about what I feel needs to be done to the Pyro in order to make him balanced, but also to require skill and above all make him fun to play.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forum....php?t=1270969

Please read and leave your thoughts.

**DOMINATOR** · 05-16-10, 12:52 AM

honestly i think its perfect the way it is. airblast is great for a support role, switched to backburner and was killing a lot with ease.

**sickwookie** · 05-16-10, 08:41 AM

I think you are on the right track here. The pyro has a lot of really cool combos available to him, but in practice it is very difficult to use them because of the weapon switching delay. Also, there is the reload time of the flare gun. If the weapon switching and reload times are addressed the pyro will be well on his way to becoming a competitive class, but I have a few issues with your other suggestions.

The problem with the afterburn is how effective it is in a low skill context vs. a high skill context. In a low skill context it is overpowered because the other classes don't know how to counter it, but in a high skill context it is underpowered because once you know how to counter it it becomes useless.

So, any after burn solution has to increase its potency in the high skill context, and decrease it in the low skill context. The valve change decreased the usefulness in both and your idea increases it in both. The reality is that it was not the afterburn that was over or under powered, but the flamethrower itself which is the problem. It is far too easy to spray and pray to ignite people, and get the full effect of the after burn.

One option is to require a threshold of direct fire damage before someone is ignited. This is a good idea, but I think it would run counter to your suggestion that a skilled pyro should be based on combos. Any delay in the time it takes to gain the afterburn effect would reduce the ability of a pyro to combo. So, I think a suggestion another steam pyro has made would be more relevant to this discussion. He suggested that the flamethrower needs to have a shorter range. The shorter range would reduce the low skill spray and pray while having no impact on the higher skill player who knows how to get in range, and would not hinder the ability of a pyro to combo. Then to address the further range limitation on the pyro the damage of the flamethrower should be increased to be on par with the direct damage of the soldier/demo/scout at melee range. See my full post.

When it comes to the airblast jump I was in the past on board with it, but I have changed my opinion. I feel that the suggestions already made would make the pyro viable enough that he would not require the addition of an airblast jump on the flamethrower. On the other hand the backburner would not benefit so much by these changes. I would love to see an M2 ability on the backburner, and I have suggested that fireblast be added. The fireblast would not reflect projectiles, but deal direct damage and knockback like the FAN. Like the FAN it could augment the pyro's jump as well.

@DOM
Bullshit! You have 6 hours on pyro and got 7 kills with the backburner. Are you saying that when you play soldier/demo you give a shit about a backburner pyro? Do you just drop him like a bad habit and continue your killing spree? Shit for that matter do you do the same to any pyro regardless of load out? Can you honestly tell me you think of the pyro as more than an occasional annoyance when you play soldier, demo, or medic? Did you ever think "Oh shit theres wookie playing pyro I better watch out he can pull that proro stuff"?

**Imisnew2** · 05-16-10, 10:46 AM

After reading wookies post, I thought how about a direct correlation to how long you've burned them with the flame thrower to how long their after burn lasts.

That way, a short puff and airblast combo would work with axetinguisher, but allow a pyro that was able to get close to an enemy the ability to keel them off if they die.

Depending on how that is balanced, you could either leave the medpacks alone, or change them to remove time off your afterburn (and heal you) instead of get rid of it all together.

**Oozish** · 05-18-10, 07:46 PM

Nice post sleepy. :9

**DOMINATOR** · 05-18-10, 10:11 PM

Originally Posted by sickwookie

@DOM
Bullshit! You have 6 hours on pyro and got 7 kills with the backburner. Are you saying that when you play soldier/demo you give a shit about a backburner pyro? Do you just drop him like a bad habit and continue your killing spree? Shit for that matter do you do the same to any pyro regardless of load out? Can you honestly tell me you think of the pyro as more than an occasional annoyance when you play soldier, demo, or medic? Did you ever think "Oh shit theres wookie playing pyro I better watch out he can pull that proro stuff"?

i got like 60 hours on pyro. (before hlstats was mostly BB) i rarely play pyro anymore on ttp.
but your right pyros really are nothing more than an annoyance when im playing solly... they have nothing that can straight up beat a solly 1on1. recently pyros just spam airblast... easy i just walk right up next to them or weapon 'taunt' em. (switch back and forth from shotty/RL)
only thing a pyro can do against a decent soldier is attack him while hes being attacked by something else. nature of the class, it is not a fragging class. it will never be on the level that soldier, demo, and even heavy are on.

btw i was drunk when i made that post... no doubt changing weapon switch times would greatly help the pyro but i dont see valve doing it. do like the changed dmg because right now i dont give a fuck if a pyro lights me on fire or not.

**Gimli** · 05-18-10, 10:25 PM

Originally Posted by sickwookie

The shorter range would reduce the low skill spray and pray while having no impact on the higher skill player who knows how to get in range, and would not hinder the ability of a pyro to combo. Then to address the further range limitation on the pyro the damage of the flamethrower should be increased to be on par with the direct damage of the soldier/demo/scout at melee range. See my full post.

On the other hand the backburner would not benefit so much by these changes. I would love to see an M2 ability on the backburner, and I have suggested that fireblast be added. The fireblast would not reflect projectiles, but deal direct damage and knockback like the FAN. Like the FAN it could augment the pyro's jump as well.

@DOM
Bullshit! You have 6 hours on pyro and got 7 kills with the backburner. Are you saying that when you play soldier/demo you give a shit about a backburner pyro? Do you just drop him like a bad habit and continue your killing spree? Shit for that matter do you do the same to any pyro regardless of load out? Can you honestly tell me you think of the pyro as more than an occasional annoyance when you play soldier, demo, or medic? Did you ever think "Oh shit theres wookie playing pyro I better watch out he can pull that proro stuff"?

After reading this point, i only agree with one point you made, and that point is that the flamethrower should have a smaller range(because the buffs it got in the previous patch more than would make up for this). sometimes ill be playing pyro or vs a pyro and he is like far as hell away from me, and there is no way there flamethrower could be in range and it somehow starts hitting me. Also the burn dmg is over powered in my opinion simply because of the duration it lasts(its bullshit) you can put someone on fire and do over 40 dmg just from burn(fucking retarded.) Also you fireblast idea is completely retarded the backburners negative effect is no airblast,, why would they add a fireblast(u are just qq because you want the pyro to do more dmg because you want to run in and be a stupid W +M1 pyro.), all you are trying to do in this post is trying to buff the pyro, where are the negatives to these buffs? Honestly when i see a pyro running in at people, all i think is noob. pyro should be ready to come around a corner to ambush someone with the backburner, or the pyro should be near the medics with the flamethrower looking for spies and air blasting projectiles that come close to the medics as much as possible(those are the pyros role if you are being a teamplayer). Also you are saying that the pyro should do just as much dmg as a soldier and demo class? the pyro is an offensive class but not in the way you want it to be, the pyros damage should not be the same as the demo or soldiers, it should be less, the pyro is not a front line attacking class, it may say it is an offensive class or whatever, but the pyro is more of a supportive class or defensive class, whereas teh demo and soldier are more offensive than the pyro should be. with the pyro not being such an offensive class its damage should not be as high since its flamethrower and backburner do more than enough damage if u catch someone from behind or in a blind spot to kill them outright if you actually move around them or strafe and don't just do W +M1 you can kill any class.

from your other post(Backburn for damage and Flamethrower for utility. It just does not break down that way. The airblast gives the pyro survivability that the Backburner does not, and even with that trade off it is still out damaged by the Minigun, Natascha, Direct Hit, Rocket Launcher, FAN, Scattergun, Pipe, and overlaps with the Shotgun. The Backburner really needs some kind of an alt fire to make it desirable. I would like to see a fireblast that does a burst of fire damage, and has knock back, but does not reflect projectiles.)

what you said is completely true, the backburner is for damage whereas the flamethrower is for utility. when you see a back burner pyro you do not have to worry about frontal attacks because he cant airblast anymore, but if he gets behind you for whatever reason ur fucked whereas if its the flamethrower you have to attack differently, wait on shooting a rocket or pill before the airblast goes off so its not reflected,m and with the newest patch and the airblast getting a buff, i don't know why you are caring so much, now the air blast pyro does a shit load more dmg with a good air blast pyro(which is what you should be using and doing anyways). lastly, i just have to ask this question, Why should the pyro do as much dmg as a soldier or demo, wouldn't that just make them way over powerd?

**sickwookie** · 05-19-10, 04:43 AM

:facepalm:

Why does everyone assume that I W+M1 because I want the pyro to get buffed

I have hundreds of hours of pyro on TTP, and I played the class with skill. The problem is that no matter how good I got with the flare gun, shotgun, axetinguisher, or airblast it was just not that effective. Even now with the faster lower cost airblast the class is just not effective. There is nothing the pyro does that another class can't do better (except spy checking?). What I want to see is a class that is on par with the others in the hands of a skilled player.

Sadly most of the suggestions made are by people who do not have enough experience to understand what actually makes a good pyro(hint: its not ambushing). Even more sadly the suggestions I make are cast aside as the rantings of a W+M1 pyro. I assure you I despise the W+M1 pyro more than anyone. Those bastards gave me a bad name no matter what proro shit I could pull. I just want to be more than an annoyance when I play the pyro with skill.

Sleepy has made some cool suggestions, and I think they deserve to be discussed. If my points don't make sense to you at least give this post a read to see if he makes any more sense http://forums.steampowered.com/forum....php?t=1252294.

**Ruukil** · 05-19-10, 05:59 AM

Gimli must be trying to make me rage.

I want to see what this latest tweak does.

**Anti-Squeaker** · 05-19-10, 06:56 AM

and just for reference, the rage on the M2 flamethrower used in WWII was around 40 meters. So I agree, the flamethrower IS ridiculously not accurate. But for the wrong reasons. :P