Ultrablue

Jumping past the "Comprehensive Damge" thread in total views on the official steam forums comes our friend B||odsire's sniper perspective of the pyro update. He speaks in terms of its usage in pugs (pick up groups of 6v6). I think he's defended his case.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forum...d.php?t=694398

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PANDAmonium

I agree with most of his arguments. I think he worded one part kind of weird, though:

"That is the close quarter class, disabling the long distance class. I am not okay with that. Heavys are cake at long distance. Soldiers and demos pretty easy. Pyros are now harder to kill at long distance then all of those because of the dodge and flare technique."

Seems like he's complaining that though he used to have an easy time against half of the classes available, he's now angry that only one of those classes is harder to kill.

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jepzilla

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks pyros are way overpowered now. The Pyro now has a tool for every situation. I was getting pretty tired of watching uber rushes stomped last night by pyros with airblast. What happened to rock, paper, scissors?

Isn't that the way TF2 should be? I don't understand your point.

kburnell

That actually matches up with my assessment of the matchup; neat! Sniper vs Backburner Pyro was a matchup I really wasn't sure about.

It still exists. However you do really need to think of Compression Blast Pyros and Backburner Pyros as two different classes with different advantaged and disadvantaged matchups. My thoughts on the rock-paper-scissors:

http://www.deadworkers.com/forums/vi...p=47416#p47416

For instance, while it's reasonable to use a Medic-buffed Backburner Pyro to charge down a Sniper, it's considerably less reasonable to do this with a Compression Blast Pyro (especially since they kind-of need the Shotgun). By comparison, Backburner Pyros can't do anything to slow down an Uber--even Heavies deal more knockback than they do (whereas Compys are great at stopping ubers, as you said).

Relmar

So wait, the flare gun actually has a use besides taking out somone with a tiny bit of health left?

BaneII

All I hear is, "Waaaah. I can't stand around and kill people like I used too." The thing about Snipers is that the counters used to be either another Sniper or a Spy. Now Pyros have been added as an additional counter. Learn to live with it and adapt or quit playing.

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-F33- BaneII
Smokers & Jokers

Conscript

F'n pyros.

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kburnell

I'm skeptical--most Snipers I've talked to said they found it rather easy to dodge, especially since they didn't need to worry about splash (like with Demo/Soldier spam).

Beatnik

Rock-Paper-Scissors is still there, it's just getting re-aligned.

This update intended to significantly re-align the pyro role, and it did. I agree the backburner is overpowered, but not because snipers don't like it. Good snipers still own in this game, and just because the best snipers don't get 50-1 K/D ratios any more doesn't necessarily mean that Pyros are "totally overpowered".

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jepzilla

I wasn't aware that TF2 was about K/D- isn't this supposed to be an objective based game? Frankly for all their fantastic K/D there are only a couple of snipers I care for on my team and that actually rate as a real threat when on the other side. The rest are just a waste of space and don't usefully contribute to winning the game or even raise themselves out of the annoyance category.

I'm not so worried about backburner- I haven't had enough experience to tell whether the extra 50 health is unbalancing yet. I can see the frustration with the flare gun too, although I suspect a few minor tweaks will fix any reasonable complaints.

But airblast is ridiculous. Knock-back effects have always been a counter against ubers, but airblast is so effective and takes so little skill to pull off. Last night on Dustbowl the blue team couldn't make a dent in the defense of red. Every uber push to clear out the sentries was defeated by a single pyro with airblast. Let's not even get into Pyro vs. Soldier.

Pyros are no longer vulnerable at long ranges, and are now unstoppable at close range and a counter to soldiers, demomen, scouts, snipers and all ubers. We seem to agree that the old rock-paper-scissors is gone... but I don't see what the new one is.