Beatnik

This thread is for discussion on all things pyro. It seems that many people who haven't played pyro much think that they can reduce all pyro play to "Hold Mouse1 and hit W", which while funny isn't at all true. So I hope to communicate my perspective on the pyro's role in different situations, and hopefuly post some demos of my playing the pyro down the line.

Know Your Role

This was the mantra of TFC and Q3F. Essentially it meant realizing that your chosen class has certain strategic and tactical strengths that, when played to, make it more effective, and when ignored make you relatively useless. In TF2, this also bleeds over into "Know Your Kit" since the different unlocks are appropriate for contrasting styles of play and situations.

Knowing your role as pyro almost entirely depends on the situation, moreso than other classes. On offense, I view the pyro as similar to a knight in chess (relative to s demo being a bishop, or a soldier being a rook, etc). The knight/pyro is 'less powerful' than the demo/bishop, less valuable to the entire team than a good medic, and less lethal/less effective at controlling territory than a sentry gun. This, in my opinion, makes the pyro "less valuable" than those elements, meaning that it's worthwhile to sacrifice yourself as pyro if you can eliminate one or more of them.

Given those assumptions, on offense I use the pyro as the razor teeth of the attack. The pyro should almost always be on the front lines, inflicting damage and chaos whenever possible, taking damage to help charge ubers, and yes sacrificing himself if he is able to take out a SG, medic, or demo/soldier or two. Yes, the pyro should die a lot.

The ideal kit for me on offense (if there are no dominating BB pyros on their defense) is the normal burner with either shotgun or flaregun. The compressed air opens up the possibilities to blowback defensive ubers or stickies, reflect defensive projectiles, and disrupt entrenched positions. The BB pyro is more effective on offense when there is a dominating defensive BB pyro (since BB almost always beats regular pyro).

Of course, ubers work great with offensive pyros, if the opposing team doesn't have a pyro using compressed air to blow your ubers back. When ubered, targets should be prioritized in this order: Engineers actively healing their SGs, the SGs themselves, medics, demos/soldiers, other classes or buildings.

On defense, things change a bit. From a prioritization standpoint, I view the pyro's role on defensive as a CQC cleanup unit first, and then offensive pain-in-the-arse second. And of course the pyro is the most effective anti-spy class, and should be performing that function when necessary. That being said, depending on the aggressiveness of the attacking team, most of a defensive pyro's time is devoted to 'holding the line' and getting damage/kills and inciting early ubers as far away from the point as possible, falling back to secure the point only when necessary.

As for defensive kits, I prefer BB pyro with shotgun, as most of the play is short to mid range and your BB flamethrower will own an assaulting regular flamethrower 9 times out of 10. Sometimes the flare gun is better for sniper or even soldier situations, but generally shotgun works better for me on defense.

Playing on defense with BB flamethrower, the ideal situation is to either hide behind an obstruction and wait for the offense to pass you, or actively flank around and charge attackers from behind. Playing on defense with the compressed air, it's better to sit back from the line a bit, protect sentries from stickies or other attacks, and spy check.

In both situations, the pyro's job is to define the front line, antagonize the enemy, incite early ubers whenever possible, and kill medics, SGs, and 'more valuable' classes when possible, even if it means sacrificing yoursel in the process. While on the line, the offensive pyro should be relating offensive pushes/classes to the D, and the defensive pyro should be calling out incoming ubers, numbers of medics, teleporters and so on.

Advanced pyro techniques mostly involve using the compresed air to reflect or deflect incoming rockets or grenades. One thing worth noting is that the incoming angles of rockets/grenades does not matter, and the projectiles will reflect back to where you are aiming. It took me about 5 hours of Pyro Tennis play before I even realized this, but afterward my lethality as pyro increased substantially. And it's entirely possible to reliably reflect demoman grenades and flares, although it takes practice to get the 'feel' for those quicker projectiles. Heavy gunfire, medic needles, pistol bullets and shotgun/scattergun rounds can't be reflected, but just about everything else can. Flares look particularly cool when their color changes after being reflected.

Of course, circle strafing close sentries (and less than awesome heavies) has to be mentioned. Properly buffed, even a regular (non-BB) pyro can take out a close level 3 sentry reliably by circle strafing it. But that effectiveness drops off if the (spun up) heavy or SG is more than about 10-20 feet away.

Know Your Objective

Overall, the pyro should be constantly prioritizing targets, adjusting their tactics to address those priorities, keeping their situational awareness as high as possible, and relating the most relevant info to the team. And for every class, but pyro especially, you should be asking yourself "What can I do to best help the team?" and playing that objective aggressively. Note that in MOST situations, the most effective tactic is NOT simply killing the most people; instead you should be focusing on gamechanging (or momentum-shifting) objectives. It's easy to go for the quick kill(s), but that doesn't necessarily help your team accomplish their objective. It's somewhat harder to kill a SG or two, their engies, two medics, and some hardware, but that will invariably help your team more in the long run.

---

Ok that's it for now. This was all stream-of-conscious and will probably be massively edited, but I wanted to contribute and encourage others to contribute to class-focused strategy threads. Feel free to pick apart my analysis or offer your insights into the class in this thread, and feel free to post relevant demos along with my own. I'll update the OP with additional best practices/insights as they're posted.

__________________

Arf

I can't +rep you right now but if I could I'd give you an extra bubble.

XCannon

tl;dr

Cliff notes version

hold down forward and hold down fire.

__________________
Let's play a game. It's called quit looking up at me and finish!

Hidus

Everything you need to know to play pyro:




Yes I went there.

luuser

disclaimer: this is from the point of view of someone who does not play pyro.

what's important is not only knowing HOW to play pyro but also WHEN to play pyro. overloading a team with pyros is no better than overloading a team with snipers or spies, imo. this of course depends on the map as well, but while having one or two pyros on a team is good for spy checking, defensive blowback, ubering, etc, having three or four cripples the team's long range capabilities and pushing ability.

pyros aren't such great medic buddies either; while pyros benefit greatly from the overheal and ubercharges, the same can't really be true of the medic. following a pyro around gets you killed more often than not due to the pyro having to fight in close range, and doesn't have the same secure feeling following around a heavy or soldier does. with a team heavy in medics, while playing pyro gives you lots of overheals, ubercharges, and healing, your medics will tend to die a lot more often and more often than not the pyro player will be happy but the medics won't. seeing as medic is already the most thankless job, Medic Happiness should always be a high priority.

couple more related thoughts:

I have MUCH, MUCH more respect for pyros that play with the compressed air most of the time. not only can you push back enemy ubers, blow away stickies from allied sentry guns (PLEASE DO THIS AND NOT DITCH THE FRIENDLY ENGINEER WHEN THE UBER DEMO COMES IN), both of these functions can be so incredibly useful that they can hold off a concentrated offense. on offensive pushes, due to being ubered more often than not, the backburner's extra health isn't that crucial. on the flip side, if you find yourself in 1v1s with enemy pyros all the time, then either blow them away with your air and retreat, or simply try to stick together with a teammate. in my opinion playing with the backburner suggests a more individual, 1v1 style and playing with the air suggests a more team oriented style. not trying to offend anyone here but simply stating things the way I see it.

also, the pyros that will strafe left and right in little in front of an enemy soldier with the flamethrower out, and simply wait to blow back rockets never cease to amuseme. not only are you telegraphing what exactly you're going to do, it doesn't serve any purpose. you obviously aren't attacking (soldiers aren't generally dumb enough to let you keep blowing back rockets, use the shotgun if you want to drive him off), and if its simple self preservation you want, then at least retreat while using the air as defense. staying there and blowing back rockets indefinitely doesn't help you much. and if the soldier's smart he'll just pull out his shotgun, pelt you with it, until you retreat anyways (which you could've done in the first place without losing the health), or charge him (at which point he switches back to rockets and you're back where you started, again with less health) or you switch to shotgun, at which point he'll switch back to rockets and driveyou off or possibly kill you. so moral of the story: make up your mind whether you want to attack or retreat.

lastly, a simple equation:

flare gun + enemy medic anywhere in the immediate vicinity = more uber charge for a more pissed off enemy team. lets not use our flare guns against heavies with medics. please? you're not supposed to be a long range class. yes flare snipers and lone scouts, but do that with a medic right there and you just piss the other team off, build their ubercharge, and accomplish nothing. please flank the target in question instead.

if there's anything in this post people disagree with please feel free to bring it up for discussion: I really don't mind if my views on pyro are changed and would welcome any enlightening information/discussion. my number one weakness as soldier is pyro, as much as I don't want to admit it, so I might be biased here.

Beatnik

I agree with this, but the smarter medics know when to "let the pyro go charge in" and stay safe. El Asso is a perfect example of this. He'll give the pyro a buff and follow toward the line, but when there's big contact he falls back and heals others. It definitely should NOT be an assumption that the medic should attach to any one class all the time, rather they should establish a 'principal target' for ubers, heal everyone in the area while building, then hook their target and charge out for the uber.

That's where it gets more complicated though. More times than not, after an uber I'm charging to get as many kills and as much damage as possible, when I should try to get the medic out alive more. Typically though I prefer to inflict as much (short term) pain as possible on the opposing team, but I could stand to be smarter with my post-uber retreats.

__________________

Beatnik

Here's a link to a demo from an offensive round on Goldrush earlier this week on our server. Things to pay attention to in the demo:

• Prioritization of targets
• Flanking when possible
• Staying at the front causing chaos and damage when possible

My mic's sound doesn't get recorded, but I'm also constantly spotting dug-in positions, SGs, and medics. On just about every stage the defense starts off strong but we break through, earning a rare offensive victory on the map.

A few highlights:
Flanking around the far left with uber to surprise half their team coming out of their spawn area.

Getting a flaregun kill on a very troublesome sniper.

The big coordinated pushes at the end of each round that swings the game our way.

The slapstick clusterfuck opening of Stage 3.

The big takedown of 2-3 sentry bases right at the end. This is a prime lesson in not grouping sentries together - they melt like butter when an ubered BB pyro gets a shot on them.

http://drop.io/BBPyroOffenseOnGoldrush

__________________

Darksteel525

How do you view the demo?

__________________
-F- Darksteel

luuser

If that's the round I think it is, we had 3 (had 4 before I switched off in disgust) engineers that decided it would be a good idea to build all the guns in that corner, despite the entire team telling them not to. was a terribly frustrating round in general as the team didn't have it together at all. and with santa on your team there should've been no such thing as a troublesome enemy sniper

also, I completely agree with the medic having to pull off. however, when you have medics that don't know this, its also important that the pyro saying something along those lines if its a medic you don't recognize, as a lot of medics will follow you to their deaths, instead of simply assuming the medic will be smart enough to pull off. the more communication the better.

Zoopy

Since the update you have three types of Pyro set-ups you can choose: Support-Pyro, Assault-Pyro, or a Hybrid-Pyro.

Assault Pyro
Kit Layout:

• Backburner
• Shotgun
• Fire Axe/Axetinguisher

This kit layout is optimized to kill; having the +50HP buff from the Backburner and the offensive diversity of the Shotgun you are able to take a beating while getting in close for the kill. Still though, as already pointed out, running head first into groups of enemies with your flame thrower blazing will surely get you killed.

If enemies are to far, bob and weave a corner with your shotgun, then either wait for them to come to you or find an alternate route to the target.

Pros:

• More health with the Backburner
• More mid-range killing power with the shotgun
• Best Pyro type to uber

Cons:

• Less versatile
• No long range weapon

Support Pyro
Kit Layout:

• Flamethrower
• Flare Gun
• Axetinguisher

The Support Pyro trades killing power for versatility. With the Flare Gun instead of the Shotgun, the Pyro lacks midrange killing power, so anything outside your flamethrower's reach will most likely get away. So why play support Pyro?

A Support Pyro can completely nullify an enemy uber rush by compress air blasting them away. This is the greatest skill to help your team. Most times though, air blasting an uber will result in your death, but as a support Pyro you should be aware that you are not going to get the best K/D.

Air Blast is also great for moving up with your teammates and deflecting the occasional rocket that is thrown their way. Once rockets or pipe bombs are deflected, they cannot hurt your teammates. So if a demo man is spamming pipes you can blow them back, even towards teammates and only enemies and yourself will take any damage. This does not work with Demoman's Sticky grenades though, blown back sticky grenades do not "change teams". I'm not 100% sure how these mechanics work, because you can kill other enemies with a blown back sticky.

Lastely, the Flare Gun is useful as a suppression tool. When you see lone enemies or enemies without medics, shot them with the Flare Gun. Most times enemies will look for a way to put themselves out then continue fighting. If they keep charging, they will lose about 80HP-100HP to a Flare if it burns for the entire duration. The impact of the flare does about 12-20 damage, so it is not very useful against enemy Pyros. You can also use the Flare Gun to set up Axetinguisher kills, which is the most handy feature. Quickly flare an enemy and then quickly find a way to flank them and hit them with the axe. In most cases this will cause an instant death for everyone but the Heavy (the Heavy needs two Axetinguisher hits). Thing to remember is do not get stupid with your axe. Setting a Heavy on fire then rushing him with the axe will usually get you killed.

Pros:

• More versatile then a Backburner
• Can stop enemy ubers
• Longer range

Cons:

• Less offensive
• Cannot kill enemy Pyros 1v1 if they have a Backburner.
• Cannot effectively kill enemies outside the Flamethrower's range.l
• Can't do anything underwater.

Hybrid Pyro
Kit Layout: Anything

This is just a combination of anything else.