Broken Pyro? You decide!

[pitchShifter567]

Broken Pyro? You decide!

Pyro annoys me so much because of this stuff. I so could easily have died from that.

[Maringue]

I sound so baked in slow motion.

But yeah, that pyro seemed a bit far way from you to set you on fire. Also could have been a random flare gun shot, but I'm betting not.

[VoltySquirrel]

I can't look for it ATM, as I'm on my iPod, but there was a video on YouTube I saw on the TF2 wiki that showed how the flamethrower work. It showed that the flames' hitboxes went further ahead when moving than at standstill. Now, it wasn't that insane, but it could explain part of that. Still, pyro's have been nerfed so damn much that that I personally fell nerfing them more would make them one of the weakest classes in the game. Hell, I get about 1/4 the afterburn kills I should get. The second Valve makes a weapon that gives a pyro some of his old power back, all people do is bitch that pyros can kill heavies. Still, that puff he got you is BS.

[The Frew]

I mean, the burning could be attributed to a latency issue? Or an error in spatial tracking. And, as already mentioned, moving forward does propel the flame particles, but only a bit.

Either way... The Pyro has been torn down considerably since the game's release. He used to be a superb middle ground class, and good Pyros could potentially make or break a team, but... Now, not so much. He's basically hard countered by every other class, excluding the spy and an ambushed sniper. Heavies tear through them like hot knives through butter (Like in your video. He took 2/5th of your health, tops. And you decimated him.), even with the airblast, Soldiers and Demomen blow him to pieces, unless they're entirely focused on something else. As far as Engies, they're no problem, but when you're storming a sentry nest, it's a deathwish. It used to be possible to circlestrafe a sentry to keep it from killing you, but given the nerfs, no longer. Medics are really resistant to the afterburn effect, and getting too close to one will get you turned into a pincushion. Plus, they can outrun you. At a moderate distance, snipers can nail a headshot, no prob. And good scouts know exactly how to get maximum damage on you, while avoiding your flames.

Basically, nowadays, when you play Pyro, you have to be so sneaky that no enemies can see you, or even know where you are. And... That is impossible, given the Pyro's standard mobility, and the layout of most maps...

I dunno though, I feel like a slight speed increase, along with a tiny increase to flamethrower damage would do a lot of good for him. The accelerated burn was a step in the right direction.

[Maringue]

I can still get plenty of kills with the pyro, but I agree the class has been broken down a lot. The high damage that you could deal with the flame thrower was offset by the average speed and health. Then Valve found out that no one was using their backburner (because it sucks), so they reduced the damage the normal flame thrower did and kept the backburner the same. Then they changed the deadringer so that it takes about 15 seconds of direct fire to kill the spy, which sucks hard.

As of now, I rack up most of my pyro kills with the degreaser/axstinguisher combo. And the airblast can still stop an uber cold.

[Argent]

Pyros who never ever use airblast are not credit to team. But I can't deny the backburner has situationally practical applications.

[The Frew]

Well, I mean, they Backburner was a downgrade, not a sidegrade. I'm not saying the Pyro's unplayable, just... Not on par, even in the hands of a good player. People are smart enough to not be ambushed, and map design has made ambushing near impossible.

And they've made the Pyro less of a hard counter to the Spy. Which baffles me. You're a soldier trying to kill a DR Spy; Bam! Okay, you hit him once, but now he's gone. Now you're in the same situation as a Pyro, you hit him once with the flamethrower... But he's gone. Same situation.

The Pyro should be able to steamroll a Spy, no question. It baffles me.

Yes, airblast can stop an uber, and the backburner has its times to shine. But here's the problem, the only way to avoid not getting mowed down by the uber heavy is to ambush the pair. Which is... Just not practical. If the team making the push along side the heavy doesn't see what you're trying and nail you, the heavy himself will give you fatal lead poisoning. And the situations in which the backburner is useful really don't come along often enough to justify its use.

[VoltySquirrel]

What really jarates me off is that, like I said, the second the degreaser is released and makes the pyro fun again, what happens? All I hear is people bitch and moan that the pyro was already the most overpowered class and now that they can switch to their axetinguisher really damn fast, he is the single most OP class in the game. That's not an exaggeration either. I've heard many an arguments just like that everywhere I play. Have you ever heard such concentrated bullshit in you life?

[Divide by NaN]

It is broken with respect to the flame visuals not being consistent with the weapon range. They need to either fix the area of damage or change the flame animation to be longer/wider.

Whether or how they change the weapon range is another argument. I don't think pyro is OP by any means. I agree with everything said already on that point. In the first year of tf2, you could just lay waste to the entire other team with a pyro. That's where the term w+m1 comes from. But now (s)he's pretty limited to what (s)he can do. Sure you can hit someone with a lick of flame and then axetinguish them in a fraction of a second but it's easier said than done. I play soldier a lot and don't find pryos a threat at all anymore unless they are pro air blasters.

[Smeemo]

I'll check it out next time I'm on Upward, but I don't think flames hitting you from the top of the stairs to the doorway is too far.

Apparently Pyros may have once been able to hold their own as a mid-range class, but I think they have been gimped to the role of babysitters (to either a sentry gun or a medic combo) or pulling off gimmicky ambush plays. That said, M2 spam is OP.

[The Frew]

I hear you on that Volty!

And Smee, my thoughts exactly! I used to love playing midrange Pyro... But... Now all I can do is sit around secured areas. Occasionally I get a good soldier kill with the airblast.

I mean, I feel like Pyro has become less about moving out to the front lines and setting up your killzone, and more about letting your enemies wander close to you.