Backburner: Sirnak's Strategies Revealed for Haters

[Sirnak]

I made this topic so some people would stop being Backburner haters. :/

Why I think the Backburner is an excellent Pyro weapon? Extra damage and rewarding crits for successful ambushes. What makes a good Pyro ambush now? That's what I'll try to explain in this topic since Backburners are all about ambushes.

Sucessful ambushes are somewhat complicated. To do successful ambushes you must:

STEP 1: Anticipation

Collect as many informations as possible as you play. You have to:

1) Anticipate the enemy team's movements at all times.
2) Know the general behavior of as many enemy players as possible.
3) Know the general behavior of as many ally players as possible.
4) Find a corridor/room enemies rarely use in a zone technically under their control.

STEP 2: Preparation

1) Head to the corridor/room enemies rarely use.
2) DON'T look at the nearby zones you know enemies pass by once you are in place (it's too dangerous for one of them to spot you). Use the sounds or in-game alerts (the carts multipliers or points being captures) to try and guess the enemy team's movements. What are their priorities? Where are they heading and where is the immediate problem they have to deal with?
3) Wait until enemies are in place for ambush (this step can take anywhere between 0 to 20 seconds). After 20 seconds, consider you found a bad spot for ambushes and look for another zone.

STEP 3: Strike

1) As soon as you judge a big group of enemies are nearby and don't watch in the direction you can take them from behind, attack.
2) Take out Heavies first. They are more dangerous than any other class when at close range for this step (explained below). Flame everything by behind and don't focus on any precise enemies but Heavies. You MUST take Heavies down.
3) Make sure you don't deadly wound at least one Soldier (or one Demoman if there is no Soldier).
4) Flee while looking at the enemies possibly still alive and reflect Soldier rockets at the enemy team to cover your retreat. At this point, you lost much fuel and have only enough for 1 or 2 airblasts. Have a good timing if you want to survive.


Short explanation: Why take Heavies down first and not other classes that can be pretty deadly at close range (say, other Pyros?). Simple. Heavies, once ambushed, shoot everywhere out of confusion and are the only enemies that can keep shooting you non-stop both at close range and when you get away and, at the opposite of Soldiers and Demomen, you can't counter Heavies. Pyros that flame out of confusion are not as deadly as Heavies as soon as you start walking away and can be airblasted further away if you believe they represent a danger.

Here are short exemples or my basic tactic in practice:

In this video,

STEP 1 is from 0:00 to 0:05
STEP 2 is from 0:05 to 0:30 (When you see me looking at the rock, I'm in fact looking at the blue outlines of the moving cart above the rock.)
STEP 3 is from 0:30 to 0:46

It's a 5 kills ambush.

Team Fortress 2 - Good Backburner Ambuch

In this video,

STEP 1 is from 0:00 to 0:06
STEP 2 is from 0:06 to 0:12
STEP 3 is from 0:12 to 0:27 (I don't actually flee from this ambush since that point was important for my team...)

It's a another 5 kills ambush.

Team Fortress 2 - Backburner Ambush

[Guy]

What is your priority for medics? X3

Medics the same? Fresh spawned medic < Medic with a known humming uber?
Krits medic > Uber medic?

[Sirnak]

What is your priority for medics? X3

Medics the same? Fresh spawned medic < Medic with a known humming uber?
Krits medic > Uber medic?

I don't care about Medics... They die of my fire or reflects without me even trying to kill them... >.>

With Backburners, I aim mainly to confuse enemies for creating openings for my team and to dispatch as many of them as possible. Two things tend to happen with Medics though:

1)They are behind the enemies so I backburn the Medic before other enemies since he is directly in my backburning path.
or
2) The Medic is randomly looking behind the team and sees me coming and tries to warn his team. In this case, I ignore him completely and kill everything I can kill by behind before fleeing. I put the Medic on fire for a matter of principle and to make sure he wouldn't have the idea to crit saw me. I'll only kill the Medic if he's the only survivor of my rampage. Else, I get away.

If Medics uber, I airblast them. If they Krit a Soldier, I have fun trying to kill the ubered pair with reflected crockets. Medics are pretty much always protected by swarm of enemies so directly aiming for them is generally a bad idea for a Pyro since it's always deadly to be close to lots of enemies and risking to end up being surrounded. That's what I try to avoid the most.

In the second video I posted above, you can see I completely ignore the Medic and directly aim for the Heavy. The Medic simply dies by my reflected rocket at 0:17. I didn't even try to kill him. That's what happens with Medics with me as a Backburnerer most of the time. Medics are accidental casualties and not my targets. o.o

[Trauma Advocate]

This is actually really good advice, and well presented too, though the scouting step isn't demonstrated very well in the videos - I suppose it's understood that he must perform this over the course of several lives in most cases.

[Rustic Apple]

I don't care about Medics... They die of my fire or reflects without me even trying to kill them... >.>

While I agree with everything else you've said, this is just.... wrong. No matter what class you are at the moment, medics are top priority. Always.

always

[Sirnak]

I don't care about Medics... They die of my fire or reflects without me even trying to kill them... >.>

While I agree with everything else you've said, this is just.... wrong. No matter what class you are at the moment, medics are top priority. Always.

always

Yes, I regretted writing that immediatly after writing that since it was unclear but I was in a hurry to go to my work. There's one thing I wanted to add to this sentence I wrote. NO, Medics aren't my top priority when I play Backburner Pyro. But there's a good reason for that.

Survivability.

As a Backburner Pyro, I'm almost always behind enemy lines and I'm always in constant danger and I can be attacked in every direction. Plus annoying Snipers can spot me from many different locations and Spies can use my concentration to stab me. When I have to charge in an enemy group, targetting a Medic poses a huge problem in survivability since, unless the Medic doesn't see you first, the son of a bitch will most likely start running backward as he shoots his annoying healing syringues. When you are ambushing enemy group (you can see in the videos above I don't care to attack groups of 5 or more players...) you have about 1 whole second of firing everyone before the whole group is alarmed of your presence. If you start running after a precise target, say a fleeing Medic, it is likely you'll be killed before even having a chance to kill the Medic. Confusion if your best tool when you ambush.

I ambush a group and flee and repeat the process. Of crouse, if I have the chance to backburn a Medic I won't lose such an opportunity. But look at the second vid I posted my dear Rustic. Do you SINCERELY think I had the chance to spot the Medic and charge at him while having the smallest glimpse of hope to kill him? There were 8 players or more at the same spot. It's important when you ambush such large groups of enemies to not choose your targets if you want to live. Of course I kill Medics, but it takes too long to finish them off when they spot you from far away and since I'm fighting them in the foes' controlled territory I have all the chance in the world to be attacked by all sides by any class. I kill everyone I can kill in under 2 seconds (that's the time I allow myself most of the times) before attempting a retreat. More time than that and I can have an entire team shooting at me.

All that to say... I agree Medics are important targets. But I can't plan an ambush in order to kill a Medic since I can't even see the enemy group I'm attacking before charging. If I'm lucky enough to have an opportunity backburn a Medic though, of course I'd take the chance. ^^

This is actually really good advice, and well presented too, though the scouting step isn't demonstrated very well in the videos - I suppose it's understood that he must perform this over the course of several lives in most cases.

Yes, exactly.

Also, the scouting process can be done in seconds in some cases. In the second video, for instance, I knew an Heavy was engaging a Demoman in a fight in the corridor. In a single second, I learned where the enemies where looking at, where my allies were and what path I could take to pass behind the enemies. Thanks to the sound, I was able to know for how long the Heavy continued to fight too. My scouting was done in an instant.

Sometimes, the scouting can take much more time. In some maps, it can even be impossible (which is why I sometimes switch to my Degreaser).

[Hatred]

STOP MAKING sence at me FFS ....

i like to spaz pyro

[Sirnak]

STOP MAKING sence at me FFS ....

i like to spaz pyro

What's a FFS? What does it mean to try to make sense at you? What's spazing Pyro? @.@

Other then that, I understood your whole post. :3