So, I played a few hours last night, and have a couple comments on the new Pyro Pack, all of them favorable.
First off, the new kit. I haven’t seen enough of the new weapons to really judge them, except the first unlockable, the Flare Gun, which is an alternate to the shotgun.
The Flare Gun is great. It’s adorable looking, has nice effects, and gives the pyro a long range weapon, particularly useful for harassing distant snipers. While an engie can still work while he’s on fire, and a soldier can still fling missles around while engulfed in flames, the sniper can’t scope accurately once he’s been lit up, meaning he’s gotta go heal or wait for the flames to die out before he’s fully effective again. Sorry, mate, your life just got harder.
It’s a projectile, but there’s not much of an arc to it — much, much less than the demo’s grenades – which means it’s not that difficult to hit what you’re aiming at (if you miss, it fizzles out harmlessly). And, for being a one-shot weapon, it doesn’t take much time to reload at all.
I can’t really say if I’ll definitely prefer the flare gun to the shottie in all cases; it will probably depend on the map and the situation, but I think it’s a great option and it’s a lot of fun to use. It’s a great alt — it gives the pyro some flex and doesn’t override the importance of the shotgun, so I can see using them both at different times, which is the real goal of an alt weapon. Cool.
The new flamethrower, the Backburner, guarantees crits when attacking from behind, and adds 50 points of health to the pyro using it. The new fire axe guarantees crits against burning opponents at the cost of regular damage. More on these new weapons when I’ve actually gotten to play with them. I had them both used on me last night, however, and my comments are as follows: Ouch.
The real belle of the ball last night, however, isn’t a new unlockable weapon but an addition to an old one: the alt-fire airburst for the standard flamethrower.
Wow. What a brilliant add. First it’s crazy fun. You can blast enemies away from you (not always a great idea, of course, when you’re attempting to burn someone to death), push them off ledges, throw them into the air, shove them back into their spawns, or just generally annoy them (at a cost of 25 ammo per burst). On a game of Mach4 I pushed back an ubered medic-pyro duo who were attempting to take down a sentry. We also had a fun game of volleyball with a cooperating scout. Sometimes you can blast enemies so high they take fall damage when they land. Very cool, both practically and for messing around.
Even better, you can use the air burst to deflect incoming enemy projectiles. Very cool. The first two times I tried it, in Goldrush, I sent an enemy rocket back into the soldier who had fired it for a kill, and a crit sticky back into the demo, again for a kill. Beginner’s luck, because past that I didn’t do so well with it. A projectile has to be coming right at you in order to send it straight back, and most soldiers fire at your feet.
However, a deflected projectile will change teams. So, a BLU soldier shoots at a RED pyro, the RED pyro deflects… the rocket is now RED, meaning it can now injure or kill anyone on BLU, not just the player who fired it at you. Very, very cool.
We messed around with this a bit last night, me and a couple friends, and it turns out that not only can rockets and stickies be rebounded, they can be re-rebounded. So, a BLU soldier shoots at a RED pyro, the RED pyro deflects… the rocket is now RED… but a BLU pyro can step in and redeflect it, turning it back to BLU. And so on. With some practice, me and a friend of mine playing pyro managed to rebound the same rocket between us probably six or seven times in a row before it went off course or someone missed.
Very. Very. Cool. It brings to mind, for me, the fights with Ganon in Legend of Zelda N64, the sort of tennis match you have with a sphere of magic, batting it back and forth between you. It’s an exciting game mechanic to see in TF2 and it’s a lot of fun to play around with.
So, the pyro now has long range capabilities, can deflect and return projectiles, can push enemies around, and has two new weapons that can deliver guaranteed crits in certain circumstances. Wowzer. Level up! I’ve never thought the pyro was underpowered and I’ve always had trouble dealing with them, but now they are truly a force to be reckoned with.
I could see some potential tweaks, should the pyro turn out to be a little too overpowering. Maybe the airburst could be weaker against larger players like the heavy and soldier, or maybe if you use it on a burning enemy it douses their flames. It’s hard to say just how formidable the pyro is now due to the servers being absolutely crammed with them, and we won’t really be able to judge until things calm down a bit.
But, at first blush, I love the Flare Gun and think the air burst is a pure stroke of genius that will add a lot of enjoyment to playing the pyro class.
I’ll cover the achievements, the soldier tweaks, and the map changes/additions in another post.
22 responses so far ↓
1 Shane // Jun 20, 2008 at 8:35 am
One of the major downsides to the flare gun is that it can’t be used underwater. So if you choose that instead of the shotgun on maps with water, you’re limited to melee range should you go for a swim.
2 Sammy // Jun 20, 2008 at 9:09 am
I’d just like to add to the list of pyro buffs -
“# Removed Flamethrower’s damage falloff (was falling off to 25% by the end)”
Jeez!
3 TheLinx // Jun 20, 2008 at 9:18 am
“or maybe if you use it on a burning enemy it douses their flames”
Maybe I was just fantacising, but I actually think it did just that yesterday.
But it was really late so, who knows…
4 Ayrton // Jun 20, 2008 at 9:22 am
The air blast is awesome, I can’t stop pushing people about because it’s fun pissing them off with it.
Favourite thing ever.
5 Gruss // Jun 20, 2008 at 9:26 am
Nice post, you pretty much hit everything on the head.
The ax is pretty much useless unless someone is on fire and the backburner is really really nice. I’m having a hard time choosing between the airbust or the backburner.
6 drunkenbeetle // Jun 20, 2008 at 9:37 am
Anyone else hoping that they don’t add any more ‘Crits When XXX’ weapons?
7 Josh S. // Jun 20, 2008 at 9:45 am
flare gun is weak right now… everyone plays pyro so it is useless only does like 20 dmg on contact.
8 Galenor // Jun 20, 2008 at 9:48 am
The Backburner is an awesome weapon. You go into fights with the mentality of ‘If you get behind him, you win’, and it usually works. You can run headlong into retreating enemies, or behind a group of people pushing the payload, and slaughter everything. Plus the fifty extra health helps when you’re in the middle of slogging it out.
But then, when you end up being juggled by a soldier and blown to pieces, or watch as a Demoman terrorises an Engie, you can’t help but miss your airblast. It really is a tough choice between your airblast and your backattack.
9 Mike // Jun 20, 2008 at 9:50 am
One thing I have noted is that the lack of fadeout on the burns (the 25% thing they mention) means that Pyro vs. Pyro fights are now much shorter.
10 Sentry Gun // Jun 20, 2008 at 10:06 am
From what I’ve heard, the Flare Gun deals 15 damage on impact, and another 35 damage from fire. Not absolutely sure about this, but it sounds about right…
11 Shane // Jun 20, 2008 at 10:14 am
Mike —
Yeah, I think that explains why I’m losing fire vs. fire battles when I’m backpeddling and they’re pushing forward. It used to be that under those circumstances I’d win 90% of the time if I was at full health, but now it seems like whoever starts shooting first is the winner.
12 Jonah // Jun 20, 2008 at 11:01 am
With the reflecting abilities it seems like pyros are now even better engie buddies than they already were.
13 /AquaBlue // Jun 20, 2008 at 12:15 pm
It makes the pyro a bit too strong in my opinion,as the with the soldiers taking more damage and the pyros doing even more damage the balance suddenly tilts a bit too much.But the flaregun is amazing as it fires fast, is accurate,and has very long range, and with a pretty small reload time one can spam it on the other team and just harass them!
14 chris12 // Jun 20, 2008 at 12:33 pm
cool. you could record the ”tennis” match
15 Doctorwho // Jun 20, 2008 at 1:31 pm
The catch is if you have a skilled demoman or Soldier it is easy to time your shots and kill the pyro despite the air-blast function
16 Charmander // Jun 20, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Definately not whoever starts shooting first is the winner. Pyro vs. Pyro is nothing new. You have to keep the flames on your target the whole time whether or not your backpedaling or moving forward. PLEASE pyros please use your shotgun and dont just go chasing people down with your flame thrower.
17 Piklemeup // Jun 20, 2008 at 2:51 pm
One thing to note is that if you decide to use the flare gun, stay the hell away from water. The shotgun can be fired underwater, and is a good alternative for chasing down enemies with a little health left. If you have the flare gun, you have no way to chase down enemies who escape into water, and if you jump in after them, you’re basically boned, because all you have is your axe to chase them with.
18 Niteowl // Jun 20, 2008 at 3:53 pm
OMG BUT THEY HAVEN’T FIXED THE OVERPOWERED AWP (AWP-WHORES!!) OR THE AUTO-SNIPER (CAN YOU SAY CHEAP!?). wtfbbqthxvalve!
19 jordan // Jun 20, 2008 at 6:21 pm
lol niteowl your so random. the updates dont count for the 360 version of tf2, and that really yanks my pangola!!! i want some compressed air, people!!!!
20 Niteowl // Jun 21, 2008 at 12:50 am
Jordan: I think you have to pay extra to get your pangola yanked, sorry.
21 HopperUK // Jun 21, 2008 at 12:09 pm
The airburst can’t put out the flames! It’s propane gas. I’d be in favour of a graphics-only fireball though.
22 Alexander // Jun 21, 2008 at 4:46 pm
I think I shall get on making this map of “Scout Tennis”…
Pyros are also more ’spy-bane’ than ever because you don’t even need to burn, just air blast into a group of allies and “those who flies be the spies”
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