The Problems with Pyro and a Suggested Overhaul

[MinimanC]

The pyro is probably the most controversial class within Team Fortress 2. There seem to be three major perspectives when it comes to opinions on the pyro. First are new players that have little experience in the game. They play pyro because they find it easy. All they have to do is charge into the frontline, burn a couple people, die, and hope the afterburn finishes them off. Obviously this is not how the class is intended to be played but it is so common for inexperienced players to do this that it has been dubbed W+M1 (holding the forward key while holding primary fire). The next perspective are the ones that scoff at the pyro and scorn its players mainly because of the reputation of the former perspective. These players barely seem to even give pyro a chance and sometimes advocate for the class’s removal. Their most valid point was that pyro has historically had many bugs associated with him such as the particles of his flamethrower not being consistent but most have been fixed since the Jungle Inferno Update. The last perspective are the ones that actually know how the pyro works and can play them well and can even have some fun with the class. This is my perspective. I actually enjoy playing pyro with it being in my top 4 most played classes along with soldier, demo, and engineer. The proper way to play pyro is mostly as a flanking class like the scout or spy that can pick off high priority targets. It provides a unique flanking playstyle distinct from scout’s reliance on his scatterguns or spy on his knives. Instead the pyro must use every tool in his arsenal in order to achieve success. But therein lies the problem. Pyro’s fundamental design is broken and is most likely the largest reason why it is so controversial.

Let’s start by seeing how classes are designed in TF2 in general. Seeing the class selection screen shows you three roles: offense, defense, and support. These are the classic roles of class based shooters but it is quite outdated. Everybody knows that soldier and demo are equally as good in offensive and defensive situations. Instead let’s use some better roles: generalist, pick, support. Soldier, demo, and heavy are generalists. They are designed to be able to fight on the frontline and hold ground as a team. They are versatile to be able to switch from offense to defense quickly and vice versa. Scout, spy, and sniper are picks. They excel at picking off high priority targets at a fast rate but struggle in team fights as they have glaring vulnerabilities. Support classes are fairly self explanatory, they support the rest of the team. The medic keeps everyone alive and uses ubercharge to push through the frontline. The engineer denies area, keeps the team topped up on health and ammo, and pretty much moves the spawn for his team. With weapon unlocks these roles can be blurred of course but this is mostly accounting for the class’s fundamental design. With that being said, where does pyro lie?

Valve seems to treat pyro like a pick class, however, not only does he lack enough damage output but for a long time the pyro had no mobility options or long range capabilities. Even now with the powerjack and thermal thruster, there is no comparing him to the other pick classes. This leads me to believe that there seemingly is no role for the pyro and something fundamental about the class has to change. But before I discuss that let’s take a look at how the professionals play pyro.

In 6v6 pyro largely has a single role. Stopping uber pushes on the last point. The pyro’s airblast is one of his strongest tools allowing him to counter two of the most powerful classes in the game as well as stuffing ubercharges. Despite this however, heavy is usually a better option. Not only does he have the health to survive a lot of damage especially with a medic and has some of the highest DPS in the game, his primary downside is all but negligible since the last point is usually so close to spawn. Because of this it is rare to see pyro at all in 6v6. So, how about when teams are forced to play pyro?

Highlander is 9v9 with class limits of one per class meaning every class has to be played including pyro. In highlander pretty much all pyro does is keep his team safe from projectiles, possibly harass the enemy with flares, spycheck, and sometimes stuff ubercharges but counter ubers are more common. So once again the pyro finds himself with barely anything to call a proper role. With that being said I think we should find out what the fundamental design of the pyro really is and to do that we need to go way back.

Team Fortress started out as a mod for Quake and, there, all the original nine classes were made and used as references for Team Fortress Classic and finally Team Fortress 2. The pyro was one of the last classes made for the game and it was made for a very specific reason. The pyro was designed to assist players that had a laggy connection to the game. The pyro itself required very little aim as the flames were easy to land on enemies and the afterburn would most likely finish them off. Yes, that’s right the pyro was literally designed to take less skill. Maybe the W+M1 players were right.

Going over to Team Fortress Classic the pyro was given his shotgun and an incendiary cannon which I think is pretty much an equivalent to a flare gun. Not too much change there.

Nor was there much change going into Team Fortress 2. On release pyro only had his stock weapons and no airblast, as his previous iterations did not either. The pyro got his airblast in the Pyro Update almost a year later along with his first three weapons: the backburner, flare gun, and axtinguisher. All of these weapon increased pyro’s damage output but still he lacked the mobility like a scout or the range like a sniper. The pyro would have to wait almost another year to get the powerjack to finally get some sort of mobility. Even then it was only a small boost in movement speed which pales in comparison to the scout’s, especially since he has evasion in the form of his double jump. The thermal thruster is probably one of the best additions for the pyro but still the scout outshines the pyro. With so many updates to the pyro and still hardly any love from the community it seems that chasing the pick role is a fool’s errand. It is because of all of this I think a complete redesign of the class is required but what role should we place him in.

There are many routes we could take the pyro but I believe I have determined a great role for him. First of all he obviously cannot be a pick class as every single one of his updates failed to bring him into the same light as the other pick classes. He isn’t able to be a generalist either, due to his low damage output and requirement for extreme close range combat. Soldier and demo would both outshine him in an offensive role and heavy would always outshine him in a defensive role. In this regard I do believe the best place for the pyro is a support role. There are many ways to make a support; they don’t always have to be healers. The medic takes the cake for healing and the engineer is able to hold the front line through area denial, minor healing, and faster regrouping. However, one thing TF2 largely lacks is a class that can soak damage and protect their team.

Many would argue that heavy is a tank as he has high health and slow movement speed. But this is not the primary attributes of a tank. Some tanks can be fast with low health. What a tank is really supposed to do is protect their team from damage and control area usually through denial. The pyro already has a way of preventing damage to his team through his airblast. However, this is a very niche use as it is only effective against two of the nine classes and a few other select weapons. The airblast can also be used as minor crowd control but usually only against a single target at a time and more often than not it’s usually better just to burn them unless, of course, it’s an ubercharge. Now, many people already find pyro’s airblast annoying so buffing it would solve nothing. Instead we need to take a little away from the pyro in order to satisfy the haters.

I’ve seen the suggestion of an overheat mechanic for the flamethrowers and I believe this could be very useful. Let me now explain Burnout. As you fire your flamethrower, you produce Burnout. If you hit the maximum Burnout, your flamethrower overheats and you are prevented from firing the flamethrower or switching weapons until the Burnout is depleted. In addition each time you airblast you produce a small amount of Burnout. Burnout slowly reduces over time after you have stopped firing for a short time. Not only does this discourage the use of W+M1 but it adds a whole new complexity to the class that can be messed around with with unlockable weapons such as damage ramp up the more Burnout you have accumulated.

Next we should give pyro more efficient crowd control and I think a simple way to do that is being able to create walls of fire. It works something like this: With the primary fire, you can spray the ground to ignite it with small patches of fire for a short time. Any enemy that walks through the ignited ground takes damage and is ignited themselves. This area could be doused by an enemy pyro's airblast or a throwable like the mad milk or jarate. This allows pyro to deny area such as a choke or flank from enemies. Now before you say this is a terrible idea, just think about it. This ability shouldn’t be useful for offensive attacks or pushes as at most it will just be able to trail behind you. Instead it is useful for covering a single flank or a single choke or disrupting the mobility of the enemy in a one on one situation. In essence it’s basically the same as a stickybomb launcher that is unable to be used effectively for offense. And thinking multiple pyros will just be able to lock down a choke is more a problem of map design rather than a problem with the mechanic. I can imagine pyros spraying fire all over the chokes on Dustbowl but try doing that on Borneo. Lastly we need to address the airblast.

The airblast is probably the most important tool in the pyro’s arsenal, so I don’t want to change it that much. Instead, we’ll add a secondary airblast. Allow me to explain the Collector. You can toggle between airblast and the Collector. The Collector is automatic and, like the primary fire, consumes ammo (possibly at a faster rate) and produces Burnout. Any projectile or hitscan damage that hits the front of the pyro (think of Brigitte’s shield from overwatch) is stopped and upon ceasefire simply drops to the ground. Blocking damage in this way produces Burnout based on how much damage was blocked (or a set amount if it was a projectile). This allows the pyro to protect his team much more reliably than just with the normal airblast while still keeping the more skill intensive but more rewarding regular airblast.

For the sake of simplicity all of these changes would be applied to all flamethrowers and any airblast downside would also apply to the Collector. With these changes pyro would probably be able to finally find a role and a unique one that has never been seen within TF2. It adds complexity in the sense that it is now a balancing act of knowing when to use your primary fire to attack, utilizing your area denial, reflecting projectiles for large amounts of burst damage, stuffing ubers, and using the collector to protect your team from damage all while keeping in mind all of these features require the same ammo and overuse can lead to vulnerability through burnout. To complete this version, the pyro would simply need new weapons or redesigned weapons to compliment this new role. Though of course keeping the flanking pyro weapons would still be fine as an alternative role however less viable, just like a combat engineer or demoknight.

Thank you for taking the time to read this analysis of the most controversial class in TF2. With these changes I do believe the pyro can finally receive the love it deserves. Of course I’m not getting my hopes up that valve will actually update the game anymore nor take my suggestions into consideration. Regardless, I just like to design game stuff as well as do creative writing so it’s good practice. Also know that I am not attacking any group of people by writing this, like I said: I like playing pyro but I also know that pyro has many problems that I would like to see fixed. Please use this post to promote civil discussion and not belligerent yelling. I would love to hear your suggestions and perspectives.

[Oscarknight]

Ok

[UNCLEWOKIAN DANEBOT MIND-VIRUS]

Giving this class a 4th update is way more trouble than it's actually worth.

[Vror]

Originally posted by shiib:

there's also a 4th perspective:
not caring
don't worry, when vror eventually comes around you'll have someone to discuss the rework with

sorry but I can't even read that, there's too many things that are just spread around

All I understood is that he wants pyro to put surfaces on fire and adding a burnout mechanic

Well for OP, the issue with pyro is that VALVe is a coward and instead of actually making pyro useful, they just slapped airblast and called it a day. Now the class ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sucks because it's outshined by every other class

If VALVe wants to make pyro useful, fix the flamethrower damage thing, increase the damage of the flamethrower and force the pyro to aim more

Cheap weapons like degreaser should be nerfed into oblivion, they just make the class way easier than it should

[TeaSipper]

All this writing that could have gone to a Job Application or a CV

[Gollumbruv]

true what a waste

[Cat_Soldier]

Originally posted by Mattch:

All this writing that could have gone to a Job Application or a CV

This is longer than my personal statement I used to apply to my dream university

[MinimanC]

seems to me like you guys are the ones wasting time on a discussion post you care nothing about

[MinimanC]

Originally posted by Vror:

Originally posted by shiib:

there's also a 4th perspective:
not caring
don't worry, when vror eventually comes around you'll have someone to discuss the rework with

sorry but I can't even read that, there's too many things that are just spread around

All I understood is that he wants pyro to put surfaces on fire and adding a burnout mechanic

Well for OP, the issue with pyro is that VALVe is a coward and instead of actually making pyro useful, they just slapped airblast and called it a day. Now the class ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sucks because it's outshined by every other class

If VALVe wants to make pyro useful, fix the flamethrower damage thing, increase the damage of the flamethrower and force the pyro to aim more

Cheap weapons like degreaser should be nerfed into oblivion, they just make the class way easier than it should

I've already stated why the pyro shouldn't be competing with other damage classes. No matter how much Valve try to push pyro to be a generalist or pick class he will just be outshined by the others unless they make him overpowered, which is what you're suggesting, or they change him into an already existing class which can't happen. My solution was to make him a support through being able to deny area and protect his team.

[Vror]

Originally posted by MinimanC:

I've already stated why the pyro shouldn't be competing with other damage classes. No matter how much Valve try to push pyro to be a generalist or pick class he will just be outshined by the others unless they make him overpowered, which is what you're suggesting, or they change him into an already existing class which can't happen. My solution was to make him a support through being able to deny area and protect his team.

Increasing his damage and forcing him to aim more is not making him "overpowered" or "a pick class". It's literally what should've been done a long time ago

Your solution is keeping pyro as a trash class that only wins the ability to create fire on the floor for area control, which demo already does better

[MinimanC]

Originally posted by Vror:

Originally posted by MinimanC:

I've already stated why the pyro shouldn't be competing with other damage classes. No matter how much Valve try to push pyro to be a generalist or pick class he will just be outshined by the others unless they make him overpowered, which is what you're suggesting, or they change him into an already existing class which can't happen. My solution was to make him a support through being able to deny area and protect his team.

Increasing his damage and forcing him to aim more is not making him "overpowered" or "a pick class". It's literally what should've been done a long time ago

Your solution is keeping pyro as a trash class that only wins the ability to create fire on the floor for area control, which demo already does better

Valve have already given him multiple options to increase his damage. the backburner has one of the highest DPSs in the game, the flare gun and axtinguisher give higher burst damage, and then there is the phlog (no comment needed) and yet the scout, spy, and sniper still outshine him in his intended role. and if you actually read the post you would see my point more clearly not to mention I made an additional suggestion along with the ground ignition and burnout mechanics. maybe read, understand, and comprehend somebody's point of view before condemning them.

[grape cough syrup]

Originally posted by Vror:

Originally posted by shiib:

there's also a 4th perspective:
not caring
don't worry, when vror eventually comes around you'll have someone to discuss the rework with

sorry but I can't even read that, there's too many things that are just spread around

All I understood is that he wants pyro to put surfaces on fire and adding a burnout mechanic

Well for OP, the issue with pyro is that VALVe is a coward and instead of actually making pyro useful, they just slapped airblast and called it a day. Now the class ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sucks because it's outshined by every other class

If VALVe wants to make pyro useful, fix the flamethrower damage thing, increase the damage of the flamethrower and force the pyro to aim more

Cheap weapons like degreaser should be nerfed into oblivion, they just make the class way easier than it should

What does increasing flamethrower damage and forcing pyro to aim more look like to you?

[Kevin Crabcakes]

The first half of this post was misleadingly fine. Hit the problem with Pyro right on the spot. Pyro seemingly has no real purpose, being bad at power, picks, and being a support class.

When you tried to fix the issue, is where this post went wrong. You have basically given him the role of being a worse stickybombman, mixed with a walking short circuit. In an average silly little hero shooter game with dozens of characters, a role as minimal as this is alright I guess, but this game is different. The other eight classes completely outshine this niche and ultimately boring role you have given him. You seem to misunderstand why the other two support classes work so well. They are fun to play and give huge advantages to a team.

Medic is useful because of his very significant buffs (overheal + Vacc/Kritz/Stock uber) and the fact that patching up an injured teammate is just so satisfying, attracts people to come and play him. Engineer is fun to play because of his own little "minigame" of sorts where you must manage and protect your buildings. The buildings also end up being extremely beneficial, as you get a pseudo-Heavy with aimbot, a portable ammo/health box, and a way for your team to get right back into action. This new version of Pyro is lacking in being useful and especially being fun. If you ask me, your new Pyro has been stripped down to a boring husk, only being good at pissing off the other team with stupid inconveniences.

This weird babysitter role is exactly what Pyro's problem is currently. Stupid features like airblast and even stupider weapons like homewrecker encourage the Pyro to act as a boring bodyguard to the team, not the calamitous little grub as seen in Meet the Pyro. I can't say for certain but I'm positive most people would prefer if he were a powerful damage dealer at close range, and the features he should get should encourage ambushing small groups of players, instead of single targets like Scout, Sniper, and Spy.

I love a good post that makes me go paragraph mode.

[Swampdonkey]

Actually, it really is amazing how Pyro has gotten probably the most updates, weapon changes, fixes, entirely new game mechanics etc. out of all the other classes, and STILL is a giant mess.

[MinimanC]

Originally posted by HowdyYall:

This weird babysitter role is exactly what Pyro's problem is currently. Stupid features like airblast and even stupider weapons like homewrecker encourage the Pyro to act as a boring bodyguard to the team, not the calamitous little grub as seen in Meet the Pyro. I can't say for certain but I'm positive most people would prefer if he were a powerful damage dealer at close range, and the features he should get should encourage ambushing small groups of players, instead of single targets like Scout, Sniper, and Spy.

are you suggesting some sort of "flanking heavy" role?

Also I might be a little biased. personally pybro is one of my favorite playtyles. I find it stimulating when I airblast projectiles away from my engie's sentries, get rid of pesky spies and their sappers, and stuff uber pushes away from the engie nest. The only other playstyle I have been able to devise and be somewhat successful at is the puff and sting pyro and using the thermal thruster and backscratcher as a sort of roamer both of which are flanking playstyles that can be done more efficiently by the other pick classes.

[Cat_Soldier]

Imagine your class being solely dedicated to protecting bad engies