Airblast: A Pyro's Guide

Airblasting is a necessity to be a good Pyro. Airblasting is useful to your team and can save or stop a push. You can keep your whole team alive, and if they die it is your fault.

A lot of responsibilities come with playing Pyro, and airblasting is one of them.

An Introduction to Airblasting

*DISCLAIMER*
If you use the Phlogistinator, you will not be able to airblast, which is a bummer.

Airblasting is a key point in a push or a defense. Airblasting can do all sorts of useful things, but you have to have precise timing most of the time and good aim to get the best outcome.

In-case you didn't already know, the airblast (formally known as the compression blast) is a blast of sphere-shaped gas emitted from the end of the weapon.

Use M2 (Right-click) to Airblast.

This is a list of different things airblasting can do and what we will go over. We will go over much more than this though, of course.

• Extinguish
  
• Reflection
  
• Denial

We will also go over each flamethrower and how it's stats affect airblasting.

This guide won't be too long, so might as well learn!

Extinguish

Extinguishing allies is one of the most important aspects of the airblast. It can destroy or save a push, depending what team you're on or what you do or don't do.

Extinguishing your ally means that if they are on fire, you airblast them and it douses the flame and they will stop taking damage.

If you don't know how it could destroy or save a push, I will give an example. Let's say you're on BLU and you are pushing through a chokepoint. Your team manages to kill all of the RED's there but a Pyro has left them all burning. Since you are a Pyro, of course you won't burn. But your team is on fire and many are probably going to die if the Medic does not heal them fast enough, and as you know if most of your team dies the push dies, and you never want your push to die.

If you are in a situation like that, simply airblast your teammates (it will not deny their position, they will stay where they are unless they manually move themselves) and it will extinguish them, therefore saving the push unless an ubered Soldier/Demo + Medic Combo comes in and wipes you all out, but that's not your fault!

Reflection

Reflection is the most used aspect of airblasting in most Pyro's cases. I have made a list here of everything that I know of that you can reflect:

• Soldier Rockets
  
• Grenades
  
• Sticky Bombs
  
• Arrows
  
• Crossbow Ammunition
  
• Lvl 3 Sentry Rockets
  
• Baseballs
  
• Jarate
  
• Mad Milk
  
• Flares

That is quite a bit of things you can airblast, right?
Well just practice and you will be able to do all of it easily. I recommend tr_walkway for the best practicing experience. But you can practice a whole lot more than Pyro there also. I will give details about it later in the guide.

You can also aim your reflections. It isn't like a mirror where it reflects it back where it came from, it reflects to where the Pyro wants it to go and the BEST part is that it mini-crits whatever it hits! So if you are facing a good Soldier he will simply pull out his shotgun once he sees that you can airblast.

If you are facing a Level 3 Sentry, there is not much a Pyro can do. Try to get in a safe location but to where you can safely access the sentry though. Move out from cover to where the rockets come at you and try to airblast the rockets to the enemy Engineer. If it hits, it will kill him and it will make it a LOT easier for your team to get in and destroy the Sentry. But frankly, Pyro's aren't really made to destroy Level 3 Sentries.

Denial

Denial is basically a term for denying the enemy location. Basically you can move your enemy wherever you want when airblasting, saying that he doesn't kill you first. you can blast them up and over cliffs, killing them instantly, you can airblast an ubered combo in the air so they can't do much whilst ubered, you can also trap enemies in corner with your airblast and kill them at your leisure.

Denial is probably the hardest of the three to do, but it really pays off.

Here is an example of denial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKbCxg85-wc&feature=youtu.be
(Credit to TheBoontonBomber)

Flamethrowers

This section is not about the flamethrower's stats in general, it is simply about the airblasting.

There are four standard flamethrowers. (Standard meaning, not a reskin)

Beginning with the Flamethrower.
The Flamethrower consumes 20 ammunition per blast. It is the least amount out of all of the flamethrowers that airblast.
















Degreaser:
The Degreaser consumes 25 ammunition per blast, which is the second least amount out of all of the flamethrowers that airblast.





Backburner:
The Backburner consumes 50 ammunition per blast, which is the biggest amount of ammunition consumed out of all of the flamethrowers that airblast.






Phlogistinator:


Let's just say that you don't want to be stuck in this situation with the Phlogistinator.

The Phlogistinator is unable to airblast, but it increases attack, which is why it is common among the new and unskilled. I am not saying everyone who uses it is new and unskilled, but most of the players are. They do not realize how important airblasting is to their team.

tr_walkway

I told you all I would tell you all more about tr_walkway, so here it is.

tr_walkway is a special training map, meant for singleplayer training against bots of your choice. Spawn bots, set commands for what they do, and just practice doing what you want to do whether it's airblasting, trickstabs, headshots or whatever.

I followed Casperr's tutorial to get it myself, so I will leave his tutorial here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdr9zf7dtJg

Watch that and you will have the map downloaded and ready to play from your Create Server button!


If there is anything I missed, please let me know!

[STICC]

old guide but its worth mentioning that you can reflect dragons fury fireballs

[lbtmy gmg]

Oh yea, I love reflecting the charged shots.

[Richard I]

Really? I didn't know that, thanks for the tip!

[Pikmanfan2002]

Actually, you can reflect cow mangler shots. Just not bison or pomson.

[lbtmy gmg]

Nope. Trolling.

[Richard I]

Actually it is needed when facing charging demoknights, or if you're up close to an enemy Heavy for example, if you have a to teammate near you you can airblast the Heavy up and your teammate can take him out.

[lbtmy gmg]

thats not denial thats trolling

[Richard I]

Just scroll down, it is right under "Training". You can either do that and find the map there, or do it your way.

I personally find your way more convienent now, thank you. Also, thank you for the compliment!

[D E U S V U L T]

There is no more create server button anymore, instead you need to go to the console and type map [map name]. Other than that, great guide.