Backburner health bonus has been removed

[grazr]

My point was more of, the purpose of the pyro's flare gun can be more effectively done by most other classes (a class that more over, fits that role), that are also more likely to gain kills. The pyro's purpose isn't to hassle snipers from a distance which is what i find many pyro's doing. Running about on the battlements shooting flares widely at snipers on the opposite battlements. If you want to hassle snipers, go spy or demo jump onto the roof of the brigde; is my reasoning.

I can understand all the points you are saying Youme, but the fact is that most people simply don't use the class properly.

The flare gun is good for getting players to retreat.. but it only causes most players to daddle around no mans land to try and get a few kills before heading back for health and ammo. People don't like to feel like they are wasting there time by immediately retreating to survive. Unfortunately i do play on servers with increased spawn times, to my regret.

 

[Uriak]

I've seen too many pyros trying to spam their flares in the open. The fire rate of this weapon is so ridiculous that it becomes purely situationnal.

The pyro may have this "havoc role" yes, but on a a server with quite experienced people, it was nearly useless. People didn't panic as much as expected, medics would quicky heal everyone and the pyro could wait 'till respawn.

I used before the update to play the pyro as a scavenger instead, lighting up and killing frail support classes (medics, engies, snipers) and wounded soldiers heavies demo while retreating. Of course this meant using secondary paths but as long as the map allowed it, that wasn't a problem. When playing this way, the shotgun is the perfect tool to give the finishing blow. Doesn't sound teamplay oriented ? Maybe, but setting people on fire without finishing them can mean helping hostile medics getting their über sooner, something you'd absolutly don't want to do.

Finally, fighting other pyros is an important part of playing pyro, because they tend to swarm the same places. Backpedaling and shotgun switching are so essential, one is quickly forced to give up using the flare.

 

[Psy]

The Backburner is perfectly fine now. It's like the flamethrower before the Pyro Unlocks with the added ability to crit from behind guaranteeing almost instant death.

 

[MangyCarface]

If you're not finding the flaregun useful, you're not playing pyro to its full potential. As pyro, anyone who can be lit on fire in your view should be on fire. I actually keep the flaregun out most of the time I run around. You have to practice with it extensively to use it correctly. A pyro with the normal flamethrower, the flaregun and the axtinguisher has an incredible amount of utility as long as you switch correctly. You should have flamethrower/axt in cqc, flaregun/axt in medium range, and flaregun/flamethrower in long range. With the flaregun you have the brute force to take down heavies in seconds; the trick is to blind-fire around corners and wait to hear the scream that means you hit. After that it's a simple matter of timing; let the afterburn hit them for a bit then launch yourself out to deal your crits :3. Flaregun, once mastered, is very easy to hit people with and you can usually kill all the small classes by hitting them again after afterburn has been wearing them thin. It disrupts the battle line, gives you an advantage before rushing in with an uber or by yourself, is an awesome retreat weapon, and basically has a unique role all around. The only time I'd prefer the shotgun is against other pyros; with the airburst, fighting demomen/soldiers is easier with the flamethrower.

 

[Kritanu]

IMO, the flare gun is both awesome and horrible, which is exactly how it's supposed to be, I think.

Hitting an enemy with it once will pretty much leave them unable to win any confrontation until they find a health kit or a medic. If you can hit a lot of different people with it rapidly, the other team will gradually lose ground as a whole, even if you don't kill anyone. It turns the pyro into a mini-sniper, which I love.

It also lets you really mess up medics - you should be aiming for them anyway, if you can.

My sort of 'rule' is that I start off with the flare gun, but if there's a lot of pyros or medics, I'll switch to the shotgun. But that isn't too common.

 

[Ida]

I think the removal of the additional HP is a good thing. This will give me a GOOD reason to pick the flamethrower over the backburner (as well as the other way around), which is how it all should be.

Also, I'm really happy that these were fixed:

Players killing themselves will now give a kill credit to the last enemy who damaged them

Fixed grenades, rockets, and flamethrower being able to fire through grates at round starts

 

[Hawk]

I like the change.

I'm a huge fan of the air blast, so now this just gives me a better fighting chance against those who use the backburner.

And I've been finding some fun uses for the air blast! For example:

- Shielding an important sentry from rockets that came from an out-of-range soldier
- Sweeping sticky bombs away from an engineer's buildings
- Sweeping sticky bombs off of a control point
- Pushing back ubercharged players so that they waste their ubercharge
- Pushing ubercharged players off edges and into ravines to separate them from the medic
- Making Soldiers too afraid to use rockets against you in a ranged 1-on-1 fight
- Pushing spies away from what they're trying to stab/sap, while you're burning them.
- Disorienting groups of opponents that you ambushed

I just can't see the added critical effect of the Backburner being worth it to give up all the cool things you can do with the air blast.

 

[MrAlBobo]

I like the change.

I'm a huge fan of the air blast, so now this just gives me a better fighting chance against those who use the backburner.

And I've been finding some fun uses for the air blast! For example:

- Shielding an important sentry from rockets that came from an out-of-range soldier
- Sweeping sticky bombs away from an engineer's buildings
- Sweeping sticky bombs off of a control point
- Pushing back ubercharged players so that they waste their ubercharge
- Pushing ubercharged players off edges and into ravines to separate them from the medic
- Making Soldiers too afraid to use rockets against you in a ranged 1-on-1 fight
- Pushing spies away from what they're trying to stab/sap, while you're burning them.
- Disorienting groups of opponents that you ambushed

I just can't see the added critical effect of the Backburner being worth it to give up all the cool things you can do with the air blast.

agreed completely
I didn't even consider the backburner worth it with the 50 health bonus

 

[Inqwel]

I never used the backburner yet, despite earning it. Deflecting blasts was always a great advantage over more health (to me).

Too bad the backburner didn't have an air-blast that only stopped friendly team mates from burning, or something like pushing enemy fire from a team mate back onto an enemy.

 

[YM]

Sums it up nicely

 

[The Asylum]

Or this:

 

[Psy]

Poor, poor, W+Mouse1 pyro.

 

[grazr]

Or this:

I Lol'd.

 

[Uriak]

@mangyscarface : I'm afraid the axtinguisher is theoritically useful against high HP targets, such as heavies and soldiers, but pratically, you don't want to miss a single blow, something quite likely to happen with rather uncooperative targets. Not counting the infamous "oops he got a little health and I'm striking it with my wooden stick". A pyro skillful enough to axtinguish people on a regular basis can certainly do the same with his primary. This was worsened by the über flame the pyro update came with. I still need to try the class since the last downgrade.

Tough, both axes are still wonderful humiliating tools, something we should always give a special place in our hearths in a game like this

Poor, poor, W+Mouse1 pyro.

farewell

 

[Laz]

I never used the backburner yet, despite earning it. Deflecting blasts was always a great advantage over more health (to me).

Too bad the backburner didn't have an air-blast that only stopped friendly team mates from burning, or something like pushing enemy fire from a team mate back onto an enemy.

you can extinguish your teammates with an airblast? cool!

 

[Corion]

The extra health was definitely overpowered. Nearly 90% of all pyros were using the backburner. Clearly it was better than the original flamethrower, which is not supposed to be the case.

I think they should add the airblast to the backburner but nerf it in a different way, such as lowering critical damage by 50% when not behind someone (meaning it would do 1.5*Normal damage instead of the usual 3*Normal damage on crits), remove non-behind crits altogether, or significantly increase the cost of using the compression blast.

Since the compression blast is so difficult to use EFFECTIVELY in REAL games, I think the ammo cost of using it with the original weapon should be lowered to 20 or 15 from 25. If it were given to the backburner, it could have anywhere from +10 ammo cost to double the ammo cost of the normal flamethrower's compression blast.

I also think that now that the backburner isn't so overpowered, pyros are going to need a slight base buff to compensate. This could be anywhere from a +25 max health boost to pyros (with either weapon) or tweaking the damage falloff.

The falloff used to lower pyro damage to 25% of max pre-pyro-patch, then when the patch hit it was removed entirely. Now the falloff is about 50% of max. I agree that having no falloff would once again make pyros a bit too hot to handle (although not quite as bad as it was when the backburner had the health boost too), but moving up the falloff to 60-75% of max would be just enough to make the pyro more attractive to most players again.

 

[MrAlBobo]

Since the compression blast is so difficult to use EFFECTIVELY in REAL games, I think the ammo cost of using it with the original weapon should be lowered to 20 or 15 from 25. If it were given to the backburner, it could have anywhere from +10 ammo cost to double the ammo cost of the normal flamethrower's compression blast.

lolz, your kidding right? the compression blast is EASY to use EFFECTIVELY in REAL games
all you need is to be able to anticipate people, which becomes easy as most people panic while being torched, and using it to block ubers is painfully easy, and is likely the main intended use

i happen to believe that the 50 health was the only thing that gave a viable reason to even use the backburner over the normal one, and now ill expect 90% of pyros to use the regular flame over the backburner, so this did nothing for balancing out the use of the two

and i find it interesting that everyone seems so concerned over the pyros weapons being equal, but no one seems to make a big deal that just about every medic has the uber gun, the blutslauger, and the ubersaw equiped...

 

[grazr]

The uber saw has a lower rate of fire and does no extra damage, it only adds charge to your uber. Why would anyone complain about a lower damage per second against them? Though i did have a problem with the blutsauger as it made medics incredibly hard to take out 1 vs 1.

and to be fair, i've never seen the compression blast used effectively other than pushing the odd person into a pit. Most people time it wrong and any soldier that plays pyro will be able to counter anticipate the blast, which isn't even required if you simply whip out your shotgun.

The compression blast has the same rate of fire as the rpg and grenade launcher so is all you have to do is wait a small amount of time so that the pyro blasts too soon and becomes out of sync. Every blast after will not be able to reflect your shots and you can bounce him around happy as Larry. I've never had a problem going against a pyro using the airblast (it actually made them easier to kill) and i have never considered it a turning part in any combat i've seen or experienced. It's much more productive to deal the extra damage to garauntee your kill even if you do increase your chance of taking fatal amounts of damage.

 

[MrAlBobo]

im not questioning the medics weapons, im questioning the fact that no one complains that every medic uses the same set

and frankly...you are battling stupid pyros then
you dont battle with the air blast, you use it to deflect the 1st blast so you can get closer, or you use it to screw up a soldiers aim so they can't do the signature turn and kill with one shot

 

[The Asylum]

Nothing is more intense than a pro Pyro vs pro Pyro going at it with flamethrowers. It's like watching ballet in hell.