Pyro/Jungle Update

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Eight

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As we wait for the next big update, let's theorize & discuss it.

What do you want to be in the update? Do you think it's coming out soon? Do you think this will be a step in the right direction? etc.

Personally, I want to see some of the community-made Jungle-themed maps become official maps because I've come to find that a lot of them are very beautiful & well-designed such as this and this one.
 

Madi

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I'm pretty satisfied with what they've planned (besides some minor things I dislike about the changes they are planning to make here and there). I'm hoping to see nice, new maps and in general changes that might make TF (even) greater. We can only hope they don't manage to ruin it (again). In terms of maps, I really like CP Mossrock and CP Overgrown.


PS: Finally they nerf the danger shield!
 

SuperGuard

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Jul 16, 2017
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What I like
- New Weapon(s)
- New Taunts and cosmetics
- New Skin packs (But will Valve make a Scattergun which looks sexier than the Night Terror? I don't think so.)

What I dislike
- Over 50% of the current possibilities of weapon re-designs
- Possible "improvement" of Pyro in ways which makes it even more of a dick to fight than before
- Too much Pyro content and not enough Scout content
 

Limunaire

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Jul 24, 2017
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Reworks to pyro would be amazing in terms of changes to afterburn and the god damned reserve shooter.

I hope that afterburn will no longer serve as a damage-dealing aspect, but rather as an enabler. The way it is now, light classes lose half of their health if they're unlucky enough to draw the wrong ticket in the particle lottery.

I hope that they'll turn it into a damage-enabler. It enables other weapons to deal additional damage (read: flare guns etc) but should also give some added bonus from non-fire type weapons in my opinion. That way fire becomes a tactical utility. After all, bleed already suffices as a fine DOT ability itself.

Also, please ad-hoc. Please. And a VAC patch would be nice too.

The team needs this to be in the right direction. They can't afford losing more ground really.
 
Reworks to pyro would be amazing in terms of changes to afterburn and the god damned reserve shooter.

I hope that afterburn will no longer serve as a damage-dealing aspect, but rather as an enabler. The way it is now, light classes lose half of their health if they're unlucky enough to draw the wrong ticket in the particle lottery.

I hope that they'll turn it into a damage-enabler. It enables other weapons to deal additional damage (read: flare guns etc) but should also give some added bonus from non-fire type weapons in my opinion. That way fire becomes a tactical utility. After all, bleed already suffices as a fine DOT ability itself.

Also, please ad-hoc. Please. And a VAC patch would be nice too.

The team needs this to be in the right direction. They can't afford losing more ground really.
Valve has lost 50% or more players in their game after the matchmaking update,

if they can actually update their game more often then that would give them more ground like it was in the past, and indeed they need a VAC patch, Too many hackers,

Afterburn does what you asked, it does serve as a damage method for flareguns and such, but the afterburn needs to be shorter, it deals less damage overall if they do shorten it, I suggest from 10 seconds to 6 or 7 seconds,

I also hope they reduce the range of pyros hitboxes for its flamethrower, but increase the damage slightly, from 8-13 damage a tick to 10-15 damage a tick.
But the afterburn (if reduced) will be not much of an issue (from 60 damage to 36-42 damage),
Since pyro does not have much damage to begin with other then W+M1.

I also suggest to reduce the damage on the degresser since its in the "Meta" in this game, I think it needs a damage nerf from primary fire, not just afterburn, like 10-15% but give it like a slight buff to exchange that damage.
 

Khaz

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Jul 15, 2017
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Valve has lost 50% or more players in their game after the matchmaking update,

if they can actually update their game more often then that would give them more ground like it was in the past, and indeed they need a VAC patch, Too many hackers,

Afterburn does what you asked, it does serve as a damage method for flareguns and such, but the afterburn needs to be shorter, it deals less damage overall if they do shorten it, I suggest from 10 seconds to 6 or 7 seconds,

I also hope they reduce the range of pyros hitboxes for its flamethrower, but increase the damage slightly, from 8-13 damage a tick to 10-15 damage a tick.
But the afterburn (if reduced) will be not much of an issue (from 60 damage to 36-42 damage),
Since pyro does not have much damage to begin with other then W+M1.

I also suggest to reduce the damage on the degresser since its in the "Meta" in this game, I think it needs a damage nerf from primary fire, not just afterburn, like 10-15% but give it like a slight buff to exchange that damage.

Instead of change the range of the flamethrowers they're hit particles need to be fixed. They need to have a consistent, not just particles being launched between an X and Y spectrum. They should make the flames represent the particles and not mess with aspects of the pyro that need not changing.

Afterburn is fine as is, I know the joke of dying from afterburn right before you reach a health source but it's not really necessary. The only class really in danger of afterburner is the scout or medic. The scout should be catching the pyro off guard if he has any smarts and the medic should be near his team healing. As with pyro not having much damage besides W+M1ing, I find that far from the truth. Backburner is great weapon that rewards flanking and catching the enemy off guard. A pyro's biggest strength is in his combo's and his ability to adapt, some prefer to use the flare guns or axtinguisher's (Rip u solid lad) and the shotgun is a great weapon and at close range it can reach damages up to 90 per shot if all the pellets hit. With six shells you put a lot of classes out of commission if you take them by surprise.

As for the degreaser by no means is it the meta weapon, maybe for some but I prefer to use the stock flamethrower. As the main focus for he degreaser is comboing I don't think we should penalize the damage. There's no other reason to go degreaser other than comboing, with that weapon you have to get your airblasts right or suffer the consequences. The penalty to airblast cost ensures that, the only flame thrower I believe needs changing is the phlog, remove the uber when getting it and take the crit time down a notch and I'll be a happy camper.
 

Limunaire

Active Member
Jul 24, 2017
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Instead of change the range of the flamethrowers they're hit particles need to be fixed. They need to have a consistent, not just particles being launched between an X and Y spectrum. They should make the flames represent the particles and not mess with aspects of the pyro that need not changing.

I agree

Afterburn is fine as is

I disagree

I know the joke of dying from afterburn right before you reach a health source but it's not really necessary. The only class really in danger of afterburner is the scout or medic. The scout should be catching the pyro off guard if he has any smarts and the medic should be near his team healing.

The problem with this is that a pyro can get close to enemy team fairly easily. He can airblast projectiles while charging in (something you see a lot more often on newer pyros, so I guess the changes they made to airblasting a while back were pretty good) and there's no saying what players do to begin with. W+M1 charging in, they can easily get to the medic. Also; spies, snipers and engineers also have a danger factor from the afterburn. Not to mention the playstyle afterburn enforces; having to walk back to a health pack to continue the game. Afterburn slows down the action indirectly, and that's not fun. Effective, yes, but not fun at all.

A pyro's biggest strength is in his combo's and his ability to adapt, some prefer to use the flare guns or axtinguisher's (Rip u solid lad)

I agree

More specifically, I agree with his ability to adapt. Pyro is a jack of all trades. He can support. He can deal damage. He can deal DOT and make teams panic. He has long range pokes and short range burst. He can do all roles. However, he's not particularly good at one single role, as explained under this one.

and the shotgun is a great weapon and at close range it can reach damages up to 90 per shot if all the pellets hit.

Why not just play a different class at that point? The scout is more mobile, has DOT weapons which are actually more effective damage-wise (basher, cleaver) and his scattergun has an additional center pellet. The engineer is more fragile, but has additional tools at his disposal (area denial mostly). The heavy is less mobile, but is extremely tanky and his 'flamethrower' doesn't need to be super close to the enemy. The soldier is extremely mobile in that aspect and has additional health. Yes, these all fill their own roles, but considering the pyro fills all of these roles alrightish why not take the people who excel in those roles?

As for the degreaser by no means is it the meta weapon, maybe for some but I prefer to use the stock flamethrower

Very opinion-based. The degreaser is in fact a meta-weapon, as there are objectively more medium-skill players that use it than alternatives. It enables the 'more respected' playstyle of pyro.

As the main focus for he degreaser is comboing I don't think we should penalize the damage. There's no other reason to go degreaser other than comboing, with that weapon you have to get your airblasts right or suffer the consequences. The penalty to airblast cost ensures that

I agree, but I do think the degreaser needs changing. Its pop-up-and-crit mechanic is sickening to say the least. The airblast hitbox is actually impressively large, so missing your puffs is not that easy if you know what you're doing.

the only flame thrower I believe needs changing is the phlog, remove the uber when getting it and take the crit time down a notch and I'll be a happy camper.

But why? In my experience:
  • Pyros get killed right as their uber wears out (snipe them in the head, they can't move anyway)
  • Pyros get killed during their crit time
The uber was applied because the phlog was worthless without it: you'd have to retreat to a safe spot, activate it, pray some spy didnt just notice you, walk back to the frontlines and have to use a quarter of your time to kill the worst player on their team before dying.
 
yeah and the phlog does not need another nerf, and no they should not remove the uber, if they do, they are going to reuse the mechanic of giving the pyro all of its health back when using the phlog charge, and I'm more worried about the other flamethrowers anyway, they have airblast, if you die from a phlog its realitivly your fault.
 

R4

Forum Extremist
Jul 11, 2017
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I disagree

The problem with this is that a pyro can get close to enemy team fairly easily. He can airblast projectiles while charging in (something you see a lot more often on newer pyros, so I guess the changes they made to airblasting a while back were pretty good) and there's no saying what players do to begin with. W+M1 charging in, they can easily get to the medic. Also; spies, snipers and engineers also have a danger factor from the afterburn. Not to mention the playstyle afterburn enforces; having to walk back to a health pack to continue the game. Afterburn slows down the action indirectly, and that's not fun. Effective, yes, but not fun at all.

Afterburn is an essential part of the pyro, he's a weak enough class as it is.
There is no justification for nerfing it, if you are bad enough to get in range of it then that's your fault, just as much as if you get hit by a rocket.
I don't see how it's easy to run into a string of enemies and avoid getting shot either, if that's the case the enemy team is doing something seriously wrong. It's much harder to get into close range to deal damage than it is to fire from a further distance like the rest of the classes do. Hence why it's a weak class in competitive.

Only a bad soldier dies or gets screwed by a pyro airblasting, it's easy to deny them access. Firing at walls and floors does this since they can't airblast and walking into them deals a lot of splash.
It's an effective strategy, dying isn't fun yet we don't hear people asking for rockets to be nerfed because they die. You not liking being hit by afterburn and having to heal does not mean it should be nerfed or changed.

Pyro is a weak class, trying to weaken it further by reducing afterburn and making it an enabler will just kill the class.




Very opinion-based. The degreaser is in fact a meta-weapon, as there are objectively more medium-skill players that use it than alternatives. It enables the 'more respected' playstyle of pyro.
Objectively ?
Do you have some factual analysis of this ?


I agree, but I do think the degreaser needs changing. Its pop-up-and-crit mechanic is sickening to say the least. The airblast hitbox is actually impressively large, so missing your puffs is not that easy if you know what you're doing.
I don't see the issue with this strategy, can you elaborate ?
Pyro's rarely kill even a mid skilled soldier, airblasting alone does nothing unless you can return to the target which is rare.

You keep on making out this ability to airblast projectiles, which only really works on soldiers as a very powerful defensive weapon, which it isn't.
Overall the class is one of the weaker ones in the game, that's why it's rare to see a pro pyro. Even mid skilled soldiers can easily deal with all but the best of pyro's, the best ones wouldn't even try go for a close kill with airblasts either but use the flareguns superior range to whittle down the soldiers HP.
 
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Objectively ?
Do you have some factual analysis of this or are you just throwing that word around ?

Here is the evidence

Degresser use rates

the regular flamethrower is equipped by 40% or more players in the game and I know some of that 40% are players who don't have any other weapon but stock, so I would say the degresser is the top weapon in use rates if you disregard the stock, but this weapons switch rates brings out the pyros main damage, the shotgun, flaregun, or as people like to call it, the puff and sting, it gives the pyro more of an advantage to airblast and to bring more damage out, the only thing they sacrifice is damage on the flamethrower
 

R4

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Jul 11, 2017
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Well there's a couple things wrong with that assessment, how are you matching ownership rates to "Mid skill level", that's an impossible to improve metric. So the statement is flawed there.

Secondly you are wrong about stock, you are completely disregarding is that while the percentages are similar, in actuality the number of people that use degreaser and stock vary by a huge amount since it's taken from those that own the weapon which is 100% in the case of stock and 29% in the case of the degreaser.
You can't just take the most popular weapon out of the equation then declare this supports my statement, it's not logical.
 

Limunaire

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Jul 24, 2017
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Afterburn is an essential part of the pyro
if you are bad enough to get in range of it then that's your fault

There are weapons other than flamethrowers that apply afterburn.

I don't see how it's easy to run into a string of enemies and avoid getting shot either, if that's the case the enemy team is doing something seriously wrong. It's much harder to get into close range to deal damage than it is to fire from a further distance like the rest of the classes do. Hence why it's a weak class in competitive.

Yes. the class is weaker in competitive, because the pyro really helps with distorting players. Classes that rely on direct aim more are more hurt by afterburn than others. Specifically, snipers. Trying to snipe while on fire turns the game into DDR. Not to mention that competitive will have a medic that's dedicated to keeping the team healed, something that cannot be guaranteed in most games.

Only a bad soldier dies or gets screwed by a pyro airblasting, it's easy to deny them access. Firing at walls and floors does this since they can't airblast and walking into them deals a lot of splash.

At the point where rockets start dealing good amounts of splash, the pyro's airblast hitbox can hit the projectile. Pyro's dancing for space at this point. If the pyro's too close up to the soldier, he's going to have a tough time airblasting. But at medium ranges, the pyro's playstyle adapts. Pyro doesn't need to hit soldier with the flamethrower. Pyro just needs to deny the soldier to deal damage, while either damaging the soldier some other way (flare gun, shotgun, et cetera). The pyro has more base speed than the soldier here and thus has more power to decide the course of action in that fight. The soldier could rocketjump for increased mobility, but then there's a trade-off. He loses at least one ammo in his launcher, he's airborne (which means, his path is more predictable), and he loses health to the jump.

It's an effective strategy, dying isn't fun yet we don't hear people asking for rockets to be nerfed because they die. You not liking being hit by afterburn and having to heal does not mean it should be nerfed or changed.

This isn't a matter of me not liking to heal up. This is a matter of me not liking that the game essentially has to be frozen for me until I've healed up. Earlier I've already stated that being on fire and trying to aim is basically a rhythm game; press the mouse button while you're coming down from the fire knockback. Also, losing half my health from a stray scorch shot flare is a mechanic I'm just not comfortable with.

Me not liking being hit by afterburn isn't a reason for changing it, that's true. But if there are enough people who think the same way as I am thinking, maybe there are grounds for at least considering an alternative.

Pyro is a weak class, trying to weaken it further by reducing afterburn and making it an enabler will just kill the class.

But why is he a weak class?

Objectively ?
Do you have some factual analysis of this ?

1.
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Straight from the tf2stats website. There's about a 6% gap in owners equip, that's right. But it'd be fair to also take in account how many dead new accounts linger, accounts that only /have/ stock, thus can only /have/ stock equipped.

2.
A poll, submitted to the TF2 subreddit. We can assume that people who participate in those kinds of communities are at least competent at the game and give a decent representation of the playerbase. The degreaser beats stock in terms of equips, with 58% to 28%.

I'm convinced more experienced players use the degreaser instead of the flamethrower.

I don't see the issue with this strategy, can you elaborate ?
Pyro's rarely kill even a mid skilled soldier, airblasting alone does nothing unless you can return to the target which is rare.

Mostly ease-of-use. The airblast still resets and sets momentum of airblasted players. It's not additive momentum, which makes getting caught up in it all the more frustrating. It doesn't instakill since the changes made to the degreaser, which is nice, but it still deals a TON of damage in a fell swoop. Damage that eventually leads to the victim's death, unless he manages to 1. Deal with the pyro, either through killing or escaping and 2. find some way to extinguish the fire.

It could be argued that staying out of harm's way is a possibility here, but rarely is the answer "should've played around it". Some maps simply do not allow for this kind of playstyle, and sometimes you cannot anticipate what's around a corner.

You keep on making out this ability to airblast projectiles, which only really works on soldiers as a very powerful defensive weapon, which it isn't.

Here's where the team play aspect comes in. Critstickies to your team can be returned, engie nest can be protected. Stickies, pipes and rockets are usually the cause of death of an engie nest, and the pyro is, besides the short circuit, a class that can very well deal with these projectiles.

Overall the class is one of the weaker ones in the game, that's why it's rare to see a pro pyro. Even mid skilled soldiers can easily deal with all but the best of pyro's, the best ones wouldn't even try go for a close kill with airblasts either but use the flareguns superior range to whittle down the soldiers HP.

I won't argue that the class is weak. That's why eventually the fight was between "Who needs an update? Pyro or heavy?". However, I think the pyro's weak is because he fits too many roles, and doesn't execute one specific role well enough.
 
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