The rant about classes thread!

[EvilIguana966]

Originally Posted by illogicality-

Correct. That makes about as much sense as being able to fly through the air by holding onto a concussion grenade or having a Rocket Propelled Grenade NOT blow you to pieces from one direct hit.

This pyro idea is the best way to make the class fair and implement some actual SKILL on the pyro's behalf. If a skilled pyro kills me, that's fine and dandy, but when some retard is running around, pressing the 'f' and 'g' keys as fast as he can until no more grenades come out, spraying errant flames in the air and in circles, while players die from the completely skill-less spam - that, my friend, is the type of shit we should be doing away with.

If you die to that type of pyro then you should be reassessing your own skills rather than passing judgment on others. The fact is, the current pyro requires plenty of skill to play effectively, but if both parties suck, the pyro can probably get an easier kill than the other guy. However, I contend that that specific scenario is not one that needs to be considered when determining class balance. Some classes will always be easier for noobs, but 95% of noobs will quickly progress beyond the point where they need to play those classes to do well, and we can move on to how the classes play in a moderate to high skill game.

When a pyro flames a scout they take on a considerable amount of damage for their health/armor ratio. It's ridiculous, and the majority of that is from the after-flame damage.

Even the scout will laugh off level 1 damage. It does like 2-3 damage each tick for a little while, and if it constitutes the majority of the damage he takes from the pyro then he still has probably 2/3 of his hp remaining. The point where the scout is in danger is when he gets a level 2 burn, in which case it meant he took damage from 2 different pyro weapons. That is a failure on the scout's part for getting too close to the pyro or otherwise misjudging the situation. I daresay if the scout made the same mistakes with a soldier he'd be just as dead.

Originally Posted by Credge

Stuff (post 82)

Some of your ideas seem reasonable, but I disagree that the pyro lacks a role. The problem seems to be that the pyro is not pigeonholed into one of the limited premade roles you think every class should be. I'm taking from your posts that you're probably one of those people who believes servers should boot anyone who dares to use the middle of the map for anything other than concing across. The pyro happens to be very good at DMing people in the midfield and generally harassing people on their way into the base, killing them, delaying them, or just severely damaging them so that they arrive as easy kills to the base defenders. The pyro also brings some of the tools of a heavy class to offense in a reasonably fast package. The properly played pyro does not settle into any one role, but moves around and plays whatever role happens to be called for at the moment. He's faster than the classes that are major challenges to him, so he has the ability to determine when to battle or break off. And although his movement abilities aren't as powerful as a rocket or conc jump, they can be used more times without a refill and generally have fewer side effects (IE, flame jump doesn't take a quarter of the pyros life away as a RJ does to a soldier).

[KubeDawg]

Originally Posted by DEATHSTRIKER6666

i DEATHSTRIKER6666 am much agreement with MIXER because almost all MIXER say not only be wrong but also complete ignorance and loll full of, and i too am much full of rong and ignorance so much agreement we have. and before some noobs say "oh DEATHSTRIKER6666 not know what about he talking", i tell to you i know many lots of what i talk about, because just like the MIXER it seem, i never actual play game "pickup" whatever is that like swimming a fishes?

This image makes more sense than what you just posted:

[Skanky Butterpuss]

i think deathstriker is the only one in this thread saying anything useful. i look forward to more.

[Credge]

More pyro suggestions:

Reduce burn time by a good amount. Leave the damage each burn does at the various levels the same so the overall damage is less. Keeps the focus on killing enemies.

Alternatively, keep burn damage a constant rate and have each burn level make the burn last longer. Something in between level 1 and 2 burn damage. Have level 1 burn last, say, 5 seconds. Level 2 last 10. Level 3 last 15. This keeps the focus on killing enemies.

Remove horizontal flame push. It currently does 0 for the pyro. The pyro was only speedy when skimming momentum was retained. Since this is no longer the case, backwards flame-bhopping keeps you around BHop speeds anyway (just a tad faster, not worth the effort) and the only reason you'd use your flamethrower is for the vertical push. This works against the pyro as BHopping while you're shooting your flamethrower slows you down. I.E. Chasing enemies who are BHopping (scouts, medics) is counter-productive and goes against the flow and general nature of the game.

Remove bomblet spread. Keep bomblet pattern a circle with one bomblet in the middle. Currently the inconsistencies of the bomblet spread means that a napalm in a tight hall (2fort ramps as an example for size) has a very low chance of actually covering the hall. Currently, there are higher chances of the napalms just exploding in an arc or line, resulting in the ability to jump over the napalms.

Again, reduce IC damage back to 2.0 status. Increase explosion radius. Retain same ignition radius.

Originally Posted by EvilIguana966

Some of your ideas seem reasonable, but I disagree that the pyro lacks a role. The problem seems to be that the pyro is not pigeonholed into one of the limited premade roles you think every class should be.

The problem is that each class on defense has a role they need to fill and, depending on map, classes are picked as such. The pyro does not fit into any needed role. Damage? SG's, soldier, heavies, and demos all do damage. Area denial? Soldiers, demos, and SG's and even heavies do it better. Close quarters combat? Heavies have this in the bag while pyros are on par with demoman and soldiers.

Why would you use the pyro in any of these situations? The only time a pyro is ever useful is if the base is absolutely huge and the enemy simply burns to death before they reach the flag.

That's a combination of lack of a useful role, lack of an actual role, and mechanics that don't fit into CTF. He's not even very useful in AVD as his secondary grenade, the thing that ties the class together, is rarely given out in this play style and grenade bags are better given to demomen and medics/scouts.

All around, the pyro is a subpar class that doesn't actually fit into any sort of role. He's a jack of all trades that attempts to cover more ground than he should but just doesn't cut it in any one of them. This is why he is never used in pickup or league play.

Euros use him. But they're backwards.

[pF]

I do agree that giving the pyro an area denial ability through higher IC push/explioson radius would go a long way to making him viable in choke points. And yes, reduce the IC while we're at it.
I haven't checked speeds for the pyro reverse bunnyhopping vs. reverse flame hopping.. if they're really much the same, that's a shame. I had bold plans for a pyro rear-view-mirror (attached to the FT or whatever) in my undersized head

[Credge]

Well, the pyro does go faster, it's just that every time he lands he hits his BHop speed. As a result, all the extra effort is kind of a waste. It's only really useful on flat straight aways sadly.

So while he does go faster, it's not that much different than normal BHop speeds.

[Firefox11]

You know where Pyro is useful as Defense on CTF? In the main entry of the base, assuming it has a door a la Well or Shutdown2. It's not useful to put a Soldier or a Demoman here because of the reload times, but since the Pyro doesn't have to reload, you can pretty much burn and kill everyone who enters the door.

However, this means you've got one less "powerful" player in the inner base, and it suffers the Sniper syndrome: killing the people earlier makes them get back faster.

[Skanky Butterpuss]

really helps the ramp solly on sd2 mop up O if theyve already been torched pretty good though. only problem is that once they realize they will have trouble getting by you at fd, theyll just start concing straight to batts. (i did this during a clanstyle beta test a long long time ago)

i used to play pyro on plasma ramp in 4v4s, and it wasnt too bad. a good solly would have been better in that position, but i did a lot better as a pyro than id do as solly (im probably the worst soldier in FF), so it worked out pretty well.

[Firefox11]

Originally Posted by Skanky Butterpuss

i used to play pyro on plasma ramp in 4v4s, and it wasnt too bad. a good solly would have been better in that position, but i did a lot better as a pyro than id do as solly (im probably the worst soldier in FF), so it worked out pretty well.

Nonsense.

I AM the worst Soldier ever, in TFC, FF and TF2. That's why I play Pyro and make other classes about the DoT of the burn ;D It seems that the small speed advantage of the Pyro to the Soldier makes it a lot better to me =D