Offensive Pyro Guide

[Dark Jirachi]

Some people might think that the Pyro is a useless class, suited only for Defense, or just causing chaos without really accomplishing any objectives. This is not true. The Pyro is actually a great class for offense because of his ability to fly around the map with his flamethrower. So I will attempt to educate you all.

First of all, if you want to capture flags, your main focus should be motion. It is very hard to kill people with your flamethrower, if you get some kills because the guys you set on fire were already half dead, that's great. But you should try and move as fast as you can and try to avoid enemies, leave them for your team mates. Fly in, grab the flag, fly out. The Pyro is not a good class for dealing with sentry guns, so you should wait for your team mates to take them out first.

The flamethrower:

The flamethrower is a very important tool in the Pyro's arsenal. Not because it deals a lot of damage, it doesn't really, but because it pushes you in the direction that you are shooting it. There are several techniques that can be employed to allow the Pyro to quickly evade enemies.

Forward gliding - This is when you run forward, jump, and fire straight down. It doesn't give you much boost forward, but it allows you to rise up off of the ground and glide a a short distance. While you are in the air you can strafe and point your flamethrower in different directions to control your flight.

Explosive-assisted forward gliding - This is a modified version of the forward glide, as you are rising off of the ground, you can detonate a grenade under yourself, or have a team mate shoot a rocket under you. Because you are already moving off of the ground, the explosion will multiply your velocity by large amounts. You could easily use this to fly straight into the enemy sniper deck. An especially fun thing to do is try to glide as an enemy Soldier is firing a rocket at you, if the rocket doesn't kill you, you can time it right so it will propel you up into the sniper deck. The soldier will be frustrated when he realizes he just helped an enemy get in his base.

Flame strafing - This is a lot like conc strafing in TFC. As you are in the air, strafe, and turn slowly in the same direction you are strafing. If you do it right you can sail right around corners.

Backward gliding - This is accomplished by turning around backwards, jumping, and shooting your flamethrower at the ground in front of you, at an angle. It boosts you up, and backwards, allowing you to quickly traverse large distances, provided that you are able to navigate the map backwards. I have found this to be especially useful on aardvark to fly past snipers. Just watch where you are going, I found myself accidentally carrying the flag back into the enemy base because I got going in the wrong direction. Just like with forward gliding, this can be supplemented with explosives.

Fan gliding - You know those fan things in several maps including crossover, and congestus, that blow you straight up to the next floor? Shooting your flamethrower straight down while in these will propel you upwards at great speeds.

Elevator gliding - Using this you can fly up into the attic in well very quickly. If you shoot straight down just as the elevator starts moving up, the two forces of upward motion will combine, propelling you upward at a higher rate. If you do it well enough, you can reach the attic before the elevator does.

Flame trimping - This is caused by shooting straight up, and jumping. This will propel you towards the ground faster than normal. So as you are in the air, hold down jump so you will jump again when you hit the ground, and then quickly point your flamethrower straight down. If you get the timing right, you can shoot yourself straight up a great distance. This one is slightly difficult to do right. A video of this move can be found here.

Enemies:

As you are flying around in the enemy base, you are going to run into the defense. If you can, just try to avoid them. If you can't, and you are close enough, prime a grenade and start flaming them. Just before the nade detonates, throw it at them and back away. Next, you can switch to your shotgun and finish them off, or shoot at them with your IC cannon. If you need to get away in a hurry, throw all of your napalm grenades behind you as you are running, all of the fire will reduce visibility and do a little damage. If you run into engineer, and he is smart, run the hell away because if he throws an EMP at you it will kill you instantly. Try and IC him and shotgun him from a distance.

Oh, and if you go underwater, remember to always switch to your shotgun, because flamethrowers will not work underwater.

Sample scenario:

So now you know the moves, let's give you an example of a real situation.

The map is congestus, and you're a blue Pyro. You spawn and glide out into the yard. A scout is running past you, you set him on fire, and leave him to your team mates. (A flaming incoming enemy is more visible than a non-flaming one ) You jump down into the tunnel and run towards the direction of the red flag room, bypassing the sentry gun that was placed at the front door. You throw down a grenade at the ladder, explode out of the hole, gliding to the ground, setting a few people on fire along the way. You then dash for the fan thing, flame downwards, and fly up to the deck. A few soldiers are guarding the flag. You fly up over their heads, grab the flag and fly away. if you are lucky, you can get one of them to hit you in the back and help you along your way. There is too much risk to take the tunnel again, so you decide to brave the sentry and go out the front door. The sentry is pointed in the other direction, so you can fly over it, bunny hopping and gliding in a zig-zag pattern to evade the fire. Alas, your health is too low, and you get killed, but not before you toss the flag to the blue scout that was just about to come in.

Miscellaneous tips:

• You can flame your team mates to spy check them. It's more efficient than shooting them. If they are on your team, they will walk away unscathed. If they are a spy they will grunt and catch on fire. (Make sure Friendly Fire is off though...)
• If a cloaked spy is on fire, their cloak is useless. If you see a cloaked spy strolling past, set them on fire!
• Don't forget about your napalm grenades! They can be useful in a sticky situation.

Offensive Pyro is a challenging, but fun role to play, and I hope to see more of these. Just don't expect to impress your friends with your monster kill:death ratio.

[Hammock]

One thing I'd like to add that I'm beginning to discover for offensive pyros. Is that they work amazingly with a partner to run in before you.

Perfect example, on openfire the other day, a medic and pyro were running O (now I don't know if they were doing this on purpose but it was definately working). The medic would run in first, make me waste my ammo on him, and as soon as I killed him they pryo moved in.

Now normally most classes can't DM you as fast as a pyro can, and most classes once they run out of ammo need to take a step back to reload to be effective again.

But with the medic running in and making me waste 2-3 rockets. Then the pyro right after him, all I really had left was my shotty, which can be hard to aim when there's fire in your face and all around you. So you either try and back off (doesn't work pyro moves faster) to reload, or you try and DM him.

Man once the enemy needs to reload that's the perfect time for the pyro move in cause he get's almost a free kill.

[BinaryLife]

I think pyros are excellent at taking out pretty much any enemy but the engy. The multi-level burn does a lot of compound damage and makes them great for offense.

It's a great idea to prime a incendiary grenade bring out your IC. Time your shot and grenade toss to hit the enemy at the same time, then begin flaming them when they get closer. They will die very quickly at level 3.

The movement ideas you posted are great to keep in mind for flag grabbing and escaping especially. Leaving a trail of fiery death in your wake will make enemies think twice about chasing you.

[Adamido]

pyro=awesome but you rarely kills enemies,and that's annoying(at least for me:P).

[Agent Buckshot Moose]

Pyro has the potential to be the fastest-killing class in the game. If you time it right, someone can be at level 3 burn in about 1 second.

[Credge]

I played offensive pyro a bunch in pickups. The class is heavily dependent on the map as well as the other members on your offense. Have a group of people that will listen when you say "I'm going to take out the solly at the T, take an alternate route" then you'll do just fine.

The real problems start, though, when the enemy has an engineer (they always do). The pyro becomes incredibly gimped then.

Maps, like Monkey, make the pyro seem pretty OP. He's pretty tough on 2fort (both O and D) and is fairly versatile. However, the lone fact that a weapon exists that can kill him in one hit makes him go from useful to pointless .

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Dark Jirachi

Miscellaneous tips:

• You can flame your team mates to spy check them. It's more efficient than shooting them. If they are on your team, they will walk away unscathed. If they are a spy they will grunt and catch on fire.

That's fine and dandy if you're playing with FF off, but it's an incredibly bad idea with FF on.