Class Guide: Pyro

[PHISH]

Weapons
slot1: Crowbar
slot2: Single Shotgun

slot4: Flamethrower
slot5: Incendiary Cannon

Grenades
Grenade 1: Frag
Grenade 2: Napalm

Health: 100
Armor: 150 (armor is resistant to flame damage)

Combat:
The pyro class is equipped with 3 primary burn weapons:
The flamethrower, the Incendiary cannon, and the napalm grenade.

A unique feature of these weapons is their burn damage. Hitting an enemy with one burn weapon, for example the incendiary cannon, will bring them to burn level 1. If during this time they are hit with another burn weapon, say the flamethrower, they will take burn damage level 2. If you can explode a napalm grenade on the enemy as well you can bring them to burn level 3, causing them to scream like a banshee and take huge hits of damage. This burn damage is multiplied, so with some experience you can hit an enemy with all 3 weapons in a short amount of time to cause significant destruction; usually a crispy death.

Mobility: Much like the soldier's rocket launcher, the incendiary cannon can be used as a movement aid for small jumps
The flamethrower also enacts a reasonable vertical force to slow decent, or provide a small boost when combined with a jump.


Strengths:
The pyro is a natural counter for spies. He can lay out a large swath of flames from his flamethrower which are ideal for detecting cloaked or disguised enemies. Against less mobile heavy weapon guys he can rain all of his fire weapons down in a short amount of time to take advantage of multiplied flame damage.

Weaknesses: Sentryguns are probably the pyros biggest problem, his napalm grenades are relatively ineffective, and his flame thrower requires him to be too close to deal damage. Additionally, the engineers EMP grenade can instantly explode a pyro due to the amount of ammunition being carried. Stay away from engineers and learn to mitigate your weaknesses with your strengths.

I can continue to expand on this but this is a rough overview.

[Necro]

oo so thast how i get to burn level 3. thats going to help so much.

been stuck with burn level 2 this 2 days now.

[Desyphur]

My favorite class in FF has to be Pyro. They really made it good. Here's a couple hints to help you out.

Pyro vs Heavy: If you see a heavy, and you don't have a napalm grenade, circle him, launching rockets at him, aiming above his head with each shot, and aiming further down as you get closer. Then whip out your flamethrower and hold it, keeping your circling motion. He should be taken care of easy. If you have a napalm grenade, it only makes this fight easier. If you've close the gap, hold a napalm grenade till it's about to go off and throw it right at him. You'll get him at Burn Level 3 and he'll scream and die.

Taking care of those damn sentries: There's only one way to beat them, use your rockets and frags. If you get a good shot with your frag, you might even take down the engineer, which will only make this easier.

More to come after I play more.

I'll release more hints for classes, as PHISH makes more class guides.

Edit: that works too, thanks

[mervaka]

if i remember correctly, the napalm does wonders against a sentry, providing you get enough of those fiery bomblet thingies around it!

[Kazz]

It's funny when a pair of Pyros meet each other and have to duel with the crappy shotgun.

[mervaka]

yeah, thats rather awkward! i find the IC is the best weapon to use there though, along with frag grenades.

[halo]

A few basic things I've found:-

The flame-thrower can be used to jump further and slightly higher if you aim it down while you jump and hold down fire. It gives you a little lift. Can be useful but not often.

Getting the level 3 burn on good players or faster classes can be very tricky. I've found that one of the best techniques to use is the old rocket-gren combo move, that every defensive soldier did in TFC, where you time a grenade and fire a rocket so that they hit your target at the same time. It combats the fact that both these attacks blast your enemy back and make him less likely to come near you again :P. Getting the flame thrower on them is generally much easier .

The flamethrower can also be used in a defensive capacity (particularly against soldiers who need to aim their rockets at a very precise point on the ground.) When there's a big stream of fire infront of you it makes it much more difficult to target your feet and makes them want to keep their distance which also makes aiming harder and dodging easier.

When you've weakened an enemy in a fight and particularly when he takes to the water so that you can't burn him, the single shotgun is very useful. It might be weak but it's a great tool for finishing people off. It also seems to have a slightly narrower shell spread over range compared to the supershotgun.

When using a pyro on offence try to hold your primary grens back because they are literally the only thing you have that's useful against a sentry gun. Sentry guns own you.

Defensively the pyro is a viable class and can be very useful, but he does lack stopping power, the ability to halt someone in their tracks with weapons that blast them back. There are two things that help to mitigate this. Firstly movement is important. It's much easier to block people in FF than it was in TFC and you are the Daddy at close range. Block concers and ramp sliders, get right in their faces and torch the buggers. Also you can get back to your position fast and you can keep up with enemies when you chase them so as a pyro you can follow people back and keep hurting them a lot more frequently than a soldier can afford to.

The other great advantage of a defensive pyro is that conc aim is not much of a factor when you're wildly spraying a huge jet of flame and cackling maniacly. Conc grenades don't impact on you as much as they do other defensive classes.

[Jredge]

Bunnyhopping backwards while using the flamethrower is fun

The pyro definitely seems like it's the class I'll be playing most of the time. It's even more fun/annoying than it was in tfc, but now it's also effective.

[Everything]

Sadly, i'm not skill enough interms of aiming rockets for the pyro yet, so i'll stick to sniper.

[Type6]

Some tips:

Don't hesitate to use shotgun. At very long ranges chip away at people, if by the time they get to you they have 15 less HP you've just made yourself a huge advantage. I remember people used to do that in qwtf all the time, and why not.

Use the IC to gain horizontal speed boosts (especially if you know how to bunny hop) at the expense of very little armor and health. Also you can get a lot of vertical distance to. Or Use it to clear gaps like in crossover for example, from the cap point to central yard (shoot behind you for more distance).

Be creative with the IC. It costs almost nothing in terms of armor and health so don't hesitate to use it for all kinds of jumps. Makes the Pyro a great flag runner on push type maps like cornfield. Use it to go faster or to go higher or to reach that cap point. Use it in a fight to outflank enemies. You can IC jump many times before h and a become critical.

The IC+napalm jump will give you a HUGE vertical boost if timed right. Again in crossover it's possible to jump all the way from the basement at flag not only to the yard but to the ceiling of the map (making it a nice escape route if you get the flag). Don't forget you can use air control + the flamer for steering especially with this specific jump. This should be useful in many maps. [Prime napalm grenade and do an IC jump as it goes of]. Hope you devs don't nerf this one !
On an interesting side note this works in TFC to (except the timing is different and the boost is not as high). You can easily go places like the sniper deck on 2fort with this method.

[TwoTired]

A variation on the Pyro VS Heavy thing would be to IC-jump over them while you're circling, tends to confuse most players for a valuable second or three.

IMHO, Pyro is all about chaos.

If you're going to die and haven't used your napalm nades, feel free to spaem all over the place =P.

[SoBe Green]

I like to burn scouts and yell loudly about how manly I am.

[Mortal]

In the ff_2morewhatever map, I can combine double-jump, flamethrower hover and IC jump to get from the bridge to the cap point in no time. And I only take around 16 damage at best.

I love Pyros - I've bound mouse4 to +gren2 and mouse5 to lastinv, so I have my left hand free to strafe around the HWGUYs and whoever else that may get in my way.

I often find that spamming SGs with napalm nades and rockets (and ordinary frags) are quite effective, even though I'm usually out of nades afterwards.

For crosshairs - I customised my flamethrower crosshair to a filled, big, red, transparent circle, with 8 yellow opaque dots in the middle. I love being able to set these settings myself

[magzy]

To get a bigger boost with IC, aim almost straight up, shoot, follow the projectile, causing it to fall at your feet. Just as it lands, shoot the floor again, so you get the boost of 2 IC rockets. Obviously difficult to do while moving, and extremely impractical. Nice showboating though.

[THBRonx]

Originally Posted by Type6

The IC+napalm jump will give you a HUGE vertical boost if timed right. Again in crossover it's possible to jump all the way from the basement at flag not only to the yard but to the ceiling of the map (making it a nice escape route if you get the flag). Don't forget you can use air control + the flamer for steering especially with this specific jump. This should be useful in many maps. [Prime napalm grenade and do an IC jump as it goes of]. Hope you devs don't nerf this one !
On an interesting side note this works in TFC to (except the timing is different and the boost is not as high). You can easily go places like the sniper deck on 2fort with this method.

Could you record a video to show that?
Thanks!

[Hawk Eye]

All about the Frag HH + Flamethrower. You pretty much fly.

[Pyr0]

Originally Posted by Type6

The IC+napalm jump will give you a HUGE vertical boost if timed right. Again in crossover it's possible to jump all the way from the basement at flag not only to the yard but to the ceiling of the map (making it a nice escape route if you get the flag). Don't forget you can use air control + the flamer for steering especially with this specific jump. This should be useful in many maps. [Prime napalm grenade and do an IC jump as it goes of]. Hope you devs don't nerf this one !
On an interesting side note this works in TFC to (except the timing is different and the boost is not as high). You can easily go places like the sniper deck on 2fort with this method.

Any Pictures you can share?


Also, One I really like to do:

Charge up your frag nade, IC Jump (diagonaly) quick-switch to flamethrower and shoot it downwards, when the nade is about 90% primed, shoot it and then almost immediatly release the thrower, jump and throw to the floor again.
the result: a crazy looking double long jump (a bit slow but really cool looking)

[Shephard]

Actually, I have found that the incendiary grenade is useful against a sentry gun. Throw one at it then a frag or just let others try and take it down. Even if they fail, the engy usually won't walk in the fire to repair the gun.

[Dr.Uudge]

http://rkbotservers.com/misc/IncindiaryGrenadeJump.zip

ok, there are 3 files in here of demos i made regarding grenade jumps.

the first file is a generic overview of how to use IG to super jump.

the second 2 are examples on when to prime in ff_crossover2.

http://rkbotservers.com/misc/IC-IG-combo-jump.zip

2 dem files that give a basic overview of the incindiary canon - incindiary grenade combo jumping.

the timing is more intricate because the IC because there's more server/client banter with timing of firing IC/IC hitting the ground, producing hte pushing force/timing of IG exploding. So on internet games of ping over 30, some compensation for timing should be used on the client side.

edit: i'm getting some feedback about the IC/IG jumping; it seems that if you tap the "move back" button a fraction of a second before the IC launches, it gets a better boost; so the IC/IG jumping works like this:

prime --> almost right before grenade explodes --> IC then +back, almost simultaneously --> switch to flame thrower

I'll have the updated demo when i get a chance.

[jdubbya]

I think the pyro is a great defence against Hw's but you have to use that wall of fire as a disguise. Its very hard to shoot at something when you are burning and all you can see is a wall of fire. Run circles around the Hw and try to stay behind him.