play on dodgeball servers

if you cant do literally anything the pyro is supposed to do you might need to play a new video game

instead of guessing, react to projectiles.

if u aren't fast enough to react, switch classes

assuming ur close range, yea it's literally just a mind game between u and the soldier.

unless you are literally a cyborg with sub 50ms reaction time, u cannot consistently reflect close range projectiles on reaction.

maybe u cant

To be honest some people have absurdly fast reaction times and if you're not one of those people then.. there's not much you can do in that department haha (trust me :c ). Having said that, reflects aren't all reaction time - and I'd argue that reaction time isn't even the most important factor. Like many things in TF2 being good at reflects is about reading your opponent rather than simply reacting as fast as you can. Watch their character model and see if they're flailing about - they're probably going to hold down mouse1 and shoot the next rocket as fast as they can reload. I'm not exactly a pyro expert haha but maybe that can help.

i am not bad at pyro FYI, i just want a method of predicting reflects rather than just pretending like im playing soldier against myself and thinking "i would shoot right now"

the only reliable way to setup for a reflect in cqc is to deal massive damage and force them to fire a rocket. how that works out nowadays idk, I'd suggest shotgun for straight up winning fights but you're losing out on det; if you're not playing HL use whatever you want.

After thinking for a sec you might be able the spike them into the ground and use that to setup the timing? super niche tho. I still think getting stunlocked into the ground was slightly less BS

edit: deadass if you ARE playing HL and at a reasonably high div, learning individual solly habits is hella viable. I've met a couple that will only ever go for min damage splash rockets til I fuck up my own timing so I resorted to jumping away with theirs til I learned how to bait better. (This was back 2010-2011 so it actually mattered if a pyro got close)

React to projectiles faster so decrease your input lag wherever possible
This may include: using a flame hider script (when w+m1 u don't see ur flames) ; having faster response times from ur hardware and taking drugs - but ur probably on some already if ur playing pyro

5 ping

Once you get the airblast range down, there's not much else that would be more beneficial than simply playing the game. However, if I might add, it's super important to remain calm when dealing with your opponent/s as hard as it can be sometimes. In my experience, panicking will usually see you airblasting way too soon; likely due to you doubting your ability to react in time.

One last thing, your guesses will become educated guesses the more you play!

I don’t invest time in pyro, but if I had to guess, practicing would be the ticket.

Same way you predict rockets to surf as medic or dodge as scout. Just practice until you get a feel for the timing. Once you are at a high level you may need to worry about players who can mix up their timings as well, but for the most part people try to get damage out as quickly as possible and you should be able to read most players. The other major thing would be your positioning, at max flamethrower range a deflect is far easier than say at point blank.

240hz

its much easier to predict reflects if the solly/demo is in a position where he's gonna die if he doesn't shoot. lots of bad pyros dont actually do the damage required to make the reflect easy to predict so they just die.