Nick is always reliable, both in game and in attitude. Any team would be lucky to have him (including the team he just left).

Numbers is literally the most passionate player I know in TF2. Pick him up but don't be surprised when he surpasses you.

If you're reading this and it's the last response to this thread, you've encountered Jonesy's LFT thread within the first hour. I recommend you pick him up now while you still can.

I can say without exaggeration that I've never met anyone who is as driven to improve at TF2 as Numbers is. No one is more dedicated, no one is more passionate, no one tries as hard, no one wants it as much as him.

Put him on your team so that you can say you played with him before he was famous.

I literally haven't met one person who liked Swiftwater.

Does the map creator have a picture of one of the ugc admins screwing a goat or something?

If that response was toward me, I actually don't have a problem with where the pyro is, I am just arguing some of the points made here about him being too powerful. I think he's a good mix of combat and support and thats what makes him good.

Also a note on degreaser balance while Numbers has me dragged over here, might as well get myself into some more trouble. The reason the degreaser is superior to stock is because the degreaser is too much like stock; most people believe the reverse to be the case. The damage of the stock flamethrower isn't fantastic but it would be more than enough to get by if the stock flamethrower was the preferred choice for a support-style pyro. The reason it isn't is because degreaser can do this style just as well, and maintain its combat style advantage.

Why is this? The problem is air blast. While the versatility of air blast has made it ubiquitous to the pyro it is this same versatility that makes it difficult to balance around. It performs, in one right click, a very powerful effect for both combat and support. Reflecting projectiles away from your teammates and denying ubers are what make the pyro a great support class, while denying enemy movement and reflects help the pyro compensate for his combat deficiencies. If you try to remove the supportive qualities of degreaser to make it level with the stock flamethrower you gimp its combat prowess.

Air blast is even tied to the quickswitch of degreaser in ways that people rarely seem to think about. When you air blast with the degreaser, you are able to swiftly switch to your secondary and pop a shot off, then switch again just as the air blast cool down ends, allowing you to use flames or air blast again (in many situations its even difficult for soldiers to punish you for doing so, as you're able to reflect, pop a shot off, then reflect again before his next rocket provided there's a reasonable amount of distance between you and him). When you air blast with the stock flamethrower, you are not allowed to use flames until the air blast cools down, and the switch is not fast enough to "safely" add a secondary shot in. Because the air blast is the pyro's shield, its usually best not to switch, in which case the air blast cool down is just dead time that you're doing no damage whatsoever. So even in this subtle example the degreaser can make use of this otherwise dead time and contribute extra damage.

The state of flamethrower balance basically comes down to this. Quick switch and air blast are complex matters and +10% damage is too simple a solution.

Let me state some opinions that I feel are difficult to reasonably disagree with.

The Pyro is the most range limited class in the game. Regardless of whether you consider air blast and flamethrower range (and these two ranges are different, by the way, something that detractors don't seem to be aware of) to be "close quarters" it is still the shortest effective range compared to all other classes, so its "close enough".

The Pyro is an inferior class for combat. Axtinguisher isn't reliable because its a melee, and even if it was reliable the other combat classes can do as much damage or more, faster, and through more reliable means. Reflects aren't reliable, at least not those that are up close, because it requires the pyro to predict when it happens. Reflects are a reactionary thing, which means returning them will never be as reliable as sending them. If you want to argue this, show me how many reflects you get when the Soldier decides simply not to fire. The flamethrower has a lot of good aspects going for it but "range" and "damage" are not among them, it will still lose out in the damage race against the other combat classes, and is still the most limited primary in the game range-wise. When it comes to secondaries, while degreaser switch speed certainly helps at the end of the day you're using the most common stock secondary in the game or the flare gun which again can't compete with other combat classes in terms of damage. No matter how easy it is to land a flare at close range its still 90 damage every two seconds.

When you talk about fighting a pyro and how "easily" he beats you, you're placing yourself in the same category that I consider pub players who complain about the pyro, that is, you're not skilled enough with the class of your choice to defeat them. An equally skilled player using another combat class is more versatile and is capable of doing more damage in a shorter amount of time, giving them the advantage. Your inability to exercise this advantage is your fault, not a reflection of game balance.

Only about half a dozen people on this forum will recognize me, I barely have one foot in the competitive scene and this is my first post on this forum. If you're the sort to dismiss someone's perspective based on their reputation alone, you can disregard the following.

I know a few of the people on this list and when I saw this I thought it was strange. I knew them as contributors to the tf2 community, their various projects helping new players learn to play. In fact everyone I had met that was on that list helped me on an individual basis, they were always patient and helpful. I thought them joining a group that stomps new players didn't make sense so I went and spoke to them individually. They all had different motivations for being a part of it, but it was clear there was no genuine malice and that they didn't realize quite what they were getting into. If you look up to these players or respect them I would recommend talking to them and getting their side of the story yourself before you make hasty judgments.

At the same time its human nature for bad news to spread like a fire and its blatantly obvious that shoe is holding the gasoline. It seems apparent to me that he couldn't attain a good reputation like the others on the list, so he's settled for a bad one at their expense. Right, wrong, or indifferent the reputation of the people on the list are going to get smeared by this. You guys are big boys and can make your own decisions, but like turkeys looking up mouth agape at a rainstorm, eventually you're going to drown for your stupidity.