I don't understand why pubbers and Steel players are trying to play the "you don't have enough competitive experience" card on me.

This shit is as ridiculous as the hysteria back in HRG days when people were blaming the slow metagame on Heavy and Engineer and calling for class limit 0. Offclasses are not uncounterable or broken, they are good for the game. Turtle classes help ensure the dynamism of 6s is preserved by mitigating the heavily unfavorable situation of being stuck on last with Uber disadvantage after wiping on mid. 5CP is good because both teams at any moment have so many options, have to make so many decisions. Pyro is a huge part of being able to defend against a full Uber push into last and the ability to clutch a round from the jaws of defeat makes the game exciting and fun both to watch and to play.

It's not as cut and dry as saying that Pyro slows down the game, either. Certain stalemates that are incredibly difficult to break, like Viaduct forward hold, pushing Granary second, and pushing Gullywash / Blands last, can be broken by running Pyro. This speeds up and freshens the metagame. What's more, the inability of Pyro to effectively hold chokes because of bad range provides opportunities for smart teams to push whereas they wouldn't feel comfortable doing so against a Scout or Soldier, because they are better.

And out of these niche situations, Pyro is still really fucking bad. It is significantly harder to play Pyro full time and win at a high level than Scout and Soldier, which is probably why nobody has done it. Outside of holding last, running Pyro means you're giving up consistency, flexibility, and raw power, which is a huge risk and easily punishable. If you read your opponents tendencies to make mistakes and take the risk of going Pyro instead of staying on the consistently good and almost always better standard classes, and it actually pays off, then that is skill.

Restricting classes alienates your playerbase. Back when I was a pubber, over half my friends who were interested in competitive TF2 were turned off of 6s by a perceived state of staleness and inflexibility and ended up losing interest because pubs and Highlander are boring. My first 6s team had two Pyro mains, a Heavy main, and a Sniper main, but we realized that those classes were inflexible and bad and became fully-fledged 6s players. These are the people who you are turning away from 6s by banning Pyro, and you'll never realize how hard you fucked the playercount because nobody will be here to tell you about it.

Last and least, I personally find reaction reflecting (predicting when they shoot because they're too close to react) to be one of the most challenging and satisfying things in TF2. There are so many things about Pyro, like reflect jumping, or finding new detjump flanks and hiding spots, or maximizing damage per particle, or the Dragon's Fury / Jetpack, that make it so even the best Pyros haven't approached the skill ceiling. I enjoy outplaying people by doing suboptimal, unorthodox things, and I enjoy specifically fighting Pyros as projectile classes because of the psychological intensity that reflecting brings to the matchup.

I understand that there many 6s players who don't share my opinions. Disagreeing with me is fine, but what frustrates me is when people disagree with me and dislike Pyro because they either don't understand or refuse to attempt to understand. There are people in this thread who are arguing that the only counters to Pyro are Sniper and other Pyros, that they win every other matchup. There are people who are arguing the Dragon's Fury is too strong. These things aren't just differences in opinion, they are flat out, factually wrong. So, so, laughably, utterly wrong.

I want to ensure that the hysteria in this thread doesn't spill out of control, and lead to the whitelist getting fucked because ignorant people are consumed with fear of things that they do not understand.

So if anyone wants to actually discuss anything, instead of restating their opinions, flat out telling me I don't know what I'm talking about without a tenth of my experience or any evidence, and posting gifs of confused people, let's do it.

I already responded to this, but I'll do it again.

Let's think this through.

No, you do not press S when you have a better Uber, because Uber makes you immune to flames, and flames are why you are pressing S.

The mistake was the Medic dropping the chasing defending Pyro, which not only killed the defending Pyro, let the Medic and Phlog Pyro live when they should have died (the Degreaser Pyro can lock the Phlog Pyro into the corner so there was no chance of the Phlog Pyro escaping), but it gave up Phlog charge, which culminated into pressuring the defenders into dropping onto point and abandoning high ground and distance.

Was the Phlog counterable? Yes.

Did the defending team fuck up? Yes.

Did they deserve to lose because they fucked up? Yes.

People need to start blaming themselves for making stupid plays instead of finding some scapegoat to salvage their pride. I guarantee if anyone in this thread watched a demo of every time they died to a Pyro, they would immediately realize that either Soldier / Scout could have done the same thing better, or that they could easily avoided dying had someone (including themselves) not fucked up, or both.

LMAO did you just look up "fallacy" on wikipedia and expect it to completely shut down the conversation?

What is my misrepresentation of your argument?

And I have no idea where you're going with the fallacy fallacy attack. I never once claimed that people were wrong because they made bad arguments. I claimed things (Pyro is not overpowered, Dragon's Fury is not overpowered, Detonator is not overpowered), backed them with reasoning (limited range and speed and bad matchups vs almost every class, inferior to and more difficult than stock, a scapegoat for actually pressing issues), and countered people's arguments against me, which involves pointing out fallacies.

Nowhere did I say that "because your committed a logical error, I am right." Rather, the logical error means that your criticism of my argument is invalid, and you have to either make a new argument, or cede the point.

I can list logical fallacies too. This is directed at everyone in the thread, not you in particular.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_stone - dismissing a statement as absurd without giving proof of its absurdity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_ridicule - an informal fallacy which presents an opponent's argument as absurd, ridiculous, or humorous, and therefore not worth consideration

The examples of this are myriad. Jon_ saying "Yikes." viper / pov's gifs of confused people. Jon_ sarcastically admitting I'm right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasty_generalization - an informal fallacy of faulty generalization by reaching an inductive generalization based on insufficient evidence

This is showing that video of prem players getting rolled over by Phlog and using that as conclusive proof.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum - a proposition must be true because many or most people believe it

That's you.

Yeah, I definitely remember our community's ancient, sacred tradition of polling Steel players and consulting r/tf2 on whether we should ban stuff.

woo go ninjax!!

There is a difference between an argument and an opinion. Despite the fact that Jon_ played one season of UGC Steel, their argument matters. Their opinion does not.

When Jon_ says "Yikes" and refuses to respond to 90% of my argument, he is not arguing, he is stating his opinion - "I disagree." Which, again, doesn't matter.

https://i.imgur.com/rFnmyH7.png

I never said the Flamethrower isn't broken, I said there are copious methods of counterplay. I don't understand how that is a controversial statement.

This is untrue for multiple reasons. First, it's most likely working as intended. Second, the counter to Pyro has always been walking backwards, checking corners, Scout, Shotgun Soldier, other Pyros, Demoman, Heavy, Engineer, Sniper, for as long as airblast has existed.

I agree.

What makes you think the new Flamethrower is a bug? When stickies were glitched to have no falloff it was patched in a day. This is at least that bad and it's been months.

Forced use of unlocks? Full stock is 100% viable to hold last, which is, apart from Gullywash, the only viable time to play Pyro. Furthermore, the only stock loadouts that aren't outclassed to some extent are Demo, Sniper, and Spy. Claiming that Pyro should be banned because you have to use unlocks doesn't make any sense.

Please don't tell me you actually believe this.

If you actually do believe this, I have a question for you.

Where are the undefeated high Invite Pyros?

This is utterly irrelevant on multiple levels.

First, I agree the Flamethrower should be changed.

Second, Booties were never banned, so making this comparison proves my point.

Third, by this logic, Gunboats, Escape Plan, and Crossbow should be banned because they are mandatory to get to mid.

You don't need to oneshot a Pyro because you can completely negate it by pressing S.

The argument is that Pyro's skill to reward ratio is too high. Medic has a higher skill to reward ratio. I don't understand your issue. You keep making statements of incredulity instead of actually responding to arguments.

I'm pretty sure I said I didn't like Jungle Inferno flamethrower in every post I made.

I don't understand. You haven't even tried to learn to play around it? The update has been out for months, and you're still just mindlessly zombie-ing around playing exactly the same way? And you're fucking proud of your ignorance, and demand the devs balance the game around it?

I'm honestly curious. Are you satirizing the type of person who posts in this thread?

(also seriously who the fuck are you)

Yes, the flamethrower is broken. It is not overpowered and should not be banned.

Medic isn't overpowered? Please don't tell me you honestly believe that.

Ceteris paribus the team with 50% more HP WILL win. The lowest common denominator of Soldier, Pyro, or Heavy, while pocketed, can kill an entire team streaming in ones and twos.

Now you're talking about score in pubs? You realize every extinguish is worth one point, right?

Also, I'd just like to reiterate that I do not give a single flying fuck about the easiest way to get on the scoreboard in casual mode.

Who the fuck cares about the opinions of pubbers, and for that matter, who the fuck cares about the opinions of the lowest common denominator of competitive player? Balancing for pubbers gave us the sticky nerf, horribly broken Scout/Sniper secondaries, and Medics moving at Scout speed. No league should poll SPUD or r/tf2 to figure out their whitelist, because they're not qualified, because they have no experience, and therefore, have no fucking clue what they're talking about.

Scout walks at 133% speed.

Pyro walks at 100% speed.

It doesn't matter. Dropping the Heavy doesn't matter if you get a Medic and Pyro for it. The Heavy can also just take an arrow as the Medic is walking forward with the Pyro. If the rest of the team loses a 4v4 while holding last with a Heavy and 3 spam classes while the attacking team's Uber does nothing, then that's on them fucking up and iatgink could have won running stock flamethrower, and probably by friendly disguising as Pyro.

It's much harder without 260. A 175 Pyro without airblast can comfortably be spammed from high ground. A 260 Pyro getting tanked without airblast is threatening enough to force people to drop to point, potentially, and then you've negated their height advantage and their range advantage. Also, the Phlog spree only happened because the Heavy donated full charge to the Pyro.

The only way Phlog works is if someone fucks up and walks into the Phlog. Whatever what-if scenarios we're conjuring up that will never change.

Yes, the Phlog is very good at killing people who walk into it when it has crits. You're supposed to stay out of flamethrower range.

come to rgb in october :3

Obviously. Do I need to type slower or something? Did you read any part of the post before responding?

You realize that Medic is literally the same thing, except 2x better and 10x harder to counter, right?

You do realize you have to charge the Phlog, right? Has anyone fucking glanced at any of the unlock descriptions?

Being stuck doing nothing for 2 seconds is a downside, not an upside, invulnerability or not. You can't leverage the invulnerability to do anything. You can block a choke, but you'll waste your phlog and you can do that with airblast much better. You can stall a point, but they can just juggle you into the air and cap before you hit the ground.

And I have no idea what you're talking about with the secondary thing, the only crits I saw in that video were Phlog crits unless you're talking about 23 damage Detonator minicrits.

It's barely faster than Medic, over 20% slower than Scout, and only worth doing out of fights because of damage vulnerability, and because you can't shoot and sprint at the same time. Trying to argue that the Powerjack makes Pyro too mobile is utterly ridiculous.

I addressed this in my post. I also didn't mention that Scout is faster than Pyro and he tried to leave through the right stairs instead of dropping off the balcony to lower lobby, but in fairness to Thalash, he probably expected his spam classes to juggle the Pyro that can't airblast.

Who are you?

I didn't say I thought it was okay, I said it's easily counterable if you use your brain, and shouldn't be banned.

Is everyone who complains about Pyro talking about pubs? Yes, the Flamethrower is overpowered for players at the skill floor. So are Medic and Engineer. The skill floor is irrelevant for competitive play.

0:03 Sniper isn't on danger shield even though Pyro is telegraphed (we know they know he's on Pyro because his Phlog is at 80%)

0:34 BLU Medic drops Pyro for no reason. The RED Medic was 100% dead if the BLU Medic stayed with his Pyro, because the Phlog can't airblast and he failed to bodyblock.

0:45 Heavy walks into flame range near a corner for no reason. Also Tomislav is suboptimal for fighting a Pyro on Gullywash last, and I'm 90% sure he switched to Heavy to fight the Pyro.

1:09 Scout takes over 100 damage from a Phlog Pyro top right and presumably calls Pyro position, and yet BLU Medic doesn't use Uber around the corner while walking into flamethrower range, for no reason

1:46 Demo blows all his ammo and abandons the choke. Soldier also abandons the choke. If either of them were lookint at the choke they could have easily juggled the Pyro to death. Also, the Demo somehow forgot the Pyro was top left and walked into flamethrower range. (the Uber trade got nothing).

I don't understand why you are linking this video when it is literally proving Olgha's point. 6s players do not understand offclassing or unlocks, and instead of learning, they bitch.

Heavy has significantly better range and is stronger vs hitscan and other Pyros. Running a Heavy vs Pyro on last is literally just up to map geometry - how hard the Pyro gets fucked by his shitty range. Or you run a passive Pyro to reflect spam, but you could always do that, and it's worse of a tactic now because of Degreaser nerf.

Also, the Flamethrower does have falloff.

Spy and Demo have the same instant punishes for being an idiot. Tomislav Heavy as well. They aren't banned because despite how sad you may feel, you can avoid the scenario easily by playing properly, it is counterable. So stop complaining and check the corner.

How can a Pyro get in flame range without ambushing you?

You can literally push/pressure off the fact that one of their players is on a useless class. Most of the time, Soldier slows down the game more than Pyro because it is actually capable of holding a choke without committing.

As for Uberstalling specifically, Pyro is obviously better, but airblast is actually significantly worse than it once was and flames still don’t work on Ubered people and we were fine with it before Jungle Inferno. Counterplay to wiping on mid without killing med is good for the game, and Pyro is still easily beatable with full ad.

Pressuring a team with Detonator Pyro is almost always a good play unless you’re already losing a fight for some other reason, in which case, Pyro is worse than standard classes because their shit range/speed means they can’t capitalize on advantages as quickly without reflect rocket jumping. They are almost completely defenseless against weapon heckling and only have 8-10 airblasts before becoming walking paperweights.

Yes, that's true, but if something is a straight downgrade to the stock weapon while simultaneously being more difficult to use and punishing mistakes much harder, then it should not be banned, and nobody should be bitching about it.

The Phlog is not broken in any aspect except for animation canceling the taunt. It is a very, very shitty weapon.

See, when I said most people don't know what they're talking about, this is the sort of thing I mean. In terms of survivability, Pyro is second or third best, behind Scout and maybe Soldier. Pyro is immune to projectiles if the shooter isn't close to him, and can push anything in his face away from him with airblast, fucking up their aim and momentum, while also being really annoying to hit because you can't see anything through the stupid flame animation.

This is basically right. The Detonator and Scorch are actually really good at long range, but their mid-range damage is nonexistent. Meanwhile, Shotgun is worth running in short-mid range. You only get to pick one, and because Pyro is so slow, the enemy team that is not running Pyro gets to control the distance at which your teams are fighting, which means you should be fighting at a range you suck at fighting.

But yeah, I do mostly agree with this. Pyro is garbage with broken elements. I feel like people are forgetting what is broken about the Pyro. The stock flames are far too easy to hit and do stupid amounts of damage considering that. That's not going to change no matter how many unlocks you ban. Pyro will still be annoying when you're pushing into last and when holding Gullywash last, and it will still be garbage when you're not doing those things.

So please, just walk backwards and don't feed him rockets, instead of banning random unlocks.

This isn't a great attitude to have. You shouldn't dislike change on principle. You should dislike change because it leaves the game worse than it was before.

Jungle Inferno flamethrower is one of the worst changes they've made to the game. But it's not because it's different, it's because it's fucking dumb. We need to make sure we're looking past our instinctive hatred of change so we can provide accurate criticism and ensure the game we play is as fun as possible.

This makes no sense. if something is easy to hit then it's easy to hit. If you need knowledge to hit something then it isn't easy to hit.

Incorrect, it is impossible to play passively with this because it has shit range, slow switch speed, and shit airblast. You want Stock for maximum airblasts and afterburn, or Degreaser for fast switch speed, or Phlog for maximum idiot killing power, if you plan on playing passive or flexibly as a Pyro. This thing is literally only good for W+M1 and hiding around corners. You can't even stall Ubers with it.

It's actually pretty good against Pyros because of the slightly longer range and most Pyros don't have the reflect timing down because nobody runs it because it's fucking garbage. That's one of the better things about it.

But yes, flames are obviously better at killing things because they are much easier to hit than the Dragons' Fury (I'm happy to see you agree with me about that now) while also doing much more splash damage. Also, you're harder to kill with projectiles because of the threat of airblast, while the Dragon's Fury has large periods where you can't airblast, and you need to hold down m1 to keep faster firing rate, which means Soldiers and Demos feel safe blowing you up.

I...why would Valve want you to play passive with a flamethrower that can't airblast or charge Phlog off of Detonator spam? What the fuck are you talking about?