Who am I?
I'm just a pub and HL pyro called hyuri
I have about 500 hours on pyro.
I am not a native speaker of English, so please excuse my grammar and spelling mistakes.
Big thanks to cheshirecat13 and totoro for grammar and spelling corrections.

The Big advantages are

• Passive reload
  
• Ability to be spammed
  
• Low risk

also

• Can cover long range
  
• Can compensate for the -25% burn damage of degreaser

The Flare Gun can cover long range, but the pyro is still a close range class.
You may feel as though you're doing work by spamming the gun at a long range, but good players will easily dodge repeated flares, and you're not doing that much damage with it.
Sometimes you can catch spies, but it's not your main goal with the flare gun.
I also like spamming the flare gun, as shown in guide video(around 3:00), but because of the spam I can't kill the scout.

Low risk
There are some axe-dedicated pyros, but I don't recommend this style. It's risky because you don't need to be too close to the enemy to flare them, but you have to be very close to axe them. People who can aim well will kill you before you can even get close.
In HL get close to enemy is one of the hardest thing as a pyro.


Passive reload
The flare gun needs two seconds to reload, but it will reload even if you have another weapon out. This is a big thing.
In general, keeping your primary out is a lot safer, and you should only use your flare gun when you plan on shooting it.

Ground stalling — R.I.P ground stalling

This is a technique that pushes the enemy into the ground and makes him unable to move momentarily. You could easily hit a scout flare with this. However, Valve has since patched this.
This was the best way to hit flare but doing ground stalling itself was difficult on flat ground.

Airblast & Flare
This is the most common and reliable way of hitting flares. The degreaser is the best primary weapon for this because of the +65% faster weapon switch. At higher levels, people are better at air strafing, so this faster weapon switch is the key to hit flares consistently.
After you get used to the airblast & flare combination, you won't even need the crosshair to hit flares Most of the time, this combo involves a short time of flaming, so flame + airblast + crit flare does over 100 damage.

Flare punch — hitting a flare without airblasting.
The degreaser is also the best to do this, and it can't be done without the degreaser on an enemy pyro.
I don't think you should flare punching anything but pyro generally because of the reliability of Airblast & Flare.
Although some exceptions I find are against people who are not aware of you and moving in predictable way.
For example I do this against snipers standing still to get powerjack kill and a buff from it.
Or against soldier that are not aware of me when I want to combo with powerjack.
Also heavies ,they are really good target to flarepuch.
Sometimes you have to do it to win the fight against them.
Usually you can't win face to face against them and more safer to airblast + flare and run away.

After flaming at the pyro, change to the flare gun and shoot it. I recommend continuously holding M1 while changing to the flare. When the enemy pyro just keeps moving forward at you, you can easily flare punch him.

Flare at mid to long range
This is pretty much prediction ,like hitting DH at mid~long range.
You should hit the target going in the same direction with some practice.
Although I didn't practice like this vid. Pubbing is best way to be good at flare I guess.

I don't recommend holding out flare while reloading.
If you are holding flare out its really easy for enemy to know that you are trying to shoot a flare.


ping and flare
Obviously the lower the better, i can hit flares pretty consistently with 100 ping .
but with over 130 I start missing flares especially when I try to shoot flare "not aiming ,shoot as soon as possible" way.
This is mostly because airblast becomes unreliable I feel.

You can kill 125 hp classes easily, but watch out for a little overheal.
If they don't die with flare combo ,just flame a little bit.
Either way, they are gonna die without heal though.

I always run powerjack ,so if i didn't kill with flare combo. I like to go for powerjack kill because of the health boost.

As a flare pyro most annoying enemy is probably a shotgun pyro.
When you playing highlander ,pyro vs pyro is dumb and doesn't happen that much.

Generally I avoid pyro vs pyro fight because the damage per second against other pyros is lower than that of other classes.
And the fight tends to take longer if enemy pyro has a similar style and that longer fight gets me killed a lot.

vs shotgun(RS) pyro
Avoid this, good shotty pyro will destroy you.
Sometimes charging into them surprise them and could kill them.
Most likely they will switch back to primary and airblast you.

If you know you can't run away
Try dodge their shotgun by strafing,or by airblasting them(while damaging them)
and make them waste 6 clip of shotgun and maybe you can win.

Still this is not a good fight to take ,avoid it if you can.

vs flare pyro
This is not a good fight for both. Long fight distracts you and makes other enemy kill you easily.
the timing of their shooting flare is not that random,so you can reflect their flare but reward is not that great . It's just 41 damage.


vs w pyro
Just back pedal and keep flaming.
Especially with attendant set,you can back pedal as fast as normal pyro that makes a little easier.
You can out damage them just by holding mouse1(while back pedaling) even if you're using degreaser.( When you have certain distance)

Remember that when you're moving forward ,flame reaches shorter than usual.

Blue boxes on the following photos show the hit box of flame
Standing still


Moving forward

I don't talk about flame range deeper because this is flare guide.

If you have powerjack(especially) or other melee except for axtinguisher or postal pommeler,try melee them because mostly they don't do airblast.

Practice flare punch with these pyros.

You can actually critz axtinguisher pyro ,although It's difficult for me.

A scout as 125 HP, 110 with the sandman and 140 with the pocket pistol. Scout is the most difficult class to hit with the flare because of their double jump and speed.
At open area and if you and the scout have about same skills, you can't win this battle(you shouldn't).
Good(?) ways to counter this are

• Avoid an open area as best as you can
  
• Make them believe you're escaping, and then bait them to a corner
  
• Hope that you hit flare twice

Good scouts know the range of an airblast and flame and will hit you a few times and kill you. Some scouts with good aim might try to get closer to you and meatshot you, which is when you have a better chance of doing some damage.

When scout is in the range of airblast
If they didn't expect you, most of the time you can hit flare.
If they do or/and they are good most likely they're gonna double jump to dodge flare.

・Aim as usual
-You can kill half of the scouts especially in pubs in my experience

・By aiming higher than usual ,you can sometimes hit scouts who double-jump after being airblasted.
-If you know the scout always jump in an attempt to dodge, you can do this if they jump straight up.

・After you airblast the scout most scouts will jump , wait until they jump and hit flare
you might die while you're airblasing them if they are good enough to shoot you.
-This way you can hit most of the time.


If you miss flare
You need to quickly switch back to primary
This is why I love the degreaser, not only does it make it easier to hit the flare combo, it also gives me high viability.

After switch back to primary:

• Flame them down
  
• Airblast them and mess their aim and then flare them.
  
• Airblast and melee them

Flame him down
If you can keep track the scout this is a good way to kill them because most likely he is within flame range.

Airblast him and mess his aim and then flare him.
After missing your first flare if you can airblast quickly enough they can't double jump again and you can hit flare easier.
But because you airblast twice you're likely not that close to them ,so aim flare carefully
he can airstrafe.

Also don't forget flare needs 2 seconds to reload
Probably you can't shoot flare immediatly after second airblast.
This split second could kill you.

Airblast and melee him
I do this only when he's against wall.

Against shortstop scout
"Increase in push force taken from damage and airblast"
After big update, they decided to fly more.
If you try to hit flare as usual you probably miss it.
You should aim carefully .

This includes when to airblast a solly.
Ideally, you want to airblast him when you think he would shoot a rocket.
If you can reflect a rocket that hits, he will most likely be bounced up, which makes it harder to hit a flare.
However, a reflect rocket does over 90 damage, so it's okay if you miss the flare.

At close range, reflecting is almost prediction. If you know the interval between the rockets and the soldier who is continually shooting them, you can easily reflect the rockets. But, not many soldiers will just spam rockets.
Still when soldier bombs in medic or is in desperate situation ,he tends to shoot continually.

For me main goal vs soldier is hit flare and reflect rocket if I am lucky.
If you feel you are losing against certain soldier in an attempt to reflect,just quick flare him and run away.

Medic has 150 hp and health regen.
A little flame+flare won't kill them and they run faster than you.
So chase and flame after quick flare combo is harder.
(Except when they are against wall of course . Wall is your friend.)

Ideally make sure flame longer and then flare them.

One of the biggest advantage of attendant set is
You can chase medic easily. rip

After the big update QF is now more used in general and actually Qf is annoying for pyros.
You can't airblast them and outdamage the heal rate.

Basically don't go for a heavy

• at open area
  
• with overheal

If the heavy isn't watching you, and you have the axe, flames, flare+axe or the axe+flare, these do about 300 damage and should kill the heavy before he kills you.

Use corners to your advantage
Use a corner and then quick flame + flare them.
Three times and he should be dead.
He might jump out around the corner and try to get you — watch out for that, you can't get out of his minigun line if he's good.

At mid to long range
Hitting a flare is not that hard. A good heavy will know you'll try to hit them, and he'll try to dodge them. You can hit flares if he is moving predictably, but you shouldn't focus too much on flaring a heavy alone. He doesn't die, because he is a wishmaking fairy heavy.

Before the big update it didn't have this section.
But because of the buff of chargin targe, I'm writing this .

With chargin targe he has 50% fire resistance and no afterburn.
When you hit flare he takes 15 damage and 3 afterburn damage (which is 18 in total)
They are more resistant than pyros for some reasons now.

I still don't have best way to fight against them.

Because there's no speed bonus with set now and I tend to play with around 100 most of the time, I don't do just flame at them strat that much.

It tends to be really nasty fight but I will go with "flame them a little bit, airblast, flare, airblast, powerjack"
Well pyro is stupid class in general anyway.
You can actually crit flare them with the flare punch but it still only takes 45 damage.

Gas jockey is dead but the way i found most useful use of powerjack is ,
Switch to powerjack , gain speed ,jump and switch back to your primary in the fight.(Like old GRU)
This way you can get +15% more speed in the air and because the time you're holding out your melee is so small it's not gonna hurt you much.

This is really useful when you chase someone or even during the fight.

And in general being fast is always nice.

Power jack switching
I call it this way,explained above.
I do this manually. For this, I have a bind[mouse5] to switch to melee and when I press Q it switches back to primary .
If you're using my pyro cfg and add following binds
you can switch melee and primary quickly (by pressing mouse5 and Q)
and still you can switch primary and flare quickly by pressing Q when you're holding primary out.

bind "mouse5" "+axe"
alias +axe "slot3; +attack;alias switcher equip_flamethrower2flare"
alias -axe " -attack"

some points you should aware

• don't jump against hitscan class when you want to come close to them
  when you want to escape , jump
  
• don't jump around corner
  you might come across someone at corner your primary should be out here(much safer)

power jack majestic

level1 dispencer/teleporter
5 flares

level2 dispencer/teleporter
6 flares

level3 dispencer/teleporter
8 flares

level1 sentry
5 flares

level2 sentry
6 flares

level3 sentry
8 flares / 1 reflect sentry rockets +4 flares / 2 reflect sentry rockets +1 flare

I should've make separate video for each section.
the time of annotation being displayed is short (I didn't want to make the video longer)
so stop the video if you need to.
Make sure watch in HD

listing up questions in the comments
I'll try my best answering although my English is not enough


How to deal with spies
I want to talk about these particularly for HL and 1v1 situation.

Dead ringer(pre nerf)
Probably is most commonly used watch.

HL
If you would think pyro's job is killing spy, you may think deadringer is annoying as hell.
In my opinion one of your jobs is finding spy and help team kill him or literally save teammate by using airblast.
Pyro is best at finding them but not best at killing them.
Usually, soldier or scout is best for killing DR spy because they can move around faster than you.


I think DR spy is less effective at getting important kills than IW and CnD.
Although DR helps staying alive ,in HL staying alive is not that important as a pick class,spy.


DR is good at staying alive and keep trying to get a lot of flank kills(sometimes important)
Sometimes number advantage helps team push ,sometimes important kills help team push.

What you have to do when there is a Dr spy

Watch out when your team push, they like sitting in a corner and getting picks.
If you saw DR spy triggerd DR(or someone say DR spy), you can guess where they can be and take ammo pack and flame around.
This is not only your job this is team's job to look out though.



1v1
Best way to kill a DR spy is just airblast against a corner or wall and wait for the DR to end,
but sometimes this is not best way to go for a team.
If you just watching the spy and airblasting ,you're not watching sky or behind you.
Soldier may bomb in when the soldier saw you watching DR spy.
I've seen a lot of pyros being stabed by another spy when they're just watching one spy in pub.

As another situation, when your team push , pyro is just chasing spy and doesn't join the push.
Wasting your time on spy can be worse than leaving the spy alive.

if you know you can't airblast a spy to the corner or wall and backing to their team, don't chase the spy.


spy cicle
A spy has 2 seconds of fire resistance after they touch the fire while holding the spy-cicle.
HL

This is maybe annoying for pyro. Important thing is, this is only for pyro.
They are sacrificing their ability to stab for viability
(or maybe they don't like getting killed by pyros no worries I also don't like that )

Once you touch spy-cicle spy with flame or flare your job is almost done.
whether they are invisible or visible.
After that, your job is not killing spy , it's team's job.

1v1
when they are invisible
some way to keep tracking of spy-cicle spy is

• listen carefully to the sound its melting

If you listen carefully to the sound you can guess where they are going while you can hear the melting sound.
But this is hard thing to do and usually there are a lot of noise around you.

• listen their foot step sound and guess

This is not only for spy-cicle spy.
This can be used for generally IW/CnD/DR spy.

Pretty hard with noises though.

• airblast them

by airblasting them you can restrict their movement and guess where they are easier even if they are invisible.
if you can airblast successfully you can hear the sound airblasting.

• keep flaming at them

if you can keep flaming at the spy you can hear the sound the flame is hitting the spy.
you should tell if your flame hitting the spy or not by the sound.

Generally I flame around and If i couldn't catch spy. I leave them.

In HL, I flame around where I don't want them to be, like behind medic.

when they are visible (most likely they are gonna shoot you)

With shotty,it's pretty much the same as you kill the 125 class, although you can't axtinguish immediately.

With flare, you have some trouble .You can't deal damage for 2 seconds with your primary and secondary.
With revolver they can shoot 3 shots for 2 seconds and can kill you.
Especially if you have axtinguisher, you might think backing up against spies.

spy-cicle + DR
There are 2 type of using this combo.

Spies using this combo will either shoot you for 2 seconds and then DR to get away, or use the spycicle and the DR at the same time and try to get behind the team.

• Shoot you for 2 seconds and trigger DR and trying to get away.

This is most annoying for pyro.
If they are just with teammate and shoot you or your team,you can't kill them, and they can kill you.
But this is not effective as spy at all.

• use spy-cicle with DR and trying to get behind

Trigger spy-cicle and DR simultaneously
spy-cicle helps spy to get behind team.

If you try to find them ,what you have to do is the same things I said earlier.
Sometimes wasting time on spy doesn't worth though.
spy check is not only pyro's job, it's team effort.
they are likely waiting for the recharge somewhere ,so calling out is important.

Where the hell is my pyro config
here I reccomend updated version of my cfg.
or pyro config updatedhere for latest cfg

(under construction)

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=157362466#
日本語バージョンはこちらにあります

Some people added me through this guide but I don't accept random request comment here or my profile if you need to.


I really appreciate the pointing out about my English grammer or miss spelling
Top picture of pyro by tomate045 ,shout out to him.
If you have any question,feel free to ask below comment.
LIKE and share if you did :)
Thanks for reading and hope this helps you.



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