Yo! It’s ya boy Ken and I aint got ♥♥♥♥ to do so I decided to make a guide on how to play Guy Firey himself (the pyro not the chef) in a non-competitive/PUG Scene, and to help casual players and pros understand the pyro’s central role in the basic game while also expanding into info about the current meta. I highly recommend that you fact check everything I say and please, please tell me if i ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up anywhere in particular (yo help is appreciated). I’m not a perfect pyro (nor a pyro main), just a very team-minded one who has thousands of hours (yes thats plural) of experience carrying teams in pubs.

Now Lets Jump right into this shall we?
In Summary Pyro is a patch-over class. Unique, dynamic and highly capable within his limits. He is perhaps the most adaptable class in the game, able to perform in nearly every role and function, but unable to specialize in any of them. This makes him a priceless addition to a team. Pyro is not for the lazy or slow-witted. Pyro is for the twitchy, Flame-retardant, Madman within us all. But there is a method to his madness...

The stereotype of the noskill w+m1 pyro is the farthest thing from the truth, as is the notion of him as a godless overpowered speeding death machine. Pyro has several distinct strengths and a few glaring weaknesses, all context-defendant within the flow of play. Absolute adaptability and split-second decision-making, the ability to change roles in an instant, are required of a pyro. His focus is team-wide and knows no true boundaries. He is the harried fixer, the deadly mascot, the king of teamwork, and an incredibly rewarding maniac to ♥♥♥♥ with.

In this guide I will break down the mindset and behavior of playing pyro, the most common class-specific roles you must fill as a pyro while playing on a team of mixed classes, possible loadout choices to fulfill these roles, and a class-by-class overview of how he can make every other class’ perform better at their job. This is how you help win games and carry bads as a pyro.

If you find me repeating myself it is because the point bears repeating. *Kappa*

Tf2 is one of the most tightly balanced team shooters ever made. Say what you will about tf2 in 2015: If you play the base maps with all stock classes, you’re playing an excellent piece of game design.

Each class truly has a specific arena of utility in mind. New weapons stretch these but the basics are concrete, and no class can dominate the battlefield (yes I know that demorushing is comp meta as a psych-out “chips all in” tactic, but in the base game modes of tf2 a 12 person team restricted to all demomen will not win versus a team with full class availability, assuming both teams can communicate verbally and are on an equal skill table).

So, if each team member is supposed to fill a specific role in this tight balance, why add pyro at all? We’ve seen that he can’t fill any particular role perfectly. He’s the odd man out in a game where everyone has one fairly rigid job set. The only thing he can’t do well is long range area denial. The only thing he can do better than anyone else is, quite literally, putting out burning teammates.

My opinion is that the need for a roaming syngerist is absolutely necessary to tf2 in order for the basic game to function properly. Assuming every other class knows their role and is set on carrying it out, this puts eight classes into a distinct lane. No class can really veer into another’s lane.

For example: Scout, Demo, Sniper and Spy are all pick classes but none of them pick the same way. Only a spy can pick while wholly negating the engineer’s area denial power. Only a sniper can pick from across the map. Only a scout can effectively pick and harass simultaneously. Only demo can pick and area deny simultaneously. They must lock in to these roles and focus on them.

Pyro absolutely lacks this key-in-lock focus. For the pyro, his wide array of jobs are his focus.

Teamwork, for the 8 primary classes, can be summed up with “performing their specific roles with proper timing.”

All classes can perform basic teamwork in the form of focus-fire, harassment and distraction. Beyond that, the way a good team wins a game is having the right class doing what only they can do at the same time the other classes are doing what only they can do. A team steamrolls when everyone is aware of the proper timing for their job.

A medic has to uber on time, or the push fails. An assault has to be present on time for him to uber. A scout has to dive in for a pick after a sniper takes down the heavy blocking his approach. A spy has to sap at the right time for a demo to lay stickies down or for a soldier to leap in with his rockets.

But the pyro does not have one job he needs to be performing on time: So, what’s the deal?

In order for all of this correct timing to work, everyone needs to be focused on their job. A pyro is there to cover the blind spots in that focus by shouldering the burden of the many unrelated tasks. The pyro is the metronome of the team: he helps them keep time.

An example: Spy checking is vital. It keeps your team able to focus on what’s in front of them and aim properly instead of flicking their mouse all over. Any class can spy check, but it actively interferes with their ability to be in the right place at the right time. This is half of a spy’s job: to make it more difficult for the enemy team to strategize. The pyro is not only good at spy checking, but he can do it *while doing other things.* this means that his specific focused role is, in fact, helping the other classes to harmonize their efforts. This works to the opposite as well: he’s adept at disrupting the harmony and timing of the enemy team. Ambushes and airblasting destroy enemy timing. On top of that, his airblast is secretly a team hp management tool. Reflects and putting out fires provide significant help in reducing damage to his own team, which makes him a sleeper buddy for the medic who is invested in keeping the entire front lines overhealed constantly.

The pyro’s role is more meta than any other class, and the hardest to actually see and understand, due to the fact that it goes largely unnoticed.

Nobody notices a good pyro when a good pyro is on their team. All they notice is that they’re able to focus on their own tasks much more efficiently, and able to keep a better eye on when to strike.

The enemy team absolutely notices when a good pyro is against them. They notice that when they try to ambush, they’re already on fire and airblasted against a wall. The enemy spy can’t get close to anyone to stab safely. Enemy soldiers and demomen are pinging for half the damage they should be on key targets. Enemy medics keep getting forced back from their pocket by flames and crits.

The pyro’s role is invaluable: he helps you focus more on your own thing. And while tryhard mlg players harp on about how every class should be taking care of everything all the time, there’s a major demonstrateable difference in team efficiency when someone’s constantly watching everyone’s back. Aim improves, timing improves, survivability lengthens, and teams roll faces.

And while this entire notion may seem to infringe upon the medic’s turf as a strong support class, medic battlefield positioning and role are completely different. A medic’s support feeds into his actual hidden role as the most important assault tool in the game. He cannot take a moment to focus on dealing with threats, whereas the pyro mops up threats while minimizing the damage his teammates take.

If you look at the pyro from this perspective, he could easily become overpowered with just a slight nudge into the territory of another class. The way that the pyro is kept within the closely watched boundaries of balance is by ensuring he has no long range hitscan or dps.

The flamethrower’s range is an excellent point of relativity for him: it forces the pyro to claim territory rather than fire *into* territory. The flamethrower is secretly his leash. He must be physically present and vulnerable to all non-melee weapons in the game for him to have any real influence in a skirmish.

The flare guns and shotguns allow mid-range influence, but no secondary the pyro possesses significantly out-damages or performs any other class at midrange. This ensures that he’s on a level playing field when approaching or retreating.

All in all, this limiting of the pyro’s range must absolutely be maintained in order for him to be the team-unifying force that he is. Another area that could disrupt this balance if infringed upon is the buffing/healing arena. Scout, heavy and soldier have all been given weapons that allow them to provide healing for the team while carrying out their role. The pyro should not move in on this territory, as he is already geared towards preventing damage rather than healing.

A pyro is always on the move when on the homefield If you’re not sneaking up on someone to kill them, you’re right beside or slightly behind your team. You sell propane (and propane acessories). Burning propane. You are needed literally everywhere at all times. Your gas-masked eyes are sharp as the edge of your axe. Even a pyro on strict defense is all over the place, keeping an eye out for where he is needed (and places not yet in need).

You do not camp with the engineer all day until the cows atop 2fort come home.You do not bum-rush the enemy team over and over hoping for cheap afterburn kills. These are bad pyro habits. However, you may find needing to babysit or take an entire flank head-on for a fleeting (and critical moment) of distraction or displacement. It's your duty to recognize when, where, and how you’re needed. There are no true pyro rules, only guidelines.

THERE IS ALWAYS A SPY
There are always projectiles flying at distracted teammates. There are always scouts humping your medic’s gibbous with their Unique quality candy canes re-named "Butthol" there is always a paranoid seal-clubbing medic who spy checks too well, has a pocket who can splat wimpy scouts and knows knows how to avoid sniper line of sight. There are always critical stickybombs two seconds from detonating beneath a vulnerable sentry (and its owner). Solve a problem and move to the next problem. Rarely are you needed in one place for very long.

Friendly territory is your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ town. You own it. Nothing touches it without your permission. No scouts allowed. No spies allowed. No high-flying sollies or demomen allowed. Snipers no Snipin. You are watching it every single moment because every other class is busy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ the enemy team in a specific crevice or orifice. They are counting on you to watch the grounds like a hawk and keep them clean and safe. You are the super. The lord of all janitors. You clean fleshy scum from the grounds of your base and purify it all in flame.
Know the maps. Learn the terrain like you would the cheat answers to that exam your about to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fail. Remember to take cover behind nearby geography. Cover is as vital to you as the flamethrower in your hands and the flaregun in your pocket. Never loiter around in the line of sight of anything that can out-range you which, Just so happens to be, literally every other class in the game.

Spy-checking and you:

While you roam the length and width of your team looking for work to do, you are spy-checking. This is not its own job. This is a reflex that is hard-coded into every fiber of your deranged being. Everywhere you go, you flick flames. You do not suffocate the M1 button. You puff-puff-puff little 2-6 fuel coughs like a small dragon hacking up its lungs. You puff teammates. You puff thin air. You puff corners while moving. You do not stop to puff. You are a machine. You are a central heating unit. Spy-checking should be as natural as breathing, eating or spamming chat. This is a learned behavior with its own natural rhythm, just like your autistic rants on the internet every 4 days.

Keep a full tank:

You do not drop below 100 fuel. You collect weapons and ammo packs to re-up every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ moment you’re not by a dispenser. 200 fuel in the can at all times will save your life and the life of your team.

You do not steal from the engineer if he has no dispenser up yet. If necessary you will pull ammo from out of your sharpie-loosened neet ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and feed it to your pyro through the nearest usb port sooner than steal an engineer’s metal while he sets up. Find ammo elsewhere. You have a secondary and a melee if you fmake a mistake up (like the mistake you are) and run out of gas and something needs to die immediately.

Dyin’ aint much of a livin’:

There are guides on how to not die as a pyro. Look them up. Fast and hard advice: skirt the front lines. You should only cross them head-on when a medic needs to die in the next two seconds and literally nobody else can get it done. Otherwise, you are not front-facing the enemy team spraying impotent flames like you’ve got irritable bowel syndrome. You are on the hunt for ways to help other classes do their job, you are pinging injured enemies for damage, or you are sneaking around behind enemy lines to perform a specific ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ task.

When playing pyro you are constantly on the lookout for an opportunity to quickly fill the appropriate role. Depending on loadout and circumstances you will be filling one role or another more frequently. Some roles you will rarely fill. Some you will be stuck in for minutes. This is the nature of playing a fume-addled psychopathic maniac: you must be everywhere at all times, attentive as a fox rigged on drugs, and aware as possible of what every other living thing on the battlefield is up to.

Here are the three primary roles a pyro is constantly falling into and out of in the flow of play. These are all to be performed on the fly, when needed. You thread them together into one team-unifying river of heat, pain and success.

Role 1: pseudo-assassin
Choose a key target behind or within enemy lines and kill them right the ♥♥♥♥ now. Ambush, puff n’ sting, flare crit, backburner, airblast + terrain.

Weapons suitable for role: degreaser, flare, axtinguisher, backburner, reserve shooter

Pyro cannot perform true pick. Pyro does not need to perform true pick. Scout, spy, demo and sniper should be busy with that. But sometimes, something needs to die right now and the only man around is the one with a flamethrower and a mask.

I call it “pseudo-pick” because pyro has no actual instant kill options (besides taunts). However he’s got a few that are damn near close, especially for the 125-150 HP classes.

Example threats to pick off: medics, demomen, snipers, engineers who have just begun setting up shop, snipers who can be flanked that are covering a choke point

This role comes up when a critical threat to the team is within quick reach, or when there is a ready ambush (flank, come from below or drop from above) route to said critical threat. You want to deal lethal damage within around the span of a second. A handy tool for this is the axtinguisher. It’s the poor man’s backstab. One tiny puff of flame and one smack in the back will kill any of the above threats unless topped off with overheal. Hits from the side or front will take two or three swings. The goal is to kill them without being seen beforehand, and ideally during, so that you may escape after. But if you must throw yourself before the mercy of the enemy team to snuff an uber, kamikaze for the cause.

With all of that said almost any class will die incredibly fast if you m1 them at point-blank while avoiding their weaponry. Thus even a stock pyro is not off the hook for pseudo-picking. He just has to do it the old-fashioned and unsubtle way.

Your airblast can help you flee after the deed is done. This is why you keep a full tank and why you don’t use the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ phlog. Kill the bastard, blast the enemy team away and bolt for the nearest corner.

The backburner m1 will kill almost as fast as puff n’ sting, but it will draw attention. It also has a narrower window in which it crits. Axtinguisher crits like a spy knife: ~180 degrees behind them. Backburner has a 90 degree crit zone. You must try to aim dead center or slightly off which can be tricky once they realize they’re on fire. And the costly airblast will screw you harder than a power drill I can 98.7% guarantee it.
Flare gun/reserve/shotty requires fast fingerwork and, usually, a wall. Light them, staple them to something flat, hit them with a flare or shotty blast. Repeat if they don’t die. This is less efficient than a melee strike and leaves you more open to attack, but some people perform better with the flare or just like the gimmicky reserve shooter. The shotgun can also work.

The powerjack can get you places faster, which helps with pseudo-picking. Kills with it also restore health, even overheal, allowing you to chain-ambush if you’re just that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ solid snake badass.

If the enemy medic is dumb enough to be frolicking around by a cliff or even a non-lethal ledge to some pit where his beam can’t reach from, send him off of it. Congratulations, you just bought your team time for a push.

The key to pseudo-picking is choosing the right time to strike and the right angle of approach. You must think like a spy. You are essentially covering for the absence of a spy. Any time spent practicing as a spy (especially with your eternal reward) will help immensely. Time spent rocket and sticky-jumping will help you when surfing enemy rockets or performing reflect-jumping. This role is well-served by your experience playing other classes.

If you spec your loadout as an ambush-focused pyro you should be doing so to fill the gap of that role on your team. If your dr. Enforcicle f2p spy is too busy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ a furry porn spray to do his job you can step up and fill those shoes. You will be at a disadvantage for area denial, but the beauty of the pyro is that he can perform all of his roles more or less competently with nearly any loadout.

Role 2: area denial

Keep prime real estate team-friendly. Bait, detonate, scorch, buckshot bully, airblast out of range, throw flames, reflect. How to choose your real estate. How to keep property values high.

Weapons suitable for role: stock weapons, scorch shot, detonator, back scratcher, powerjack

One of the pyro’s most powerful tools is his very presence. Engineer, heavy, soldier and demo are the kings of area denial. You are the crown prince.

There are always specific enclosed areas of maps on the front lines that you don’t want the enemy team to pass through. Keep an eye out for them. Then get six rancho relaxo engis to nest on em cause they are YOURS ALONE (and your teams).
These map areas should ideally have a roof over your head to keep rockets and stickies from raining down. They should have tight-ish corridors, or at the very least enclosed rooms, so that snipers can’t perform high-velocity brain surgery on you. They should, ideally, contain ammo and health pickups (which you exploit and deny the enemy access to). High ground can work as long as you watch out for jumpers and clever snipers. Low ground without overhead cover is an absolutely terrible place for you to be. Bringing a teammate or two will magnify your ability to preform area denial but they will likely be performing their own role while you curate the space around them.

Do not camp. Instead, move through these areas frequently while watching for other places you may be needed. You can peek at the enemy team briefly to perform recon on their movements and to spam flares/pester preoccupied enemies with flecks of buckshot. This forces them to flee to a medic, dispenser or health pickup. If someone tries to come in, back up and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ murder them if they’re stupid enough to follow. If they try to come in with a medic humping their ass or with fifty buddies, airblast them back then reassess your situation. Flee if there’s more than you can handle. Stay if there’s less. If you have an ammo pickup handy and the entryway is narrow, you can sometimes even block them off until they decide to finally apply mental strategy to the situation and change approaches or bring help. Reflect projectiles away from you if they try to flush you out. Or just move back a little and let them try to peek and fire around the corner. Then deliver it back to them.

Influence
As you roam your team’s territory and pick opportune zones for area denial, you will often find that your very presence will influence enemy team behavior. They may double their efforts to take the ground you’re covering or they may decide it’s not worth it because you’re a huge pain in their derrier. Either way, they’re not in control. If they foucus a push on you, their other flanks are thinner for it. If they ignore you they give you more room to harass, push into their territory, and ambush.

Stock primary/secondary is very good for area denial. I highly recommend it. The Detonator allows you to harass groups and can give you more options for positioning and escape. The Scorch Shot allows you to save flamethrower ammunition by exploiting the knockback, and can shove enemies back at long range. All flare guns save for the manmelter put you at a disadvantage against other pyros, as even split-second puff-critting with the flare gun requires focus on that pyro alone. The powerjack is an acceptable sidegrade, allowing you to zip between your area of denial and elsewhere.

Another option is the “self-reliant” pyro loadout, exploiting the back scratcher. This is excellent for when there’s a wider area, somewhat separate from your team, that you want to take control of in advance of a push. The scratcher allows you to survive longer by picking up health and does more damage in a pinch. And, if you must fall back, you can hustle to the medic and give them the juice needed to uber up. The powerjack is an acceptable sidegrade if you’re good with melee timing.

And for the love of god if you see sniper dots flickering around the entryway don’t ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ go through it.

Role 3: Fighting Fires with Fire and Air (Do not try at home)

Weapons suitable for role: flamethrower/degreaser, any secondary, any melee

The role that lies between pseudo-picking and area denial is the bridge between the pyro’s extremes. When you’re in and around your teammates, you are helping them do gooder-er and take less damage. This role is performed in between area denial and pseudo-pick, as you move through your team in and around their kill zone.

See someone on fire? Don’t wait for the medic to fix it. Put them out. This is why the phlog is crap and you’re crap for using it unless you also bring the manmelter. Learn medic triage from any medic guide and apply it here. In short, lower hp classes need help before higher hp ones. Saving someone’s life at 1hp will earn you accolades and offers of mindblowing sexual services from complete strangers.

If you see a projectile flying at an injured friendly and you can intercept it, do it. Just Don't put yourself in danger or attempt to block every rocket and pill. Your teammates also need to pull their big-boy pants on and learn to dodge. But by intercepting dangerous projectiles you allow them to focus on getting healthy again.

Be mindful of the engineer(s). Do not camp with them unless they are under noticeable and direct pressure. Some engineers are bad at situational awareness and need more help but don’t let it distract you from other priorities. You’re not their babysitter. Bounce rockets away from sentries and buildings. Reflect pills, both in the air and lying on the ground, to change their color and prevent team damage. If he’s having severe spy trouble feel free to switch to homewrecker/neon and give him a hand. Switch back whenever possible since these weapons are not very good for any other role (pseudo-picking sentries with a sledgehammer is satisfying but, in all honesty, much easier to do with any flamethrower)

And, while all of this is going on, take any and every opportunity to leap on any wounded enemies in reach of your flames. All of your weapons, particularly afterburn-inducing ones, are amazing finishers. If you see an enemy at mid-range take a friendly rocket to the face whip out your secondary and finish the job.

Reflecting stickies is possible but in my experience very tricky to perform without being baited by the demo laying them. They roll strangely, sluggishly and almost always don’t go far enough to avoid taking damage. A demo spamming pills at a sentry can be dealt with much easier than a sticky-spammer. Generally speaking it’s better to deal with the demo directly by harassing him away than to screw around with his stickies.

Now you may be thinking “so kill, expand/hold team territory and assist teammates wow such an insightful guide I could’ve puked that out in 12 seconds.” and you’d be correct because that’s a short summary of the pyro’s main jobs.

But they are performed in many ways, alongside eight different classes, who all have their own specific roles as well. The pyro can help each class perform their own job set. He has the most synergy on the battlefield out of all classes. He is, in fact, *the* synergy class. In this section I will outline the basic roles of the pyro when fighting alongside the offensive classes so all of your scout, solly, and pyro brothers can rest easy knowing youve got their back(burner).

Scout team roles: kill, harass, cap, intel

How you can help: Scouts exist to pick off vulnerable key targets in a skirmish. Harass their targets with your secondary or puff them to start afterburn. This reduces the number of meatshots they need to land, and allows them to escape or pick more efficiently. If you use voice communication, or if the scout picks up on what you’re up to, you can work together very efficiently without interrupting the flow of your own business. Just one flare/det or a couple shotgun taps can often be enough to help them land a one-shot-one-kill. You need to think sharp and watch your peripheral vision in order to co-operate, as scouts operate in a drugged up little world of their own and will usually not be worrying about what you’re doing.

As with all kill classes be mindful of your airblasting around scouts in a skirmish. Shoving people around at random can interfere with their ability to kill, unless you’re working together to pin an enemy to a wall for their convenience.

Put out burning scouts before anyone else, unless it’s between them and a medic who is two ticks from dead. Rarely will you be deflect-protecting them. If they can’t dodge a slow ass rocket they need to play something else. The exception is when they’re on an objective such as the cart or a cp point. Then their pathetic hp pool *absolutely* needs your reflects (Be sure to touch the cart yourself to maximize its speed).

Soldier team roles: Area denial, crowd control, pocket, ambushing

How you can help: Soldiers either blow things up or blow things away. It’s not complicated from your standpoint. Any damage you do helps them blow ♥♥♥♥ up faster. A clump of burning enemies is like a big red bull’s-eye for an airborne soldier (especially air strike soldiers). Burning enemies tend to either run away from you, or turn all-in on you for a gangbang kill. Use both responses to your advantage. Ambush/harass when your soldier is making their move. If the enemy is concentrated on your flames, they won't dodge rockets all that well.

Frequently you will be hovering around the push line with your friendly sollies like an angry hornet. Target enemies who have taken hits from rockets first to secure a finish. Your secondaries are great for this.

Soldiers are slow. Help them with incoming projectiles when making a push so that they can retain HP for rocket jumps.

A soldier’s pocket medic takes precidence over the soldier in terms of value. Protect the medic first when they’re pocketing/roaming.

Pyro team roles: Everything in this guide

How you can help: If one pyro is out ambushing, stay back with the team. If a pyro has your territory covered, peek ahead for ambush opportunities. Keep track of what they’re doing so that you can focus on the other end of the spectrum.

Make use of their afterburn by combo-ing flare crits and stings. If the other pyro has a loadout geared towards one style of play, consider changing loadout to focus more on another.

A team really doesn’t need more than 1-2 pyros in my experience, so consider switching classes if you already have enough.

In this section I will outline the basic roles of the pyro when fighting alongside the Defensive Classes and disscussing the logic behind protecting a heavy from spys rather than an engineer.

Demoman team roles: Area denial, pick, mayhem, demolition, tank (Demoknight)

How you can help: The Demoman is a vicious, death-dealing one-eyed powerhouse that can hold their own against almost any threat in the game. They’re usually on the front lines helping soldiers hold ground. Treat them similarly as you would soldiers: finish off wounded enemies by keeping general track of who they’ve damaged.

There’s two things they can’t cleanly deal with: scouts and snipers. Scouts you can help with readily by setting the little buggers on fire and juggling them into grenades and stickies. Demomen and you share one weakness: no long-range hitscan. One thing to keep in mind however is that Demomen can sticky jump to their targets while you can’t do jack with exception to the ocassional flare. If its all you can do though go for it.

Airblasting is a very useful tool for helping demomen. You can push enemies into stickies and pills which in turn nets you assist-kills for doing so. Demos have to lead targets, and a juggled enemy is perfect prey for literally any form of demo attack (including charges). However be cautious and blast efficiently, not wildly. If you airblast an enemy off of a sticky trap or in a direction that throws off his aim, you’re actively harming your own team’s efforts.

Demomen are a little bit slow, just slow enough to need some assistance with enemy projectiles. It helps them conserve HP for sticky jumping.

Heavy team roles: Area denial, anti-air, pocketing, defending objectives

How you can help: Heavies will always be on a specific task, usually the objective. Like you, they stake out ground. But they cover it even better than you do, so you become adjunct to their presence in terms of area denial. They frequently come with a pocket medic, who you’ll most likely be helping more than the heavy themselves.

The greatest boon you can grant to a heavy are your watchful eyes. Heavies have to focus on their targets almost as doggedly as snipers do, which puts them into a single-minded state of tracking and waiting spun-up for threats to come into view. This means they’re not dodging, not able to spy-check and not able to flee from enemy pyros. That’s where you come in. Heavies need lots of help against projectile spam. You can think of them like a mobile sentry. Steer enemies into their killzone with flames and airblasts. Push enemy pyros away from them to extinguish the heavy and put distance between the pyro and him. Juggle scouts away from them when necessary.

Engie team roles: Area denial, defending objective, gunslinger offensive, Ninjaneering (rare)

How you can help: The “pybro” is a bad phenomenon. While engineers benefit greatly from the presence of a pyro, it’s a waste of your flexibility to spend all your time running in circles spy-checking their nest. They need you when things get nasty, which is why you keep your eyes peeled for the state of the battlefield. While roaming around in search of team members who need your help you can duck in and see how your engie is doing. You’ll find, in the end, that you can get a lot done elsewhere on the battlefield while still keeping an eye on him.

Engies need you badly in two situations: Concentrated spy trouble or big pushes. If you hear engie problems occuring such as sappers being placed or smacked off, head on over to help by setting the frenchman responsible on fire. Keep an eye on the enemy team’s rhythm by watching the battlefield and kill feed so that you can get a sense for when they’re planning to push. You can stop pushes in their tracks just by puffing flames and then airblasting ubers, pockets and groups back from around a corner. This allows your team precious seconds to see what’s happening, or to get through the teleporter, and back the engie up.

Bring the homewrecker/neon only if you have significant spy problems or if another pyro has taken a more dedicated ambush/pseudo-pick/roaming role. Keep in mind however these melee items put you at a disadvantage overall.

Medic team roles: pushing, controlling the battlefield, healing, pressure

How you can help: It’s not too complicated, really. Just do everything in your power to make him not take damage and he will win you matches. Deflect projectiles, harass enemies, spy check everything and airblast scouts away from him. If you see an enemy running up to him and you’re even slightly convinced it’s a spy, *airblast* the suspicious team member upwards or away instead of puffing so that you screw up his stab. Your medic needs every % of his uber.

Pyro makes a bad pocket and a worse uber target, generally speaking. “b-b-but muh dps.” no, you’re not a good pocket. Sentries throw you back. Enemy pyros will laugh and shove you away. Solly/demospam juggles you. It’s counter to your class design to take an uber and charge the enemy team. “b-b-but muh phlog.” yes, the ubered phlog taunt can destroy an enemy push, but only if you and the medic co-ordinate an ambush. Which very likely means he’s spending time humping your soft, flame-retardant buttocks instead of doing his actual job. The only time this is really viable is if you have the phlog and he has the vaccinator which is much more suited towards pocketing due to its increased uber rate, and even in this scenario it would probably be better to heal a heavy.

Put out medics who are on fire. Medics suffer less from afterburn but it’s still nice to do and gives you points, both in the game and with god almighty who art in heaven.

I have oft-thought that, if valve wanted to be honest, they would declare medic as an assault class and pyro as a support class. Yes I know this would confuse f2ps into thinking that “assault” means “run at the enemy firing needles.” but in all honesty medic is absolutely an assault-oriented class. They’re always on the front lines pushing the damage-dealers forwards, even when the team is defending. Pyro supports more than he pushes. Keep this dynamic in mind during play, and consider it to help understand why a medic is so vitally important to a team. It should remind you why your job is to help him stay alive more so than it is to help him kill things.
Unless you use the Phlog

Sniper team roles: Assasination, area denial, being useless

How you can help: lowest degree of synergy in the game, bar none. Almost every sniper is where you’re not, doing something you shouldn’t worry about. That said, there’s a few things to keep in mind.

Arrows catch fire, so puff friendly Huntsman users. This is easy because you’re already spy checking.

When in a scuffle you can keep an eye on friendly-color laser dots if you’ve got a sharp eye. You can easily airblast someone that a sniper is drawing a bead on and not even realize you ruined someone’s chance at an instant kill. While it’s not your job to help a sniper aim, if you see a dot flickering around someone try not to puff them in a weird direction unless your life depends on it.

Don’t hang around spy-checking for snipers. It’s their job to turn up the volume and use what little they have for brains.

Spy team roles: Assassination, recon, sapping nests, psychological warfare

How you can help: spies are very rarely anywhere near you or what you’re doing. There’s a few little tips to help you and them succeed. Let them do their thing while you do yours, and only intercede if you can provide a life-saving or stab-securing distraction.

When out on an ambush run listen for the sizzle of sappers. Co-ordinating an attack on a nest can quickly spell ruin for it as long as the spy keeps the sentry on lockdown. While the pyro is absolutely useless versus engineers normally, the flamethrower makes fast work of sapped gear and will kill the engineer along with it.

Put out invisible spies who are on fire if you’re both behind enemy lines so that they can double-back and trick the enemy into thinking they’ve died or retreated.

A handy, if somewhat rare, trick you can pull when on the front lines is when you see a spy uncloak some distance behind a line of foes. This is an excellent opportunity to get their attention fast and brutally, and earn several assist kills when he chain-stabs all of them. Putting them on fire can ruin his approach, as many enemies will turn face and run with their back to you. Harassing with your secondary is usually more effective as a distraction, as it keeps them focused forwards. The exception to this rule is the backburner because it forces the enemy to face you in addition to the fact that you will generally be hanging around spys for greater amounts of time when using it.

Generally speaking, airblasting enemies while a spy is trying to fish for stabs is just messing him up. But if you see a chance to airblast someone in the face so that they fly backwards towards a spy approaching behind them, you can earn them a free stab. Try and make sure that the spy is a good distance back so that the enemy doesn’t fly *behind* the spy. This can readily be applied when on the front lines.

In summary:

Your behavior when on the move should adapt to who you’re hanging out with in a given area, at the given moment. Your three roles (ambush/pseudo-assassin, zone control, team support) should flex to accomodate other team members in your space. If one of them is covering that role in an area, you know that you’re free to scan for other opportunities to help.

If you take only one thing away from this guide its this:

Pyros do not work alone.

Even when ambushing, you should ambush in co-ordination with your team’s presence and return to them when finished. When staking out new territory, you’re preparing it for someone else on your team to occupy or move through. And then moving on to the next team member who needs help or enemy that needs deadifying. Extended deep-cover pyro gameplay is fun, but just like being an engineer babysitter you lose a lot of your potential usefulness. Keep it moving. Don’t get hung up on one role thinking it’s all you’re supposed to do.

On the Topic of Death
As you may have noticed this guide has gone through the many ways pyro can do almost anything quite well if he teams up with someone else or positions himself correctly. Well he also dies a lot. All the time. Even pro pyros admit this. So how? How can such a quick-acting and contextually relevant class die all the time?

There’s three primary answers as to why.

You get outranged

Anyone farther away than the shotty damage sweet spot can screw you 1000 diffrent ways.
Even a spy. In fact, especially a spy if they have an ambassador or crit-filled diamondback swaggling about in their limp gaulish wrist. All of your attack options have limited range. It’s the nature of the class.

Snipers are a terrible nuisance for a pyro and the second-firmest of your hard counters. Headshot, bodyshot, huntsman spam: it’s all bad. Outside of a crit-charged Manmelter you have no clean way of dealing with a sniper out in the open. Flares aren’t a real threat to them (harass them anyway when possible just to keep them distracted). The shotgun can ping them for 3 damage at a time if you’re lucky. They force you to follow safe, covered routes or to hang out near corners waiting for an enemy to come around. There’s no clean and easy solution to the threat they pose. In a sense they help you understand the limits of your mobility. As you die and die and die to headshots, you will begin to see the “map” of where you should be and where you shouldn’t. Square up and learn how to avoid their sights. Damage-harassing them still helps mess with their aim, although it will not save your life if you try to hang out in their long and wide scoped cone of instant death. When the opportunity arises, take the long way around and destroy them with an ambush. One very risky but hilariously fun way to deal with snipers is rocket/sticky/pill surfing or reflect jumping across the map into their nest. There’s few snipers who can accurately hit a flying pyro in mid-air, if they even notice you’re incoming at all. Keep in mind that this takes practice.

Besides snipers there’s also a threat of being outranged by demomen with airbursting. In this case, you can either retreat or close the distance. Closing the distance puts you at very significant risk, and probably shouldn’t be attempted without a teammate handy to harass the demo.

Scouts and spies can outrange you with their revolvers/pistols. Normally this isn’t a huge threat unless you’re low on hp (which is unfortunately a common case for pyros) or if you hang out in their line of fire like an idiot. In either case, dissuade them with counter-attacks while retreating. Ambassador headshots and diamondback crits are a much more serious problem, and you should be wary of any spy using the ambassador. Thankfully diamondback spies are few and far between or they would be a problem too. Let’s hope they don’t catch on.

And if an engineer has the wrangler just leave unless you’re a legend of reflect jumping. If the engie is decent he won’t even shoot rockets at you anyway.

You get outgunned

The flamethrower prints damage like a mint at point-blank range. It’s the federal reserve of damage. And yet frequently you’ll find that it will not kill as fast as you need it to.

A sentry is your #1 hard counter. Good luck reflect-killing an engineer and sentry without a pocket or a lot of practice. While it’s possible to deal with nests through exploiting positioning and circle-strafing around a sentry while it targets you, the plain and simple fact is that you lack the sort of tools needed to deal with nests efficiently and safely. This is why you have teammates. Once the sentry itself is preoccupied by bonk/sapper/uber/other teammates you can thrash a nest with your flames, or the homewrecker if you brought one.

You can’t outdamage a non-braindead heavy face-to-face if you’re both at maximum HP. It’s just not going to happen at flamethrower range. You probably can’t puff and sting him fast enough. You certainly can’t shotgun them down fast enough. And you really damn well can’t flare-crit fast enough. You should ambush them or leap on them after you see them take several heavy hits.
Alternativly ambush them with the backburner or the charge phlog for an almost instantaneous kill.

Mid-to-long range soldiers are a piece of piss: predict and reflect. They’ll hate you or they’ll switch to the shotgun. But at close range a soldier can easily tank your flame long enough to get off two rockets, especially if he has a black box/conch/battalions. With these they can spam at your feet, making reflecting very dodgy business. Likewise with demomen: unless your timing is godlike, they can sticky-smear you with ease at flamethrower range. There’s a sweet spot you’ll discover that, if you stay within it, you can reliably reflect and dodge their attacks. Depending on your loadout you’ll be better or worse equipped to do the ol’ reflect and switch-harass.

You get outmaneuvered

Generally speaking, a pyro lacks maneuverablity. Note that maneuverability does not equate to “speed.” a pyro moves at 100% speed, which is speedy enough to make him highly dangerous, and he even has the powerjack which makes him run faster than a medic and just below the speed of a scout. But he does lack maneuverability. Scouts double jump, soldiers/demos/engies explosion jump, medics can run quick fix, and on many maps a spy can literally relay-race while invisible from one spawn to the other and back again if he has l'etranger. Pyro hoofs it everywhere. The only way a pyro can obtain true three-dimensional dominance is by learning how to surf and reflect jump, which is some pretty advanced stuff. Cool as ♥♥♥♥ though if ya know how to do it.

The detonator does provide the pyro with a mini rocket jump. While handy, it stings worse than would be ideal and it’s pretty limited in terms of practical application. Some people disagree. There are videos on how to make good use of it that you can google.

Jumpers of all stripes. They circumvent your relative lack of mobility by raining down attacks on you from above as they veer in. Be mindful of the skies. A well-timed airblast can interrupt their plan, but it’s very common to find yourself dead instead. This is another good reason to take control of enclosed spaces and areas with a roof over your head when you’re able.

Scouts are a problem. Yes they die incredibly fast but they pop out of nowhere and can down you in two meatshots. Scouts can easily outrun your flamethrower, and on top of that a good scout will not be seen before he dunks you like the scrub you are. They can also outrange you with the pistol, guillotine, sandman and wrap assassin. Three of those four can be reflected, but the guillotine is damned hard to see flying at you and the other two have futzy reflect physics. A good way to deal with scouts is just plain foresight, awareness and prudence. Keeping a twitchy eye on your environment is critical to avoiding getting the schaudenfreude from some tryhard with a strange killstreak Lime-green Australium Haunted Unusual scattergun and a top-kek username. Airblasting is a very good way to interfere with a scout’s rhythm. The shotgun can be more useful than the flamethrower in some cases where the scout is trying to gain height or mid-range dominance over you. A quick puff to get his hp frying away is all you often need before switching to the shotty and taking patient, well-aimed shots. Alternitivley you could be an ass and use the reserve shooter but I beleive the entire community would be much better off if you didn't.

Cp/Payload/KOTH

Capture points are a good place for you to be on offense and defense. It’s a specific zone you can stake out and keep enemies off of using airblasting, reflects and your very presence. However, it doesn’t serve you too well to literally be standing on the objective unless you’re actively capping or pushing. Stand by, wait for someone to move on it, and then strike. If a group pushes for the point and a lot of your teammates are dead, you can buy precious seconds by peek-and-blasting them away repeatedly. It won’t work for long but it will shave time off of their efforts. It’ll work longer if you have a medic handy, but remember to grab ammo.

Specifically regarding the payload cart on defense, you’re better served airblasting. Since the cart is essentially a mobile dispenser for the enemy team you’ll want to buy your team time by scattering the enemy around and breaking up their formation around the push.

On both modes you’ll find yourself frequently resorting to area denial tactics in and around the capture point. When in accord with an engineer on defense, it serves you to hover near the sentry killzone where you can still provide help for your other teammates but also keep one stray eye on the nest for problems. Always remember that if an enemy is trying to peek around a corner to kill a sentry that you can airblast them twoards it for an easy kill. The Engi will greatly appriciate it.


Payload race

This is an interesting one. Capping and shoving the enemy off of their cart can often become a tug-of-war of responsibilities. Generally speaking, you do more harm to the enemy team by helping with your own push than you do trying to block them. Engineers are much better at delaying the enemy than you are through shoving them around, so only resort to juggling and harassment when it’s down to the wire.


CTF
Being arguably the most basic game mode in the game and the first game mode to ever exist CTF largley makes use of just about every pice of advice in this guide. Being well known for favoring no particular class in general you should be on an equal playing field in most CTF maps outside of 2fort (which can be compensated for by being a usless degenerate pyroshark).

The Pyro is a challenging and fun class to play and he is great at accomplishing just about any task you can name provided that he has teammates to help. One thing to keep in mind however is that you dont have to be amazing to play pyro, just have fun. Seriously if you leave this guide with nothing else then leave with these four things in mind.
1. TF2 was made to be Fun
2. You dont have to be perfect just play the game.
3. Everyone has bad days and good days, if you dont succeed at first just practice, even a pro can lose in a pub on a bad day.












4. Bush did 9/11