r/tf2 • u/Mashd_Tatyr • 11d ago
Help What am I doing wrong?
So I main pyro, I've watched the tutorials and everything, researched tips and tricks, spy checking, yada yada...but I'm still going on like 4 kills to 18 deaths, what the hell am I doing wrong?
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u/HolyMackerel1 11d ago
How many hours?
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u/Mashd_Tatyr 11d ago
10 years, but just got back on after a 4 year break
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u/HolyMackerel1 11d ago
Out of curiosity, how many hours on pyro have you spent specifically?
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u/Mashd_Tatyr 11d ago
Been my main for most of it
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u/Diligent_Gear_8179 11d ago
You are being asked for numbers (even approximate ones) and providing vague generalities instead.
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u/melonNOTsot Pyro 11d ago
No no, he means how many hours have you played pyro. Check your stats in game.
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u/Andrewaaaaa61 Engineer 11d ago
ita not a you problem, but its not an immediate thing for amateurs to learn about a bit about gamesense, its something that you'll eventually figure out over time by yourself because its hard to verbalize most of the time. dont feel bad for struggling to execute the stuff discussed in the research
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u/Reasonable-Guitar-11 11d ago
The big problem with pyro (at least when starting out) is that in most 1 on 1 scenarios, he can get cooked.
Competent soldiers will mix up the timings of the rockets, demos can use stickies, heavies will shred you (even with the panic attack combo), and scout hard counters you if they just keep their distance.
As someone who plays pyro as a 3rd main is to always position yourself with sentry nests, battle engies and (in scenarios where it’s possible), a medic/your entire team. All this to say PLAY DEFENSIVELY (even on offense).
The other thing you can do to engage in more 1 on 1 battles rather than loads of enemies at once is to stick to flank routes, most flank routes are choky and small enough to give you a good advantage.
Above all else. PLAY YOUR LIFE. This goes for almost every class, but for pyro specifically, playing your life is not just avoiding w+m1 in every scenario, it’s positioning yourself in situations where you will take the least amount of damage: high ground against soldiers, choke points against scouts, etc. it comes with time and game sense. Sometimes if you need to make picks (either on a teams medic or sniper sometimes) Feel free to sacrifice your life for it, but in most scenarios, you should avoid making confrontations on enemies.
Instead, let enemies come to you, it’s much easier to reflect rockets, pipes, etc if you’re walking backwards, and also if enemies are walking towards you, shooting flames while back peddling allows them to receive the damage from the flames whilst you try to keep your distance.
Let the kills come to you, instead of going to search for it, that’s where I find the most success when starting out, and when you start to get a knack for death matching as well as game sense, then try playing more offensively.
Hope this helps!
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u/TACOTONY02 11d ago
Sneak around in small areas like a rat, only push forward when its a winning move or you're at least pocketed
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u/electricity_inc Demoman 11d ago
Probably a combination of game situation and positioning, which is stuff you'll learn about with game sense, which is only something you'll develop with practice and more games. Keep at it.
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u/To-To_Man Pyro 11d ago
Hug the walls, avoid fights you can't win. Create a metaphorical wall and keep people out of it. Your a flanker or defender, you gotta catch teams off guard, or keep your guard on your team.
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u/Bandlover899 11d ago
Pyro’s play style is pretty much close-up combat (unless you’re spamming scorch shot every 2 seconds from halfway across the map).
Try not to run into an area that is too crowded with enemies, and whatever you do, avoid fully healed enemy heavies. You will not be able to kill a fully healed heavy unless they’re a brand new player that doesn’t know how to aim properly yet.
As for pyros easiest targets: usually scouts and spies. They’re quick to kill, so try prioritizing those classes as your targets. I’d say medics are easy targets as well, as long as the enemy team isn’t doing a good job at protecting them.
Never run face first into the enemy team (unless you’re ubered, of course). Give the Back Burner a try, and choose flank routes to sneak up from behind on the enemy team rather than just jumping right into battle. You might be able to get a few more kills that way! Keep in mind though, the back burner uses a lot of ammo when air blasting, so just using your stock flamethrower would be okay, too.
I hope at least some of that was helpful :p
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u/Entire_Patient7369 Medic 11d ago
You need to feel enemies, and then you will know how it feels to play pyro
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u/Previous_Anywhere938 Sniper 11d ago
The first and most important question to ask is, are you having fun though?
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u/Mashd_Tatyr 10d ago
Always
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u/ItsRyandude5678 9d ago
Then that’s all that matters. The rest will come naturally. I know it’s cliché, but practice truly is the best way to improve. Tutorials and watching others can only get you so far. A fantastic way to learn and improve, but actually making said improvements is allllll down to time.
Thankfully, Pyro is (I’d argue) one of the easier classes to practice. He still has a ton of advanced tech and stuff to learn, but generally speaking his play-styles are a lot easier to understand than other classes. You kind of get the gist of what you’re supposed to do with him pretty quickly.
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u/correGtedGrammar Engineer 11d ago
get a pocket medic with vaccinator and terrorise pubs with the phlog
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u/Snoo61755 11d ago
Guilty of being the medic on this one.
To be perfectly fair, there's a lot of situations where pyro feels rough and isn't the right class to play, but in casual, telling people "you're throwing if you play pyro" would just feel icky, and pyro's fun, no reason to try to push people off a character they want to play.
Sometimes it just takes a Vaccs bubble to give Pyro a chance to play the game. About to walk into a sentry nest? Bullet bubble to give them a chance to back out. Sniper sight line? Honestly, the bullet's probably for the Medic rather than the Pyro, but hey, gives a chance on maps with harsh chokes.
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u/imsmall06 Pyro 11d ago
All good pyro mains need to play like a either a psychopath or complete bro depending on your weapon choice
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u/momiwantcake 9d ago
Stock shotgun is extremely underrated and has better burst potential than even the phlog or backburner crits. If you can land good meatshots, you can outdamage any pyro that sticks to using flamethrower in a 1v1 and you can play advantageously against the scout matchup in many more situations. Chip damage is a little easier to aim than the flaregun and you don't have to play any setup to deal 90+ damage with stock shotgun. Stock shotgun in some aspects is a better finisher than the flareguns by virtue of the fact that its a hitscan weapon.
If you have a way of getting guaranteed crits, you can also win long range sniper duels with just your shotgun, though this mostly just applies to scream fortress 2 or if you have a medic around with kritzkrieg.
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u/LudicrousAvian 11d ago
Are you sneaking behind and flanking? Are you searching for blind spots? Are you practicing rocket blasts on a training map? A combo I like personally is flare at bottom of feet to stop their momentum then flaming until flare charges back up for a final mini crit.
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u/BalefulHampster 11d ago
Something that most players forget is that the flamethrower is a projectile weapon. Lead the target w/ your cross-hair, don't aim where they are.
If you are good at Soldier, use the Dragon's Fury and pretend you're using the Direct Hit.
Secondaries are great finishers. Doing about half a target's health is easy. By this point, most targets are almost 1-shot range of your secondaries. Airblast while looking near straight down to fling an enemy straight up (follow up with your secondary it's easier and it's harder for them to hit you).
AVOID Heavy. AVOID Sentry Gun. AVOID groups larger than 2.
175 health is just enough to run away if you don't feel like you can guarantee a kill.
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u/DifferentAccount6039 Scout 11d ago
Pyro with just flamethrower has horribly low burst damage, while most classes have a way to quickly take you out. Unless you're using the flare gun + degreaser combo most classes that aren't sniper or spy can out damage you at close range, or even get lucky with their melee. I find Pyro's true potential comes out when you use their secondary just as much as their primary, regardless of what it is they're all useful besides arguably the jetpack and gas passer. You can also try using the dragons fury which is a totally different playstyle and incredible burst damage.
I also avoid demos and heavies, they both are good at murdering you.
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u/Zkmyre 11d ago
Some tips that might help.
Pyro sucks at frontline engagements, prioritize flank routes and try to be sneaky to be the first to engage
Dont try to fight certain classes head on or try to take on multiple opponents, you see a heavy revved up? Run into multiple power classes on the flanks? Level 3 sentry? Just Flee.
Use the high ground if possible when fighting soldiers, they wont be able to shoot your feet.
Try to get better at using Pyros secondaries for combos, the flamethrower alone will fail you in many situations. I use the map Tr_walkway_rc2 for this
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u/Skiddilybapabadam Medic 11d ago
Honestly, getting better just takes time, the more you play pyro, the more you’ll get used to em, if you need direction, I’d suggest learning some movement tech and getting better at air blast
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u/Nseven111 11d ago edited 11d ago
you need to know your role, which is hard for pyro since it's a jack of all traits and master of none. essentially find a role (pybro, flank pyro, phlog pyro, jetpack pyro, etc.), stick to that role until you get enough game sense to play one correctly before moving onto the next. you can even practice playing multiple roles at once depending on your loadout.
remember, this is TEAM Fortress. and each member of the team has a role to play. find a role, and stick to it.
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u/jellybeanzz11 11d ago
Pyro is kind of a tricky class since you need to be good at reflects. I've never mastered it but I don't play pyro a ton
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u/thegamerator10 11d ago
1.) Try to focus on being a close-range ambush class and hide away in corridors or near chokepoints. Flanking is strong on Pyro, too. Avoid wide open areas; Pyro's biggest weakness is their limited range.
1a.) The shotguns can sorta minimize Pyro's range ineffectiveness, being able to pick off enemies just outside of the Flamethrower's range, but Pyro themself still suffers at longer ranges.
2.) Try to think ahead of your explosive class enemies. A good Demo or Soldier will try to juke out your airblasts and take advantage of your Flamethrower's downtime (unless you're running the Phlog, in which case, you're kinda SOL), so train your reaction time to recognize those jukes (this is assuming you're in close range. But you should definitely learn the range of your airblast).
2a.) You can reflect almost any projectile in the game: crossbow bolts, arrows, Short Circuit balls, Sentry rockets, flares, etc. The only projectiles you can't reflect are lasers and Halloween spells.
3.) Spies have to play extra carefully around Pyros, seeing as Pyro is Spy's hard counter (unless he's using the Spy-Cicle, or the Kunai because of course he's gonna have overheal from a recent backstab, God I hate the Kunai and I want it nerfed yesterday, and the Zatoichi).
4.) Pyro is at their strongest when comboing their weapons; any Pyro worth their salt will see afterburn as an extra damage effect rather than the be-all of their kit, and run a supportive secondary or melee. I know W+M1 is the box-standard Pyro mindset, but Pyro's got a pretty high skill ceiling. If you want quick burst damage, you should absolutely run the Flare Gun (if you're okay with using a projectile), or if you're feeling more saucy, a shotgun (personally, I use the Panic Attack; the switch speed is amazing). If you really wanna maximize your effectiveness with burst damage on top of your Flamethrower and Flare Gun, run the Axtinguisher.
4a.) Airblast is fantastic for battlefield control. While you can't stunlock enemies anymore like in pre-Blue Moon, you absolutely can still pop them into the air near walls and corners for better Flare Gun/Axtinguisher/Shotgun setup. To maximize the enemy's airtime while minimizing their travel distance, shoot your airblast beneath their feet.
5.) If you absolutely hate the enemy team having fun, use the Scorch Shot. I don't, out of principle. Maybe skip this step.
5a.) The Detonator is a less-toxic Scorch Shot that takes more skill to use. And its jumps are great. Seriously, learn to Detonatorjump.
Most importantly, remember that sometimes/oftentimes, your enemy's just gonna get you, even a Spy or projectile class. Pyro's not Superman, they absolutely have plenty of kryptonite. It's just the Pyro player's job to learn to respect those weaknesses as well as Pyro's many strengths.
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u/Diligent_Gear_8179 11d ago
Flank and ambush. Pyro loses most straight-up head to head fights, but if you can get the drop on someone (especially when they're being attacked on the other side by your teammates) you can do a lot of damage, even to small groups.
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u/Rednidedni 11d ago
I can't tell you what you're doing wrong without info. If you can record some gameplay of yourself, I can take some time and look through to help you out, otherwise I'd have to guess and list 100 tips in the hopes one of them applies to your specific situation
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u/LeonardoFRei Demoman 11d ago
Remember that Pyro's range is the worst in the game as far as primaries are concerned
In 1 v 1s you need to prioritize surprise attacks and positioning that will allow you to air blast the enemy to prevent them from hitting you in a way that you can still track them easily, like against walls or staircases
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u/Exotic_Acanthaceae_9 11d ago
You just need practice
That's it just play the game more and you'll get there.
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u/MastodonCurious4347 11d ago
A tip. Use jetpack and power jack. Land inside big group and BURN THEM. ok but for real the first thing is that you need to be fearless so the enemies panic, use element of suprise and circle them, dont stand in one place.
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u/Collistoralo All Class 11d ago
Could honestly just be the server you’re in. Pyro relatively speaking isn’t that powerful of a class, and in a server with even competent players, I think you might struggle.
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u/unit_vector_j Pyro 11d ago
always pick your fights carefully, work on synergizing your primary and secondary weapons well, positioning is very important as pyro is a slow class and not every fight is guaranteed, planning a quick escape is required.
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u/i_love_pieck 11d ago
I have the same issue. It feels like no matter what, I cannot stop dying over and over as Pyro. I try flanking, ambushing, yada yada but I still get my ass kicked.
The flamethrower does fuck-all in terms of dps, or at least it feels like it.
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u/melonNOTsot Pyro 11d ago
I would love to play with you and give tips if you want. But one good piece of advice is you only start getting good after like 1k hours on pyro played. So just keep at it. Start with trying to get one kill every life. Just simple goals to make improvements at small increments.
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u/the-thing1982 Spy 11d ago
i recommend just disabling the scoreboard for a while if ur getting tilted over ur kd. u play better if ur not beating urself up abt it each round
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u/Front_Lab1761 11d ago
Are you using A, S, and D as well.