10 replies to this topic

[Sha]

Hi, I started to play lobbies since a few days as a pyro (mostly 9v9) and I'd like to know if playing roamer pyro in some situations is ok (ruin an uber from behind, destroying enemy tele and kill people who didn't expect to see you etc), or if the pyro only has to spycheck and protect engi / medic.

 

Thoughts ? (and sorry if my english isn't very good)

[Shea]

Glad to see you coming to the community! It kind of varies what you do as pyro ( a good time for you to roam is when the enemy spy is dead) Also if you notice throughout the match that you don't need to protect the combo as much.  Either way, you'll eventually get a great grasp and such as you get more games under your belt! 

Best of luck in the community.

[ManSkirtDude101]

You are part of the combo communicate and play with your combo if needed if your combo is pushing push with them either behind or infront of them depending on the situation. I would also reccomend trying out dogeball servers to get your airblast timing right.

[Luop90]

Airblast is key, but in reality you have to find a balance on how you want to play.

 

Do you want to be a pyro that always stays with the combo / pocket, never allowing a spy to get a pick or a soldier to bomb?

 

Or do you want to be a flanking pyro that essentially becomes another pick class?

[Roxanne]

BACKBURNER! 

[The Once and Future King]

BACKBURNER! 

 

PHLOG

Edited by The Once and Future King, 30 September 2014 - 01:23 PM.

[icy]

The entire point of pyro in highlander is to babysit the engie, stick with the combo, and of course, spycheck. If you roam, you aren't doing your job as pyro correctly. Airblast is an important aspect of pyro, and you should always practice with hard to airblast projectiles, like the direct hit. Whenever they deploy uber, you have to annoy them as much as you can by airblasting the combo and setting other enemies on fire so the med can flash his uber to them, decreasing the time of uber.

[The Once and Future King]

The entire point of pyro in highlander is to babysit the engie, stick with the combo, and of course, spycheck. If you roam, you aren't doing your job as pyro correctly. Airblast is an important aspect of pyro, and you should always practice with hard to airblast projectiles, like the direct hit. Whenever they deploy uber, you have to annoy them as much as you can by airblasting the combo and setting other enemies on fire so the med can flash his uber to them, decreasing the time of uber.

 

Generally speaking, you are correct.  However, I would disagree to some extent.  The pyro can roam, but if they are it is their job to kill the spy first and then roam whenever the spy is down.  The pyro should always know who the other teams spy is and keep an eye on the scoreboard to know weather that spy is up or not and it he is up then stay near the combo, if he is down you have the freedom to roam.  I've also played on teams that have had the pryo primarily roaming and the team just being observant enough to spycheck themselves (because despite a lot of peoples beliefs the pyro is not the only person responsible for spychecking) and while I only subbed for that team they had fewer spy problems them some teams I have played on in lower divisions with pyros as dedicated spycheckers/reflectors.

[TERRY CREWS]

The entire point of pyro in highlander is to babysit the engie, stick with the combo, and of course, spycheck. If you roam, you aren't doing your job as pyro correctly. Airblast is an important aspect of pyro, and you should always practice with hard to airblast projectiles, like the direct hit. Whenever they deploy uber, you have to annoy them as much as you can by airblasting the combo and setting other enemies on fire so the med can flash his uber to them, decreasing the time of uber.

If you can boil down the uses of the pyro class into babysitting and spychecking, you're doing something seriously, incredibly wrong.  Pyro is one of the most versatile classes in HL, and if you're locking him into things that he's just marginally better in, you're wasting space on your team.

[vela]

 

The entire point of pyro in highlander is to babysit the engie, stick with the combo, and of course, spycheck. If you roam, you aren't doing your job as pyro correctly. Airblast is an important aspect of pyro, and you should always practice with hard to airblast projectiles, like the direct hit. Whenever they deploy uber, you have to annoy them as much as you can by airblasting the combo and setting other enemies on fire so the med can flash his uber to them, decreasing the time of uber.

If you can boil down the uses of the pyro class into babysitting and spychecking, you're doing something seriously, incredibly wrong.  Pyro is one of the most versatile classes in HL, and if you're locking him into things that he's just marginally better in, you're wasting space on your team.

 

Fucking, this.

 

I've played in a few lobbies with a medic straight out of steel and he got whiny because I wouldn't stick with the combo.

 

If you do want to play that baby sitting role then that's fine, but when the spy goes down, use that time to help your flank, rotate out and help your team on the other side of the battlefront. A pyro can easily deny/suppress a push and is really handy at DM and clean up. 

After about 15-20 seconds are up (depending on the map), rotate back to your combo if you want. 

Like Terry said, if you really want to simplify pyro to a spychecking class, you're putting your team at a serious disadvantage. A team should be aware of the spy at the appropriate times, if a medic drops to a spy, it's not just the pyro's fault, but also anyone who was around the medic.

 

Most of the time, you're going to see the Heavy do more spychecking than a pyro tbh.

 

Once your team gets 'spy time' down properly, the pyro is able to do so much more.

[Aphex]

From Aphex, the shitty 4s pyro main:

 

So, I'm seeing a lot of the same things being repeated here, and I'd like to add to them. I'll start with spychecking: It's important, and you can do it better than anyone, but remember you (A) aren't the only one that has to do it, your team has to be aware of their surroundings, so you're mostly only going to be spastically checking for spies when your medic has >60% uber, or your team is about to push and you don't want to lose your demo, heavy or med, and ( B ) during the time that the spy is down, it's really up to you what you want to do; on an open map, it would be advised to stay on a short leash to your combo, but move around a bit, but on a closed map you have a bit more freedom to try and catch out any players. Moving onto the next part of this is that when a player is overextended, you can keep them that way by stunlocking them until you either flare them, or someone else on your team does the cleanup, so if you can punish someone, do it. Learning to count ubers is also very important, as you're going to need to know when the enemy combo is likely to push so you can be in a position to deny their entrance. On to the topic of airblast, stopping a bombing soldier is actually much easier to do than it may seem. The soldier has to shoot very close to the end of his jump for his bomb to be effective, so if he shoots way up in the air, you  usually shouldn't bother reflecting it, because you need to wait for the one close to the ground. Once he's within flamethrower range, M2 him, you'll usually get him and his rocket, and send him flying across the map. And if you miss the rocket, he's still sitting up there in the sky with no momentum other than what your airblast did.

 

I've probably missed a few things here and there, but if you're looking for a comprehensive guide, this is your best bet: http://forums.steamp...d.php?t=2616391

Edited by Aphex, 15 November 2014 - 05:11 PM.