Why Pyro Is a Good Class, by egg.
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hello tf2g it has come to my attention that you are all too shit at the game to play pyro so i thought i'd write a thesis on why pyro is in the top 3 classes in the game. this isn't some bullshit about pyro taking skill or not, it's about objective facts which place him a step ahead of other classes.
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Section 1 - Innate class abilities.
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Durability - Pyro has 175 health and immunity to afterburn. His airblast ability is able to reflect projectiles away from himself, which can greatly reduce burst damage taken. It can also disrupt hitscan aim on unsuspecting enemies and be used extinguish allies for a free 20 health. Pyro is arguably between Soldier & Heavy in the survivability department.

Mobility - Pyro has 100% base speed and no form of advanced mobility by default, except for chance situations. The Detonator & Scorch Shot may be used to perform blast jumps, though using either means giving up most of your burst damage, and both can be costly to health. Pyro is a very light class, more or less like Scout. This, paired with his large health pool can allow him to safely and reliably use enemy blast damage to propel him toward the enemy. The Powerjack boosts Pyro's speed to 115% when held, the second highest base speed one can achieve right out of spawn with no special conditions required.

-Pyro has the best mix of speed and durability in the game.-

Damage - Flamethrowers will deal 115-161 damage per second. Flame particles are much like Medic's syringes in that they correlate with player movement, and can be timed to strike in even more rapid succession than their stats suggest. Because of this, the Flamethrower's true DPS is hard to gauge. Flames ignite enemies for 10 seconds of afterburn, which deals an additional 3 damage every 500 milliseconds until it runs out, is extinguished, or it kills the enemy. Reflected projectiles will deal 135% of their normal damage to any enemy they hit, which is a very good source of burst damage. The Flamethrower's main advantage over other primary weapons is that it has a very large ammo reserve and no need to reload, so if given the opportunity you have enough ammo to burn down everything in your immediate range. And I do mean everything, since flame particles have infinite penetration and will hit multiple adjacent enemies at once. These two stats give the Flamethrower the best multi-target damage of any weapon, even more so than explosives since splash damage faces outward from impact and is not all-encompassing.

If you get the jump on any number of players, you'll probably win. If they see you coming, their combined burst damage will probably kill you before your short ranged weapon can hit them enough to do anything worthwhile. This is where the assertion that Pyro is a flank / ambush class comes from. Like Demoman, if you don't take out the Pyro quick, there's going to be a problem.

Utility - Airblast is dope nigger. It can push retards off cliffs. It can stall fast moving classes enough for them to sperg out about how any minor hindrance to their mobility is broken. It can be used to set up a perfect shot with your secondary. It can save your teammate's ass if a rocket is about to hit them or their building. It can completely negate an enemy Medic's Über push. It does everything.

Aside from that, you can be an Engineer's pet with the Homewrecker but if you literally only play Pyro to do that instead of actually fragging I suggest you metaphorically kill yourself.

Team Interactions  - The single best Über target if a sentry isn't your main threat, and one of the best pockets in general. Since Pyro's damage is more sustained than burst oriented, a pocketed Pyro is pretty fucking strong since he'll live long enough to burn down everything. For reference, if you're a Soldier four rockets probably won't be enough to kill a Pyro being actively healed, but even if you're being healed yourself he's still got 150 fuel left by the time you have to reload. Not to mention that even if he just reflects a single one of your rockets, even if it doesn't hit you, you're beyond fucked. Shotgun won't do much to help you in that situation either since you know, the Medic and all. Also as already mentioned, you can be a (((Pybro))) for your team's Engineer but that's gay.

Section 2 - Weapons
Flamethrower is pretty reliable all round.
Degreaser is very strong because it gives you enough burst damage to kill Scouts & Soldiers before they kill you.
Backburner and Phlog are fun but not reliable.
Shotgun is good and puts you on level ground with everything for single target damage.
Flaregun is okay but flareguns in general suck lmoa.
Powerjack is good because it lets you go fast.

In short if you aren't Shotgun-Jockey you're shit.

If you have the Degreaser equipped, igniting a scout for like a fifth of a second and then switching to shotgun and blasting him in the face will kill him before he can kill you (assuming he isn't a FUCKING FAGGOT USING SODA POPPER HOLY FUCK). you can add an airblast too at no extra charge but if he starts retreating don't.

Section 3 - Peripheral benefits

Since Pyro's flamethrower is the fastest firing weapon in the game and relies on you keeping your mouse on the target at all times and never getting circle strafed, feel free to up your sensitivity as much as you like. Your aim doesn't need to be perfect for particles, you just need to lock your crosshair on the target always until they die. Making your sensitivity super fucking high as Pyro will help your effective reaction time and has pretty much no drawbacks since even players with bizarre movement can be corrected with airblast before shooting them with your secondary. I personally am using 2.3cm / 360 right now and it works fine. The highest I ever used was 1.6cm / 360but that was a little too high to be consistent with hitscan. Aside from sensitivity, you can use a special script for drawing your melee weapon as long as your designated key is held, and have it switch back to your primary the second you release it. This, paired with limiting your quickswitch key to slot1 and slot2 helps with using the Powerjack to its full potential and not stumbling over your keys or switching to the wrong weapon.

That's all I've got for now and with all this being said, Pyro is not perfect and there are many refinements to be made to his functionality but he isn't shit and I will fucking report you if you say otherwise.