Primary Role: Forward Defence
The pyro’s primary weapon is the flamethrower, and the flamethrower’s primary function is to cause damage, disarray and panic. Hence it follows that the pyro fits perfectly into the forward defensive role. If you haven’t read it yet, check out the Forward Defence article that ’summarises’ what I mean by forward defence. But why does the pyro suit this role so specifically?
The entire aim of forward defence is to prevent the attackers from pushing through to an open area and establishing a foothold a dangerously accessible distance from the control point. The pyro excels at ambushing, chewing up health and causing disarray. Therefore when you throw a pyro into a group of attackers making a push, you very quickly break down their organisation as they are forced to focus on the pyro while running away from him. This not only makes them easy targets for your teammates to exterminate (hurt, burning, and panicked), but it also allows your team to push forward and force the would-be attack into a retreat, gaining you that all-important map control (check out the Map Control article if you haven’t yet for the all-importantness of this).
Hopefully you’ve grasped the pyro’s role in the forward defensive line, but the execution is the more difficult part. He is an utterly short range class, ineffective at anything beyond medium range, so you need to think clearly and strategically. The ambush is the primary tactic in the pyro’s arsenal, and when it works it’s a beautiful thing. Set yourself up around a corner in a position that passing enemies tend not to look, or if when they do look it’s too late. Your next move will depend on what runs past you, whether it’s one or two enemies or a bunch of them.
If you are presented with the backs of one or a couple of targets, you can generally choose one of two tactics. Both begin with you running up behind them and igniting them, and you can judge their reaction to determine the best course of action from there. If they immediately spin around and open fire on you, you’re probably best off dropping off them to about medium range and dodging constantly while gunning them down with the shotgun. During this encounter, head for the nearest health pickup since you will almost definitely be injured and if they get it first they’ll be extinguished. However if they don’t seem to react at all (in which case they’re most likely engaged with one of your teammates), feel free to BBQ them until they drop.
You face a bigger challenge however if you’re ambushing a pack of enemies (4 or more). The best course of action almost always starts with you setting them all on fire, and from there you once again have a number of options. The most aggressive tactic is to stay in their midst, always on the run between them and constantly spewing fire, taking advantage of the panic and visual obstruction of the flames to keep racking up the damage. In this case you’d keep flaming until someone dies, which would imply that the others have been burnt enough to be close to death, and can probably be finished off with the shotgun (remember, the less people around, the less targets for the enemy, and the more likely you are to get hit).
However if you’re a fan of staying alive, you may want to set your target on fire, burn them until they notice you, and then scram. This may seem pretty cowardly and ultimately like it’s not going to get you any kills. That’s not entirely untrue, but there’s two factors to consider. Firstly if any teammates kill one of the guys you set on fire, you will usually get a kill assist which is half a point at least (if they kill all 4 you may get 2 points, which is probably no less than you’d get by hanging around too long and dying). Secondly and more importantly, simply setting the attackers on fire breaks their organisation and often breaks down their attack, and you survive to go and do it again to someone else. This is a big help to your team, and certainly more useful than going out in a blaze of glory, leaving your team 1 man short for 30 seconds.
The pyro’s encounters tend to be very situational, but the key to the ambush is surprise. You want your appearance to be unexpected, so get in your enemy’s mind and think “where would they not expect me?” Go there. Their paranoia increases as they approach the objective, so the closer to their spawn you are, the less they’ll be expecting you, and the greater chance you have of going unnoticed and capitalising on their lack of awareness. BBQ away.
Secondary Role: Kamikaze BBQ
I was saying before that simply igniting your enemies and causing panic was a big help to your team, and after that you may as well run away and live. This is still true, but there are some situations where the benefit for your team will be the greatest if you stay right up in their faces. These situations most often occur when the attackers have broken your forward defence and are bearing down on your last line of defence around the objective. Hell-bent on capturing it, they will probably not retreat, but this can be exploited since they will be more worried about reaching the capture zone than looking to see who’s behind them.
The ‘kamikaze’ part of kamikaze BBQ is perhaps slightly misleading. The aim is not to die, but to be prepared to die. The method is quite simple: find a pack of enemies who are obviously focused on something other than you, rush into their midst from the side or behind, and hold down the left mouse button. Your goal is to do as much damage as possible before you get killed, so start by igniting everyone, then move on to roasting key targets (especially medics, for many obvious reasons), and finally work your way to the back of the pack (usually where the medics are anyway), and burn everyone in it one at a time from back to front. It goes without saying that you should be running and firing constantly to keep your exact location as unknown as possible.
There’s no question that this tactic is very fun and very rash, but there are a few things you can do to increase your chances of survival. Most importantly, stay level-headed and do everything you’d normally do to stay alive - circle around to attack from behind enemies rather than in front of them, if you get stuck go backwards, always be on the lookout for health boxes and medics, things like that. Try and remove extinguishers from the equation, meaning focus on medics, dispensers, health boxes and water and try not to let the enemy use them. With medics out of the way, focus on short-range classes like the scout or the soldier rather than less threatening guys like snipers and demomen. Leave them for last.
And of course it’s not a wedding, and you don’t have to commit yourself until you’re dead. If you’ve reduced a pack of 6 enemies to 2 half-dead burning shapes at the cost of all but 20 health, you deserve to disengage, fall back and find some healing, be it a health box, medic or dispenser. When you decide to pull away however, you may want to keep plugging your targets with the shotgun, just for something to do.
Pyros are also great for raiding enemy forward bases, a forward base being an area where one or more engineers has built some buildings that give the enemy a platform to attack from. These bases are a great method of controlling the map, and the Map Control article will tell you all about why this is unacceptable. If no sentry gun is present, start with any teleporter exits, then move on to the engineer (take out the dispenser at the same time if possible), then follow standard procedures for dealing with everyone else - most likely ignite and run. If sentry guns are present, look for an opportunity to burn them from around a corner or if it’s only a level one sentry you can simply circle strafe around them and avoid any damage at all. Remember that teleporters are always a priority target.
posted on April 8th, 2008 at 12:29 pm