Degreaser, Reserve Shooter, Axe-tinguisher?

I can't see it being worth losing the damage/crits of the Backburner, in order to swap weapons quickly.

The damage boost is cool if you can sneak up from behind or keep the flame on them from any angle. If you're charging in and need to severely damage your opponent within a short amount of time, then degreaser combos come into play.

And then it's nice to blast an ubered medic off a cliff without using 1/4 of your ammo.

Backburner's damage output is still pretty terrible in terms of overall DPS as compared to other classes.
You're better off having the utility of a lower cost compression blast and the power of combos. Puff and Sting is one of the most time effective kills you can get.

Quit using stoner lingo.

How about Flamethrower/Reserve Shooter/Axtinguisher?

All the airblasts of the Degreaser, a slightly faster switch speed, and non-gimped burn damage for those guys you can't manage to puff n sting.

<-- THIS POSTER IS A FUCKING RETARD AND DESERVES TO EAT SHIT IN HELL

*ahem*

We're talking about the fact that it's been given to the Pyro in the beta.

Yeah, they're testing it as a weapon for him. The possibility of using it to make the vanilla Flammenwerfer more viable is interesting. As well as shenanigans with airblasting an enemy up, then minicritting them out of the sky.

Purity Fist is a Misc Item (think hats) and it's purely cosmetic. Hell, from what I understand it doesn't even show up on the first person viewmodel despite being, well, a replacement of sorts for the Heavy's entire arm.

Anyhow, traded my Strange Wrench for a new Reserve Shooter. Don't particularly care if it was a bad move or not.

I just got dropped an Atomiser, is anyone interested in trading for it? I'd particularly like one of the new deus-ex weapons (except Machina which I have) or a sharpened volcano fragment for it, but I wouldn't mind taking a l'etranger, dead ringer, or frontier justice + 1 scrap for it (since I need those for crafting).

So, recently I finally put together enough Refined to craft my very own Attendant, thanks to two folks from ponychan who shall remain anonymous. No sooner than I did so, did one of them point out to me that somebody was selling their own Attendant for Two Refined, half the amount I needed to craft. I regret nothing.

I... don't think I'll ever be able to play Pyro without this set now. That 10% Speed Boost is very, very noticeable.

EDIT: Just fiished about six or seven rounds of Viaduct as a Pyro. Puff and Flare was the order of the day. How did I do? Four rounds won, Three Lost, and I came in second overall, just behind our team's medic, with 90 or so points.

I can actually use the Flare Gun the way it was intended. My gods...

My only issue with the Attendant set is that I can never use the powerjack effectively. The shotgun and the flaregun, though...

Yeah, that's the problem with the set since it removes the possibility of any decent melee combos.

Yes, the typo was intentional.
 

So I just picked up the Orange Box for my 360 (because my laptop cannot into games anymore) and I am wondering if it's cross-platform compatible with PC players. I'm assuming no. It'd be nice to bump into you guys sometime regardless, I'm fairly new at it and wouldn't mind the opportunity to ACTUALLY FINALLY PLAY A GAME WITH YOU GUYS.

Or maybe I could just drop my XBL gamertag and anyone who has OrangeBox360 can hit me up, I dunno.

I'll give you a hint... it's EckScizor.

*sigh* Ecks... You screwed yourself royally. You can't get new weapons and hats and basically the 360 version is the old vanilla version.

However, if you can ever get your hands on a PC that can into games, you can play TF2 for free.

Re: Gas Station Attendant: If they ever make the beta change official and allow the Pyro to use the Reserve Shooter, that set will be even more awesome, since you can rush up, burn someone, puff them into the air, and then autocrit them with your lovely American shotgun. Burn, puff, blam, blam, move on to the next guy.

Speaking of beta changes, the beta recently increased the base flamethrower's damage by 10%, removed the 10% boost from the Backburner, and gave a 10% penalty to the Degreaser, while removing its afterburn penalty.
In layman's terms, they boosted the Flamethrower's damage, did nothing to change the Backburner, and buffed the Degreaser slightly by giving it stronger afterburn (since they all work off of the Flamethrower's base damage, which is now 10% more than it was)
And it's great.

There are people who play the game for the game, and not for collecting hats, y'know?

;)

I'll give you the weapons, but that's a minor point, really.

None of the other changes have been made, either.

For example: Pyros have no airblast, Spies, I'll bet, can't disguise as Medics and show an Ubercharge meter, and Engineers can't move their machines.

solders have massive damage resistance to their own rockets, Stickies can't be destroyed nor moved by explosions, pyros can light you aflame by bumping into you.

...So the Backburner is now worthless?

With the hit detection being terrible, its rearcrits were never that reliable, and its airblasts are more expensive than the flamethrower's. The damage boost was needed to bring it above vanilla, and with that gone, there's no real reason to use it.

I'm glad that there's actually a point to using the vanilla flamethrower now, but the Backburner needs something new. I agree that a damage buff is sort of an unimaginative solution, but its main draw - the rearcrits - don't work when they should most of the time.

Pyro Reserve Shooter is a cool idea though. Do you think it'll just become multiclass like the Pain Train, or will they make a pyro-themed equivalent? Because the Reserve Shooter does not really fit, thematically, with the Pyro's other equips.

It isn't cross compatible, but if you ever do manage to get back into the PC/Laptop gaming scene TF2 is free on Steam.

They removed the damage boost at the same time that they gave the base flamethrower an equal damage boost. So, since the Backburner works off of the Flamethrower as a base, it's exactly the same as it was, it's just that the base flamethrower is stronger now.. Though if the rearcrits don't work when they should I suppose that's bad.

I have no idea where your rearcrit problems are coming from.

I think it fits more with the airblast ability in general. Better yet, the Reserve Shooter fits in with a combo Pyro, upgrading the skill requirement immensely for this close combat warrior.

They are coming from basic problems with TF2's hit detection. It's the same reason facestabs and things like this happen. It has something to do with the way hits are handled - I forget how it works exactly.

But a lot of the time someone will be running toward me as I'm backing away and my flames won't ignite them despite visibly moving through the opponent; likewise, I won't get crits on somebody that I'm very obviously behind until they've turned a certain angle away from me. It's been the difference between life and death many, many times for me, but until now the damage boost it awards over the regular Flamethrower has made me choose it when I don't feel like using the Degreaser.

EDIT: And Jagos, I don't think you get what I mean.

Thematically, it doesn't fit.

Like, you know how the Demoman gets a bunch of Scotland-themed weapons?

And the Sniper gets outdoorsy-type weapons, and some general Australian flavor?

And you know how the Reserve Shooter is very strongly designed after American military stuff?

The Pyro has nothing to do with American military stuff. His/her stuff is mostly makeshift weaponry and burning items.

What I'm wondering is if they'll give the Pyro the straight-up Reserve Shooter (which makes no sense with his/her theme) or if they'll make an item that works exactly the same, but looks and is named differently.

They may as well. It would tick off people who got Reserve Shooters solely in preparation for the patch going through, but it's not like they haven't done duplicate weapons before (Homewrecker/Maul, Boston Basher/Three Rune Blade). It's just that they were usually for the same class, but that shouldn't be a problem.

I've never had the problem of flames not igniting someone. Might just be latency.

Yeah, unless your ping is within ten milliseconds then you have to consider your flame as shorter than it looks. Although if your ping is high enough you can just put the flame on them once, walk away to burn someone else and then a moment later you'll hear the damage bell from the first guy being on fire.

http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Lag_compensation

Long story short: This has no effect on Pyros, provided they actually have a low ping. Also, the effect apparently goes both ways—I've tailed an Engie before as a Spy once and executed a perfect backstab, sound effects and everything... only to not even deal normal damage to him, because as far as the server itself was concerned, I wasn't near enough to hit him.

Lag might be on an issue seeing as how I play connected to WLAN from my laptop, but the idea occurred to me several times in the past and I can recall seeing ping as low as 40 or 50 immediately after the issue occurred.

Either way, the Backburner needs more to its name, I think. I'm glad the Flamethrower sucks less now, but the Backburner needs like, increased afterburn damage or something.

EDIT: Oh man this is the BEST idea I've seen all day for buffing the Backburner:

http://i.imgur.com/ZkaeF.png

I dub it the BABYBACKBURNER.

I know I've seen pyro ambushes foiled because the model sticks out around the corner.

And this thing is just SOOO ADORABLE OH MY GOSH

It's impossible NOT to make this joke. I blame Chili's.
 

Only if it comes with ribs and barbeQQ sauce.