Backburner health bonus has been removed

[Immortal-D]

Making the new weapon effectively useless. The added health was there to compensate for the lack of air blast. But now? /me needs a drink

[-]July 29, 2008 - Team Fortress 2 Update Released (7/29/2008)

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Team Fortress 2


Fixed team switches on Attack/Defense maps spamming the console

Fixed the Kritzkrieg not working on servers with crits turned off

Fixed some clipped localized strings in various in-game dialogs

Fixed several cases where files were synchronously loaded while the game was running

Fixed a shutdown crash in the material system

Cached rendering of item model panels to improve performance, in particular while weapon selection was visible

Added a gear symbol behind the health bar for Engineer buildings, in both target IDs and freeze panels

Players killing themselves will now give a kill credit to the last enemy who damaged them

Fixed grenades, rockets, and flamethrower being able to fire through grates at round starts

Fixed players being killed and creating ragdolls during team switches

Fixed various exploits and performance problems in CP_Badlands, CP_Well, and CP_Fastlane

Removed health bonus from the Backburner

[YM]

WTF!

/MAJOR ANGRY FAIC

http://www.kabomb.net/images/icon_angryfaic.jpg

Since the crits don't even work they've just screwed over my fav class.

[grazr]

I was always very skeptical of the health in the first place.. since crits from behind made it a potent enough weapon. Though i do have to say, if a pyro caught you from behind, you were pretty much dead anyway.. i'd rather have the blast. Maybe now we'll see people taking a little more care when using the pyro class.

[YM]

You have to be perfectly behind them for the crits to work, they may have no idea you are there but if you burn them from anything more than 15 degrees to the side it doesnt work.
What they've now done is swapped the standard weapon and the unlock around. The unlock is the original gun and the one you have to unlock and the one with the advantage is the one that everone has.....

[Immortal-D]

I was always very skeptical of the health in the first place.. since crits from behind made it a potent enough weapon. Though i do have to say, if a pyro caught you from behind, you were pretty much dead anyway.. i'd rather have the blast. Maybe now we'll see people taking a little more care when using the pyro class.

But now I can't survive long enough to get in position. The air blast is there to get rid of people after you'd gone in and messed them up. The extra health on the BB was compensation for not being able to so easily get away from the combat. I like to think I keep a fair mind about all the tweaks and changes for TF2, but this one strikes me as the most blatantly unjustified to date. And the Demo remains insanely overpowered :(

[Laz]

bah I only loved the demoman back in the beta, when the grenades where still exploding on hit, even after a bounce.

Less people gonna play pyro now, maybe they are just compensating for the to many players pyro is attracting. imo they should have just lowered it. 25 or so would seem appropriate

[Shmitz]

As a pyro with a normal flamethrower, I never once won against a pyro with a backburner, which is why since I unlocked the thing I haven't gone back to the airblast once.

As a pyro with a backburner, I have never had issues with the crits-from-behind working.

The change was needed. The new weapon is still far from useless. Cry more.

[Immortal-D]

Clearly you weren't making good use of the airblast on the normal one. Health compensates for airblast, and vice-versa. Against a BB Pyro, do the flamethrower dance, and use the airblast after a few seconds. Then quick-switch to shot/flare gun and hit him while he's still confused about being so far away. No matter how many times it happens, I always get a little disoriented when I find myself suddenly knocked away or up in the air. This is bogus, and renders the Pyro incredibly weaker.

[MrAlBobo]

ha, i always beat backburner pyros with the regular one...without using the blast...as a whole pyros that use the backburner are pyros that suck, so its easy to run circles around them

just about all the people who used pyro alot before the update that i knew stuck with the regular one

what I am sad about is the not being able to shoot through the gates...it made great pre-game entertainment to burn people who taunted in front of the gate

[MangyCarface]

A lot of skill in the pyro class comes from hit prediction. You have to lead with the flame when you're dueling another pyro. As a result I usually have come out on top in pyro v pyro fights, even against two pyros, by knowing this fact and always backpedalling. There's a huge difference in dps between using these tactics and not. That being said, I've started using the old flamethrower more and more as of late and this update makes me feel not so guilty doing so. Still, subtracting the entire bonus may be overkill... but I wish the second flamethrower had been different anyway, like a stream of napalm or something, so boring is the backburner *yawn*

[Nineaxis]

happly facwe :D

Backburner pyro's were OP in my opinion. Taking out level three sentries? With a flamethrower supposed to be used from behind?

Madness.

[Trypto]

Yea, I agree. The back burner was way over powered to begin with. Especially because it always bugged out with the criticals and gave them from the front. Pyro's just don't die like they used to. I will say the complete removal of the health was overkill, but then again, crits from behind is rape, especially as an ambush tactic. Hopefully this will kill the pyro madness, as spy got a lot more difficult with at least 4 retards running around spraying nothing.

And yea, napalm would have been waaayyyyy cooler.

[MrAlBobo]

bah, you can take out level 3 sentries with the regular gun, I still say the 50 health made minimal difference, just prolonged the suffering a bit
on a side note, Ive been trying out various suicide runs with pyro in the past week, its amazing the things you can do, especially when theres another distraction

[Brandished]

At least Valve fixed the MFPUB (multi-flag-pick-up-bug) that had been a problem for the CTF game variants since the beta. Now if only they would open up the scoring, sound system, and HUD to mappers we could make totally new game modes and I might actually be able to finish some of the concept maps I've tried to create for TF2. CTF is still the only flag game mode that really works, Attack/Defend can be made to mostly work (aside from no scoring system), the rest of them, not so much...

[Snipergen]

As I said before, the pyro it's backburner was overpowered, and appearently I was right. I'm happy Valve has the balls to do this.

[Uriak]

As I observed nearly every Pyro use the BB, there was certainly an issue. Mainly it was used to play as usual, but with 225 hp.
Before the update, I played pyro and felt that ambushing solid classes as heavies and soldiers ended too often into double KO at best. BB was adressing this , but why +50 hp ?

It has given a "noob" staint to this class (at least on our servers), to the point, I shifted to playing scout and spy. Average players tried pyro, but already good pyro players have been achieving absurd scores lately. And modification with the flame mechanics ended into rendering backpedaling useless into mirror fights.

With this ends the cycle : I'll give a try to see if the new BB still plays its role as en ambush weapon, but I'm relieved it wont' be used to get a frontline storm class. If valve cares about pyro survavibility, they could stick with setting pyro at 200 hp in all cases. In the end the pyro's best friend is level design. (same for the scout imho)

[Vander]

Good job Valve!

[grazr]

bah I only loved the demoman back in the beta, when the grenades where still exploding on hit, even after a bounce.

Less people gonna play pyro now, maybe they are just compensating for the to many players pyro is attracting. imo they should have just lowered it. 25 or so would seem appropriate

Agree, agree and sort of agree, but with regards to the soldier class.. atleast in the original the differences were soldier:100hp 200ap/pyro:100hp 150ap. 175hp for pyro in TF2 seems right for me and hopefully this nerf will stop pyro's just running straight at people. There are too many pyro's playing compared to other classes and mostly with the backburner. The extra health seemed to distract players from the fact that they are supposed to be behind the enemy to use the crit ability.

On a side note, the flaregun is little more than a spam weapon. It has no real advantage in actual combat. The only time i can really use it is on the bridge on 2fort to light hidden spies and heavies, but does little more than garauntuee an assist as people set alight are killed barely a second later by more powerful alternative class weapons (rockets, headshot, pipes).

With the crits from behind they do seem to have just turned the pyro into a less annoying version of the spy. Barely an instant kill but enough to get you running and probably die with afterburns. The pyro needs more forwards fire power. like a napalm grenade launcher. Or something that makes the pyro more than just fodder at anything other than close combat. The Napalm rocket launcher was an excellent supression weapon with a neat ability to send heat through walls. It is sorely missed.

But as with the heavy and engineer, the pyro class simply suffers rediculously without support.

I miss napalm grenades too.

[YM]

On a side note, the flaregun is little more than a spam weapon. It has no real advantage in actual combat. The only time i can really use it is on the bridge on 2fort to light hidden spies and heavies, but does little more than garauntuee an assist as people set alight are killed barely a second later by more powerful alternative class weapons (rockets, headshot, pipes).

The flaregun is an excelent weapon, setting people on fire instantly changes their mindset, they are fare less likely to run into the fray if you set them onfire before they even get there than if you don't. The flaregun might not be capable of killing someone without a few consutive hits which, lets face it, isnt going to happen but still the pyro is a support class, running in setting a load of people on fire (with either weapon) and running out again, even if no one gets killed they all have to seek health or a medic and are more wary of pushing forwards.
Then on top of that the pyro's main job ISNT to get kills. They job of the pyro is to weaken up enemies for others to finish off or chasing after and finishing off weakened enemies. When I've played in scrims as pyro I get two or three times the number of assists than kills, why? because I'm a mop up class and a scare tactic. The pyro is a valued member of the team when you have teamplay in mind (which everyone unfortunately doesn't)
One situation I've seen the flaregun is excelent at: I run around a corner to see a medic/heavy on the point we own so I pop a flare into each of them before they have a chance to shoot me and the medic who hasnt got a healing ray on him runs off to find a health pack. the heavy is now: worried because they don't yet know where I am, alone because his medic has run off and weakened because hes on fire. I nip around his flank and finish him off with the regular flamethower. I've done almost exactly this three or four times now.
Another one that its good for is getting snipers out of the action quickly, it doesnt kill them but it gets rid of them. any shot they fire just after being ignited will not be as accurate and will likely miss and then when they descope they'll run for a health pack and so arent annoying anyone anymore. Another non-kill related use for the gun but still benefits the team.
Many use the flaregun as a kind of spam weapon, but it cant really be a spam weapon since it fires so slow, and anyone who isnt considering where there flares are going is most likely one of the noob pyros who isnt interested in teamplay.

At the end of this I'd just like to say: If you play for kills you're not playing properly. The game is TEAMfortress, you should play in a way that benefits your team's ability to capture/defend the point or flag and not to increase your score. infact I wish in some ways they'd completely remove the individual score boards and just have the MVP at the end of the rounds shown

[Zipok]

Why some people keep thinking that the BB is useless now? Think backwards, to the time when pyros did NOT have the airblast. The backburner is that same flamethrower all pyros used back then, with the extra addition to grill anyone if you manage to hit their backs, meaning that if you pull out a good ambush, you will win the situation.

Imo the major problem with pyros back then was that you could barely kill someone even if you got their backs, now the problem is solved with the backburner. With the air blast, you have better survivability but less instant kills from behind. Sounds like equal to me.

Edit: I totally agree with Youme on his post just above this, the flare gun is one of the most (if not the most) teamplay oriented weapon this game has, with the exception of the medigun. And it is extremely fun too! Also, I agree that the pyro's role is more of a psychological, and crowd controlling one, instead of being a major killing machine. Pyro kills only when the odds are completely against his enemy. The pyro is a coward, an annoying little bastard. But we all love him. :)

[grazr]

My point was more of, the purpose of the pyro's flare gun can be more effectively done by most other classes (a class that more over, fits that role), that are also more likely to gain kills. The pyro's purpose isn't to hassle snipers from a distance which is what i find many pyro's doing. Running about on the battlements shooting flares widely at snipers on the opposite battlements. If you want to hassle snipers, go spy or demo jump onto the roof of the brigde; is my reasoning.

I can understand all the points you are saying Youme, but the fact is that most people simply don't use the class properly.

The flare gun is good for getting players to retreat.. but it only causes most players to daddle around no mans land to try and get a few kills before heading back for health and ammo. People don't like to feel like they are wasting there time by immediately retreating to survive. Unfortunately i do play on servers with increased spawn times, to my regret.

[Uriak]

I've seen too many pyros trying to spam their flares in the open. The fire rate of this weapon is so ridiculous that it becomes purely situationnal.

The pyro may have this "havoc role" yes, but on a a server with quite experienced people, it was nearly useless. People didn't panic as much as expected, medics would quicky heal everyone and the pyro could wait 'till respawn.

I used before the update to play the pyro as a scavenger instead, lighting up and killing frail support classes (medics, engies, snipers) and wounded soldiers heavies demo while retreating. Of course this meant using secondary paths but as long as the map allowed it, that wasn't a problem. When playing this way, the shotgun is the perfect tool to give the finishing blow. Doesn't sound teamplay oriented ? Maybe, but setting people on fire without finishing them can mean helping hostile medics getting their über sooner, something you'd absolutly don't want to do.

Finally, fighting other pyros is an important part of playing pyro, because they tend to swarm the same places. Backpedaling and shotgun switching are so essential, one is quickly forced to give up using the flare.

[Psy]

The Backburner is perfectly fine now. It's like the flamethrower before the Pyro Unlocks with the added ability to crit from behind guaranteeing almost instant death.

[MangyCarface]

If you're not finding the flaregun useful, you're not playing pyro to its full potential. As pyro, anyone who can be lit on fire in your view should be on fire. I actually keep the flaregun out most of the time I run around. You have to practice with it extensively to use it correctly. A pyro with the normal flamethrower, the flaregun and the axtinguisher has an incredible amount of utility as long as you switch correctly. You should have flamethrower/axt in cqc, flaregun/axt in medium range, and flaregun/flamethrower in long range. With the flaregun you have the brute force to take down heavies in seconds; the trick is to blind-fire around corners and wait to hear the scream that means you hit. After that it's a simple matter of timing; let the afterburn hit them for a bit then launch yourself out to deal your crits :3. Flaregun, once mastered, is very easy to hit people with and you can usually kill all the small classes by hitting them again after afterburn has been wearing them thin. It disrupts the battle line, gives you an advantage before rushing in with an uber or by yourself, is an awesome retreat weapon, and basically has a unique role all around. The only time I'd prefer the shotgun is against other pyros; with the airburst, fighting demomen/soldiers is easier with the flamethrower.

[Kritanu]

IMO, the flare gun is both awesome and horrible, which is exactly how it's supposed to be, I think.

Hitting an enemy with it once will pretty much leave them unable to win any confrontation until they find a health kit or a medic. If you can hit a lot of different people with it rapidly, the other team will gradually lose ground as a whole, even if you don't kill anyone. It turns the pyro into a mini-sniper, which I love.

It also lets you really mess up medics - you should be aiming for them anyway, if you can.

My sort of 'rule' is that I start off with the flare gun, but if there's a lot of pyros or medics, I'll switch to the shotgun. But that isn't too common.

[Muffin Man]

I think the removal of the additional HP is a good thing. This will give me a GOOD reason to pick the flamethrower over the backburner (as well as the other way around), which is how it all should be.

Also, I'm really happy that these were fixed:

Players killing themselves will now give a kill credit to the last enemy who damaged them

Fixed grenades, rockets, and flamethrower being able to fire through grates at round starts

:)

[Hawk]

I like the change.

I'm a huge fan of the air blast, so now this just gives me a better fighting chance against those who use the backburner.

And I've been finding some fun uses for the air blast! For example:

- Shielding an important sentry from rockets that came from an out-of-range soldier
- Sweeping sticky bombs away from an engineer's buildings
- Sweeping sticky bombs off of a control point
- Pushing back ubercharged players so that they waste their ubercharge
- Pushing ubercharged players off edges and into ravines to separate them from the medic
- Making Soldiers too afraid to use rockets against you in a ranged 1-on-1 fight
- Pushing spies away from what they're trying to stab/sap, while you're burning them.
- Disorienting groups of opponents that you ambushed

I just can't see the added critical effect of the Backburner being worth it to give up all the cool things you can do with the air blast.

[MrAlBobo]

I like the change.

I'm a huge fan of the air blast, so now this just gives me a better fighting chance against those who use the backburner.

And I've been finding some fun uses for the air blast! For example:

- Shielding an important sentry from rockets that came from an out-of-range soldier
- Sweeping sticky bombs away from an engineer's buildings
- Sweeping sticky bombs off of a control point
- Pushing back ubercharged players so that they waste their ubercharge
- Pushing ubercharged players off edges and into ravines to separate them from the medic
- Making Soldiers too afraid to use rockets against you in a ranged 1-on-1 fight
- Pushing spies away from what they're trying to stab/sap, while you're burning them.
- Disorienting groups of opponents that you ambushed

I just can't see the added critical effect of the Backburner being worth it to give up all the cool things you can do with the air blast.

agreed completely ;)
I didn't even consider the backburner worth it with the 50 health bonus

[Swamp-Bog Mcgee]

I never used the backburner yet, despite earning it. Deflecting blasts was always a great advantage over more health (to me).

Too bad the backburner didn't have an air-blast that only stopped friendly team mates from burning, or something like pushing enemy fire from a team mate back onto an enemy.

[YM]

Sums it up nicely :p

http://nerfnow.com/comic/image/46

[The Asylum]

Or this:

http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/108/1199334520364ad2.png

[Psy]

Poor, poor, W+Mouse1 pyro.

[grazr]

Or this:

http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/108/1199334520364ad2.png

I Lol'd. :(

[Uriak]

@mangyscarface : I'm afraid the axtinguisher is theoritically useful against high HP targets, such as heavies and soldiers, but pratically, you don't want to miss a single blow, something quite likely to happen with rather uncooperative targets. Not counting the infamous "oops he got a little health and I'm striking it with my wooden stick". A pyro skillful enough to axtinguish people on a regular basis can certainly do the same with his primary. This was worsened by the über flame the pyro update came with. I still need to try the class since the last downgrade.

Tough, both axes are still wonderful humiliating tools, something we should always give a special place in our hearths in a game like this :p

Poor, poor, W+Mouse1 pyro.

farewell :)

[Laz]

I never used the backburner yet, despite earning it. Deflecting blasts was always a great advantage over more health (to me).

Too bad the backburner didn't have an air-blast that only stopped friendly team mates from burning, or something like pushing enemy fire from a team mate back onto an enemy.

you can extinguish your teammates with an airblast? :D cool!

[Corion]

The extra health was definitely overpowered. Nearly 90% of all pyros were using the backburner. Clearly it was better than the original flamethrower, which is not supposed to be the case.

I think they should add the airblast to the backburner but nerf it in a different way, such as lowering critical damage by 50% when not behind someone (meaning it would do 1.5*Normal damage instead of the usual 3*Normal damage on crits), remove non-behind crits altogether, or significantly increase the cost of using the compression blast.

Since the compression blast is so difficult to use EFFECTIVELY in REAL games, I think the ammo cost of using it with the original weapon should be lowered to 20 or 15 from 25. If it were given to the backburner, it could have anywhere from +10 ammo cost to double the ammo cost of the normal flamethrower's compression blast.

I also think that now that the backburner isn't so overpowered, pyros are going to need a slight base buff to compensate. This could be anywhere from a +25 max health boost to pyros (with either weapon) or tweaking the damage falloff.

The falloff used to lower pyro damage to 25% of max pre-pyro-patch, then when the patch hit it was removed entirely. Now the falloff is about 50% of max. I agree that having no falloff would once again make pyros a bit too hot to handle (although not quite as bad as it was when the backburner had the health boost too), but moving up the falloff to 60-75% of max would be just enough to make the pyro more attractive to most players again.

[MrAlBobo]

Since the compression blast is so difficult to use EFFECTIVELY in REAL games, I think the ammo cost of using it with the original weapon should be lowered to 20 or 15 from 25. If it were given to the backburner, it could have anywhere from +10 ammo cost to double the ammo cost of the normal flamethrower's compression blast.

lolz, your kidding right? the compression blast is EASY to use EFFECTIVELY in REAL games
all you need is to be able to anticipate people, which becomes easy as most people panic while being torched, and using it to block ubers is painfully easy, and is likely the main intended use

i happen to believe that the 50 health was the only thing that gave a viable reason to even use the backburner over the normal one, and now ill expect 90% of pyros to use the regular flame over the backburner, so this did nothing for balancing out the use of the two

and i find it interesting that everyone seems so concerned over the pyros weapons being equal, but no one seems to make a big deal that just about every medic has the uber gun, the blutslauger, and the ubersaw equiped...

[grazr]

The uber saw has a lower rate of fire and does no extra damage, it only adds charge to your uber. Why would anyone complain about a lower damage per second against them? Though i did have a problem with the blutsauger as it made medics incredibly hard to take out 1 vs 1.

and to be fair, i've never seen the compression blast used effectively other than pushing the odd person into a pit. Most people time it wrong and any soldier that plays pyro will be able to counter anticipate the blast, which isn't even required if you simply whip out your shotgun.

The compression blast has the same rate of fire as the rpg and grenade launcher so is all you have to do is wait a small amount of time so that the pyro blasts too soon and becomes out of sync. Every blast after will not be able to reflect your shots and you can bounce him around happy as Larry. I've never had a problem going against a pyro using the airblast (it actually made them easier to kill) and i have never considered it a turning part in any combat i've seen or experienced. It's much more productive to deal the extra damage to garauntee your kill even if you do increase your chance of taking fatal amounts of damage.

[MrAlBobo]

im not questioning the medics weapons, im questioning the fact that no one complains that every medic uses the same set

and frankly...you are battling stupid pyros then
you dont battle with the air blast, you use it to deflect the 1st blast so you can get closer, or you use it to screw up a soldiers aim so they can't do the signature turn and kill with one shot

[The Asylum]

Nothing is more intense than a pro Pyro vs pro Pyro going at it with flamethrowers. It's like watching ballet in hell.

[MrAlBobo]

haha, so true
even more so when one pyro can take down 2 ;)

[S.E.A.L.#555]

Much welcomed Nurf, but not nearly far enough.

People on servers all over are still complaining about how much the broke the damn Pyro with the last update.

I still find, even after the health bonus was removed, that I often die ALMOST INSTANTLY when I get hit by a pyro.

It is still a broken class.

As someone mentioned...cry more.

p.s. And though my avatar may suggest it....I don't play pyro.