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An honest reply to that would probably be that including the new 100% critical hit weapons would mean playing a pyro (even two) would be essential for clan games.

The deciding factor for victory of most clan games at the moment usually hindges on the success of the scouts, and top clans have excellent scouts. In short, the new weapons would equal out the playing field slightly.

As it stands now, there is no class as powerful at flanking as the pyro with the backburner and the pyro does not require anywhere near the same level of skill usually demanded for flanking as a scout.

Not to mention his ability to drop a heavy in less than a second would no doubt mean a petition by certain heavy weapon guys to have these weapons permanently removed from leagues.

Yup, the problem with the basic crits are the randomness. I see no problem with crits that are 100% the same for everyone and the backburner crit really needs to come right behind to get the crit, it’s not like you can do it from the flank like with spy. So it does require some “skill” to get yourself in to the position where you can take the enemy by surprise and hit them from behind/flank. Those who want to disable pyro crit weapons should arque the same thing about snipers headshot, basically the same thing.

I’m for allowing any unlockable weapon that doesn’t allow crits when they are turned off. I know sniper and spy but thats how the classes were ORIGINALLY DESIGNED and aren’t unlockable. I would be for allowing the flare gun but not the backburner or axetinguisher.

I really really see no reason disallowing the crit weapons from pyro, still 2 good scouts are better than a scout-pyro setup most of the time.

the Backburner does make a great deal of damage from behind, but it’s really really hard to get behind the team unnoticed and it mostly requires bad communication from the team or awesome cunningness from the pyro. ;P There is also that it’s quite a hard choise between BB and default flamethrower since it has the airblast ability.

Axtinguisher, see no problem with this one either, how many melee kills do you see in a match? not really that many coming from the same guy and first you’d have to use primary weapon and then switch to your axe to finish the others off and chasing opponents with your melee weapon? well, you know how that ends up most of the time.

In competitive matches (30min) I’d say sniper would get more critkills than the pyro. It seems like Valve is really trying to balance the classes out with these updates, did a great job with medic, I’d say they balanced the pyro out quite well, but it still might not be enough for competitive play.

And I really don’t like the idea that top clans dictate the style the game is played, majority of the community (low to mid tier) is the one that mostly plays the game matchwise. But if top clans try to disallow some guns cos it doesnt require skill or stuff and keep the edge of 2 great scouts I’d say skillwise, go play qwtf (team fortess 1). Let the game evolve! *G*

Ye but wasnt this update ment to make the pyro stronger? If these new weapons are disallowed the pyro will not get strong enough to be able to compete against any other class.

My problem with a pyro is this:

A pyro with the Backburner could hide, similar to the way scouts do atm, and then annihilate heavy/medic/soldier from behind before they even had a chance to respond. No other class in the game can do that. I’m not even over-exaggerating either. Pyro crits do 80-120 damage and they fire around 5 shots per second. That’s 600 damage in a second, which is enough to easily kill a medic and fully buffed heavy. My maths may be wrong, but it isn’t far off.

I see no reason to allow such a weapon in the existing format. Personally I can see the leagues ending up with a “pure” format. I think that’s what I’d prefer. Valve seem to be orienting a lot of the new weapons around crits – even the new medigun, which is balanced by not being able to crit. I don’t think it spells out great news for the 6v6 no crit format :(

Well, tbh. i dont see any reason why the new weapons shouldn´t be allowed into leagues.

The problem with crits are the “randomness”. But specified crits at a known time, the ones you can actually control is nothing more than skill.

Nothing different with a headshotting sniper, oder a BACKSTABBING (not frontstabbing!) spy.

I personally like the idea of the crit axe! Burning an enemy, switching to axe while keeping the melee range up and then finally critting the burning enemy with the axe without dying first – there is nothing random about it, i will pull my hat for everyone able to do that in a routined way. Dont forget, its weaker on “normal” melee situations.

The Flare Gun is powerfull – but in a good way! Only direct hit counts and it drains the same ammo as the flamethrower and the knockback. And, most of the time its not as strong as the shotgun to finish off enemies (in my opinion). I can´t really see why this weapon shouldn´t be in the game. If someone can actually master it to pull an advantage out of it, i would say go for it.

The Backburner looks strong on a first look. +50 health seems like alot and the guaranteed critical hits on the back let people put on their “boooh” face. But, the strongest feature introduced in the patch for the pyro is imo the “Airblast” ability. A skilled pyro could make a difference with that ability. We tested abit around with it, and its actually not even hard to airshot a rocketjumping soldier who shoots a rocket at you. Who would actually want to give up such a feature, that can actually save the vulnerable life of the pyro and his medic, maybe even kill his opponent, in favour of +50 health and a weapon you need to use from the back in order to be effective?

Seriously, a Pyro who waits and tries to sneak up from behind on enemies, is dead meat. Its basically a dead slot – because the team has to play with 5 people most of the time. And, let´s be honest, in which case does a 3 man ambush really work? And why can´t any other class do the same? In the last badlands match I played, I took down Soldier + Medic with ubercharge ready on badlands cp3 because i came from behind. Think thats the only situation I ever had in 3/4 years of clanplay and if the enemy would have been a bit more carefull, i would have died instantly.

Seriously, allow all 3 unlockables into the league and see how it goes. I am anxious to see if the Pyro could actually play a reliable roll in a match.