Team Fortress 2/Pyro

The Pyro is the best close combat class in the game. The Pyro's flamethrower will set enemies aflame and cause mass chaos. The Pyro is best used in ambushes.
 * Health: 175
 * Speed: 100%
 * Type: [[Image:TF2_achievement_nemesis.jpg||20px]] Offense
 * Special Ability: Can't be set on fire

Weapons
The pyro's loadout makes him suitable for close combat and not much else. One of his unlocks gives him a bit of long range harassing capability, but that's about it.

Primary Weapons

 * Flamethrower
 * Damage
 * Point Blank: ~15 per ammo (~180 DPS)
 * Medium Range: ~10 per ammo (~125 DPS)
 * Afterburn: 5 per second for 10 seconds (50 total)
 * Critical: ~40 per ammo (~500 DPS)
 * Clip Size: 200

The Flamethrower is a very powerful weapon, but has a very short range. When you hit a player with the flamethrower they will be set on fire and take a further 50 damage over 10 seconds. A common strategy is to set your opponent on fire and run, leaving your enemy to die by the flames. Keep in mind that your chances of succeeding will be much higher if you catch your enemy off guard, if the enemy knows you're coming you will likely fail. Disguised spies will be set on fire if you flame them. A good way to spy-check is to puff some fire into your teammates. If you do set a "teammate" on fire it is a disguised spy, you should proceed to bake him.

The flamethrower cannot fire underwater, however, holding down your jump key (default spacebar) will allow you to skim across the top and fire into the water.

The flamethrower's alternate fire will let out a burst of compressed air at the cost of 25 ammo. This burst of air can reflect projectiles, extinguish teammates, shift stickies and bounce enemy players around. Keep in mind when reflecting projectiles that the airblast isn't simply a mirror: Rockets, grenades, midair stickies and flares will all be redirected to where your crosshair is pointing. You can use it on ubered people too, try and separate the enemy medic from his patient or just bounce both enemies away until the uber wears off. It can also be useful to stop enemies like scouts from running away: Airblast them into the air to buy you some time to get in between them and wherever they're trying to go. Whenever you see a teammate on fire who isn't likely to head back to resupply, put him out with your airblast.

The Backburner is the alternate version of the flamethrower. Although you cannot airblast with it, you get guaranteed crits from behind! This makes the backburner perfect for flanking.
 * Backburner
 * Damage
 * Point Blank: ~15 per ammo (~180 DPS)
 * Medium Range: ~10 per ammo (~120 DPS)
 * Afterburn: 5 per second for 10 seconds.
 * Critical: ~40 per ammo (~500 DPS)
 * Clip Size: 200

Remember, although you become better at ambushing, you lose your ability to separate ubers, reflect rockets, extinguish teammates, push people off objectives and prevent enemies from escaping, so think a little before you take this.

Secondary Weapons
The shotgun is the Pyro's standard ranged weapon. The shotgun is an incredibly useful weapon for the pyro, good for finishing off burning enemies, dealing damage while running away from combat, dealing damage while running towards combat and fighting underwater. You should be using the shotgun almost as much as the flamethrower.
 * Shotgun
 * Damage
 * Point Blank: ~85
 * Medium Range: ~20
 * Long Range: ~8
 * Critical: 180 (reduced at range due to bullet spread)
 * Clip Size: 6
 * Reserve Ammo: 32
 * Slow reload, one shell at a time


 * Flaregun
 * Damage: ~30
 * Afterburn: 5 per second for 10 seconds
 * Critical: 60
 * Attack Interval: 2.02
 * Clip Size: 1
 * Reserve Ammo: 15

The unlockable alternative to the shotgun. While this gun does little direct damage, it sets people on fire, making it perfect for long range harassing. Snipers in particular can't aim properly while on fire, so one of your greatest weaknesses, long range, can be somewhat negated by good use of this gun.

In addition, the flaregun scores minicrits on targets that are already on fire, dealing 41 damage. While this doesn't sound like a lot, it is just enough to guarantee that a 125 HP class will die in 2 flares launched one after the other (30 for the first flare + 41 for the second + 60 afterburn (accounting for travel time) = 131). Repeated, accurate hits will quickly whittle away enemy health.

Taunting with either secondary weapon produces a fireball that deals 300 damage. Normally this isn't much use, but it's good for a humiliation kill.

Melee Weapons
The Flamethrower is a superior close combat weapon, except underwater. The Fire Axe is great for humiliating people, but can also be useful against other Pyros if you're lucky enough to score a critical hit. If you take the flare gun, this will be your only refuge underwater, so you'd better be good with it if you play maps like ../cp_well/.
 * Fireaxe
 * Damage: ~65
 * Critical: 195
 * Attack Interval: 0.8

The axtinguisher is the alternative fireaxe. It does half damage normally, it always crits against flaming enemies. This makes it a superior choice in many situations, but if you take the flaregun and this weapon you will barely be able to fight underwater at all.
 * Axtinguisher
 * Damage: ~32
 * Critical: 195
 * Attack Interval: 0.8

Using the Pyro
The Pyro is almost exclusively a short-range class. They can only harass at long range, but their combination of average speed and fair amount of health make them harder to hit than Soldiers or Heavies and tougher than Scouts or Medics, and so able to avoid much hassle from Snipers or Soldiers firing rockets and able to withstand the minuscule damage from a long range minigun. Usually, the Pyro should try to get toe-to-toe with enemies as much as possible, since that's when the flamethrower is most damaging, and ambushing enemies by coming up behind them or dropping off a higher ledge often works very well. Remember though: Don't go point blank with Soldiers or Heavies unless you're certain you can pull it off. Point blank, the minigun rips you to shreds so unless you get a string of crits (backburner is good for this), it's best to light and run.

Two pyros working together do far, far better than combos such as dual demoman. One pyro can light enemies up while the other hits them with the axtinguisher, two pyros with the backburner trapping an enemy in a sea of crits or one pyro can blast an enemy straight into an ambush spot.

Offensively, a Pyro is a very effective anti-Scout class. Heavy/Medic combos can be taken down easily too, if the Pyro hides and then runs straight at the Medic and is careful not to hit the heavy, often the heavy won't notice his medic has died until it is too late.

The afterburn of the Pyro's flames also means that you can set enemies on fire, toast them for a bit, then run off and let the burning finish the job. This works well against low-health classes like Medics, Scouts and Spies (although not that well against Soldiers and Heavies). If you are under threat from enemy Spies, a paranoid Pyro who goes around trying to burn everyone on their team is a good way of rooting out disguised spies, since they catch fire and will continue to burn whilst cloaked, revealing them as an invisible blur surrounded by flames.

Pyros are also effective against enemy Pyros. Their flame-retardant suit means that although they can take damage from fire, they don't actually burn, and a skillful Pyro can take out an enemy Pyro with little trouble and shrug the flames off afterwards.

Defeating Pyros
Unless you have another close-range weapon like the rocket launcher or minigun and have a method of healing nearby, close-range assaults against a Pyro will likely result in your death. Staying outside the range of the flamethrower whilst continuing to attack an enemy Pyro works far better, since the range of the flamethrower is very short and many other weapons continue to be effective outside that range.

Good aim as a Sniper also helps; Pyros don't move as quickly as Scouts or Medics but they are still quite fast, but susceptible to Snipers if they can aim well. Soldiers or Heavies grinding them down from a distance also works. Basically, to beat them, stay out of the flames. As outlined before, Scouts and Spies are generally at a disadvantage when it comes to Pyros.