Declined Vsh pyro buff/rework

[Liberty Mann]

So at present pyro is the worst class in vsh by far, since he dies extremely easily and does barely any damage. On a good day against a bad hale I can get 2-3k damage even with medic ubers, a few mmppphs and several axetinguishes. Considering I could have gone spy and gotten this with 1 or 2 backstabs, along with better survivability in the dead ringer and excellent midrange damage with the ambassador and throwing kunai, this is awful. The only thing pyro has is the detonator, but it takes a massive amount of health and on sky high will probably kill you if you fall. Therefore, I propose 1 buff and 1 rework to pyro’s arsenal.

Buff: Axetinguisher

Axetinguisher is currently awful in vsh, it does about 300 damage per hit, but it requires pyro (the class that doesn’t have a shield or dead ringer and cannot take more than 1 hit from hale) to get close to hale and hit him with the axe. Even with mmpph, it would be better to just burn hale since you also get free crits on the phlog that does better damage for way less risk. I say rework the Axetinguisher to work like how backstabs and market gardens work with the percentage based damage to reward pyros for getting dangerously close to hale without a good safety net.

Rework: airblast

Airblast is also currently horrible in vsh, most pyros that use it are either noobs or trolls who like giving hale rage. Some hales will even leave them alive and just bait them into airblasting over and over. I say remove the rage given to hale on airblast and instead give airblast 150% of its normal power, but for every consecutive airblast it halves in power ie: 1st 150%, 2nd 75%, 3rd 37.5% etc. This timer would last for 10 seconds and reset every time the pyro airblasts the hale. So pyro can’t troll by giving robo hale the funni rage that makes him go boom and hale isn’t too annoyed by pyros airblasting over and over.
This would also allow pyros to act like guard dogs that could defend heavies and engineers and such by letting them get hale off their back once every 10 seconds or so.

 

[Kiri]

Pyro isn't the worst class.

Completely removing the rage that hale gets when airblasted is too much of a buff. I don't think decreasing the knockback after every consecutive airblast changes anything. You only need 1-3 good airblasts to knock hale into the air then the rest of the team can knock hale into another dimension. And since pyros can deny the rage of certain hales with airblast already, removing that negative aspect of giving rage would be too broken.

 

[Steve Harvey Oswald]

Axetinguisher is a fine change, no reason not to add it.

The airblast concerns me a little bit.

On one hand, this will basically nullify the airblast's usefulness in most situations. If you position yourself in a high spot and push the Hale away, Hale can simply superjump right back to your location (unless you push him off the map, which isn't an option on several maps that aren't skyhigh) and you have less of an airblast to deal with him. If he repeats this a couple times you really have no escape plan. Take Military_Arena, for example. If a Hale targets the pyro, they likely have no worthwhile height advantage. Pyro can airblast to get some distance, but if the Hale continues to tunnel him he's done for. This would put pyro on my list of "kill first" classes.

On the other hand, if the server is well filled, the lack of rage on an airblast could be quite the upside. With multiple pyros per team, pyros could coordinate their airblasts so the timer resets while the other pyro is busy pushing Hale around. Reminds me of the ubersaw combo, but arguably more forgiving and infinitely more annoying.

Basically, solo pyros who were already low on the totem pole get screwed, and pyros playing with a large team where they already shined get better.

 

[10000 Cold Knights]

Seems like you haven't played on the uk sky-high server much. Give it a try sometime, the degree that pyros dominate on that server will surprise you.
I don't agree with the changes proposed here. Axting doing garden damage has a potential to be abused if there are multiple pyros, and the airblast is too powerful not to have the rage drawback. This does give me an idea for fixing airblast griefing though, may make a separate thread for that one later.

 

[Liberty Mann]

Everyone keeps talking about multiple pyros, but last I checked there are only 2 allowed? I don’t think 2 pyros would be too painful to fight against, especially with medic and sniper (who are way more annoying, especially on reservoir) having a class limit of 3.

 

[Chris TCC]

Everyone keeps talking about multiple pyros, but last I checked there are only 2 allowed? I don’t think 2 pyros would be too painful to fight against, especially with medic and sniper (who are way more annoying, especially on reservoir) having a class limit of 3.

we don't have class limits the last time I checked. Are you sure that it's our servers?

 

[Kiri]

we don't have class limits the last time I checked. Are you sure that it's our servers?

There's class limits on nearly half the classes in VSH, a couple don't. The class limit for pyro is 2.

I think the classes without a cap is spy, demo, soldier, & heavy iirc

 

[Chris TCC]

There's class limits on nearly half the classes in VSH, a couple don't. The class limit for pyros is 2.

Think the classes without a cap is spy, demo, soldier, heavy iirc

then idk what is going on. I just joined a server and I was the 3rd pyro just fine.

 

[Kiri]

then idk what is going on. I just joined a server and I was the 3rd pyro just fine.

Already said this in the discord, but for anyone wondering. This is a donor bug (pretty easy to do) to increase the class limit, rather then kick someone else to another class.

 

[Benedevil]

Already said this in the discord, but for anyone wondering. This is a donor bug (pretty easy to do) to increase the class limit, rather then kick someone else to another class.

If I remember correctly this is an intentional feature

 

[Kiri]

If I remember correctly this is an intentional feature

I thought that feature was supposed to kick another player off the class, not add on top of the limit?

 

[Chris TCC]

I will keep this thread open for a little bit longer, but as of now the sentiment to this suggestion is rather clear.

 

[Steve Harvey Oswald]

I thought that feature was supposed to kick another player off the class, not add on top of the limit?

I would leave any server that booted me off the class I was playing because a donor wanted to play it instead, ngl.

 

[Liberty Mann]

Upon reflecting on this idea, the airblast might not be an amazing idea since it could be annoying for the hale. I was just trying to think of an idea that wouldn’t let troll pyros be insanely annoying to everyone while not just removing airblast altogether. I still fail to understand why Axetinguisher would be overpowered with garden damage though, both soldier and spy don’t have class limits and are either almost never next to hale or have invis watch/dead ringer that let them take a hit. Pyro has neither of these, and can’t switch to the mega detonator or especially the jet pack fast enough to avoid dying. The only way I could see this being abused is with phlog resistance or Ubercharge, but a hale with any sense will just jump away if they see that and can simply wait it out.

 

[Benedevil]

Looks like we ain't got much support on this.
Nevertheless, thank you for your suggestion and concern