Pyro

Below you will find a collection of various tips, tricks, guides and tutorials for Pyro provided by our own community.

Primaries

Stock is always a good pick; no upsides but no downsides, best when used around an airblast heavy playstyle.
The Degreaser is the best flamethrower for combo Pyro, the quick switch allows you to deal a lot of damage with your flaregun and/or Axtinguisher.
The Backburner is the option when going for a flank and ambush playstyle, but it’s airblast downside makes it the worst for head to head combat.
The Phlog¹ requires heavy use of your flareguns, but if you have a pocket Medic (or spam well enough the Scorch Shot) you can build up the charge, which can be devastating if coordinated properly with the rest of the team.
The Dragon’s Fury is the most skill-heavy flamethrower; it rewards good tracking with a high DPS, but it’s the worst for W+M1 and has bad airblast compared to stock.

Secondaries

Shotguns in general are not the best, stock is probably the best one but the other ones just suck.
For the flareguns:
- Stock flaregun rewards your precision with long range bursts of damage.
- The Detonator gives you mobility while still giving a long range option.
- The Scorch Shot just lights up a ton of people on fire easily.
The thermal thruster is an extreme Detonator, gives you a ton of mobility but you can be caught wide open without a secondary.
Don’t even bother using the Gas Passer.

Melees

You have three mainly viable options:

The Powerjack is an all around great tool, always a good pick.
The Axtinguisher is good when going combo Pyro while using the Degreaser.
The Backscratcher is great when your team doesn’t have a medic, since you get extra healing, but probably the worst option out of the three.

Learning how to airblast is incredibly important, try practicing in MGE servers against soldiers and demos.

Pyro always needs to play close to teammates, he does a great job at protecting them: he can spycheck very easily, which protects higher priority targets like medics or heavies; also his airblast can counter pushes very effectively, from pushing ubers to reflecting explosives right back at the enemy.

Credit to @llmt#8547

Phlogistinator ↩