TF2 General Chat and Speculation Station V13 - Heavy times - Games

Its not a bad concept per se(as a grenade), its the fact that afterburn as an debuff its worthless when you consider that any healing source(or friendly airblast) will instantly remove it. unlike jarate or mad milk. hell, even bleeding beats it since you can't extinguish players bleeding. whatever damage you can dish with said afterburn is meaningless anyway given that any flare will output more damage than it could and in the case of the scorch will most likely lit any cluster of enemies instantly as a whole, instead of only those under the afterburn that actually take damage. it offers no utility as well since the aoe cloud vanishes rather quickly, so it has zero area denial value. and as mentioned above both detonator and scorch will output more damage and aoe afterburn than it. and using it to spycheck is pointless since you already have the best primary for that purpose. as it is now the only real value it has is to effectively light enemy pyros on fire, but then again you can either wm1 another pyro to death in a dogfight or just shotgun it to death without gimping yourself with a once every ten days weapon that will not add to the damage you can already output. the only real way I can see it being actually viable as a weapon for any kind of actual use is to function like the gas canisters in L4D: you throw them and have them blast when destroyed by gunfire, dealing fire damage in a aoe and burning anyone touching the fire on the ground. then you have a grenade that you can use to set up as a trap, with unique properties that pyros can use to both their own advantage and to contribute to teamfights that could posibly work as a sidegrade that any other flare doesnt do atm.

I don't know what you're trying to argue. I never said that in its current state the item is good, or even viable. But at its core, the concept can work. It needs serious buffs, anybody with eyes can see that, but it's not like they were just sitting at a table trying to come up with new Pyro weapon ideas, saw a gas can, and went "that's perfect!" Also, extremely easily and efficiently is exaggerating. Any Pyro worth their snuff can consistently hit flares, but even if you are hitting constant flares, you're still setting people on fire one at a time every 2 seconds, without the ability to switch to your primary. That's not efficient. That's those pub Pyros firing only flare guns at Snipers because they got headshot one too many times. If we wanna talk hypothetical, in a world where afterburn from Gas Passer does become immune to Medic healing putting it out (which I think is an... okay buff, but not the best buff), the Gas Passer will set the same enemies on fire in a shorter amount of time so long as your team is actively firing at the enemies, that the flare gun wouldn't be able to set on fire fast enough to actually combat a Medic just healing their ignition away. Which is why the Flare guns also have crit/mini-crit mechanics, because it's designed as a weapon/long-ranged harassment tool first, utility second, and which is why the Gas Passer isn't just a "worse flare gun". It's only a worse flare gun right now because it's weak as hell and doesn't give you enough positives to outweigh the negatives.

how about just turning it into a molotov?

Just increase the slow effect and remove the base health penalty on the Sandman. Scout doesn't need to be any more annoying than he already is, and if you want weapons that make it so your enemies can't fight back, then quit TF2 and start playing Overwatch.

I don't get why you keep bringing up the stock flare gun, obviously it's not used for aoe afterburn. The scorch shot can ignite the entire team all at once, and does it much more consistently than gas passer ever could without fundemental reworks, because any ignition that depends on teammates to work is inherently inconsistent. What if nobody nearby has an easy chip damage options (demos, soldiers w/o shotgun, medics w/ crossbow, Rescue ranger engi w/o pistol, pyros w/o shotgun, etc)? What if your team is focusing the heavy in front and nobody can afford to deal that chip damage to enemies? What if your teammates simply don't see the gas particle effects dripping off an effected individual? And even if somebody else is able to do that chip damage, why bother with the middle man? Scorch shot does the same thing much faster, because the blast immediately ignites everybody in the aoe, without having to wait for teammates to hit those folks. The gas passer has two fundamental problems: 1. Afterburn isn't a good reward for successful use. It's not really that much damage, it's easy to put out, and pyro is already really good at lighting people on fire anyway. 2. Relying on teammates for that reward and giving the pyro no options for capitalizing on it is very frustrating You need to solve both problems to make the weapon worthwhile. Half measures like turning it into special fire that doesn't get put out (not a fan of the inconsistent design there by the way, pretty unintuitive) does a little bit to alleviate 1 (and really not enough imo, why give up direct damage+afterburn for no damage+slightly better afterburn), but does nothing to help 2, which is one of the worst parts of the weapon's design.

add Explode on Ignite for the gas passer with lesser dmg values

Oof. Did you ever use the Gas Passer when it was insanely OP in Mvm? It was game breaking, in a PvE setting. In PvP it'd be like an Overwatch ultimate, shitty and un-fun to fight against. Do not want.

Airblast should be removed from the game and replaced with something else that makes pyro more of a threat, like a ranged fireball. Change my mind.

still is pretty game breaking tbh. they nerfed the gas damage re-filling the meter, but then increased the damage to 350, so pyro now basically has a jarate that can kill any robot horde in the game (even a a group of 12 heavies) for little to no reason.

What's with the "Without chip damage"? Your team literally just has to do any damage. Unless you're team of all Gas Passer Pyros, Spies, and Medics, somebody is going to be shooting at somebody else. If your team is focusing the Heavy in front and he isn't dying, either he's ubered and that's a problem you should be worrying about more, or your team is stupid and can't kill him. I literally said in my first post that the gas particles need to be more visible. Though you do bring up good points: your second bullet point, and the Scorch Shot just being objectively better (right now). I'd say let the Pyro immediately ignite the gas cloud by setting it on fire, and going from there, if you want the "no user vilification" issue to be fixed. There are tons of ways to balance the Gas Passer vs. the Scorch. But, again, those would all be suggestinos, and I haven't argued a single time that right now, the Gas Passer is viable, or even worth using, over the Scorch Shot.

Yeah letting the player ignite it with fire is a pretty good option, make it into an aoe burst damage thing that also causes afterburn, shifting the focus away from the afterburn itself. A big fire bomb would be a legitimate threat that might legit work as area denial.

You think that's bad. Remember when you can instantly destroy anything with the V1 MvM Dragon's Fury ?

https://i.imgur.com/XVruH00.jpg This spy forgot how to chair.

Don't need to. If that change ever happened, you'd just have to join a game and be assaulted by the now uncounterable 50 Soldiers divebombing you and turning any enclosed area into hell on earth to have your mind changed for you.

Pyro is not the only counter to soldier. It’s just an easy counterclass that doesnt require much thinking, instead of meeting the projectile classes head on in combat like the highest levels of the game do in 6s. The ability to turn away projectiles doesn’t justify the low-effort risk it creates for everyone else trying to play their class against pyro, nor does it excuse the significant lowering of the game’s skill range by creating cheap and often pointless deaths being airblasted off cliffs, while ubered, ignoring friction and stalling movement.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/960850827007986267/034FAAC39A84343D56DF6E85DC3DFC3B298CEBA9/ Demo that's not a bagpipe!

Oh, you question wasn't a prompt to start an interesting and fruitful discussion, it was just you really hating airblast. Sorry, didn't realize that.

I mean you’re the one shutting down discussion by saying that and attacking my unstated personal beliefs... instead of trying to rebut my points. But hey, that’s like, your opinion man.

I'm not shutting down discussion. There's no discussion to begin with. You may think there is, but there isn't. Just throwing out this issue that seems to be exclusive to you doesn't mean people will be able to suddenly have a fruitful discussion of the pros and cons of airblast because you want people to "debate you". I could randomly post "Alright. I fucking hate Medic. I think having such a freely available heal bot makes the game a lot less intensive. Prove me wrong" if I wanted. That doesn't mean there would be any actual discussion to come out of that or any conclusions reached besides "you're ridiculous for thinking that and you have no valid arguments that aren't 'well i think it's a problem so it is'".

That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. It may have escaped you, but my posts contain issues with airblast, it’s effect on the game, and a possible solution that might benefit pyro particularly due to its lack of ranged offensive capabilities... But as instead of responding to any of that, you decided to straw man my posts down into “I hate airblast” which you handwaved as irrelevant. Okay. >“I’m not shutting down discussion” >Next line “There is no discussion” ✨🤔✨

Wow, I thought people were exaggerating when they said Ghost Fort was fucked. But I hadn't played it in years, and today I just did the contracts for it. It really is that bad. And this can't be intentional, can it? Because they've also broken the wheel of fate. It goes to high jump like 90 percent of the time. You almost never see the mandatory dance-off anymore. God, Ghost Fort was my favorite Halloween Map (I didn't mind the boss like a lot of people did). And now its the absolute worst Halloween Map in the game, including all the official and fan-made maps. It's legitimately pure hell now, and the least fun I've ever had in TF2.

airblast should not affect players period. keep the reflect goodness tho. uh it's still insanely overpowered and hasn't changed much at all.

Well, I said that as a bad joke but if you believe that the gascan isn't insanely overpowered in mvm anymore because it can't recharge itself then you're just plain silly

better yet, have the airblast affect classes based on their actual weight. push scouts tback to TFC, but heavies will barely get pushed.

I've been wondering about this as well. Possibly try it out before flatout removing it like Hellmet mentioned at least. Classes like Scouts, Snipers and Spies ( even when disguised ) have standard airblast applied to them. Engineers and Medic's are a step up and don't go nearly as far. Demomen and Pyro go less far, Soldier is next, then Heavy practically doesn't move at all from airblast...

I'm pretty sure no one on the TF2 team has played a full game on Ghost Fort since they implemented the truce system.

i've always wondered if a nerf to airblast intervals much like the Dragon's Fury has would help curb the "incredibly hard to play projectile classes against" issue. If a competent Pyro isn't moving forward, Soldiers and Demos don't fire fast enough to counteract the airblasts, which is really fucking annoying if you're playing gunboats Soldier or Demoman in general.

just click .1s later or walk away

Airblast timing is a lot more forgiving/harder to win against than that also sure. next time i'm trying to take a point and i see an enemy pyro on it while i'm playing demo or solly i'll walk away to afk in base.

no but really it is that easy try it also i'm not saying give up lmao just dont play his game its not like pyros have the mobility of solly or demo