Idea Xel's Pyro Rework

As someone who mains Pyro, I decided to take a step in reworking it. Naturally, pyro receives endless complaints about its instakill; completely valid, considering it takes little to no effort to produce it. For the most part, you can efficiently play pyro as long as you can hold down a mouse button and switch between your first and fourth slots in moderately quick succession. A less organised offense can be wiped out by a single pyro in the flag room, who can gain a fairly admirable killstreak, needing no more than to respawn perhaps once or twice per game to reset arrows. Pyro, when used correctly, can be a stable defense class, perhaps even a triumphant addition to recovery or offense. However, this is rarely the case. Pyros in numbers above one are the worst addition to a flag room for the enemy team. It often ruins the game, and has an interesting effect on the chat ragers, to say the least.

Contrary to popular opinion, I like instakills. They’ve been in CTF since the beginning and, with little of CTF’s beginning remaining, I would enjoy seeing them stay. Doubts aside, please take a look at the below pyro rework. I attempted to keep similarities, remove the overly simplistic manner of the instakill, and yet also leave Pyro as a fun class to play. I already got some feedback, but I'm posting it here to get some more from the community itself. Enjoy, and feel free to suggest changes!

- Note that armour is left the same.

Hotbar

• Diamond Axe [+7 attack damage] - Like a regular axe, deals 3.5 hearts damage per hit. Hitting a player on fire causes them to be instakilled.

• 5 Steak - As all steak, heals 4 hearts.
  
  
• 1 Harming Splash Pot [‘Molotov’] - Regens every 10 seconds. Throwable item, leaves a trail of fire particles when thrown. Landing a hit on an enemy player has knockback II, and causes the explosion particle effect/sound. Gives the enemy player blindness for 1 second, and deals 2 hearts of damage [regular damage dealt by harming splash pots].

• Bow - Still works as a regular bow unless fully charged. A fully charged shot works as an explosive shot, but must shoot a player directly to set them on fire. Successfully shooting a player gains 3 sections of the XP bar. Once the XP bar is full [6 accurate shots], the next shot will set all players on fire in a 5x5 radius of where the arrow lands. When a Pyro has a full XP bar, their armour has the enchanted effect. Pyros can set one another on fire, but not instakill. Setting an enemy Pyro on fire will still cause them to receive the strength I buff. A pyro can not set themselves on fire.

• 20 Exploding Arrows - Work like regular arrows unless a fully charged arrow is fired [see above].

Other Abilities & Effects

• Water - Does half a heart per second [20 ticks] damage, and grants weakness I [0.5 attack damage].
  
  
• Fire - Grants strength I [ 130% attack damage].
  
  
• Permanent fire resistance.

 

The plan was to rework those 3 classes together anyway.

 

I'm fairly certain it takes effort to accurately shoot someone with a bow, especially since the pyro would have to take this shot fully charged to gain a section of the XP bar.
How would this not allow for a soldier rework? Pyro does not necessarily require teamwork to make a kill, but it does to upkeep a killstreak. It is easy to miss a shot in an enclosed flagroom, so other defence is necessary to prevent the flagcarrier getting away if the pyro misses the shot. You could escape with any class; this rework relies more strongly on the pyro having a good aim rather than just shooting in the vague direction of a player to stop them stealing the flag. Also, don't forget there is also still medic.

 

Originally, pyros just had to shoot in the general direction of a target, then hit them to instakill. Now, pyros have to accurately pay attention and put effort into shots, and perhaps even melee a little to make up for a missed shot. In an enclosed flagroom, I honestly doubt you can hit any person walking into the flagroom every time (Unfortunately, mage does not count). The skill for instakills is now increased, and, with the ability to set enemy pyros alight, it requires further attention to take the shot. Please explain how an enemy pyro couldn't capture? They are pretty hard to counter from a pyro's pov. Or an assassin? Pyro still has no way to counter instakill them. Or a heavy? A shot is pretty easy to miss, and heavies are far superior melee-wise. I don't see the issue here.

 

How do ninjas affect a pyro's ability to aim? And aiming distance shots is harder than close up shots, especially if you're trying to shoot someone who is hitting you. With the right skill balance, I'd say pyro could be an effective counter to soldier, yes. It can also be an effective counter to any offense. It really depends on the person playing pyro. Pyro will be reworked with chemist and soldier, though they are receiving lesser changes. They will have their abilities adapted to remove the frustrating aspects, such as wallspam and potspam. Neither of these necessarily affect the pyro's defending - if anything, they make it more difficult for the pyro - so this rework would fit accurately with the soldier and chemist reworks.

Bob suggested something like this. If this rework gets considered further, perhaps having elf's water ability have further damage impact on pyro would be a good idea! ^-^

 

Well, if the pyro is in coordination with a ninja or two, then that is in fact a defending team, and they should be able to do a great deal of damage to offense. After all, that is the point of defense.
Chemist.. an armored ninja? Ninja can go invis. It is fast, discreet and good for teaming up to recover. How is this in any way similar to chemist? Chemist is powerful, melee, and hardly discreet.
I don't see the problem with a team being required for recovery. Recovery shouldn't be easy, and having a team increases teamwork. This is a could thing because CTF is of course a team game.
Your opinion that instakills should be removed is just that - an opinion. Mine is different than yours. I'd rather you looked at this rework without that opinion set in stone, because I'd rather you considered it than simply dismissed it.

 

It wouldn't be a team game if it didn't take a team to recov, a team to defend and a team to steal. I don't want to nerf pyro - I main it, I can have a fair judgement of whether I would still want to main it if it was nerfed into oblivion. I'll respect your opinion, but I'm afraid mine differs. ^^

 

It doesn't have to be on the same enemy. The pyro just has to make 6 shots total without dying.
Also, teammates don't block arrows. It is just a visual glitch.