Valve has released the full details of the pyro update.

The first Pyro unlockable is The Flare Gun, which replaces the shotgun. It allows the Pyro to ignite an enemy at long range, but does require careful aim on their part. It’s particularly useful for causing havoc on Snipers and Engineers who want to keep their distance.

The second Pyro unlockable is The Backburner. This flamethrower is built for the Pyro who likes to ambush their opponents. It removes the compression blast capability, instead guaranteeing critical hits whenever it’s used on an opponent from behind. To aid in survivability, it grants the Pyro an extra fifty health.

The third Pyro unlockable is The Axtinguisher. This mighty axe guarantees critical hits on any enemy that’s currently on fire, although it’s significantly weaker against enemies who aren’t. A great combination with the The Flare Gun, or with another Pyro buddy riding alongside doing the igniting

Valve has also made changes to the normal pyro flamethrower

By hitting the alt-fire key, the Pyro is able to produce a blast of compressed air that knocks enemies away, and redirects enemy projectiles. It’s a highly versatile tool, allowing Pyros to get away from nearby enemies after igniting them, to kill enemy soldiers with their own rockets, or to separate enemy Medics from their healing targets. In particular, it allows a skilled Pyro to contain an enemy invulnerability push, and even to separate the Medic completely if the surrounding terrain supports it.

The update also contains two custom maps, CP_Fastlane and CTF_Turbine, in addition to the Meet the Sniper video released earlier today.

Hit the link to see the full details of the achievements.

Edit: More good news:

the Pyro only needs 10, 15 and 20 respectively for his new toys. Since there are thirty-five to choose from, this means people can leave the silly ones alone if they don't fancy grinding them.

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Oooooo I'm quite liking the compressed air thing.

From June 20 - 22 play the FULL GAME for free!

Oh my god are they f***ing insane?

New people download and play TF2 for the first time AT THE EXACT MOMENT AN ACHIEVEMENT UPDATE IS PUSHED .. what happens?

"Why is 90% of my team a pyro, running in circles like retards without playing like a team? This game seriously sucks, I'm uninstalling".

last edited by parabol at 23:59:33 18/Jun/08

I think you'll find they run around in circles like retards on all pub servers.

Most teamwork I've seen on a pub server would be two spies working with a demo as lures + cleanups.

This just sounds awesome, 110% f***ing kickass.

It's not even the same character anymore.

last edited by CHUB at 00:27:50 19/Jun/08

Im gonna echo chub for once and say how good the changes sound, especially the compressed air blast.

I wonder if it will allow pyros to jump bigger..?!

Yeah, I think I'll use this tard-weekend to crank my medic achievements (I'm so lazy).

sounds awsome. wonder if the pyro takes damage with the blast though.

yeah the compressed air sounds cool, as currently there's not really any counter to an ubered enemy, you just have to run and wait it out.

If I'm playing soldier and there's an uber, I try to take one for the team and hit the medic's feet with a rocket. It breaks them up maybe 1 in 10-15 times - here's to hoping the pyro does a little better...

Edit: Is it a typo or a grammatical error if you use a homophone?

If I'm playing soldier and there's an uber, I try to take one for the team and hit the medic's feet with a rocket. It breaks them up maybe 1 in 10-15 times - here's to hoping the pyro does a little better...

I do that as demo, 50% of the time I manage to seperate them completely and they die, the other 50% (unless it's a soldier/heavy class) I juggle them around in the air and in general just f*** them around.

chub, you are very awesome.

chub, you are very awesome.

You don't want to face my demo ;)

I've switched over to spy for the time being, only got 10 hours so far but I'm having lots of fun.

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/4151/spysk7.jpg

chub, you are very awesome.

didnt you hear? hes awsome at everything. his nick should be captain awsome.

lol CHUB thats weak 39 kills 31 deaths keep trying :\

I don't know much about TF2, but unless its even more lame than I think the score is probably a better indicator of how you're performing than your kill/death ratio. That's why its the score!

Nope, its all about the K-D ratio on pub. Plus spy is piss on pub run around bumming all the noobs for 2 points.

not lame fyi

I don't care about k/d, most people don't.

Score is nice, but you never know anyone else's k/d unless they tell you.

CHUB i didn't know you were cup of tea... how come hardly any of you nubs play with your QGL handles?

Because we're not in the QGL clan.

You can see who is in a server by opening up the friends tab QGL group.

Hey also what time does this update go live?

lol CHUB thats weak 39 kills 31 deaths keep trying :\

LOL go play some CS you f***ing noob.

I think the score is probably a better indicator of how you're performing

Much of the time, but not always :(

My soldier K:D ratio is around 4, but my overall score isn't necessarily high.

Problem is that unlike the rest of my team-mates, I usually listen around for enemies (medic+heavy or lone spy) and hunt them down before they do any damage or get close to our base. Unfortunately since I kill them before they're anywhere near anything, I don't get any point bonuses.

i.e., imagine I'm alert and kill an enemy before he touches our capture point vs another team-mate who kills the enemy WHILE the enemy is capturing (due to not paying attention). He'll get more points even though I played better.

I'm not complaining, just saying there are exceptions depending on what your strategy is that round.

has the update come out yet or is tomorrow?

has the update come out yet or is tomorrow?

If it coincides with the Free 'Weekend' (starting Fri June 20th), then we're probably looking at Saturday our time.

i thought it was being released thursday (friday here)

The full details of Valve's next Team Fortress 2 update have leaked in advance of their official release, revealing the achievements, unlockables and changes to the Pyro along with the two included community maps, all of which are due this Thursday, June 19.

shacknews

CHUB i didn't know you were cup of tea... how come hardly any of you nubs play with your QGL handles?

Chub for RTS, CupOfTea for FPS.

I've never seen a domino on a Internode server? Add me next time.

speaking of internode servers, on the internode website the server list is all domain names not ip's... and gamearena only takes ips... is there a list of ips? anywhere? or can someone post a list?

and gamearena only takes ips...

What do you mean by "gamearena only takes ips"?

must mean cogs ie. the arena.

^ corect.

so how do we join the qgl clan? Im sick of playing on pub servers where people dont play as a team.

Was playing the other day and there was like 5 snipers and 1 medic.

You don't. qgl clan joins you.

But seriously, I'd like to know as well. I'm going to start playing this holidays.

There is a QGL steam group, join that, I wouldn't mind joining the QGL clan too but i'm pretty sure they are full.

we should start an [LGQ] clan for the B team.

i haven't touched tf2 for months (the medic changes didn't draw me back, they sounded s***ty), but this sounds awesome and i will probably fire it up once i'm done with exams

seems it will have a pretty big impact on the entire way the game is played, which is cool in the sense that it keeps things fresh and interesting... but it also has huge potential to be aids. i trust valve for the most part though

ive joined the steam group, now what?

we should start an [LGQ] clan for the B team.

We did that, QGL Shortbus [qgl]

we should start an [LGQ] clan for the B team.

Trust me when I say I'm speaking from experience, don't.

Join a different clan.

Yeah don't follow CHUB around. You might be trying to team up with other medics to figure out how to do some of the achievements on achievement-release-day and then BAM, there's CHUB as a sniper all by himself.

I personally don't want to be in a proper QGL clan, just to play with a bunch of people regularly who aren't total dips***s.

people wanting to join the QGL clan have missed the boat, we did a second round of recruiting not long ago and we have all the numbers we need at the moment.

best off finding another clan until we advertise vacancies

ps. pumped for pyro w00t!

OMGWTFBBQ: Kill an enemy with a taunt.

rofl. must have changed it so it does damage?

Go clan [CAWK]!

Hah, who would want to be in a clan with you clit :)

ps. come battle some gold rush node

I personally don't want to be in a proper QGL clan, just to play with a bunch of people regularly who aren't total dips***s.

Same here.

must have changed it so it does damage?

Not yet apparently.

There were f***tards on the GA server piss-farting around in the sewers trying to hadouken each other to see if it works, while the other half of the team was trying to get the Civilian class glitch to work. The remaining 4 of us were actually going for the map objectives and playing properly.

Luckily I changed to the Internode servers and the number of retards plummeted.

lol parabol. they must have thought the update was today.

More good news:

the Pyro only needs 10, 15 and 20 respectively for his new toys. Since there are thirty-five to choose from, this means people can leave the silly ones alone if they don't fancy grinding them.

means ill get the new weapons that much faster on sunday night :)

10,15 and 20 wat?

achievements, instead of all of them like medic

civilian class glitch? wat dat?

i had a quick tool around with the new update this morning. looks like its going to be fun. compressed air thing is pretty cool, can't use it to do bigger jumps though which sucks.

the Pyro only needs 10, 15 and 20 respectively for his new toys. Since there are thirty-five to choose from, this means people can leave the silly ones alone if they don't fancy grinding them.

it's actually 10, 16, 22

I havent played in months and decided to check it out cause i loved pyro... 3/4 of the server is pyros running around.

The airblast thing is kinda cool but its not OMG awesome special!

Your old stats don't count towards the achievements either like the medic ones did when they first got released (probably changed by now) and that eats cock... I'm not killing another 1000 peons to get that done...

Pyro is going to be even more useful to the engineers now that they can use the air blast to deflect incoming rockets.

already done a couple of achievements. wish pyros could compjump though

Pyro is going to be even more useful to the engineers now that they can use the air blast to deflect incoming rockets.

Hey, awesome thinking.

I kill more SG's as demo with my pipes then with stickies... going to suck trying to lob them from far away at SG's when the pyro just bumps them away.

Just played at lunch, it's mayhem. Pyros f***ing everywhere, don't play spy.

so much fun playing a heavy+medic combo and mowing down all the pyros

this game is too awesome.

so much fun playing a heavy+medic combo and mowing down all the pyros

or just putting up a sentry ...

Nah, sentry didn't work that well, if more than two got close, it'd kill one, and the other would own the turret. Not to mention that they can now shoot at them with the flare gun from long range.

Multiple turrets would probably work though? as single turrets don't tend to be overly effective unless you're playing against tards, even before this update.

this game is too awesome.

Na 88, let it settle down for a bit THEN you will experience the awesomeness.

Add me on Steam man, CupOfTea

Multiple turrets would probably work though?

Sadly, it would only let me build one.

So they have these pyro farm map servers. Engies join for the lol. Spawn die spawn die.

w00t! Took about an hour and a half to get all of the weapons. At least it wasn't like the medic one where it took forever and you had to complete ALL of the achievements.

Damn the compressed gas thing is good, I've been gibbing soldiers with their own rockets. Also found it does an awesome job of dispersing stickies. In fact if you want to get the 100 deflections achievement, just chase and keep dispersing stickies ... you'll get the achievement in no time.

There are a couple of achievements I can't get. The cigarette flick one doesn't work .. I pull out the disguise kit, do a taunt and get a pyro to light me at different stages of my taunt .. he doesn't get the achievement.

Also the igniting-dude-and-his-medic achievement doesn't seem to work either.

last edited by parabol at 01:31:40 21/Jun/08

they all work man because I have gotten them all except the million points and the kill-3-people-1-uber

sometimes they randomly don't work like I had to try a few different times for the 'attention getter' to start registering.

One thing they have done this update that sucks is nerf rocket and sticky jumping. You can't do a double sticky jump anymore because it deals too much damage.

last edited by ctd at 01:48:20 21/Jun/08

i got the do all your 3 taunts above a freezecam with one taunt.

Wtf, TF2 is updating again today and I went "view update" and the title is

Update News - Team Fortress 2
Latest Update: December 31, 1969

WTF?

Also I'm glad sack told me last night about the farming, totally overlooked the fact that it completely screws up all your legit stats.

He's got 60 kills as medic now :)

farming?

farming?

went into a server that had idle bots, went on a bit of a killing spree, got 1 achievement n bailed, but yer it screwd up my stats :(

If your desperate to get achievements, Chub's got some achievement unlocker that gives you all achivements and doesnt wreck your stats...

last edited by $ack at 13:04:26 21/Jun/08

only fags give a s*** about stats anyway, its all about the unlocks.

What's this about an unlocker?

I see nothing, nothing!

http://www.sctriallaw.com/Sgt_20Schultz_small.jpg

Woah, just played a few hours as Pyro... I can't believe how incredibly awesome he is now.

Just my thoughts,

Axetinguisher: This weapon has lots of potential, IMO I think scripting a fastswitch/attack to a key would be highly beneficial. No longer do I sit there and flame a heavy for 5 seconds, just light up and axe him. Works really good with 2 pyros. Sometimes I pull it out for soldiers, otherwise all other classes you're much better off flaming them.

Flare Gun: I don't know how practical this is, but god it's satisfying. ATM I've found 3 uses for it, snipers/engi's/c***s hiding out. Once you learn the lob angle, hitting a sniper from far away is relatively easy, once they're on fire they are next to useless, same with engineers... even though they might have a dispenser, fire seems to distract them a lot (I worked with a spy, once the engi was on fire he the spy absolutely destroyed him) and put them off there game. I found it useful for demos or even soldiers trying to get SG's from behind walls and such, 1 flare and they seem to retreat, I guess fire is just really annoying.

Air Blast: OMFG, this rocks so much. I can't believe how good it is for deflecting rockets, unless we're point blank I can nearly get 100% of them... had many LOL's from deflecting crit rockets back into them. I like deflecting SG rockets but I don't know how practical that is? If you're close enough to activate a SG, the bullets are going to kill you anyway... and the deflected SG rockets don't do enough damage to harm the SG with an engi behind it. Blowing away stickies IMO is the greatest strength, eg. on Gold Rush when demos often sticky the cart... 1 air blast can knock away 100% of them. Also it's great for helping engi's, a pyro chilling next to the SG can make it practically invincible from distance rockets/grens.

Backburner: Not much to say... extra 50hp, crits from behind... this weapon buffs the pyro massively, very powerful but I feel it's balanced.

All in all, pyro is epic fun and this update is perfect :)

PS: Fastlane seems good, Turbine seems a bit lame.

i prefer using the normal flamethrower over the backburner because of the air blast. since im usually charging an enemy, instead of behind them theres really no use for back crits. its better to shoot a rocket back at the damn soldiers.

does anyone know if the rockets etc you deflect only hurt the person that shot them or any enemy that manages to get hit?

They hurt any enemy - when you deflect them they effectively switch teams.

i prefer using the normal flamethrower over the backburner because of the air blast.

Same, it's great watching soldiers charge you then retreat with the shotgun once they learn your aim and timing is good :)

does anyone know if the rockets etc you deflect only hurt the person that shot them or any enemy that manages to get hit?

A friend of mine killed 2 enemies with a single deflected sticky, so there's your answer.

cheers. i couldnt really tell cause ive only killed soldiers so far

does anyone know if the rockets etc you deflect only hurt the person that shot them or any enemy that manages to get hit?

Apparently I killed one of my team mates by deflecting a soldiers rocket at them. At least they were bitching I had :p

Yeah I heard the splash from deflected stuff hurts anyone or something.

After playing it a few hours today... I will retract my previous statement.

Airblast = pwn, f***ing love that thing! No longer are pyros soldier prey :)
Getting a crit redirect kill is so damn satisfying.. ahhh yeah :D

I am setup with regular flamethrower, flare gun and axetinguisher.



I just wish they'd stop being fags and release unlocks for the remaining classes all at once... it'd stop the stupid mass spamming of the class thats just got them.

Do you want to wait a year for them to actually create everything before it gets released?

I'd much rather them release something every 2 months and always have something fresh to try.

howcome? have they just got one guy working on it?

No, but you know what valve is like. It would take them forf***ingever to get it done if they did them all at once.

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time

Some highlights:

Today = Tonight at 11.59Pm
This week = Next week
Next week = In 3 months
Coming soon = When Duke Nukem Forever goes gold

I'm not going to be enjoying the Spy fest 08 when it happens.

^ ever spy will be disguised as opposite team's spy to blend in ..

Also:

I am setup with regular flamethrower, flare gun and axetinguisher.

Yep same, I just redirected a crit rocket into a soldier about 5 minutes ago... soo good.

The extra 50hp is nice with the backburner, makes the pyro pretty tough, but I rarely find myself behind the enemy.

The axe I'm using HEAPS, since there are other pyros I often just run in with my axe, roughly 50% of my kills are with the axe... it just plonks them.

Flare gun is pretty useless, they needed it to have significant damage because it's just flatout crappy to shoot (bad delay, silly lob, moves slow enough through air that you can dodge it). Then again, I don't see myself using the shotgun so I just keep it equipped anyway.

I found it useful for lighting up spies if they're too far away for your flame to reach, normally you would be shotgunning them to death... but 1 flare and your team knows and they get hammered.

Good fun :D

I love the flare gun, I seem to have some crazy ability to hit almost anything with it.

It doesn't usually kill them but I get tons of assists and they s*** themselves and usually fall back to heal.

New stuff for the Pyro

I'm getting pretty good at the air blast now, how he shoots it in the video isn't very practical, you got to have mega twitch and be able to do it point blank. On long maps (or if they're trying to get SG's) soldiers sometimes shoot horizontal and it will deflect back, but the majority shoot at your feet and it just bounces back into the ground.

99.9% of soldiers spam the shoot button, so you can tell EXACTLY when they're going to shoot (comes at exact intervals).

I try to run up, deflect a shot, flame them once, deflect the next shot then axe them. I find it better then holding down the flame, because you're ALWAYS going to get hit by the next rocket, better to do a spurt, deflect instantly (they're going to shoot, that's for sure) then axe them.

Air doesn't have to be very precise, it's got a bit of a window, maybe 1/2 second so it's suprisingly easy to get them point blank... the only thing that stuffs you up is if they don't spam, then you're screwed.

/end pyro strat rant

he had the backburner equipped which does 100% crits from the back and gives them an extra 50 health. imo they should also do less damage than the normal flamethrower from the front aswell as losing the air blast.

Was playing yesterday ... pyro was able to kill me in 1 second (as soldier) and something came up about a level ten flame thrower (pretty sure it said that) ... is pyro just a tad over powered now?

Backburner, +50hp and 100% criticals from behind.

He's not overpowered, you shouldn't have let the pyro behind you, that's like saying an undisguised spy is overpowered because he would have killed you from behind also.

If a pyro manages to sneak up behind you, you deserve to die.

last edited by CHUB at 11:24:06 24/Jun/08

heh if i come up behind someone i just flame them once then 1 hit (2 if heavies) them with my axtinguisher.

You were probably on 1hp :P

did he use the air blast to shoot a rocket back at ya?

sames been happening to me zj... keep gettin just raped face to face with pyros no matter who i am, whether it b another pyro, heavy, soldier, demoman... they just smash threw anything now :S

Was playing yesterday ... pyro was able to kill me in 1 second (as soldier) and something came up about a level ten flame thrower (pretty sure it said that) ... is pyro just a tad over powered now?

Probably just crit you. Last time I checked a crit from most classes if close enough or accurate enough will kill you almost instantly. I've been sawed down by medics in 1 hit, shot gun blasted by scouts in 1 hit...etc...etc.