ubercharged.net

Mike F writes in with this complaint:

I play pyro defensively, ie. I set people on fire and run away, sending them running back to their lines for a medpack. Sometimes I get a kill out of this. But what makes me angry is what some smartass soldiers and demomen have realized they can do with their splash damage. Say I commit to a kill and run after a guy, flaming all the way. The victim turns a corner, sees no medpac and dies. Okay, tough shit I killed you. Well here is where it gets just plain ugly.

I was dominating a guy as a pyro on dustbowl. Every time he ran into the tunnels I ended up flaming him. Apparently, he got fed up and decided to flip a bitch on me. First he gets revenge. Next time I see him I set him on fire, and, angry at his insubordination, decide to hunt him down. I follow him to a dead end, and put his back to a wall. His health hits 25 and I know I have him. I keep him in his corner, and keep my distance, enjoying his slow burning death. The guy looks at me, then at the ground. He shoots one solitary stickybomb, AND DETONATES IT (sorry caps are necessary). He gets a suicide, and I lose a hard earned point. I know it doesn’t help him and it doesn’t hurt my team, but that’s just poor sportsmanship. After that his entire team catches on too and I have to change class just to get some points so I don’t end up kicked for sucking after the game. Sorry, rant over.

Mike F.

Hell yeah. Fair enough to get annoyed I say. But is there anything you can do about it? Nope, not really. It sucks, but there are jerks online. After serious consultation with my shrink, it turns out that the only thing you can alter in this situation is your own attitude.

This is important when you are playing the pyro. The pyro is a rock star. A born rock star. To get in the mode and rise above the plebs, you too have to be a rock star!

Don’t give a damn about what everyone thinks

A real rock star does his own damn thing and doesn’t let anyone sway his thinking. He’s a rebel, an original thinker. So some guy decided to suicide and deny you a point? Who cares?! You can set the world on fire! Why should you care about one lame ass soldier? Just do a pyro taunt, rock out, and carry on. Show the world you don’t care what it thinks.

Ultimately though, the guy is dead, so at the end of the day, you got what you wanted. Sure, you didn’t get the points and your position on the player list didn’t go up, but lets face it - that would just be selling out. The best rock stars languish in obscurity and do their best music while they are unknown and playing in seedy highway reststop bars. As soon as they get the success it all goes to their heads and the music goes to crap. They start pumping out self-indulgent turd-fare set to vast orchestral scores. And before you know it, they are selling concert tickets to 60 year olds for $300 a pop to play in some upper class vineyard so all those pensioners can relive their pathetic privileged youth. Blech.

Set the world on fire, trash your hotel room, then leave town in a hurry

Life on the road while touring is tough, but it’s in a pyros blood. A rock star is in a new town every few days. They turn up, do a blazing show and burn things up, trash their hotel room, set their TV on fire and throw it out the window, leave town in a trail of dust. F**k yeah!

Then do it all again somewhere else tomorrow night! You don’t even know where you are half the time. You’re moving around so much, going at full speed the whole time it all blurs in together.

Pyros have to be the same way - you gotta get in quick. Do a killer rock show, set everyone on fire, party hard, trash some stuff, then get out and try to recover a little from it all before doing it again. Pyros and rock stars both have a hard life from all their partying. Finding a good doctor can help prolong the ride in both cases.

(I wish someone would do a hotel room mod for TF2 with destructable TVs. PYRO HEAVEN!)

Live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse

Pyros really don’t have a long life expectancy. By their nature, they are forced to get down and dirty up close. This fits perfectly with the rock star ethos. You’re pushing things to the limit. Living on the edge. Taking risks, and to hell with the consequences.

Of course, the consequences are that you end up eating a lot of rockets at point blank range. So you die a lot and spend a lot of time in respawn. Its a scientific fact that pyros have the shortest life span after medics (who are #1 target for most players) and spies (90% of whom suck and die quick anyway). SO WHAT? That is what being pyro is all about. Party hard, and keep going till you burn out. If you rock out hard enough you might just do enough damage to change the world and leave a lasting legacy (like messing up an entire attacking party, giving your team enough time to group up and win the match).

Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, and Jim Morrison all died by 27. On the other hand, Tom Jones, Rod Stewart, and Barry Manilow are all still going strong. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions there.

So what was the point again?

I don’t actually think there was a point to all this rambling. I guess its really just to say that other people are dicks. Especially anyone on a public server. You can’t really do much about it except to just go with the flow and rock out. Playing pyro is all about rocking out. Anytime you forget that, just do a pyro taunt, and it will all come back.