Characters / Team Fortress 2: The Pyro

Main Character Index
Offense Classes (The Scout | The Soldier | The Pyro)
Defense Classes (The Demoman | The Heavy | The Engineer)
Support Classes (The Medic | The Sniper | The Spy)
Non-Player Characters

The Pyro

Real name: Unknown

"Hudda hudda huh!"

Voiced by: Dennis Bateman

"Mmmph mmph!"

An enigma even amongst their employers and comrades, the Pyro is a mumbling pyromaniac who is never seen without an asbestos-lined fireproof suit complete with a face-obscuring gas mask muffling their voice. Their race, nationality, and gender are a complete mystery, and from others' perspective, they seem to just want to burn things. But through the Pyro's eyes, they hallucinate the world as a fantastical, idyllic Sugar Bowl known as Pyroland, where the Pyro aims to have fun and bring happiness to everyone. Unfortunately for everyone else — and unbeknownst to the poor Pyro themselves — spreading fun and happiness translates to bringing hell to earth, lighting up people and property alike, splitting skulls with a fire axe and setting the temperature to anywhere upwards 100 degrees. Meet the Pyro!

The Pyro is a close-range class specialized in ambushing enemies, with a respectable 175HP and 100% base speed, giving them the most balanced stats in the game. The Pyro's flamethrower allows them to deal continuous damage in a cone in front of them. Enemies that touch the flames are lit on fire, which constantly eats away at their health until either the fire is put out, or they burn to death. The flamethrower is also capable of emitting a blast of compressed air, which can push and forcibly reposition foes — even when they're Übercharged — extinguish burning teammates for a health boost, clear away Stickybomb traps, and reflect projectiles fired by careless enemies. The Pyro's default secondary is a single-barrelled shotgun; suitable mainly as a backup in case the flamethrower runs out of fuel, or to finish off weakened foes. This can be swapped for one of several flare guns that can set enemies alight from afar, enhancing the pyromania. The Pyro's melee weapon is a fire axe.

In terms of their role on the team, the Pyro is kind of an oddball, as while they are almost exclusively a short-range character they do not necessarily excel at any one role. The cloak-revealing capabilities of the flamethrower (and with certain melee weapons, being able to destroy Sappers) makes them the bane of Spies, but their air blast ability makes them a soft counter to the projectile-based Soldier and Demoman. Their high close-range damage is useful in a flank or ambush, but can be equally effective when charging at the enemy; especially with the help of an Übercharge. A variety of unlockable weapons allow them to specialize in any of these scenarios, becoming a flanker, support, front-line damage, or just a hard Spy counter with relative ease. Ultimately, Pyro is a Support/Offense class suited to fulfilling various secondary roles for their team, and is among the most versatile classes in the game.

The Pyro was the second class to receive new achievements and weapons.

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• Achilles' Heel:
  • While a competent Pyro is a terrifying force when you're forced into their range of action, they're one of the worst classes at long range, only having their easily-dodgeable Flare Gun or a Short-Range Shotgun to poke you with. The easiest way to deal with a Pyro is to shoot at them while you run away, and to stay away from tight spaces where they can corner and ambush you.
  • Heavies can completely obliterate Pyros. The Heavy has drastically stronger damage output, nearly twice as much health, a longer effective range and can easily come out victorious in any fair one-on-one encounter as long as the Heavy isn't caught off-guard; and regardless, a Heavy with good reaction times can simply turn around and shred even a full-health Pyro in less than a second. Most Heavies also equip the Sandvich or other lunchbox items, which can help them survive afterburn if their large health pool isn't enough. That being said, using a lunchbox item runs the risk of very loudly alerting the Pyro that the Heavy will be vulnerable for several seconds as they are locked in their eating animation — then needing to spend at least another second revving up their miniguns —and the Flare Gun can work well against Heavies; if the Pyro can aim well and use their mobility to stay out the range of the minigun, they can set the Heavy alight, then take advantage of his large size and slow speed to pepper him with crit-inducing shots from afar and take off big chunks of health on top of the afterburn damage.
  • Then there's the Engineers. Pyro's primary damage source is a very close-range stream of flames, and the large sphere of influence that a Sentry Gun has can deny Pyros from approaching outright. The rockets of a level 3 Sentry can be deflected, but it's not a reliable way to take them out; since by the time the rockets are reflected, the Pyro will typically be dead to the accompanying hail of bullets. An Engineer that's away from his sentry, however, is easy pickings for any class; and the Pyro is no exception.
  • The Sniper acts as the polar opposite of the Pyro, dealing tons of precise damage from a long distance in a comfortable defensive position, compared to the Pyro's forgiving close-range damage that tends to put them in harm's way. A skilled Sniper can completely shut down a Pyro, dishing out deadly headshots from well outside flamethrower range and cutting off entire segments of the map from being crossed. Pyros can counter this by using flanking routes to kill the Sniper or outright avoid them, using long-range flare shots to set the relatively immobile Sniper alight and disrupt his aim — a strategy that can itself be countered with the Darwin's Danger Shield, which makes the Sniper immune to afterburn damage and cuts fire damage in general by 50% — or just taking advantage of a distraction. An observant Sniper can reliably spot and counter these tactics, emphasizing the Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors at play.
  • A variety of things can put out burning players, including Medics, dispensers, health packs, several liquid-based weapons, and even friendly Pyros. This makes it relatively easy for players to avoid the extra damage unless the Pyro manages to corner or ambush them.
• Air Guitar: The Pyro's normal melee weapon taunt has them strum their bludgeons like guitars. In the cases of the Neon Annihilator and Third Degree, they have unique accompanying sound effects that play — riffs from a bass guitar or electric guitar, respectively — during their taunts.
• Air-Vent Passageway: Pyro infiltrated the Administrator's bunker faster than Heavy did in "The Showdown" comic this way, sneaking in through the base's air vents as opposed to dealing with all the obstacles — including fences, guard dogs and a squad of Messengers — head-on, like Heavy had to.
• Ambiguously Gay:
  • Their locker in some of the maps features a pink purse, which brought speculation on their sexuality, if not gender.
  • Pyroland's overwhelmingly Sugar Bowl appearance also contributes evidence that Pyro is Camp Gay.
  • The June 22, 2021 update added a tie cosmetic for all classes called the "Manndatory Attire". The "Hobbyist" variant of it for the Pyro sports a rainbow pattern.
• Ambiguously Human: We never get to see for certain what's under that suit. Here are some points for Pyro being a non-human:
  • One of the earliest examples is Pyro's publicity blurb, which questions "if he even is a man"; this can be interpreted as either this, or about what Pyro's gender is.
  • The Apparition's Aspect, a cosmetic which replaces Pyro's head with a ghostly silhouette of itself, shows that Pyro either doesn't need a head, or doesn't even have one one under the gas mask. While other classes have a few cosmetics that throw their humanity into question (most prominently, the "Voodoo-Cursed Souls", which turn them into zombies), the Apparition's Aspect is unique in that — unlike many of those aforementioned cosmetics — it isn't Halloween-restricted, implying that whatever it does lies outside the seasonal magic event of TF2.
  • During the True Meaning comic, a Grocket crashes into Engineer's house, within which a set of five weapons and a note have been left, said note reading: "Greetings, emissary from another dimension! We have heard your plea." While Engineer interprets Pyro's mumbling as a "no, I did not order extra-terrestrial aid", Engie could have been guessing what Pyro was saying.
  • The trailer for the official community-made Invasion update shows the empty crop fields outside the barn where the mercs are hosting a sci-fi movie night. Pyro is conspicuously absent… until they appear right outside the barn's doors, just as the flying saucers start attacking the fields. Combined with the above, this suggests some sort of extra-terrestrial and/or extra-dimensional origin for Pyro.
  • And then, of course, there's the whole deal about Pyroland.
• Ambiguous Gender: Word of God is that there is no answer to whether the Pyro is male or female, so this trope gets played around with a lot. Heck, this very character page has a commented-out disclaimer in regards of what pronouns to use when describing the Pyro.
  • Older versions of TF2 would display random challenges on the title screen for the player, which read "Give him a shot!" referring to the class the challenge was about. If the challenge was issued for the Pyro, the pronoun "him" would sometimes change to "her."
  • In Meet the Pyro, Heavy says 'I fear no man, but that thing… it scares me.' Scout, on the other hand, refers to the Pyro as 'he' (but the caption for the line is "He's not here, is she?").
  • Their storage locker carries a woman's purse, and their Director's Vision taunt flips between masculine and feminine poses.
  • In "Meet The Spy", we see an alerts board (Intruder Alert, Red Spy, In Base). But under the words "Red Pyro" are two alerts, one labelled "Is A Man" and the other labelled "Is A Woman". And elsewhere on the same board, "Is A Robot".
  • Some of domination/revenge kill lines targeted towards the Pyro are misogynistic.
    Engineer: Sorry, ma'am.
    Sniper: Oooh, got ya right in the ovary.
  • In "A Cold Day In Hell", Bears are approaching Scout, Soldier, and Pyro. Soldier claims two things attract bears; honey and menstruating women, before saying "My God, I knew it! Somehow I always knew! PYRO!". As it turns out, Pyro is blocking the entrance to a crashed plane, full of honey.
  • In what is a reference to that, "Old Wounds" reveals that the Classic Pyro is a plump, grandma-like woman (with a large scar on her face) called Beatrice.
  • In Evil Genius 2, where Pyro was added as DLC, the game uses neutral They/Them pronouns.
• And Call Him "George": Pyro would really like to be friends with the little baby-people around… if only Pyro knew how much harm is really being done to them.
• Anti-Structure: Sentries may be a pain in even a really good Pyro's tail, but they still have a few weapons that excel at destroying them. The Homewrecker deals double melee damage against enemy buildings, and the singular blasts of Dragon's Fury deals three times the normal damage on them too^note It deals the same amount of damage as the 300% damage increase to burning targets (approximately 70-90 depending on ramp-up) listed on the weapon's stat list. This is probably because rather than being as advertised, the 70-90 damage is the weapon's default damage level, with its damage on non-burning targets being reduced by 300%, allowing Pyro to puff them out in two or three shots.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: The Pyro's gas mask has large, circular lenses, a quality that most of their head cosmetics try and retain. The lenses resemble the wide, curious eyes of a child, thereby reflecting the Pyro's immaturity. Wide eyes are also associated with being insane, which the Pyro very obviously is.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: A stereotypical new Pyro player will forgo supporting their team defensively, flanking, airblasting, or ambushing in favor of just running straight at enemies and setting them on fire, known derogatorily as "W+M1", for the only two keys needed to do this. It is worth noting that at some point during competent Pyro play, you'll just have a good opportunity to run at opponents and light them all on fire.
  • This is also the encouraged way to use the Dragons Fury and the Phlogistinator, the former gains a massive attack power and fire rate boost so as long as attacks are being followed up on against targets, and punishes the Pyro with pitiful damage and speed if they whiff their attacks or are playing too passively, while the latter ditches airblasts in favor of pure fire damage, encouraging them to build up the weapons meter by always trying to burn something before granting themselves guaranteed critical hits.
  • The Axtinguisher is a weapon built for pure damage against burning opponents, with its latest rework giving the user a hefty speed boost on kills against burning targets for four seconds. While it can be used to make an escape or rush for a medkit after smacking someone with it, it’s just as encouraged to use that speed boost to try and run down more players to get more hits in for even more damage and speed.
• Attack Reflector: Among other uses, properly-timed compression blasts return projectile weapons — rockets, grenades, stickybombs, arrows, jars, flares, and even baseballs and ornaments — to the sender.
• Ax-Crazy: Absolutely. Along with Soldier, Pyro stands out among an already lunatic-filled ensemble as being completely insane to the point where even their own team is frightened of them. Bonus points for their default melee weapon — and several of their unlockables — being an actual axe.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Whenever the others aren't trembling in fear of the maniac, they're treating the Pyro like a strange child. Ms. Pauling in particular talks to them like a kind teacher talking to a preschooler when she's assigning missions to the classes, giving their contract instructions out in really sweet and simple terms.
• Badass Biker: In their Hot Wheeler taunt, Pyro rides a miniature-sized motor tricycle that can shoot flames out of its back. This also forms the basis of the earlier "Sons of Arsonry" cosmetic set; which gives them a spiked leather jacket and helmet, and a motorbike engine-shaped backpack.
• Badass Driver: How the Pyro is depicted in Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed, being the driver of the team's kart. Guess the Pyro is the Stig…
  • Give the Pyro's nature, this might overlap with Drives Like Crazy.
• Balance Buff: The Pyro was widely derided by competitive players for being a Skill Gate Character, until they gained the compression blast. This allowed the Pyro to forcefully reposition enemies (into a pit, for example) and reflect nearly every non-bullet projectile in the game; giving the Pyro a huge advantage against Soldiers and Demomen, since the compression blast allowed them to reflect their rockets and grenades back at them, as well as to minesweep the latter's Stickybomb traps.
  • The Pyro's unique traits of inflicting and being immune to afterburn steadily got less relevant by comparison when other classes got Bleed effects, fiery weapons, and many ways to extinguish afterburn. So, the Pyro's flamethrowers now additionally quarter any healing/shielding applied to their target, making the Pyro invaluable in killing someone with a Medic in their pocket.
• Barrier Warrior: The Pyro's compression blast generates a small, short-lived reflective shield in front of the nozzle, which can reflect just about any kind of projectile weapon in the game with good timing.
• Berserk Button: Pyro may see the world as a cutesy Sugar Bowl, but if you diss fire in front of the little firebug, no matter how cute you are, Pyro will go berserk.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Never mind the Innocent Inaccurate rampages, the comics suggest that Pyro is pretty perceptive of the world while they're outside of battle. And exceptionally deadly. It's shown that they are perfectly willing to kill — at least, consciously — whoever or whatever insults fire in front of them.
• Blithe Spirit: At least, that's how they themselves see it…
• Blown Across the Room: Airblast might only push enemies backwards a modest distance, but this also knocks them into the air and limits their mobility for a bit. Besides being able to deflect enemy projectiles and extinguish burning allies, blasting enemies is incredibly useful for a variety of purposes: disrupting enemy capture or control of an objective, juggling them into the air while they burn, saving your team from an incoming Spy or Demoknight, and, of course, sending them into environmental hazards to instantly die like a Bottomless Pit or buzzsaw (or even off a normal ledge to escape from an unwinnable fight).
• Bodyguarding a Badass: Often the other most viable playstyle for Pyro besides rushing in for the kill is to act as a bodyguard for other players, acting as a support class that stands by teammates to reflect rockets and grenades away from them, extinguish any flare gun hits from the enemy, be on the lookout for enemy Spies going for a backstab (and also happen to be the one best suited for thwarting them with an airblast to knock them away from potential victims) and especially guarding friendly Engineer nests. Given that Pyros can really struggle in frontline combat when the enemy team is at their best, opting to support those better built to hold the front line can serve as a better use of a life than hopelessly prodding for openings to attack from.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • The Pyro has a lot of utility apart from the much more fun business of Kill It with Fire, like extinguishing teammates and Spy-checking. A good Pyro guarding an Engineer's buildings can easily detect and kill enemy Spies, shoo away invulnerable enemies, reflect projectiles, and even destroy sappers if equipped with the Homewrecker or Neon Annihilator, making them a nigh-unstoppable combo. However, pairing up with an Engineer tends to mean a lot of waiting around, since you'll usually be far behind the battlefield.
  • The Pyro's default secondary weapon is just a simple shotgun. Most players will instead be using one of the flare guns… but in a Pyro vs Pyro situation, the shotgun will win almost every time, as a shotgun-wielding Pyro can stand safely out of flamethrower or melee range, while their opponent's flare guns barely leaves a scratch.
  • In terms of their flamethrowers, the Degreaser doesn't read like much on paper, trading out valuable afterburn damage and costing more per airblast for... faster weapon-switching speed. Believe it or not, this trait alone is invaluable to Pyro's identity as a combo-centric character, as that fraction of a second in switching between compatible weapons (such as the Axtinguisher or the Flare Gun) may result in combos that more than make up for those drawbacks. The Degreaser/Panic Attack combo in particular grants The Pyro their highest possible DPS output in large part due to both of them having fast weapon-switching speeds, allowing skillful Pyros to practically dual-wield them for close-range blasts of fire and buckshot.
  • The events of the "Ring of Fired" comic lead Pyro to become CEO of Frontier Engineering. They're shockingly effective in this position, making everyone on their team a millionaire in his first quarter alone. However, it's very clear that being a CEO of anything divorced from fire is not who Pyro is; their Pyrovision has turned into a grey, bleak (if still quirky) version of the real world as opposed to the exciting Sugar Bowl it usually is. Once Soldier and Ms. Pauling lure them out with some fire, they immediately jump at the call.
• Catch and Return: The compression blast can deflect almost all projectiles, including Jarate, Mad Milk, baseballs, baubles, explosives, arrows, flares, and eyes. A skilled Pyro can reflect them back so they hit enemies, including the ones who launched them in the first place.
• Characterization Marches On: Pyro's voice lines from release aren't entirely understandable, but based on the context they're used they can be interpreted as phrases that make sense, portraying Pyro as a mostly sane person who's ironically the tamest of a band of killers. Those voice lines have been reused for most of TF2's update history, but besides those, over the years, the Pyro has been steadily turned into a loony Psychopathic Manchild with an affinity for traditionally feminine or "kiddie" things, an obsession with fire, and (in the comics) being someone who rarely utters a word and can be surprisingly friendly — especially towards children and cute pets — but capable of astonishing brutality when pushed. At their most violent, they've even managed to horrify the likes of Scout, Spy and Soldier.
  Soldier: (visibly taken aback, in response to Pyro obliterating a bear's head with an axe) That... that's enough, Pyro. You're launching bone shards everywhere. Some of us are naked, here.
• Character Tics: Flicking a lighter on and off, judging by the waiting room scene in "Meet the Medic". This is a popular stereotype for any pyromaniac… although with the "Meet The Pyro" movie release, who knows what they're seeing?
  • According to the "Ring Of Fired" comic, they see fire as rainbows and bright lights. So maybe they just want everyone to taste the rainbow? Then again, at the same time, they viciously maul a Smokey the Bear Expy who tells them "fire is nobody's friend!", indicating they at least know what fire is.
  • In the background of the main comic series, Pyro can usually be seen playing with a lighter or staring at a burning matchstick until it's time to move. If it isn’t either, starting fires to pass the time will also do.
• Charge Meter: The Phlogistinator has an "Mmmph" meter, which charges whenever the Pyro causes fire damage and can be unleashed to cause triple damage for a few seconds.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: "Meet the Pyro" shows that their view of the world is… odd. Word of God states that they live in a fantasy world known as Pyroland. It does have a darker, more mundane version which is applied whenever they are not gleefully burning things… Which is still pretty weird compared to how others view the world.
• Close-Range Combatant: The Pyro can move fairly quickly, can hit incredibly hard up close and take decent amounts of damage, but generally lacks range. As such, a competent Pyro must always make use of cover.
• Combos: Multiple playstyles revolve around them to compensate for the lack of burst damage in the flamethrowers. Most of the flare-based secondaries deal extra damage to burning opponents (the original Flare Gun deals lethal Critical Hits to them), and the Axtinguisher or Panic Attack can be used to similarly take down a burning opponent. The Degreaser benefits weapon swap strategies further, with its fast holster and deploy times. Thus, a tactic forms in igniting an opponent, then using a different weapon to deal heavy burst damage to them.
• Critical Hit Class: Many of their weapons revolve around a chance to do extra critical hits, such as the Backburner, which deals extra damage when behind an enemy, as well as the Flare Gun and Axtinguisher, both dealing crits to enemies already on fire.
• Cute and Psycho: A worrying combination of enthusiastic childish cheerfulness and rampant wanton arson. Fittingly, many Pyro cosmetics allow you to heavily lean into 'cute' or 'psycho' with some truly sugary and cutesy gear for the former and outright bizarre and horrifying items for the latter.
• Damage Over Time: Pyro's flamethrowers deal damage slowly for a few seconds or until the flames are extinguished.
• Deliberately Monochrome: After RED team disbanded, Pyro somehow managed to run an engineering company as its CEO for a long time, but without any friends or fire to have fun with, their vision has gone dull, depressed and monochrome. Still very, very weird, but much less alive.
• Depending on the Artist: The Pyro's fire axe. In the game proper, their axe is painted red, but the comics give it no paint job at all, looking like ordinary steel. Their gas mask tends to alternate between cartoonishly mending with their facial expression, or remain as a stoic set of lenses depending on the comic or even panel.
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • Many players overlook the "ambush" aspect of playing a Pyro. But the Backburner, mocked by some, always Crits from behind and can kill in seconds with a steady blast. If you run away from a Backburner and you're not a Scout, you're a dead man. And the Axtinguisher always Crits burning enemies. Setting a foe on fire and then sinking the Axtinguisher into them can kill most enemies in one hit. Plus, with the addition of a speed boost upon a kill with the weapon, experienced players can go on extended killstreaks against an unsuspecting team.
  • Pyros who master the compression blast become Ax-Crazy pyromancers who can reflect projectiles back at opponents (including arrows fired from Sniper bows, but not the syringes fired by Medics^note It can, however, reflect the arrows from the Crusader's Crossbow, and even heal their own teammates through this method.), use opponents' rockets to Rocket Jump themselves up, relocate sticky bombs to inconvenient locations, block the advancement of Über Charged combos and separate Medics from their teammates, and put out fires on teammates. Just see this.
  • Pyros with a good grasp of level design, enemy movements, patience, timing, and sheer insane dedication to bringing Death from Above can literally drop down on someone, set them on fire, and kill most of the other classes in a single swing of the Axtinguisher before they can react. Notably, this allows them to single-handedly kill other Pyros instantly with the Axtinguisher, which is otherwise almost impossible.
  • The Flare Gun does Scratch Damage and a little bit of afterburn normally; however, it does full crits when it hits a burning opponent, meaning a Pyro with good aim and tracking can hit fleeing opponents for a 1-2 punch at a distance, capable of 2-shotting light classes and leaving everyone else save for Heavy critically injured. Of the Pyro's various flare gun options, the Flare Gun doesn't have any special gimmicks to really coast on if the player isn't great with aiming (the Detonator has flare jumping and the Scorch Shot has knockback and massive AoE potential), but has by far the highest burst damage, making it perhaps the most immediately deadly.
  • The Dragon's Fury shoots hitscan projectiles instead of perpetual flames and utilizes a bizarre pressurization mechanic that's shared by its primary fire and the airblast that causes both to come out faster on consecutive hits. Without scoring hits, Pyro's airblast and damage output is actually slower than with their more traditional weapons. This requires the Pyro to properly aim with their weapon, but it's capable of killing enemies at a much faster rate than their other primaries when their aim is true. It also utterly demolishes enemy buildings way faster than any other flamethrower, somewhat alleviating the class's crippling weakness to Sentries if they're close enough to fight back.
• Diminishing Returns for Balance: A team with too many Pyros leaves itself vulnerable to just about anything with a range or high ground advantage. While anything within their effective range is going to be turned to ashes, actually achieving that becomes a struggle when the enemy team can start stacking Engineers and Sentries, Heavies and Snipers to out-DPS a horde of Pyros at a distance.
• Disproportionate Retribution: They once cut off one of the Soldier's hands because they were scuffling in the back seat, and mulched a bear's head with an axe because they imagined it insulting fire.
• Dissonant Serenity: In "True Meaning", the Pyro doesn't appear to be too shaken by a rocket that crashed into the Engineer's house, barely missing the two.
  • In "Meet the Pyro", it's shown that during battle, the Pyro sees themselves giving lollipops, bubbles, and happiness to cute baby cherubs, and skipping around happily in a colorful, cartoony town. In reality, however, they're menacingly stalking around a BLU-held wooden town, burning everything to the ground and gruesomely killing everyone they see.
• Dramatic Gun Cock: The Pyro is unique in that unlike other classes that use shotguns, they actually pump its forearm when they first draw it.
• The Dreaded: As shown in "Meet the Pyro", even their own team is terrified of them. The Spy muses on what could fuel such a desire for destruction, the Scout promptly exits the interview room while refusing to divulge any information on them, and the Heavy muses that while he may fear no man, the Pyro is so scary to that he doesn't even consider them to be human.
• Edible Bludgeon: The Pyroland counterpart of the Fire Axe is the Lollichop, a giant team-colored lollipop with a white swirl. The Pyro is seen happily giving one to the Heavy cherub in Meet the Pyro, with the snap-back to reality showing them actually embedding the axe through the Heavy's skull.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": To an even greater extent than the other classes. Even when off duty, the Engineer (Dell Conagher) calls them Pyro.
• Evil Laugh: The majority of their Domination lines amount to sinister chuckles and loud laughter.
• Expressive Mask: Averted in-game, but played straight in the comic where their gas mask deforms with their expressions and the goggles act as Eye Glasses. When they hallucinate a bear as Smoulders the Bear telling them that "Fire is nobody's friend!" the goggles narrow in anger as they grab their fire axe and the background bursts into flames.

F-M

• The Faceless: Nobody knows what's under that mask. In the character model, the Pyro's head is the mask. Averted in the concept arts.
• Featureless Protagonist: Nobody has ever seen what the Pyro looks like under that asbestos suit and mask, and the shapelessness of the suit itself doesn't give you much to work with either.
• Fireballs: The Dragon's Fury launches them, and Pyro themselves can throw short-ranged Shakunetsu-style ones with their Hadouken kill taunt.
• Firefighter Arsonist: Several of Pyro's accessories are firefighting attire; their stock melee weapon is a fire axe, the Brigade Helm and Vintage Merryweather are fire helmets, and the Trickster's Turnout Gear a fireman's jacket. At least in "Meet the Pyro", they're seen using said fire axe to break down doors so they can torch people inside, making them a very literal "fireman".
  Vintage Merryweather Description: Pyro wears this in tribute to the many firefighters who have perished trying to quell their flames.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: The Pyro's primary weapons are all flamethrowers, which deal fire damage in a cone in front of them, and also deal afterburn damage after they are hit. That makes them a short-range fighter with a Herd-Hitting Attack which can quickly wreck havoc in closed spaces, but can be abused with clueless players (referred to as "W+M1" Pyros) simply charging into the fray hoping to score kills but only getting killed quickly.
• Foot Popping: Pyro does this while hugging Saxton Hale, as seen at the bottom of this page.
• Flare Gun: Apart from shotguns, the Pyro can use flare guns and weapons that act like modified flare guns.
  • The first and aptly named Flare Gun is focused around dealing burst damage to burning targets, with a measly 30 damage flare opening and a 90 damage follow up if the second flare hits, enough to kill most classes in two hits and leave the rest vulnerable to burning to death. When other friendly Pyros are on the team, it goes from a 1-2 combo weapons to a reliable finisher that can snipe enemies with the help of other Pyros torching them for you.
  • The Detonator is a fireworks launcher haphazardly mashed with a flare gun that shoots explosive flares, which sacrifices raw damage in favor of AOE attacks, letting the Pyro burn targets from around corners or entire groups of people with a properly timed explosion, and from a safe distance. Being an explosive weapon, it also lets the Pyro flare jump to spots they normally wouldn't be able to reach, at the cost of some HP.
  • The Scorch Shot is a flare gun that acts similar to the Detonator in that it lacks big bursts of damage in favor of setting multiple people on fire with an explosive flare. Against burning targets, a hit with this flare will deal a disorienting amount of knockback, and the flares will linger for a bit after hitting someone before exploding for a second wave of damage that deal mini-crits, and like the Detonator it allows for flare jumps, albeit ones not as impressive. It can also clear sticky bombs.
  • The Manmelter is a 'flare gun' (RE: Alien death ray) that deals no bonus damage to burning targets, but has an alternate fire mode that extinguishes burning teammates and uses those flames to store crits.
• Friend to All Children: Seen briefly in the second issue of the Team Fortress comics. They like to make children happy, and the children in turn seem very pleased by the Pyro's antics — specifically burning all their textbooks and cancelling school for the next six years.
• Funny Schizophrenia: The "Meet the Pyro" video shows us that they imagine they're playing with cherubs in a Sugar Bowl, and their flamethrower is a Magitek rainbow dispenser built out of a music box, a garden hose, and a cluster of trumpet bells. They see their Flare Gun, in turn, as a bubble wand, and hears the screams of terror and agony as joyful giggling.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Since there is no friendly fire in Team Fortress 2, Pyro players will typically (and are actually expected to) blow flames at their teammates in order to easily spot disguised Spies... Which fits nicely with the fact that, story-wise, the Pyro's teammates are afraid of them trying to burn them alive.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • In-game, Pyros are rewarded for extinguishing their teammates using airblast by healing slightly from it. In the story, firefighting is a thought that Pyro abhors, and they're generally shown to be more interested in preventing flames from going out.
  • In the story, the Pyro sees Pyroland by default, only snapping to reality when the above-mentioned Berserk Button is pushed. In-game, the Pyro sees the real world by default, only seeing Pyroland if they equip one of the relevant items.
• Gas Mask Mooks: Gives the appearance of one, especially with more than one of them on the enemy team. Justified, in that it's more than likely they wear it to prevent suffocating on the fumes from their flamethrowers.
• Gasoline Dousing: The whole shtick of the Gas Passer, a throwable gas tank that can cloud enemies in gasoline, amplifying further fire damage.
• Gasoline Lasts Forever: Strongly inverted with the Gas Passer, whose cloud of gas dissipates after a few seconds.
• Gendered Insult: Owing to the Pyro's Ambiguous Gender, some domination lines directed towards them are rather sexist.
  Soldier: Ha! You fight like a girl.
  Demoman: Go home, lassie. Men are fightin' here.
  Engineer: Sorry, ma'am.
  Sniper: You know what you and Jane Austen have in common? You're both dead women.
  Spy: Good lord! You fight like a woman!
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: The Cremator's Conscience cosmetic are dolls of the Pyro dressed as an angel and devil, visually resembling this trope. Though the description implies neither of them are really helpful.
  'Burn him with fire!'
  'No, burn him with fire, then hit him with an axe!'
• Guest Fighter:
  • Pyro is a playable racer in Sonic & All-Stars Racing: Transformed with the Heavy and Spy.
  • You can also recruit the Pyro from either RED or BLU in the Steam port of Evil Genius 2.
• Homemade Flamethrower: Three of their five non-reskin flame throwers seem to be homemade. For example, the stock flamethrower is made out of a long metal pole, connected by a hose to a propane tank, with said tank being attached to the pole via fastening bands, which is all connected to the team colored trigger, which is a gas pump. Likewise, the Backburner (somehow) upgrades the weapon by simply adding a jagged piece of metal to the barrel, painted to look like a dragon's head.
  • The Degreaser takes this craftsmanship up a notch, being put together from a fire extinguisher to house fuel, a car muffler connected to a stove-top burner for ignition, a metal pipe and a gas pump used as a trigger. All of this put together creates a weapon that would probably fall apart or explode in anyone else's hands when fired.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Flamethrowers pierce through their targets, including Engineer buildings. A Pyro under Übercharge can deal heavy area damage in close quarters, and can inflict a Total Party Kill using the Phlogistinator.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Assuming they're male, Pyro is this with the Engineer as shown in the comics — and with a question mark on 'Heterosexual'. They apparently live together. When a rocket crashed into their house, the Engineer half-joked that they may have just adopted a super-baby. This mirrors their relationship in-game; no Engineer is complete without a Pyro.
• Hidden Depths:
  • The Pyro took charge of an engineering company for a whole quarter and made everybody on the management board millionaires, somehow. Furthermore, while they're perhaps the nuttiest of the mercs, the MacGyvered nature of most of their Flame Throwers suggest they're competent at putting together murder weapons.
  • They're actually pretty good with kids, likely owing in part to their Psychopathic Manchild tendencies; see Friend to All Children above.
  • Similarly, they also adore animals, and not even just conventional ones:
    • Ring of Fired sees them adopting a Dalmatian and bringing the dog in the car to Teufort, despite Dalmatians' typical associations with firefighting a-la bears.
    • In Expiration Date, the final shot shows them chasing around and playing with a loose bread monster like a pet.
    • The Burstchester taunt has them patting the titular alien on the head, pacifying it until it retreats into their body.
• High-Class Glass: A monocle is part of the Pyro's miscellaneous item, the "Whiskered Gentleman".
• Hit-and-Run Tactics: Smart Pyro players know when to chase enemies down and when to ambush, set them on fire, then get the hell out of there.
• Idiot Savant: Variously described by the others as a "mutant", a "whack-job", a "mumbling abomination", and a "mental deficient", the Pyro inspirationally makes up for whatever they may lack in social skills by being an expert at inflicting burning agony upon others. A good look at many of their weapons, the Detonator, nearly every flame thrower but especially the Degreaser, Powerjack, Axtinguisher, tips off the fact that their weapons were all homemade and function near-perfectly for looking like cobbled together junk.
• Immune to Fire: A Pyro can still receive contact damage from another Pyro's flamethrower, but under normal circumstances, they are immune to afterburn. However, if a Pyro is soaked in the Gas Passer's gas, anyone can bypass this afterburn immunity; any weapon that hits the Pyro by that point will light them up.
• Improbable Weapon User: Pyro has the largest number of improvised weapons of any class. Most of their weapons have been hand-crafted from things you find lying around a gas station or garage. They have the modified Axtinguisher and the Homewrecker, but the Pyro also uses things like a gardening rake, a car battery attached to a car jack, a giant lollipop, a deep fat fryer, and, giving new meaning to the word "hotmail", a mailbox.
• In a Single Bound: The secondary item, the Thermal Thruster, allows the Pyro to take ridiculously far and horizontal leaps across terrain, somewhat alleviating the mobility issues the class suffers from. It takes some practice to use properly due to it initially having a weird time delay of 1.1 seconds when deploying and holstering it, making it a poor choice as an emergency escape option, not to mention the fact that you're forgoing any capability to deal damage outside of Flamethrower range. Use it in the right situations and understand how it handles, and you gain a fantastic mobility option that lets you flank like never before. The March 28th, 2018 patch reduced its holster-time to 0.8 seconds, making it a bit more viable as an escape option than when it was released.
• Innocent Inaccurate: Everyone knows that the Pyro spreads fiery death and destruction and is feared by all. Everyone, it seems, except the Pyro themselves. Or...so it seems. The "Meet the Pyro" video shows us what the world looks like from Pyro's side of the mask, but several times in the comic seem to imply that Pyro is well aware of what fire is, and has an affinity for it. Their encounter with the Smokey the Bear expy, as documented above, also indicates that Pyro is also capable of truly malicious intent.
• In the Back: Encouraged by the design with the Backburner, a flamethrower that trades the utility of airblasts in exchange for critical hits for flames that strike the enemy's back, leading to an ambush and/or mobility centric playstyle that entails either lying in wait or being constantly on the move to catch enemies distracted.
• Irony:
  • Despite being the class that thrives on lighting people on fire, the Pyro is also one of the best classes to extinguish teammates thanks to the airblast.
  • The Sniper and Engineer are two of the hardest counters against a Pyro. Both classes also benefit the most from having a friendly Pyro supporting them.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: While understandable, Heavy in Meet the Pyro makes it clear that he doesn't even think Pyro is truly human.
  "I fear no man... but that thing... it scares me."
• Jack of All Stats:
  • MvM wise, Pyro is incredibly versatile loadout-wise and can fit pretty much any combat role effectively. Dragon's Fury and Backburner for high damage output, Phlogistinator for tank busting, stock Flame Thrower for airblasting the bomb into a pit, Gas Passer for taking out crowds of robots or medics.
  • Even in general gameplay, the Pyro has perfectly respectable speed, health, and damage output. They're faster than the classes with better DPS and health and are tougher and more damaging than the classes with higher speed.
• Joke Item: The Hot Hand, which is a glove that replaces Pyro's melee weapons and allows them to slap people. The damage is pithy on a class that has better close range options and the primary upside of a speed boost on hit is very situational, but slapping your enemies to death is funny and, like the Scout's Holy Mackrel, the game announces that your enemies are getting slapped to the whole server via the killfeed.
• Jump Jet Pack: The Thermal Thruster, which — after a short charge jump — launches the Pyro in the direction they are looking at when used. The Pyro can jump just before using it to propel themselves fairly higher.
• Kamehame Hadoken: One of the Pyro's taunts, though the actual fireball doesn't reach very far. It is also capable of an instant kill on multiple enemies if you are lucky enough.
• Kill It with Fire: The entire point of the class.
• Knight of Cerebus: Of the "Meet The..." videos. While the shots of Pyroland itself are very much Black Comedy, they're depicted as genuinely terrifying their own teammates with their status as The Dreaded played frighteningly straight, and a lot of emphasis is put on the BLU team showing genuine fear for their lives as Pyro hunts them down in brutal fashion. They could possibly share this spot with the Spy.
• Kryptonite Is Everywhere: Methods for putting out fire have increased in number by the day, making afterburn not even half as menacing as it used to be. To this date, 5 out of 9 classes can equip items that immediately put out a fire on a teammate or render it irrelevant (the Scout's Mad Milk, the Pyro's airblast and Manmelter alt-fire, the Heavy's lunchbox items, the Medic's Mediguns, and the Sniper's Jarate and Sydney Sleeper's scoped shots). On top of that, the Medic has intrinsic health regeneration that almost neutralizes the afterburn, and activating a normal Über Charge extinguishes fire, the Demoman's shields give him great resistance to fire and remove afterburn on charge, and the Spy's Spy-cicle, Dead Ringer, and Conniver's Kunai each allow the player to remove afterburn on certain conditions. Jungle Inferno also nerfed the afterburn itself to only be applied to a player for however long the Pyro engulfed you in flames for, with a cap of 8 seconds instead of 8 seconds no matter what. Safe to say, Spy mains the world over were pretty happy about this change.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Pyroland was a huge surprise… back when it was first revealed in 2012. Nowadays, it's pretty much common knowledge, with the number of items and voice lines in-game referencing the Pyro's childlike attitude scarcely bothering to keep it a secret anymore.
• Leeroy Jenkins: A very simple way to play the Pyro is to charge at the enemy and keep them in range of your flamethrower. This is often the stereotypical "noob" or "W+M1" Pyro, as they lack subtlety and are easily shot down before they get into range, though it still works great at punishing unaware or out of position players.
  • The Phlogistinator even rewards such a playstyle to a degree. Once the Pyro has done enough damage, activating the "MMMPH" will grant 10 seconds of guaranteed critical hits, meaning that blindly charging into a group of enemies after activating it will all but guarantee that at least a few of them will die before the Pyro gets gunned down.
• Leitmotif: In the eyes of both their foes and their friends, Dreams of Cruelty. But in their own mind… Do You Believe In Magic?
• Lethal Joke Character: The Pyro is the stereotypical noob class, and playing them can result in derision from veteran players. Up until they set you on fire, anyway. They've also been heavily nerfed repeatedly, and other classes surpass them in virtually all areas^note The Spy and Scout are better ambushers, the Demoknight is a better melee combatant, the Heavy has better DPS, etc.. Yet see Difficult, but Awesome above for a taste of what a skilled Pyro can do. Additionally, the Pyro is a Spy's worst nightmare, as they can easily cover a large number of players and a wide area with flames with very little effort, easily revealing any Spies caught there.
• Lightning Bruiser:
  • Has the highest health/speed balance of all the classes. 100% of baseline speed, with 175 health; only three other classes meet or exceed the Pyro's health level, and they're all slower than Pyro.^note Though the Soldier's rocket jumps actually make him much more mobile, albeit at the cost of some health. Couple with the major damage that Pyro can do with the flamethrower (albeit at short range, hence the speed), and you have this. Pyros, however, have abysmal range, only some of their secondaries give them any range at all, and those have pitiful damage without the use of follow-up attacks or set-ups. The other three classes on par with the Pyro's health have very high damage rates and can easily shred a Pyro in seconds. So despite having a surprisingly large amount of health, it tends to get eaten up pretty quickly.
  • During the Mann-conomy Update, the Pyro gained the Gas Jockey Gear item set, which boosts their speed in lieu of giving them vulnerabilities to hitscan weapons. This makes them teeter on the edge between Lightning Bruiser and Glass Cannon, as Pyros themselves don't stand much of a chance against Heavies in open combat anyways (Heavies having the most damaging and used hitscan weapons). Against Scouts, Engineers, and Spies, the Pyro's survivability is greatly reduced. The set bonus was removed later on, but it still lives on in a way through new attributes given to the melee weapon of the set, the Powerjack, which now gives a 15% speed boost, at the cost of taking 20% more damage, when the Pyro has it drawn.
• Limited Wardrobe: Is never seen without the asbestos suit and gas mask, and their trading card bio implies they wear it constantly. This is taken to extreme levels when attending board meetings of a company they're the CEO of in the very same suit.
• MacGyvering: A running theme with the aesthetic to the Pyro's items. A few of the hats are things that aren't really hats (a toilet plunger, a birdcage, or an old boot). The Degreaser is a flamethrower made with a gas pump, a car muffler, an exhaust pipe, a fire extinguisher, and a stove top burner, while the Powerjack is a car battery tied to an automobile jack.
• The Magazine Rule: At the end of "Meet the Medic", the Pyro is seen reading a magazine called "Man Man"◊, likely a parody of the masculine magazines published in the 50s. The top two headlines read, "Lust-crazed bikini bordellos of the Badlands" and "Chained nudes in the Dustbowl of the damned".
• Magikarp Power: In Mann vs. Machine, Pyros will likely struggle the most out of the frontline units when first starting out and get wiped out easily against the horde, having little to no money for resistances or meaningful damage for such a close-ranged fighter, pushing them back to chucking the more useful Gas Passer with the 'explosion on ignite' upgrade and tank elimination duties, which they suffer no damage penalty for attacking unlike Heavies. With enough money and wise purchasing however, Pyros can get all the damage resistances they need, flamethrower upgrades and health-on-kill purchases to become close to unkillable as they become capable of quickly wiping out groups of robots in seconds with minimal effort. By this point, the only real concern is getting mowed down by giants and especially Giant Heavies, which are usually a team effort to take out anyways.
• Menacing Stroll: In "Meet the Pyro," although from their own point of view, they are happily skipping around.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: The only combat-oriented class whose primary weapon is only usable at close range. They're also the only class with any sort of Attack Reflector and the only class able to reliably deal fire damage.
• Mini-Me: The two identical Pyro plushies with a halo and devil horns called The Cremator's Conscience, which Pyro can wear on their grenade straps. The Engineer also has a Pyro plushie called the "Pocket Pyro".
• Mr. Imagination: Or rather, Mx. Imagination. In any case, if Pyroland and their sheer amount of oddball cosmetics and child-like mannerisms are anything to go by? Then they definitely count.
• Mysterious Past: The only character aside from the Spy — who at least has a certain... history with some people — to have no backstory to speak of.

N-Z

• Never Learned to Read: Pyro is flat-out incapable of reading because of Pyroland. All in-game signs are translated to unintelligible "mmph"s when using Pyrovision, and during Ring of Fired the newspaper they're "reading" is a blank sheet of paper from their point of view.
• Nice Guy: If they were a bit more aware of the reality of their actions, they'd be the nicest member of the team. Alas, what they think is spreading joy to the world and playing with cherubs is actually burning people to death and driving axes into their skulls.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: They scare the living crap out of everyone on both teams, yet they're completely unaware of this. Taken to literal extremes with an item set based on the attire of a fuel station attendant.
• Noblewoman's Laugh: Their Schadenfreude taunt, in stark contrast to the rest of their sinister and proud laughter, is a goofy and higher pitched 'hoo-hoo-hoo!' as they point and laugh.
• Nothing Is Funnier: Valve has gone on record saying that they'll never reveal the Pyro's gender because the mystery will always be funnier than any answer they could give.
• Obliviously Evil: As revealed in "Meet the Pyro". To everyone else, the Pyro is a crazed inhuman thing ready to set the world ablaze. But in the Pyro's mind, they're simply skipping whimsically around a Sugar Bowl world and making everyone happy by handing out candy and blowing pretty bubbles and rainbows for them. That said, they do know what fire is and they do not appreciate anybody telling them that it's bad and are willing to kill a bear over it, it's just that they don't seem to understand that it is bad to set people on fire.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • In A Cold Day in Hell, the Pyro knowingly and actively slaughters a bear with an axe because they imagined it saying fire is bad, contrasting their normal blithe unawareness.
  • The Showdown has Heavy attempt to appeal to Pyro into letting him take the Administrator's favor of getting a new weapon next, by taking her pocket lighter and giving it to them. Despite Pyro's love of fire, they crush the lighter in their hand and snuff out the fire, implying they're aware of the stakes at hand.
• Odd Friendship: With the generally polite, intelligent, soft-spoken Engineer, who is generally the sanest and most down-to-earth of the mercs^note Though he did cut off his own hand to replace it with a robot arm.
  • The game even references this synergy with the relationship of Pyros and Engineers. An Engineer's biggest problems are explosives, Snipers, Spies, and ubercharges. A Pyro's compression blast can hold off ubers and reflect explosives, their flamethrower can spycheck with ease, and, if they equip the Homewrecker, they can remove a Spy's sappers from friendly buildings to save the Engineer's nest if he isn't around to handle the problem. The flare guns (mostly the Scorch Shot) have enough range to prevent Snipers from always having a clear shot, and the afterburn will harass them into retreating for health or equipping the Darwin's Danger Shield just to negate flares. Together, the duo can minimize each others weaknesses with enough coordination.
  • The True Meaning comic, among other things, demonstrates that this friendship is also the case in canon, too, showing that the two either lived together at some point or are on good enough terms to visit each other during the holidays.
• One-Man Army: In "Meet The Pyro", not only does the Pyro singlehandedly take out the entire BLU team, but they also completely destroy the town they were fighting in and burns it to the ground.
• Only Sane by Comparison: Inverted. Although all of the mercenaries are insane with varying degrees of functionality, most of the mercs are equally afraid and judgemental of the Pyro, whose misunderstood psychosis and irrational behavior causes them all to label them as insane, even by their standards.
• Ornamental Weapon: Those napalm grenades are apparently just a style statement. That, or the Pyro just really likes bongo drums.
• Playing with Fire: While their weapons are flamethrowers and flare guns, the Hadouken and the Armageddon taunt have some… interesting implications regarding Pyro actually having pyrokinetic capabilities.
• Proud to Be a Geek: The Pyro's hats would suggest this, coupled with the game's time period (the 60s) being a hotbed of sci-fi B-movies and Silver Age comics.
• Pyromaniac: Well, obviously. In all of the game's history, only two other classes^note Those being the Soldier (with a charged Cow Mangler 5000 shot) and the Sniper (with an ignited Huntsman/Fortified Compound arrow). have been given the ability to deal fire damage as a gimmick. The bulk of weapons that burn people still belong to Pyro.
• Psycho Party Member: The rest of the Team is convinced that the Pyro is their most insane member for their homicidal actions. Turns out they are Right for the Wrong Reasons: Pyro's the craziest of them, but not in a homicidal way.
• Psychopathic Manchild: "Meet The Pyro" is quite definite that this is Pyro's real mental state; but it's Wild Mass Guessing on how they ended up like that.
  • Then there's the scene in "True Meaning" featuring Engineer reading a Christmas story to Pyro, who is sitting cross-legged on the floor and listening closely. Said story describes the "Australian Christmas shootout" between an evil version of Santa and the mafia.
  • Adding Miss Pauling's Rare Contracts in "Gun Mettle" to the mix gives the impression that Valve has settled on Pyro being some crazed combination of a pyromaniac and mercenary — with the mind of a hyperactive 8-year-old — in a fire-retardant suit. The way she chats with Pyro is very reminiscent of a Kindergarten teacher describing letters and colors to a young child.
    Miss Pauling: Hey, buddy! It's Pauling!
    Miss Pauling: Hi, Pyro! I've got something I need you to do, okay buddy?
    Miss Pauling: Hey, Pyro! You want to do a real big favor for Miss Pauling?
• The Quiet One: While just as chatty as everyone else in a fight during the game proper, they tend to scarcely mumble a thing to other characters in the comics, opting to either live in their own little world in the background or follow the conversation with just their head movement.
• Quizzical Tilt: They give a Michael Myers-esque one while incinerating the BLU Sniper at the end of their Meet video, as if they're confused why they're hearing screaming.
• Ray Gun: The Manmelter is a handheld laser pistol for Pyro, while the Phlogistinator resembles this in flamethrower form; to the point where scoring kills with them results in dead enemies messily disintegrating.
• Required Secondary Powers: The fire-retardant boiler suit makes Pyro immune to afterburn — though not the initial fire damage — except when doused with the Gas Passer or targeted with the Dragon's Fury. If it weren’t for that suit and gas mask, they probably would’ve overheated or asphyxiated on the heat and fumes of their own fires long ago.
  • As demonstrated in "Showdown", Pyro — being one of the most meticulous ambush classes without immediate mobility advantages — means they need to be very good at navigating terrain in unexpected ways, such as infiltrating a building with several redundancies for security doors through the unguarded ventilation system.
• Riddle for the Ages: Nearly everything about Pyro is a complete mystery; their gender, their age, their past, their country of origin, what they look like under their mask, and how they became the Ax-Crazy, delusional Pyromaniac they are today. Hell, whether or not they're even a person is sometimes called into question. Dennis Bateman even admitted in 2022 that he doesn't even remember what most of their lines were!
• Rocket Jump: The Detonator and Scorch Shot, having explosive flares, allow this to be done as a secondary feature of their AOE damage, which allow the Pyro to have access to high ground and flank routes normally impossible to reach conveniently. As a trade off, they're not as powerful as the Flare Gun or shotgun and mostly serve as long-range harassment or as an opening moves to a combo.
• Rummage Sale Reject: The Pyro is prone to wearing some of the nuttiest cosmetics in TF2. These include the Frymaster (a miniature fry cooker that replaces the air tank backpack), the birdcage (with the base sawed out and worn over the head, a bird still inside), and the Prancer's Pride (a single reindeer antler tied to the top of Pyro's head with string, like Max the dog).
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Makes air-guitar noises when taunting with a melee weapon. The Third Degree and Neon Annihilator amp it up even more by letting Pyro actually play an electric guitar or bass guitar riff respectively as they do so.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: The Pyro's secondary weapon is typically a shotgun and other variants, giving them another option at short range. It's also their most effective weapon against other Pyros.
• Signature Headgear: The Pyro is never seen without their gas mask, ever. The head slot cosmetics where they don't have it just replaces their head with something completely different.
• Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: Absent from the Mann VS Machine trailer, along with the Sniper and Spy.
• Situational Damage Attack:
  • The Dragon's Fury, which quadruples its damage if its victim is burning and the center of the projectile's hitbox connects.
  • The Neon Annihilator is unique in the game because it deals crit damage to wet players, which is a status that is quite rare and often ignored. That makes the weapon very useful in wet areas like 2fort or Well, but nearly useless in other stages as it then relies on specific items that the Pyro doesn't even have to work. That being said, the Neon Annihilator is the only melee weapon other than the Homewrecker that can destroy sappers (albeit in two hits instead of one).
• Situational Sword: Is prone to using weapons whose effects completely change the way the class is played, but not always for the better depending on the map and battle.
  • The Backburner can't score random crits, but does 100% critical damage from behind, encouraging the user to get crafty and sneak behind the enemy. As a trade off, airblasts cost 50 fuel instead of 20, meaning you only get four uses to extinguish teammates and reflect attacks back before running dry, a big detriment if the enemy is stacking Soldiers and Demomen.
  • The Flare Gun has a pretty tame damage output and a slow projectile speed, but it deals devastating 100% criticals to enemies on fire, and its alternate choices, the Detonator and Scorch Shot, are even weaker, but allow Pyro to flare jump. You need some practice to use them properly at a distance, but potentially lose out on a lot of damage in CQC if you whiff a close range flare shot versus just pulling out a shotgun for an easy 80 damage.
  • Their melee weapons get in on this too and affect the way the player handles fights up close. The Neon Annihilator does less damage than the stock Fire Axe, but deals 100% criticals to enemies who are wet from standing in water or have been hit by Mad Milk/Jarate. The Axtinguisher suffers a 33% reduced damage penalty compared to the stock fire axe, but deals a huge burst of damage depending on much afterburn the target has on them, up to enough damage to one-shot the light classes and leave Medics reeling on good swings.
  • The Degreaser encourages combo-centric playstyles versus just torching players with a stream of fire at the cost of its own damage and airblast cost. Combine the melee and secondary weapons with the Degreaser, mostly popularly the Axtinguisher and Flare Gun, and the Pyro turns into a burst damage dealing menace, albeit one stuck in close range combat.
  • The Phlogistinator removes the ability to airblast at all in favor of gaining a meter that charges up for fire damage dealt to enemies. At full charge, the Pyro can taunt and gain crits to run down enemies with massive damage for a few seconds. The 'situational' part really comes into play in that the most optimal way to charge the Phlogistinator is to pack either the Detonator or Scorch Shot, two weapons that deal measly damage but hit multiple people, and use them until it's time to let loose crits on someone. Given that the Phlog has no airblast and the typical abysmal range that most flame throwers have, it relies on catching enemies off guard, a Medic to keep the Pyro alive, or a hole in the defenses to not get cut down before the Pyro can even get into attack range.
• Skill Gate Characters: Generally speaking, the class can suffer hard against the various counters and chaos the game has to offer thanks to being stuck in close range combat and mid-range harassment. When using the aforementioned W+M1 strategy, a charging Pyro can quickly burn up an unaware or ill prepared opponent if they can't react fast enough, but it's a minor threat to more skilled/lucky players. With all that said, it's still completely possible to play around these counters and lack of range to become a formidable threat to the enemy with enough work and wisdom, but it's a lot of work-arounds versus swapping to another class when the situation becomes too much for a Pyro to deal with.
  • The Pyro is also the most forgiving character, having no need to reload their primary weapon, respectable speed and is a contender for third highest health pool in the game, no self-damage to worry about save for two weapons, and an easy-to-aim weapon. A badly-played Pyro may not be a threat to the grand scheme of the round, but is more dangerous to players than an equally unskilled Soldier, Heavy or Spy that simply runs at you with bad aim.
• Soul-Crushing Desk Job: While they were the CEO of a big engineering company, Pyro brought the company record-breaking gains. They also despised the job, as fire was completely absent from their regular life, rendering everything into boring, grey blobs and boxes. When they saw a burning building during a stakeholders' meeting, Pyro Jumped at the Call.
• Steampunk: The Phlogistinator, which works on archaic chemistry. Basically, it shoots pure phlogiston — the chemical that was thought to react with other things to make fire and released when fuel was exposed to heat, before people figured out that was really oxygen reacting to the fuel when exposed to heat.
• The Spook: Literally nothing is known about the Pyro. They have no name. They have no nationality. They seem to fluctuate between genders, if they even have one at all. Their mask makes every word it says incomprehensible gibberish, so you can hardly ask the Pyro what they are. With every inch of their body covered in a flame-retardant suit, it's impossible to even determine their skin or hair color. A few people out there don't even think the Pyro is human. Only two things are known about the Pyro: They like setting things on fire, and they don't speak.
• Sugar Bowl: How the Pyro views the world, known as "Pyroland"; they think they skip around firing rainbows and lollipops and bubbles at the world, spreading happiness to happy little cherubs and Balloonicorns. In-game, there's an all-class item in the form of special goggles, provided by the same company that also made the Pyro's mask, so every class can see the world as happily as the Pyro.
• Super-Persistent Predator: Just about every W+M1 Pyro will be this, constantly chasing down any enemy they see — including other Pyros — until they're a pile of char.
  • Nearly every Pyro player will be this to Spies in almost any situation. Some of the better ones will even use alternate routes to pursue retreating Spies well past the front line.
• Support Party Member: Despite being listed as an Offense class, the Pyro is more effective in a supportive role. Their flamethrower's short range makes them relatively unsuitable for direct combat, but the sheer utility a Pyro brings can turn the tide of battle, especially on the defensive. In particular, their compression blast can be used to reflect rockets back to the enemy, clear a patch of sticky bombs, reposition enemies, and stop Uber pushes dead in their tracks. Engineers and Snipers especially benefit from having a friendly Pyro guarding or supporting them to cover their primary weaknesses while also providing other support like igniting a Huntsman Sniper's arrows.
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Forms a very firm one with Spy and Engineer. A Pyro is the best counter for a Spy, who is the bane of the Engineer, who can easily dispatch the range-challenged Pyro. The Sniper can also fill the Engineer's role here, as the stationary, long-range-focused, and frequently tunnel-vision-afflicted Sniper is easy pickings for a Spy, while the range-challenged and attention-grabbing Pyro is usually at the Sniper's mercy while also being a Spy's worst nightmare.
  • This means that when a Pyro has the patience to stay with an Engineer, the security of the Engineer becomes a lot better. Even if a Spy does manage to backstab the Engineer and sap a building before being burned to death, a Pyro armed with The Homewrecker can dispatch all sappers in one hit. It also helps that the Pyro can neutralize incoming explosives, meaning only enemy Snipers and Heavies pose a threat under ideal circumstances. Though far less common, Pyros who linger around Sniper nests can greatly assist in their survivability as well since most Snipers are even more helpless against close range threats such as Spies, Scouts, and other Pyros.
  • Forms a secondary one with the Demoman and Heavy. The Heavy's greater health and damage shut down the Pyro, while the Pyro's emphasis on staying close, and ability to deflect projectiles grants the Pyro a significant upper hand over the Demoman, whose larger number of explosives and lack of fall-off let him shell the slow, bulky Heavy more effectively.
  • Interestingly, equipping the Dragon's Fury reverses the Pyro's role in some of these match-ups as the weapon's greater damage output and longer range allows a skilled Pyro to fare much better against Scouts and Heavies. In contrast, the cost of losing a consistent stream of fire and drastically slower airblasts makes them much more vulnerable to Soldiers, Demomen, and Spies.
• Taking You with Me: It's common for dead Pyros to score posthumous kills by afterburn. Two achievements are linked with this; one requiring you to posthumously kill a certain number of players, while another one requires you to kill someone in roughly the same second as they killed you.
• Terror Hero: As revealed in "Meet the Pyro", it's unknown who fears the Pyro more: the other team (sans perhaps the opposing Pyro, who isn't shown), or Pyro's own teammates.
• This Looks Like A Job For Aqua Man: The Manmelter is generally the weaker option to choose from the Pyros arsenal of secondaries, having a somewhat redundant ability to extinguish teammates and the weakest damage output of all their secondaries, but said ability to extinguish teammates becomes a lot more attractive when using the Backburner or Phlogistinator, flamethrowers that struggle to or outright cannot extinguish teammates. Moreover, it’s also the perfect response to an enemy Pyro spamming the Scorch Shot, a flare gun with a wide blast radius that can ignite entire groups at once, which can cheaply and quickly be dealt with the Manmelter's extinguishing feature and reward the Pyro with a massive reservoir of crits.
• This Means Warpaint: In one promotional image for the Meet Your Match Update, Pyro paints Angry Eyebrows onto their mask, rather than below their eyes like the Heavy did.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: As revealed in "Meet The Pyro".
• Token Good Teammate: A very dark example. While the rest of the team do their jobs in the name of money, the Pyro seems driven by a genuine desire to do good. Unfortunately, they have a very twisted perception of what "good" entails.
• The Unintelligible: Although the Pyro can and does talk, their dialogue is heavily muffled by the protective gas mask and is, for the most part, incomprehensible. ^note Though the Pyro can be heard saying things such as "Medic!", "Thank you" and "Up you go!" among other things. It's noted that the Pyro's asbestos-lined suit has also contributed to the ravaging of their respiratory system. Pyro seems to at least know Morse code.^note Translated, it reads "Monday", the day the Pyromania Update came out. Oh, and they can whistle.
  Scout: Yo, if ya didn't want me to kill ya, ya shoulda said somethin'!
  Engineer: Gotcha, mumbles.
  Sniper: You are a creepy, mute little bugger, ain't cha?
• Uniqueness Decay: When the game released, the Pyro was the only class capable of dealing damage over time, through afterburn. Then bleeding was introduced and even afterburn was given to more classes. Eventually addressed in the Meet your Match Update, which gave all Flamethrowers the unique ability to interrupt Medic's healing, and reduce the effectiveness of the Vaccinator's Ubercharge by 20%. While other classes may be able to do gradual damage, the Pyro remains undeterred in harassment aftershocks.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Pyros who use the Phlogistinator have access to chargeable crits, as well as periods of temporary invincibility. That said, they're basically forced to W+M1 people to death or poke at people with shotguns and flares with mixed results, because they can't use Airblasts.
• Vader Breath: The Pyro's breathing can be heard menacingly reverberating through their gas mask in "Meet the Pyro", adding nicely to the Darker and Edgier nature of the short.
• Violation of Common Sense:
  • The Gas Passer, if you so choose, can be used to extinguish burning teammates. Let that sink in: using gasoline — the very same gasoline you use to ignite enemies — can be used to put out the fires burning your teammates. Oddly enough, it doesn't register anyone as "wet" on hit (meaning you can't combo the Neon Annihilator with it like you would with Mad Milk, Jarate, or actual water).
  • Extinguishing burning teammates with the flamethrower's airblast also qualifies. Because the airblast uses the same ammo as the flamethrower's primary fire, you're essentially blowing out fires with propane.
• Voodoo Doll: The Pin Pals cosmetic are voodooo dolls of a Scout, Demoman, and Sniper, which replace Pyro's grenades. This cosmetic is shared with The Soldier.
• The Wonka: As crazy as the Pyro could be, they somehow became the CEO of a massive engineering company and made their employees millionaires, in only a few months of absence after the team got dismantled. While still wearing that complete asbestos suit and gas mask.
  • It's even implied that this was formerly Engineer's company, and the entire reason it's a success now is because Engineer isn't in charge anymore.
• You Monster!: The Pyro is viewed even by their own teammates as a horrifically cruel sadist. "Meet The Pyro" even shows them viciously slaughtering the BLU team in various brutal ways; such as pinning the Heavy to the ground before putting an axe through his skull, burning the Scout and Sniper point-blank with incendiary weapons, barricading the Medic inside a flammable barn with an axe handle before torching the building^note Which, for additional horror points, was an actual execution method used by the Nazis in several of their World War II massacres, and blasting a hole all the way through the Soldier's chest and out of his back.
  • They apparently aren't even aware that they're torturing and murdering people, as shown by their Pyroland delusions making them think they're bringing them fun and joy. Whether this makes them less or even more messed-up continues to be up for debate.

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[Muffled laughter]

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