Pyros! Every-fucking-where!

Okay, the only way to stay alive on TF2 now is to be a Pyro. At least that's the only way I can stay alive right now. Fight fire with fire, you know.

And I can't believe how much I actually nerd RAGE'd after realizing what Valve had done to the Soldier. I read the update message, "Removed Soldier's 40% damage reduction from his own rockets. Does not affect rocket jumps." but I didn't even realise (or think about) what it actually meant until I connected to the server today, saw the amount of Pyros and went Soldier. Because hey, at least before the update I was learning to kill them.
And guess what?
Nearly all my deaths? Suicides. If it wasn't some Pyro chucking my rockets back at my face (thank god nearly everyone is using the Backburner already, but more on that later), it was just me, playing like I've used to, and getting owned. Fuck, I'm so used to just shooting at my feet when a Pyro or a Scout or anything gets too close for comfort, and taking some damage but walking out alive. Now if I do that, I die. Not even mentioning the times my aim is a bit off and I shoot the goddamn wall in front of me and get a crit rocket in the face. Now such mistakes are an instant kill. It will probably take me forever to learn to jump whenever I shoot a rocket close enough to get damaged by it too (it apparently counts as a rocket jump then, I had to do some testing by shooting a wall in front of me while jumping, and I got the same old 40% reduction instead of the full damage of about 80 HP).
And imagine how much that must suck from the viewpoint of the player who was chasing me? They get NO points from chasing me down and actually making me suicide - which is not even their fault, but my own. I think that's kinda horrible. I know, because later on I was playing as a Pyro and a friend was a Soldier in the enemy team, and he was mercilessly dominating me. And after I had tried to kill him a dozen times, always getting owned, I finally managed to kill his Medic and chase him down and fuck me dead: he suicided. And I almost banged my head against the keyboard, because so much for my long-pursued revenge.
So at least Valve needs to do something about that, because it's downright unfair.
And if Demomen don't get the same fucking nerf I'm going to rage some more. Fucking unfair.

Okay, yeah, no one's going to agree with me on this, seeing how everyone else thinks that the Soldier is overpowered, the easy class that doesn't need any skill to be good at, and that it needs to be nerfed hardcore. It took me actually ages to learn to play as Soldier. Maybe it's easy to pick up by someone who has years and years of FPS experience, and be good at it, but I had to learn. And I've had fucking great times playing as Soldier. And it's not the easy class for me.
But yeah, Chrome vs. rest of the TF2 community. Valve did what they thought is for the best, and I want to understand, but it's pretty hard when one of my favourite classes is now nearly unplayable for me. And yeah, I feel quite horrible for whining about this, especially since I've been all "I wish I knew how to quit you!" with Soldier for the longest time. But yeah, it's a complete love/hate relationship. And it doesn't matter what I say, I have over 80 hours as a Soldier, I find myself going Soldier even when I think I shouldn't, so on some level I really must like playing as Soldier.
So I can still feel upset because of it, can't I?

But yeah, Pyros.
I'll just come out and say that Backburner is overpowered as hell. I mean ffs guaranteed crits from the back and +50 HP increase?! I know the tradeoff is supposed to be the lack of the airburst (which, I admit, is fucking awesome, and makes me think twice about starting to use the Backburner), but because the airburst is new and I rarely even remember to use it, Backburner just seems like an upgraded OLD flamethrower that has no drawbacks.
They could do without the +50 HP increase, for real. Both Slaverstrike and my little brother who played as Snipers today noticed that Pyros are fucking impossible to kill if they have the Backburner equipped. 225 HP is just insane. And when I did play Soldier, I am so used to juggling them into the air once, and the second rocket usually killed them. Backburner-equipped Pyros? Fucking unstoppable. Add a Medic and they're seriously invincible. So I needed to juggle them twice, which meant shooting at my freaking feet twice, which usually meant a suicide.
Flare gun seemed to correspond better as an alternative to the shotgun, and I actually didn't have anyone kill me with the Axtinguisher, so I can't really say anything about that. Only the Backburner seems a bit unbalanced, but, uh, I'll probably love it once I get my greedy little hands on it. Maybe I'll become a career Pyro. I mean, I was doing pretty fine without the changes (was I the only one? I never really thought the Pyro was underpowered, even against Soldiers. I died a lot, but once I adapted the kamikaze mentality - that I ambush and I might die, but it's okay - I came by pretty well as a Pyro. Maybe I was the only one.)

At least I was doing pretty well as a Pyro today.



And that was the first time in ages I actually had some fun on CP Well. (Oh! That reminds me, I need to talk about CTF Well once I've said everything I need to about this Pyro stuff!)
I even got some achievements. I have Camp Fire, I Fry (and here I was thinking that there would be no Spies around, what with Pyros having a field day...), Burn Ward, Next of Kindling, Hot on Your Heels and Second Degree Burn. I'm also 13/15 through Fire and Forget, 8/10 through Spontaneous Combustion and Trailblazer, 15/50 through Makin' Bacon (and here I was thinking it would take forever... I would have at least 20 Heavies in this, but more on that in a moment...), about 25/50 through Arsonist (ahihi I dominated one Engineer, and he provided me with at least eight destructions: poor thing had always put a teleporter, dispenser and a level one sentry down when I came around the corner, and the whole little nest succumbed to my flames like a house made of paper), 250 through Firefighter/Fire Chief (...I was on a roll), and some others, but they're not yet worth a mention.
I also spent SO LONG on CTF Well trying to sneak behind enemy Snipers and use the Hadouken taunt on them (whoops! Chrome, acting like an idiot? On YOUR server? It's apparently more likely than you think!), but stupid friendly Snipers always managed to kill them right when I was behind them, readying my shotgun. Damn stupid Snipers!
And in one evening, I learned to use the shotgun. Seriously, I probably killed more people with the shotgun today than I've killed in those 30 hours I had as a Pyro. No, really. Too bad that most of those were fellow Pyros (which I used to be very weak against), so I don't have much progress on Combined Fire yet.
And yeah, about Makin' Bacon... I was kinda going crazy on Badlands. I think I killed about eight Heavies with the axe. I imagine them being beyond pissed: one crazy Pyro kept just ambushing them from behind and axing them to death. I even critted ridiculously often against them. But damn it, Heavies are so much easier to kill with the axe than the flamethrower! Usually they don't even have time to turn around before they're dead meat.
And then I realised that the achievement is named "Makin' Bacon" because I have to kill 50 Heavies with the flamethrower, and went aww dammit. At least I had lots of fun. And I imagine my Medic was having fun as well, following me around while I melée-killed Heavies (Medics liked me today).
Too bad that my axe kills record remained as two, I didn't get Lumberjack.

And finally, the regular flamethrower's new airburst. The best thing ever. It took me ages to remember even trying to use it, and luckily I remembered it just when an übered enemy Pyro was rushing at me. One poof, and flying they went. Another poof, and flying they went again. Goddamn, who seriously even needs Soldiers anymore: Pyros do juggling too these days.
Then I once again forgot to entire thing until I saw a crit rocket heading towards me. One poof, and the rocket chenged colours and I couldn't stop going FUCK YEAH THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME THING EVER! when I saw the crit hit someone in the distance. Ahihihi. I didn't actually kill anyone with returned rockets although I did it a few times after that (I even started to remember using it after a while), but it's always a blast to see the crit rocket changing colours and directions and at least hitting something. I blasted people away from control points and the bombcart in Gold Rush. I saw a Medic/anyone combo approaching and blasted them once before hightailing and trying to get behind them.
I got killed once with a bounced grenade, though. It sucked, haha.

Oh! Yeah! CTF Well! Is actually fun now! I was really surprised when I saw the changes to it, and I was having a blast playing there! The new central area of the map is AWESOME, and the reduced size makes it easier to defend AND attack. I have to say that it's easily much more fun than 2fort has ever been, seeing that 2fort turns into an insane turtling fest nearly always and on Well there was this INSANE battling going on near the central area nearly all the time, because both teams tried to get control of it in order to get easier access to the enemy base.
Or then I'm just so happy that it's almost a whole new map and you probably know how much I love those.

That's about it for now, I think.
And yeah, I'll be playing as Pyro until there won't be as many around as there are now. And until I get over the Soldier nerf, pick it up again and learn to jump whenever I fire a rocket. Dammit, Valve...

Oh yeah! I also wish they would change the Medic achievements to correspond to the Pyro pack, and the Milestones would come at 10, 15 and 20. Because I'm slowly getting pretty sick of still being two achievements away from the Kritzkrieg, and I still refuse to farm any of them. My pride, it is my downfall.
Seeing that the Medic achievements are so much harder than the Pyro ones. Besides, everyone has the Kritzkrieg and Übersaw already, so it would be just me, har har.

And I fucking hope Soldier gets the next unlockables and achievements. Soldier needs some love after all that nerfing.

Random tales~

No, I haven't played at all after the update hit my Steam. Same old story, time zones. And that I'm playing on my little brother's terms. I'm waiting him to wake up, maybe I could get a few hours in before I have to join my friends in a delicious Midsummer barbeque fest.

Aaanyway, now I bring some screenshots of my recent awesomeness. And some random tales.

So I played for, I think, almost ten hours yesterday. My little brother is appalled by the high ping I always play with (what can I do, my favourite servers are all on the east coast of the US, which means at least 150 ping for me), so he talked me over to try playing on some other server with not quite as high ping.
So I just randomly chose some Multiplay.co.uk server from the list. Okay, so, I didn't notice any change whatsoever although my ping was only about 60, but I was once again reminded of the fact that the "newbies" on the Newbies Only servers? Are not newbies by long shot.
The skill level is higher on Newbies Only servers than it has been on any other server that I've played on.

Because it went something like this (and I loved that Medic. Good thing he loved me back. Kritzkrieg mmmm...):



And this (although this has got nothing to do with skill, I just got three insane crits in a row: first one missed, second one killed the first guy and the third got two. I think the enemy team started whining, and even I had to admit that it was pretty fucking ridiculous):



And ended up in this (insane amount of deaths because the highest-scoring Heavy in the enemy team was ridiculously good. I freaking cheered the first time I managed to separate his little Medic bitch from him by juggling him into the air, and then assault him ferociously until nothing was left of him but a pile of gibs. I loved the challenge, maybe I even learned something):



But the most important thing I learned from that server, was that I indeed hate instant respawn and that it completely destroys the game balance. Instant fucking respawn should be mentioned in the server description, dammit.
I've never before played with instant respawn, but I've always figured that it can't be good. How could BLU ever win for example Dustbowl if RED had instant respawn? If the teams are even, there's no way.
Instant respawn is just plain stupid. And if you think it's not, I think you should slowly step away from Team Fortress 2 and go back to playing the deathmatch style game of your choice. I hear UT3 is pretty good.
Because yeah, sure, I was having buckets of fun playing on Gold Rush's first stage only. I was in BLU, we pushed and pushed but never fucking got the last checkpoint because whenever we killed the Soldier trying to stop us, it only took a couple of seconds and the same Soldier was back trying to stop us. And if we died, we had to travel all the way back to the final checkpoint, while RED had all the time in the world to fortify their defenses.
When I was in RED, we just ran out of respawn without any worries, even if BLU had almost reached the final checkpoint. We always made it there in time. Besides, it just felt bloody stupid dying, and immediately being back in the game, just to die again after few seconds. I like the little cooldown longer respawn times provide.
And instant respawn promotes hardcore spawncamping.
The most annoying thing was to get killed three fucking times during humiliation. First near the checkpoint, then in my respawn by some spawncamping fucker and then AGAIN by the rest of the enemy team who had ran to our respawn with their guns blazing. AARGH.

So yeah, I know 30-second respawn can be fucking tedious to wait out on the last stages of Dustbowl and Gold Rush, but it's the game balance. It's the way the game was meant to be played: to offer both teams equal opportunity to win the map, so that it only comes down to teamwork and skill.

What else? I got bored of the instant-respawn-provided endless fragging pretty fast, so I went back to playing on my regular servers and the good ol' 150 ping. Mostly played as Soldier and Heavy.
But then:



YES. I ACTUALLY WENT SPY.
AND I SUCKED!
All because my little brother wanted to know how Spy does the disguising stuff, so I showed him. And then I was standing in the respawn, as a Spy, disguised and cloaked, and decided to fuck it, I'll play Spy.
It took me maybe three tries to even kill anyone, I was so nervous and my hands were shaking and I kept running into people and oh god it was terrible. Then I finally backstabbed someone, felt less nervous, and actually had pretty much fun while trying to be inconspicuous and kill Medics and Heavies, but I'm still a goddamn rotten Spy.
And I facestabbed someone - damn lag.

Also the most embarrassing death ever: I was hanging around on the upstairs of the warehouse cap, undisguised, and trying to remember which was the "last disguise used" shortcut key. And I accidentally pressed G.
And while the taunt animations played through, I saw a friendly Pyro passing me by. And because I have a sixth sense for Spies, I immediately went OH GOD THIS IS NOT HAPPENING, and naturally got backstabbed by the goddamn enemy Spy while taunting. He of course proceeded to taunting right back and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

After Granary I tried some Spying on Dustbowl, but missed the first stage entirely because my team just steamrolled right through, and at the second stage I started concentrating on taking down sentries.
And I'm the worst at sapping stuff. Haha. I can't understand how Spies DO IT, I just do drive-by-sapping. I run past the buildings, cloaked, tapping left-click like a maniac and then beeline straight towards some safe place to hide and stop my heart from beating hard enough to hurt, haha. I kill a lot of dispensers! Once I got a level three sentry! Although I started to think that the Engie must've let me just sap the thing, first watching for half a round how I fail enormously at sappin' and stabbin' and then feeling kinda bad for the little newbie Spy and letting me have the sentry. Because I can't imagine why an Engineer wouldn't save his sentry, on Dustbowl's stage two's last point, no less. And I am sure I saw him standing around when I ran past. Grrrr, that Engineer!
And I can't imagine how anyone could sap AND stab, my mind and hands are completely full just trying to sap anything and get out alive.
And there was one server regular playing with me and going all what the hell Chrome, I thought you hated the Spy. Haha. I have no idea why he would think that, maybe because I never play as Spy. I told him that I kinda like the Spy, I just suck as one so I don't play it that often. I'm trying to learn, though.
And fuck yeah, I wanna learn. So more Spying in the future.
I got sick of being a bad sapping-deficient Spy by the end of stage two, though, so I went back to being Soldier. As usually happens.

And I was training for the Pyro achievements:



I have no idea. I saw a completely unaware Sniper, and because axe kills are so much more fun than flamethrower kills, I killed the Sniper with the axe. And then I turned around to see a Demoman, and charged right at him, waving the axe. I love it how some Demomen go into total panic if an enemy gets too close for comfort. Heee. Skilled ones of course pull out the bottle, and the kamikaze ones lay stickies at their feet while backing away, not really caring if they die as long as they take me with them. This one panicked and just started backing away chucking grenades past me. So he got ax'd.
And after that I ran out, still on battle high from the awesome axe kills, saw million Medics and racked four kills within few seconds and the fifth after I was already dead, making it one of the most successful Pyro runs I've had in a while. It was awesome. Even my little brother was pretty impressed.

I guess that wraps it up. Next post, Pyro stuff! I hope.

A quick edit: OH SNAP, did Robin Walker just refer to Pyro as her? Oh u, stop playing with our heads. <3

Axan gaemz!

Today's biggest accomplishment: there's this regular guy on the server I usually play on, and he's a pretty good player. Better than me, for sure. I see him sometimes go Pyro and only use the axe to fight (I don't know if he does it to show off, or is he doing it just for fun, since I don't know how much owning he does with the axe). Which is kinda annoying when you're Pyro yourself, you know, other Pyros being flame retardant and everything... so I've gotten axed to death by him several times. And I particularly hate dying from melée weapons, because it's always kinda embarrassing.
So today I'm Pyro in Hydro, he's Pyro and I see he's doing his axing games again, running at me with the axe in hand. I retreat because oh shitfuck he's gonna kill me again, but at some point I just stop backing away, thinking that okay, I'm gonna play his game. So I whip out my axe and the world literally stops. :D It really felt like it, because there was this insane battling going around, but just as I get out the axe and engage him in melée, the battle just seems to die out and it's just me and him, epic fire axe deathmatch.
It was pretty awesome, gotta tell you.
Especially since I actually killed him (it was a really tough fight, I was left with like 30 HP), and felt preeetty darn good after that. :3 He's not the only badass Pyro around anymore!

Also had the strangest CP_Well matches yet, because, uh, I was kinda on top of the scoreboard as a Pyro. Few minutes after the match began I had three times as much points as the player who was the second highest scorer in my team, and twice as much as the enemy team's highest scoring player. I seriously went wtf at that. And it's not that I got really lucky with crits or anything, the enemy team just... it was as if they just looked at me and DIED.
Our team's collective ass was eventually kicked and at some point someone on the enemy team pointed out that "Lol just look at Chrome's score," and I took a look at the scoreboard and I'm STILL the highest scorer, and I still have twice as much points as the next player in our team. At some point the enemies changed their Scout rushing tactics into Pyro rushing tactics (aww, aren't I influential?) and that's when I started getting my personal ass kicked (I'm kinda weak against Pyros), but I still kept at it pretty well.
I still like being good at things.

And I want to kick parents who let their pre-pubescent kids play games like TF2, swear like sailors and act like complete idiots full of themselves over the voicechat. I'm all up for letting kids play as long as they understand that the game is make-believe and you know, watching over them while they play and maybe teach them some manners on how to not annoy everyone if you're going to use the mic, but Jesus Christ every parent who lets their kid play FPS games unsupervised should be neutered. There was this kid today, acting like he was the best player in the universe, calling every other player a noob and an idiot, and just... fuck this, fuck that, you're such a faggot, and so on and so on. He said he was thirteen, but I seriously didn't believe that. I'd say he was nine, ten max.

Halo multiplayer, I know, rite? (Haven't played myself, but I've heard my share of horror stories).