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Pyro is one of the best classes at close quarter combat. He is also a great spy checker. I play pyro frequently as a supportive player, doing spy checks or patrol an area. Pyro may seem like easy to use as little aiming is required, but it takes a lot of effort to master him. One have to learn his weapon combos and use them correctly in battles without hesitation to be considered as a real pyro.
Tips:
-Your biggest advantage is that you can disturb the aiming of enemies, you set their screen on fire and make them flicker when aiming. So you are extremely good at fighting against snipers in close range, it's difficult to quick scope you when being set on fire.
-Beware of engineers, they themselves is not a threat at all, but their sentries are nightmares to you. Do not try to rush in and burn the sentry, your DPS is no match to them. But you can do that when it is firing on another teammate. I recommend using your secondary or melee weapon if it is necessary to get rid of sentries.
-Don't defend an objective for too long, switch classes if you need to defend a point. Pyro is meant to be a roamer that patrol around the map and taking kills. Your terrible long range combat makes you a bad choice to be a defender. You only have either a shotgun or a flaregun to fend off enemies. Also you are an easy target for snipers if you can't reach them.
So do not defend an objective, only do it if your team will lose without your help. Remember, you are an offensive class, not defensive.
-Use airblast wisely. Every pyro knows how to burn, but fewer knows how to airblast. Airblast has a few uses. First off, you can extinguish burning teammates by it. Second, you can blow up your enemies in close range combat, which is the main purpose of it. Finally, you can push enemies to their death, like blow them off a cliff. It provides you the ability to kill enemies using ubercharge. Learn the timing, and conserve enough ammo, don't spam airblast.
My Builds:
Degreaser + Flaregun + Axtinguisher
You are the king with this build if the map has a lot of opportunities for CQC. Degreaser make switching weapons instantaneous, you can then make quick combos with it. Burn your enemy with it (one slight burn is enough, just set them on fire), and proceed using either your flaregun or axtinguisher. They both deal crit on burning enemies, 90 damage for flaregun and 195 for axtinguisher. Which means you can kill a full health soldier in one second. But this build is very weak in open maps, use it on maps with lots of buildings.
Backburner + Flaregun + Third Degree (2 or more enemy medic) / Homewrecker (2 or more enemy engineers)
This is a supportive build for players that like to ambush enemies in team fights. Backburner can clear a whole team of enemies if no one discovered you. Its crit deal 460 damage/sec, meaning you can kill anyone in a second if you manage to burn their back, regardless of medic buffs. The only exception is a heavy with chocolate buff and medic buff at the same time... Flaregun allow you to annoy engineers at range. Equip third degree if enemy team has 2 medics or more, and homewrecker allows you to clear out sentries faster when they are busy dealing with your teammates. However, all of these can only be done provided that you hide well. Good luck if you encounter enemies face to face.
Phlogistinator + Shotgun + Axtinguisher
This is a special build to clear up team fights even in direct encounter. It works in a similar way as the previous build, they both clean up team fights if used correctly. The difficult part of using this build is charging your mmmph meter. You are required to deal about 200 fire damage to fill it up completely. However, the lack of airblast make combat using phlogistinator challenging. If you manage to fill it up, wait for a large fight and join in. Make sure you survive until the fight, activate mmmph if you get ambushed, and fill it again later. You are untouchable in team fights with mmmph activated. The full crits of your phlogistinator and 90% damage reduction is insane. Kill scouts first as they are likely to escape if left unconcerned. Burn as much as you can until you run out of ammo. Then use shotgun to fallback while your team advance. The axtinguisher is for taking out enemies if your ammo run out before your mmmph ends.
