### The Impact of Being Alive --- One of the most impactful things you can do on Pyro is simply staying alive. Just by existing in position with your team, the enemy players have to respect you and factor your presence into their play. Since Pyro's job is to fill the gaps on your team, the moment you die, there is guaranteed to be a gap left open that the enemy team can exploit, which good players will take advantage of at every opportunity. - Enemy ubers cannot be stuffed without Pyro - Spy can freely go in without worrying about getting his Spy-cicle melted or being manipulated by airblast - Bombers don't have to play around airblast - Any spam directed at the gun or combo cannot be reflected - Your team will have to give up space in order to play around all this ### Staying Alive --- The key to staying alive more is having a solid fundamental understanding of the [[Vulnerability assessment|game state]]. Getting caught out of position disconnected from your team is not only a death sentence for you, but can be a death sentence for your team. > [!example] NOTE > As you read through the following sections, pay attention to how certain situations contrast with each other. To the untrained eye, many situations may look exactly the same when they start – however, based on the events that follow, the game state may evolve into widely different outcomes. Sometimes, things will change mid-fight that require an active, rapid, and skillful change in tactics – thus, a situation in which you otherwise live might change into a situation where you may need to sacrifice your life for the team, or vice versa. Maintaining self-control and avoiding poor habits will keep you alive. For example: - Avoid taking large amounts of damage right before [[Understanding Ubers|uber exchanges]]. - Avoid peeking sniper sight-lines alone. - Don't take 1v1s that you can't win. Consider what classes you are facing against – for example, when a Pyro 1v1s a Heavy, the heavy will win far more often. - It is rare you will have to take such fights. If you do, however, consider what you can do to turn the tables. For example, calling for help to turn the fight into a 2v1 or using map geometry for cover or routes of escape. - Try to be at full health for whenever you do have to take a fight. Staying alive through engagements just continually makes it harder on the enemy to make places or commit to pushes. ### When to Die --- While you should generally be focused on staying alive, there are situations where the correct play is to die for your team. These situations generally fall into two categories: 1. Committing with your team 2. Dying for your team to escape Committing with your team includes things like sacs, post uber fights, and even some dry fights. Obviously, if you are part of a sac, you should be in with your team and trying to die at the same time with them. [[Understanding Ubers#^3fc607|Post uber]] and [[Understanding Ubers#Dry Fights|dry fights]]are less black and white in your positioning and priority. In post uber fights, you need to firstly prioritize getting back into position with your combo if you were not in the uber. If your team decides to commit to a fight in the post, in offense situations (you don't have point on [[King of the Hill (KOTH)|koth]] or you're on [[Stopwatch|stopwatch]] offense), you should generally be leading your combo and trying to take space and reflect for your Demoman. It's usually okay to die here as long as your taking the heat for the rest of your combo and allowing them to win the fight. Similarly, in some dry fights you need to be taking the lead with your combo and taking space. Frequently you will be the first through a door and targeted by most players on the other team and the sentry. In these situations you don't "want" to die, but staying committed and buying space and time for your team is more important than your life. **It is extremely important not to fall into the habit of overextending in situations where you shouldn't be committing.** Only commit your life when you need to. In situations where your team is trying to back out safely or out of position at an uber disadvantage, sometimes the best thing you can do is sacrifice yourself so that your medic can escape. This can be done by hard holding a choke point as your team escapes or even attempting to retake the space on your own and airblasting the enemy team back. It is important in these situations to understand whether or not it will actually be impactful to sacrifice yourself instead of simply leaving with your team. Like committing with your team, its generally only good to do this in offense sided situations. Sacrificing your life is rarely ever worth it on defense. ^2ce58e