Flare Gun

“

Mmpph mmhhmmpph mmhmmp mmf mfh!! Click to listen — The Pyro on long-range cooking.

”

The Pyro's Flare Gun replaces the Shotgun in the secondary weapon slot. With the Flare Gun equipped, a Pyro can ignite an enemy at long range, though this does require careful aim. It is particularly useful for causing havoc on Snipers and Engineers who want to keep their distance. It is listed as a Level 10 Flaregun in the loadout menu, and is unlocked after obtaining ten Pyro achievements.

The Flare Gun's shot travels in a straight line for a relatively long range (from 2fort's battlements to the end of the bridge roof on the opposite end), and then its trajectory curves down drastically. The projectile can still ignite enemies while it's "falling", but disintegrates on contact with any surface. It has a speed of approximately 1450 HU/second (90.625 feet/second).

The Flare Gun is one of the few weapons not subject to distance indexed damage falloff or ramp up.

A hit on an already-burning enemy with a flare will result in a Mini-crit; at 800 units or greater distance (a few inches shorter than 2fort's bridge) it becomes a Critical hit.

The Flare Gun cannot fire while you are underwater, but it can still damage enemies if fired into water.

Taunting with your Flare Gun equipped as a Pyro will activate the special Hadouken taunt attack.

Flare Gun concept design

Damage

• Base: 30
• Max Ramp Up: 100% (30 damage)
• Max Fall Off: 100% (30 damage)
• All Ranges: 30
• After burn damage: 3 damage every 0.5 seconds for 10 seconds (60 damage total), Mini-crits cause 4 damage every 0.5 seconds.
• Minicrit: 41
• Critical Hit: 90

Function times

• Attack Interval: 2.02

Trivia

• The Flare Gun was first seen in Meet the Sniper without being publicly revealed at the time of the video's release.
• The Flare Gun is most likely a remake of the Incendiary Cannon from Team Fortress Classic, although there are a few big differences. The most prominent differences are that the Incendiary Rockets have a large area of effect, while the Flare Gun requires careful aim. Flares travel a bit faster than the rockets, although both follow an arced path. The Flare Gun also does more damage (due to the Pyro's general increase in killing power since TFC), has to be reloaded after every shot (rather than being semi-automatic like the Incendiary Cannon), and its appearance is much more compact and small (since the Incendiary Cannon was almost as large as the Soldier's Rocket Launcher).
• A Flare Gun with similar functionality (lighting enemies on fire) was originally going to be a weapon in Half-Life 2, another Valve game, but was ultimately cut.
  • A weapon called the I-Rifle (Incendiary Rifle) was also cut from Half-Life 2, and was used in a comparable way to the Flare Gun.
• In real life, flare guns are used for calling for help from a distance, as the flares make a visible flash allowing people to locate the position of whoever fired it. They also have been reported being used as improvised weapons, as they are able to ignite flammable material like clothing and human flesh.
• Oddly, when the flare itself hits an opponent it disappears, even though flares are solid, blunt objects.
• The Flare Gun is the only incendiary-based weapon in the Pyro's arsenal which does not have flames depicted in its kill icons.

Related Achievements

Attention Getter Ignite 100 enemies with the flare gun.

OMGWTFBBQ Kill an enemy with a taunt.

See also

• Flare Gun strategy
• Fire
• Hadouken

External links

• TF2 Official Blog- The Flare Gun