Compression blast

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When using the alternate fire on the flamethrower , the Pyro is able to fire a Compression Blast (also known as an Airblast) that can knock enemies away and deflect Rockets, Grenades, Sticky bombs, Baseballs, Jarate, Flares and Arrows back at the enemy, consuming 20 ammo each time. Rockets fired from a Level 3 Sentry can also be deflected. The compression blast will also instantly remove the fire effect when used on an ally.

This compression blast ability is incredibly useful, allowing the Pyro to blow away sticky bomb carpets, separate a Medic from his patient and hold his own against a Soldier in close quarters. The blast itself is a sphere-shaped 'explosion' that occurs directly on the end of the flamethrower. It is a momentary blast, requiring careful timing to execute. The unlockable flamethrower alternative, the Backburner, lacks this ability.

Deflection

Rockets, jars, arrows, grenades, baseballs, and flares within the area of effect are redirected so that they will impact on the nearest surface that is under the Pyro's crosshairs. When these projectiles are deflected, they are not simply "bounced" as if from a mirror: The Pyro can actually aim them to a new location. For example, a deflected rocket is essentially stopped and "re-fired" from your current position, aimed directly at a point on the nearest surface beneath the Pyro's crosshairs. A skilled or well-positioned Pyro can even make rockets deflect at right angles to their original path.

Grenades and baseballs bounce away from the Pyro in accordance to the angle at which they were deflected. Aiming these deflected projectiles is more difficult, although their trajectory can be influenced somewhat by the Pyro's angle and position. Note that deflected grenades will gain a quick burst of speed. Deflected sticky bombs will roll away from the Pyro.

Deflected projectiles are considered to have been fired by the Pyro deflecting them for the purposes of friendly fire and kill awards. For example, a red grenade will turn blue when deflected and will hurt any RED-team players near it when it explodes. It can also hurt the Pyro who deflected it, in the same way that a Demoman can damage himself with his own Grenades. An exception to this rule are sticky bombs, which can be pushed away but do not switch ownership. The only change to a deflected sticky bomb, besides their location, is that if the Demoman who shot it is blown up while the sticky bomb is in motion, it counts as a kill for the Pyro rather than as a suicide. Killing someone with a deflection produces a unique kill icon depending on the projectile.

Deflected projectiles will always turn into Mini-crits, although it is possible to get a full Crit depending on critical status. Additionally, a deflected baseball will only stun, as it would for the Scout who launched it.

If the Pyro is under the effects of the Kritzkrieg Ubercharge, reflected projectiles turn into Critical projectiles, making it very risky for Soldiers and Demomen attacking a Pyro in this state. An interesting note is that an enemy Demoman's sticky bombs become Critical when deflected, even though they do not change ownership. This also applies to Pyros who gain a Critical boost if their team captures the intelligence in CTF.

Interestingly, there are a few inconsistencies for kill icons from reflected projectiles.

• Sentry rockets can be reflected, and are quite powerful (doing 135-147 points of Mini-crit damage to a player), but use the reflected rocket kill icon instead of their own.
• Reflected Direct Hit rockets do not have a unique icon of their own, but instead use the generic reflected rocket icon.

From the WAR patch up until February 23, 2010, Flares were unable to be deflected. Since April 28, 2010, the compression blast was buffed to deal Mini-crits on reflection unless the particular projectile was a full-crit itself. Airblasting enemies into environmental deaths now awards the death credit to the Pyro (such as the pit in Steel, or from fall damage).

• Associated kill icons.
• 

  Deflected arrow

• 

  Deflected arrow headshot

• 

  Deflected flaming arrow

• 

  Deflected flaming arrow headshot

• 

  Deflected grenade

• 

  Deflected sticky bomb

• 

  Deflected rocket

• 

  Deflected flare

• 

  Deflected stun ball

Knockback

The compression blast will knock enemies back through the air for several feet, allowing you to potentially juggle and finish off the player, or blast them off cliffs and capture points. This ability is highly useful for separating Medics and their patients and neutralizing ÜberCharged enemies. The knock back effect of the compression blast is disorientating, though the enemy will still be able to attack.

Strategy

• The compression blast can be used in two ways, aggressive and defensive.
  • Defensive blasting moves stickies away from vital chokepoints, eg the Cart track of a payload map, control points or gated exits. Moving the Sticky bombs helps keep your team alive longer, and slightly delays Demoman returning to a vital holding point as they might think it is still secure.
  • Aggressive blasting includes blasting Rockets, Arrows, Grenades, Flares and Sticky bombs back towards their original firers team. If timed correctly the color of the projectile changes color and ownership, as if you fired the projectile to begin with (the exception is the Sticky bomb as the Demoman keeps control of it).
• Be aware of any Medic healing enemy Soldiers or Demomen, and try to re-direct explosives towards the Medic. If the Medic is using the Kritzkrieg you can use this to your advantage, reflecting the stream of Critical rockets or grenades back at the enemy. Additionally, if you have an allied Medic use the Kritzkrieg on you, all of your reflects will be Critical hits, including attacks that normally cannot get Criticals (such as a Tier 3 Sentry gun's rockets).
• Also take note of allies on fire, as the compression blast can extinguish allies on fire. This is an often forgotten but incredibly useful tool in the Pyro's arsenal.
• If you see an enemy running toward a Health kit, you can airblast him away to deny him the health.
• The Compression blast can also be used to delay enemies and keep them out of vital areas either by blowing them off ledges, pushing them into obstructions, or by Juggling them in the air, usually done after they have been set on fire, to stop them being able to reach health kits. If the enemy is close to an instant death area (eg Saw blades), blasting enemies into them is a viable method of attack, and this method will earn the Pyro a "finished off" kill, even if said Pyro did no damage to the player beforehand.
• Airblasting Ubercharged enemies is often a very useful strategy that can result in a wasted Uber for the enemy team. A good way to halt an Ubercharge is to separate the enemy Medic from their target. Often times, the target will continue forward without realizing their Medic is out of reach until it is too late. Another viable strategy is to simply airblast either one or both of the enemies upward, then continue to airblast upwards as they come back down. This method is especially effective against enemy Pyro Ubercharges due to the Pyro's lack of a sufficient long-range weapon.
• Airblasting unaware strong opponents such as heavies can be a good way to disorientate them, allowing your team to take them down. This combined with setting him on fire can be very effective as it will confuse the target long enough for you to land a killing blow with the axetinguisher. This is known as "Puff and Sting"

Related Achievements

Soldier

Backdraft Dodger Kill a Pyro who has airblasted one of your rockets in the last 10 seconds.

Pyro

Hot Potato Reflect 100 projectiles with your compressed air blast.

Hotshot Kill a Soldier with a reflected Critical rocket.

Trivia

• The size of the air blast is 280 units.
• There is a glitch involving the compression blast that is referred to as the multiple air blast. This glitch is performed by using the Flamethrower's primary attack and then, while still holding down the primary fire button, quickly pressing the secondary fire button. For other players, you will appear to be constantly using the compression blast, which includes the sound effect playing repeatedly. In first person view, however, you will hear the compression blast sound and see the animation only once. You can tell you are doing correctly if your ammo is steadily decreasing but there are no flame or compression blast animations playing.
• Each reflection kill has its own unique kill icon to indicate what projectile was reflected.
  • A baseball can also be reflected, however upon killing someone, it will produce the normal Baseball kill icon. If done to the Scout who threw the baseball, it will report that the Scout committed Suicide with his own baseball.
  • If a baseball is airblasted back and stuns the Scout that hit it, it will show the enemy scout assisting himself when he is killed by the Pyro that had airblasted the ball and had not killed the Scout by the airblast.
• Despite syringes being projectiles, you cannot reflect them.

See also

• Flamethrower
• Juggling
• Knock-back
• Stun