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CocoaNut Cakery

Gore-Spattered Heavy
Summarizing the conversation would take too long, but basically I was talking to a Pyro main and he got a little pissy about the fact that I have 30 hours of Pyro and he has 600 and is in Steel Highlander and my reflect skills are about on par with his because of how I practice them (something of which he was extremely derisive).

This is what followed, and keep in mind that I never asserted that I was a better Pyro in general (and he is aware that Soldier is my main):

Reflects
Are one tiny little part of playing pyro
One part
What about game sense
Spy sense
Sneaking
Flanks
You might be able to reflect
30 hours
Is not enough time to learn everything
Hell, my 582 hours isn't enough time
Me: You know, you really shouldn't assume that everyone else learns as slowly as you do.
I don't learn slowly
Pyro has a stupid high skill ceiling.
Me: Relative to what, exactly? I'd like to know where you feel Pyro stands in relation to other classes as far as skill ceilings go.
One of the higher ones
soldier is easy

Given how the "order the skill requirement of the classes" thread went, I figured you'd get a kick out of that.

But moreso, I've seen this quite a bit in lower-level comp players that main a particular class. It's hard to find one that isn't self-important about the class they main. Has anyone else had this experience with Steel/Silver players? What do you think causes it?

My thoughts about the cause is that it mostly comes from people like this guy, who have weeks worth of time spent playing their main and are still not very high in terms of divisions. They justify this by convincing themselves that they needed all that time and their class is much harder to play than it really is. See "I don't learn slowly."

Edit: By the way, I'd like to point out that this level of self-importance is one that I rarely see outside of Soldier and Medic mains, which makes me think that the time:skill ratio has something to do with it.
 
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Pyro does have a really high skill ceiling.
This sums it up pretty well.
http://i.imgur.com/hRmFIx9.png

Skill floor is accurate (Edit: For the most part, though I disagree with a couple), but I take issue with almost all of the skill ceiling rankings. Who exactly made this?

Don't misconstrue me; I feel that Soldier is often overrated in terms of skill ceiling (and, for that matter, Pyro is underrated), but it's not that low relative to Pyro, nor should it take someone 600 hours of playing Pyro to be able to compete at a Steel Highlander level.
 
game sense and all that is almost exactly the same for all classes but every class has its own thing to master (scout: abusing speed, soldier/demoman: projectiles, pyro: airblast etc.)
 
game sense and all that is almost exactly the same for all classes but every class has its own thing to master (scout: abusing speed, soldier/demoman: projectiles, pyro: airblast etc.)

Scout's kind of a weird one for me. On the one hand, I want to rate it low because it's kind of a basic class. You run, you shoot, you flank. There isn't a lot of variety of things to learn. In this field, Pyro does have the advantage when it comes to arguments about difficulty. There are a lot of different things to learn when it comes to Pyro. On the other hand, actually mastering those small set of things requires a lot more practice with Scout than a lot of other classes require. Airblasts as a Pyro aren't entirely difficult to learn when compared to getting good meatshots in scout v scout combat. At least, that's how it is for me.

Edit: But one thing I would say is that the skill ceiling for classes is a lot closer than people give it credit for being, which few lower tier mains seem willing to admit. Most that I've met seem insistent that their class is absolutely the most difficult to learn (or near the top, anyway).
 
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all plat pyros i know apart from one noob acknowledge that pyro is pretty much the easiest competitive class among with engineer (yes, heavy is higher)
 
Wait, so what's the moral?

I guess if there is a moral, it's that you should be more willing to recognize your mistakes and correct them if you actually want to improve. Honestly, that's something I see in these Steel/Silver players that absolutely kills their ability to advance, even if they want to. I can and have out-DM'd the backup Soldier on this guy's team with ease (the one that introduced us because they were low on players for an exhibition match), but when I tried to give said Soldier advice on the things I saw that caused him to lose, he was very dismissive of it. I feel that this is one of the reasons why I was able to out-DM him in spite of him having considerable more Soldier playtime than I do. Similarly, this guy is going to spend considerably more time to advance through skill in Pyro because he feels that he's not making any mistakes in trying to learn Pyro, instead blaming the skill ceiling.

pyros who run around with the degreaser, flair gun/reserve shooter and axtinguisher

ick ick cik

Airblasting isn't OP. Pub Pyros that know how to airblast is what's OP.

all plat pyros i know apart from one noob acknowledge that pyro is pretty much the easiest competitive class among with engineer (yes, heavy is higher)

Ouch. Even I would rate it higher than Heavy, and I think that Heavy is harder than people credit it with being.
 
I guess if there is a moral, it's that you should be more willing to recognize your mistakes and correct them if you actually want to improve. Honestly, that's something I see in these Steel/Silver players that absolutely kills their ability to advance, even if they want to. I can and have out-DM'd the backup Soldier on this guy's team with ease (the one that introduced us because they were low on players for an exhibition match), but when I tried to give said Soldier advice on the things I saw that caused him to lose, he was very dismissive of it. I feel that this is one of the reasons why I was able to out-DM him in spite of him having considerable more Soldier playtime than I do. Similarly, this guy is going to spend considerably more time to advance through skill in Pyro because he feels that he's not making any mistakes in trying to learn Pyro, instead blaming the skill ceiling.
Don't be a Jackass, got it!
 
Pyro, has a high skill ceiling?

Yeah, scripted insta switch keybinds for switching between the Degreaser and axtinguisher are soo hard. The only hard thing that pyro's have to learn is airblast.
 
Pyro, has a high skill ceiling?

Yeah, scripted insta switch keybinds for switching between the Degreaser and axtinguisher are soo hard. The only hard thing that pyro's have to learn is airblast.
People still scrub their way with play-the-game-for-me scripts? How hard is it to fucking press 1 2 and 3?