Pyro- intrinsic problem with hiding

The scout is small (smaller hitbox), which accentuates his ability to dodge.

The heavy is big (with bigger hitbox, right?), which helps protect the medic behind him.

The medic is thin to hide behind heavies, etc. and speedy (107%?) to keep up.

The spy is at 100% speed, so he is only noticeably slower as disguised as a scout. He's thin, so if he's hiding in the dark changing disguises or whatever it's not as easy to spot him.

Now the Pyro. Man, I love the Pyro and then some. But there is something wrong... and I'm not sure if Valve meant to do this or needs to fix it.

1. The Pyro should be good at hiding around corners, but his/her primary weapon sticks out extremely far and gives away his/her position unless he backs away from the corner (sometimes not even possible) a fair bit. I'm also guessing that the length of the flamethrower causes some of the stutter problems at point blank range. The flame probably starts a couple of "feet" in front of your Pyro.

2. The flame is also extremely loud, which also gives you away if you ambushed someone and hope to ambush his nearby friend. It also makes it annoying to other players when you are sitting at a sentry+dispenser spamming flame to protect from spies.

Now for number 1, I guess you could argue that the pyro is so insanely good at ambushing and killing a guy, that he should have to work harder at hiding. Not sure I buy that, but maybe. Or maybe he should squat down and point his flamethrower straight up to avoid it poking around corners... but surely that makes it too hard to see what's coming.

For number 2... I can see the loudness of the flame as being part of the fun maybe. Or maybe it's to somewhat discourage constant spamming against spies. I like spies too, so that argument I would take with some merit.

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Anybody got any ideas, suggestions, or similar complaints? Overall I think the Pryo is really good on many maps on busy public servers (aside from the stuttering flame and vs. soldiers), but I'm not sure that the Pyro couldn't use a tweak or two for fine tuning.

#1: Switch to your axe while hiding. Not only does it do a decent amount of damage if you need to start fighting right away, but the pyro holds it closely to it's body.

#2: You could kill the first guy with your axe. Another solution is to run away and come back for the second guy later.

Agree with DT.  If I want to jump out on someone I'll have the axe in hand when hiding.  Means if I want to look round the corner then they aren't going to see the flamer coming round the corner.  The axe is a pretty good melee weapon and dishes out a fair bit of damage.  If you can get behind your foe with the axe then start swinging and take him to the ground.  Not only is it very satisfying to axe someone but its a hell of a lot quieter.

For some reason I never have the first problem as a pyro. And for the second problem: If its only a medic+whatever combo, I'll focus on circle strafing the medic with my flamy first, if the medic gets killed then either try to get the one hes healing, or simply run away (Pyros speed is not as fast as some of the classes, but I would say if you know your map well, the speed that you ahve is enough for you to find a place that is closes to you to hide)

Recently I've found myself using a style I called "wack the mole"...however instead of me being the hammer, I'm the mole itself, using all the hiding spots I can find all over the map...jump out, kill one person, then jump to another hiding spot and so on...

It's interesting that you would bring up the sound of the pyro's flamethrower.  I was bored and went through all of the developer commentaries last night.  One that was talking about the pyro said that the intentionally made the sound loud so as to be disorienting for your opponent when attacking and as a warning to someone else farther away.

I haven't had any trouble with my weapon and corners, although I normally stay back from them anyway incase my opponent tries to edge to see if I am there.

I'm not real experienced but I tend to play the pyro with two objectives, hunting Medics and snipers, and causing chaos on the other team using the element of surprise and/or blitzing.