The effect on Soldiers of the Pyro Update

First of all, the damage reduction removal only comes into play if a Pyro blasts a rocket back, or if you fire at point blank and hit someone.  Firing at the ground the damage reduction is still there.

Second, right now it's not too bad, but Pyros are going to just get better and better at deflecting rockets over time; Demomen will have to deal with this too.  This will lead to people eventually finding another main counter tactic for going against Pyros.

Third, with the point blank damage reduction taken away, if a Pyro gets in your face, your dead and burning meat.

Are you sure?
So if an enemy is close to you, and you fire at the ground to push him away, you still get the reduced damage?

soldiers take 90ish by shooting a wall or floor without jumping too... not sure about rocket jumping away from a point blank enemy... I haven't had a chance to reliably notice with the swarm of pyros that surround me when I attempt it.

I find it impossible to fight good pyros with the compressed air at long-medium range, and horrible at close range (obviously)
basically I have to try to fight them just outside of flame thrower range now (which is also difficult since they move much faster than me, and only a good juggle can keep them away... and they can juggle me too)

soldier vs pyro with compressed air/flamer
long range: standoff (soldiers can't do anything long range except pelt with the shot gun, same with pyros useless for both unless someone crits a couple times)
medium range: standoff (basically it's like fighting another soldier)
short-medium range: soldier
short range: either
very short range: pyro

I haven't seen enough pyros with backburners to see how they do with one... I imagine it's similar, but with soldier winning at medium range, and pyro winning at short.

how much damage does the flare gun do? (both impact and burn) a good flare gun shot might tilt long range toward the pyro if the damage is better than the shotgun

pyro juggling is an amazing thing to behold
with a soldier/demo juggling you can usually get away after 1 or 2 bounces, but not so with pyro juggling... I was held aloft above a control point for a good 10 seconds before I finally burnt to death
I switched to shovel after I ran out of rockets thinking that I wouldnt have time to reload another... If I had known I still had 10 seconds left I probably would have loaded another rocket or two and took some people with me

Soldiers can still shoot their feet at an enemy without losing the -40% damage, as long as they rocket jump; I tested it.

Am I the only one who felt this soldier-nerf was necessary?  If a point-blank non-crit rocket shot by a solider kills me in one hit, then it better do a shit-ton of damage to them as well. I, for one, applaud the update.  Even if it will make playing spy quite difficult for the time being.

Even if soldier is my specialty, i am still confused about everything about this so called nerf.

From what i understand is that before the nerf, the soldier took 40% less damage from his own rockets? And now he does full damage? And now your talking about that it's reduced damage when shooting at the ground to kill another enemy? O.o

Would be happy if anyone could explain it

Before patch: Shooting a 100 damage rocket at someone point blank will do 100 damage to the enemy and 60 damage to you.

Hrmm now that I've seen it in action and put some thought into it, making it do FULL damage to him seems a bit much.

I was thinking maybe up the damage soldiers do to themselves by 20 or so might fix it, but instead 100% (90ish) damage? I dunno.

I've been for a nerf to this aspect of the soldier for a good while now, but I'll admit I think it's a bit too much.

I had more suicides than normal deaths today...

My solution: Play demoman

The solly is boring/dead to me now, one of the biggest joys it gave me was two consecutive rj and flying around singing IM A ROCKEEEEETMAANN!
I can no longer do a high rocket jump along a wall followed by a rj against the wall..

The first jump hits me for 60 and the second for 90 and when I land I lose a couple more because I like to fly... I just cant do it anymore

Ah well.