congrats, you clicked on my guide. researching the basics is good. looking up tutorials is always good.
I will link videos at the end of the guide if you want more information.


So you may be thinking, What Constitutes a "Combo"?

A Combo for pyros is igniting your enemy of choice with your flamethrower, and using a secondary/melee for a large burst of damage. basically following up on an attack you already made with your flamethrower.

Example: The Flarepunch.
Say you are fighting a soldier. he is attempting to rush you with a melee because he does not want to fire rocket so you can reflect it and kill him and he's using a banner so no shotgun. he is using say.. the Half-Zatoichi. and let's say you are using the degreaser. a full 100% soldier with the concheror or battalion's backup will not die as fast to the degreaser due to the damage penalty the degreaser has. so what do you do? you first ignite the soldier with your flamethrower once in-range. then swap to your secondary (in this case, the Flare Gun), and since he's running directly at you in a straight line, you dont need to predict where he will run. pop a flare in his face for a great amount of damage, and he's still alive and catching up..

Example 2: Axetinguish his ass.
If that flaming soldier you critted with a flare is still kicking and runnin' at you top speed, if you have the Axetinguisher (or it's funny reskin, The Postal Pummeler), puff a bit of fire at the soldier a bit more with your flamethrower and quickly swap to your melee, the axetinguisher and split his head open like a walnut shell.

the baseline to combo pyro is using high burst damage options in tandem with your flamethrower. this can be great offensively, but also defensively. if you are using a utility melee like say the homewrecker, you can still use your secondary slot for high bursts of raw damage. the Panic Attack, Stock Shotgun, and the Flare Gun being 3 good examples.

here are some examples of basic Puff N' Sting combos (1 spray of fire + 1 finishing burst of damage):

- Flarepunch
Spray flames to pre-ignite the enemy, then quickly swap to the flare gun and shoot, one hit will usually deal a crit that's usually 90 flat damage (sometimes higher).

- Splitting Headache
there's multiple names for this, but I call it the Splitting Headache or the "HEEERRE'S PYRO!" (The Shining reference) or the "Die in a Fire" (FNaF Reference)
The basic of this one is just running up and setting enemies on fire, then as a finisher, after maybe peppering them with the detonator or a shotgun, hitting them with the Axetinguisher. or swapping between hitting the enemy with fire then chopping at them with the Axetinguisher and repeating until they are dead.

- Panic! at the Orphanage
Panic attack + degreaser, just swap between firing both quickly at close range. this is also known as the "heavy shredder". or if you dont want to be exclusively close range but combo with a shotgun, I recommend stock/degreaser + the stock Shotgun. I would suggest the Reserve Shooter, but honestly it can be quite unreliable, and better used on soldier.

Combos mainly rely on secondaries, as there are more damage-centered options for secondaries. but you can always use the Powerjack or Backscratcher as a finisher if you feel like it.

Update:
This guide covers combo pyro when using stock or the degreaser. BUT some weapons pair better with some flamethrowers than others, find what works for you.

so I play a lot of Combo Pyro. I've made so many guides promoting this shtick it's crazy. but here is an evaluation of all pyro's secondaries & melees along with combo potential and usage. these are based off experience with the weapon and community reaction to the weapon.

Shotgun (stock)
Ol' Reliable. actually pretty good. despite the random bullet spread really being a gamble and making damage inconsistent sometimes, it beats out the panic attack in medium-range combat. it has a more narrow spread that has a longer reach. though random bullet spread can mess with the consistency (like in official valve servers)

Panic Attack
Also pretty damn good. great at close range and can deal massive chunks of damage if you're in close range. a couple good meat shots in tandem with flamethrower spraying makes it pretty damn good.

Reserve Shooter
Used to be godly powerful and basically a straight upgrade, and letting you instantly kill light classes by puffing them with fire, airblasting them in the air, then shooting them with this. it got nerfed, and some dummies from back in its hayday as the OP pyro shotgun still whine, but I think it was for the best. It's rather useless on pyro now but it deploys 30% faster and can be used to annoy rocet jumping soldiers, sticky/pipe jumping demomen, detonator jumping pyros, engineers rocket jumping with the wrangler, and generally anyone airborne by blasts like damage surfing medics.

Flare Gun
the Ol' Reliable of the flare gun family. crits on burning players do 90 flat damage, sometimes more at very close range. random crits also do 90 flat damage to non burning players. it can be hard to aim and shoot for newer players, i myself am still not the best, but consistently getting kills with it. but it's a great long-range sniper harassment tool, too because it;s long range fire damage and some snipers hate the flinches that happen when burning and scoped in. 2 shots, dead sniper.

Detonator
some may say that it is not a good damage dealing secondary, but oh the contrary! my experience using this is pretty good. the explosive flare leaves room for error and the timing for detonations can be tricky, but worth it. and it's actually kinda decent at damaging and taking down most classes. heavy and soldier being some exceptions due to their big beefy health pools. the added mobility is also really nice, and when paired with the powerjack, you can be a highly mobile threat. if you use the axetinguisher, just light an enemy on fire from a distance, detonator jump, and be basically a pyromaniacal version of a trolldier.

Scorch Shot
It's debatably the best flare gun, but in my experience, it can be great or a great pile of sh********t. sure, the direct hit bouncing flare and room for error with flares exploding on contact with non-player/bot surface is nice, but it's really only good with the phlog or spamming down chokes. the damage is kinda meh unless you hit direct shots. it's good but it's essentially training wheels on a baby's first bicycle in terms of combo pyro. the blast radius helps hit multiple targets but that doesnt do much when all the minicrits do are tickle the enemy.

ManMelter
the worst flare gun to combo with imo unless you're running phlog or dragon's fury and still wanna support your team, but depends on the enemy having a pyro on their team. if they don't, yer outta luck.

Gas Passer
literally no combo potential for this outside of MvM. not even that good for area denial like advertised.
edit: due to a patch in 2024, it can now combo with the Neon Annihilator. not much but its something.

Thermal Thruster
very little combo potential, unless you use this to stomp then flame, but even then, not that good.

now onto the final step, the more advanced part. melee finishers. you don't always need these, but they're good to know which melees are good for sheer combo capability or just good utility.

stock Fire Axe and reskins
It's meh. cool looking but underwhelming and doesn't provide any benefit.

Third Degree
only axe in TF2 that is an actual direct upgrade to stock. literally. sad it's really situational and not that good.

Homewrecker
still viable for combos somewhat due to it having a high Random Crit chance (at least its my experience when i use it) but it's better suited to destroying buildings and sappers. great on defense for anti-spies, great on offense for anti-engineer. also breaks all buildings in 2-3 hits, with the exception of Mini-Sentries that go down in one swing, and wrangled sentries which are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ impossible.

Powerjack
ol' reliable. best as utility but the +25 health on kill can make it good for comboing to get hp back if you need to.

Hot Hand
unless it's a meme or contract, dont recommend, even for non-combo pyro. it's pitiful.

Axetinguisher/reskins
this is THE melee combo weapon. this is the best melee you want if yo're looking for raw damage. it's THAT good.

Backscratcher
Really good for lonewolfing and recon/flanking. no medic? no problem. not as good as the axetinguisher but the damage bonus is really handy along with it's main draw, the bonus health from medkits.

Sharpened Volcano Fragment
1 word: mid.
flamethrower already does it's job better.

Neon Annihelator
good for underwater combos or maps with water. other than that it's not that good for combos on dry land. looks neat tho.

this section is work in progress, as i still am finding good videos to put.

so in the mean time, watch these:

pyro has a variety of ways to combo and play, whether it be flanking, W+M1ing, or hitting combos, pyro is quite flexible, even as a specialist class. so play around, have fun.

this is just the baseline. be sure to look around more for guides and vids about this.