Outriders - Secret Pyromancer Advantages

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In this article, we will examine the Pyromancer class in Outriders, specifically focussing on early solo play through the main campaign.

"Secret" Pyromancer Advantages

The Pyromancer has various advantages that aren't really announced by the game, but once you notice them, they can really change the way you approach play.
  • The key advantage of the Pyromancer is that line-of-sight is often not needed. You can just have targets in your forward arc and launch while standing safely behind a barrier.
  • The Pyromancer's auto-targeting mid-range to long-range Interrupt skills can make Interrupting easier compared to the other classes.
  • When you apply the Burn status, enemies often flail around briefly. Especially when they have gotten really close and you are caught out of cover, this can buy you a precious second or so. Your melee skill, whether you were sprinting or not, does have an area effect.

    How to Heal

    In a game that encourages you to play aggressively and frequently drops in strong reinforcements to flank you, figuring out how you get healing is really important.
    • For the Pyromancer, you get a big heal from killing targets that are "Marked" -- basically anyone you hit with your skills or your melee attack. You have 15 seconds to kill them from the time you mark them to get 24% of your Max Health. (On the Class Tree page you can see these details by mousing over the big Pyromancer root node on the left side of the Class Tree).
      • If you are one-on-one with an elite that doesn't go down easily, then this will be useless to you. So you want to focus on how to get burst damage on bosses in order to shorten fights as much as possible.
      • If enemies get up-close, you might as well use your melee to set them all on fire and Mark them.
    • Level 3 skill Feed the Flames gives you a solid heal with a long cooldown.
      • It's very useful in the early game especially against bosses chasing you as you can get over 75% of your health back in a single cast, but long-term I highly recommend not relying on it as you might want to slot a more useful power.
      • It's an Interrupt and it also inflicts Ash, which basically neutralizes your opponent for 2.5 seconds. If you are caught in the open exchanging fire with a boss, using this at the right time can change the course of the fight.
      • Watch for the Tier I mod "Final Breath" which halves the cooldown.
    • Weapon Leech and Skill Leech
      • These can be obtained with gear, but not reliably and it's costly in resources (Shards) to upgrade them to good levels.
      • Skill Leech combined with skills you can launch from behind cover can really help with getting your health back up.
    • Tier I Mod "Shield Maiden"
      • Shots with a weapon using this mod gives you a Shield. Even if it doesn't block a lot, an automatic weapon can keep it up constantly and help you retain healing from other sources.
      • For all classes and builds, having a secondary weapon with this mod for emergencies can really help.

    Early Skills

    Level 1 - Ignite
    Moderate range, but the chief advantage is the wave ignores barriers. You can be safely standing behind a tall barrier and use it against targets crouched behind barriers. Once Burn is inflicted you can follow up with Overheat.

    Level 3 - Feed the Flames
    We talked about the healing advantages of this skill but there is another huge advantage -- long range. It will not fire and enter cooldown if there is no valid target, so feel free to try it at distant targets to see if you can hit anything. Great for pesky Marksmen sniping you from afar.

    Remember that you can swap skills in combat as long as the skill slot does not have a skill on cooldown. So even if you don't want to rely on having a healing skill, which you shouldn't, you can swap it in from the safety of cover if you need to snipe faraway targets.

    Level 4 - Thermal Bomb
    You are stuck in the animation for a long time so be careful when using this especially if you are out of cover or behind low cover. The long animation, slow application, long fuse before an enemy explodes, and not giving you any heal until after the enemy explodes -- all these factors really reduce the attractiveness of using this skill.

    Level 6 - Overheat
    Once you get this skill you can start doing some combos such as Melee Attack, Heat Wave, or Thermal Bomb to inflict Burn, then follow it immediately with Overheat.
    The huge radius of Overheat also means probably every target you see is Marked and you can kill them to recover health.
      Level 9 - Volcanic Rounds
      This skill doesn't sound very special, but if you read it carefully it's very powerful.
      • Like the other Rounds skills of other classes, it changes bullet damage into Anomaly damage and therefore ignores Armor. It can help you burst down bosses and tough enemies quickly.
      • You don't have to hit anything to ignite them with Burn, they just need to be close. So against targets clumped together, everything will get Ignited.
      • It's a skill, so anything you hit is Marked and can heal you if you kill it.

        Early Game versus Human Opponents

        As soon as someone is hit by a skill, they typically stand up from cover and temporarily freak out. So when your skill hits, immediately aim and finish them off. If you take a bit of fire, hopefully the healing you get from the kill will more than make up for it.
        An Automatic Sniping Rifle, Sniping Rifle, or Bolt Action Rifle really helps to ensure you hit even distant targets but in the long term an Assault Rifle will be the most well-rounded primary weapon. Other viable choices are a Light Machinegun and Tactical variant Submachinegun.

        Early Game Class Tree Points

        Because the Pyromancer can use their skills from cover, it might seem like a good choice to focus, but in the early game the most dangerous situations are enemies that can reach you either by rushing or just being bullet sponges and advancing on your position.
        • You need to kill them quickly when you are caught out like that, and you can't wait for your skill cooldowns. For this reason, I recommend focussing on Firepower.
        • Enemies who are happy to stay in cover can be steadily picked off by your skills safely, so there's less priority.
        Anomaly Power skill-based builds can make you feel more like a superhero using powers, but in general you need many mods to improve their utility or reduce their cooldowns in order to make them as viable as Firepower builds.

        For gear, obviously focus on Firepower but keep an Anomaly Power set in case you want to switch over and try a more skill-oriented build, especially once you have more Class Tree points to reach skill cooldown nodes.
        1. Ash Breaker - Inferno Weapon
        2. Ash Breaker - Moths to the Flame
        3. Ash Breaker - Mark of the Anomaly
        4. Ash Breaker - Assault Master
        5. Ash Breaker - Blood Boil
        6. Ash Breaker - Mark of the Anomaly

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