I can't decide because I'm not a good Pyro. I want to hear an informed opinion.

I'd go with the flaregun.

Why give up that awesome range?....tagging the medic or just randomly spamming down a choke point to catch everyone on fire is always a plus.

Also, if you miss the reliability of the shotgun to finish off kills in close quarters, the flaregun does work as well (mini-crits).

Final point- If there are no snipers on your team and the enemy team has at least one, you can at least keep him in check by trying to fire at him.

Flaregun if you're going to be depending on that range, shotty if you wanna get up close and personal. For instance, shotty if you want to go Blackstar Closet Pyro on Badlands, flare if you're going to be sticking with the combo.

flare gun is so much better imho, there's nothing more annoying than running away from a pyro with little health and being lit on fire; also works well if you can airblast people into the air and hit flare gun

(> ' ' )> Air-Shot <( ' ' <)(s)

Flare gun is good for annoying people, but it is pretty easy to dodge. I think shotty is a better idea if somebody is running away, because it is guaranteed damage.

Flare gun is good for annoying people, but it is pretty easy to dodge. I think shotty is a better idea if somebody is running away, because it is guaranteed damage.
I'd say that the choice is entirely dependent on the style of pyro you choose to play as the flaregun may be easy to dodge but it can be a devastating weapon to combo with against already burning enemies. Also I think the map you're playing on can affect the choice, while a shotgun is very good to have if you're going to be right in the enemy's face a flare will be better if you're playing it a little further away.

Flaregun gives greater utility overall I feel. At close range your flamethrower should be doing the work - at long, the burning effect of the flares deals so much more damage than a shotgun will, and if you can land a minicrit flare you're golden (most weaker classes will die in 2 flares if you space them out enough and they can't reach heals).

It boils down to this:

What do you plan to do as the pyro class, stay at a distance for long periods and spam, or get in close and try to make something happen? Just think about what your goals of going pyro are and cater the weapons load out to any of the above. Honestly, I have used the back burner a few times since I was using a few distrations and was able to have a solid change to get begin the opposing team and wiped all there heavies and medic relatively quick.

If your asking for overall play style, it's what suits you the most that makes the most sense. Just think about the pros and cons of each weapons and see what you can use.

As far as competition, the same questions arise, what are we trying to accomplish, what do I need to do etc.. Just select the loadout that makes the most sense for the situation.

I'm sure TMP can write a whole essay about this.

This subject really doesn't have much of an answer, other than "Both".

As a guy who is prone to saying "Screw playing scout, I'm going pyro" on any map aside from badlands (I hate pyroing on badlands for some reason), I have little terminologies for how I need to play pyro and what weapon to use.

The flare offers a small ability of spam, a scout deterrent, and an ability to arc. The flare is good at hitting people when you are below them, similar to the demoman. The style I play here is a "solly style" pyro, which is slightly ironic, because instead of seeking a height advantage, you generally seek an inverse height advantage, albeit it is generally more complicated than that. For instance, when I run pyro on blands, unless I'm going hyperaggressive, I generally pop a flare from valley to their house before running under or sticking to our side, as the inverse height gives me some choice here. The flare also has pretty much infinite range. I generally stick with the flare personally.

The shotgun is a hitscan weapon and works pretty much exactly like a slightly weaker scattergun. I refer to when I pyro like this as "scout style". Generally, you can stick to the demoman easily or to the scout if he runs longer paths and you shorter. The pyro in this method has more ability to fight in close corridors and whatnot (which is already a strong aspect of the pyro), plus he can final burst damage. The only key here is that the pyro does more damage with his flamethrower than he does with his shotgun, but you do have the burst potential with shotgun to hit cover. I suppose it really comes down to being able to hit scouts outside your range. I use shotgun primarily on Granary 2/4, Badlands 5, Follower 1/5, Freight 2, Starting to use it on Mainline 3 (before the crate, it may sway my final opinion), Turbine D, Gorge 2D/2A, etc.

In the end, it truly depends on the situation of the times and whatnot. Are their scouts giving you a hard time? Are you being killed in your range too many times? Are your flares not hitting? If so, switch to shotty. Is there medic wide open at too many times? Are they utilizing height advantage to a great degree? Can your scout take down both their scouts blindfolded and while typing with his feet? If so, use flare.

I could write even more, but I'm lazy.

EDIT: Oh hey Neorussia typed something while I was typing this. Sounds like a good plan actually, I've been needing something to write about recently, as I just can't write essays for some reason recently. Maybe writing that will make me able to finally get back to my schoolwork.

Neo called it.

EDIT: I personally use Flare Gun because I find that if I'm at the range where a shotgun is effective, a flamethrower is even more effective.

airblasting and then meatshotting with the shotgun is essentially giving the pyro a FaN

Yeah, but you may as well just airblast them and flame them / puff and sting

TMP brings up some good thoughts. Makes me wanna try a pyro strategy on badlands (w/Flare). Run through yard, come up choke, spam flare alongside train, airblast back incoming spam and RJ'ing attackers. Particularly with this architecture a defensive approach could be quite successful.

I used to heavily prefer shotgun over flare, as its a ton of fun to airblast people into walls then coldly shotty them down. It's definitely a range issue though, If you can't get into effective airblast or shotty range, you're ineffective. I think my preference was this way before the flare hitting enflambe people gave you critz.

Just be sure to watch your ammo with that strat. You only have 8 airblasts worth of flamethrower, and hopefully people won't be dieing to drop you ammo.

You gotta watch your ammo with every strat, to be honest. The main key here is that that strat would get some cheap fire damage while being able to prevent their soldier from occupying your side. It would allow your guys plenty of time to get set up for spamming as well as help occupy a side. To be honest, when running that strat, I would probably keep my flare out and spam it at the enemy side, then when the push gets strong, swap to my flamethrower.

But that's what I would personally do.

hehe i favor shotty over flare since scouts can tear you up @ ranges, and when he double jumps away from an simple crit putout i can use the good old trustworthy pumpaction shotty to give the scout a face full of shells.
and i tend to be a sneaky pyro(how the F*** that pyro get there?) than an asshole one who over ridiculously long ranges shooting flares harrassing the enemy team(only when valve stops giving me 3 flare guns to me at a time for me to craft another hat)