Ah the Spy.
The Spy has a bit of an odd history. Before the Spy/Sniper update, the Spy was arguably the most difficult class to play effectively. You were either a “Master Spy” and could devastate the enemy, or you were a “Clutzy N00b spy” who would get flamed up by every Pyro on the map.
Things have changed since that time, and not just because the Spy has gotten new weaponry. The Spy’s original job was basically as follows, cloak and disguise, get behind the enemy, backstab as many of them as possible (preferably Snipers and Medics). Secondary is the sapping of enemy turrets.
Both of these acts are pretty tricky. Generally, Pyros will sit in choke points and “Spy check”. Enemy spies will always burn even when cloaked or disguised. Also, in the past, Spies were easier to pick out when disguised because they would always be wielding the primary weapon of the class. Also, attacking will remove a Spy’s disguise.
Sapping can be tricky as well since there is almost always an enemy Engineer hanging around his equipment. Sure, if you get in a Sapper war you’ll eventually win since the sap drains the equipment faster than the Engineer can repair it. However while sapping you’ll likely have your back to the action meaning any enemy teammate can easily walk up behind you and kill you.
The new equipment and abilities the Spy has gained in recent months however make him a much more versatile class. Also it makes him much more easily playable. We’ll look at all of the Spy’s equipment first as well as some different “Types” of Spies you may encounter.
The Knife
This is the Spy’s primary weapon. Sure, the Revolver sits in slot one but most of the Spy’s kills are from the knife. The Knife is the only Melee weapon that does a low amount of damage on standard use. All of the other Melee weapons do around the same amount of damage per hit. The Knife however has a special case associated with it. The knife, if hitting the opponent in the back, will, without fail, kill the opponent instantly. This is called a “Backstab”.
It will kill even overcharged Heavies in one hit. It doesn’t work on ubers of course but if you’re a good Spy, then you’ll have backstabbed that medic well before he has even deployed his uber. I find, as a Spy, there is a general priority list of who to backstab. Medics, especially if ready with an uber, should ALWAYS be the first target. Ok, really, Medics should be the first target of any class, but Spies especially. Secondary is generally Snipers or Heavies. Heavies deal a lot of damage in a broad stroke and can absorb a lot of damage. They can still only absorb a single backstab however, so dispatching them is much quicker for a Spy than say, a Pyro or Soldier. Snipers are a priority mostly based on location. The Spy’s cloak allows him to easily get back deep behind enemy lines. The Sniper is most effective from this location and generally is always focusing his attention in one direction. Beware of the Razerback shield however (more in a bit on this).
The Revolver & Ambassador
The Spy’s secondary weapon is his gun. It comes in two flavors. The standard revolver is quick and accurate but does less damage, the Ambassador is huge and does a ton of damage but it only accurate for one shot and it fires more slowly. From what I’ve seen, once you have the Ambassador, chances are you won’t go back.
The Ambassador is almost as useful as the knife for surprise kills. It’s also great against Razorback Snipers. The Razorback will make the sniper think he’s spy proof. The reality is, it only makes him Knife proof. It’s extremely easy to walk right up to a sniper with the ambassador and plug him twice in the head (killing him). So much for protection.
Unfortunately the slow fire speed and high reload time of both revolvers makes the Spy fairly useless for normal combat. It’ll work in a pinch if you’re a decent shot but you’re not going to be assaulting anyone head on with it unless you have to or can ambush them.
The Cloak
This isn’t really a weapon exactly but it’s part of what makes the Spy a spy. The Spy has the ability to temporarily become invisible. Originally the spy had a normal cloak watch. It would cloak you for a certain period of time before needing a recharge. It would recharge any time it was not in use. This watch has more or less been superseded by the Cloak and Dagger.
The Cloak and Dagger only drains while the Spy is in motion. This means you can easily lay in wait to ambush the enemy and in time, easily pick your way all the way through the enemy forces. This brings us to the idea of the “Defensive Spy”. It’s something I’ve been experimenting with off and on, mostly on 2Fort. If the enemy is regularly infiltrating a certain area, in particular to 2Fort these areas are, the Front Gate, either Sewer, or The Basement, you can hide in a corner cloaked and wait for them to come through then jump out and stab them. This is also effective for forces crossing the bridge. Basically, instead of making “infiltrating the enemy base” your objective, you make “killing enemies before they get to your base” your objective.
The Spy also has a third cloak, one that is less useful that tries to mimic an ability that the Spy had in the first Team Fortress. The third cloak is called Dead Ringer. It’s a watch, then when active, will drop a fake corpse and auto cloak the spy when he takes damage. It also renders the spy temporarily invulnerable. There’s a few problems with this. Most experience players will realize the death was fake, especially if you die from one needle gun hit or one Heavy bullet. Secondly, if a Pyro burns you, you’ll continue to burn while cloaked (meaning you’ll be visible). However whipping out the cloak and dagger while burning will temporarily save your life as you still get the invincibility effect.
Third problem, the de-cloak noise is excessively loud. I believe Valve has fixed this somewhat but a Dead Ringer spy decloaking can be heard all over the map and will cause all enemy forces in the area to go nuts (especially Pyros).
I find the most effective method of using the Dead Ringer is actually to cloak as a member of your own team, then charge the enemy forces. This is useful for a few reasons. Firstly, most People don’t even realize a Spy can disguise as his own team, so they don’t expect it. Second, they will simply see themselves as killing a dumb idiot opponent who doesn’t know when to attack when they kill you. For what it’s worth, to disguise as a friendly team mate, press the -/_ key when on the disguise selection screen.
Disguising
The other weapon in the Spy’s arsenal is the disguise. The spy can take on the form of any other player. Over time this has become more elaborate. You’ll show the opponent’s name, you’ll show his health meter, you get a fake Ubercharge meter if you’re a medic. All ways to make the disguise more believable. You can also cycle through the weapon of the disguise by pressing “B” (of if you’ve changed it, the “last disguise” button). This is useful for disguises like the Engineer or Spy, classes that tend to carry their Melee weapon over their main weapon.
A few things to consider when disguised. Don’t run head first into the enemy and don’t hand around with your teammates (unless you’re disguised as a Spy, maybe). These are dead giveaways. Also, your speed doesn’t always match if you pick a class like the Heavy or Scout. If you want to sap an Engineer’s buildings, don’t necessarily run up and sap He’ll see you coming. Maybe run past and around a corner, then back up into the room so the Engineer thinks you’re retreating from the enemy.
Most importantly, remember that you lose your disguise the instant you attack. This means all opponents will see you and that any nearby sentry guns will shoot you.
Some general disguise choice tips by class:
Scout – This is generally a poor choice for a disguise. Spies disguised as Scouts are not as fast as real Scouts, so they are very obvious. Also Scouts generally are charging headlong into the enemy forces in a manner that’s even more “lemming-like” than the Pyro.
Soldier – This is actually a decent class to disguise as, though it’s a bit slow. Soldier’s often don’t fire their weapons unless the enemy is nearby since they have limited ammo and slow reload time. This makes your lack of attacking believable. Also because it’s slow, people suspect a Spy less.
Pyro – This one is good and bad. It’s good because the Pyro’s short range gives him an excuse not to go around firing his weapon. It’s bad because most Pyros are maniacs who go around burning things anyway in the name of “spy Checking”.
Demoman – Probably one of the better classes to disguise as. The Demoman has all kinds of excuses to be running around not attacking. If anything it may be because he’s got a sticky trap somewhere that he’s babysitting.
Heavy – I find this is a good disguise in very specific situations. One, if you want to attract a medic, it’s a good disguise. Two, if you want to infiltrate an enemy Engineer camp, it’s decent. Mostly people don’t expect heavies to be Spies as much because of the speed impairment. Most Spies will not chose a class that slows them down.
Engineer – This is a great class and a terrible class as well. First off, be sure you’re carrying your wrench (by pressing “B”). Secondly Engineers are always running around doing who knows what in an enemy base. No one understands what is going through their minds some times, they are nutty. The curse however is that the Engineers themselves are almost always aware of who their friendly Engies are and will spot you from a mile away if you’re out of place. Also the odds of running into “yourself” while trying to sap are high since the Engies all hang around their own equipment.
Medic – I find Medic to be reasonably effective except for one thing. The medic Spy (I’m pretty sue) can’t carry a Medigun. 90% of all Medics always carry the Medigun. Also most enemies will run up expecting to be healed, which means they won’t have their back to you and they will be suspicious when you DON’T heal them.
Sniper – This one’s pretty effective, especially when you’re standing where Snipers tend to hang out. Opposing Sniper’s won’t notice their doppelganger since they tend to focus on the action with their scopes anyway. Also Snipers don’t really run around the base shooting things.
Spy – Possibly the best class to disguise as. Spies are always doing suspicious things, even friendly Spies. So an enemy who sees a “friendly” Spy running around in an odd place is very likely to ignore him. Also if you decloak behind someone, as long as they don’t see you decloak they are likely to just assume you were waiting for friendly support.
Sapping
Sapping. Not too much to this. Pull out, the sapper, place it on an enemy Engineer’s device. It’s generally helps if the Engineer isn’t around as he’ll be able to easily remove the sapper. If you’re quick (and generally if you’re behind the Gun), you can backstab the engineer then sap the gun before it kills you. There’s been some changes recently, sapping a teleporter will sap both ends at once. This is good because it means you can easily make more work for the Engineer. This sucks because the engineer can repair it from the other end.
Speaking of teleporters, Spies can now take enemy Teleporters. This is extremely useful for taking out areas that were previously “exploits”. There are several places on several maps that were only reachable through elaborate acrobatics and teleporter drops. These were great Sentry drop points since it prevented Spies from sapping them. Now, the Spy can teleport up behind the Engineer and sap away. This also means the Engineer is unlikely go get assistance in killing you.
So, to wrap up here I’ll mention a quick Spy vs Class rundown. The Spy is generally highly effective vs Medics, Snipers, and Engineers. The Spy’s mortal enemy is Pyros and to some extent the heavy due to the large area of fire coverage). It’s probably the most complicated class to play and is highly useful in a lot fo situations that other classes aren’t good for.
Posted by Josh Miller 
One of the staple features of the current generation of video game consoles, the X-Box 360, the Playstation 3, and the Wii is internet connectivity. While this was an optional add on for most of the previous generation (PS2 and Dreamcast had optional Network adapters, Dreamcast had a built in modem), the current gen all have this feature by default.
Posted by Josh Miller 
Posted by Josh Miller 
Blog Disclosure
October 8, 2009There’s been a ruling recently by the FTC about how Blogs will have to be required to disclose if they are receiving compensation to promote products. Compensation could include receiving things for free.
Here’s a link to the article. I’ll probably also do a different style of post on this subject over on OSAF in the future.
Anyway, here’s my “disclosure”. All of the reviews on this site are of crap that I bought and paid for with my own money. However if some company (Hasbro, Valve, Nintendo) wants to send me games or toys to review I will gladly disclose that and put up an honest opinion of if it’s crap or not. Seriously, how do you get on these lists? I want to get some free review product going. We get pretty good numbers here I swear!*
* 3-4k a month with infrequent updates, at it’s peak with daily updates 30k a month.