Ok, so how does one become a good spy? I would say the spy is one of the most frustrating and yet the most satisfying class to play. Spies get two points for a backstab and one point for other kills. This allows the spy to quickly rack up the points and easily be the leader of the scoreboard. As a spy you can take out key players with a quick instant death stab to the back. The frustrating part comes when the game is not spy friendly (more on that later) you can find yourself spending more time spawning than killing.

My Three Rules of Spy

Rarely Take Secondary Routes

Some people (even valve) will tell you that secondary routes are created for spies to gain entrance to the back of the enemy lines. I found the opposite to be true. To explain my point I will use 2fort. In two fort you have two entrances, the bridge and the sewer. The sewer is the secondary route as it is less traveled because it takes more time. The sewer is a tight area and very linear. Enter the other team’s base via the sewer will send immediate flags to the opponent for two reasons. The first reason is because there aren’t to many people in the sewer. What is the cost of spy checking a single guy? In my experience if the opponent sees a teammate coming towards them in the sewer they will spy check about 95% of the time. Since the sewer is very tight there is really no reason not so spy check because they can easily bump into you. I find taking main routes (carefully) will get you to the back of the enemy lines faster and with less chance of dying.

Stay Right Behind Enemy Lines

Staying JUST behind enemy lines is a sure way to rack up a ton of kills and really piss of the other team. Part of the reason that is so effective is that the other team will almost surely be engaged in combat with your team. They will be occupied and less likely to turn around and spy check. This advantage will often times lead to multiple bunched kills, especially on goldrush. If you can get right behind the action you can take out 4-5 people easily in a few seconds without disguising, cloaking, or running for cover.

I will give you an example of one of my routines for enemy lines killing. As a spy on 2fort I will head out of the spawn and right onto the battlements. I will then look at the entire bridge for action through the small crack in the wall near the floor. This will allow me to gage the action and determine if it is a good time to pass without getting sniped. Sometimes I will be able to see soldiers or a heavy medic combo just entering our front door. In this case I will just drop down and begin my stabbings. If I don’t see anything on the bridge I will cloak and make my run across the bridge. Once cloak has run off I will usually have a target crossing the bridge that I can stab. I will stab and retreat back into my base to gather health if needed and repeat the process. Sometimes you will have only one opportunity and other times you will have a whole string of people to stab. If the conditions are right you can get a lot of kills fast.

Always Choose Pyro as a Disguise

There are many reasons why pyro is the best choice for a disguise as spy, but let me tell you first off that I don’t rely on my disguise to fool the other team. The disguise almost never works as people are more accustom to spy checking now as the game has matured. I would argue that if you are playing the spy effectively you don’t really even need a disguise. Many of my kills are done without a disguise. As you can see from my 2fort routine above the opponent never gets to see my disguise as I am cloaked until i stab them.

To further convince you I will explain why the other classes are bad disguises.

• Scout - The spy movement is not as fast as scout. You can spot a fake scout half way across the map.
• Heavy - The spy movement for heavy is faster than a normal heavy and easily noticeable to your opponent.
• Medic - Medics are always healing people. Since you are a spy you can’t heal anyone. This is a dead give away that you are indeed a spy.
• Engineer - The problem with the engineer is that there are usually only a few of them on a team so if someone yells “Spy is engie” They can spot you easily. A lot of times the team will know the names of the engies and can tell right away if you are a spy. The other give away is that engies typically stay in the back and not near enemy lines. Since spies are best near the front line the engie disguise is a bad idea.
• Soldier - Soldier isn’t really all that bad as a disguise since there are usually many soldiers at any given time. The problem lies in the speed. The spy movement speed as a soldier is a little too slow to catch up to most classes. If you can’t catch up to them you will have a hard time getting a stab in.
• Sniper - Snipers don’t really move. Unless you are sneaking around the battlements there is no need to use this.
• Demo - Demo is the second best disguise. There are always lots a demos on a team and they move fairly quick. The draw back is that they are not quite as fast as a pyro. Since I don’t expect to fool anyone with my disguise I don’t use demo very often.
• Pyro - Pyro is the best because they move fast. They are always quite a few pyros running around on a team. It is also a normal thing to see pyros running around near the front line and crouching near doors.

Kill or Sap?

Contrary to popular belief spies are NOT the most effective class against sentries. Engies will spy check anything that moves even close to their sentries. If you are lucky and fool one they will shoot you down with their powerful shotgun and most likely kill you and repair the sentry, accomplishing nothing. Sentries will almost always be defensive and be placed near cap points and away from the heat of battle. This is the last place a spy should be. The three sticky demo method is by far better at removing sentries than a spy.

To contradict myself for a minute I will tell you spies can be highly effective against level 1/2 sentries and even level 3 with skill. The trick is to wait until the engineer is directly behind is sentry. Go behind him and uncloak. Then backstab the engie and place the sapper on the sentry before it has a chance to turn around on you. This method is really easy to do on level 1 sentries. The higher level sentries will require more timing. On those you will need to wait until the sentry is the furthest away from you and on its way back the opposite direction. This will give you more time before the sentry can turn on you. However even knowing this trick, engines have A.D.D. and wont stay behind the sentry for long. Demos are still better for sentry removal. Stay at the front line.

Is it Spy Friendly?

There comes a point where the game will turn around and conditions are not right for spying. Some maps are down right terrible for spy. On 2fort the best conditions for spy is where the other team is getting aggressive and there is a constant flow of people to stab coming into the front door. If your team is doing well and have them pinned down on their side you will have a harder time getting behind the action and most likely die getting there. Kills will start to slow down and the need for having a spy (especially if there is another one) will decrease and it will be time to think about switching classes for awhile.

Maps that are great for spies

2fort - See my routine above. Stay away from the sewers.
Goldrush 1st leg for red team - On the second stage there is a great cubby behind the area where the cart starts to advance in the open. You can get many kills standing here and just waiting for someone to start pushing the cart.
Badlands - The great thing about badlands is that there are many different paths to the front line. The map is not linear which keeps our opponents guessing. There are also many places to hide.
Well - In well you can cloak behind the lines and then use the water to hide your uncloak.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 12th, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Team Fortress 2, Tips and Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.