Spy

Spy
Basic Information
Icon
Type	Support
Health	125 (185 with overheal)
Speed	107%

The Spy is a support class whose purpose is to immediately kill unsuspecting enemies at great personal risk. He has 125 health and 107% speed, making him slightly faster than usual. His Disguise Kit allows him to camouflage himself as an enemy teammate, while still taking damage from them as usual. His Invis Watch allows him to cloak and turn invisible, only being revealed when he bumps into an enemy, or is shot by them. In theory, these allow him to sneak into enemy lines without being detected, giving him freedom to roam around the map. With his Knife's backstab feature, he can instantly kill any enemy looking away from him, which is especially valuable against Medics and Heavies. His Revolver acts as a reliable backup weapon for when he is inevitably caught, able to blast pursuers close-up and finish off enemies from afar. Finally, his Sapper allows destruction of enemy buildings, disabling them and dealing constant damage to them. This skillset is designed to allow the Spy to kill enemies undetected and be able to sneak away, with limited combat abilities outside of espionage.

In practice, there are numerous issues with the Spy's design that makes him underperform compared to other classes. These issues include the triviality of spy-checking, the commitment of cloaking, his lack of combat ability, a reliance on luck despite his high skill requirements, and disproportionately hard counters from Pyro, multiple Engineers, and any player who simply turns around. The most immediate issue is that Spy is a stealth class with terrible stealth. Players have learned to blast any "ally" that approaches them, and this will kill the Spy before he gets a chance to return fire. This issue is supposed to be nullified through cloaking, yet his cloak is revealed when taking damage (such as projectiles that weren't even aimed at him), and he is helpless for a long period of time after uncloaking, meaning he has no good response when he is revealed. Even if he could respond right away, his weapons are below par. The Revolver is merely decent, not exceptional, and the Knife is a terrible melee weapon outside of backstabs. This makes it difficult for Spy to win in a 1v1 fight, even with perfect aim.

Despite the Spy being a high-risk, high-reward class, the risks are extreme and the reward mediocre, usually dying to factors out of his control in exchange for trying to get a single backstab against an enemy that will respawn anyway. It is also far easier to kill the Spy than it is for the Spy to kill you, as a single competent Pyro can destroy a Spy's hopes of ever approaching the enemy. Multiple Engineers also make the Spy obsolete, as it is only practical to ever kill one at a time, and the other Engineer's Sentry Gun will immediately blow him up. Finally, the Spy is also made obsolete by basic game sense. Other classes are good because they can kill enemies that are looking right at them. If the Spy is facing an enemy in a fair fight, the Spy will usually die, and he is totally useless against multiple enemies.

As a result of these numerous downsides, the Spy is considered the weakest class in the game. Despite this distinction, he is by no means unusable, and is still able to succeed against a particularly unaware team if the circumstances are right. On offense, his main goal is to destroy the enemy Sentry Gun, which is accomplished by killing the Engineer and sapping all his buildings. He can also go deep into enemy territory to sneakily capture an objective, something which other classes have a hard time achieving. On defense, his main role is to constantly kill the enemy Medic and his patient, preventing them from building up enough momentum to mount a successful assault. A Spy standing around an obscure corner can get more kills than even a Heavy standing there, and is especially useful in killing the VIP. While the Spy is not a good class for anyone desiring consistency, his playstyle and mechanics are unlike any other, with a technical skillset that takes full advantage of the player's game knowledge. He is terrible for new players, or any player with a serious desire to succeed, but acts as an amusing option for experienced players to try out, pushing their luck to see just how far they can take the so-called "worst class in the game", and finding joy in the unexpected depths of his mediocre brilliance.

Bio

Country of Origin: France

Job: Uncloak & Dagger

Motto: "..."

Contraptions: Disguise Kit / Cloaking Watch

He is a puzzle, wrapped in an enigma, shrouded in riddles, lovingly sprinkled with intrigue, express mailed to Mystery, Alaska, and LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU! but it is too late. You're dead. For he is the Spy - globetrotting rogue, lady killer (metaphorically) and mankiller (for real).

Weapons

Primary

Weapon	Kill icon
Revolver
Tranquilizer Gun

Sapper

Weapon	Kill icon
Sapper

Melee

Weapon	Kill icon
Knife

PDA

Weapon
Disguise Kit

Watch

Weapon
Invis Watch
L'escampette

Tips

As a Spy…

• …disguise yourself as an enemy with your disguise kit. Beware, attacking will remove your disguise.
• …call for enemy Medics by hitting E while disguised.
• …try to act like an enemy while disguised. Observe where enemy team members are, and disguise as one of them.
• …press Shift to run at normal speed while disguised as slower classes.
• …your revolver is a very useful tool for when a stealth operation doesn't go your way.
• …place your electro sappers on enemy buildings to disable and destroy them. Disguises aren't lost when placing sappers.
• …your electro sappers disable sentry guns before destroying them. Sap a sentrygun before attacking the engineer.
• …use your knife to backstab enemies from behind, killing them instantly.
• …hit MOUSE2 to cloak and become fully invisible for a short period of time.
• …use your cloak to get behind enemy lines, and your disguise to move around amongst them.
• …your tranquilizer gun slows down your target and decreases their ranged gun damage. This helps create an opening for an escape.
• …the darts from your tranquilizer gun cause your target to take guaranteed critical hits from melee damage. Let your teammates gang up on them.
• …the L'escampette allows you to move quickly to or from the enemy base. Make quick escapes, or quick infiltrations!
• …you lose cloak taking damage with the L'escampette equipped. Stay out of the line of fire.

Related achievements

Achievement		Description
	Deep Sleep	As a Spy, kill 10 tranquilized players with your melee weapon.

VIP achievements

Achievement		Description
	Fraudulent Transaction	As a Spy, kill the Civilian using the boost given by him.

Names in other languages

Language	Name	Meaning
Bulgarian	Шпионин	Spy
Spanish	Spy	-
English	Spy	-
French	Spy	-
German	Spy	-
Hungarian	Kém	Spy
Italian	Spia	Spy
Polish	Szpieg	Spy
Brazilian Portuguese	Spy	-
Romanian	Spy	-
Russian	Шпион	Spy
Turkish	Spy	-

Trivia

• The Spy used to have 100% movement speed in both Team Fortress 2 and Team Fortress 2 Classic, but both iterations were eventually changed to 107%.
• In Team Fortress 2 Classic, Spy gets another line for his "Thanks!" voice command where he says "Prego" ("Translation: "You're welcome"). This was lifted from the prerelease versions of Team Fortress 2.
• The RED and YLW Spy smoke white cigarettes, while the BLU and GRN Spy smoke brown cigarettes. Despite this, the class selection portraits in-game have the BLU and GRN Spy smoking white cigarettes.