A Guide to Pubstomping as Spy

This is a spy guide. Just read the title. This is my first guide so I would appreciate some feedback on what i did well and what i need to work on. Updated for Gun Mettle.

Introduction

The Spy is a class that comes from an indeterminate region of France. He is a class that requires patience and careful planning for his every move. He has 2 main jobs so lets talk about those first.

Roles

This chain-smoking rogue has 2 main jobs: Recon and Assassination

Recon is when a spy infiltrates the enemy base and just looks at whats going on while trying to stay unoticed. Naturally you are to relay imortant inteligence to your team. Important info includes sentry placements, classes and loadouts, enemy health, and above all, how much Uber a medic has along with which medigun he is using.

Assassination: The Backstab

Since this is a guide to pubstomping, assassination will have its own section. After all, in pubs your team is rarely intelligent or resourceful enough to make use of the information you give them.

Let us begin with the spies main tool, his knife.

All of the knives have a special attribute well suited to murder. They are all capable of backstabbing enemies and doing damage equal to 2 times their health and always getting a critical hit. Your enemies typically dont survive that. The way the backstab works is, if you position your crosshair within a 180 degree range behind your target, the spy will hold his knife in an Ice Pick Grip (that means blade pointed downwards for those who dont own a butterfly knife.) Left clicking while the knife is in this position will cause the backstab to occur.

Assassination: The Tools of the Trade

The spy has several different knives with the only common atribute being the backstab. All of these knives do 40 damage without backstabing compared to most melee weapons doing 65. So dont swing this like a maniac in a duel.

The Knife:


This is the stock knife. It has no ups and no downs. Thats all there is really. Get behind the enemy and left click.




Your Eternal Reward:


This knife turns our gun-toting, backstabbing, hat wearing merc into a bodysnatcher! At the cost of normal dissguise capabilites, the spy now instantly steals the identity of the owner of the unsuspecting back he plunges this knife into. In addition, the victim makes no sound and the corpse disintegrates. You can turn a heavy, a medic, or even a kritzed soldier or demoman into an invisible ragdoll on the ground. This knife fits a stealthy playstyle because you rely on your cloak far more due to your lack of disguise. Once you get the first stab however, you can wipe entire teams before they realize youre there. Now that I think about it, there was a string of missing persons cases on that dustbowl map I was on...

Assassination: The Tools of the Trade Part 2

The Spy-cicle:


The spy-cicle is a knife that utterly destroys the main counter to a pubstomping spy. The Rage Pyro a.k.a. the W+M1 Pyro. If you get set on fire with this trusty knife out, you are immune to fire for a second and afterburn for 10 seconds. However, this is at the expense of access to your knife for 15 seconds unless you pick up ammo. This knife will also turn a victim into an ice sculpture. I was wondering why those sculptures at the art contest were so life like! Other than a free ticket away from pyros and the possibility of missing your stab due to the knife melting in your hands, this is basically the same as the stock.




The Big Earner:


The big earner is still one of the less useful knives in the spys arsenal. It gains 30% cloak from a kill and a 3 seconds speed boost but it costs 25 health. You will die much easier and the upside is not that much of a compensation. Only use if the enemy team has the situational awareness of a brick (the average pub player).

Assassination: The God of Pubstomping

This thing here:


is the Connivers Kunai! This is weapon is worshipped by pubsompers everywhere, especially after its buff. This knife will allow you to gain health when you backstab an enemy. It even overheals you up to 210 health. The downside is starting at 70 base health which means pretty much everything instakills you. However the downside doesnt really matter against people with the situatiional awareness of a brick (95% of the pub population.) The upside will allow you to reap huge rewards! Once you get a backstab, you become nigh unkillable if you play your cards right. You can use the health bonus to get away much easier than normal. If you are only noticed by one person, then consider chainstabbing the enemy team. The constant healing from constant stabbing will let you easily continue your killing spree without fear of death. This also works well against pyros because a backstab removes damaging effects like bleeding and afterburn. If a pyro lights you up, you can trickstab him or stab someone else to rid youself of the flames. You dont even have to lose your knife! The strategy is similar to the stock knife in terms of infiltration. Disguise and cloak behind enemy lines. Just be much more careful and dont take damage or you die. Then you can stab away!

Gunz

The spy has a gun! Use it! Nobody ever pulls it out! Why? You should! But let me tell you about them first.

Revolver:
This gun can take down the average enemy in 4-5 shots at medium range. It is purely a tool of self defense and should usually only be taken out when detected. It can also be used to pick off wounded enemies. While good for defending yourself, it may be better to run. Soldiers, demomen, and heavies will still make short work of you.

Ambassador: This weapon is almost useless for self defense unless you can aim really well under pressure. In exchange for less damage and slower firing rate, it can score the almighty headshot, critting for 102 damage. Use this as a long range assassination tool.

Enforcer: Please dont use this. Please? Everyone will hate you if you use it. It's useless anyway.

Letranger: Its weak but extends cloak time and restores cloak on hit. Stealthier spies like this. When using this gun escape is almost always the preffered action.

Diamondback: Store crits when ever you get a stab or sap a building. These crits deal 102 damage and the gun is weaker than the revolver otherwise. Try to store tons of crits and empty a clip into a chokepoint for free kills.

What Time is it?

If the spy is on the enemy team, time to die! The spy has 3 tools that aid him in his mission to plunge a knife into the backs of the entire enemy team and get out alive. These are the Invis Watch, the Cloak and Dagger, and the Dead Ringer. The first 2 have a 20% damage reduction while cloaked. The DR stats are in its own section.

Infiltration

The Invis Watch is a tool of infiltration.

It has the longest mobile cloak time of all the watches (9 seconds) and can be refilled by drobbed weapons and ammo pickups. It takes 30 seconds to fully regenerate naturally. Use this to get behind enemy lines and dont go into crowded areas. If you bump into someone or take damage, the cloak will flicker, making you visible for a split second. A spy that uses this watch will get around the map quickly, assassinate his target(s), and get out. As a general rule, memorize all the ammo locations for the map you are playing on.

Recon

The Cloak and Dagger is used for recon work.

It drains faster than the invis watch but allows you to be invisible forever as long as you stand still. Good for observing an area unoticed but not good for much else. Reduced cloak from ammo pickups.

Escape

The Dead Ringer is a tool of escape.

Right clicking will open it instead of cloaking you. If you take damage, you will cloak instantly, drop a fake corpse, and a death scream is added to make it convincing. The dead ringer offers a supercloak. While under supercloak, you take 65% less damage, you dont blink when taking damage or bumping someone, you and get a speed boost. The supercloak only last 3 seconds. After that, you will be under normal cloak with its 20% damage reduction. While activating the dead ringer extinguishes flames and staunches bleeding, these effects can easily be reinflicted upon you after your feign. The feigns are rarely convincing because somethings involving real death are not replicated by the dead ringer. Because of this, the dead ringer is used more as an escape tool instead of a weapon of trickery and deceit. Try feigning with a friendly disguise on to make it more believable and make infiltration easier. Unlike the invis watch, you cant simply decloak behind someone and stab them because of the dead ringers extremely loud decloak. You cannot pick up ammo while cloaked.

Loadouts

This section will list a few recommended loadouts and their purpose and playstyle. I did not come up with all of these names and I will put the name of the person who did in the title of the loadout.
Now then, let us begin!

Mr. Paladin's Formidable Invisible Set

This set consists of the letranger, spycicle, and invis watch. The extended cloak time allows you 14 seconds of invisibility plus ammo pickups. Theis allows you to choose when to decloak and stab someone and always have enough clok to get away.

Mr. Paladin's Survivalist Set

This is the Formidable Invis set but with the dead ringer. You use the spycicle and letranger to cover up to major weaknesses of the dead ringer. Its short cloak time, and the fact that you can easily be reset on fire while escaping pyros. Do exactly what i said in the Escape section. Nuff said.

The Saharan Spy

Use the letranger, YER, and any watch to run around and kill things. You dont have silent decloak anymore, so the fez doesnt matter. It also makes the dead ringer less useful.

Dr. Enforcicle

This set is evil AND useless. Dont use it, k? You're almost as bad as gunslinger engies.

The Dubspol Stomper

This is taking all the pubstomping weapons and putting them together. You can tell I came up with it because the name is terrible :) Using the Ambassador, Diamondback, or letranger for taking advantage of oblivious people, you can headshot them from a distance, rack up stabs and crits against a teamful gibus noobs, or use the extra cloak time to make sure they never see you. You need the red tape recorder to destroy the dreams of engineers (Note: this is the only set where your choice of sapper matters) You must also use the Conniver's Kunai for pure pubstomping goodness. Either the invis or dead ringer will do because most pub players wont notice you either way. Just no cloak and dagger. Your team is too stupid to take advatage of any info you may provide. Ironically, this set doesnt work well on Dustbowl.

The Troll Spy

Enforcer, Red Tape Recorder, Spycicle, Deadringer/Cloak and Dagger.
I dont need to explian this set. Im pretty sure you know how to use it. But plz dont.

Matchups

This about how to deal with each matchup against each calss should you be fighting them.

Spy vs. Scout

Scouts are terrifying. They are fast, and nearly impossible to backstab. You revolver can kill them but they can 2 shot you with their scattergun. Avoid as much as possible. You can still catch them if the backup and backstab them though.







Spy vs. Soldier

Soldiers are slow and relatively easy to backstab. Just make sure they dont use you as a surface to rocket jump off of! In a duel, you should simply run unless the soldier is extremely wounded. Dont forget that as a spy, you can see enemy health.







Spy vs. Pyro

Avoid them like the plaugue for 2 reasons. 1. They probably have the plague and 2. The above picture is a pretty accurate descritpion of what will happen to you if find you. If you are caught at close quarters and without a spycicle, try to trickstab them, leaving you free to run for a health pack. If caught in the open, try to gun them down and stay out of range of their flamethrower.







Spy vs. Demoman

Dont let that happen. Demomen are slightly slower than you so try to backstab them. If they see you, run away from them and makee sure you strafe. If its a demoknight, then gun them down and trickstab if they catch up with you.








Spy vs. Heavy

That is what a heavy is to you. Food. They are slow and typically focused on shooting things in front of them. Plus, they have some much health for you to snatch with the kunai... so much blood... so delicious... so-OH MY GOD HE SAW ME! If a heavy sees you, run away. Always. If you dont, your body will be found days later, or at least, whats left of it... Remember, you can outsmart the average heavy, but only the dead ringer can outsmart boolet... cry some more.







Spy vs. Engie

This video will tell you everything.
All credit goes to watsyurdeal







Spy vs. Medic

The Medic is about as bad at dueling than you are so you should be fine. Typically, you backstab the medic and their patient. If that is not possible, either kill the medic and die, your life would be worth it, or, kill the patient and start dueling. The medics syringe gun does a surprising amount of damage. Your revolver does more and doesnt have travel time. You and the medic are about even as long as it doesnt come to close quarters. If it does or in the case of the medic using the blutsauger, just run away.







Spy vs. Sniper

Yeah, you wish. This is war gentlemen! Stab him in the back or conga, I dont care. Snipers have very little awareness outside of whats in their scope. Backstab them, ezy. Shoot them if they have a razor back. If they jarate you, DONT LET THEM MELEE YOU! If they have an smg, it comes down to who has better aim. Also dont let them quickscope headshot you.







Spy vs. Spy

There isnt anything I can say. It all comes down to who has better aim, and better trickstabs.

After You, Gentlemen

This guide has now come to a close. You are now a pubstomper. I leave you a last gift: a trickstab tutorial. After all, you cant pubstomp without trickstabs!

Thanks Mr. Paladin!

Good luck you handsome rogue!

[FIJI]

Great job to Invisible Man! Keep up the good work

[FIJI]

BTW that was for apples

[FIJI]

Why? Why Ryan? Why would you spend the time making a guide someones probably already done? and for feed back since ima your friend I read it. You need to get to the main point! no personal preference for example on your other guide "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO sorry im a gun somthing man" It makes it look sloppy and bad!

yours trully Damon!

[bryno]

Gr8 guide!

[deez]

I have no patience. I just shoot rockets into choke points and Ariel stuffs