How To Use The Dead Ringer (Post Gun Mettle)

This is a guide on how to use the Team Fortress 2 weapon the Dead Ringer after the Gun Mettle patch. This targets players who are new and people that are not too experienced with the Spy class. Learning to use the Dead Ringer is essential as it is the best secondary PDA for Spy, even after the recent patch, Gun Mettle. The Dead Ringer allows you to feign your death and in my opinion has even more potential after the patch as long as you're smart about your health. What the Gun Mettle update did for the DR was make it worse for new players, and better for more experienced players.

Information About The Item Itself And Statistics (Intro)

Basic Concept

The Dead Ringer is a secondary PDA for the Spy. It is different from the other watches as instead of allowing you to become invisible using Alt-fire, pressing Alt-fire will make it so you take less damage while the Dead Ringer is up and upon taking any type of damage will leave a fake corpse on the ground, make you invisible for a short amount of time.

Statistics And Perks

Cloak Type: Feign Death
Leave a fake corpse on taking damage and temporarily gain invisibility, speed and damage resistance
+50% cloak regen rate
+40% cloak duration
-50% cloak meter when Feign Death is activated
No cloak meter from ammo boxes when invisible
-35% cloak meter from ammo boxes

Specifying
Upon clicking Alt-fire and bringing up the DR, you have 50% damage resistance to all sources until you take any sort of damage. Upon triggering feign death, you become invisible for 7 seconds and recieve a 3 second speed boost, making you about as fast as a Scout. While invisible, Damage resistance scales over time. 65% to 20% over the course of 3 seconds. While invisible, the Spy is unable to get blinked (bumped while cloaked, revealing sillhouette) but 3 seconds after triggering Feign Death, the Spy is under normal invisible conditions (20% armor and shimmers if bumped or shot). Unlike other watches, you can not pick up ammo while cloaked to regen your cloak.

Changes In Gun Mettle

(Previous statistics highlighted in brackets and italics)

-Triggering Feign Death instantly removes 50% cloak meter (As opposed to starting at full 100% cloak)
-Changed increased drain rate to a decreased drain rate. Overall duration of invisibility is still 7 seconds when accounting for initial spend of 50 cloak meter for triggering Feign Death (As opposed to starting at 100% cloak and draining at normal speed)
-Decreased cloak regen rate from +80% to +50%
-When Feign Death is triggered, the Spy receives a 3 second speed boost (Making the Spy run about as fast as a Scout)
-Initial attack that triggers feign death has its damage reduced by 50% (As opposed to the DR originally absorbing 90% of the damage)
-Damage resistance on triggering feign death scales over time. 65% to 20% over 3 seconds
-Feign Death stealth has no bump shimmer for 3 seconds
-3 seconds after triggering Feign Death, the Spy is under normal invisible conditions (20% armor and shimmers if bumped or shot)
-Can no longer pick up ammo for cloak meter while cloaked(As opposed to originally being able to pick up ammo and refill cloak while cloaked)

What Gun Mettle Did To The Dead Ringer

With the nerfs to the weapon being that you can not pick up ammo to refill cloak while DR'd, a decreased cloak regen rate, and the nastiest nerf being the damage resistance, as long as you're smart about conserving your health, know where the ammo packs are and know when to bring up the Dead Ringer and know how to use your feign, Gun Mettle made the Dead Ringer a better weapon. I can definitely see what Valve tried to do with this weapon in the patch. The DR was made as an escape tool, as opposed to the highly advanced flanking capabilities of invis and Cloak and Dagger, but we'll get to that in a second.

Why The DR Is Different From Other Watches And Why The DR Is Hard To Master

The Dead Ringer Is Not An Invisibility Watch

The Spy's Secondary PDA slot does not have a wide variety of options to choose from. You simply have the Cloak And Dagger, Dead Ringer, and the stock Invis. The Cloak And Dagger is easily the weakest of the bunch, draining your cloak much faster and encouraging you to be a slow bulky camper. This is also however why new players can be drawn to this weapon. It holds your hand and does a lot for you at the cost of being able to traverse much land without needing to stand still and recharge it. The Invis watch is a very very good watch, giving you a longer cloak time (especially when used with the L'étranger, which I do 60% of the time) and has no cost when picking up metal while cloaked. It's like the Degreaser. It is special because it and Stock are the only flamethrowers without an airblast penalty. Same scenario here. The C&D and DR both have penalties when picking up ammo to refill cloak, while stock doesn't. You can get very crafty with invis and is just as popular as DR in Highlander, if not more. (Competitive TF2). The thing that C&D and stock Invis have in common is that they are both used as tools of entry. You cloak and flank into the enemy base and do your work. However when the Dead Ringer was introduced in one of the earlier TF2 updates, Spy vs. Sniper, the gameplay of the Spy was flipped on it's head completely. The aim of the update was to offer new, cool alternate ways of playing each class as they both had one formula that they sticked to completely. Sniper scoped in and shot, and Spy cloaked and stabbed. (And sapped). The Dead Ringer was created as an item of escape, hence being able to feign your death. You fake your death to avoid impending crysis. While the item was an amazing idea and executed brilliantly, the DR was used heavily as a bullet sponge and a body blocker due to the excessive damage resistance provided. The Gun Mettle update was a perfect reaction to the common abuse of the DR's damage resistance. The Dead Ringer makes you rely heavily on your disguise and being able to act and trick people. Let's talk about that over here.

Transitioning From Other Watches

As previously mentioned, the DR is not a normal Alt-fire to cloak invis watch. This is why new players have so much trouble grasping the concept and using the DR. The inability to cloak on command forces you to rely on your disguise and fooling the enemy team a lot more. With invis, all the player needs to do is cloak and run straight at the enemy team. When this style of playing is used with the DR, the results are disasterous. You know those derpy ass spies disguised as someone who just run straight into the enemy team without a cloak? They either a) Do not know how to cloak or b) are using the Dead Ringer and clearly have not seen this guide ;D. The reason there are not too many Spy mains is because when they transition from the C&D (Probably, seeing how it's an achievement item) to the DR, they are overwhelmed by the fact that they can't rely on full invisibility as a way of entry/flanking. Invis and C&D are tools of entry, and the Dead Ringer is a tool of escape. It sacrifices that ability to hold your hand while getting into the enemy backlines for the ability to safely and easily get out of those enemy backlines. It is a straight upgrade in most situations; it's basically built for good Spy players. Let's go see how you're supposed to use the DR and strategies you can use to get better with it.

Strategies With The Dead Ringer & How To Get Better Using It

How To Get Better With The Dead Ringer

As previously mentioned, the DR is a very tricky weapon and a big change from invis. What you need to keep in mind to get better with the Dead Ringer is that it is a tool of escape, rather than a tool of entry/flanking like the stock and Cloak and Dagger. You're going to want to use your disguise kit and acting skills a lot more. DO NOT FU*CKING WALK STRAIGHT TORWARDS THE ENEMY BASE. Make sure to use obscure flank routes when possible and when that is not an option, (On tight, closed in maps like Turbine Pro and other CTF maps) sure to disguise as a class that would be in that position at that time. Like if you're going torwards an Engineer's setup, you're going to want to disguise as a Pyro or Engineer depending on how far back in their base the setup is. If you're heading away from the ENEMY's base, you're obviously going to want to disguise as Spy. If you're literally in the front lines where the action is, you should definitely disguise as Soldier, Demo, Scout etc. as those are the classes generally seen at the front. Soldier is generally the most convincing and will get you healed a lot of the time. (If the Medic has a brain.) But that is another guide for another day. You're going to need to start learning how to Trickstab. If you don't know what that means, I am not going to baby walk you through this because if you want to play Spy seriously, you should already know what those are. If you do know what those are, congrats :)! Being a good spy will be a lot easier for you! Trickstabs are necessary for all Spies because learning them is the key to getting a lot more stabs, a lot easier, a lot faster. Basically, a trickstab is where you manipulate your enemy's movement in a way that allows you to get to their back, and get that oh glorious instant 1-click wonder of an instant kill. The best trickstabs are the fastest ones. Remember that. These are less necessary as a means of last resort though, because the DR provides so much escape potential. Still EXTREMELY useful. So many people quit playing Spy just because they don't know about these NECESSARY skills. Just remember this big paragraphs worth of cautionary information, and you should be good. I also recommend looking up "Stabby Stabby" on YouTube and watching his videos. He is the greatest Spy, other than me.

Strategies With The Dead Ringer

•Shooting Before Cloaking+Other Convincing Feign Techniques
-Shooting before feigning makes it look a lot more convincing
-Taking a hit before cloaking makes a feign look more convincing, but most experienced players have better sense than that. Shooting is much more convincing.
-Purposely taking fall damage to feign is very unconvincing when feigning
-People can see whether or not it was a feign by whether or not your body folds in half (bug might be patched by the time you read this)

•The Dead Ringer Alt-Fires On And Off In An Instant
-Unlike invis(s), you can quickly bring the DR down and go for a stab and press alt-fire to bring back your safety shield
-If there are a lot of enemies after you and you're using the Ambassador, (Like you should be) then you can shoot up a storm and try to pick off the Medic or Demo or whatever classes are in hot pirsuit of you, and then as previously mentioned, you have a convincing feign to get away
-Trickstabs Trickstabs Trickstabsss are so much easier with the DR

[.ghost.]

How to get this weapon ? and use ammo box

[rock30408]

oops necro

[rock30408]

alt-fire. however, it only can be pulled out when you have full cloak, and it only activates when you take damage.

[Bucket]

what button do you press to use it?

[Redflown]

+rate and a

[Masckerdoom]

Stabby is only as good as the skill plateau of the Spy class. If you watch a UGC plat game with stabby in it, you can see he is not much better than the other Spy. He only garners so much attention because he uploads videos on YouTube.

[PunishedSparda]

While I think Stabby is one of the best spys, there are other spys that have more skill at certain aspects than him. Also no need to talk so much smack about Mr Paladin. I think hes quite the good spy in his own right.

[PunishedSparda]

The L'etranger hardly even adds and cloak at all to the new Dead Ringer though doesn't it? I believe its only a small second.

[Masckerdoom]

I paired invis with L'étranger 60% of the time.

[Cornf]

@ OP in the guide you said you paired it with the l'etranger 60% of time.
The cloak is just too situational for me. I used to main DR, but now that I can't position myself in such a short time frame it's just not worth it for me. I can usually get away from every class with a regular cloak anyway.