Can a spy reach the shack outside the second spawn point in CP Granary?

Question

While discussing sentry jumping and the ethicality thereof, Transall claims that…

There's a bunch of junk to the side of [Granary's second spawn point] ledge that [spies] can use to jump onto it.

Edit: Just looked and it's only true for blu's spawn. You can still get up to the boxes by taking the ramp in the garage.

I'm having trouble making heads or tails of this. Here's the relevant screenshot:

Sure, I can jump onto the tires and that might let me get a poorly placed teleporter, but that seems to be it. I also can't find the "garage ramp" Transall refers to.

Can a spy reach the other team's ledge?

Asked by badp

Answer

You need to crouch jump to reach the ledge from the tires.

I believe Transall wasn't referring to this area when he mentioned the ramp, as there are no container boxes on which you can stand here — you can only stand on the ones around the central control point.

Answered by The Annoying Pyro

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What is the purpose of disguising yourself as your own team?

Question

In Team Fortress 2 as the spy, when you change to your Disguise Kit, you are presented with an option to change the team you are disguised as. Why would you ever want to disguise yourself as someone from your own team? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the disguise kit?

Asked by esqew

Answer

Friendly disguises are mainly used to hide from the enemy that there are Spies in your team, as well as to fool an enemy into thinking your team employs a certain class when in reality it does not. There's little more utility for friendly disguises than that, but they're very handy during setup time when the enemy can see you through the setup gates, as well as when you're among your teammates. There's more of this in the community Spy strategy wiki article.

Remember that since you're disguising as your own team, the opposing team will see you as an enemy player (whichever class you're disguised as) and act accordingly, and enemy Sentry Guns will target you as well. When you're about to infiltrate into enemy lines, use your cloak and/or switch to an enemy disguise.

Any of the cloaking devices works well; in fact, if you use the Dead Ringer with a friendly disguise, you will drop a fake corpse of the class you're disguised as. If you were disguised as an enemy, you would drop a fake Spy corpse, which often sends a stronger signal to opposing players of a possible DR Spy.

Answered by The Annoying Pyro

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What use is the Conniver's Kunai and strategies used with it?

Question

As a long time player of the Spy class, I value my knowledge of the Spy and how I can change my strategy to suit my situation. With the addition of the Conniver's Kunai, I've been trying to find when the knife would be useful and how I could use it.

Conniver's Kunai

Level 1 Kunai

• On backstab: absorbs the health from your victim.
• −65 max health on wearer

The best solution I've seen was when I'm defending on a payload map and attack a (distracted) team pushing the cart. I can get several stabs and keep my health high but still die in a few seconds when the team turns to kill me and I cannot backstab anymore.

I seem to find that the Conniver's Kunai is set into a niche that Your Eternal Reward does better: Backstabing a large, distracted group. Any thoughts, opinions or comments?

Asked by Dycker

Answer

I have hundred of hours play time with the Spy mostly using the classic knife and I was really interested to try the Conniver's Kunai as soon as it has been released.

Unfortunately, the 60 health points limit is really low and with the high level of missiles, pipes and bullets spam that there is in Team Fortress 2 it is really difficult to sneak behind the enemy lines without accidentally dying.

In the end I tested the Conniver a lot and found only a few maps and situations where its efficiency (K/D-ratio) is comparable to the standard knife. These are usually large maps, like, for example, pl_badwater (red team), cp_badlands and cp_coldfront when you are pushed by enemy team and mostly defending.

Answered by Drake

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How is my disguised loadout determined if I disguise as a class that's not in play?

Question

Say RED has no sniper. I'm a BLU spy disguised as a RED sniper. This means my apparent nick will be determined at random. IIRC, I might even get my own nick.

What about my loadout? Will I be using weapons at random? Will it be taken from the appropriate loadout of the nick I'm using? Will I be using my own loadout?

Say I switch to the pistol and press B (use last disguise) and I get a sniper rifle. If I switched to the knife, pressed B, then back to the pistol and pressed B, would I stand a chance of getting a more believable huntsman instead?

Answer

Your name will always be someone on the enemy team if disguised as an enemy, or someone on your own team if you disguise as a Friendly disguise. In the case of a class not in play, the name will be a random player on the enemy team for an enemy disguise or your own name for a friendly disguise.

Regardless of the team you disguise as, if there is no player of that class, you also get a random fake health bar.

Your loadout is the stock loadout for that class. For example, as a Sniper, your items will appear to be Sniper Rifle (Gun), SMG (Sapper), and Kukri (Knife).

Even if someone changes to that class, your disguises weapons will not change until you change disguises away from, then back to, that class.

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What is “cloak blink time”?

Question

A new item set for the Spy was recently added to Team Fortress 2.

The set bonus says:

Reduced decloak sound volume
0.5 sec longer cloak blink time

What does "cloak blink time" mean? Is this the time that you are still visible while turning cloaked, or is it the time you appear when you get hit or bump into something?

Answer

The cloak blink time is the time the spy "shimmers" and becomes partially visible after getting hit or bumping into enemy players - your 2nd guess is accurate.

0.5 seconds may not sound like a particularly long duration, but I've personally killed a lot of spies because of that blink effect and I do believe this will have impact on gameplay. Usually when I attack a blinking spy I don't 100% know where he is, just the general direction he was walking in the last time I hit him. With this, I might be able to chain my shots while the spy remains visible the whole time.

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Cloak and Dagger, what's the catch?

Question

Cloak and dagger has 100% generation rate, besides you remain half-invisible even if the cloak is depleted. This looks like it has lots of advantages over Invisibility Watch but not any shortcomings. But there has to be some. Can someone tell me what they are?

And considering these disadvantages what is the best situation to use it instead of regular Invisibility Watch?

Answer

A few disadvantages:

1. It has less overall cloak time than the Invisibility Watch if you're running (6.6s vs. 9s).

2. You cannot use ammo boxes or dropped weapons to recharge your cloak; whereas with the Invisibility Watch you can extend your cloak time (or recharge faster) using these items.

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What determines the weapon a spy disguise uses?

Question

I'm trying to learn how to be a better spy, and I notice that my disguise seems to have different weapons at different times. My health also seems to change at times. Does the spy disguise copy the player at that exact moment or is something else going on here?

Answer

Does the spy disguise copy the player at that exact moment

Yes.

You can still switch to one of your weapons and press B to switch your disguise weapon to the corresponding weapon slot. For example, holding out your sapper and pressing that key equips the disguise's secondary weapon.

Your disguise health also matches whatever health the enemy you're disguised as has at the moment you wear it (but your real health remains the same). If the disguise is low on health, you can try to trick an enemy Medic into healing you, so that both your fake and real health will go up.

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