I have made a guide on Spy, I know. But something I never really go over is how to effectively play with certain weapons, loadouts, or classes. That's what this is for. Spy has limited health and mobility. He's kind of a glass cannon, he gets taken out fairly easily but can destroy an entire enemy push by himself sometimes. The real key to unlocking the power of Spy is by just doing what Spy's do; be sneaky. Stealth is really important in a lot of circumstances. With Tomislav Heavies, the silent revving makes for the perfect ambush, with Sniper, a downside to the Machina is it reveals your location with the tracer rounds. But with Spy, if you aren't stealthy, tricky, or incredibly lucky, you are not going to get far. The Spy has several different tools for being stealthy; disguises, invisibility, and being able to fake his own death. The real problem with Spy is how those work. Any amount of damage can reveal your location to an entire team, especially a special mechanic called FALL DAMAGE. If you're cloaked, you still make a loud noise when you take fall damage and shatter your ankles. That isn't ideal when you're trying to sneak behind enemy lines. So how do you deal with it? The easiest way is to not jump when you're going off a ledge. Jumping off the battlements on 2-fort will almost always give you fall damage, for example, and just walking off will not. Fall damage can also activate the Dead Ringer, which can make you look really dumb. Any amount of sound can be detrimental to getting important picks (picks are another term for getting a class with a backstab or other form of annihilation), since even decloaking makes a really audible noise. That means when you're decloaking from the Dead Ringer, try to do it in a place where there isn't an entire push, since even if there is a lot of noise, your uncloaking will be heard near and far. Another thing; you have two weapons. You have your knife, but you also have your gun. If you don't have the ability to get a stab, just switch to your gun, since it does really good damage even in a scenario where you're just barely out of stabbing range. Speaking of gun, the weapons you choose can greatly affect your strength as a Spy. Choose weapons that will work well with the others you have equipped, such as the L'Etranger, Big Earner, and Dead Ringer, since it's a very cloak-centric play style in the way that both your weapons get you cloak back quickly. There's also the Your Eternal Reward and Diamondback, both of which prioritize getting backstabs and sapping buildings, since the Your Eternal Reward will automatically disguise you on a successful backstab, and the Diamondback will give you a guaranteed critical hit for it too. Now, about your other items. The watches and Sappers are just as important as your other weapons, since the watches are what can really get you into good positions, and sappers can get your team just where they need to be. And, as I said in the other Spy guide, the Red-Tape Recorder is an entirely valid item to use. The Sapper destroys buildings quickly, but that means that the Engineer that put them there can just redeploy them in a different location just as quickly. The Red-Tape Recorder prevents the Engineer from remote-destroying their sapped buildings, and also means they'll have to either run all the way back to deal with the sappers, let their buildings slowly be destroyed, or hope that some other Engineer or a Pyro with the Homewrecker saves their precious buildings. Plus, you can just shoot the buildings too. The Cloak And Dagger is a pretty good watch too, based for a more espionage play style, despite the loud noise and limited mobility while cloaked. It will allow you to stay invisible for as long as it takes to get where you need to go, as long as you're patient. The Spy-Cicle's main downside is also an actual downside. The ice statues that are caused by your backstabs can be more of a warning sign than the kill feed, since there's also an audible scream that accompanies them. Use the Big Earner's speed boost however you want to; you can use it to escape and delay the inevitable destruction, or you can use it to go back in and go out on your own terms.
