[TF2] Weapon Stereotypes! Episode 10: The Spy

the spy is one of those classes that I really wish was less cool on paper you know he's so appealing to everyone that most new players instantly gravitate towards him leading to most pub servers being filled with a bunch of spies who don't even know how the disguise kit works and just run it people trying to butter-knife them on the other hand though a good spy can be the biggest nuisance your team has ever come across in the entirety of their time playing tf2 I feel like the spy is one of those classes with the biggest difference between a terrible player and an amazing player except maybe sniper anyway as always stereotypes don't apply to everyone this series is heavily exaggerated for the sake of comedy don't take it seriously bla bla bla disclaimer bla bla bla you get the idea right okay let's go the stock revolver is kind of amazing it's the perfect example of consistency and can put out really decent damage if you know how to use it properly it kind of sucks then that it's completely overshadowed by the Ambassador you'd think the stereotype for this would be people using this can't aim you know since otherwise they'd be using the Ambassador but I found that a spy who actively uses the stock revolver can hit shots way more consistently than most ambi spies and unless you're me I'm the exception to this one I just can't aim [Music] this is an insanely good utility and probably my most used revolver for spy but once again it's completely overshadowed by the ambassador this guy knows every ammo location on every map and will probably stay invisible for 90% of the match even if he isn't using the cloak and dagger because of this though he probably takes similar routes every single life and will very often fall into the trap of spy time he also struggles with using other revolvers since he's used to that increased amount of cloak if the other team has one of these guys try to keep track of when they spawn and make sure to randomly spy check hallways corners and choke points every now and then I guarantee you you'll piss them off pretty quickly this weapon is actually really good someone even call it overpowered I mean hell you get free crits just for doing things as bi should be doing anyway people who use the Diamondback recognize this and abuse the hell out of it fortunately though it's once again overshadowed by the ambassador it's a good thing most bi mains are too busy jerking it to vods of Akuma otherwise the Diamondback would be a way more common choice and would be even more annoying of a problem than an RT is as it stands though if you see a spy with a Diamondback just be prepared for [ __ ] because there is an approximately 75% chance that halfway through your fight with him some random dispenser across the map will finish sapping and he'll get a crit out of nowhere you know I would say this is overshadowed by the ambassador but that kind of implies that it has good qualities to begin with well I mean I guess it used to be really good but now it's primary upside is bugged and only works and about half of its intended use cases so now it's just a shittier stock revolver if you see us by using the enforcer he's probably just going on a little nostalgia trip reminiscing about the days when it was stupid ope or he's just got a crits Creek medic pocketing him which I have to admit is pretty fun [Music] all right score is now in session Honorable Judge sound spitting out presiding hey guys sit sit down sit down don't call me honorable I don't even know what the hell I'm doing here okay now calling for the record the case of pretentious spy mains v everybody else simple case number one 0-2 counsel please identify yourselves for the record I'm max boss on behalf of the plaintiff I'm Sparky on behalf of the defense okay excellent are there any housekeeping matters that we need to take care of before the trial starts yes your honor as the representative of skilled spy maids everywhere we request to be given double the time for the defense for opening statements according to article 260 4933 - see the time allotted for opening statement should be directly proportional to the average skill of the represented groups objection first of all that's [ __ ] stupid second of all that's not even a real law well it should be you're not even using the Ambassador that obviously means you can't ain't worth a damn just because you use a gun that can headshot doesn't mean you can actually hit them I bet you couldn't even hit the broadside of a barn with that thing what is that an Australian ambassador with 5000 kills on it your headshots Partizan even past a hundred I just put on that part yesterday thank you very much so this is by far one of the most divisive stereotypes I've ever covered about 50% of the comments I read and people I talked to said that the ambassador is a weapon for the most skilled of skilled spy mains and everyone who uses it should be regarded as a god amongst men and the other 50% said that it was a huge war pig so everyone who uses it thinks they're a god amongst men but in reality can't hit the broad side of a barn I've honestly never seen such an even split for a stereotype before I think what it boils down to is that if somebody uses the Ambassador religiously then their opinion falls into the first category but more often than not their actual skill will fall into the second category on the other hand if someone doesn't use the Ambassador 100% of the time then they know how to play to their strengths but they also probably struggle with aiming and hitting headshots one thing that's for sure though is that if you see an ambassador spy he's absolutely going to try to use it on you and get for a video clips okay let's be real 90% of spies used the stock zapper or some reskin of it this is because the only other option is kind of terrible so there's honestly not that much of a stereotype for this one the research I did was largely inconclusive since everyone basically said something to the effect of this guy is smart enough to not use the red tape recorder so there are two types of red tape recorder spies those who don't know what it does and those who realize that it [ __ ] suck okay in all honesty this is sort of kind of may be useful in two situations one is fighting mini-sentry energies most gunslinger energies just let a sapper run its course I mean hell after you're done you can just swim down another one really easily so like why even bother because of this a sapper that takes longer to complete can actually work to your advantage since the total uptime of as mini is gonna be lower okay number two is suicide plays you know the ones the ones where you're on CTF 2fort and there are 50 billion NGS all turtling with level threes in the Intel room and every time you go down there you just get instantly shut down because there are just so many n G's all hunting you down and there's nothing you can do the regular sapper just makes buildings lose health so a couple of swings of the wrench will undo that in a heartbeat but in this situation at least the red tape recorder does something I mean it'll at the very least degrade each building you sat by one level and it's easier for your team to deal with 50 billion level two centuries than it is for them deal with 50 billion level three centuries plus it's annoying as hell to deal with since it's a huge time waster so in those two very specific situations it's maybe useful otherwise it just sucks so if you see a red tape recorder spy chances are he's either clueless or just trying to annoy the engineers like most stock weapons the knife is a jack-of-all-trades kind of deal most spies using this are not trying to do one specific thing and they're not trying to counter one specific thing they're just playing spy I have noticed that Australian knife spies tend to take themselves way too seriously though just a kind of random trend I noticed when it came to the comments on the last video anyway if you see a stock knife spy just be prepared for anything and buy anything I mostly mean them trying to butter knife you a lot like also some other stuff I guess I don't know so this is a reskin but it has a really widespread stereotype so I'm gonna go over it separately this guy is the oh so popular 13 year old Assassin's Creed fanboy this guy thinks he's really cool and takes himself very seriously the problem is nobody else takes him seriously he also probably has one of those Assassin's Creed style trench coats in real life that doesn't look nearly as cool on him as it did in the promotional images in tf2 you'll see these guys wearing the dashing has the the Assassin's Creed hat most of the time and they'll very frequently go for huge leaping tricks tabs you know I actually met a guy once who would Mike spam an ear rape version of the Eagle screech from the Assassin's Creed games every time he would jump off of a high place it was it was really stupid but it was also pretty funny I just wish I hadn't told KJ about this because now he's taken to using the sharp dresser a lot and doing that exact thing this guy puts way too much faith in his disguise sadly disguises really aren't as good of a tool as they once were since they just don't fool that many people anymore not even the instant disguise that this weapon offers is really convincing you'll often see these guys jumping in and going for huge chain stabs on the payload only to find that nobody's buying their disguise and either dying or just popping they're dead ringer to get out so the kanakas kunai it's primarily being used by people that appreciate the self sustain it can give you as a reward for careful positioning and timing okay Who am I kidding this is a sound Smith video alright see those spice yeah those right there JAMA suppose stereotyped diehard tricksters that worship the ambi yeah those guys love the kunai two reasons number one is prettier number two they think that with the kunai and dead ringer they're pretty much invincible while trick stabbing a whole team look this is what they think they look like [Music] this however is how they actually looked like about 99% of the time [Music] I'm afraid not I won't claim that the kunai is an actual war pig but how if the Ambassador gets the gun spot for a wall pick then this one right here is the knife among them had to do with it I'm not even [ __ ] wait by the kid okay so what does tim allen have to do with this just way you want some of that zoom you guys might be thinking I'm joking I'm not this is completely serious that happened my dream okay I so didn't speak English he only talks so he was like him Allen was a [ __ ] man and [Laughter] [Laughter] then all I knew was that I ran into him he just talked and grunts and then the dream ended that was the first time in my entire life that I woke up laughing Maggie does that happen that isn't Goethe's a dream make you wake up for the stereotype can we just like yes yes get ready you think I'm not gonna do it but I gotta [ __ ] do it dude I know that probably didn't make any sense whatsoever but I promised I'd put it in so there you go okay so the big earner tends to be used by spies who really like going for chain stabs or spies who have trouble getting away after they get a single stab it's really not that comment of a choice to see since it puts you below the 100 damage threshold meaning you can be one-shot by soldiers demos and scouts so usually big earner spies will be either completely clueless and just give you free kills for the most part or they're comfortable enough with our acting movement and cloak management to get that first stab this guy just hates Pyro's you don't come to think of it there are a lot of weapons that seem to be designed specifically to counter pyro anyway another thing to keep in mind is that this guy is gonna get tons of face tabs on you I've heard rumors that it actually has a slightly longer range than the other knives not like I'll endure levels of range but it's just enough to get face tabs way more than other knives now I didn't really find anything to support this I just heard a couple people mentioning it offhand but I have noticed that I do tend to get phased out more against this of course according to spy cycle spies it wasn't a face tab it was an over-under see to see Matador stare corner random Latin word they threw and so people would think their smarts tab you just need to get good obviously this is another one of those items that I have to go over even though literally everyone uses this there's not really a stereotype associated with the disguised kitten itself except maybe a spy crab but I guess we can go over the two most obvious types of people associated with this guys' in general first we've got this guy I don't think he's quite figured out that is cunning and masterful plan of disguise as scout and runs straight at the entire enemy team isn't really fooling anyone and then we've got this guy who just graduated it at the top of his class and the [ __ ] Daniel day-lewis school of method acting despite the fact that disguises are generally a pretty crappy tool he somehow manages to fool everyone I don't know I guess the only time disguises stick out is if they're hilariously bad or terrifyingly good same deal here actually stock watch spies are usually either really bad or really good since it's a stock weapon you'll probably see a lot of these guys bumping into everyone running out of cloak at horrible times and just generally doing everything they can to get discovered but good stock watch spies oh man don't even bother trying to catch these guys they know exactly where you're gonna go and how to avoid you and can perfectly maneuver through an entire team of enemies without being discovered I'm still pretty bad at this myself but one of the most satisfying things to do as spy is to escape certain death with your own movement and skill and not by just pressing right click and being halfway across the map instantly we now return to our feature presentation inside the mind of a cloak-and-dagger spy whenever a cloak can try to get to safety my cloak runs out revealing my thick yet fragile body the other pocket watch thing doesn't even make me invisible when I open it I think it's broken but on the bright side I found this other watch that allows me to wait in one spot until the exact precise time for me to strike I can literally stand in one spot and only move if someone's gonna accidentally walk into me I can't get killed that the enemy never sees me this guy's play style is much more slow and methodical than most other spies and by that I mean he's gonna be in the same friggin corner for the entire match lots of cloak and dagger spies have trouble managing their cloak with other watches so they'll spend a lot of time standing still and recharging their watch in a hotly contested area this is also why most of the time you find a cloaked spy with this watch your first reaction is probably gonna be something along the lines of what the hell were you even doing there regardless this weapon is pretty fun to use when you're messing with people and it's nice when you're up against a team that's pretty aware and you need to pick and choose your time to decloak carefully you're still not gonna get that much done though oh boy oh man where do I even start with this thing okay hang on I've got an idea [ __ ] this weapon the Denton ringer is one of the most hated weapons in all of tf2 surpassing even the reserve shooter nearly every single person I talked to said that this weapon was a huge crutch for spies who have no game sense and can't stay alive on their own well I'm not sure if it fits the technical definition of a crutch or not most dead ringer spies you run into will definitely be using it as one that is to say they don't try and be tricky and feign their own death at all they just run straight into the entire enemy team and use it as a get-out-of-jail-free card it's a safety net essentially fortunately though it's getting nerfed into the ground in the pyro update or at least it was going to be based on the balance changes that were released a few months ago which is a huge relief now I'm sure there are going to be a bunch of spy names defending this thing religiously in the comments section and I'm sure they're gonna say something along the lines of Oh sound Smith but sound Smith spine needs this watch because he's such a bad class sound Smith or whatever right but I for one want to have a class be viable without having to give him this annoying piece of [ __ ] [ __ ] this weapon it's not even good it's just annoying [ __ ] you can't wait for this thing to get nerfed into the grounds that bad spy maids actually have to rely on their game system [Music] you

Channel: SoundSmith

Views: 10,519,090

Keywords: TF2, Team Fortress 2, Weapons, Stereotypes, Weapon Stereotypes, Crutch, OP, Gimmick, Dead Ringer, Salt, Yes I get mad, Ambassador, Trickstab, Kunai, I wonder if people, are still looking, for clickbait tags, so they can circlejerk, on /r/tf2 about it, I guess we're, going to find out

Id: Z1QUXj0U0Ew

Length: 18min 27sec (1107 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 07 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Baghead_Productions]

He didn't start of the video spycrabbing...

I'm not mad, just disappointed.

[u/SoundSmith323]

Shout outs to /u/klown105 for agreeing to let me use that one kunai clip (and also for stabbing in perfect sync to the Metal Gear Rising OST)

[u/[deleted]]

Valve please add a reskin of the kunai so i am not associated with the weebs and tryhards

[u/Herpsties]

I think an untouched part of why the Amby is seen so much is that going for headshots is just more fun, even if you're not particularly great at it. That being said, Revolver is sexiest primary.

[u/AllSeeingAI]

Was honestly surprised there was no mention of x10 in the kunai segment.

Also, for the DR: Is this MAD Soundsmith? Is this what it's like when you're MAD?

[u/xWolfpaladin]

Was court case 102 on purpose, due to the damage ambassador does?

[u/Herpsties]

"It's not even good, it's just annoying!"

Hey, there's some truth I can get behind, instead of the usual DR is OP because I'm bad at tracking invisible players and not getting stabbed by fully visible ones.

[u/OlimarAlpha]

That Dead Ringer rant was beautiful and gives a decent summary of how pissed off I've been with it since the Tough Break Update. This same rage led me to write a 5,000 word essay on why the DR is such bullshit.

[u/TaintedLion]

Oh my god the Ambassador, Big Earner, Kunai, and Dead Ringer ones were just perfect. What a way to end a series.

Also is there any proof for the claim about the Spy-cicle having a longer range? I've never noticed me getting facestabbed (or reverse-corner-matador-stair-jump-180spin-trickstabbed as bad Spies love to put it) more by it.