Does anyone else think Spy in TF2 is too weak?

I believe the spy in TF2 is too weak and unbalance when compared to other classes. Here are my point of views:

1. People said Invisibility is a very powerful weapon, but Spies do show outline when fire upon or are near an enemy. This could be ignored as long as the spy gets a chance to flee, however, valve made the spy's "visibility" so long that your attacker can "follow" and terminate you.
2. Furthermore, Spy is the weakest class out of all in terms of hit point and defense, any class besides medic has a good chance of one hit KO the poor soul. This also made spies vulnerable to the "spray and prayer", therefore, walking around a discharging heavy to stab his back is not an easy task. The spy has to dodge the line of fire while make sure his outline won't show due to valve's decision to make spy so easily revealed.
3. Spy does not have speed to its advantage. To me Spy's walking speed while uncloaked "feels" like the travel speed of a soldier, imo the only class slower than a spy while not invisible is probably heavy.

I may be wrong with the above statements so please feel free to prove me wrong and express your opinion on the question.

 

the spy is just as fast cloaked as it is uncloaked.

Keep in mind that when disguesed as a soldier, you move as fast as a solder, and heavy as fast as a heavy etc.

No, it isn't underpowered. It's meant to be a one hit kill class, and it is.
Get BEHIND them and stab them in the back, which is meant to be the only way to kill someone as a spy. The gun is just incase you have to flee.

 

Try it yourself, while cloaking you walk slightly faster. At least I believe it does...

I understand the concept of how to play as the spy but it is really hard to get to their back especially when you are been shot at. I have to disagree on the point that Backstab is the ONLY way to kill, it is not, instead it's just a much easier way.

 

play GRAW2, then you learn to be a spy.

 

It all depends on skill level, IMO. Because I've seen some videos where the spy is just kickin' ass. Even my friend who's not that good sometimes kicks ass. You're right about the spy moving slightly faster while cloaked - methinks spy moves at the speed of a spy when he's cloaked and teh speed of teh class he's disguised as while he's uncloaked. The spy has been nerfed in the one of the latest updates - there are a lot of limitations to what a spy can do; but when used in the right situation he can be quite deadly. Have you seen Daedalus' "How to play the Spy" video? If you haven't, I'll embed it for you

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that was so helpful amol, thanks for that

 

awesome video. very helpful to playing as a spy

 

Oooh, thanks for the welcomes Always glad to help

 

The spy is fine. If you are good with him you can do some serious damage to an opponents team. When you are disguised as either a (Soldier, Heavy, or Demoman) you will run ONLY as fast as them while uncloaked. If you disguise as a scout or medic, you do not run faster (bad idea to cloak as these).

Best bet is to cloak as pyro, sniper, or engineer.

While you are cloaked you run at 100% speed.

Scout is like 150% speed, Engineer is 100%, Medic is like 110%, heavy is like 75%
etc etc.

 

RTFW (Read the frakkin' wiki?!?! )

 

Perhaps the part you're missing is that The spy is not *meant* to kill. Your team has soldiers and heavies for that. The spy is meant to confuse the enemy team, backstab that one heavy no one can get past, or cap the flag when they're not expecting it.

And of course, on some matches there's just no need for a spy. In those cases, don't play a spy. It's a specialized role and sometimes, there's just no need for that role. Learn to play multiple classes, and pick the one your team needs. If you run around trying to kill people as your primary goal, you haven't understood the concept of how to play a spy. (Or the concept of team fortress in general )

 

Ahh, Thanks Amol for the Video that really helped. Rep +.
btw, Amol you mentioned that spy was nerfed is one of the recent updates, do you happened to know what was done to the spy?

@Jalf, I guess I had a higher expectation for spy. Oh, the video posted by Amol does show that a well use Spy can be just as efficient as Soldier or heavy at taking out enemies.
Also, playing as a spy has so much fun, it's one quick ticket to piss ppl off. hahaha. Just imagine the enemy was a heavy that just got out of spawn or walked a long distance just to be instantly killed.

 

That really is the best part about a spy. He lowers morale like nobody else. People really do get quite mad after they have spent time getting places or setting up (Engy's HATE spys). Then they get really sloppy just trying to nail the spy. They spend more time + ammo shooting at their own team mates all paranoid like.

 

A good engineer usually wont have a problem with a spy because if you kill the engy his turret will take you out, if you try to sap the turret first you give away your element of supprise and he should be able to repair it first.

I think spy is good for running to get intelligence or take out a heavy and stuff, its defiantly not supposed to be a top end killer. They are fun to play too.

I have not played TF2 is a few months I also wonder what changes have been made via patches since I last played.

 

The Spy is listed in "assist" for a reason .

The Spy, like Jalf said, is not meant to kill. It's meant to lend support for the team. In a 2Fort map, a spy can be useful to provide sentry locations, and who's coming from where. Also, a spy can sap a sentry while Heavy/Soldier/Demo/Pyro kills the engie. A spy can also help assist in taking the intel out of the intel room to a place like the sewers - from then on you have a minute to co-ordinate teamwork and capture intel. (You can have a soldier uber up in less than a minute; after that just rush. Do something, lol).

Now if you're trying to avoid enemy spies, it's best to have a pyro in trigger happy defense mode that goes about burning random people. A friend of mine(who plays the spy a lot) says that a spy gets the most satisfaction when he backstabs a pyro.

@Dragonpet: You're welcome

 

I play Pyro most of the time and burned down many, many, many spies. 30:1 in favor of me being a Pyro. Pyro easily sees spies in close vicinity. They smoke and are set on fire! I can actually remember only two ocassions that I was backstabbed by a spy while playing Pyro. So Pyro owns spys usually.

I also play Engineer a lot and wrench is a very good tool against spies. I would say 10:1 in my favor against spies. I simply shot at or hit anyone near me and my beloved toys. Usually one wrench hit in the head is enough.

So spy is making people nervous more than making actual kills. You never know who is a spy and you need to deal with him first, making possible for other enemies to come closer and wipe out the whole room, while you were chasing a cloaked spy.

Spy is a good role - like every other in TF2.

Cheers,

Ivan

 

Well, what more can you ask for?

 

it's tricky being a spy but i like it



my favourite thing to do is on 2fort when the other side have gone mad for snipers (i've been playing where half the team were snipers), sneak into their battlements and backstab the snipers and then leg it .


*favours being either spy, heavy or demo*

 

It's my opinion that spy was created for friendly fire on. Because people will be less hesitent to shoot their own teamates. Also, spy is very good ( I score 1st place occasionally) but only on certain maps. Don't even try spy on close quarters maps or maps that have only 1 or 2 pathways leading to a location. I can't think of the couple of maps that I can totally own with Spy on but I would suggest, go for snipers. If the enemy team has like 3 snipers setting up all game, just take em out all day baby YEEEHAWWW.

Edit: I noticed the guy above me said the same thing about snipers. But, also sometimes if I think the enemy team is dumb enough i'll take the snieprs out, then act as a sniper. Just sit there looking like ur sniping and when u see someone walk by take em out and go stealth again depending on situation.