This is not going to list the basics of spy as they can be found in other guides and the class overview itself in game. This will however list all the tips and tricks for spy I have been learning and will continue to learn as I play the game. Updating this guide will be my top priority when/if I get better/more helpful tips from my own learning or others. This isn't from a pro player's perspective, rather someone who wants to grow and adapt to get better.

Info about the author
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I was born in 1994 and grew up playing video games in the earliest part of my life with my dad and my brother. Some of my earliest gaming memories are watching and playing Half-Life, Opposing Force, Team Fortress, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Unreal Tournament with my dad and brother. By no means am I a pro fps player I just really like gaming and many genre of games.

Unless you are capping the flag or completely rolling over the other team your score isn't going to look like a soldiers or medic with their 65 K 18 D. Chances are if you are new and learning spy for the first time your first few games are going to look like this

-3 K 27 D
1 K 7 D
4 K 10 D
0 K 3 D

Or something similar. Don't lose hope! Everyone has bad games and when you're learning something new you can't expect to be a master of it right away.
Practice makes perfect. Practice utilising all of your kit. Maximise your online time so you are learning and playing effectively. If like me you are up and awake when most sane humans are sleeping then you can join Drippy's 2fort or a bot server and just run around, practice your movement, jumping, nade timing and on a bot server your aim. Just because no other humans are playing TFC doesn't mean you can't get some practice in.
Accept sometimes your team just doesn't need a spy this game. If it's a smaller game and you don't feel like you are making an impact in helping your team or securing your own kills, swap to another class. Playing other classes doesn't make you a bad spy, rather it will make you a better spy. Learning how other classes operate and might think will give you greater insight when you return to playing spy.
Make sure to get up and stretch between games and during the countdown to match timers.
Make sure to keep well hydrated. The globes in your skull can after a few games start to hurt from lack of hydration.
If you are feeling frustrated, take a break. It's not a crime if you're upset or mad to take a break and do something else, play another game or just go outside for a walk. A game is supposed to be fun and you don't want to feel like you are doing chores and getting mad when you're playing a 25 year old game you want to have fun in.
Remain positive. I've had good games K/D wise just because I remained positive. That's not to say my positive attitude got me more kills but it allowed me to think better and clearer and that's how I got more kills.
Remember that spy isn't a huge frag earner. You have to work very hard to get your kills.
Each class in Team Fortress has a role to play and if you are playing your role correctly and have a positive kill/death ratio I think you can chalk that up to a good game.
Ask for advice. People are friendlier than you first think and sometimes in the right servers people will help a lot.
Use your disguise often and vary it a lot. A predictable spy is a dead spy. Make sure you use a variety and don't change disguise when an enemy can see you or it's pretty obvious that you're a spy.
Make sure to feed your team information. The only other class that can get information like you can is scout. Work with your scout if you have one so you both are relaying important info to your team and so that you are taking out any sentry guns, engis and snipers that may be able to destroy your speedy gonzales scout.

This is going to detail optimal situations you should be using each of your 6 weapons in.
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Knife
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I would like to say your knife is your bread and butter dps weapon but sadly, unless the back stab hit box was wider I have to relegate this to your secondary best option aside from nades. I'm not entirely sure about the actual amount of * for the hit box, from my experience it's about a 10-15* hit box. Which means that unless you are able to approach your target unheard and unseen directly from behind and jolly their roger I would stick to using a nade to ram up their chocolate wizz way. This is the hallmark of the class and by far feels the best when you ARE able to successfully back stab someone. Other uses for this can be for intimidating players who already have shaky aim. IE if they are shooting you with a shotgun and miss every single shot you are probably safe enough to run in to knife them. The best use of your knife is on snipers, engis and heavys that aren't suspicious and start blastin'.

Tranquilliser Pistol
===============
This gun. Man this gun is great, but only when you are within 3 feet of your target. DO NOT try to hit someone at a distance with this gun. ALSO don't look like you are aiming at their head or you will blow your cover. This is a great gun to use when;
A. You are following an enemy in your speed bracket or lower (More on this later)
B. Stationary for whatever reason
Do not use this in a gun fight unless for whatever reason you are nose to nose with your foe. The projectile is super easy to dodge.
The reason I say this is a great gun is not for it's damage rather for the secondary effect when you nail someone with this little bugger. The secondary effect will slow their movement speed slightly and more importantly, slow their turning speed by 25%. Now you may not think that's a problem but 1/4 lower aiming is difficult to compensate for. You can gut a heavy trying to blast you with AC if you've hit him with this before pulling your knife out. More often than not they won't be able to turn their butt to you quickly enough so you have a larger success rate of back stabbing them and a higher rate of dodging their gunfire.

Shotgun
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This is your true bread and butter. Aside from nades your shotgun is the highest dps weapon in your arsenal provided you are in a gunfight with no tranq in your target. Whatever key your last weapon button is bound to, get used to switching to your shotgun. Make sure you "Q" either knife/shotgun, shotgun/tranquilliser pistol or shotgun/nailgun. You always, ALWAYS want to have this baby at the ready. Anytime you are in a gunfight and trying to kill not flee this is your best option. Get used to practising with this not only on spy but every class that has access to a shotgun. Use this anytime you are discovered by the enemy and need to fight. I would not recommend using a shotgun blast from a disguise as you will lose the disguise, which depending on the environment and situation might not be bad but you have much better options from disguise. Immediately switch to this gun when you are discovered and aim for their balls and head. No I'm joking but make sure to practice your aim.

Nailgun
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People underestimate the useful applications of the nailgun. Most classes even medic won't get kills with their nailguns 4/5 times. The use comes in blanketing an area with nails that hurt enough to discourage enemy pursuit. Use this gun if you're for whatever reason out of shotgun shells or as a deterrent for enemy pursuit. The amount of times I've just sprayed an area and run backwards into a hallway or into the water on 2fort only to slip away back to my base is way more than luck can account for. Unless you're a beefy boy most classes don't want to get hit early by anything because then they only have to run back to respawn to heal and armour up. It won't always work against players who are experienced enough with their aim but you are faster than soldier and heavy, both of which need some "charge" time to damage you so you most likely won't use this gun to discourage their pursuit, you'll just disappear. You can also use the nailgun as a secondary resort to killing sentry guns if it won't put you in lethal danger.

Frag Grenade
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This is truly your bread and butter damage. Shotgun is great and excellent to use but if you have frags and are in a gunfight, don't be shy about using them. Practice your timed throws with nades for distance so you know which "beep" to let them fly. Sometimes classes will get suspicious if you get too close to them or directly run AT them. Sentry guns are blown up even at level 3 with 2 nades and you should be looking to kill them with these babies. Use these in all combat situations even from disguise.

Hallucination Grenade
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I will abbreviate these when I talk about them as "Hal". These WILL cause minor damage, but that's not the importance attached to these little Dr. Mario pills. The important use, is the crazy LSD laden stuff that happens to someone who experiences the drugs released from these. Most importantly it makes them "hear" things that aren't really happening. You can hallucinate gunshots, explosions, footsteps and grenades of all kinds. The other important use is to close off areas you don't want enemies standing in for a short time, like the sniper nest in 2fort. If that pain in the ass has been gibbing your team and you uncontested make sure to sneak to whatever safe vantage point you can get to and toss these in there to flush him out for a good period of time. It may give your sniper the advantage he needs. Toss these at a sentry gun to prevent the engi from repairing it, as you will also be lobbing nades at it to blow it up. He doesn't want to stand in the hallucinations just to get it back to 100% and himself die. Then the gun is wide open for you. This nade has so many useful applications.

This will be detailing the various combat scenarios you may find yourself in with the classes and who you want to fight and who you do not.


Before I get into each class and how various fights might happen I will list the classes you want to fight against and who you want to avoid.


Classes to look to kill;
Sniper, Engi, Spy, Demo, Heavy

Classes to avoid like the plague of anthrax coming at you from the enemy team's medic;
Heavy, Medic, Scout, Pyro, SOLDIER

So my reasons behind why each class is on each side of the coin will be explained in their respective section. Heavy is on both lists for a very good reason.


Scout
=====
You do not want to tangle with a scout. Not only are they 2 speed brackets faster than you but if you happen to be clumsy or unlucky and step on their caltrops you will be reduced to being as fast as a soldier, that's with only stepping on 1 caltrop too. Have fun getting your butt safely back to spawn and healing up when you'll be damaged and as fast a soldier and about as durable as toilet paper. They aren't particularly formidable in combat as they have less health and armour than you and a crappier shotgun damage wise. If their aim is excellent their shotgun can quickly end you. They will zip around you in circles and 9.5/10 times just run away from you laughing at you. Do not try to knife them as you are TOO SLOW. One nade is all you need to actually end them so if they are brave/foolish enough to want to fight you instead of playing the objective a well positioned nade will end their run. They have a nailgun for the same reason you have one; to destroy sentry guns and discourage pursuit. If they're a Rambo scout they'll concussion grenade you and shoot you with their shotgun and dance on your grave.

Sniper
=====
These bastards are who you are hunting for. Who you are just drooling over thinking about knifing in their back. If there are snipers on the enemy team these are the guys you want to keep down as much as possible. You should look to Hal their favourite sniper nests. 4 locations I can suggest right off the bat just on 2fort is the left and right sides of the sniper deck where the cap point is and the left and right entrances on the main level with the bridge. They love to snipe on the deck and in the cover of darkness in those entrances. There will be other great spots to put your Hal on other maps and they will become second nature to you. If you have been picking on the sniper(s) a lot they will become super suspicious. Any noise or movement out of the corner of their eye and they WILL stop looking down their LOS and assume it's you. Snipers absolutely despise spies. We are the only class that will silently end their 15 player killing spree. To all the snipers who main the class let me assure you - I love you guys you do an excellent job at what you love to do. It's why I am doing this guide so the spies on your team you learn to love. Snipers and spies can work extremely well together to kill enemy snipers and to protect your own snipers from enemy spies. Back to fighting snipers; if they are not confident they will pull out the auto rifle and start blasting you but the best ones will just red dot your head, dead. Always walk around snipers when you are looking to kill them so you don't alert them to your presence. The 3 best methods for killing a sniper are;
A. Silently walk up behind him and jam your knife in his spleen. (Janky 10-15* hit box remember)
B. Tranquilliser Pistol him if you are behind/beside for better results with A. This will alert him however briefly from the dart sound and you will lose your disguise. The pistol doesn't make the hit box bigger - it just makes their aiming/turning slower so you can nail it easier.
C. Casually toss a nade at his feet while he's not looking and watch his blood splatter like a doom game.
When you are discovered and in open combat with a sniper keep moving. You are the same speed bracket as snipers and you have a shotgun and they don't. What they do have is a rifle that will one shot you if their aim is even halfway good and IF they hit your feet you get crippled like from caltrops but it's untreatable except by a medic. So keep moving, use your shotgun and nades if you are trying to secure a kill and IF you are trying to flee for whatever reason, make sure you are fleeing to cover or that red dot is going to paint your head all over 2fort.

Soldier
======
I put soldier in classes to avoid because of 2 simple reason. Reason one, a rocket. Reason two, a rocket. Two rockets from them is all it takes for you to die, and they carry 54 rockets. More than enough to commit a small war crime. Not to mention the bloody nail grenade and their own nades. You are woefully unprepared to take on this hulking monstrosity. That doesn't mean give up your butt to him when he comes barrelling his slow floppy butt cheeks towards you. There are a few scenarios where you can get really good picks against soldiers.
Scenario 1 - You're undetected and following happily behind the soldier. He's 1 speed bracket behind you so you will catch up to him in pursuit. He has a lot of armour but 1 back stab and you can quickly disappear. Make sure you are familiar with the janky 10-15* hitbox of backstab but you can get in this position a lot with soldiers where you are following them and they aren't suspicious of you because say you look like a medic. Almost all classes are faster than soldier save heavy so if you look like an engi/med and are following behind a soldier they probably won't think anything of it.
Scenario 2 - You tranq them and knife them. For whatever reason you are undetected and they do not have their back against a wall you can dart them and just go to town. They are now as slow as a heavy and turn as fast a drugged up medical patient.
Scenario 3 - Chaos is a great way to kill any class and because soldier is slower than you if there's a fight going on with your team and the enemy team and they are reloading rockets you can shotgun and nade them to death or knife them. DO NOT tranq in a teamfight as the dart has an exponentially high percentage of missing.
Other than those examples you mostly want to avoid avoid avoid soldiers. The skilled ones will blow your butt away with rockets and nades and not think anything of you. Just a minor annoyance.

Demoman
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These guys are arguably able to be put on both lists like heavy. You should look to eliminate them for your team especially if they are the camping Demo type. I've seen players just spam their activated pipe bombs in a selected area and just sit there laying in wait like a spider in it's web. You know what that actually means? They're not a spider in a web, they're a bloody sitting duck. If they are sitting on the sniper deck in 2fort say for example, they will normally sit on the cap point and shoot the pipe bombs across the bridge to the enemy entrance area just past the bridge. Soon as one of your teammates comes walking out BOOM they blow their payload. A lot of demoman players are trigger happy because they crave that "release" from detonation. They want to blow someones butt to Timbuktu and will also think their own teammates are enemies and detonate. You can get in and knife them, nade them. There is a location in the spiral of 2fort where they like to sit where if the second floor of the base is protected and that's where their bombs are it's going to be difficult to sneak in and get them. If the basement is being guarded well it also makes it hard to get at them in that location from the elevator drop to the basement and going up the spiral to get them. I would recommend ignoring these demoman because they're not waiting for you if you're smart. They're waiting for soldier, heavy, medic, scout anything that's trying to approach their webby lair. In combat the really good ones will use the activated pipe bombs and shoot them directly in your face, activating them and nading you at the same time.

I've rarely seen good demomen need to use their shotgun unless they have no pipe bombs. The pipe bombs are their primary way of killing you and they will try to kite you into the blue timed ones or the green/yellow activated ones. They also have MERV Grenades and those are extremely dangerous and annoying for us to deal with. There will be camping players and aggressive players and you need to be able to make the decision quickly whether it's worth it to fight against them and out play them or run. They are dangerous to you but you are just as equally as dangerous to them.

Medic
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My joke about classes to avoid was directly because of the Medic. The kind of players who are good medics are clinically insane. They will run up to you and infect you with Anthrax and you will die unless you have one on your team that decides to heal you and be a stand up kind of guy. They will also shotgun and nade you to death with deadly accuracy in most cases. The people I've met who play medic as their main class are extremely accurate with the shotgun and their timing on nades is impeccable. They can conc-jump effectively and will evade you simply by running away from you after infecting you. This is by far the #1 class to avoid from the enemy team and the #2 teammate for you to protect if you are on defense. #1 being the sniper if they are being hounded by enemy spies and also the engi if you're guarding the flag. The Medic is the stellar friend and insane enemy to everyone. Avoid avoid avoid like the mini plague of Anthrax they carry. The super nailgun is worth mentioning as it's a secondary way of killing you if they are truly running low on ammo and nades.
Shotgun and nades are your best bet for killing them, knifing them could lead to you becoming infected. They are one speed bracket faster than you so they can infect you and just go on their merry way without you being able to catch them.

Heavy
=====
Okay now I get to explain my choice for why the heavy is on both lists and no other class is. Their Assault Cannon *AC* is completely devastating to anyone even another heavy. They have MERV grenades and nades. They are the beefiest boy on the farm and will sit on you. They are the big 600 pounder guy that walks down a hallway and smashes you into the wall just for the fact of their hefty size and weight. This class is a bloody monster. But~
They are TWO speed brackets slower than us. They are the perfect targets for a back stab. They are the perfect candidate to get drugged up by our pistol and our Hal. Guess what? THEY BECOME EVEN SLOWER if they are firing their AC. I've seen a heavy go down simply because I hit him with a dart following behind him and he starts revving his AC and trying to turn around as I spill his guts all over the bridge of 2fort. So despite this class being the strongest armour and firepower wise, ability wise they make perfect targets for us to eliminate because they are so slow. If they heavy is just camping in a corner like the aforementioned demo in the stairwell just leave them alone. Wait until the heavy is on the move to make your move. So above all else make sure you are making good disguise choices and aren't acting too suspicious and the heavy will start to hate you like the snipers do. Don't get in the front of their firepower and they'll die to your simple pleasure; the art of the backstab. You can flush the beefy boys out of their corners by using your Hal and vanishing.

Pyro
====
Avoid these firebugs like medics. They have incendiary nades, a super, super slow incendiary rocket which is laughable but does a larger radius of damage than the normal rocket launcher and their flame thrower. The rockets will set you ablaze and the flamethrower will set you ablaze. Against most other classes this is not the biggest of issues but you aren't beefy like soldier or heavy and the burn damage though negligable will whittle your health away. The good pyros will run like crazy madmen at you spraying fire and priming their nades to toss at you when they retreat. Best to avoid unless you get a good back stab pick from following or unaware players. Your shotgun and nades are the best way to deal with these maniacs in a firefight and make sure you are using your Hals to prevent them from flanking you like they will be using their incendiary nades to cut off your movement and hallway options. They're immune to their own fire, you are not and you are not immune to your own Hals. (Funny how that works eh?)

Spy
===
Okay now I get to us. The enemy spy. I'm sure because it is 2024 and most of the people who would want to read this guide have seen the TF2 "Meet the spy" trailer put out... a very long time ago, but that pretty much wraps up our encounters with enemy spies in a nutshell very comically. The difference is THIS IS WAR SOLDIER NOT SOME CARTOON PRECURSOR OF OVERWATCH. DRILL INSTRUCTOR BARNES WOULD BE DAMN PROUD OF SOME OF US MAGGOTS FOR PLAYING TFC OVER TF2. Especially as we have to get even more creative for the lack of invisibility. If I had invisibility as an ability back in 1999 when I first remembered playing Team Fortress as a kid I would have played spy a lot more. Always fascinated by the spy but as a kid it was never my favourite class. Now it is. This is why;
We can disguise as any member of the enemy team in 8 seconds. (Yes I know TF2 is 3 seconds I don't care.)
We can feign death. Silently or with blerghghghghagahgah sounds.
All of the listed applications of the weapons listed in the weapons section.
So this is also what we are up against when we face an enemy spy. They can be any teammate at any time and unless we touch each other like bloodhound gang more often than not never the twane shall meet. We can help protect our snipers from enemy spies and help lock off areas with Hals so enemy spies have to wait even longer to get at your engis and their sentry guns. One of my favourite methods to kill an enemy spy is wherever my sniper is hiding and having a bit of trouble or just getting harassed I'll lay in feign death as either an enemy disguised corpse like a medic or soldier and just watch the point of entry and if I see something suspicious I'll get up and knife check/shotgun check them. Remember anyone who is reading this guide, if you shoot your teammate and they BLEED - THEY ARE NOT on your team. They are a spy. Also every heavy in existence please stop shooting your own spies it takes our armour off and we have to go to respawn over and over while you chase us to "kill" us :c
Best way to fight an enemy spy is be more intelligent with your choices. Weapon choices in a gunfight, disguise choices, protection points etc. Outwit your enemy and they'll quickly give up and swap to another class. Touching an enemy spy removes their disguise and yours so if you are on defense don't disguise just be your true self and either knife/touch check or shotgun check. Soon as you see blood prime your nade.

Engineer
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These are your other prime candidate murder targets. Them and their sentry guns. If you can get information about sentry gun locations from your teammates that will make your job immensely easier. Most engis will get suspicious after you nade them wrenching their sentry gun and murder their lifes work. So make sure after you pick on the engis a little bit you go pick on the snipers. I'll go into more thought processes in another section about your targets and the mentality behind it. The engi has the arguably deadliest weapon in the game; the EMP. This little yellow nade will go through walls and will deal damage based on how much collective ammo is in the blast radius. Meaning? Happy what mean? Means that this will be their primary way of killing almost every class. Including you. Stay away from your teammates if you are fighting an engi because if they toss an EMP and you and Bill get caught in the blast radius at full health - you'll kill each other. (Bill is a medic in this scenario)

Normally at full health and armour if you get EMP'd you will live with a little bit of health if you discarded ammo in spawn before leaving the base. If you have rockets and metal and other ammo you don't use you'll definitely die. Make sure to discard excess ammo in the spawn so you don't die against EMPs from full health. They will try to shotgun you and EMP/nade you if it's a gunfight so try to out play them as you do have a bit more health and armour than they do. Do not openly fight them in view of their sentry gun because then you are just dead. Nade their sentry guns for your team, for your mother and for your country. I would say the primary use and strength of the spy is in fighting snipers, engis and their sentries. Don't touch their dispensers because the good ones will blow you up with them. A good engineer will also periodically move their sentry gun so don't get used to them always being in the same spot and make sure to report where they are and when they've been moved to your team.


That's it for my current best tips and knowledge for each of the classes so far. Now onto general combat knowledge for the spy.

General Combat
=============
If you don't know the map get familiar with it either in low player count hours or just hosting a local game. Knowing the map is extremely important for spy.
Make sure to change your bullying targets. Not to imply you want to corpse camp and berate people but rather to sow chaos and disorder among the enemy team. If you've been picking on the sniper for the last 5 lives you had and he's uber suspicious and keeps killing you, change to the engis, the demos, the heavys. Or go play some defense!
Feign death is completed busted when you actually start to get into the mind games of spy. I had a demoman stand on my corpse (which if you didn't know you can't get up if someone is on top of you, which makes no sense.) I was disguised as a dead friendly medic (So I looked like my own teammate) and he got off and turned around to go stand on the flag, so I stood up and threw 2 nades and shotgunned him down. I won't get too detailed but the amount of plays you can do with your fake corpse is almost endless and it forces the enemy team to start checking corpses too and not just teammates. That hallway filled with a bunch of different bodies, one of them might all of a sudden rise up and knife you or blow you up. To give you a little twist on feign death - discard your ammo and feign death near it. Without picking it up again you can appear like 2 people died and their corpse disappeared and yours remains without the pack collected.
You can disguise in feign death so use the opportunity to either put it up or change it to look like something more likely died in that location or for running somewhere else.
Don't worry if you have to fight and lose your disguise - people complain about not being able to disguise in 3 seconds like in TF2 but the maps are not designed with that thought process in mind. It's not ball busting action every 2 seconds like in modern games, it's paced, methodical and sometimes really grenade spammy. You'll have time to put your disguise back on if you are fleeing and if you're fighting well I hope you come out the victor.
Don't be afraid of combat. You're not the beefiest boy or the strongest boy but you still pack a punch.
Play as a teammate not a roadblock. Don't Hal block your own sniper and don't Hal the directions your team is going in.
If someone on your team or the enemy team is talking trash to you because you have a lot of deaths and not many kills you have 3 options;
A. Hunt them down and make them pay for being a twerp
B. Accept that you're having a bad game and make them laugh with your response
C. Just say to them you are having a bad game and ask do they have any advice for you to do better. Honestly if you pick this option I think you most likely will be trolled or git gud'd but you know that they aren't really someone you should care about. If they're looking to make your day worse by putting you down for real when you sincerely ask for advice it's not someone to worry about at all. They don't have anything constructive to say and can't teach anyone anything, they most likely had to be taught by someone else or learn it from a video. Really good players don't mind sharing tips and you will be surprised in a bot match or a chill match how many people are willing to share advice.

Thank you for taking time to read my guide for the spy class in Team Fortress. I hope more people will take an interest in retro gaming and come check out the game and more guides will come out on steam for other classes and just discussion in general. I will be coming back to add any additional tips and tricks I find and anyone that has something to share leave a comment on the guide as you may help someone else. It feels like just yesterday that Half-Life was a brand new game and I couldn't wait every single day to get up and play the amazing new games that were coming out in the late 90's and early 2000's.



Want to say an extra special thank you to all the people who continue to enjoy TFC to this day and keep the servers filled with people at peak times. You guys rock and I hope I can be as good as some of the legendary people I've seen in the servers as an adult.


Now after 5 hours of writing this guide I'm going to hop in myself and learn more... remember lads if I get ya...



Quit touchin me rum.