@@widerekxxanimations6842 It works so well too since scout is so weak to sentries they have to constantly get other people to even deal with a mini. It makes perfect sense for your scout to round the corner after getting tagged once by a mini and being like "Hey... theres a sentry up there pretty please get rid of it?" with the sentry ahead command.
These kind of mind games are what spy is _amazing_ for, and I personally think it feels better on the receiving end to be genuinely fooled at one’s own fault compared to not being able to outmaneuver the bs trickstab detection
Honestly the worst thing to happen while disguising, is accidentally disguising as someone that's not on the other team. "Wait... We don't have a Sniper on our team-"
I don't think that matters at all. No one remembers the exact composition of a 12 man team, especially not right in the moment. Honestly what's worse is disguising as someone that IS on the enemy team and then running into that person while you look just like them.
@@karlisulmanis3810 But why did you catch them out? Because you actively knew that there wasn't a specific person of that particular class on your team, or just because that player was using default loadout? I'm sure it happens but as I said I don't think it's a problem.
@@GiRR007 no, I do specifically recall some guy constantly disguising as engi when we didn't have one. Later he tried the same "let's try to walk 3km up to the enemy while fully uncloaked" as sniper while our only sniper was dead. Granted, it wasn't a full server, probably between 14-20 people, but it is still kinda noticable if you pay attention to the class icons on the top of your screen, since you can also use it to try to catch out dead-ringing spies..
Sniper is the one disguise in the game where the advice of "look at your team not the enemy team" is the most crucial of all options. A sniper who looks at his own team like a lost child wondering where his mom went sticks out like a sore thumb while a sniper hiding in a corner somewhere trying to find an angle on the enemy team for shots is so natural it's hardly even worth looking at.
I think the only thing keeping it from perfection is that spy doesn’t have M2 disguise animations, so you tend to stick out pretty quickly because you’re not scoped :/
It is so much fun. Play some dead wringer and just practice walking backwards at people. That alone works wonders. Once you get that down you can slowly start doing more creative disguise strats. Its addicting because there is a basically endless number of absurd tricks you can try.
one trick i have, when disguising as medic, is to keep the syringe gun out when i'm by myself, and keep around around frantically like i'm trying not to get ambushed, and as soon as someone turns towards me i quickly change to my medigun and run towards my target (the syringe gun is out for the disguise but i keep my sapper out to quickly change to the medigun). their first thought will be "oh, he just had his weapon out in case someone tried to sneak up on him, that's fine." their second thought will be "wait he's not healing HE'S A SPY" but by that time i've already backstabbed someone and am already on my way out. remember, you only need to fool them for a couple seconds to get a pick
I used to disguise as enemy Snipers when bots still existed, looked up, and started spinning my mouse around to emulate a spinbotter to get them kicked.
@@googlesingh7063 He didn't say he was using that method to get the bots kicked. In fact, the way the sentence is worded makes it seem like he was deliberately trying to get innocent Sniper players kicked under the pretext that they were spinbotters, since he himself would disguise as them and emulate spinbotting
@@googlesingh7063 And if you read the comment, you would understand that it can be easily interpreted that he was trying to get regular Sniper players kicked. I mean dude it doesn't take more than 2 brain cells to realize when there's a bot or not. You don't have to emulate one to warn the teams that there's a spinbot, you'll find out VERY quickly when one appears.
@@aqwkingchampion13 In these situations change weapon. One great thing about the pryo disguise is you can pretend to reflecting with your primary if you are on the front or pretend to be flare spamming if you are further back. This really helps improve the disguise.
@@peterisawesomeplease Fair point, I just know that with the amount of spychecking a pyro does, any that isn’t obviously preoccupied dealing with enemies or puffing a little fire here and there raises alarms.
Hi man. You might not remember me, but i'm the guy you played with on steel. It was really very fun and I wanted to thank you for this special experience. Thanks! (Btw I tried to join your discord, but i haven't verified my phone number, so it will take a while.)
Scout Disguise : Actually propagated into common practice because of SaltyPhish (iirc) Heavy Disguise : The BIGGEST gamble you can ever pull off Pyro Disguise : My go-to because it's already do-or-die. If I burst into flames I'm already dead
Pyro is great because of low speed nerf and because pretending to be a reflecting pryo or at a distance flare spamming look really similar to pyros actually doing those things. They also make sense pretty much anywhere on the battle field.
Maybe into common practice, but people definitely choose Scout before that because he has the big advantage of having a smaller hitbox, which is good for sneaking around/hiding behind shit and peeking.
Something I personally do with the Heavy Disguise. This is entirely for fun and not practical, but I often use Heavy as a "Hoovy" disguise. I purposefully disguise as a Heavy of my team and constantly shout: Help, Medic, and "POOTIS SPENCER". Pairing with crouching and holding a lunchbox item if my disguise has it. My set involves the Ambassador and Dead Ringer. The former to two-shot light classes and the latter to escape if they don't buy into my "friendly" attempts. It is very funny to watch them lower their guard, only to receive absolute betrayal and it is always a joy to do. Only do this if you are very evil.
One thing I feel is necessary is knowing how the player you’re disguised as acts, for example, if they have a very aggressive sniper that moves forward don’t act like yourself, act like them, same with someone like an aggressive engineer or a pyro player that prefers to stay back with the engineers, it’s about how the person you’re disguising as acts
Ya this can change disguise choice as well. Like a battle medic makes the disguise more believable or a battle engineer. If a Sniper you’re pretending to be as is always in the same spot and never moving try and use that disguise there. Sometimes I even disguise as a friendly Heavy with the Holiday Punch out and sit in a corner. They look at me, walk past me, then I stab them.
@@theghosttm8245you monster, but yeah, knowing how your target acts is very powerful in being disguised, for the tips on engi in the video dont apply when a mini spamming battle engi who is usually at the payload and is there fore a good Frontline disguise
Something that REALLY helps your disguise but is hard to pull off is coming from the combat zone backpeddling as if you're focused on the action. Of course good luck not bumping into someone walking forward. If you can pull it off it looks super natural, but any disguise csn be thwarted by enemies spy checking.
I would like to add that Spy disguises will ALWAYS be wearing a disguise as well. I don't believe you can see what they are disguised as, but this may give you away as it is random and you will still be moving at normal speed regardless of what you're supposed to be. Seeing a Spy disguised as a Heavy and still moving at normal speed is a dead giveaway. If you see a friendly spy with cosmetics, he is real.
Might've been too fringe or too advanced for this video, but you can actually disguise as a class from your own team. This pairs fantasticly with the dead ringer.
Oh, pyro player here. Hey spy players, make sure if you disguise as a pyro, check the secondary. If it’s the thermal thruster, jump a lot, like you’re waiting for the cooldown to come up but it’s too slow. Then break line of sight, cloak, and go to where you would imagine a rocket jumper to head to. Might give the impression that a pyro has died trying to escape, and has shamefully respawned. Thermal thruster pyros can be tricky to disguise as especially with the long, loud windups.
Spy main here, pro tip; If a Pyro you're disguised as has the Thermal Thruster, then it's a dead giveaway because the Thermal Thruster doesn't appear on your back. There's also the unfortunate risk of the headless Pyro bug occurring when you disguise as a Pyro, which is also a dead giveaway. It typically is just better to disguise as a Scout and be done with it, since the reduced speed you get from disguising as a class that constantly bugs out really does hurt
completely avoided the toxic reason most spies pick scout disguise, the hitbox is so completely different from spy that it throws off bullet classes from killing him even when they know hes a spy
when the enemy team has a good sniper i usually am disguised as scout if im going to be anywhere infront of them. they can still headshot you if they actually know the hitbox but most pub players aren't that locked in
no one bothers to check heavy unless he's really out of place or running straight at you, i use it rarely, but when i do see the opportunity, it does the job well
if playing spy is like playing a fighting game where each disguise is a move, and heavy is that funny overhead that is slow as molasses and people go "ill never get hit by that", and get hit anyways
one thing i noticed, baby face blaster scouts avoid double jumping even when they don't have speed built, so if a scout has it, it can be more "natural"
i find that spy disguises have the main issue that it reminds players spies exist, similarly to how people will spycheck more when they get backstabbed once
Begone you ehm (sir spy the og wanna finish this?) Begone you "The world will thank me for this, you monster!""Burn in hell, you mumbling abomination!"
The reasoning on the heavy is a lot why I like the scout disguise, so many people overestimate their ability to detect a spy disguised as a scout because “the movement speed is so obvious” and it’s such a “bad idea” to disguise as a scout in the first place that 9/10 they don’t even bother looking at you when you’re disguised as a scout because in their mind that scout wouldn’t possibly be a disguised spy unless the spy were stupid and bad
Nah, scout disguise was popularized, so nigh-every spy main goes with that. And because of how common it is, more people will train their eye on the "slow scout" thing, resulting in it being even easier to spot
heavy can also be used as hoovy disguise, additionally if you know that a certain engineer is playing battle engie then you might be able to go front line
When in doubt, disguise as Heavy, have either secondary or melee as disguised weapon, look like a Hoovy, then kill, if it doesn’t work then run and try on someone else, bonus points if you disguise as a Sniper with primary, look up and say Medic over and over
If this requires too much brain power, try simply changing your disguise every time you go for in for kills. I find variety to be the most important factor, especially since people love to call out "spy medic" "spy scout" etc, and people will start to get used to your disguise if you keep using the same one.
The thing I love most about the spy disguise is that the spy- once caught out- wants to get to their own team as soon as possible. A strategy I found most fun is to ask your teammates to pepper you with bullets or have a pyro friend chase you while you backpedal towards the enemy team. The enemy team will see the pyro as the most imminent threat and will let you freely get behind their backs while they focus on your retreating comrade.
the scout is useful if you need to get somewhere being watched by a sniper who's good at spotting disguises, since the scouts head is farthest from the head of the spy so snipers wont know where your head actually is and will miss a lot.
The soundsmith reference out of nowhere made my whole day. (Soundsmith, if you see this, please don't do more stereotypes videos they are very good, but I can feel the wear in the voicework and burnout is scary)
About the medic disguise: I’ve found that if you have the bow out when they see you and u switch to medigun after they see you they tend to turn around. Ofc it works the other way for low hp targets too, they even stop moving sometimes and spy has a gun :)
Something I've found to be really weirdly effective is disguising as your team while behind enemy lines. I did it as a joke more than once and realized that something about seeing an enemy sniper behind while you're walking back from spawn shortcircuits a lot of people's brains. You can also make the enemy team think there's a ninjaneer tele around, which is funny
One thing I would like to add is that the Spy disguise always shows you as an enemy spy WITH a mask on, as if the player you are disguised as is also disguised. This means that it is easier to tell if a spy is on your team or not because if the very obvious paper mask is missing and/or the Spy is wearing cosmetics, then it is immediately clear they are not an enemy. If the enemy team knows about this, which most experienced players do, it could definitely be a downside of the Spy disguise.
Be very careful when disguising as Demoman because of the boots glitch, sometimes spies disguised as demomen will appear without feet and that gives you away instantly I don't know what causes the bug but I think it happens when there's two demomen in the enemy team and one is a demoknight. Just watch out
The heavy disguise is also a lot better when the enemy heavy is using the tomislav, as you are less expected to rev and there is no rev sound to listen for.
Another thing about the Medic disguise is that you can use it to know what kind of medigun the enemy Medic is using, which is a pretty useful information for me even on casual.
16:15 I don't think reflexive spychecking of spies disguised as enemy spies is because of the teams swapping. I think there are two main reasons for it. Firstly, it's a popular disguise; it obviously has no speed penalty, and unlike Scout and Medic it doesn't give you away nearly as easily when the enemy team sees you moving too slow or not healing people. Secondly, when they see a spy they just remember spy exists and check because why not? Spychecking is practically free, so when spy crosses someone's mind and they have a teammate around who they haven't seen fire their weapon yet, as tends to happen when they see you disguised as one of their own spies, they just go for a quick spycheck automatically.
A note that I find with the engineer (most frequently) but also both the scout and medic is that they can be used as bait in a riskier way than he spoke of. He mentioned baiting enemies towards your buildings or your medigun if they buy the disguise, but a bad medic disguise can often get someone to recklessly chase you, without them realizing you know. Similarly, I like to disguise as the engineer when he's in a busy nest, then get spotted -- break line of sight -- profit. (Same idea with scout, scouts will often chase you if you get caught moving too slow, but if you predict it it can be a stab opportunity.
Top five worst spy disguises 3: There is no objective way of ranking spy’s disguises, they each require you to play as a role and should be used based on where in the map you are and who’s around you 2: Plus, as a spy you want to be changing disguises frequently as to not become predictable by disguising as the same person every time 1: scout. Worst disguise by a long shot. Only way to look believable is to either never move or constantly be jumping and spinning 24/7 whenever you want to move(so, all the time) which also means you can’t do this in the other teams back lines, since acting like that with no enemy’s around gives away that your trying to hide something, causing people to take a closer look at your movement and realize you are a spy. And despite the fact this means it only works on the frontlines where fights are happening, it’s not effective there either since the fact no-one of the other team is shooting the obvious in-your-face scout gives away that you might be a spy a lot, as well as the fact that to get backstabs you have to be behind people, which is a bit hard when you’re disguised as a scout, who’s always supposed to be at the front, charging directly into the enemy team
I would actually recommend disguising as a Engineer in frontlines when you know they are a battle engie. It doesn't happen often, but knowing the difference between a battle engie, a stationary engie, or even a mixer will easily win the disguise game as spy when it comes to Engineer.
So a few things I want to add to this video. The strongest benefits of a Scout disguise come from his small profile, allowing you to squeeze into corners more easily without cloak, and also making it very hard for snipers to headshot you when they notice you. Due to the movespeed discrepancy, you do not want to be moving around with that disguise. Either method act a strafing skirmisher, or hide in a corner. Pyro is such a strong generalist disguise that it can backfire. Pyros are the most spychecked mercs of any class and a pyro who isn't himself spychecking can be suspicious. Always change up your disguises. Be very very careful disguising as Demoman! If they have booties/bootlegger then it will bug your disguise, making your leg(s) invisible and giving you away completely, and unlike melee weapon bugs, you can't see that in your disguise preview. Generally the buggiest disguise. Heavy disguises also have the extremely underhanded Hoovy act that allows you to get some of the dumbest kills. Crouching sandvich, hidden backstab. Engineer can work as a generalist if he's using gunslinger and widowmaker. In fact, the medic might pop crits on you, as some medics have started to notice that giving crits to a bottomless clip shotgun is really strong. If you're disguised as Medic and you position yourself behind the front line when there is something like a heavy or a sentry around a corner, some power classes will turn around, look directly at you, yell "MEDIC!" and happily present you their backs as they prepare to round the corner under your aid. It's glorious when it happens. Sniper disguises can work on the frontline so long as you are actively pretending to hold a sightline. Spy disguise is the only disguise that works well when you are among your own team. Use it to get from your spawn to where you want to actually be, and then switch. Bonus points if you can get your team to spycheck you in front of the enemy and act the part.
Loved how you got that Medic to heal you because you had the Powerjack out and running and jumping. I think a Medic disguise can better work IF the enemy team has a battle medic running around.
I love the heavy disguise because it's the easiest disguise to use, it's impossible to fuck it up, you can be in the frontlines, on the flank, or occasionally in the backline, as well as a main target for medics to heal. Heavy can be in the front obviously, he can flank if the disguise you're using has the second banana and or tomislav, you can be in the backline with your melee out if he's using the gru, yknow, pretending you're struggling from that crippling movement speed, and medics fly to you. Theres also no fancy movement mechanics, you can do everything exactly as you would if you were actually playing heavy
Genius idea. -have friendly hoovy on team -be spy -disguise as your friendly hoovy -trick and kill enemy -they kill/harm the real friendly hoovy next time -entire friendly fraction of the server breaks from the small crack, just like a weak link on a chain -you just ruined an entire server with one kill, good job!
Ranking spy disquises is like trying to rank Hoi4 nations. There are just so many variables that it becomes nearly impossible to rank them. You either make an unrealistic simplification to the ranking rules or you spend decades play testing each possible scenario. In Hoi4, there are about 50 nations with unique focus trees. Each of these trees has an average path count of 4. So there are 4^50 different scenarios all of which have to be considered for a ranking. Mind you, 4^50 is so large that it'd take the entire ant population of our planet doing one scenario per second each until the end of the universe and they still wouldn't be 1% done.
Medic could also be rather good if you’re primarily using your revolver. Having them move in a straight line towards you makes it easier to line up your first shot.
Pro tip (not really) disguise as your main, or as your 2nd most played class if your a spy main, because it’ll be easier to act like that class since you play them most often
i would consider the scout disguise as a generalist role by your definition (if i understood that definition ofc), because you're not really performing a specific task or trying to bait anyone, you usually see the disguise being used to just get past the enemy team while keeping your base movement speed (and the wonky hitbox too), to get past sentries aswell, i see it as a disguise you just get to sneak up and jump straight into action without trying to fool anybody. I'd like to hear what everyone thinks about this, i might have missed the point somewhere
Something to note about the spy disguise is that it's the only disguise that makes sense when you're traveling through your own team, and especially if you're traveling in an area guarded by your own team's sentry gun. Also, engineer disguises are the only ones that can get away with you running toward the enemy team without looking at your own team (it looks like you're going back to your buildings)
i typically go with a demoman for general use. Due to his mobility, like the soldier he can be found almost anywhere. He fulfills a similar role as a Sniper disguise, where you hover in one place and pretend to be waiting to detonate your stickies (nobody is going to actually look around and see whether or not you HAVE planted stickies), but you also won't seem suspicious for being closer to the frontline.
My most common disguise is probably demo, i think besides heavy, he is the most "overlooked", but is much faster than heavy so its not such a pain to walk around with that disguise. other disguises will often attract attention
I think its sometimes effective to disguise as Medic, change the visible weapon to be the heal gun, then actively run towards people on the other team so they think I'll follow them and heal them. That way they're less prone to look my direction the entire time
As a spy main, I'd put the spy disguise as a specialist disguise. Yes its the best disguise to use to go from your team to theirs to get into position, but once your there you do not want to disguise as a spy. Reflexive spy checking is extremely detrminetal, and loses you half a second you would've gotten from any other disguise as the enemy has to register if your a spy or not, since they don't need to register your other disguise. They register "SPY" since your disguised as spy, and shoot regardless of your team color. And they'll usually fully spy check and wont stop until your either dead or they can confirm your not a spy. Even your team mates will do this if they didn't see your outline/you running from their spawn so yeah. Also you didn't mention reloading. For Soldier disguises and demo disguises, reloading makes them very very believable. Soldier most of all because if your in a spot that isn't the front lines and you see someone, just reload your rocket launcher and they'll think you retreated to reload. Demo is the same thing esp since you can hold the reload for a long time with pipe and sticky reloads. Sniper also has a tech with reloading, since you can 'fake' taking a shot if your in a sniper position by reloading since Sniper doesn't shoot projectiles and has a very obvious reload animation.
I'm pretty sure Sniper's bolt action animation is baked into his primary fire animation (why would it not be), which means you can't mimic it by reloading. The only weapon he really reloads is the SMG/Carbine.
@@Banshee523 Nah, if you push reload you do the bolt rack animation unless its bugged with the recent summer update. I know because I've tricked gold snipers in fun scrims with it.
@@archmagemc3561 Can't find any evidence that the fake reload works on sniper rifles, only evidence to the contrary. On the wiki it states it doesn't apply to sniper rifles. I looked at the player model's animation sequences and it's indeed baked into the firing animation.
Medic is my favorite own-team disguise. If you're using the dead ringer and you're running straight to enemy lines with it up, I'd usually pick medic because you can have the medigun out and nobody would be surprised that you die quickly, or that you're not firing your weapon (it's a medigun) or that you only have your medigun out. It looks pretty weird but when you consider how very rare it is for spies to self-team disguise, enemies aren't going to assume you're a dead ringer spy. This is important because if you're undisguised or disguised as an enemy team and you die instantly, people can and will be suspicious that a dead ringer spy is entering their back lines. That's what friendly disguises are for. Same goes for non-DR spies but you have to be really aware that you're opening yourself up to sentry turret fire, it's a really special case disguise.
i play a lot of spy and honestly outside of needing to sap nests, i just don't disguise. people SEVERELY underestimate how well i can aim my gun, and rocking the spy-cicle and dead ringer gives you such insane survivability you can effectively be invincible. also we played mvm a while ago while you were getting footage for your direct hit video :D
a mindset to disguises and trickery I keep in mind is the concept of how busy a given player can/should be. A core weakness of the Spy's disguise is the fact that he can't do anything apart from switch disguise weapons and move around, so he will never be able to keep up a convincing act. Simply keeping in mind the job & behaviour of the person you're disguised as will be the biggest differentiator in fooling people. What I'm getting at is that each disguise has its specialist usage, and that part of the reason why Medic, Engineer & Spy are often poor choices for deception is usually because of how "busy" they are in an actual scenario. (Also the fact that spy disguise has you wearing a random class's mask so it can potentially look off-putting to see your friendly spy disguised as heavy and moving normally). Counter to that, sniper may be less outstanding as a disguise because he simply looks for opportunities to shoot and spy check. In the end, its about being adaptable to your targets' weaknesses, and not having any true goto disguises other than the ones that allow you to move fast when you need to. Cool video, thanks for brain food.
I like to disguise a couple seconds before I decloak, (and sometimes stay undisguised decloaking depending on the situation) rather than just putting on a disguise right after every backstab
I like disguising as a medic because it usually allows me to run straight at groups of people without looking too out of place if any enemies are around, for the most part
Alright I'm about to drop a pretty pro spy strat here. Don't disguise as an enemy heavy, disguise as a friendly heavy, keep your fists out, crouch and act like a hoovy, bonus points if you can disguise as someone with hoovy cosmetics and has a sandvich. I've fooled a lot of people this way and gotten good kills.
A spy tactic i like to use is disguise as a hoovy since they are considered friendly. Crouchwalk with a sandwich to your target and win. Can work great if you disguise as a heavy that is on your own team.
Great Video! Really gave me insight on when are where to use certain disguises. If I had to nitpick maybe the structuring and pacing could use a little work (using this video as an example perhaps you could elaborate on what you mean by generalist/specialist disguises and the criterias first before moving into the scout section), but other than that, Fantastic! I also noticed (and loved!) that Faruzan theme in the spy section cause I'm weird like that.
This has probably been mentioned before in the comments somewhere but when I disguise as Medic, I pull out my sapper then press B to make the disguise hold the Medigun as it makes it far more believable
When using a soldier disguise, get your melee weapon out, if it’s an escape plan you have an excuse to approach the medic, if it’s a whip you have an excuse to approach anyone
I like disguising as spy when I'm hanging around my own team, sometimes you can bait someone into taking a 2v1 that they think is in their favor, even though it isn't
Spy disguise does have one bit of extra utility. You can hide near your team, off to the side a bit but clearly 'lining up a play'. Then, when the fight kicks off you can freeze for a second and back off "realizing" that your moment is up and you need to relocate. Bonus points if you can have one of your teammates shoot you and freak out before running. You then dive back towards the enemy team or down a corridor and when you're out of sight, you cloak. Then you uncloak near the enemy team asking for help. This is risky, as some people might spycheck you. But seeing an injured friendly spy who's forgotten to undisguise behind friendly lines seems like something a panicked player might do trying to get health from the medic. Especially if you saw that same spy freak out and abandon the frontline after getting shot at.
Pyro: Pro: Short range means that the enemy team will not suspect why you are not actively shooting. Con: It might be one of the most suspected spy class due to lack of negatives and not having as much on-field personality due to being a generalist.
Remember that disguising as an enemy spy will always make you appear “disguised”. (Your disguise will always be wearing a mask of a random class) Since your movement speed obviously doesn’t change when disguised as an enemy spy, this can give you away if the random mask is something like a Heavy.
Personally, Scout is my goto disguise for 2 main reasons; no movement lost and everyone disguises as scout. I follow the playstyle of: your disguise is not to fool the opponent, it is to buy you enough time to get your picks. Hence, why movement speed is important to me. The only disguises that maintain movement are: spy, medic and scout. Spy disguise doesn't make sense in enemy backline, Medic disguise only works when around the enemy ie, it does not work unless you're on the front line because medics should always be healing, which leaves the scout. You can be pretty much anywhere as scout, and as a player who likes jumping around to dodge bullets, it works well. The fact that most spies choose scout is also a good thing in my books. It means experienced players will start shooting you when you come out (not a problem with the kunai, my knife of choice) - taking their attention off the front line, and it also means that once you've got a few kills, everyone will be looking for the Scout. Leaving you to start choosing specialty disguises.
Here a tip to get the most out of disguises... Use "your eternal reward", you will always have good positioning with disguises, you will not get out of place, and also enemies will have a harder time to find you. It's good for practicing disguises.
Here is the thing with the heavy disguise, and I dont recommend playing this way if you want to make friends on tf2, but the best way to trick people as heavy is actually being a hoovy with your melee out. No matter what, you will get a player thay will kill hoovies, but the majority of tf2 players will leave them alone no matter what, and since you are disguised as the enemy team, the enemies will naturally assume that there is a friendly on their team, and completely ignore you EVEN if they light you up at first. Plenty of times I've had a pyro light me up as a hoovie disguise, and they immediately stop and look at me in confusion which gives a chance for me to either backstab or shoot. With other players, even if they shoot you, they will not give another glance since most go "Oh its a hoovie on our team" and continue on. At some point, i was crit rocket while disguised as a hoovie, and as I died the soilder didn't even know what happened and thought he just got a stray spy that was behind me. Again I don't reccomend this disguise, since it will wear out fast, make people unreasonably angry, and will make the enemy team very much more aware of spies than usual. It is fun though
From my time playing as spy, I do default to scout disguises but I use them in the back, so like I’m in eye sight of the enemy but I’m not perceived as a threat because I’m not putting alot of attention on myself and I do pretty well for a casual spy, I do also use sniper in various situations pretending to hold sight lines, but other then that I think out of all disguises I only use a scout and sniper, rarely soldier if my covers been blown (though this statement is also incorrect as I use the knife that auto disguises so I kinda rely more catching enemies off guard and taking longer routes to get behind enemy lines. Still a scout disguise when your up against competent soldiers/pyro’s/demo’s. So my method is really only good when the enemy is focused on “shooting boolets” instead of “trying not to get back stabbed” Oh forgot too mention I use scout for a minimal speed increase you get (even if it’s not really a speed increase and the other classes are just “heavier” the scout disguise helps me close the distance faster
