i have a patreon now :) www.patreon.com/lister there arent a ton of tiers with a bunch of bonuses like most other patreons, so only join if you wanna support me
Fantastically thorough video. Appreciate all of the effort that clearly went into the research for this, not to mention the absurd amount of archival footage. Awesome job.
Considering the origin of spy was because of a bug which caused players to appear as being from the opposite team, it's very fitting he was buggy for so long
THE EDITING IN THIS VIDEO IS AMAZING! i love the start where you see the characters getting killed by their weaknesses, and it transfers to the weakness of the person that killed them
Here's my proposition to balancing Spy's weapons. - Instead of the Ambassador's reduction in damage in distance, I would've put that, at a certain point of distance (maybe about 1,500 HU), it would turn the crits into mini-crits. This way, the Amby is both more consistent with its crits and having better range than today, but would also keep players from being sniped across the map. Yes, you could still three-shot light classes with said headshots, but that's still a lot better than dealing with just two, and it's still fairly difficult to land headshots anyhow. - For the Diamondback, I'd simply change the critical hits to mini-crits, since it is fairly easy to gain them in the first place, with saps and backstabs. This also makes it more of a sidegrade instead of a direct upgrade, since you don't get any random crits, though gain damage-reduced mini-crits much more often. You could also _maybe_ increase how much you get per kill for one or the other, like, say, one for backstabs, one for misc. building saps, but two for sentry sap kills? - The L'etranger is perfectly balanced, no complaints here. - For the Enforcer, I'd return the flat damage bonus, _maybe_ add back "while undisguised", but only as +10%, as opposed to +20%. And, while this may do nothing, I'd increase the fire rate debuff from -20% to -30%. This way, Spy can still two-shot light classes, but it would still make it difficult to just gun everyone down. I'd also let it pierce the hidden sentry sap resistance, since that's literally what Spy needs with this weapon. - The YER is a little underpowered, so I'd give it a small fire rate increase, +15%, so chain stabs are more consistent. Given that the others help you with escaping or enduring a fight, this one will help you IN the fight, but also (albeit less reliably) possibly escape like the others, if needs be. - The Conniver's Kunai is outright overpowered. First off, I'd reduce the maximum healing from 210 to 205, and I'd reduce the maximum health down to 235. There's no reason a Spy should be able to outlive a Heavy with just two backstabs. Though, I'll also reduce the max health debuff from -55 to just -50. He'd be annoying, but not blatantly overpowered. - The Big Earner seems fine, so I'll avoid balancing this one, like the L'etranger. - The Spy-cicle is.. also fine. It more or less just amplifies how broken the OTHER weapons are, so it isn't necessarily the problem here. As long as they're balanced, so is this weapon. - The Dead Ringer is still a little broken, but given the history of slightly tweaking the resistances, I'd make the resistances (-75% on hit, -65% otherwise) to -70% on hit, and -60% otherwise. Just to make it a _little_ easier on people fighting the kunai/dead ringer combo users. - The Cloak and Dagger is alright, I think. Now, here's the big one. - For the Red Tape Recorder, I'd reduce the damage penalty from -100% to -75%, so the actual sap time isn't effected, but it still takes damage, so it isn't just knocked off and forgotten about. The downside is that the buildings can still live, but will cost the Engineer a bit of metal, like usual, to repair. The longer this takes, the more it costs to repair and re-upgrade. So you might think, what's the upside to this? This barely improves the RTR. The upside? *+100% sapper health.* This gives a great use to Py-bros, especially for the difference between the Homewrecker and the Neon Annihilator. Some people don't realize that *sappers count as buildings,* and make the mistake in assuming that the "+100% damage vs buildings" stat the Homewrecker has only applies to Engineer's buildings. This makes the Neon Annihilator and Wrench require *four* hits, while the Homewrecker only requires *two* hits. This could also be extended to MvM, doubling the time that a robot is stunned, somewhat similarly to the Sapper Power upgrade, though this might make it a bit too powerful, so maybe there can be a hidden stat for giant robots to be slowed less by the RTR than stock, but still slowed some, letting there be a choice between the two in MvM. With this change, this enforces the deal of having to focus the Spy _instead_ of the sapped building, helping newer players learn. That's all I can think of for now. If you got any ideas or comments, leave them below. I'd love to hear 'em! Loved the video, as well! Worth the hour watch, lol.
You sort of reach a point in tf2 where you’re so paranoid that a spy will only ever manage to backstab you once before you basically figure out their entire fucking play style.
Aah this brings back memories of updates. Reliving the HORROR of enforcer spy’s and Loch and Load demos, milkman scouts running around with there +25 health, headshot surviving piss snipers, then moving on to headshot surviving regular snipers (I miss old Danger Shield)
I'm still going to voice my personal opinion on the Ambassador. What they did was balanced to mean headshots cannot be dealt at sniper range which I am THANKFUL for. However, I myself agree that they nerfed it *Too* hard. Instead of Falloff damage, what they should have done was disable headshot damage in general at the distance it is currently The argument that the diamondback can do the same thing the amby did but with better accuracy was just...wrong. The thing is the Diamondback requires you to actually PLAY spy to obtain the crits to use at long range, the amby could just headshot from long range at any time with no setup
I think that the modern YER is actually worse. Not having a disguise immediately isn't of great consequence. Due to the spawn door wall hacks I often don't even use a disguise when stabbing someone near their spawn to begin with. But the +33% cloak drain rate means that with anything but the L'etranger it's impossible to reliably get behind your enemies, and even with the L'etranger it's barely above the standard cloak time.
indeed, people keep forgetting that. you're only 1 shottable by a pipe or rocket while visible, and that's when you're most vulnerable as spy anyway so it's fair
Honestly, this almost feels like just a “History of the Dead Ringer” video with how much it’s nerfed, buffed, and affected by other unlocks given to Spy over the years. It’s like a mirror for the class as a whole.
To be honest, I’m surprised they didn’t eventually just abandon the feign death play-style years ago and reworked it into something else considering how hard it was to balance. Tbh, I think its current state is mostly balanced (aside from against new players with the kunai, but that’s more an issue with either the kunai, or just their synergy together). But it might be worth making feigned deaths more obvious i.e. a DR symbol appears above the fake corpse, or the fake corpse disappears using a unique particle effect. What I’m saying is to just make it easier for new players to decipher a feigned death. Probably won’t affect pro players that much since they already kind of recognise DR feigns a lot. But who knows, maybe that’s a bad idea in practice.
This video made me realize how good the sniper vs spy update was done, first they reveal a sniper update, then one day they reveal the razor back, which makes spy fans pissed at snipers, then it’s sniper vs spy, making the war have no need for a reward it just happens.
he didn’t mention one thing: when the red tape recorder first came out, it would remove a level every 1.6 seconds, the exact amount of time it took to swing your wrench twice and remove the sapper, meaning it would always remove a level, making the engi have to waste 200 metal. this was changed after only a day though
Also the bug where it would also remove ammo from buildings. Which I think would be a good thing to add as a buff considering just how meh it is compared to stock. I love the thing and I love annoying engies with it, but it is objectively a worse sapper 99% of the time.
@kiracaroso removing ammo/damaging its ability to function and having more health for a Engineer to remove it at a loss of actually removing the building in a decent amount of time sounds like a viable way to deal with it. Or even removing levels but leaving it functioning until its removed. Where it will auto upgrade over a period of time with minimal to no metal used maybe?
22:56 "Valve decided to turn Spy into a 2nd Scout" Spy : _"Come on, son. Let's shoot the old __-enforcer-__ scattergun around, shall we ?"_ Scout : _"Sure, dad !"_
I remember a disgusting feature that the Dead Ringer had when being cloacked made you hard to kill. While cloacked, you could hug an enemy dispenser and not only would it heal you but also recharge your Dead Ringer. Making you truly unkillable.
When you finished with 2007 - 2009 my first thought was "wtf? how long is this video?" and see that 1 hour video almost gave me a heart attack 💀 but I still watched it because it was fun and well edited
And an amazing one uses the kunai and is fucking impossible to kill since he has the health of a fucking soldier and trickstabs you like nobodys business
@@OGuiBlindao or you try to kill them, almost succeed, and then one of your teammates just walks directly into their knife and give them enough health to gun you down
@@just-some-menace6138 and especially some of his weapons need some new stats, like the solemn vow, its so bad, but i think the vaccinator might need a rework, maybe shorten the resistances down to just bullet and explosive resist?
@@oof8493 To be fair the solomon vow is pretty much a straight upgrade, since the -10% swing speed is almost unnoticeable. I use it to get the occasional cheeky kill with the crossbow.
@@justtherabbithole2577 Furthermore, after it's unban from 6v6, it has quickly become Meta in competitive for how you can call enemy health and Übercharge(if they are a medic) with certainty, and how this utility comes into play much more often than the Ubersaw's.
Lag compensation makes it impossible to truly be sure whether Spy got the stab or not. If you’re spinning around often, where you’re looking is going to be different on people’s screens due to the delay from data moving spacross distances. Trying to move the priority one way or another is going to either result in more failstabs or facestabs.
Could have sworn there was a short time when the Red Tape came out that it was ridiculously broken and quickly nerfed. I vividly remember something about it deleveling sentries way too quickly.
There was, someone else pointed this out in a very detailed comment and the video creator responding saying that they didnt include it cause they thought it would mess up the pacing of the video but with hindsight thinks they should have added it anyway
56:50 It just clicked with me that Valve is fine with sniper being able to instantly delete anyone they can see, but as soon as spy is able to punish someone for standing still, Valve says no.
It isn’t the “killing from across the map” thing, it’s that Spy was deviating too much from his role. He was supposed to be espionage, whereas Sniper was cross-map: not the other way around. (Imo quick scopes should be massively nerfed on all rifles except *maybe* the Classic, since it just makes Sniper into an espionage class like Spy)
Predictions: -Went from best class to worst class due to overall improvement of spy checking (for clarification) -Valves neglection leaves him at his not so great state -Drought of weapons and balance changes -2012 - 2014 was the peak of spy
In HL spies are currently seen as a higher than average value class. The buffs combined with tactical changes have been slowly changing things. But of course no one cares anymore.
As someone who has been playing since 2010, this was a walk down memory lane. I remember the days when people would complain on SPUF about Dr. Enforcicle and his henchman, Tommy Gruvich.
It's too late, Scout McCrazyLegs! I, the brilliant DR Enforcicle, have already begun loading my special toxic secretions into the Teufort water supplies. With my henchman Tommy Gruvich keeping you ally Ninjaneer busy, there's mo way you can stop my plans!
modern face-stabs are actually a result of the server over-shooting the movements of the player during quick movements, so while the player actually made a quick movement to face the spy, the server guesses that they were moving to face away from the spy in some sort of anti-latency protection that's necessary in fast paced games like TF2, or so i've heard
Something I think that is missed but really important was the massive nerf to spies because valve decided to grant wall hacks for teammates when you respawn. Completely shut down spies anywhere near the enemy spawn and able to see spies across the entire map.
Didn't see the full video and it's nothing you can't do if you count the spawn 5 sec timer of the wall hacks I'm trash at spy and still get to spawn camp just using gasp counting! And even without the hacks good players will only get caught one or two times Trash or new players will still get stomped with or without the wall hacks so really it's never been a big deal
Being anywhere close to enemy spawn. Like at all. No disq used but your own team ones. It is so awful. Like your going up to the enemies spawn door to deal with the teleport winning the game. Just to on the approach of enemy spawn be spotted with the wall hacks. As soon as your in spawn room range of the enemy your just best off picking your own team scout as a disq. So often I find myself as close to the enemy back lines without a disq and go. No I have to keep my team color or the wall hacks.... The place where SPIES are meant to be you have to run without a disq. Just blatantly show yourself. Or crawl your way there. Even now stock invis is the better watch and should be viable. But no wall hacks are just what TF2 needed. I mean DR spies are one thing. But stock invis spies get just into the wall hack range when the cloak meter reaches that critical level of needing to run in the open at the back lines. And getting up close to the spawn door is agen so bad. DR spies have there out of jail free card but not invis spies. They have to crawl around or run in the open if ammo packs are scares. Disq works even on good players. But around spawns you can not use them. Any good player are going to spot you for no reason but the wall hacks granted from just SPAWNING. If you can get a kill off spawn camping then disq makes no difference on or off really. But having any disguise on near enemy spawn gives the enemy wall hacks. Even if your not trying to spawn camp. You can be 100m away and still have your spying ruined. Because? Bad reasons. All of it. As soon as someone spawns they get a outline highlighting everyone to spy check. Have tried to look like a engineer outside of enemy spawn and people just shot the highlighted engineer standing next to the teleport sentry and dispenser. Because there attention is put on the outline. And so why not spy-check!
I think the change for spy’s “your eternal reward” during the jungle inferno update was more of a nerf then a buff since now, if you want to use the knife, you have to use the l’etranger because of the reduced cloak time, restricting spy’s loadout options.
and since it restricts your disguise. it isn't fair that it should restrict your only other stealth option, making it seem like its meant for gun spy witch it isnt, its very inconsistent. I dont personally enjoy it, but I know others do
I'm the opposite. I always just used stock knife, C&D and revolver for sentry kills. YER was for when I wanted to go on stabbing sprees, not for taking out specific engie stuff. I still think the community criminally underrates the stock revolver as the building killer. People just know it for its consistency, but nobody ever mentions the other off-label use as an alternative to the sapper. It's time-to-kill buildings is quicker than a sapper, which gives the engineer less of a window to repair the damage. You can really aggravate engineers by picking off teleporters, dispensers and the occasional sentry by revolver-sniping them at weird angles. Also you can three-tap Engies with it. One of my more memorable games was when I just camped spawn and killed the teleporter 30+ times with the stock revolver without using the sapper much. Is it cheap? Yes, but it sure was effective and kept their team from winning because nobody could get a teleport to the engie nest. YER was for when I wanted silent stabbing sprees, especially back when the Saharan set still gave a silence buff to the decloak in exchange for having longer blinks when you were hit. Since I never really used it on sentries, the lack of a starting disguise never bothered me. I'd much rather have more cloak.
my problem with the current YER is that it pigeonholes you into running the l'etranger, otherwise you'd be at a massive disadvantage. this makes any layout with the YER extremely stagnant.
Holy fucking *shit,* learning about the history of the Enforcer was *insane.* I started playing TF2 in the days where it became castrated to the gun it is now and I ALWAYS wondered why the fuck it was even in the game because of how bad it is. I’ve had this thought for the past *8-10 years* to this day. *NOW,* after learning its backstory, it’s like learning about a mass villain that has been put in jail and become passive. Like the Fire Lord at the end of Avatar. That gun was gutted to the ground and will never see the light of its glory days again. Valve really fucked up with that gun and they completely know it. They won’t even try to rework it, they’re just so completely *done* with it💀.
It really messes up your muscle memory due to the firing speed and the resistance penatration sometimes doesn't even work. So it's usually just a worse revolver.
@@Max_Aimz9392 the slower firing is speed is barely noticable and the damage penetration only doesn't work when it doesn't even matter that much, like on a pain train user.
@grenadier20 true, but once again, the subtle firing difference can mess up your aim and tracking. Kinda like how the loch n load is usually fine, but can screw up some shots if you're more used to stock or iron Bomber grenades. The one good use I'd say the enforcer does have though is taking out wrangled sentry. It's crazy.
Having just a headshot range would have been good enough, and they’d have to nerf the diamond back also. Damage fall off is just ridiculous for a weapon like the amby.
I would love to see the evolution of heavy, since everybody seem to want the heavy update and how little love he seem to have received from valve after the game release judging by hes currents state
I was a main spy back in 2012, Chain stabs, long range headshots, and broken DR. (Total of 56 minutes playing spy) Also Hidden passive nerf: Backstab hitreg nerf.
I love how Spy tactics and the meta of Spy tactics themselves have evolved along with increasing player awareness of their existence and spychecking. Spies nowadays are way more active, willing to engage in riskier behaviour, and camp a lot less to secure safer backstabs now. Very likely many spy players decided to give up on camping behind corners, because over time players would just keep checking the corner or turning around at just the right moment due to the uptake of spychecking. As such, spies simultaneously became less of a threat and more of a threat, because people that played Spy, although becoming much more checked on than previously, adapted to these newfound changes by increasing their overall skill and intuition to compensate.
The fact that spy hasn't received a weapon in a decade tells a whole lot. It feels like this game has been on life support since 2015 (7 years after publishing). When end of the line dropped.
imagine a "knife" spy weapon that is just a karate chop that stun players but yet doesnt kill them but it gives them 25 extra hp and buffs the revolvers like 20% firing speed basically spy losing his feature of instakill players to just join his comrades to fight in a gunshots
God you are so damn underrated, looking forwards to the day you are looked at along with LazyPurple, Ankle Dan, Mr. Paladin etc. Keep up the amazing work!
I know im gonna have a painfully wistful time watching this video... my pc has become too old to run tf2, and the game too stagnant and troubled for me to play, but man, keeping up with the ever evolving game alongside my own budding skills was an intense thrill. Thanks a million for making it all be in view
@@tariqalhamdan5041 used to be able to. There are too many new effects and poor optimizations in maps to say the same. Also the pc i was referring to in this post now doesnt boot lol
A couple notes on things in here: On release, the ambassador could shoot through solid objects. This disappeared when it was given full crits on headshot. The Red Tape Recorder was actually overpowered on release. It degraded sentries much more quickly, to where by the time an engineer could remove it, it would be level 1. This lead to spies suiciding in just to degrade the enemy engineers' gear and many frustrated engineers. I'm kinda glad it's trash now.
Spy is kinda the exact opposite of Sniper: while a Spy's biggest weakness is that he has to be nearly godlike in order to go against a fairly good team, a Sniper's biggest strength is that you'd have to be insanely lucky in order to beat a fairly good Sniper (unless you're playing as a better Sniper, at which point we may as well be playing Sniper Fortress 2). The same thing kinda applies to Medic, except he's the best class when your team is really good.
"insanely lucky" what about better movement(I've even seen heavies make themselves harder to hit and it helps), awareness of where he usually snipes, just generally better game sense. Of course you're gonna destroyed if you just waddle out like a penguin. You make it sound like a fairly good team just gets spawn camped by a single sniper and there's nothing you can do, which just sounds nooby and whiny. If a team is getting spawn camped like that it's usually because that sniper's team is just way better in general.
@@SurprisedSniper420 Maybe if you're a Scout main, but if you're a Heavy, Pyro, Medic, Engineer, another Sniper or even a Demoman or Soldier mid-charge/mid-air, you're relying on small amounts of head movement and the positional movement in the time the Sniper clicks on your head (barely any) to counter him... and that movement doesn't stop him from continuing to harass your team with bodyshots. P.S. Spies can also trick-stab, it doesn't make him good (just as similar gimmicks don't stop Sniper from being good).
@@SurprisedSniper420 Sniper mains explaining how their class isn't overpowered when they can fully nullify all of their weaknesses (along with their victims) if they put enough hours into it, with 0 counterplays :
As someone who started in 2012, I “fondly” remember the dead ringer and ambassador dominance in the Spy meta. The amount of research you put into this was amazing! It’s slightly nostalgic going back to old patch notes and footage you recognize
I personally thought the DR Nerf was fair enough because of the “BrAInDeAd” spy mindset. But when a game punishes you for training and getting good at a weapon like the Amby is where I draw the line. They still didn’t touch upon the crit machine of a pistol Diamondback and opted to nerf the Amby. Hopefully Valve releases the game for the community to take over soon. I’d hate to see anyone else’s beloved class to be Nerfed into oblivion like mine.
EXACTLY, and I don't even play spy but it bothers me so much. The fact that they nerf a playstyle that takes skill, but then they have diamondback which rewards spies for... playing spy.
If you still have the Diamondback, it really hasn’t been nerfed into oblivion, has it? Sorry, but any argument of “but, I spent so long on this” against actual balance changes is BS, especially now that the game has gone on so long that those who’ve spent a long time on things are so common, it makes the unruly skill ceilings of certain weapons and classes very apparent. You can argue the diamondback needs a nerf too, but don’t whine that “oh, I spent so long with this, why’d you take my broken gun away?” The ambassador, at that point, suffered from the same problem Sniper is currently suffering from: the game has gotten so old, it’s become far too common to find an older player who has like 1,000 hours on a single class/load out so they absolutely dominate the field, with no room for error for their opponents. That isn’t fun. Getting cross mapped by any class isn’t fun, let alone one that can go invisible and hide like a wiener afterwards.
@@Brother_Piner I can somewhat agree with what you are saying about the ambassador being OP. Playing back then, i was fortunate to experience spy being that powerful, and i agreed at one point it should be nerfed. However, the way valve went about nerfing the ambassador was probably the worst way they could have done it. They took away the aspect of hitting longer-range shots that took tons of grinding and hours to consistently do and i would have been fine with *just* that...But no, valve decided to take the extra step of adding falloff damage that would make using the weapon for it's unique ability as a revolver to headshot pointless, as the enemy would usually not die from a couple 54 damage headshots, and at the max range where it can still headshot, the enemy could easily just run from you. This made the diamondback an obvious choice for people who wanted that old amby feel, however it was mostly just neglected by spies for being an overpowered weapon, that i must admit, doesn't feel very good to use compared to any other revolver.
God, I could not care less about tf2 or its gun mechanics, but damn this guy makes everything sounds so interesting. I don’t even play TF2, this is really weird. Good video.
i figure about half the people watching this are in this position, explaining the comments. someone will say something typical of a TF2 player and everyone will act like it was the most offensive thing he could possibly say without using a slur, not realizing that describes pub chat perfectly.
Yet another fantastic video. As someone who's been playing TF2 for 9 years, it's nice to be able to immediately recommend a video to explain what was up with spy in the past when I talk about him. I think spy now is in a generally good place with the exception of the Diamondback being too strong (make it only get crits from backstabs so you don't farm 5 crits per engineer) and the YER being too weak. Every spy item has at least 1 use case, even the red tape recorder which is great for spamming in nests with multiple sentries, or insta-killing re-deploying buildings; and the Enforcer with annoying engineers who use the wrangler. Spy isn't completely unfun to fight against, and he's still fun to play as, just with the increasing difficulty of players growing in skill over time.
why tho , don't you think engineers should take responsibility for carless building position and spamming mini sentry ? kunai daimondback don't farm clueless player more than any other class , your average pub stomper will farm clueless player with any class any weapon .
@@ammi5311 It's the really high reward that it gives. One backstab on an engineer can net you 5 crits, regardless of their skill level or building placement. It's just that lower-level players disproportionally give spy crits. You kill the engineer, sap his tele (gets you 2), dispenser, and sentry within a few seconds. That's a lot for 1 kill, and 500 damage with no damage falloff is fantastic on any class, not just spy. Then multiply that by how many engies are on your team and it's really difficult to deal with. It encourages Spy to tunnel engineers over any other class, which isn't really something that needs to be encouraged given that spy already great for dealing with Engie's buildings. Another issue with the Diamondback is that it has no downside once you achieve said crits, you do more vastly more damage than stock so the damage penalty doesn't matter. Every other weapon that rewards you with crits or mini-crits has some downside, ex the Frontier Justice with a lowered clip size, Cow Mangler empties your mag, Crit-A-Cola marks you for death, FoW does far less damage than stock etc. If the upside of the Diamondback was only giving crits on destroyed buildings then it would be fine, but mostly underpowered since an engineer isn't always guaranteed and you *solely* rely on engineers for crits, which isn't fun (and in competitive environments the upside would rarely ever come into play) especially since every other crit/mini-crit weapon doesn't rely on class-counters. However giving him the ability to get crits in any environment from a backstab (similar to how a FJ crit requires a sentry kill/assist and you don't get rewarded for shotgun/pistol/wrench kills) AND being able to farm crits as well is what tips it over in Casual environments and Highlander. In 6s it doesn't really matter as you should be using the L'etranger (spy plays are for 1 kill or backcapping) and Engies don't really build anything besides a sentry gun on last. Rewarding spy for getting backstabs is already good, it doesn't need an extra bonus on top of that which makes it broken in Casual/HL. It would become a "higher risk" but lower skill version of the Amby, where you HAVE to get in and backstab for your crit rather than hanging back, but you don't have to aim for headshots.
@@QueeQuey low level player give every class free crit by the form of random crit especially on melee , when spy don't get random crit or hardly make use off . engineer with all building up shouldn't be such a free pick as you said out to be . sentry as back bone of team encouraged play play around it's position . dispenser naturally attracts teammates in groups especially the ammo efficiency class hit hard (demo solider heavy pyro ) . lastly teleporter infinitely supply players to come back , any one die recently can pop out when you near . also good luck pyro's unlock does engineer's job better for also free . rather than the rewards is too high , it need a more fitting downside . as I once proposed show crit effect even on disguise if holster , a visual clue to play around with . weapon designed bypass its own con has always been the cased in tf2 , things like eyelander Kunai . the damage penalty always comes into play the crit isn't doing 120 for reasons .
I think it should be the opposite. Currently, there's a decent possibility that there isn't a single engineer on the other team in a match, but the possibility of backstab-victims is endless. Making the gun more situational by limiting the crit-gain to destroyed buildings but also decreasing the damage penalty to make up for that would make it more balanced, because rather than getting gunned down by a spy that gained crits because he simply did his job, you'd get gunned down by a spy who you know had to sap some buildings to actually earn those crits.
Diamondback’s original issue was that engineer kills were way too rare. Meanwhile a knife spy got backstabs by definition. By that mindset, it should really only be a desperation weapon, since a knife spy would use his gun less. One option, a much smaller cap on crits stored would limit how much you could spam it. Like, 3 max, no matter how many stabs or saps, Option 2, same as Ambassador. Option 3, Phlog treatment. Taunt for limited crits time.
I remember how some youtuber said "Random bullet spread balances scout, it keeps him in check". Bruh, his low health isn't enough to make him balanced enough ?
Kind of insane to think that the first 3 weapons added to spy were 2 whole new watches, and the most controversial revolver in his kit, before any of the other knives or revolvers were added
This is a reminder that if you enjoy this content and consider it better, equal, or slightly not as good in comparison to other, bigger tf2 creators’ content, than sub. Dude deserves more subs than what dude has
The Scrapper "Who knew that VHS tapes made of scrap could be so useful?" Stats: Pros: Sapper can be thrown (max 3) Sapper temporarily stuns nearby buildings (.3 sec) Upon sapper destruction the building will remain disabled for .5 extra seconds Neutral: Sappers recharge overtime Sapper regained upon destruction of sapper or sapped building Cons: Sappers require one wrench swing 10% less sapper damage
@@frixzanub2632 it would not be OP, if spy is afraid of a nest it's because an engineer is manning it, if there's no engineer in the nest then he should be sapping it all right now, if he had infinite throws it would be just better then stock, but you'd assume that there's an animation or a fire rate
A spy with the old dead ringer had an effective health of 1250. For reference a 300 health heavy with a vac bubble popped on him has an effective health of 1200. And then 1800 for a fully overhealed heavy
This video in and of itself improved my k/d with Spy substantially. Just came back after 6+ years and understanding what's changed and what's popular helped a ton. Very informational overall. Thanks for the vid.
Just came back myself! I left after the nerf to dead ringer, only to come back to it being nerfed even more with the ammo pickup thing. I still enjoy spy, and am trying to make the OG watch and cnd work, but I just don't see myself using the dead ringer at all effectively. Man trick stabs are so much harder with how much smaller the "new-player" (or f2p as we called it back in the day, idk if that is still used) base is. To be honest I'm kinda excited to climb the skill ceiling again and scrape this rust off because I remember how fun it was to dominate servers with superior movement and psychology, but it's all so far back in my brain at this point which makes things a bit frustrating xD Hope you're enjoying your return!
@@55Jackattack The only thing in spies history that really killed him was the jungle inferno update. Rip ambassador and dead ringer, some of the most fun I've ever had in tf2.
@@besss3980The ambassador is still good, just not as good. there's a higher skill ceiling, but now you can't shoot people from across the map. and frankly, that's a good thing
Great video! Although one major change you didn't mention that the Red-Tape-Recorder on release could instantly delevel a level 3 building to level 1 faster than the Engineer could take it off, even if they were actively hitting it as it was sapped. It stayed that way for one day before getting nerfed (along with a bugfix as previously the reduced health from the deleveling would stack through multiple sap attempts) to what it is today. Which is... honestly a good change, the deleveling speed being that fast was *_essentially_* destroying it in one click. Being able to be one shot by most high damaging hits. While the Engineer needed to take upwards of 10 seconds per building given there was an ammo box to repair the damage, because of course their level 1 dispenser wouldn't be of any help... That and the health bug meant it was better for the engineer to manually destroy their stuff and rebuild from scratch anyway.
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I personally think that the biggest nerf for spy was the "voice communication isn´t available to this account". And here´s why, the spy is a class that was design to fool the enemy team to kill efficiently and the acting is the most important parts for that. you have to reload so that can give you a chance of making your disguise more legit. acting forces you act like the class you are playing (sniper: far from the action, Heavy: Close from the action, etc.) and the text lines are pretty important for that, if you spam (for example) "Spy!" while holding your melee or your primary is justified not going to the battlefield or scare someone to stab him. And even in a general acting the inside games that are common in the team, if you want to fake a pybro you can spam the "good work" or the "thanks". or more general, if you want to kill an engineer easily with a dispenser you can go woth any disguise and say "thanks"to make him trust on you. here an example: in turbine I was disguised as a demoman and a soldier came strraight to the intel so I told him "go go go" and he started following me and I stabbed him right before he took the intel because my acting was good. btw the voice commands are maybe the most important things to make a disguise more legit so if you are f2p it will be hard to even convince a enemy of being on his team
I would argue it was a massive buff since f2ps couldnt tell their teammates there was a spy, which undoubtedly has a lot more affect than disguises being slightly more believable.
I think that the comunication barrier just broke the game in general, after all, if you can't comunicate with your team in TEAM Fortress 2, you can't adjust to the team demands or enjoy the team benefits. Examples: F2P players can't ask a medic for help, so if a player is being focused or the medic is too busy with other teamates, the F2P will most likely die. F2P engineers who's nest is in a recluded area can't ask their team for help in case of an emergency. (Spies, players sneaking trough the defence, surprise assaults, etc). Therefore, their buildings are most likely to go down. F2P players can't alert their team after noticing a spy or a player behind their lines. Medics are less aware of their teamates location as some of them cannot point themselfs out. If a F2P player requires ammo packs or health packs in a dire situation, they must compete with their teamates for the resources instead of explaining their needs for the packs. These are just some examples of how the F2P nerf just broke the most important side of casual, coordination and comunication. As now teams composed of newer players are automaticaly most prone to defeat, and new players have hard times actually enjoying the game without being carried by more experienced players. Overall, valve just went radio silence when we needed them the most, and now the state of the game is rapidly deteriorating. Is just hard to see, a game so loved in such state. Breaks the heart.
I'd increase The Ambassadors headshot range to 1800 hMu's and decrease damage falloff by 50%. I think this would make gunspy a viable playstyle without it turning spy into a pseudo-sniper. Oh and also, i'd make The Enforcers damage piercing actually work and make it do an extra 20% damage to disguised spies. So that its name is appropriate. I'd keep the YER's current stats, but also make it so that you have to attack twice with whatever you're using so that you don't give your disguise away if you mess up. Also i would make it so that if a medibeam is attached to whoever you're gonna backstabbing, that it reattaches to you instead, so that medics have a harder time seeing where you're at.
Attacking twice with knife to lose disguise is ok, but shooting once before you lose disguise is kinda meh. And reattaching medic's beam i think is too hard to actually make ingame so it will be never added.
I'd probably feel that the Enforcer's damage should simply be buffed to be 50% damage while disguised, but otherwise hopefully some extra changes to be interesting, something about being a second weapon good at killing buildings. Maybe along with the Amby changes, all damage past the max headshot range deals mini-crits instead of norma hits; just to make it still feel like you're hitting your headshots. And also something that had to be done with the Diamondback, but I got no idea lol
I think it would be a good change. But gun spy is very strong now with just dr, revolver, and spy cycle. There are some prem HL spies that run gun spy full time on koth and get more kills than the average class at that level. But would be good to see more revolver variability.
yeah its correct that spy is weak against experienced players and strong against inexperienced players but spy main weakness and strength is team communication, if you scream 'hey there is spy' with the emote or in chat, "mysteriously" spy dies in mere seconds but its also his greatest strength if he can ask his team to engage at certain points so he can flank at the enemies when they focus at his allies in the front, if you look at that in a way spy is the most team player depended compare to all the other classes in the game. kinda missed opportunity in saying that at the intro but other then that amazing job, mate. like truly you put amazing effort in making this video with all the archival footage you gathered and all the research you done on compelling this entire video together. I'm impressed with that video, truly impressive and good luck with all the other projects you have in store, mate.
The best way to buff spy isn't by giving him more health or more damage on his revolver, but by buffing his ability to fool the enemy team and escape after a backstab.
Spy isn't viable now in competitive and slowly in pubs because of the general growing skill of spychecking, would punishing players that carries out braindead spychecking without forcing players to observe any suspicious behaviours help the issue of not spychecking? It feels like disguising is just to make sure sentries don't shoot you...
yup, if i dont put TON of effort into my disguise (walking backwards to mimic others, disguise to skined players, reload, eternal reward) i just get spychecked and die
That would be useless. A level 3 sentry would require 6 seconds instead of 8, but now everyone has a homewrecker, which has without a hint of sarcasm, ruined a lot of spy's usefulness in destroying machines. I could potentially see letting any WRENCH remove it in one hit, but not any class.
@@graysonllewellyn8734 "... Everyone has a homewrecker, which has without a hint of sarcasm, ruined a lot of spy's usefulness in destroying machines." After playing over a thousand hours (without bots) in casual I have almost never seen the homewrecker used, so outside of competitive which I have no experience in, no, the homewrecker has not ruined spy's ability to destroy things. Especially when you consider that with sentries specifically your team can destroy them much easier when they aren't shooting back. In addition, if everyone has the homewrecker, now when you stab and sap something, there's no excuse for any one to not get it off, which means temporarily getting someone other than a very rare pybro to stop actually pulling their weight. 1.5x might have been too weak, but otherwise I disagree
@@etourdie And after playing over 4k hours in the game over 12 years I'm gonna call BS given that both homewrecker and neon have the ability and I have seen both used very often in both casual and competitive to ruin a sap I had otherwise earned by clearing the engineer. Also if you want me to believe a team is following you and not constantly exposing you or getting in your way in casual I believe you even less. It's the go-to pyro melee now unless they're memeing. Especially post axtinguisher nerf that most of them still can't get over. But we're both being anecdotal so... Eh.
The actual issue that happened around the time the amby was nerfed was, there were a lot of aimbotters going around with the dead ringer (and sometimes even a pocket medic), which meant these aimbotters wouldn't die easily at all. In my 14 years of TF2, I've barely seen a couple of good spies with the ambassador, most players can't even hit a bodyshot at mid range with it, so much less snipe with it. It is still a good gun, just it lost its utility of taking out hard to reach engies from outside their sentry range, which in my opinion is what it was supposed to be used for. For these times you got a team that clearly watches out their engie's position, with pybros etc.
The amby is not a good gun in its current state. Stock was always better than the amby in close range for almost every spy, and now the amby is only effective in close range. A few top level spies still use the amby but most don't and for those of us who don't have the aim of an invite sniper, stock is just better. A Woolen Sleevelet has a good video on the topic.
The Amby is fine in my experience of using it, and I don’t even have the best aim. The sheer utility of being able to take out weakened classes in one shot is super nice, and so is 2 shotting Soldiers. People are too exaggerative over the nerf.
@@squeaks5677 Yes, its still a good weapon. As I said, my only problem with the nerf is that you could use it to snipe engies from outside their sentry range, which was useful for engies that either were good enough to deal with a backstab attempt, or heavily guarded areas. Currently, unless you spam your revolver in hope of getting crits, or use the diamondback, there are no reasons the engie shouldn't remain next to his dispenser, because you will never outdamage the healing. The Ambassador can still be used for that, but with a way higher chance of failure, given you'll only deal 54 damage, and a sentry's range radius being 1100 hammer units, and the amby headshoting to up to 1200 HU (Which is an EXTREMELY SHORT WINDOW, and really hard to judge from sight only). If an engie has a Pybro, or a good enough team around them, with the engie gone, at least the sentry gets no healing, making it easier for your team to destroy it. In my opinion, that is the entire point of the amby. Punishing cocky enemies who think they can kill you easily, and an aid in taking out targets you can't expect to get due to the enemy team being good (Which is already what beats spies most of the time. Only one player needs to concentrate on spies, and it becomes unplayable xD)
@@squeaks5677 The amby is strong in the same way the loose cannon or force-a-nature is good -- it's a very fun sidegrade that is extremely powerful in the right hands but still definitively worse than stock. The confusion comes from the fact that when you're using the amby it's much much easier to notice the extra kills it gives you than it is to notice the kills you miss out on. So psychologically the amby feels stronger than it actually is, and if you haven't spent a good deal of time seriously using stock you don't know what you're missing out on.
I honestly kinda want the enemy pyros extinguishing you back but keeping the knockback, that way pyros can't just burn and airblast you away, maybe knockback could be based on class weight, like disguising as a heavy would make the knockback less noticeable
I think one of the things missing from this video is some of the debate within the spy community itself on the DR ambassador. Stabby essentially lead the charge on this gun sniping spy playstyle with his vids and his scripts assisting it. As it grew, there were some spies who even though it was fun in some respects, knew there was still something off about it. One guy I would of liked to see in this vid was tf2gentleman. He sort of disappeared though I talked to someone who knows him recently, said hes doing alright. Anyways, he was one of the leaders I guess you can say of trying to convince spy players to get off the DR and Ambassador as its not really a playstyle the class should have, and feels more cloak on demand gameplay was warranted. He has a good video on it here where he shows the absurdity of the DR and ambassador together in the first 15 mins, discusses spy balancing and some balance issues for the game in general. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-M3iAAq2cUj4.html Pretty interesting to look back on if interested.
Really cool video. It really show the long road this unique class has taken. question : what is the map that appears at 36:59? Never played on that one
in my opinion the amby is fine. being able to two shot light classes at close to medium range is amazing. though i think the slower firing speed is kind of unneccessary for the current state of the weapon
@@peakwoop You just gave 2 conflicting arguments, should I continue? If so No, Spy shouldn't be albe to deal maximum damage at all ranges, but should at least deal 102 damage at a distance greater than the flamethrower's range
If I were to suggest changes to the Amby, here's what I'd do. The Amby does full 102 damage headshots up to 1000 hammer units. After this distance it begins to suffer damage falloff, up to 3000 hammer units. After 3000 hammer units, it only mini crits on headshot. This would still reward skilled spys at close to mid range but not allow them to act as snipers.
Spy is balanced against other classes now, but he is weak overall Again thank you for the huge effort you've put in this video and shared your experience with rather newer players about those days
As a returning spy player who used to go ringer ambassador in arenas. I was wondering why it felt so bad to shoot this is somehow the first place I’ve seen the change thanks for such a cool video on the most unique fps class I’ve ever seen and the huge inspiration for my love of tf2.
Personally I think future Spy buffs should focus more on just making him be seen less rather than trying to make disguises more effective. Reducing the time it takes him to cloak and decloak to a half second, for example, or setting a damage threshold before the cloak will flicker.
So well done, wonderful job, can’t wait till your at 100k subs. Your so underrated, the amount of effort is so underrated by most, I can’t imagine hard u worked on this
This video was utterly fantastic. Also, thank you for going into so much detail about the Gunspy. I was always a Heavy or Sniper main, until one day in 2020 or so I got the itch to call on my inner Revolver Ocelot, and try my hand at becoming a pistolero. Learning that not only had Valve not just failed to support the subclass, but actively destroyed it, was a tad infuriating. Thus, I picked up my stock Revolver (later a Big Kill), my nerfed Dead Ringer, and my Spycicle, and became annoyed by the lack of playstyle options where the Knifespy has many. Seriously, if Valve ever actually supports Gunspy as a subclass, I'll probably become a true Spy main.
Fantastic video! Funny how looking back all these buffs and nerfs feel so different than they did at the time, makes me feel old as hell to know I started playing almost a decade ago. Still sad that they left the ambassador in such a poor state - to me it showed how out of touch valve had become at that point, especially given their original plans for the nerf. I love coming back to the game every now and again and it's always been an extremely fun weapon, just feels so neutered now.
One thing that i noticed about spy's revolver unlocks is that the l'etranger is the only one that doesn't provide a way for spy to increase its damage, unlike the enforcer, embassador and diamondback who all offer ways to increase burst damage, and all of those suffer from balancing issues precisingly because they are consistent ways for spys to be effective without relying on gimmicky backstabs (with the exeption of the diamondback to an extent). Which really gets to show how consistency has been the greatest problem for spy as a class.
This is an incredible resource. There is so much history to Spy and it's beautiful to see the level of detail and care that went into this. I was a huge Spy main around 2012-15 and fondly remember how dramatically the meta shifted after the Summer 2013 update, when the Invis Watch and C&D suddenly became viable, and people dusted off their untouched L'Etrangers for the first time. The class was in a really good place for a couple years there, even as the game as a whole was slowly atrophying away. Things were never perfect - I still believe there has to be a way to turn the Enforcer into an interesting and balanced weapon rather than swinging wildly between gamebreaking and useless - but it was a good time. The Amby nerf marked the final end of my passion for Spy and TF2 as a whole, and I will always be bitter about it. That said, the kind of things the expert gunspies were able to do by 2017 was just unbelievable, truly unbelievable. The level of precision and consistency they achieved was mindblowing. I resent imposing arbitary limits on mechanics because you decide that some people are just "too skilled" for them, but at the same time, god knows it would suck to end up in a lobby against one of them. The solution Valve chose was absolutely not the right one, but hey, at least it wasn't weapon spread. Opinions aside though, I'm so glad this video exists. So many people grew up playing this game and experiencing these changes and updates, and I personally get a lot of nostalgia thinking about it and remembering what it was like. As silly as it sounds to say, having it documented like this is really important and valuable. Thank you.
This is a crazy nostalgia since i started in 2012 and remembering what the enforcer was like really reminds me that gun spy was a playstyle people struggled to keep and also break the limit. Spy now compared to back then really has more tools but less outcome for the experienced. At the time of the speed change of dr and movement speed in 2015, spy really was at a perfect condition for exponential growth. I think now its has less advantages than weaknesses considering his other options kinda leave him flat in terms of helping his margin of error he has against experienced players. This was a interesting video and i would have liked to see u touch up more the competitive aspect since the enforcer is the new meta for wrangler with certain sentry spots like upward, vigil, or snake water allowing him to do major damage coordinated with a direct hit. But for spy to improve, he probably needs a way to access a remote playstyle.
I love this, wish you could do the same for the rest of the classes, showing how they changed during the life span of the game. I would think Scout hasn't changed much from his core, only that his pistol was semi-automatic, you could spam M1 to shoot faster than normal.
![The Evolution of Spy [TF2]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
