Disguises don't work they say. Well I'm here to say that's big dumb dumb stupid dummy talk. Instead of sticking out like a burnt french fry, you'll blend right in with the power of action. But be warned, the disguise kit is NOT a tool for getting behind the enemy.
The cloak is. The disguise is for blending in and not getting shot by sentries. Doing this......is fooling no one. And also, you should turn on player models in the HUD in advanced options. as this will help you out a lot later.
Now, before we can get into the acting, we need to go over a bunch of other stuff. You can change disguises much quicker when already disguised, so you can switch up your act on the fly. You can also press the B key to assume you'll last use disguise without opening up the disguise kit.
If you're already disguised though, pressing B will switch the weapon your disguise is holding to the weapon slot you are currently holding. Confused? Let me explain.
Your revolver is your primary, your sapper is your secondary, and the knife is your melee. If you switch your disguise's weapon while holding your revolver, your disguise will switch to holding their primary, such as the flamethrower on pyro, scattergun on scout, rocket launcher on soldier, minigun on heavy, and so on. If you do it while holding your sapper, your disguise will hold out their secondary, which are generally the pistols and shotguns. If you do it while holding the knife, of course, melee.
But that of course leaves the question, why? Why am I switching disguise weapons? Well hold that thought because I'll get back to you on that. Next is how your identity theft works. When disguising, you'll take the identity of a random player on the enemy team who is playing as the class you chose to disguise as, inheriting their name, cosmetics, equipped weapons, and even their current health.
If nobody is playing that class though, you'll instead take the identity of a random player outright and appear with a stock loadout. Also, when disguising as a spy, you'll also appear as a disguised spy. I know, definitely not confusing. Another thing is the disguised smoke. When you disguise, the spy throws up a cloud of smoke before he transforms.
Sounds pretty normal, but do note that if you cloak right after disguising, the disguised smoke can be seen following you. To prevent this, disguise after cloaking. Even being partially cloaked when you start the disguise negates the smoke entirely.
Backsnipers more to see if they'll actually turn around. So at the time they don't. Almost there, almost there, almost there, almost there. And that's why you always cloak before disguising.
Did you know you can fake reloads with your primary by simply reloading while disguised? This will cause your disguise to be seen reloading their weapon. Unless it's a weapon that can't reload. And finally...
POS SPAWN WALL ACTS! If you're uncloaked while you're disguised, enemy players that just let spawn can see you through walls. It wasn't always like this, and it's kind of dumb, but be wary of it because stuff like this...
can happen. Hey, wait, aren't you forgetting that you can, like, um, disguise as a teammate and, like, fake their death using the dead ringer? Oh yeah, that.
Yeah, it's kinda cool, but I've never really seen anyone put it to really good use. Even when faking the death of a teammate, it's kind of obvious, and I just don't use the dead ringer. But hey, if you want to try that trick, I won't stop you.
There are many ways that a disguised spy can be detected beyond doubt. And as a spy, you should be wary of them. Players on the same team are able to just walk through each other, whereas they cannot with enemy players.
The latter is the case with disguised spies. So if you bump into someone more disguised, it's best to assume they now know you're a spy. And only Only the engineer who built them can stand on friendly buildings, so don't stand on the dispenser. As mentioned before, when disguising you take the identity of an enemy player, meaning if the player you disguised as sees a clone of themselves, they'll either have an existential crisis or they'll know you're a spy. Sometimes it can also help to disguise as the player you kill.
When you get hit by flames while disguised, the afterburn effect is immediately visible, and the same goes if you get hit by the mad milk or jarate debuff. Being cloaked halves the duration of flames, milk and jarate, so use this knowledge as an escape option. So, sometimes the disguise mechanic isn't perfect? Demo with a minigun, Engi with a knife, the thermal thruster is completely invisible, Horseless Headless Pyro, and... him.
The weapon related glitches can be avoided if you pay attention to the weapon your disguise has, as you can fix it by switching disguised weapons. But with stuff like the missing Pyro head, you have no way of knowing when it happens and you just kind of have to... accept it? Welcome to playing spy So be wary of all the ways you can be detected while disguised as if any of those scenarios occur It's best to be able to know the moment you've been foiled This is the fun part all the stuff.
I've told you up to this point. This is why it's important Because while it's the subtle things that give away a spy, it's also the subtle things that make him convincing. You see, your disguises can indeed fool good players, just under the right circumstances.
The main trick to fooling people with disguises is to draw as little attention to yourself as possible. If people aren't paying attention to you, they're less likely to notice something is wrong. And what's the best thing for drawing attention away from you?
Your team! Sure, that sniper over there may or may not be a spy, but if this medic doesn't pay attention to the immediate threat right in front of him, he's going to die horribly. But of course, whoops, the sniper does turn out to be a spy and stabs the medic as he starts backpedaling away. But let's change the situation a bit.
Instead of standing there looking at his own team, the spy is running at the medic, looking straight at his back. The medic sees this and backs away from the spy defensively. By looking directly at the medic and running at him, the spy has drawn attention to himself, as opposed to here, where despite the fact he can't scope in, the medic is still fooled just because at a glance, nothing seems wrong. It's also especially effective because the spy has thought, If I actually was the sniper, where would I be looking?
And of course the answer is right at the other team. Seriously! Where you're looking plays a huge part into the effectiveness of your disguises.
You start looking towards your own team and people just sort of walk in front of you. In fact just walking backwards is surprisingly effective. It can be risky considering you might bump someone, but it'll work more than you might think. Also, you remember about how to switch disguise weapons? Yeah, more switching a weapon to something appropriate will make your disguise more convincing.
For example, when a Pyro is nearing a fight, he'd have his flamethrower out. When at a distance, they'd instead pull out their flare gun if they have one, or be looking for a flank. And if they have a powerjack, they'd be holding it out while running to the frontlines. And trust me, people won't notice you aren't getting the speed boost if you just start jumping around. Now, if you turned on player models in the HUD before, you can see your disguise as cosmetics.
If their cosmetics give off a vibe that they're rarely experienced, act that way. Or if it looks like a new player, you should instead act like that. You're assuming the identity of the player is the same as the one you're playing as.
of another player, so get all the info you can about their looks, class and weapons. Get into their mind. Pretend to BE them.
It's the subtle things that can convince people of your act. Just being seen switching weapons, faking a reload, using voice commands or taking a teleporter so you have the glow can be enough to make people turn their backs. Here's an example of me acting realistically. Here I stab this enji, but this demo sees me cloak, so now I know that he's coming. I huddle in this corner and disguise as sniper and pretend I also saw me stab the Engie, and I have my melee out, and he falls for it while actively looking for me.
There are times like this where you'll have to get creative with your disguise usage. In fact, fooling people with disguises is like a trick stab with less of the mechanical skill and more of the mind games. Often acting can be opportunistic, there's no one way to go about it, and being erratic and unpredictable makes you harder to detect.
Also, another secret strat... Ask your teammates to shoot you. This is an actual strat that works.
As I said, it's the subtle things that convince people. So having someone from your own team shooting at you can be enough to trick someone for long enough that they let you stab them. You can also pretend to be an enemy spy so you don't even have to ask your teammates to shoot you. DOUBLE ACTING!
To be aware that disguises are used to blend in. Usually, you don't have to fool players for more than a couple seconds before making your move. Sometimes there are exceptions to this where you fool players for an extended period of time. I don't think they've real-they don't know, they don't know, they don't know, they don't know, they haven't realized!
Bonus tip! Play around with the original reward, since when you stab someone you take their disguise, you'll already be in a realistic position for pretending to be them, and this can help train you in disguise acting. The Spy has a speed of 107% and when disguising, the Spy will slow his running speed to match the speed of his disguise but he cannot gain speed if his disguise is faster than him.
There is of course only one class that is faster than the Spy and that is... Come on tough guy! Scout is the only class that is faster than the Spy so the running speed will be wrong.
However, moving erratically can hide this, so be aware that moving in a straight line as Scout can give you away. Also, Scout is the best example of hitbox displacement. When you disguise, your hitbox doesn't actually change, and this can be especially effective against some snipers, as the Scout's head is way below the Spy's, though an experienced sniper will know to shoot above the head.
The displacement is different for different classes. Time to inform your next of kin! Soldier is the second slowest class in the game, especially since you don't have access to rocket jumping.
But even some experienced soldiers don't rocket jump constantly, but at times you will have to drop the disguise to catch up to faster targets. Pyro is typically in close range situations, and pulls out his secondary when further away from the enemy. Like I said before, Pyros that have the Powerjack equipped like to pull it out when they're not in combat, so you can mimic this behaviour. Disguising as a Pyro can be really helpful for getting near enemy players, since they tend to stick with their team and it makes sense for them to not be firing when not in close range.
Just be very wary of the enemy Pyro. Demo is slightly below average in speed, But a lot of things that apply to Soldier apply here. Typically you can act like you're about to shoot at something with your stickies or grenade launcher. Also, pay attention to if they're playing Demoni instead and pull out the melee if so.
Heavy is so slow that it's rare to see people disguise as him, and because that speed is such a hinderance, it's best used as a wildcard. You aren't going to catch up to anyone, so you really need to rely on your acting skill... so that people get close to you. But since the Heavy Disguise is a wild card, people are more likely to fall for it if it's used as such.
You look at my tongue-tied, son. Engineers are often seen at their nest, so it's best to act like you're preparing to set one up, looking for a spot, or running away in distress, as otherwise it can look very strange to not have a nest. If your disguise has the Gunslinger equipped, you can fake being a battle enji and run around more, mimicking the more active playstyle.
The healing is not as rewarding as the hurting. Good medics almost always have the medibeam on someone, so make your move quick. Running at people with the medi gun out can make them think you're about to heal them and turn their back.
Medics tend to use their crossbow or syringe gun defensively while backing away from danger, and they tend to use their melee when running in for the kill. You know, the Ubersaw with its stupid... You best keep lying down! The sniper disguise has a very interesting use, as you can use it to stand back and wait patiently, as you can pretend to be looking for a target in the distance, but in reality, you're watching for a good moment to strike.
Players very rarely notice that you're not scoped in, especially if you're standing still and crouched, so you can just sit in one place in full players for an extended period of time. But you know the hitbox displacement? Well, the head hitbox is almost perfectly aligned on the sniper disguise. making it easy to headshot you. So if the sniper you're disguised as spots you, RUN AWAY IMMEDIATELY.
As mentioned before when disguising as a spy, you'll appear as a disguised spy to the enemy team. Again, it's a matter of just acting like an enemy spy. They tend to have their knife out more than the revolver, and you can use it while amongst your team sometimes. But this is not an excuse for for running from your lines into the enemy lines, as a spy who does nothing with that opportunity is pretty sus-picious.
But Chonto, I hear you ask, which is the best disguise? And the answer is… none of them. If you use the same disguise over and over, people will catch on. Constantly switch it up and disguise as different people.
If there's no pattern to exploit, people have a harder time pinning you down. That goes for disguise use in general. Don't act like you, act like who you're disguised as.
Learning how to fool people with your disguise is one of the most underrated parts of Spy, and it's a treasure trove of mind games when you get into it. It's the subtle things that give a spy away, but it's also the subtle things... Hey, so in a week or so I'm gonna make a live commentary follow-up to this where I go over some of my really good clips So leave questions for that in the comments and stay tuned Also spies are gone