Ye, the YER is so fun and also my personally main knife, I rarely ever use others. Of course cant forget its talent for taking down sentry nests as well!
@@durrbill Once you get good with it you can be pretty dangerous, but 33% cloak drain rate is crippling. I find the weapon pretty mediocre to be honest. I'd probably prefer the kunai or the big earner, maybe even the spycicle.
@@MLGProMaster-tu9tz Wasn't aware Spy needed to be fixed really, unless you're talking about bugs. If they fix disguise bugs and remove the shitty wallhacks when you're spectating/have just respawned, then Spy is fine.
I would say that the usefulness of the spycicle depends on one factor and one factor alone: Are you a gun spy or a knife spy? As a knife spy, it’s generally not very good in comparison to the other knives. After all, losing a med drop just because a pyro looked at you almost makes the upside seem like a downside sometimes. On the other hand, it’s incredibly good for gun spy. As a gun spy, there’s a good chance that you weren’t even going to go in for a stab anyway, so losing your knife is often irrelevant. As well, when fighting a pyro with your gun, the spycicle gives you extra time to deal with the pyro unhindered.
@@krispy_kornflake What?! You're telling me not hitting the enemy doesn't do damage? Then explain all those 500 ping snipers headshotting behind walls!
I’m an engie main and I’ve started watching more spy youtubers to learn how to counter them more effectively and this was definitely helpful in that effort
@@thatonegreenorange7718 spy isn’t much trouble for me, it’s always the explosive classes the end up being the most trouble, but it’s mostly sticky spam that got me. before I was a turtle, now I go gunslinger with the FJ, destroy my mini and I’ll be playing a game of duck hunt with crits as you sticky jump away. At the same time, I basically snipe engie buildings with the quicky bomb launcher, Wrangler Engies are especially fun to pester from range.
I almost exclusively use the gunslinger with stock everything else and I try to avoid making a nest too close together so demo isn’t much of a problem. But since I made my nest to counter area damage classes like soldier and demo then I have to run around more to fix my buildings so it takes me a longer time to unsap my buildings whenever a spy is let into our back line
i really appreciate that 4:19 isn't earrape. its still just as funny and i didnt have to reach for my volume button in the middle of the night. just a small thing. keep up the great work
Idk i was a big fan of funny frag moment #29302, but they started to fall off after they stopped adding the reverberated wet fart sounds over the kills :/
@@UltimatePiccolo especially with how many times ive had spies face stab me already, i wouldnt be able to determine whether its that knife or one of the other ones
It's interesting seeing the different mindset. It was a shame you didn't talk about the Spycicle much, because I can assure you the knife has just as much subtle depth to it as the others, atleast when it comes to the competitive scene. It's a brilliant knife to ensure your survival when crossing the line to get behind, when 1v1ing Pyro's, and if you happen to get the pick and need to escape. However if you get sprayed just before you get a crucial kill, you'll be kicking yourself. It's often a go-to knife for me, but there's plenty of games where I've identified that others would be better. Using it against a Pyro that IS really Spy-checky is exactly when I wouldn't use it, as that's when you're going to run into the situation of losing kills too often. But it's an amazing knife when you plan to use your gun often and want to ensure you can cloak to a good position safely without getting unlucky. Kunai inparticular is the knife that doesn't interest me. Though trickstabbing of course requires skill and good movement, I hate how the Kunai just enables you to play like an idiot and keep farming the players who can't avoid them. Very frustrating when I'm trying to kill a Spy I see doing this and have done enough damage to kill him 3 times over, but he just keeps absorbing health from my team. I've always liked trickstabs in a vacuum, but I can't see them as anything more than abusing the games melee system when the Kunai enables them to such an absurd degree. Plus as you said, it's considered THE pub knife, cuz it's easy to get 1 kill. When you get a kill with the Big Earner and YER, the downsides are still there. With Kunai, it just objectively becomes the best knife once you got the stab. The only solace is that it's not very good in competitive, as the general skill level and communication stops Spy from doing as he pleases. Still, not fond of it. Either way, once again a very well presented and clean video. Nice job.
Yes. As a fellow spy main, my main frustration with the spycicle is that its use situations can remain subtly out of your control. That said, the greatest thing you can do with it is the art of the bluff. Just walking in front of people's guns as if you are phasing through the bullets is exactly what they don't expect you to do, the issue is always that even a mediocre pyro will catch on the second they find an ice sculpture lying around and will double tap everyone. :/ I think I would find it more personally attractive if it just permanently made the afterburn effect invisible and didn't melt; the damage would still be just as real, but as a spy I would actually be able to pull off a mind game in response rather than just have to fuck off away from my pick.
@Baruch Iriah it seems you never really saw a kunai spy just slaughtering the army of f2p heavies on the cart while you are actively shooting at him with your primary weapon but he just tanks it, and when there's no one left, he just shoots you with all he's got, maybe dying in the process, or headshotting you or something
@Baruch Iriah I was talking about kunai spy constantly having 200 hp as long as there's enough idiots in your team, that shit can tank the grenade launcher, only when half of your team is dead that's when he's vulnerable, anyone with a brain can shoot him at that point, but I appreciate your skills at protecting your team so well that you never saw a kunai spy kill them
@Baruch Iriah Then you've misinterpreted my post because that's not the argument I'm making. If he's 1 on 1 with me he's not an issue usually. Might get a trickstab now and then (we're not perfect), but he's not a threat to me on the whole. But claiming it's easy to kill him is just not true. I've had times where I'm playing Sniper, witness a Spy stab my Heavy, I headshot him, he trickstabs the Med trying to ubersaw him, I headshot him yet again, then he cloaks away. I'm sorry, I can't really kill him any harder than that. Just feels very unsatisfying.
@Baruch Iriah With the way these trickstabbing kunai players move though, they're intentionally hugging the face so close that a majority of pub players are just going to pull out their melee, thus doing exactly what the Spy wants. The buff from the Kunai may not be insane when facing a point blank rocket that knocks you up and does 100+ damage (which bare in mind with the buff makes it very easy to surf away with, or even perform another trickstab if you're good), but being able to tank up to two more 65 damage melee hits is unreal good when you consider the whole playstyle revolves around leeching health off of constant trickstab attempts. The thing even lets you survive the dreaded ubersaw random crit, unheard of before it's buff. You say they're easy to kill, but they have more health than a Soldier. Up to 85 more health than they did before is a huge deal, and I've seen plenty of twitch Spies abuse it to high heaven. The average pub player stands little chance at dealing with these players, so they're just gonna get farmed unless they swap to Pyro and spam M2. Thing is you can try to reason that it may not be as good as I make it out to be, and you may even be right, but it's still the best pub knife because it objectively makes you stronger than all the other knives once you've gotten a stab. It's downside disappears. Hell, the downside isn't even remotely noticeable as long as you don't walk into spam filled chokes before you get a stab. When you stab with the Big Earner you're still missing 25 health. When you get a kill with YER, you're still missing 30% of your cloak. You don't miss anything when you get a kill with the Kunai, and the risk might as well not exist. Low risk, high reward. Might be a shit take, but I'm really not fond of this knife.
@@UltimatePiccolo here's 5 th-cam.com/video/wsQZDVjTKmY/w-d-xo.html "TF2 - The Ultimate Guide to Spy | Part 1: Disguises" by woolen sleevelet th-cam.com/video/jPfRaH8QgGY/w-d-xo.html "TF2 - The Ultimate Guide to Spy | Part 2: General Information" by woolen sleevelet th-cam.com/video/HLFg5io449w/w-d-xo.html "TF2: How To Spy - [In-Depth Tutorial]" by goldin (on swipez's channel) th-cam.com/video/J06nMkjwtt4/w-d-xo.html "[TF2] How to Trickstab" by starykrow th-cam.com/video/zwz5yJR_aFA/w-d-xo.html "don’t disguise as the soldier, pyro, heavy, or engineer. actually, just don’t disguise." by shounic
I wish spy had a throwing knife; something he can only use once or twice every few seconds. It'd eliminate his ability to chainstab and trickstab, but offer up more safety if the spy can hit their throws. It'd solve the issue of Spy only having one gameplay option without roo much disturbance in Spy's balance, assuming the knife's recharge time is put in that sweet spot that let's Spy still be effective without making it a straight upgrade.
Screw that. I want red tape recorder buff that make it so that spy can slide it on the ground like what red spy did to on Meet the Spy (yes ik that is stock) .
Are we talking about throwable backstabs that can one shot a heavy? Because, I'd never be caught. Just pick and disappear, rinse and repeat. I feel like that'd be broken. Because sure, I can't chain, but I can make valuable picks and basically be an immortal nuisance that nobody can dig out. Pick engineers at weird angles. Pick medics. Pick people from high ground while they're coming out of spawn. Pick people from cover and concealment and easy escape routes. Pair that with at C&D and they'll know you're there but can do nothing about it. It would suck for medics because they just spend the entire game trying to dodge knife throws.
@@Salted_Rice223 i don't know if it's the only way, but you can get the frying pan if you buy Left 4 Dead 2. that's how i got mine. plus, the frying pan also comes with Ellis' hat if you buy L4D2
The spycicle can be a good backup for Gun-spy tho. When I'm bored and see the other team with less players, i grab Ambassador, Deadringer and Spycicle and i start practicing headshots. If there's no DR, there's the Spycicle. It extenses the fun for longer.
@@Turbs94945 When I see a spy running amby on me I always get nervous... is it a newb who just unlocked it and doesn't know it's nerfed? Or is it a seasoned vet who wants to style on me with headshots?!!?
@@szelski. but you've been gunned down by many stock revolvers I bet. Point is that the matchup is unbalanced in favor of Pyro. Pyro just has a much easier time.
Good video! I never really gave much thought to the Spy's sidegrades beyond the revolvers and the Spycycle, this definitely made me want to try them out! those frags you got with the big earner look mad fun
another huge benefit no one talks about with the eternal reward is sentrys, you can pick someone without getting instantly mowed by the senty and you can pick off the engineer and not die to the sentry if hes not close enough to where you can stab then sap
the your eternal reward is my main choice for dealing with backstabbing multiple engineers with a nest, or a well made separated sentry setups. and as someone who plays Engineer, Pyro and Spy plenty this is really useful, as a Spy player, playing other classes will help you play Spy better as you may get an understanding of how other classes will act in reaction to spy. "To know the enemy, you must become your enemy" - Sun Tzu (the art of war)
Not only was the video a good overview of the knives, but the editing was great. I especially like how the music was tied to the nature of the knives. The frantic battle music for the fast Big Earner, and the desert music for Your Eternal Reward, just two examples how well you chose the songs. The Pokemon RSE music makes me so nostalgic and hearing it makes me happy.
I've noticed most of the knifes fit into 2 categories: Stab allows you to escape or stab allows you to stab again. This means that these knives are good for both relatively new and experienced players and also ensures that the knives work with both types of watches, deadringer (agressive) and c&d (slightly more sneaky and passive). Incredible game design
That's only if the knife is your only source of kills. Many spies use the revolver just as much, or more than their knife. Good gunspy can be shockingly deadly.
Honestly, you worded everything really precisely and got points across really well, and the editing and clip choises for segments were really good too, and with how you talked about the weapon choises for spies and other classes helped me remember things I forgot and honestly is making me wanna fully come back to the game again.
OK, but... I know how wrong I am, but I love the YER. Just the simplicity, and the massive handicap of basically eliminating your disguise kit, it really is like a learning tool for spies who don't know how to act out disguises. Not to mention since it cripples your disguising, it forces you to get better with the invisible watch alone, its a real test of skill and leaving a chainstab unscathed really is the essence of spy.
It was so pleasant watching the video not just because of the informative, well written and excellently executed content (of a game I don’t play anymore) but I gotta say it was so lovely watching this while smiling and grooving to the gen 3 Pokémon music which gave me a certain flavour of nostalgia, great video :)
Actually, if you see my old videos you’ll find that I’m an artist (old videos though) if you find my Instagram @cc.cinder, I’ll draw you a new TH-cam profile picture if you want one
I really preferred the old eternal reward, where you couldn't disguise no matter what, but there was also no cloak drain penalty. The lack of that penalty was obviously better, but also not being able to disguise made the strategy more interesting.
My favorite thing to do with the Your Eternal Reward is good for dealing with sentry nests since you can stab the engineer and and nearby sentries wont attack you and your free to sap them
Honestly, I really enjoy your videos, you really put the entire, complex phenomena of just spy being spy into really manageable bits of information and advice and perspective gained over the years, and I really appreciate you taking the time and effort of your experiences and examining them and introspecting on them and somehow managing to make spy genuinely understandable!
Super great vid! I love hearing about the fine points of game balance and your passion for this topic really shines through. Not many people could deliver such a nuanced overview of the different knives, but I was absolutely enraptured listening to you do so.
A lot of people overlook he subtlety glaringly obviously baked into the Spycicle. When you kill someone, you leave an ice sculpture behind. Three of the other knives leave a regular corpse, and the fourth (Your Eternal Reward) leaves no corpse at all. In fact, that one hides the kill from other players in the killfeed. When playing with the Spycicle, the enemy team will always know that there is a spy around, and they will also know roughly how long ago any backstab happened, based on if the statue is standing or if a few seconds have passed and it toppled over. As a Medic main, I always become instantly more alert when I see an ice statue. I go from focusing on my team, to being aware of a dangerous Frenchman in my vicinity. A regular corpse could be caused by anything, all of which is easier to survive than a surprise backstab. This is also a great reason to never equip the Bombinomicon as a cosmetic. It destroys your corpse, removing valuable information for your teammates.
Another thing with the connivers kunai, since you only have 70 health, when someone kills you they might be extra paranoid and think that you faked your death with the dead ringer, since you died so easily, and waste extra time spychecking the area after youre dead.
Spycicle is more-or-less a noobifier, but in a good way. Support classes tend to be the most powerful classes in the game, but are also the hardest to learn, which is why you never see very many of them in comparison to other classes despite them being so influential. The Spycicle improves your survivability greatly against annoying Pyros, but at the cost of being unable to use your knife when you normally would have died. This basically keeps your potential power in check and doesn’t make you an unkillable backstabbing machine. (Though I wish your fireproof body didn’t make a flame sound when a Pyro puffs you. Kinda ruins the point of the weapon) The Huntsman is another noobifier in the good way. You trade away your godly distant headshots for the ability to better defend yourself at close ranges aka “become a quickscope god”. Though yes you can still get lucky with long distance shots, you’ll likely dump all your ammo in the progress, forcing you to reserve your arrows if you want to be the most effective. Medic doesn’t really have a noobifier tool, but that’s for good reason. Healing is definitely extremely powerful AND easy to give out, and the Medic is entirely balanced around how long you can keep yourself alive. It’s hard to balance a weapon that makes it easier to survive. Though maybe you could have a primary weapon that drains your own über as a source of emergency healing if your health drops to 1. Basically 100% über = 100 emergency health. That might be a good concept.
Nice video! I really loved your thought process for the Eternal Reward especially! Being able to find usefulness in well known useless weapons is something I love doing. I feel like you understand the game and thought processes of players quite well. Great job explaining something most people can't!
Your videos are so well edited and have so much love behind them it baffles me you have so few views, since your videos are all S tier (S stands for soundsmith).
Great video, I haven’t played TF2 regularly since the bot pandemic, yet this video kept my attention fully. I might not play the game anymore, but your writing and editing are engaging enough to make me consider hopping back in!
Pokemon music + TF2 content + great narration and summary of subject + clips sync with music. All in one video. Time and effort well spent. Here's my like my guy.
Amazing video analyzing the different play styles spy could take. Love how you used the underground water theme from gen 2 that was a nice touch for the end card :)
nobody ever mentions that one of the really cool things about the eternal reward is that you can quickly kill an engineer who isnt right next to his sentry, but it close by without getting shot, or having to worry about sapping his stuff first then killing him. Some engineers are really good at instantly taking you down the moment you sap their shit, and the fact that you stay disguised right after killing the engineer makes taking nests that aren't overly populated quick and easy
What I like about the non-default knives is the ways they influence two core aspects of Spy's gameplay: Infiltration and Escape(a.k.a. Get in, Get out). For example Your Eternal Reward eliminates one of your means of getting into the enemy backline without being noticed, that being the disguise, but rewards you for it by allowing either immense staying power for multiple backstabs in one go or an easy escape without blowing your cover in the first place. So on one hand you have the default knife which allows you your full infiltration capabilities(no hp reduction and disguises are allowed), but on the other you have YER, Conniver's Kunai and Big Earner which allow you better escapes through Safe Backstabs/Larger Health Pool/Increased Movement speed with restored cloak, but hinder your means of getting to that point in the first place by either reducing your health or removing infiltration tools. I'd honestly like to see Valve experiment with this and see what works.
I don't play TF2 at all but you explain everything so we'll and hearing Pokemon emerald (?) music underneath just makes me happy. Game design discussion is like a brain massage to me.
Ok there's something you do in ur videos, that some people don't do: you show gameplay footage, of what ur talking about, which is very nice for understanding what ur talking about. I just really appreciate u taking the time to get that footage
When I started playing tf2 my first unlock was the big earner. I never read the down side so I died a lot, but it was still fun. Getting a backstab and running around in super speed felt amazing a great high. Also great video and very informational.
Stock knife is the single most reliable, powerful, and consistent weapons in the entire game. The others are interesting side-grades, but situational. Although, in a way, that’s kinda what you said anyway. I think the Cloak and Dagger is the generally best, generally most useful cloak, but I’d love to see another video like this on those.
I don't know if you mentioned this in your other video (haven't watched it yet, though I'll be sure to get on it haha), but a benefit of the YER and one of the reasons that it's my go-to knife is its effectiveness when going up against engies, especially two or more of them. The YER allows you to make important picks when you need to in areas covered by a sentry gun, without dying/getting a big chunk of your health taken away and being forced to retreat. It also gives you a lot more flexibility in dismantling sentry nests, letting you easily do so even in scenarios where the typical "stab and sap" doesn't work (if the engineer is too far away from the sentry gun or if there is a second sentry gun covering the first). I find that the instant disguise is really useful in that respect, along with the other things you mentioned in the video. I could go on about the stealth capabilities and chainstab potential, but really that's all I wanted to mention. Great video, liked and subscribed :)
Thank you for doin my man Big Earner some justice! Easily my favorite knife. The dopamine hit from the speed boost is intoxicating in every sense of the word. Glad someone else sees it the same way.
Great video, did a good job breaking down each knife. On the topic of gameplay variety, I'd wish there was a knife which could be thrown a short distance. Allowing you to get a backstab from a short distance, with a cool down so it isn't spammed. It would make Spy players to rely on their revolver more. It would work wonders with the Diamondback.
The thing I like about the spy-cicle is that I enjoy revolver combat, and the spy-cicle can force you into death matches against pyros that feel amazing. Plus the ice statues can really mess with people's heads, it's a dead giveaway what weapon you're using, but it creates a sense of paranoia when all the evidence that a spy is creeping around stand out so plainly.
I think part of the reason as to why people say spy has less fewer playstyles is because his available toolkit is already very broad, and while other classes will have weapons that fundamentally change a part of their kit and thus playstyle, spy's knives and to a lesser extent his revolvers take one part of his kit and enhance it at the cost of another part of his kit (and usually his health). Instead of changing the tools he has available, spy's unlocks change how he interacts with those tools which can make the knives feel more similar than they really are.
by playing spy, you must agree that for how much medics love their life they can't seem to retreat to literally save it, they immediately run up to try to melee spies of all people, not even cloaked bumped into spies just full on melee out lmao loved the video, you explained the knives perfectly as to how i felt while playing with them
Just realized I forgot the fact big saber gives you cloak on backstab, which means I guess I use a VERY clock heavy load out (l'etranger, big earner, cloak and dagger) which I'm surprised I never noticed before
![The (somewhat) Secrets of Playing Spy Effectively [TF2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1ldMIGGM33M/mqdefault.jpg)
![The (somewhat) Secrets of Playing Spy Effectively [TF2]](/img/tr.png)
![Upward's Dark Secret [TF2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/AoLMismOn_g/mqdefault.jpg)
i like this video because it doesn't shit on eternal reward and thats the only knife im good with
that thing is fuckin great and no one will tell me otherwise, glad to be a part of the yer defense force
Shout out to BerdleFlips
o shit berd has taste in content
Ye, the YER is so fun and also my personally main knife, I rarely ever use others. Of course cant forget its talent for taking down sentry nests as well!
@@durrbill Once you get good with it you can be pretty dangerous, but 33% cloak drain rate is crippling. I find the weapon pretty mediocre to be honest. I'd probably prefer the kunai or the big earner, maybe even the spycicle.
You summarised the ups and downs of each knife so eloquently and accurately here, excellent work!
Hey hintshot can you go over a video on how to fix spy?
That spy’s not one of us!
@@MLGProMaster-tu9tz Wasn't aware Spy needed to be fixed really, unless you're talking about bugs.
If they fix disguise bugs and remove the shitty wallhacks when you're spectating/have just respawned, then Spy is fine.
@@Raelyn Spy is still the weakest class in the game
@@usmanyounas5181 maining the Amby it's make you weak?
He opens the chatbox every time he dies, he's the true spy main
“Y’all are trash”
@@jacobdoolan4978 The salt
"FuCkiNG tRAsH W+M1 PyRo"
I’ve only played the game for like… 15 hours so… why does he do that?
@@Datboichannel he is about to shit talk after every death, which is customary for spy mains
I would say that the usefulness of the spycicle depends on one factor and one factor alone: Are you a gun spy or a knife spy? As a knife spy, it’s generally not very good in comparison to the other knives. After all, losing a med drop just because a pyro looked at you almost makes the upside seem like a downside sometimes. On the other hand, it’s incredibly good for gun spy. As a gun spy, there’s a good chance that you weren’t even going to go in for a stab anyway, so losing your knife is often irrelevant. As well, when fighting a pyro with your gun, the spycicle gives you extra time to deal with the pyro unhindered.
Completely agree; good observation. Also gives me some good video ideas (spycicle/DR/stock revolver for survivable gun spy)
@@FBombFitzgerald It’s not exactly what you would call “effective” but DR/spycicle/L’etranger is really really good at making you immortal.
@@winsonlu3559 I should give DR a try again. After the nerf I threw it in the trash...which I do think made me a better spy.
@@user-ep1hp7vj6p I dusted mine off last month, and I agree: super satisfying to see those ice statues. th-cam.com/video/PzS0DtU3j0U/w-d-xo.html
@@FBombFitzgerald It’s still good for gun spy, you just need to be smarter about it’s use.
Spy-cicle is for shooting the revolver. "Oh, shoot! A Pyro!" becomes "Oh, shoot a Pyro."
You're telling me the Revolver can damage enemies? Blasphemy!
@@FatheredPuma81 yes, you just need to stop using the ambassador
@@krispy_kornflake What?! You're telling me not hitting the enemy doesn't do damage? Then explain all those 500 ping snipers headshotting behind walls!
@@krispy_kornflake but the ambassador looks so cool!
ded
Big Earner gang we out here
Hale's Own big earner gang, we exist
GANG GANG
Gang
Big Earner spy's RISE UP!
Yez
I’m an engie main and I’ve started watching more spy youtubers to learn how to counter them more effectively and this was definitely helpful in that effort
fuck
Guess that's fair, I'm subbed to Dane
Everyone should always have their main’s counter as their second most played class. I main engie, but play Demo the second most.
Yeah that’s a good thing to have practiced, I have a bit more of a problem dealing with spies than I do demomen to be honest
@@thatonegreenorange7718 spy isn’t much trouble for me, it’s always the explosive classes the end up being the most trouble, but it’s mostly sticky spam that got me. before I was a turtle, now I go gunslinger with the FJ, destroy my mini and I’ll be playing a game of duck hunt with crits as you sticky jump away. At the same time, I basically snipe engie buildings with the quicky bomb launcher, Wrangler Engies are especially fun to pester from range.
I almost exclusively use the gunslinger with stock everything else and I try to avoid making a nest too close together so demo isn’t much of a problem. But since I made my nest to counter area damage classes like soldier and demo then I have to run around more to fix my buildings so it takes me a longer time to unsap my buildings whenever a spy is let into our back line
i really appreciate that 4:19 isn't earrape. its still just as funny and i didnt have to reach for my volume button in the middle of the night. just a small thing. keep up the great work
Honestly, my ears just seem to enjoy earrape, it's not good if it's midnight and it could possibly wake everyone up, otherwise it's very good
@@he3004 ah yes, a man of culture. I assume you to partake in the art of TH-camPoops?
@@he3004 I could recommend you some bands you'd probably love bro
@@ev5837 I'm interested
@@he3004 you should listen to Whitehouse, The Gerogerigegege, or Bloodyminded. You'd really enjoy noise music by the sound of things
Idk i was a big fan of funny frag moment #29302, but they started to fall off after they stopped adding the reverberated wet fart sounds over the kills :/
... is it bad that's exactly my killsound?
@@cheddartaco No it means you are a god now pass that killsound
fun fact: there was originally supposed to be a knife for spy that would instakill on facestab, not backstab
Bruh moment
That would be hilarious.
i would use it, sounds fun asf
That would actually be awesome, the enemies would live in constant fear not knowing whether to show or hide their backs.
@@UltimatePiccolo especially with how many times ive had spies face stab me already, i wouldnt be able to determine whether its that knife or one of the other ones
I really love the YER because you can stab an engi and then sap his sentry without any worries.
"'No worries, mate!' hahaha!"
(yes I know its directed at sniper, but it works, right?)
Unless if you miss lol.
@@genzo454 everyone back to the base, pardner!
It's interesting seeing the different mindset. It was a shame you didn't talk about the Spycicle much, because I can assure you the knife has just as much subtle depth to it as the others, atleast when it comes to the competitive scene. It's a brilliant knife to ensure your survival when crossing the line to get behind, when 1v1ing Pyro's, and if you happen to get the pick and need to escape. However if you get sprayed just before you get a crucial kill, you'll be kicking yourself. It's often a go-to knife for me, but there's plenty of games where I've identified that others would be better. Using it against a Pyro that IS really Spy-checky is exactly when I wouldn't use it, as that's when you're going to run into the situation of losing kills too often. But it's an amazing knife when you plan to use your gun often and want to ensure you can cloak to a good position safely without getting unlucky.
Kunai inparticular is the knife that doesn't interest me. Though trickstabbing of course requires skill and good movement, I hate how the Kunai just enables you to play like an idiot and keep farming the players who can't avoid them. Very frustrating when I'm trying to kill a Spy I see doing this and have done enough damage to kill him 3 times over, but he just keeps absorbing health from my team. I've always liked trickstabs in a vacuum, but I can't see them as anything more than abusing the games melee system when the Kunai enables them to such an absurd degree. Plus as you said, it's considered THE pub knife, cuz it's easy to get 1 kill. When you get a kill with the Big Earner and YER, the downsides are still there. With Kunai, it just objectively becomes the best knife once you got the stab. The only solace is that it's not very good in competitive, as the general skill level and communication stops Spy from doing as he pleases. Still, not fond of it.
Either way, once again a very well presented and clean video. Nice job.
Yes. As a fellow spy main, my main frustration with the spycicle is that its use situations can remain subtly out of your control. That said, the greatest thing you can do with it is the art of the bluff. Just walking in front of people's guns as if you are phasing through the bullets is exactly what they don't expect you to do, the issue is always that even a mediocre pyro will catch on the second they find an ice sculpture lying around and will double tap everyone. :/
I think I would find it more personally attractive if it just permanently made the afterburn effect invisible and didn't melt; the damage would still be just as real, but as a spy I would actually be able to pull off a mind game in response rather than just have to fuck off away from my pick.
@Baruch Iriah it seems you never really saw a kunai spy just slaughtering the army of f2p heavies on the cart while you are actively shooting at him with your primary weapon but he just tanks it, and when there's no one left, he just shoots you with all he's got, maybe dying in the process, or headshotting you or something
@Baruch Iriah I was talking about kunai spy constantly having 200 hp as long as there's enough idiots in your team, that shit can tank the grenade launcher, only when half of your team is dead that's when he's vulnerable, anyone with a brain can shoot him at that point, but I appreciate your skills at protecting your team so well that you never saw a kunai spy kill them
@Baruch Iriah Then you've misinterpreted my post because that's not the argument I'm making. If he's 1 on 1 with me he's not an issue usually. Might get a trickstab now and then (we're not perfect), but he's not a threat to me on the whole. But claiming it's easy to kill him is just not true. I've had times where I'm playing Sniper, witness a Spy stab my Heavy, I headshot him, he trickstabs the Med trying to ubersaw him, I headshot him yet again, then he cloaks away.
I'm sorry, I can't really kill him any harder than that. Just feels very unsatisfying.
@Baruch Iriah With the way these trickstabbing kunai players move though, they're intentionally hugging the face so close that a majority of pub players are just going to pull out their melee, thus doing exactly what the Spy wants. The buff from the Kunai may not be insane when facing a point blank rocket that knocks you up and does 100+ damage (which bare in mind with the buff makes it very easy to surf away with, or even perform another trickstab if you're good), but being able to tank up to two more 65 damage melee hits is unreal good when you consider the whole playstyle revolves around leeching health off of constant trickstab attempts. The thing even lets you survive the dreaded ubersaw random crit, unheard of before it's buff. You say they're easy to kill, but they have more health than a Soldier. Up to 85 more health than they did before is a huge deal, and I've seen plenty of twitch Spies abuse it to high heaven. The average pub player stands little chance at dealing with these players, so they're just gonna get farmed unless they swap to Pyro and spam M2.
Thing is you can try to reason that it may not be as good as I make it out to be, and you may even be right, but it's still the best pub knife because it objectively makes you stronger than all the other knives once you've gotten a stab. It's downside disappears. Hell, the downside isn't even remotely noticeable as long as you don't walk into spam filled chokes before you get a stab. When you stab with the Big Earner you're still missing 25 health. When you get a kill with YER, you're still missing 30% of your cloak. You don't miss anything when you get a kill with the Kunai, and the risk might as well not exist. Low risk, high reward. Might be a shit take, but I'm really not fond of this knife.
I have learned more about spy in this one video than in my entire time seeing "tutorials"
You are just watching the wrong ones
@@facemcshooty6602 Can you name the right ones?
@@UltimatePiccolo here's 5
th-cam.com/video/wsQZDVjTKmY/w-d-xo.html "TF2 - The Ultimate Guide to Spy | Part 1: Disguises" by woolen sleevelet
th-cam.com/video/jPfRaH8QgGY/w-d-xo.html "TF2 - The Ultimate Guide to Spy | Part 2: General Information" by woolen sleevelet
th-cam.com/video/HLFg5io449w/w-d-xo.html "TF2: How To Spy - [In-Depth Tutorial]" by goldin (on swipez's channel)
th-cam.com/video/J06nMkjwtt4/w-d-xo.html "[TF2] How to Trickstab" by starykrow
th-cam.com/video/zwz5yJR_aFA/w-d-xo.html "don’t disguise as the soldier, pyro, heavy, or engineer. actually, just don’t disguise." by shounic
In within the first minute, happy to see another well edited, nice lengthed, informative video. Keep up the great work!!
I wish spy had a throwing knife; something he can only use once or twice every few seconds.
It'd eliminate his ability to chainstab and trickstab, but offer up more safety if the spy can hit their throws.
It'd solve the issue of Spy only having one gameplay option without roo much disturbance in Spy's balance, assuming the knife's recharge time is put in that sweet spot that let's Spy still be effective without making it a straight upgrade.
Sounds like a slightly more powerful revolver ngl.
That's just a revolver with extra steps
Screw that. I want red tape recorder buff that make it so that spy can slide it on the ground like what red spy did to on Meet the Spy (yes ik that is stock) .
Are we talking about throwable backstabs that can one shot a heavy? Because, I'd never be caught. Just pick and disappear, rinse and repeat. I feel like that'd be broken. Because sure, I can't chain, but I can make valuable picks and basically be an immortal nuisance that nobody can dig out. Pick engineers at weird angles. Pick medics. Pick people from high ground while they're coming out of spawn. Pick people from cover and concealment and easy escape routes. Pair that with at C&D and they'll know you're there but can do nothing about it. It would suck for medics because they just spend the entire game trying to dodge knife throws.
@@afqwa423 wait that sounds like sniper with extra steps
Gentlemen, if your knife is
-grey in colour
-popular among new and old players
-available in gold
Then that’s not your knife, that’s the frying pan
-received if you have another game with it
@@ashleycd6487 what? How do you get the frying pan
@@Salted_Rice223 own l4d2
@@Salted_Rice223 own l4d2
@@Salted_Rice223 i don't know if it's the only way, but you can get the frying pan if you buy Left 4 Dead 2. that's how i got mine. plus, the frying pan also comes with Ellis' hat if you buy L4D2
6:19
Bruh, that Medic really just saw you kill that Pyro and disguise as him and he STILL healed you.
I believe killing a healed target will cause the medic to automatically heal you.
YER value
Medic processing what just happened:
The spycicle can be a good backup for Gun-spy tho. When I'm bored and see the other team with less players, i grab Ambassador, Deadringer and Spycicle and i start practicing headshots. If there's no DR, there's the Spycicle. It extenses the fun for longer.
Good point. I'm going to try a similar loadout for a video, but swapping amby for stock since my aim is poo poo.
"Ambassador, Dead Ringer, and Spycicle"
That's my exact loadout... (But I have the stock sapper too)
@@FBombFitzgerald Even if you don't have good aim Ambassador is always an amazing choice imo
@@Turbs94945 When I see a spy running amby on me I always get nervous... is it a newb who just unlocked it and doesn't know it's nerfed? Or is it a seasoned vet who wants to style on me with headshots?!!?
damn that's some good editing
also you really danced your way around saying "spycicle op" lol
A tool that defends you against a class that's OP can't really be considered OP itself.
@@UltimatePiccolo Lmao this guy suck at fighting pyros
@@szelski. butthurt that you're getting rekt by spycicle spies.
@@UltimatePiccolo i do not play pyro and i can guarantee you on my 1500 hours played i never got trickstabbed lmao
the pyro matchup is not hard
@@szelski. but you've been gunned down by many stock revolvers I bet. Point is that the matchup is unbalanced in favor of Pyro. Pyro just has a much easier time.
Man, the third generation music just rings so nicely on my ear, I love it!
10:00 Solider all I have to say.
oh my god i never noticed that thank u
@@durrbill Not all Heroes wear capes
I used to do that all the time when I was younger. I still do occassionally. It's fun.
@@greenoftreeblackofblue6625 What are you pointing out in the video?
@@armannstraughter3296 soldier on cart
It’s so funny seeing how many times that you open up chat after dying and then just pressing enter instead of typing anything.
That was 33 instances of the word "knife", including its plural form.
Thx for the information, apreciate it
Good video! I never really gave much thought to the Spy's sidegrades beyond the revolvers and the Spycycle, this definitely made me want to try them out! those frags you got with the big earner look mad fun
Your choice of music is on point.
And by "on point" I mean "Pokemon Gen 3," but the two are basically synonyms.
another huge benefit no one talks about with the eternal reward is sentrys, you can pick someone without getting instantly mowed by the senty and you can pick off the engineer and not die to the sentry if hes not close enough to where you can stab then sap
Man, this is an incredibly high-effort, well edited video. Your channel better explode in popularity pretty soon
the your eternal reward is my main choice for dealing with backstabbing multiple engineers with a nest, or a well made separated sentry setups. and as someone who plays Engineer, Pyro and Spy plenty this is really useful, as a Spy player, playing other classes will help you play Spy better as you may get an understanding of how other classes will act in reaction to spy.
"To know the enemy, you must become your enemy" - Sun Tzu (the art of war)
Not only was the video a good overview of the knives, but the editing was great. I especially like how the music was tied to the nature of the knives. The frantic battle music for the fast Big Earner, and the desert music for Your Eternal Reward, just two examples how well you chose the songs. The Pokemon RSE music makes me so nostalgic and hearing it makes me happy.
I've noticed most of the knifes fit into 2 categories:
Stab allows you to escape or stab allows you to stab again.
This means that these knives are good for both relatively new and experienced players and also ensures that the knives work with both types of watches, deadringer (agressive) and c&d (slightly more sneaky and passive).
Incredible game design
I feel even in countering pyro, the spycicle is just bad, because you lose your main source of kills because you got looked at.
revolver
revolver, also ammo packs give you the knife back very quickly
I would never try to fight a pyro after he finds me so the spycicle is a direct upgrade 🤷🏾♂️
That's only if the knife is your only source of kills. Many spies use the revolver just as much, or more than their knife. Good gunspy can be shockingly deadly.
@@Coelohihi oh i know revolvers are deadly, but in my experience, i die more to spies that got for the stab than gun
Honestly, you worded everything really precisely and got points across really well, and the editing and clip choises for segments were really good too, and with how you talked about the weapon choises for spies and other classes helped me remember things I forgot and honestly is making me wanna fully come back to the game again.
im surprised you didnt mention how amazing the YER is at sentry busting
Your use of the Pokemon OST in the Kunai and Big Earner bits were really good. That's all I got.
_talks about why the kunai is good and how the health increase helps you get away from situations_
2:58 *_dies with kunai overheal_*
This video single-handedly gave you my sub cuz it's so good. Keep up that quality please!
The Pokemon music is a nice touch
OK, but... I know how wrong I am, but I love the YER. Just the simplicity, and the massive handicap of basically eliminating your disguise kit, it really is like a learning tool for spies who don't know how to act out disguises. Not to mention since it cripples your disguising, it forces you to get better with the invisible watch alone, its a real test of skill and leaving a chainstab unscathed really is the essence of spy.
Everyday I wake up to a cool TH-cam video from a smaller TF2 TH-camr I’ve never seen before. This is great!
It was so pleasant watching the video not just because of the informative, well written and excellently executed content (of a game I don’t play anymore) but I gotta say it was so lovely watching this while smiling and grooving to the gen 3 Pokémon music which gave me a certain flavour of nostalgia, great video :)
Actually, if you see my old videos you’ll find that I’m an artist (old videos though) if you find my Instagram @cc.cinder, I’ll draw you a new TH-cam profile picture if you want one
I really preferred the old eternal reward, where you couldn't disguise no matter what, but there was also no cloak drain penalty. The lack of that penalty was obviously better, but also not being able to disguise made the strategy more interesting.
GET THIS MAN A PLAY BUTTON
Everything that he explained is ON POINT, no bs no corny bad jokes, 11/10 i need more videos from you
9:09 that jumps insane ive never seen that before
Got recommended this randomly, and now subbed and belled due to quality of video, explaining yourself and how well-written it was.
5:25 "your eternal weward"
My favorite thing to do with the Your Eternal Reward is good for dealing with sentry nests since you can stab the engineer and and nearby sentries wont attack you and your free to sap them
7:24, that happens to me, way too much
0:55 thanks for that wave of nostalgia
Off topic but hearing that Pokemon Music felt like I was a Child playing Gameboy again
Honestly, I really enjoy your videos, you really put the entire, complex phenomena of just spy being spy into really manageable bits of information and advice and perspective gained over the years, and I really appreciate you taking the time and effort of your experiences and examining them and introspecting on them and somehow managing to make spy genuinely understandable!
The downside of this concept of course is that the Kunai invalidates all the others in Pubs, as you alluded to.
9:08 here we see an amazing spy jump i'll try to pull off every pl_barnblitz game now
I like to use the kunai and the dead ringer for the health and to trick enimes that I'm completely dead to escape or go back in
Super great vid! I love hearing about the fine points of game balance and your passion for this topic really shines through. Not many people could deliver such a nuanced overview of the different knives, but I was absolutely enraptured listening to you do so.
Also, loved your choice of music.
You said "knives" 11 times and "knife" 19 times (if I counted right)
Someone else came up with 33
i got 28... maybe i cant count lol
I’m glad the algorithm favored you today. This is a great video! Informative, hypnotic to watch the clips, and occasional humor. I like it
A lot of people overlook he subtlety glaringly obviously baked into the Spycicle. When you kill someone, you leave an ice sculpture behind. Three of the other knives leave a regular corpse, and the fourth (Your Eternal Reward) leaves no corpse at all. In fact, that one hides the kill from other players in the killfeed.
When playing with the Spycicle, the enemy team will always know that there is a spy around, and they will also know roughly how long ago any backstab happened, based on if the statue is standing or if a few seconds have passed and it toppled over.
As a Medic main, I always become instantly more alert when I see an ice statue. I go from focusing on my team, to being aware of a dangerous Frenchman in my vicinity. A regular corpse could be caused by anything, all of which is easier to survive than a surprise backstab.
This is also a great reason to never equip the Bombinomicon as a cosmetic. It destroys your corpse, removing valuable information for your teammates.
Another thing with the connivers kunai, since you only have 70 health, when someone kills you they might be extra paranoid and think that you faked your death with the dead ringer, since you died so easily, and waste extra time spychecking the area after youre dead.
Spycicle is more-or-less a noobifier, but in a good way. Support classes tend to be the most powerful classes in the game, but are also the hardest to learn, which is why you never see very many of them in comparison to other classes despite them being so influential.
The Spycicle improves your survivability greatly against annoying Pyros, but at the cost of being unable to use your knife when you normally would have died. This basically keeps your potential power in check and doesn’t make you an unkillable backstabbing machine.
(Though I wish your fireproof body didn’t make a flame sound when a Pyro puffs you. Kinda ruins the point of the weapon)
The Huntsman is another noobifier in the good way. You trade away your godly distant headshots for the ability to better defend yourself at close ranges aka “become a quickscope god”. Though yes you can still get lucky with long distance shots, you’ll likely dump all your ammo in the progress, forcing you to reserve your arrows if you want to be the most effective.
Medic doesn’t really have a noobifier tool, but that’s for good reason. Healing is definitely extremely powerful AND easy to give out, and the Medic is entirely balanced around how long you can keep yourself alive. It’s hard to balance a weapon that makes it easier to survive.
Though maybe you could have a primary weapon that drains your own über as a source of emergency healing if your health drops to 1. Basically 100% über = 100 emergency health. That might be a good concept.
Could you explain what you mean by noobifier?
@@aimboat709 Basically does their job for them when it comes to significant defining challenges of a class
This is channel is a damn masterpiece
Nice video! I really loved your thought process for the Eternal Reward especially! Being able to find usefulness in well known useless weapons is something I love doing. I feel like you understand the game and thought processes of players quite well. Great job explaining something most people can't!
Legit subbed within the first minute.
Nice topic, enjoyable voice, & good editing!
Your videos are so well edited and have so much love behind them it baffles me you have so few views, since your videos are all S tier (S stands for soundsmith).
That's actually a very interesting topic, I m definitely gonna search for more of those balances in other classes now
Great video, I haven’t played TF2 regularly since the bot pandemic, yet this video kept my attention fully. I might not play the game anymore, but your writing and editing are engaging enough to make me consider hopping back in!
YER upsides: you don't have to wait
YER downsides: you have to wait
Pokemon music + TF2 content + great narration and summary of subject + clips sync with music.
All in one video. Time and effort well spent. Here's my like my guy.
Amazing video analyzing the different play styles spy could take. Love how you used the underground water theme from gen 2 that was a nice touch for the end card :)
nobody ever mentions that one of the really cool things about the eternal reward is that you can quickly kill an engineer who isnt right next to his sentry, but it close by without getting shot, or having to worry about sapping his stuff first then killing him. Some engineers are really good at instantly taking you down the moment you sap their shit, and the fact that you stay disguised right after killing the engineer makes taking nests that aren't overly populated quick and easy
This channel is quality, always a pleasant surprise catching these videos.
“Perfect balance of the spy’s knifes”
-Puts the silhouette of the YER, a weapon that trades cloak for a disguise, in the thumbnail
I love how the medic at 6:20 perfectly demonstrated your point
sats: *lose like half your hp*
yes very subtle
Nice video. First one I’ve watched by you. Well made, informative, and easy to digest. Good work.
What I like about the non-default knives is the ways they influence two core aspects of Spy's gameplay: Infiltration and Escape(a.k.a. Get in, Get out). For example Your Eternal Reward eliminates one of your means of getting into the enemy backline without being noticed, that being the disguise, but rewards you for it by allowing either immense staying power for multiple backstabs in one go or an easy escape without blowing your cover in the first place.
So on one hand you have the default knife which allows you your full infiltration capabilities(no hp reduction and disguises are allowed), but on the other you have YER, Conniver's Kunai and Big Earner which allow you better escapes through Safe Backstabs/Larger Health Pool/Increased Movement speed with restored cloak, but hinder your means of getting to that point in the first place by either reducing your health or removing infiltration tools.
I'd honestly like to see Valve experiment with this and see what works.
Dude, you HAVE to do an episode on the revolvers. I can't wait to hear your analysis of them
I don't play TF2 at all but you explain everything so we'll and hearing Pokemon emerald (?) music underneath just makes me happy. Game design discussion is like a brain massage to me.
"subtle balance of spy's knives"
also kunai:
removes half your health but kills over heal you
(Gets backstabbed more then twice) "fUcKeN wEeB!"
Ok there's something you do in ur videos, that some people don't do: you show gameplay footage, of what ur talking about, which is very nice for understanding what ur talking about. I just really appreciate u taking the time to get that footage
Perfect video mate, it explains really well and is edited well, new sub
The spycicle's disadvantage is that instead of getting a benefit from backstabbing, you instead get a downside, which is a super obvious ice sculpture
i like the twirl the spy does and i dont wanna get OHKOed by a pipe or have 0 cloak
subbed exclusively for the stabs lining up with the music at 1:50 through 2:00
Your videos helped me a lot when dealing with spies as a medic
When I started playing tf2 my first unlock was the big earner. I never read the down side so I died a lot, but it was still fun. Getting a backstab and running around in super speed felt amazing a great high. Also great video and very informational.
Stock knife is the single most reliable, powerful, and consistent weapons in the entire game.
The others are interesting side-grades, but situational.
Although, in a way, that’s kinda what you said anyway.
I think the Cloak and Dagger is the generally best, generally most useful cloak, but I’d love to see another video like this on those.
I don't know if you mentioned this in your other video (haven't watched it yet, though I'll be sure to get on it haha), but a benefit of the YER and one of the reasons that it's my go-to knife is its effectiveness when going up against engies, especially two or more of them. The YER allows you to make important picks when you need to in areas covered by a sentry gun, without dying/getting a big chunk of your health taken away and being forced to retreat. It also gives you a lot more flexibility in dismantling sentry nests, letting you easily do so even in scenarios where the typical "stab and sap" doesn't work (if the engineer is too far away from the sentry gun or if there is a second sentry gun covering the first). I find that the instant disguise is really useful in that respect, along with the other things you mentioned in the video.
I could go on about the stealth capabilities and chainstab potential, but really that's all I wanted to mention. Great video, liked and subscribed :)
Thank you for doin my man Big Earner some justice! Easily my favorite knife. The dopamine hit from the speed boost is intoxicating in every sense of the word. Glad someone else sees it the same way.
The pokemon music in the background gives me a lot of nostalgia,
You don't notice how much time goes if you aren't paying that much attention
1:51 One year later and no one has mentioned how satisfyingly in-sync the stabs are
Thank you for actually using relevant footage! Some people just have random B-Roll running and it always just makes them harder to understand.
Great video, did a good job breaking down each knife. On the topic of gameplay variety, I'd wish there was a knife which could be thrown a short distance. Allowing you to get a backstab from a short distance, with a cool down so it isn't spammed. It would make Spy players to rely on their revolver more. It would work wonders with the Diamondback.
The thing I like about the spy-cicle is that I enjoy revolver combat, and the spy-cicle can force you into death matches against pyros that feel amazing. Plus the ice statues can really mess with people's heads, it's a dead giveaway what weapon you're using, but it creates a sense of paranoia when all the evidence that a spy is creeping around stand out so plainly.
This channel is a hidden gem and i hate it. You DESERVE more views and subs, nuff said.
love the use of older pokemon battle music, really fits chainstabbing
I think part of the reason as to why people say spy has less fewer playstyles is because his available toolkit is already very broad, and while other classes will have weapons that fundamentally change a part of their kit and thus playstyle, spy's knives and to a lesser extent his revolvers take one part of his kit and enhance it at the cost of another part of his kit (and usually his health). Instead of changing the tools he has available, spy's unlocks change how he interacts with those tools which can make the knives feel more similar than they really are.
by playing spy, you must agree that for how much medics love their life they can't seem to retreat to literally save it, they immediately run up to try to melee spies of all people, not even cloaked bumped into spies just full on melee out lmao
loved the video, you explained the knives perfectly as to how i felt while playing with them
"These 4 knives are perfectly balanced"
"What about the spy-cicle?"
*"We don't talk about that"*
Just realized I forgot the fact big saber gives you cloak on backstab, which means I guess I use a VERY clock heavy load out (l'etranger, big earner, cloak and dagger) which I'm surprised I never noticed before
Big earner is like crack.
Its fun and makss you go fast, but it also makes you die fast