Disguise

“

He could be in this very room! It could be you! It could be me! It could even be... — The BLU Spy on the RED Spy

”

The Spy is able to disguise as any character class of either team using his disguise kit.

Disguise Process

Donning a Disguise

File:Spy masks.jpg

The Spy's disguise masks.

There are three ways to don a disguise.

• The disguise kit. To use a disguise kit, switch to your fourth weapon slot. Select a number corresponding to your disguise of choice, or press - to switch the disguises' team colors.
• The disguise console command. The disguise command is formatted with "disguise X Y", where X is the class's number and Y is the team color, as listed below.

Class	X Value	Team	Y Value
Scout	1	Enemy	-1
Soldier	3	Friendly	-2
Pyro	7	Blu	1
Demoman	4	Red	2
Heavy	6
Engineer	9
Medic	5
Sniper	2
Spy	8

• The lastdisguise command, bound by default to B. This command will don the last disguise you selected to allow for quick reapplications.

• The Simple Disguise menu allows any class to be disguised as using only the 1, 2 or 3 keys. This means that one can disguise as an enemy Spy without moving their hand across the keyboard.

Visual Effects

File:Cloak disguise sequence.jpg

Above is "disguise-then-cloak". Below is "cloak-then-disguise".

Usually, once a Spy selects his disguise, he will begin producing glowing particles of his team's color and smoke slightly tinted his team's color. After two seconds, his model will change and he will stop generating smoke and glowing particles, though it will take slightly over one additional second for the smoke to entirely disappear. Once he starts generating disguise smoke, the effect will not stop for any reason, even if he becomes cloaked or dies.

You can avoid making the smoke and glowing particles altogether by being cloaked to any degree before you select your disguise. If you plan on escaping via cloak, it is generally wise to cloak before disguising, as the smoke cloud can give your position away to your enemies.

File:Disguise hud.jpg

Hud icon showing current disguise

When a disguise is donned, the Spy's allies will see him wearing a cut-out mask of the class he's disguised as, and when they aim at him, his health indicator will display his fake disguise's team and class. Enemies will see him as a member of the class and team he selected while disguising, and when they aim at him, the Spy will appear to have the identity of a team member of the disguise's color, wielding that team member's primary weapon. If the chosen team has at least one player of that class, the Spy will take on the identity of one of those players randomly; if the selected team has no player of the selected class, the Spy will take on the identity of a random player of the selected team. When a Spy copies a player's identity, it takes on the name, hit points, and weapon loadouts of that player. If the chosen disguise has slower speed than the Spy's, the Spy will reduce his speed to match his identity's except while cloaked (it won't, however, go faster to match Medic or Scout).

On console versions of TF2, random identity adoption (when there is either zero or more than one player of the selected class on the chosen team) favors the game host's identity over others. Spies should therefore avoid taking on the host's identity because it is more likely they will be Spy-checked.

Gameplay Effects

File:Disguised spy hitbox.jpg

Disguises don't have matching hitboxes. You can use this to minimize risk of headshot.

Disguises can have special effects on game mechanics. Regardless of class or color choice, disguising has general game impacts.

• Disguises do not change your actual hitbox sizes, shapes, or positions. Using certain disguises can therefore reduce the risk of headshot.
• If you pick up health kits or get healed, your disguise will appear to gain health accordingly. This allows you to pick up health pickups even if your health is full so long as your disguise's health is not.
• You cannot taunt while disguised.
• You gain knockback immunity, regardless of disguise color.

Disguising does not change the fact that Spies can walk through team mates but not enemies.

Disguising as an enemy player...

• Prevents you from defending control points and payload carts.
• Prevents you from capturing control points or pushing payload carts.
• Disables the appearance of teleporter dust on your character from friendly teleporters.
• Allows you to use enemy teleporters (will produce teleport dust).
• Allows you to use enemy dispensers (will not produce heal stream particles if cloaked).
• Allows you to be healed and ÜberCharged by enemy Medics.
• Causes enemy sentries to not target you as long as you have not shown your team color to them since entering their vision (they have no vision of you while cloaked or behind surfaces/objects).

Disguising as a friendly player essentially causes all game mechanics to treat you as undisguised (except for your appearance, obviously).

Disguise Actions

Besides normal movement and sapper placement, there are a number of actions to consider while disguised.

Disguise-Ending Actions

While disguised, the following actions will remove your disguise:

• Dying.
• Picking up intelligence.
• Applying a friendly Spy disguise (instant, no-smoke removal that can be done while cloaked).
• Firing a gun.
• Using a melee weapon.

Fake Actions

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There are a few tricks you can do to make your disguise more believable to enemies.

Fake Weapon Changing

If you're already disguised, reapplying the same disguise will cause your disguise to apparently switch weapons to whichever weapon slot you're currently using (slot1 for primary, slot2 for secondary, and slot3 for melee). This can be quickly done with a lastdisguise key (default B). If your identity has an unlocked version of a weapon slot in their current loadout, switching to that slot will correctly make you switch to apparently holding that unlocked weapon.

Fake Reloading

If your disguise identity is currently wielding a reloadable weapon (things that load after every shot like flare gun and Sniper rifle don't count), you can give the impression to enemies that your weapon is reloading by starting to reload your revolver. Once you start the fake reload, it will continue even if you stop reloading by switching weapons, so if you want to fake reload repeatedly, you can do so. You cannot fake reload if your revolver has all 6 rounds in it.

Fake Voice Commands

While disguised, you can use your identity's voice commands in full (to allies they will still be Spy voice commands), including calling for Medic and, if disguised as Medic, faking a full Ubercharge ("I am fully charged!"). This can be used for baiting or blending into enemy ranks. Caution should be used against well-coordination teams, as they will be quick to notice that voice commands are appearing to be made from a team player who isn't actually using them.

It's important to note that if you're disguised as an enemy and you call for Medic, enemy Medics can use your call icon to find and kill you, especially if you're in a strange place or going in a strange direction. You can cloak to avoid producing the call icon above your head, but the compass call icon will still appear on their hud to point them in your general direction. Friendly Medics will always see your icon regardless of disguise and cloak status.

Disguises

Disguises vary in statistics and effectiveness. Regardless of you disguise choice, you can't really control whether or not enemies fall for it, nor can you really control how far they will go to lethally Spy-check you. If you're going to try to blend in with a false identity, always have a backup plan for if the enemies don't believe your disguise.

Enemy Disguises

Most of your time spent disguised will be done while pretending to be an enemy. Each plays differently when trying to blend in.

Scout

• Statistics

• Speed: 100% (33% slower than actual Scout.)
• Stature: Short, Skinny

• Inconspicuousness...

• Unexpectedness: Medium
• Believability: Low

• Fake-Reloads...

• Scattergun: Partial, Short
• Force-A-Nature: Partial, Short (Wrong animation, visible shells!)
• Pistol: Full, Short

The Scout disguise should be donned when the disguise is not being used to trick the enemy for a substantial amount of time, such as when hiding or when the enemy is too watchful to not Spy-check. The Scout's character model is very small and none of its weapon models stick out, so it hides well. It has no move speed reduction, though it does not gain speed to match that of the Scout. The disguise will generally fail to convince competent enemies up close both because of move speed and because it can't emulate double-jump, but because Scouts are known to wander and carry their primary weapon for extended periods, it's usually viable for quick glances, particularly from long distances. The Scout disguise is common in competitive play because of the nature of competitive team composition and the fact that disguises don't work well for blending in against coordinated teams regardless of disguise choice.

Soldier

• Statistics

• Speed: 80%
• Stature: Normal

• Inconspicuousness

• Unexpectedness: High
• Believability: Medium

• Fake-Reloads

• Rocket Launcher: Partial, Short
• Shotgun: Partial, Short

Disguising as a Soldier can work well for blending in to stab a slow-moving target. Most generally don't suspect them. That said, having the speed of a Soldier means you'll have trouble dodging enemy fire and avoiding blocking enemy movement, and if your target starts moving at full speed (assuming it's not Soldier or Heavy), you might not be able to catch up to it without losing your disguise. If there are enemy Medics on the enemy team, you might be able to get them to heal and/or uber you. Wielding the Equalizer does not affect your speed and does not block healing.

Pyro

• Statistics

• Speed: 100%
• Stature: Normal

• Inconspicuousness

• Unexpectedness: Low
• Believability: Medium

• Fake-Reloads

• Shotgun: Full, Long

As a class with 100% move speed, no need to reload, and reasons to hide by himself, among teammates, and near sentries, the Pyro disguise is fairly well-rounded. Pyros aren't expected to attack until they get close to others, and they commonly patrol their own bases, so the Pyro disguise can get in and out of enemy areas nicely. Unfortunately, the Pyro disguise has a couple flaws that make it less than perfect. Aside from the fact that it's a common disguise (and therefore frequently Spy-checked), Pyros are expected to Spy-check constantly, so competent nearby enemies will almost always attack you when they notice you aren't Spy-checking them. If you're lit on fire by an enemy Pyro, it might be more immediately noticed because Pyros never catch fire, though the color of a fire's glow gives you away no matter what disguise you're using. If you're trying to hide around a corner or wall, switch your disguise's weapon away from the flamethrower because its long weapon model and can sometimes be seen through walls and props. The Pyro's Shotgun is arguably tied with the Engineer's for being the best fake reload in the game.

Demoman

• Statistics

• Speed: 93%
• Stature: Normal

• Inconspicuousness

• Unexpectedness: Low
• Believability: Medium

• Fake-Reloads

• Grenade Launcher: Partial, Short
• Sticky Launcher: Partial, Short

Demoman is an average disguise in almost all ways, with both advantages and disadvantages in each of its traits: its move speed is reduced, but only slightly; it has reasons to stay in the enemy's base, but not for very long without using stickies; it's used in both offense and defense, but is expected to spam its weapons while doing so; its character and weapon models aren't too big, but aren't particularly small either. Because of this, the Demoman disguise works well as a general first-glance disguise, but is oftentimes foiled after loitering for too long. It has a moderately believable fake-reload on both of its guns.

Heavy

• Statistics

• Speed: 77%
• Stature: Tall, Wide

• Inconspicuousness

• Unexpectedness: High
• Believability: Medium

• Fake-Reloads

• Shotgun: Partial, Short

Because of its severely reduced move speed, Heavy is a rare disguise. He can't chase well for backstabs, takes a long time in transit, is too large to hide in some places or blend in, and he has little reason to move around by himself. However, the very fact that the Heavy disguise is rare can make it more effective in some situations, as most players won't expect it. Because of this (and the nature of the class itself), the Heavy disguise is a great choice if you want an enemy Medic to heal you (or even possibly uber you) regardless of what your health appears to be. Heavies have a commonly-used primary weapon that isn't usually fired on a whim, so the enemy Medic usually won't immediately Spy-check you. When it comes down to it, though, the large model size and extremely slow move speed make the Heavy a poor disguise.

Engineer

• Statistics

• Speed: 100%
• Stature: Short

• Inconspicuousness

• Unexpectedness: Low
• Believability: Medium

• Fake-Reloads

• Shotgun: Full, Long
• Pistol: Full, Short

The Engineer disguise is good for taking down enemy structures and those in the surrounding area. The Engineer has 100% move speed, small character and weapon models, and a tendency to stay around his own base (and buildings). Enemies are prone to Spy-check Engineers that avoid wrenching for too long, though, and it's not unlikely that you'll by Spy-checked by an enemy Engineer when/if he spots you with his name. Engineers are also very rarely used anywhere outside of their bases. Because of these things, the Engineer disguise is generally limited to taking down enemy bases, though it does this quite well. The Engineer's Shotgun is arguably tied with the Pyro's in being the best fake reload in the game.

Medic

• Statistics

• Speed: 100% (7% slower than actual Medic.)
• Stature: Tall

• Inconspicuousness

• Unexpectedness: High
• Believability: Low

• Fake-Reloads

• Syringe Gun: Full, Short
• Blutsauger: Full, Short

The Medic disguise isn't very effective in most situations. While it's true that enemies usually won't notice the lack of increased move speed, the Medic disguise is flawed in much more significant ways. Medics are usually quick to be joined by team mates, who expect to be healed quickly, which you can't fake. Because Medics are almost never by themselves and because the Medic disguise is incapable of emulating a Medic's teamwork behavior, it generally doesn't last very long. The only real benefits of using the Medic disguise are that it can be used to bait enemies and that it has a good fake-reload. Though because Medic disguises used to not have a ÜberCharge meter until the Spy/Sniper update, some enemies will forget and assume a Medic with a ÜberCharge meter isn't a Spy.

Sniper

• Statistics

• Speed: 100%
• Stature: Tall, Skinny

• Inconspicuousness

• Unexpectedness: Low
• Believability: High

• Fake-Reloads

• SMG: Full, Short

Disguising as a Sniper is usually effective if you stick to where Snipers are expected to be, which you can use to set up repeated Sniper backstabs. It's not suspicious for Snipers to stay within their base's perimeters for extended periods, and they aren't specifically expected to Spy-check allies. Of course, the inability to actually zoom in can make the disguise less effective against observant foes, and Snipers are conspicuous when they stray too far from Sniper posts or look away from their targets. Enemies will also take note if they spot a Sniper trying to approach a group of allies in almost any area other than said Sniper posts. The Sniper disguise has the advantages of being relatively small and having 100% move speed.

Spy

• Statistics

• Speed: 100%
• Stature: Tall, Skinny

• Inconspicuousness

• Unexpectedness: Medium
• Believability: High

• Fake-Reloads

• Revolver: Full, Short
• Ambassador: Full, Short

The Spy disguise can work fairly well, though its ability to blend in is largely based on the Spy-checking habits of your enemies. The Spy disguise is the only disguise that has an excuse to mingle with your team mates without attacking, so it can come in handy when getting into firefights. Using an enemy Spy disguise has no effect on the color of your disguise smoke or your cloak, so you can still be spotted by those. Many players will instinctively fire at all Spies (even friendly ones), so the Spy disguise is usually risky, though because Spy disguises used to not have fake masks until the Spy/Sniper update, some enemies will forget and assume a masked Spy must be a friendly Spy. The Spy disguise has a good, complete fake-reload.

Friendly Disguises

While some may initially see friendly disguises as very limited in use, they can prove quite handy in a number of situations. In general, a friendly disguise is recommended during setup time in all maps, because they will avoiding giving away that you're a Spy while making the enemy prepare for a class that isn't actually being used. If you're having trouble getting into an enemy area, a friendly disguise can be used to scare enemies (Sniper is good for open areas; Demoman is good for doorways; Heavy and Pyro are good for cramped spaces). If an important ally needs help, you can use a friendly disguise to draw enemy fire (Heavy or Medic usually works well). Additionally, your hit box is not the same as your disguise class, which can be used to draw Sniper fire with a reduced risk of headshot to spare team mates or waste an enemy's time.

Friendly disguises (especially Medic and Sniper) are good for baiting because most enemies won't expect a friendly disguise to be used; this can be used either for prepping a stab or faking out an enemy by visibly moving behind a corner, cloaking, and going for the backstab when the enemy chases your phantom. These tricks can be used more safely and repeatedly with the Dead Ringer, which will let you fake friendly deaths. In a Spy Rush, friendly disguises can be used to fool the enemy team before they realize what you're doing.

See also

• Spy strategy for information on how to infiltrate enemy territory effectively using disguises.
• Classes for details on the speed differences between classes.