Dead Ringer

“

By the time your adversary races towards your 'body' to frisk you for cash and pull gold fillings out of your mouth, you'll already be behind him, poised for the killing blow. — Dead Ringer publicity blurb

”

The Dead Ringer is an unlockable gadget for the Spy class. It is a gold-plated pocket watch with an inscription of a hummingbird on the outside, the symbol for eternal life.

This weapon's main attribute is to Cloak the owner for 6.5 seconds upon being injured, leaving behind a fake corpse to distract and deceive enemies. To use it, the Spy must be holding the watch up in preparation before taking damage. The Cloak generated is instantaneous, and can generate fake kill feeds, dominations, revenges, HLstatsX messages and even achievements. Heads will also be added to the Eyelander via a fake death. When triggered in an Arena before any other player is killed, it grants the attacker the First blood buff. If the player is disguised as a friendly class, activation drops a ragdoll corpse of that class.

During Cloak, the Dead Ringer blocks 90% of the damage from the activating hit. This allows the player to survive fully charged headshots by Snipers or backstabs from enemy Spies, as long as the user has more than 1 health. Since backstabs have a base damage of 6 times the victim's current health, and the initial hit that activates the Dead Ringer does 10% damage, backstabs will deal 6/10 of the victim's current health. Additionally, the watch prevents the Cloak from flickering upon impact with enemies or damage.

The Dead Ringer uncloaks with a very distinct sound. The uncloak noise is quite loud up-close, but rapidly fades with distance. Its Cloak meter drains significantly upon uncloaking, and cannot be used again until fully recharged, though emerging from the Dead Ringer's Cloak drains up to 60% if the meter is at least 40% full. Like the standard Invisibility Watch, picking up ammo can replenish the Cloak. Resupply areas, Dispensers, and ammo can also replenish the Cloak meter. A large ammo box and medium boxes will restore 35% and small boxes 25%. If a Spy is cloaked for more than 6.5 seconds using the Dead Ringer, through collecting ammo or other sources, it will revert to a standard Cloak, losing the 90% damage reduction and letting the Cloak flicker if the Spy collides with an enemy or gets shot.

Activating the Dead Ringer while already on fire extinguishes it. The player must take evasive action, however, as they can be lit on fire again during Cloak. The Dead Ringer Cloak will activate even if the Spy was previously covered by Jarate (the increased damage will still be in effect however), but will short out if he is hit by Jarate while the Cloak is active. The Tribalman's Shiv or Southern Hospitality can inflict bleed which will cause the Spy to drop blood even while cloaked, allowing him to be tracked by sharp-eyed opponents.

Function times

Activates upon injury. The Spy will take only 10% damage from attacks while he is cloaked, including the initial triggering attack.

• Cloak maximum duration: 6.5 seconds

• Cloak recharge time (from 100% depletion): 16 seconds

Related Achievements

Sleeper Agent Kill an enemy who triggered your feign death in the last 20 seconds.

Trivia

• Using the Dead Ringer, it is possible to survive: a deadly fall (non-trigger), 16 stickies, taunt attacks, fully-charged headshots, backstabs, and the initial hit by a train or saw blade.
• Though it is possible to momentarily survive a train hit, the train will plow into the Spy again and kill them unless they move quickly out of its path.
• When ping and network transmission are not an issue, a Spy can bring up the Dead Ringer and be protected in less than 1/100th of a second. In the average online match this margin is greater, but the times serve to show that the Dead Ringer was designed with no real activation delay.
• Dead Ringer is a phrase used to describe something or someone looking nearly identical to something or someone else. (e.g. 'He's a Dead Ringer for that BLU Spy we shot earlier!' )
• The ability to feign death was present in Team Fortress Classic, and the Dead Ringer's function was likely inspired by that ability. However in Team Fortress Classic, the invisiblity was limited instead to being rendered immobile and having to hope that the enemy would pass by.
• The Dead Ringer is the only thing short of an ÜberCharge that can be used to survive a taunt attack.
• A glitch exists where reloading either the Revolver or the Ambassador, or taking out a Electro Sapper whilst holding the Dead Ringer up will cause the Spy to appear to have three arms.
• In some cases, if one is covered in Jarate and then activates the Dead Ringer, the Jarate will remain on the player revealing their location.
• Feign deaths are not counted by Sentry Guns as kills or assists and thus will not contribute to revenge Crits for the Frontier Justice.
• Feign deaths will not trigger the 5 second Crit-boost for the Killing Gloves of Boxing.
• Feign deaths will not trigger the 75 health boost given by the Powerjack.
• Feign deaths will not display a "FISH KILL!" message from the Holy Mackerel, instead incrementing the hit counter, and will continue to increment if one manages to hit the cloaked Spy.
• Using the Dead Ringer and taunting can survive a single taunt kill without activating the Cloak. However, damage is still dealt and the damage reduction disappears after the Spy is hit once.
• Combined with the Saharan Spy pack, the Dead Ringer's uncloaking noise can be greatly muffled.
• There is a glitch that when you pull it out. Sometimes the Dead Ringer would dissapear with the Cloak meter being the only thing shown.

Gallery

• Dead Ringer 1st person red cropped.png

  RED 1st person view.

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  Full RED 1st person view.

• Dead Ringer 1st person blu cropped.png

  BLU 1st person view.

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  Full BLU 1st person view.

See also

• Invisibility Watch
• Cloak and Dagger
• Cloak article for Cloak specifics and strategy