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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
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The Dead Ringer is an unlockable secondary PDA item for the Spy class. It is a gold-plated pocket watch with an engraving of a hummingbird on the outside of it.
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 before taking damage. The Cloak generated is instantaneous, and can generate fake kill feeds, dominations, revenges, 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. Triggering a fake death against a Spy you are dueling will not add a point to your duel score. 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 a sufficient amount of Hit Points before the attack was made. 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 Spy'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 (this can be "fixed" with the Saharan Spy set). Its Cloak meter drains significantly upon uncloaking, and cannot be used again until fully recharged: 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
Pyro
Demoman
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Shorn Connery
Decapitate a cloaked Spy.
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Heavy
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Spyalectical Materialism
Kill or assist in killing 10 cloaked Spies.
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Engineer
Sniper
Spy
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Sleeper Agent
Kill an enemy who triggered your feign death in the last 20 seconds.
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Spies Like Us
While cloaked, bump into an enemy cloaked Spy.
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Bugs
- 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.
- If the Spy takes any damage (with the exception of taunt kills that stun the enemy like The Gunslinger) while taunting with the Dead Ringer activated, the Spy does not feign death and a fake watch is created. On the player's screen, the Spy can be seen holding the Dead Ringer, but they can still use their weapons. However, only the first hit will have reduced damage. Each hit after that takes full damage. The player can right click again to activate the actual Dead Ringer.
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, feigning death was limited to being rendered immobile and having to hope that the enemy would pass by as opposed to turning invisible.
- Feign Deaths will not:
- Be counted by Sentry Guns as kills or assists and thus will not contribute to revenge Crits for the Frontier Justice.
- Trigger the 5 second Crit-boost for the Killing Gloves of Boxing.
- Trigger the 75 health boost given by the Powerjack.
- 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.
- Trigger the "instantly disguised as the backstab victim" effect from the Your Eternal Reward.
- Trigger a hit sound (dingaling) if enabled in multiplayer advanced options.
- Increase the score of your dueling opponent.
- Combined with The Saharan Spy set, the Dead Ringer's uncloaking noise will become that of the regular Invisibility Watch's noise, albeit greatly reduced, making a great combo.
- Canonically, the Dead Ringer would cost $7.39 based on the The Spy update, but in the Mann Co. Store, it costs only $1.99.
- Despite what the Spy update page says, the Dead Ringer does not Cloak you for "up to 8 seconds".
Gallery
Dead Ringer 1st person red cropped.png
Dead Ringer 1st person blu cropped.png
See also
