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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 will always drain a minimum of 60% of its meter. Like the standard Invisibility Watch, Resupply areas, Dispensers, picked up weapons, 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. If a Pyro sets you on fire, don't Cloak right away, escape fist. 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, Southern Hospitality, or Boston Basher 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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Update history
May 22, 2009 Patch
- Fixed Spy feign death not being reflected in scoreboard.
May 26, 2009 Patch
- The Dead Ringer now fully drains the Cloak meter, even if the Spy uncloaks early.
May 29, 2009 Patch
- Fixed Spies not being telefragged when standing on an enemy teleporter exit with the Dead Ringer enabled.
June 8, 2009 Patch
- The Dead Ringer can now be activated while carrying the flag.
June 23, 2009 Patch
- The Dead Ringer's Cloak consume rate has been slightly reduced, giving about an extra second of Cloak time on a full meter.
- Emerging from the Dead Ringer's Cloak now drains up to 40% of the Cloak meter instead of 100%. This drain only happens if the meter is at least 60% full.
- The Dead Ringer's Cloak meter can now be regenerated from ammo sources.
- Dead Ringer's "extra" Cloak powers (damage reduction and no-flicker) are not extended by obtaining ammo.
- Being attacked while taunting with the Dead Ringer out no longer triggers a Spy's Cloak, but instead keeps the damage reduction for the remaining duration of the taunt.
July 14, 2009 Patch
- The Dead Ringer's recharge time was shortened from 18.5 seconds to 16.5 seconds.
January 6, 2010 Patch
- The Dead Ringer now reduces Cloak to 40% when uncloaking early.
- Made a 35% cap on the amount of Cloak it can gain from an ammo pack.
- It now has a quieter de-Cloak sound.
January 13, 2010 Patch
- Feigning death can now play custom death animations like a normal death (head loss, Sniper shot, backstab, etc).
- Feigning death due to explosive damage now has a chance to gib, like a normal death.
- Corpses from a feign death now use the correct wearable behavior (hats stay on, or fall off as they should).
- The weapons dropped by feign death corpses now have appropriate physics and collision for their type.
- Fixed Spies that feign death while disguised as enemy Spies dropping fake ragdolls wearing a mask.
- Fixed a couple of physics issues on ragdolls created by feign death.
Bugs
- Reloading either the Revolver 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.
- Spies that fake death upon being hit by a melee weapon will issue a normal death scream as opposed to a melee death scream.
- On some community servers when an autobalance is about to be initiated, activating the Dead Ringer may result in being autobalanced. In some cases just activating the Dead Ringer results in an instant respawn.
- If a Spy is disguised as an enemy, has the Dead Ringer out and receives blast damage, the gibs will show as the disguised class of the Spy's team. (eg. if a BLU Spy disguised as a RED Medic feigns death through an enemy Rocket, the gibs will appear as they were from a BLU Medic).
Trivia
- Though it is possible to use the Dead Ringer 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.
- This is also true for any environmental kills, such as drowning.
- 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.
Notes
- Feign Deaths will not:
- Drop a weapon that will replenish ammo for whoever attempts to pick it up.
- 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.
- Reduce your team's player count in an Arena match, making it obvious to the opposing team that you aren't dead.
- Drop a small health pack for the Candy Cane.
Gallery
Dead Ringer 1st person red cropped.png
Dead Ringer 1st person blu cropped.png
See also
