Disguise
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| “ | He could be in this very room! He could be you! He could be me! He could even be—
— The BLU Spy speaking of the RED Spy, shortly before his head was obliterated by the BLU Soldier's shotgun
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The Spy has the unique ability to disguise as other classes -- both on his own team and the enemy's -- which, like his cloaking ability, helps him move unnoticed among the other players. While wearing a disguise, the Spy will appear as another class from the other team's perspective, and to the Spy's teammates, he appears as a friendly Spy wearing a mask representing his current disguise.
Contents
Applying a disguise
On the console version, a disguise can be applied by opening the Disguise Kit, selecting the desired class to disguise as, and pressing confirm. (default: A Button - XBox 360) On the PC, a disguise is selected by pressing the number corresponding to the class the player wishes to disguise as. For example, a player could press the 5 key to disguise as an enemy Heavy.
Alternatively, a PC player may use the 'Simplified Disguise Menu' from the advanced PC Options. When using the Simplified Disguise Menu, a player first presses 1, 2, or 3 to select a class category (Offense, Defense, or Support) and then presses 1, 2, or 3 to select a class from the group. For example, a player might press 1 to select Offense, and then press 3 to select the Pyro as their disguise.
By default, the player will disguise as a member of the opposite team, but they may also choose to disguise as one of their teammates by pressing the 'toggle disguise team' key (by default: '-' on PC, 'Right Bumper' on Xbox 360) while in the Disguise Menu. A disguise may be selected as normal afterwards, and pressing the toggle key again will switch back to enemy disguises. On PC, a player may save themselves time by pressing the 'last disguise' key (default: 'b') which will automatically disguise as the last class and team the player selected from the Disguise Menu.
If the player has Your Eternal Reward equipped in their Loadout, the Disguise function will be disabled. The Spy's only means of Disguise requires him to perform a successful Backstab on an enemy team member; knife kills and kills with other weapons will not work. Once successful, the Spy will kill the opponent, and immediately assume a disguise identical to the enemy they just killed.
Except in the case of 'Your Eternal Reward', Disguising is not instantaneous. After a disguise is selected, a Spy will produce glowing particles of his team's color and a brief cloud of smoke for approximately two seconds, after which he will stop emitting these particles and be fully disguised as the selected class and team. This can be avoided by being cloaked to any degree before selecting a disguise; once a disguise is selected, smoke particles begin forming which will not be hidden by cloaking; however, selecting a disguise while already cloaked will produce no smoke or team-colored particles. In either case, disguising creates a small amount of noise, which is somewhat dependent on which cloaking watch is used; these sounds can potentially give away the location of a Spy.
On the PC, the Disguise function can also be accessed directly through the Developer's Console using the 'disguise X Y' command with the following parameters:
| 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 |
Gameplay while disguised
While disguised, the Spy's team will see him wearing a paper cut-out mask bearing the face of the class he is disguised as, and when they aim at him, his health indicator will display the team and class he is disguised as below his name (e.g. "Disguised as enemy Demoman" or "Disguised as friendly Sniper"). Enemies on the other hand, will see him as the team and class he is disguised as, and when they aim at him, he will appear to have the identity of an allied or enemy player with his disguise. If the chosen team has at least one player of the chosen class the Spy disguised as, 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 any random player on the selected team regardless of class. When a Spy copies a player's identity, he takes on the name, hit points, and weapon loadouts of that player unless the Spy disguises as a class that the chosen team has no players of. In that case, the Spy will have the standard loadout. If the chosen disguise class has a slower move speed than the Spy's, the Spy will reduce his speed to match that of his disguised class except when cloaked. However, his speed will not increase to match that of the Medic or Scout if disguised as either.
While disguised, a Spy can pick up Health kits to recover the 'health' of his disguise in addition to his actual health, if the player he disguised as was below full health at the time he disguised. This false health recovery will still work, even if the Spy's actual health is full. Inversely, a Spy who is injured, but their disguise's health is full or Overhealed may still pick up a Health Kit. However, the cross icons that appears above him while healing will be his actual team's color, not the color of his disguise.
Actions while disguised
While a Spy is disguised as an opponent, he cannot capture a Control Point or push the Payload, and must lose his disguise to assist in the capture. However, a Spy disguised as a member of his own team may continue contributing to capturing a point or pushing the cart as normal. However, enemy Buildings will still treat him as normal, and enemy Medics will not be able to heal him. The effect of a friendly disguise is limited to simply causing him to appear as another class to players on the enemy team.
Inversely, a Spy using an enemy disguise will not be targeted by Sentry Guns, can use enemy Teleporters and Dispensers, and can be healed by enemy Medics as though he were a member of that team. However, the particles which follow the Spy briefly after a teleport will match his actual team color, and not the color of his disguise. Likewise, if an enemy Medic UberCharges a Spy, the UberCharge effects will match the Spy's actual color, not the Medic's.
Also, there are several actions that can be taken that are specifically designed to make the disguise more convincing to enemy team members:
- Changing disguise weapon - Changing to the primary, secondary, or melee weapon and pressing the 'last disguise' key will cause the disguise to mimic the weapon of the class in the same inventory slot. (ex: holding the Knife while disguised as a Scout lets you appear to equip the Bat). If the person you are disguised as has equipped an unlockable weapon in the chosen slot, you will appear to be wielding the same weapon in your disguised state.
- Reloading - If your disguise weapon is one that reloads a clip or shells (i.e. Shotgun, Rocket Launcher, Scattergun, SMG, etc.), reloading your Revolver will cause your disguise to reload their weapon. This does not apply to weapons like the Flare Gun or Sniper Rifle which load one shot at a time. You cannot fake a reload while your Revolver has all 6 shots loaded, or while disguised with a weapon like the Minigun, which have no reload animations.
- Voice commands - Any voice commands made while disguised will broadcast to your team as coming from you and to the enemy team as coming from the person you are disguised as. You can call for an enemy Medic to heal you in this way. This can, however, alert the person you are disguised as to your presence since they will see voice commands attributed to them but not coming from them, and they may tell their team.
Disguise removal
If, while disguised, the Spy is killed, he steals the enemy's Intelligence, or he attacks, he will automatically lose his disguise. Alternatively, a Spy can manually remove his disguise by opening the Disguise Menu and selecting a Spy on his own team.
Notes
- 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 Kits 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 teammates but not enemies.
- The Electro Sapper will not remove the disguise if used.
Issues
- A Spy disguised as a person wearing a hat with a particle effect (such as Unusual or Community hats) will have the appropriate hats, but with no particle effect.
- It is possible for a disguised Spy to have the appearance of equipping two weapons that share the same slot. In the example above to the right, the Spy disguised as a Sniper is holding the Darwin's Danger Shield and the Submachine Gun, both secondary slot weapons.
Related Achievements
General
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Scarechievements
Pyro
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Engineer
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Medic
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Spy
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Update history
- Medi Gun no longer continues to heal enemy Spies who have lost their disguise.
- Fixed Spies exploit enabling them to attack while disguising, without losing disguise.
- Fixed cloaked/disguised/disguising Spy reporting his achievements to everyone else
- Added "Toggle Disguise Team" binding in Options->Keyboard to toggle the disguise team for the Spy's PDA
- Fixed "lastdisguise" command not remembering if you were disguised as your own team
- Teleporter effect no longer shows up on invisible or disguised Spies.
- Spies disguised as their own team can now capture control points.
- Improved prediction of Spy's speed changes when disguising.
- Fixed overheal particle effect showing up incorrectly on disguised or cloaked Spies.
- When disguising, Spies now always start showing the primary weapon in their disguise, and can then switch it with the last-disguise key.
- Fixed client crash when determining which disguise weapon to use for a Spy.
- Fixed Spies disguised as their own team not drawing blood effects.
- Fixed disguised Spies occasionally looking like they have invulnerability, instead of the correct fake Spy mask.
- Disguised Spies will no longer lose their disguise weapon when they interact with a weapon locker.
- Disguised Spies no longer trigger On-Hit effects (like the Blutsauger's heal).
- Fixed disguised Spies not getting ammo from enemy Dispensers.
- Fixed Spies being able to disguise while performing a taunt.
- The Spy now pretends to be carrying the weapons & wearables of the target he's disguised as.
- Alternative Spy disguise menu, which lets you choose disguises using just the 1-3 keys.
- Players no longer see the wearables that are a part of a friendly Spy's disguise, fixing various graphical glitches
- Disguise weapons copying weapons with special animation requirements (Sword, FaN) now look correct.
- Fixed Spies disguised as Medics hearing the autocaller sound.
- Fixed items that can be worn by any class having the wrong model when worn by a disguised Spy.
- Fixed bug with disguised Spy sometimes seeing his own name in the disguise status HUD.
See also
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