Your duty as a spy is to sap clustered groups of robots, kill high priority targets (Uber medics, bomb carrier, snipers, etc.), and take out large fractions of giants' health. So you may be thinking, "Oh, just find one of those targets and immediately attack, right?" WRONG! As a spy, you may be thinking that the group of heavies is a problem, but what about that giant demo right behind them? Or what about that non-clustered group of robots continuing to pour into the stage? This is the beauty of the spy. Not the "Rush in and attack" class, not the "Guns-a-blazing" class, but instead the "Just the right moment" class. The class that score fewer points, but really makes each and every one of those points matter. Make sure you will not be attacked by other robots. If it's an emergency, though, attack then RUN! As a spy, it's important to prioritize. Here's how I do it, personally. It's somewhere to start until you have enough knowledge to make your own priority list. Remember, break off from the chart if it's an urgent situation and you need to, like the bomb is near the hatch.

1.) Medics-You are probably the best class for medic-hunting. For small medics, they stay pretty clustered, so you can sap them to make them stand still and block their target's healing, and bigger ones can have at least a half of their health taken from a decent spy with the right upgrades.

2.)Giants and other high health enemies- They can rip through your team if they aren't aware. A spy can wipe away a good fraction of their health, similar to giant medics. Make sure they are under fire, or the giant will instantly turn around and attack you. Also, steel gauntlets fall under this catagory. You know, the steel fisted freaks that makes you rip your hair out as an engy or heavy? Yea, spy is the best class for them.

3.)Clustered robot groups- Sap them first, then backstab as many in the group as possible. They will only be deactivated for a short amount of time, so no goofing off! Of course, last time someone said that a sponge kept stalling his essay. Anyways, remember that to sap multiple robots at once you have to get the sapper upgrade. You can also "back"stab deactivated robots from any angle.

4.)Non-clustered robot groups- If they aren't clustered , the best you can do is buy your team some time. Sap a few in the front of the group and run. That's all you can really do besides getting one stab in then getting shot to death.

Like I said, this is the priority list I use and recommend that you use it. Other than that, I don't think I have much else to say about how you play. Loadout time.

Yes. No primary.

Default: 1/5
Decent power on body shots, but no real utility, and really, how often will you be fighting from a distance?

Ambassador: 3 1/4 /5
Decent for dealing damage to giants from a distance, but as a spy, you will already be backstabbing the giants, which does much more damage. Also, many people say you can "draw aggro" to giants with it, meaning you can distract it. Well, this is actually not as effective as it may seem. You see, the way this works is that the robots always go after the target doing the most damage, and with a headshot, you will do 102 damage a piece. However, between each shot, there is a "cooldown" period, where you are unable to get headshots. By the time you the cooldown is over, your teammates will, most likely, outdamage you. Your knife is much better for drawing aggro.

Diamondback: 4/5
Storing up crits is great for tanks. 102 a piece until you run out of crits. Just backstab a few robots and start shooting. Better for drawing aggro than Amby.

Enforcer: 3/5
Could the enforcer be better for tanks? It doesn't have crits, like the diamondback, but the enforcer's damage bonus doesn't run out. But count the slower firing speed and the reload time, It's better to butterknife the tank. And with the slower firing speed, It's worse than amby to draw aggro.

L'etrangler: 3 1/2 /5
Surprised? Don't be. The extra cloak time means more protection from your dead ringer, which you should have, but I'll cover that later. You probably won't shoot with it much, but, making up for the damage penalty, you get a little cloak on hit, helping you charge it just fast enough to possibly get you out of a sticky situation. However, do NOT use this on expert missions, because there will Razorback snipers, which mean you will use your gun, and you will want to do a lot of damage.

Here come the Knives.

...I've got nothing.

Default:3 1/2/5
A balanced choice that if great for beginners and experts alike.

Spy-cicle: 2 1/2 /5
Can save you from fire, sure, but sometimes I would find that I run from a group of pyros, pulling out my dead ringer, but my knife takes the hit instead, so I now have to wait 15 second for my knife back. And since your sapper has recharge, you can easily get stuck with your gun, or, if your out of ammo for that, your disguise kit.

Your Eternal Reward: 1/5
NO. NO NO NO. NEVER. Why does the YER suck? Because with any other knife, you can get your disguise easily. With this, not only do you have to find a away to get behind them without dying, but you have to make should they don't notice you. Even while I was disguised, they would a look at me for a moment, but then look back since I'm disguised. If you aren't disguised, they won't turn there heads back, and will try to kill you. And even still, even if, somehow, you get a disguise, what's the buff? You could have just pulled out your disguise kit with any other knife! It would have been so much easier! This disguise has no extra bonus that makes it better than other knives. And still, when you obtain you disguise, the robots won't fall for the old "undetectable stab" that people do in PvP. If they see you stab them, no matter what, THEY WILL SHOOT!

Conniver's Kunai: 2 1/2 /5
Good on smaller bots, but you with your decreased health, you will have a problem with giants. Use it on missions with few giants, which is about none.

Big earner:3 1/2 /5
This can help you charge your cloak, great for sapping small robots and attacking at low cloak.

I will count both PDA's in this next section.

Dead Ringer: 5/5
Being disguised to the robots is pretty much like being cloaked to the robots, and vice versa. When you are disguised, they don't care if you uncloaked right infront of them. They also don't mind if you bump into them. Also, fences that you can see through count as brick walls to the robots. And finally, they don't mind if you're disguised as a soldier in the midst of a group of heavies. Btw, you should always disguise as scout, it will make your movement speed upgrades worth while. Now that we are done talking about the A.I. of the robots, let's discuss how it will be used. You it's much easier to escape with the Dead Ringer instead of any other cloak. Why? Defensive buff. Also, being disguised is like being cloaked. Your cloak provide a buff, a utility. Neither of the others do.

Other cloaks:0/5
See above.

Sappers
Sapper choice doesn't matter much, but the RTR has a slight advantage. When sapping an engineer's teleporter, he won't try to save it if it's under construction. With the regular sapper, you'd have you strike when the tele is building. With the RTR, sapping it makes it go "under construction" so the engy won't save it. Also, nobody can use the teleporter if it's under construction. The RTR causes "construction" to occur, thus disabling that, as well.

Upgrades section is next.

At least one point of sapper power.
Movement speed, load as much as you can into your knife, more sapper power.
Knife priority: Armor penetration, attack speed, health on kill, Crits on kill
If you have extra money, resistances and a point or two of jump height.

EDIT: There's a guide on Exponential Upgrades. It's very informative.

http://steamoss.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=281878917

Thanks for reading this guide on the spy! Sorry it was delayed a bit. I couldn't add squidly's knowledge words because I messaged him several times and he did NOT give me his spy knowledge. Anyways, as usual, requests and constructive critisism is appreciated. Also, here is the medic guide.

http://steamoss.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=276496570

Anyways, the next guide is for demo, and it's here! See ya!

http://steamoss.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=283282324