Valve is teasing us. If you keep refreshing the Spy Update page, eventually you’ll see a Jarate jar headed for the spy’s head.

I was insistent that Jarate was not the final sniper weapon, and it’s looking like I was wrong.

Update: Totally eating crow. Throw piss, 35% extra damage, extinguish fires, short of spy cloaks. I want to know more on that last one.

Today’s Team Fortress 2 spy update features the replacement for the revolver – The Ambassador. Valve has provided a replacement that I can immediately tell I will like.

The ambassador has the same ammo capacity as the revolver, with much greater power and accuracy, at the cost of firing speed. You must be sure you are going to hit your target, but since I rarely use the revolver as is, that is a good trade off. It still can be used to fake a reload animation while in disguise, but now I can actually use my gun for kills.

As a disguised spy, I can see enemy health indicators – just know how much damage the ambassador does and fire at targets that you are sure you will hit. Don’t waste a shot on the unknown, don’t try to hold a firefight (I don’t anyway, if I mess up, I cloak and bail), and don’t fire in a crowded area. This would be great for a target returning from the front lines for health. Just put the cursor over, find out whether you can kill, and pull the trigger. If it can do significant damage to snipers, it might even be good for countering the Razorback – just open fire while he is in the scope, and immediately switch to the knife to finish the job.

Unlike most of the unlockable weapons, this is one that I can’t see much of a downside with my play style. I already avoid firefights, so losing rate of fire isn’t a big deal. I will definitely be switching to this baby once it’s available.

Today, Valve released the list of Spy achievements. While I have yet to find a good source on what each achivement is for, the name and picture is a pretty good indicator. Looking at that list, I couldn’t help but wonder which ones I would already have if Valve retroactively gave achivements…

Here is my thoughts on what I would have…

I always knew that knowing the map is very important for spies, but over the weekend, I discovered an additional reason why that is important – spawn room changes. On certain maps, the spawn room will change as the game goes on. On cp_well, for instance, if one team takes the center control point, their spawn room will move forward to the center. As a spy, I had moved far beyond enemy lines, all the way to the last control point, and I began to sap teleporter entrances, dispensers and sentries in the area. I encountered no resistance, but also did no good. If the enemy spawn room is at the central control point, sapping a teleporter entrance at the last control point is useless.

This same concept applies even more to payload maps. The spawn point for the teams continuously shifts as the cart moves forward. You must know where the current spawn room is located, and take that into consideration when you are planning your spy attacks. Moving all the way past the current spawn point, back to the rear most spawn point, is purely a waste of time. You are doing no good sapping teleporter entrances that aren’t being used or sapping dispensers that are far out of the way. All you are really doing is telling an enemy engineer that there is an enemy spy in the rear. A good engineer will now suddenly be extremely suspicious of anyone further back than the current spawn room.

I will add this type of information to my Way of the Spy series in the future, to help spies understand how the map shifts as the game goes on, so the spy is always in the most useful location for the time.

A video leaked today that looks very much like the official Meet the Spy video. While Valve is still quiet on it, the voice acting is correct, and it would fit with the recent Spy update dropped suddenly into the Sniper update.

While it was the best quote of any of the Meet the Class videos, I must say I enjoyed the Meet the Sniper video more.

Valve caught me very much by surprise with today’s update to the sniper update – it’s not actually a sniper update, but a spy update. The update shows an ad with various spy products, two of which are highlighted and marked for purchase – the Dead Ringer watch and the Cloak and Dagger.

The Dead Ringer creates the illusion of being killed when shot at, and instantly cloaks the real you. The Cloak and Dagger provides infinite cloak, so long as you remain motionless. Both would be very useful when infiltrating the enemy base, but almost too useful. I don’t see a drawback to it. Does this replace the revolver? The sapper? Is this a new item slot altogether, along the lines of the headgear slot that opened up recently?

I would love to have either one of these items, but I don’t know what the drawback will be, or if this is even real. We are in the midst of the sniper update, when this little bomb is dropped. What is Valve doing? I’m going to wait and see, that’s for sure, but right now, I’m just confused. As a spy, I think both items are great and will help me take down many enemies, but as a passionate gamer, I need to know what the drawback will be on these items. They are simply too good as they are.

I could easily give up the revolver for either one of these. I would lose my gun (big deal) and I would lose my ability to do a reload animation (which is actually more useful than firing the weapon), but infinite cloak would be well worth it. Learning places to stop and charge would be easy enough to do.

I don’t think I could give up my sapper. I need it to take down buildings, and I strongly suspect the new Razorback shield can be sapped and disabled. I’ve already learned how to infiltrate without these two items, if I had to lose my sapper to gain them, I’d just keep the sapper.

This update came so far out of left field. I’m still not even sure it’s real.

Update: I feel pretty foolish about this, since I play Spy a lot and all, but apparently the weapon loadout shows the revolver, knife and watch, not the revolver, sapper and knife. So when I was considering what item would be replaced by these watches, I didn’t even consider it would just replace the regular watch. I also re-read the article a bit more and noticed the drawback of both items is mentioned on the update – the Cloak and Dagger cannot be refreshed by any means other than standing still (so my Way of the Spy articles don’t apply to it, since they rely so heavily on locations of ammopacks) and the Dead Ringer cannot be used at will for cloaking, it can only cloak you to fake your death. I will be playing with these watches as soon as I have them unlocked, and you can be certain that I will immediately write up what I have discovered with them.

Anyone who has been keeping up with Team Fortress 2 this week is well aware of the imminent Sniper update. As these updates come up, I think about how it relates to my class of choice – the spy.

On Day 1, Valve unveiled the Huntsman, a new bow that replaces the sniper rifle. This new bow leaves arrows in its target for a period of time and encourages the sniper to be a little more close in than they are with the sniper rifle. This will make snipers a less attractive target for spies. If the weapon encourages snipers to move in closer and engage enemies a little more, that puts them in the same territory as a pyro – a 100% movement speed target that is weaving through combat, only without the intense spy fear of fire. It won’t make them more effective against spies, but they won’t be as stationary, and thus less attractive of a target. It will give them a bit better spy checking, however, since the arrows would pass through allies, but not disguised spies. So, as a spy, a Huntsman wielding sniper is a far less appealing target than a rifle wielding sniper. One thing that is still a bit unknown on this weapon is the color of the arrow fletchings. The screenshots thus far show them as a neutral color, but coloring the fletchings as red or blue, depending on the sniper, would fit well with the game, and more importantly, be a huge spy giveaway. As a RED spy disguised as a BLU engineer, if a BLU sniper hits me with a blue fletched arrow, any observant player would note that the arrow sticking out of me is the wrong color – I must be on RED, since only a RED player could get hit with a blue fletched arrow.

On Day 2, Valve unveiled a new map type, the payload race, and two new maps, arena_sawmill and arena_nucleus. I can’t really comment on payload race or arena_nucleus at the moment, but arena_sawmill has an interesting aspect to it regarding spies – rain. This is the first official map that contains weather effects, and rain may reveal disguised spies to an observant player. In ctf_2fort, a spy in the water will drip upon stepping out of the water while cloaked. In arena_sawmill, a spy may be constantly dripping while cloaked, and that would be visible to enemies. When that map is available, I will definitely do a The Way of the Spy write up and make sure I pay attention to whether or not a spy drips while cloaked. This map may require attention being paid to awnings and buildings that will shield you from the spy-exposing rain.

Today’s update is as of yet unknown, but I will certainly comment on it as soon as it’s available.

The official Team Fortress 2 blog just posted an update – the first announced unlockable Sniper weapon is the Hunting Bow. I’m excited – really excited. As a Spy, I will be thrilled with all of the snipers standing around.

Also – while they haven’t stated this yet – I am willing to bet that the fletchings on the arrow will match the team of the sniper that fired the shot. Therefore, a new method of spychecking will involve the arrow sticking out of a player. If a RED player has a red fletched arrow sticking out of him, it’s a spy.

I was quite wrong on my prediction on the weapon. I figured it would be a mid range rifle of some kind… like the Halo battle rifle.