Off the top of my head some of the most swapped out stock items might be soldier/heavy secondaries. Having a banner or gunboats on soldier or a lunchbox item on heavy often works better than a shotgun when they have their primaries to carry their DPS.
Another downside of Your Eternal Reward that wasn't mentioned: Because Spy copies the movement speed of the person he is disguised as (except Scout), this means that if you backstab a slow-moving target like Heavy, you are now stuck with with slow movement speed (while not cloaked). Which means you will have to make a choice: -Keep the "slow" disguise and hope that you will backstab a faster target -Drop the disguise, revealing yourself -Manually choose a new disguise, sacrificing all of your cloak charge for it.
the snack attack is a reskin of stock. so its only real competitor is the Red Tape Recorder. so it has no competitor, it's pure visual preference on whether you prefer to look at an emp, a chompey bread boi, or hear whitley from portal 2 talk to you when you pull it out.
the reason stock weapons are better than unlockable weapons is because the game at launch did not have unlockables, so logically stock were created to be useful in every scenario you could get into, unlockables were added later to give alternative playstyles and more variety. Also unlockables generally give you an advantage in a certain situation in exchange for a disadvantage in other situations, for example: the spycicle gives you better survibability against pyros but you are less sneaky because of the frozen corpse on backstab and losing your knife if you are hit by fire.
The Eternal Reward is actually, according to a few polls I've seen, is the LEAST used spy knife. Nonetheless, I was ganna recommend this once you were done with this series but this is good timing - the UA-camr HintShot makes EXTREMELY well edited and high quality spy videos, and covered the Your Eternal Reward most recently. By high quality, I mean he made an entire 20+ min custom soundtrack for said video level of quality... yeah. If you want to use the knife, I'd recommend watching that first - it'd make a super good reaction, but even if not it'd be good for info
As far as I know, the snack attack is a pure reskin of stock sapper. But considering the infamous Source Spaghetti there might be a weird corner case like "increases sapping speed by 69 server ticks on the second saturday of Gaben's dog's nephew's birth month" if you think I'm joking about how janky the Source Engine is the bread monster reskins of Jarate and Mad Milk are slightly heavier than stock (for some reason) and therefore travel like 3 inches further when thrown
The stock knife is called the best knife because it has no downside that comes with the upsides from other knifes. If you can exploit the upsides from the other knife unlockables that are explained in this video, you can switch to that knife. For example, the current pub matches meta is the Kunai because you can snag one noob to negate the health penalty, or if your movement and gamesense is good you can equip the Big Earner as you can survive more by running fast rather than just a measly 25 health. And i use the Your Eternal Reward often despite the inflexibility of the disguise draining your entire cloak, because i can easily act as the target i just stabbed and have easier time surviving after a stab by blending in.
The Your Eternal Reward is sadly the least used knife. It's really good because people don't expect it to be used, but still no one uses it because of the cloak drain specifically (The L'Etranger is mostly used with the Y.E.R. to cancel the drain) Neat concept, but the cloak drain really makes people dislike it and not use it, that and also they just want to use Kunai for their frag movies.
4:28 Medic's stock weapons (aka his syringe gun and bonesaw) aren't the greatest but it's due to prevent the medic players from going ham with medic without using his medi gun. Other than that most of the stock weapons are great.......ok maybe not heavy's stock shotgun secondary, the sandvich covers that........and most of the classes melee are kinda meh. 10:25 Sadly no it's not used as much as the other knives, that privilege goes to the Kunai, if it wasn't for that cloak drain rate AND the disguise needing to take a WHOLE cloak meter just to disguise, I'd use this knife all the time. I still use it but only when pair with the L'etranger.
21:29 yes it does shows that but I believe that there needs to be a big asterisk as it shows the best knife for the SENERIO,the point of options isn’t really to give variety but it does as a plus but the point of the variety is to aid you for every given scenario.EX:when dealing with engies the your eternal reward is the best because sentries won’t target you but if you need to deal with pyros the spycicle is the best one.(Also I would recommend not using the options when first starting out as the options would make you see the class differently and make it harder for you to learn the class itself,kinda like learning to ride a bike and instead of learning on a sidewalk you learn on a hill…blindfolded…with weights on your legs…)
i love these type of videos, you learn so much about the game really quick with all of these creators around that produced so much good stuff! it's always a blast watching you react to this kind of stuff! i hope for some shenanigans sfm's soon as well ahah i love your laugh! have a great day man
He hypes up the Spysicle, but it really isnt that great vs pyros. You're immune to afterburn, but that doesnt stop damage from the pyro, plus, you lose your ability to try to trickstab the pyro.
@@wintube360 Oh, absolutely, but vs a pyro who even somewhat knows what he's doing, there's a chance the pyro ALSO has a gun, that will greatly outdamage the peashooter spy has. Even then, the flamthrower's DPS even without afterburn can quickly do a spy in. As someone with 1k+ hours in pyro, I was the spysicle buffed to be better at countering pyros.
My favorite is defenetly the Big Earner, i love how it rewards new players with a fast escape, and expirienced players with easy chaining backstabs, a masterfully balanced weapon
The kunai makes way for a way more aggresive playstyle. If you master how to escape, you can essentially backstab someone in the middle of a crowd and gain enough health to get away
Primary weapon: by primary weapon, i don't necessarily mean the weapon in the primary slot, but rather the one that you'll be primarily using. the one you'll have out for most of the game, if you will, although for most classes it doesn't make that much of a difference. Scout's primary weapon is the scattergun, soldier's is the rocket launcher, pyro's is the flamethrower, demo's is the grenade launcher, heavy's is the minigun's, sniper's is the sniper rifle, but when i talk about engie's primary, i mean the wrench even it's technically his melee, for medic i mean the medigun even if it's technically his secondary, and spy i mean his knife even if, like engie, it's technically his melee. it's just that those are the weapons they'll have out, for most of the time (assuming they're not memeing with a subclass and doing their job right). it's also said as a half-joke that demoman has 2 primaries in the grenade launcher in the primary slot and the stickybomb launcher in his secondary slot that arguably does more damage than the grenade launcher. to be honest, i kind of agree with that thought, it's kinda ridiculous. it's also worth noting that spy doesn't technically have a primary weapon slot. his revolver is in his secondary slot and his sapper and disguise kit both occupy 2 distinct PDA slots. all of the stock primary weapons are considered the best because they don't have any downsides that would put you at a disadvantage in certain situations, so they're the best to have if you don't know what you're up against. Secondary weapon: the other weapon that'll stay in the class's back pocket, most of the game, but if get pulled out if the situation demands it. tends to be used as the primary weapon in meme subclasses. for scout's it's the pistol, soldier, pyro, and heavy have the shotgun, sniper has the SMG, medic has a syringe gun, and SPY HAS A GUN (revolver). engie, however, actually has 2 secondaries, by that definition: the shotgun (occupies the primary slot) and the pistol (occupies the secondary slot). the stock secondary weapons are generally seen as viable, but most classes have other secondaries that are much more popular. usually used to compliment the primary weapon. it's pretty rare to see soldier with a shotgun, since the banners and gunboats are so popular. the scout's secondaries are all really good, so the pistol just kinda blends in. pyro has flare guns, which do more damage at longer ranges. heavy already has the highest potential DPS in his minigun so equiping a lunchbox is generally preferable to a shotgun. engie has a selection of great shotguns (yes i see you other there, pomson, and no i don't count you) and his 2 other weapons in the pistol's slot are also great in specific situations (for the wrangler, the speficic situation is you have a sentry active). medic's syringe guns are designed to suck at damaging enemies to desentivize using the only dedicated healing class like a DPS class, as a result it tends to be swapped out for the crusader's crossbow as soon as it's unlocked. sniper's SMG works when he's caught in shorter ranges, but it gets outgunned by every primary weapon outside of medic and spy, so it tends to get replaced with backpacks or the good ol' jar of piss and they rely on their melee for close range self defense. for spy's revolver ... you'll see when you get to that video. Melee weapon: Not much difference than the slots. it's the weapon that's very short range, does not require any ammo under any circumstance, and is rarely kept at stock, once another weapon has been unlocked. for Scout, Pyro, and Heavy, it's because at that range the primary weapon will be much more effective, so they might as well use the melee slot for utility. For Soldier and Demo, the stock melee is usally used when the enemy is so close that hitting them with the primary would also injure you. soldier's melee unlockables, however, have a lot of utility outside of combat which means stock tends to be tossed out as soon as an unlock is achieved. for demo, he has 2 other playstyles, demoknight and hybridknight, which tends to swap out the melee for something that complements that subclass. for grenade demo, however, the stock bottle is still arguably the best. medic's stock bonesaw does its job, but the existance of the ubersaw, which grants 25% uber upon hitting an enemy, pretty much invalidates every other weapon in that slot (and that's not even mentioning the hidden stat of 100% random crit rate at the dumbest fucking moment it has). for engineer and spy, their melees tend to be their primary weapons, so while the stock weapons tend to be the best in all situation (i.e. there are no situation where you'll be at a significant disadvantage), they have some very interesting options that i definitely recommend giving a try. as for sniper, while stock is really good, the bushwacka turns mini-crits into full crits, which gives the sniper guaranteed 195 damage on any swing on anyone that managed to flank to his position when paired with the jarate (ah yes, let's take the class supposed to be good at long range a weak at close range and give him the option to get guaranteed crits at melee range. what the fuck were they thinking?).
4:28 I've seen alot of comments address this so far, but one thing I haven't seen being mentioned is utility picks for certian classes, especially pyro and medic. While stock is our all-rounder and therefore the best for almost all use cases, a major outlier does exist for all classes: (besides engie and spy, for obvious reasons,) melee. For those 7 classes. a situation where melee is used is generally accepted to be a situation you should not be in, considering that 1: everything in this game does tons of damage in bursts so a prolonged melee fight will usually not even exist, and 2: melee hit registration feels like wrestling someone covered in oil. (unless you are playing demoknight or hybridknight, ofc.) This is a sentiment that is widely accepted to the point that tf2 has a certian offshoot of your normal melee fare, a set of items that is not really used to deal damage, but to assist you in your team in a variety of ways, which i like to call: Utility Melees. Going down the line of some notable ones: Scout has: The atomizer, a bat that takes longer to pull out and does less damage, but gives him a THIRD jump while held. The boston basher, a seemingly precision-based barbed bat that deals bleed to enemies but, if you miss will cause yourself to take bleed, which, since damage=knockback in tf2, means it is both a psuedo triple jump, and a way for medics to build uber quicker while out of combat. (medic gains uber quicker when healing hurt teammates or teammates under sustained fire vs. a healthy or overhealed teammate) The fan-o-war, a gunbai which trades your ability to do damage in for the extremely, EXTREMELY powerful ability to mark a player for death for an extended period of time. (meaning all damage they take will be mini-crits for the next 6 seconds, and on top of that, has a marker over said players head, so everyone will know where to direct their fire) Soldier has: The escape plan, a pickaxe which, depending on your health, will increase your movement speed, but mark you for death, both statuses apply while being held only. It ensures your continued survival no matter what you were doing before. The disiplinary action, a whip which, when hitting your teammates, will give both you and them a speed boost for a short period of time, like the escape plan, but moreso used for getting you and your team INTO the fight, instead of getting out of it. (fun fact, the whip has the largest range in the entire game, to the extent that before the most recent patch that updated the game to a 64 bit architecture, would allow you to hit people behind you.) Pyro (the absolute monarch of all things utility melee) has: The powerjack, considered one of (if not the) best melees for all around use, this car battery attached to a carjack allows pyro to move 15% faster while out at the cost of 20% damage vulnerability. It also gives 25 health on kill, but considering extinguishing teammates gives you 20 health back without even needing to put yourself in melee range, this is kinda pointless. (also, this was the melee lazypurple made the naruto joke about in his follow-up to the pyro video!) The back scratcher, a garden rake which gives you a bonus of 50% extra health from health packs (meaning 40% of your total health will be recieved from small health kits, and 75 from medium!) and a 25% damage bonus (bringing a single non-crit hit from the back scratcher to a ridiculous 77 damage), but causes the effectiveness of medi-beams from medics, dispensers, and the payload cart to be reduced by 75%. It is an amazing sidegrade to wear around if you are playing alone, or without a medic. The homewrecker, a sledgehammer that trades away effectiveness against players for a staggering double damage against buildings (124 per hit! thats enough to kill all of engineers sentries in just 2 smacks, given you get the chance to ;) and the incredibly useful ability to destroy sappers in only one swing, twice as fast as the engineer! Demo, beyond a single meager choice in the pain train, does not really have "utility" weapons, since he basically is 2 classes depending on whether or not you want to throw away your guns and charge into battle with a shield at hand. Heavy has: The holiday punch, the cozy mittens you heard me gush all about in the "meet the items" reaction you posted. (seriously i love these gloves) The gloves of running urgently, a pair of boxing gloves emblazoned with fire that give the heavy 30% move speed while being held, at the cost of being marked for death, and having your maximum health drain while using them, allowing you to get back into the fight much, much faster, at the cost of entering said fight a little weaker than being patient. The killing gloves of boxing, a plain pair of boxing gloves, which while taking 20% to throw your punches, give you 5 full seconds of critical hits on a successful kill (on any weapon!), rewarding the slow and large target that is heavy for surviving at his most vulnerable against close-range classes. Medic (the prince of utility melees) has: The ubersaw, considered the most powerful melee in all of tf2 by almost everyone, for the insane reward of 1/4 of your entire ubercharge meter built on a single hit! Seeing a medic without an ubersaw is a rare (but trust me, welcome) sight, because if you are in melee range as medic, you are probably dead, but on the off-chance you aren't, thats a free 25% in the pocket. The amputator, a lesser-used but still great bonesaw which gives the medic a free +3 health per second while equipped at the cost of a 20% damage penalty, but its most useful ability is the taunt for the weapon, which allows medic to disperse a weaker, but wide A-O-E heal effect for anyone in range of him (which also builds uber just like your normal medi-gun!). This is a great weapon to use in strenuous, chokey maps that tend to end up with stalemates, since they cause your team to hunker down in a fixed position. Their reliable position lets you taunt without the fear of attack.(or, at least, a reduced fear of attack) And finally, Sniper has: The bushwacka, a kukuri which trades away a 20% damage vulnerability and the ability to random crits with the ability to always crit when you would normally mini-crit. This, of course, pairs super nicely with the jarate, which marks an enemy for death when they are coated in it, giving sniper a 1-2-delete combo, given you don't miss. (I have also, only once, seen about 5 bushwacka snipers charge in at the same time with a buff banner soldier, and it was the scariest thing I think I have ever witnessed in a casual game.) The tribalman's shiv, the weakest of all the weapons we have looked at, but still a great kukuri which trades half your melee damage for a 5 second bleed effect. This is great for tracking spies or disrupting the aim of precision classes like scout, since bleed causes recoil. Just some food (or in this case, an essay i guess lmao) for thought! hopefully it helps you and I haven't repeated any info you have already gotten!
I hope it's not going to be to much to think about when starting to play spy, although theese tips are very great. Don't get overwhelmed by all the stuff. Actually playing every class makes you understand them more. So just getting out there and trying your best is what matters!
Hey, I heavily recommend the “Spooktacular” series by Doctor Lalve. He has a playlist on his channel with them. Very funny nonsensical stuff that just makes you laugh hard. Think you’ll love it!
Off the top of my head some of the most swapped out stock items might be soldier/heavy secondaries. Having a banner or gunboats on soldier or a lunchbox item on heavy often works better than a shotgun when they have their primaries to carry their DPS.
I see! Thanks for telling me!
I would say Medic's syringe gun and melee is way up there. Almost any unlockable is a straight upgrade there
Another downside of Your Eternal Reward that wasn't mentioned:
Because Spy copies the movement speed of the person he is disguised as (except Scout), this means that if you backstab a slow-moving target like Heavy, you are now stuck with with slow movement speed (while not cloaked). Which means you will have to make a choice:
-Keep the "slow" disguise and hope that you will backstab a faster target
-Drop the disguise, revealing yourself
-Manually choose a new disguise, sacrificing all of your cloak charge for it.
He covers the movement speeds in his how to disguise video.
the snack attack is a reskin of stock. so its only real competitor is the Red Tape Recorder.
so it has no competitor, it's pure visual preference on whether you prefer to look at an emp, a chompey bread boi, or hear whitley from portal 2 talk to you when you pull it out.
So far I think the snack attack looks the best!
@@formattedorc
Yeah, only problem
It was only available during the Love and War update
So it's pretty expensive now
the reason stock weapons are better than unlockable weapons is because the game at launch did not have unlockables, so logically stock were created to be useful in every scenario you could get into, unlockables were added later to give alternative playstyles and more variety.
Also unlockables generally give you an advantage in a certain situation in exchange for a disadvantage in other situations, for example: the spycicle gives you better survibability against pyros but you are less sneaky because of the frozen corpse on backstab and losing your knife if you are hit by fire.
I love this! I think they did a great job with the weapons!
The Eternal Reward is actually, according to a few polls I've seen, is the LEAST used spy knife.
Nonetheless, I was ganna recommend this once you were done with this series but this is good timing - the UA-camr HintShot makes EXTREMELY well edited and high quality spy videos, and covered the Your Eternal Reward most recently. By high quality, I mean he made an entire 20+ min custom soundtrack for said video level of quality... yeah. If you want to use the knife, I'd recommend watching that first - it'd make a super good reaction, but even if not it'd be good for info
I'll be sure to check it out! Thanks!
As far as I know, the snack attack is a pure reskin of stock sapper. But considering the infamous Source Spaghetti there might be a weird corner case like "increases sapping speed by 69 server ticks on the second saturday of Gaben's dog's nephew's birth month"
if you think I'm joking about how janky the Source Engine is the bread monster reskins of Jarate and Mad Milk are slightly heavier than stock (for some reason) and therefore travel like 3 inches further when thrown
Really?! That's interesting for sure!
The stock knife is called the best knife because it has no downside that comes with the upsides from other knifes. If you can exploit the upsides from the other knife unlockables that are explained in this video, you can switch to that knife. For example, the current pub matches meta is the Kunai because you can snag one noob to negate the health penalty, or if your movement and gamesense is good you can equip the Big Earner as you can survive more by running fast rather than just a measly 25 health. And i use the Your Eternal Reward often despite the inflexibility of the disguise draining your entire cloak, because i can easily act as the target i just stabbed and have easier time surviving after a stab by blending in.
I see! Stock definitely seems like the best option.
The Your Eternal Reward is sadly the least used knife. It's really good because people don't expect it to be used, but still no one uses it because of the cloak drain specifically (The L'Etranger is mostly used with the Y.E.R. to cancel the drain)
Neat concept, but the cloak drain really makes people dislike it and not use it, that and also they just want to use Kunai for their frag movies.
4:28 Medic's stock weapons (aka his syringe gun and bonesaw) aren't the greatest but it's due to prevent the medic players from going ham with medic without using his medi gun. Other than that most of the stock weapons are great.......ok maybe not heavy's stock shotgun secondary, the sandvich covers that........and most of the classes melee are kinda meh.
10:25 Sadly no it's not used as much as the other knives, that privilege goes to the Kunai, if it wasn't for that cloak drain rate AND the disguise needing to take a WHOLE cloak meter just to disguise, I'd use this knife all the time. I still use it but only when pair with the L'etranger.
I definitely want to try out the Kunai!
21:29 yes it does shows that but I believe that there needs to be a big asterisk as it shows the best knife for the SENERIO,the point of options isn’t really to give variety but it does as a plus but the point of the variety is to aid you for every given scenario.EX:when dealing with engies the your eternal reward is the best because sentries won’t target you but if you need to deal with pyros the spycicle is the best one.(Also I would recommend not using the options when first starting out as the options would make you see the class differently and make it harder for you to learn the class itself,kinda like learning to ride a bike and instead of learning on a sidewalk you learn on a hill…blindfolded…with weights on your legs…)
I'm glad they gave you different playstyles to work with. I think it's awesome!
Best knife is one What suits the situation you are in the most (what you of course dont have in your hands rn) or one you adicted to play with
I see! I'll definitely start with stock but I am sure I will try them all out!
i love these type of videos, you learn so much about the game really quick with all of these creators around that produced so much good stuff! it's always a blast watching you react to this kind of stuff! i hope for some shenanigans sfm's soon as well ahah i love your laugh! have a great day man
Shenanigans coming soon my friend! Glad you are enjoying the reaction!
He hypes up the Spysicle, but it really isnt that great vs pyros. You're immune to afterburn, but that doesnt stop damage from the pyro, plus, you lose your ability to try to trickstab the pyro.
but you have a gun
@@wintube360 Oh, absolutely, but vs a pyro who even somewhat knows what he's doing, there's a chance the pyro ALSO has a gun, that will greatly outdamage the peashooter spy has. Even then, the flamthrower's DPS even without afterburn can quickly do a spy in. As someone with 1k+ hours in pyro, I was the spysicle buffed to be better at countering pyros.
yeah i've used the spysicle a few times and found that the only thing it accomplishes is annoying the pyro
@@Jpmrocks7what will that do against razorback crit?
@@Darwin-sama nothing
My favorite is defenetly the Big Earner, i love how it rewards new players with a fast escape, and expirienced players with easy chaining backstabs, a masterfully balanced weapon
I love how connected you are to your audience! You commenting on all these comments really proves how genuine of a person you are!
The kunai makes way for a way more aggresive playstyle. If you master how to escape, you can essentially backstab someone in the middle of a crowd and gain enough health to get away
The stock primary and melee for medic is almost always switched out for alternatives. The regular medigun secondary is good as stock
Medic best is Uber saw
and Crusader’s Crossbow
neither actually stock
I'll be trying both out for sure!
Primary weapon: by primary weapon, i don't necessarily mean the weapon in the primary slot, but rather the one that you'll be primarily using. the one you'll have out for most of the game, if you will, although for most classes it doesn't make that much of a difference. Scout's primary weapon is the scattergun, soldier's is the rocket launcher, pyro's is the flamethrower, demo's is the grenade launcher, heavy's is the minigun's, sniper's is the sniper rifle, but when i talk about engie's primary, i mean the wrench even it's technically his melee, for medic i mean the medigun even if it's technically his secondary, and spy i mean his knife even if, like engie, it's technically his melee. it's just that those are the weapons they'll have out, for most of the time (assuming they're not memeing with a subclass and doing their job right). it's also said as a half-joke that demoman has 2 primaries in the grenade launcher in the primary slot and the stickybomb launcher in his secondary slot that arguably does more damage than the grenade launcher. to be honest, i kind of agree with that thought, it's kinda ridiculous. it's also worth noting that spy doesn't technically have a primary weapon slot. his revolver is in his secondary slot and his sapper and disguise kit both occupy 2 distinct PDA slots.
all of the stock primary weapons are considered the best because they don't have any downsides that would put you at a disadvantage in certain situations, so they're the best to have if you don't know what you're up against.
Secondary weapon: the other weapon that'll stay in the class's back pocket, most of the game, but if get pulled out if the situation demands it. tends to be used as the primary weapon in meme subclasses. for scout's it's the pistol, soldier, pyro, and heavy have the shotgun, sniper has the SMG, medic has a syringe gun, and SPY HAS A GUN (revolver). engie, however, actually has 2 secondaries, by that definition: the shotgun (occupies the primary slot) and the pistol (occupies the secondary slot).
the stock secondary weapons are generally seen as viable, but most classes have other secondaries that are much more popular. usually used to compliment the primary weapon. it's pretty rare to see soldier with a shotgun, since the banners and gunboats are so popular. the scout's secondaries are all really good, so the pistol just kinda blends in. pyro has flare guns, which do more damage at longer ranges. heavy already has the highest potential DPS in his minigun so equiping a lunchbox is generally preferable to a shotgun. engie has a selection of great shotguns (yes i see you other there, pomson, and no i don't count you) and his 2 other weapons in the pistol's slot are also great in specific situations (for the wrangler, the speficic situation is you have a sentry active). medic's syringe guns are designed to suck at damaging enemies to desentivize using the only dedicated healing class like a DPS class, as a result it tends to be swapped out for the crusader's crossbow as soon as it's unlocked. sniper's SMG works when he's caught in shorter ranges, but it gets outgunned by every primary weapon outside of medic and spy, so it tends to get replaced with backpacks or the good ol' jar of piss and they rely on their melee for close range self defense. for spy's revolver ... you'll see when you get to that video.
Melee weapon: Not much difference than the slots. it's the weapon that's very short range, does not require any ammo under any circumstance, and is rarely kept at stock, once another weapon has been unlocked. for Scout, Pyro, and Heavy, it's because at that range the primary weapon will be much more effective, so they might as well use the melee slot for utility. For Soldier and Demo, the stock melee is usally used when the enemy is so close that hitting them with the primary would also injure you. soldier's melee unlockables, however, have a lot of utility outside of combat which means stock tends to be tossed out as soon as an unlock is achieved. for demo, he has 2 other playstyles, demoknight and hybridknight, which tends to swap out the melee for something that complements that subclass. for grenade demo, however, the stock bottle is still arguably the best. medic's stock bonesaw does its job, but the existance of the ubersaw, which grants 25% uber upon hitting an enemy, pretty much invalidates every other weapon in that slot (and that's not even mentioning the hidden stat of 100% random crit rate at the dumbest fucking moment it has). for engineer and spy, their melees tend to be their primary weapons, so while the stock weapons tend to be the best in all situation (i.e. there are no situation where you'll be at a significant disadvantage), they have some very interesting options that i definitely recommend giving a try. as for sniper, while stock is really good, the bushwacka turns mini-crits into full crits, which gives the sniper guaranteed 195 damage on any swing on anyone that managed to flank to his position when paired with the jarate (ah yes, let's take the class supposed to be good at long range a weak at close range and give him the option to get guaranteed crits at melee range. what the fuck were they thinking?).
4:28 I've seen alot of comments address this so far, but one thing I haven't seen being mentioned is utility picks for certian classes, especially pyro and medic.
While stock is our all-rounder and therefore the best for almost all use cases, a major outlier does exist for all classes:
(besides engie and spy, for obvious reasons,)
melee.
For those 7 classes. a situation where melee is used is generally accepted to be a situation you should not be in, considering that 1: everything in this game does tons of damage in bursts so a prolonged melee fight will usually not even exist, and 2: melee hit registration feels like wrestling someone covered in oil. (unless you are playing demoknight or hybridknight, ofc.)
This is a sentiment that is widely accepted to the point that tf2 has a certian offshoot of your normal melee fare, a set of items that is not really used to deal damage, but to assist you in your team in a variety of ways, which i like to call:
Utility Melees.
Going down the line of some notable ones:
Scout has:
The atomizer, a bat that takes longer to pull out and does less damage, but gives him a THIRD jump while held.
The boston basher, a seemingly precision-based barbed bat that deals bleed to enemies but, if you miss will cause yourself to take bleed, which, since damage=knockback in tf2, means it is both a psuedo triple jump, and a way for medics to build uber quicker while out of combat. (medic gains uber quicker when healing hurt teammates or teammates under sustained fire vs. a healthy or overhealed teammate)
The fan-o-war, a gunbai which trades your ability to do damage in for the extremely, EXTREMELY powerful ability to mark a player for death for an extended period of time. (meaning all damage they take will be mini-crits for the next 6 seconds, and on top of that, has a marker over said players head, so everyone will know where to direct their fire)
Soldier has:
The escape plan, a pickaxe which, depending on your health, will increase your movement speed, but mark you for death, both statuses apply while being held only. It ensures your continued survival no matter what you were doing before.
The disiplinary action, a whip which, when hitting your teammates, will give both you and them a speed boost for a short period of time, like the escape plan, but moreso used for getting you and your team INTO the fight, instead of getting out of it. (fun fact, the whip has the largest range in the entire game, to the extent that before the most recent patch that updated the game to a 64 bit architecture, would allow you to hit people behind you.)
Pyro (the absolute monarch of all things utility melee) has:
The powerjack, considered one of (if not the) best melees for all around use, this car battery attached to a carjack allows pyro to move 15% faster while out at the cost of 20% damage vulnerability. It also gives 25 health on kill, but considering extinguishing teammates gives you 20 health back without even needing to put yourself in melee range, this is kinda pointless. (also, this was the melee lazypurple made the naruto joke about in his follow-up to the pyro video!)
The back scratcher, a garden rake which gives you a bonus of 50% extra health from health packs (meaning 40% of your total health will be recieved from small health kits, and 75 from medium!) and a 25% damage bonus (bringing a single non-crit hit from the back scratcher to a ridiculous 77 damage), but causes the effectiveness of medi-beams from medics, dispensers, and the payload cart to be reduced by 75%. It is an amazing sidegrade to wear around if you are playing alone, or without a medic.
The homewrecker, a sledgehammer that trades away effectiveness against players for a staggering double damage against buildings (124 per hit! thats enough to kill all of engineers sentries in just 2 smacks, given you get the chance to ;) and the incredibly useful ability to destroy sappers in only one swing, twice as fast as the engineer!
Demo, beyond a single meager choice in the pain train, does not really have "utility" weapons, since he basically is 2 classes depending on whether or not you want to throw away your guns and charge into battle with a shield at hand.
Heavy has:
The holiday punch, the cozy mittens you heard me gush all about in the "meet the items" reaction you posted. (seriously i love these gloves)
The gloves of running urgently, a pair of boxing gloves emblazoned with fire that give the heavy 30% move speed while being held, at the cost of being marked for death, and having your maximum health drain while using them, allowing you to get back into the fight much, much faster, at the cost of entering said fight a little weaker than being patient.
The killing gloves of boxing, a plain pair of boxing gloves, which while taking 20% to throw your punches, give you 5 full seconds of critical hits on a successful kill (on any weapon!), rewarding the slow and large target that is heavy for surviving at his most vulnerable against close-range classes.
Medic (the prince of utility melees) has:
The ubersaw, considered the most powerful melee in all of tf2 by almost everyone, for the insane reward of 1/4 of your entire ubercharge meter built on a single hit! Seeing a medic without an ubersaw is a rare (but trust me, welcome) sight, because if you are in melee range as medic, you are probably dead, but on the off-chance you aren't, thats a free 25% in the pocket.
The amputator, a lesser-used but still great bonesaw which gives the medic a free +3 health per second while equipped at the cost of a 20% damage penalty, but its most useful ability is the taunt for the weapon, which allows medic to disperse a weaker, but wide A-O-E heal effect for anyone in range of him (which also builds uber just like your normal medi-gun!). This is a great weapon to use in strenuous, chokey maps that tend to end up with stalemates, since they cause your team to hunker down in a fixed position. Their reliable position lets you taunt without the fear of attack.(or, at least, a reduced fear of attack)
And finally, Sniper has:
The bushwacka, a kukuri which trades away a 20% damage vulnerability and the ability to random crits with the ability to always crit when you would normally mini-crit. This, of course, pairs super nicely with the jarate, which marks an enemy for death when they are coated in it, giving sniper a 1-2-delete combo, given you don't miss. (I have also, only once, seen about 5 bushwacka snipers charge in at the same time with a buff banner soldier, and it was the scariest thing I think I have ever witnessed in a casual game.)
The tribalman's shiv, the weakest of all the weapons we have looked at, but still a great kukuri which trades half your melee damage for a 5 second bleed effect. This is great for tracking spies or disrupting the aim of precision classes like scout, since bleed causes recoil.
Just some food (or in this case, an essay i guess lmao) for thought! hopefully it helps you and I haven't repeated any info you have already gotten!
Thank you for this amazing comment as always my friend! You are awesome!
I hope it's not going to be to much to think about when starting to play spy, although theese tips are very great. Don't get overwhelmed by all the stuff. Actually playing every class makes you understand them more. So just getting out there and trying your best is what matters!
Thanks! I'm sure I will understand a bit more when I start playing Spy!
That intro music is bumpin
It really is!
Hey, I heavily recommend the “Spooktacular” series by Doctor Lalve. He has a playlist on his channel with them. Very funny nonsensical stuff that just makes you laugh hard. Think you’ll love it!
I'll check it out! I watched one of Doctor Lalve's videos and it was great! Thanks for the suggestion!