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Old 03-30-2008, 03:39 AM   #1
Agent_W
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Weapon guide of Spy armament

Fortress Forever Guide for the Spy Armament


This guide serves a purpose to give an inexperienced player some tips and advice for using the Spy armament. It's also a very important addendum to learn for the spy specialists, as mastery of your weapons is extremely important to your performance! Some of the weapons, such as the nailgun and super shotgun, are interchangeably used by other classes, so if you want to seek out these tips as someone of a different class, then please, be my guest!

Also check out the FF manual and patch notes for the specs on these weapons as well.

The first weapon I will cover is the Knife.

The Knife is indeed a melee weapon, but any good spy should know how and when to use it best. In many cases, you should never have this weapon selected unless you seize an opportunity to stab someone. This is because that even one simple mistake will spoil the element of surprise and leave you dead.

Having a powerful melee weapon has a distinct advantage for the spy because he is most likely to kill or defend himself from a target other than a spy.

Key points:

Use the element of surprise! You should only be stabbing enemies when they least expect it. Otherwise, use your other weapons.

Being 'conced', or hit with a concussion grenade, will NOT affect your melee weapon accuracy. Keep this in mind when you're up close to a scout or medic.

Keep your stabs to a minimum when striking unnoticed. Excessive swings spoil the element of surprise.

Remember that under a disguise, your selected weapon will match the weapon of the same slot of the class disguise. In many cases, NEVER have the knife selected unless you're ready to use it. Medics and engineers are the only classes you should go by to have a melee weapon permanently selected as those classes use their respected melee weapons for their class-related skills.

If a spy attempts to knife you, it's often risky to engage back at him in kind. As a spy, you should keep your distance and fire back with ranged weaponry. This tip serves to warn you that spies in the field do this to you especially when you are serving a field interceptor role or enemy disruption, where the spy will try to counter-spy you. Do not underestimate the Knife's power.

Be ready to switch to another weapon when you realize that the Knife won't kill your target. Even with a frontal stab, you would considerably weaken your target to where you can finish him off with other weapons. Don't overstep the Knife's limitations.


The second weapon is the tranquilizer pistol(or tranq gun).

The tranq gun is more of a special tool than a serious weapon. One dart does more damage than even a super nailgun shot, however the weapon cycle time is awfully slow. You should never stick to this weapon for long in deathmatch situations. However, it is a good weapon to carry out by default because it only takes one well-placed shot to slow down any class you need to kill. In rare occasions, you can even kill your target with a tranq gun dart!

Key points:

Always have the tranq run ready first. You need to be able to slow down a class, especially the fast ones, if you would have any chance to deliver the coup de grace. A slowed enemy cannot strafe as quickly, which leaves him a sitting duck for any other sorts of dangers happening to him. It's also a good weapon to use against enemy flag carriers provided that you're a good shot.

Accuracy COUNTS more than anything else. The accuracy is 100% but the dart is slow-moving. You will need to think ahead and use ballistic aiming to make sure that your target will "run" into the dart. Try to read the enemy's movements before you shoot, then aim and fire. If you are accurate, he'll get hit, which leaves him vulnerable for a short while. This is highly important when you are going to tranq scouts and medics, the two fastest classes.

Try to minimize the distance between you and your target. A shorter distance would mean less time for the dart to travel. As an addition, camping close to an enemy's path is ideal.

This weapon is assigned to slot 2, which means that under a disguise, you should only be having this weapon out permanently under a sniper, engineer, or scout disguise. And with the right circumstances, an enemy spy disguise would be fine to have this weapon out. For other classes, they don't often use their slot 2 weapon. Keep this tip in mind because it is important to keep a low profile down when on an Offensive role.

A tranq dart is an ideal attack before you use your Knife, but watch yourself when you tranq a powerful target. The tranq dart only reduces field of vision and gives a radial mirrored effect, but the target can still see directly in front of him. Use it to your advantage by flanking him, but realize that rotational speed is not affected.
The element of surprise is recommended, but not necessarily needed for using the tranq gun. It can be used in deathmatch situations if you know to switch to other weapons regardless if the dart hits or not.


The third weapon is the super shotgun.


The super shotgun, hands down, is the best close-quarters PDW a spy has. It is used in nearly every close encounter with the enemy. This weapon is indeed used by 4 other classes than spy, so watch out for the potential it packs. The super shotgun is a powerful weapon that's fairly good against every class across the board, however the stronger classes will have to take more hits. The spy can carry up to 40 extra shells, which is the least amount of all other classes that use the weapon. In summary, the shotgun is your best friend in battle.

Key points:

Keep your shotgun LOADED. Whenever you get done fighting, select your shotgun to make sure 16 shells are loaded. You'll be glad you did, because you WON'T have time to reload in a dangerous fight. You also get 8 shots from a full load since the shotgun shoots two shells at a time.

Accuracy COUNTS. This means you need to take aim before shooting. Don't blast the shotgun and assume the pellets will hit your target. Track his movements and be patient when you strafe around and engage in deathmatch. The more hits you can land on your target, the faster you will kill him(or other teammates to kill him) and that would also mean that you won't have to resort to your nailgun so often.

The medium and heavy classes can take a LOT of punishment from this weapon. It's not that the shotgun is weak but they have more armor. As a spy, you are the weakest medium class, so keep this in mind when you're engaging other classes other than scouts, snipers, and other spies.

Get used to the recoil of the shotgun so it won't bother you when you aim.

If you have to reload during battle, try to evade and get some cover, or keep strafing. Reloading the shotgun doesn't take a lot of time, but if you don't have that time, then by all means, switch to the nailgun.


The last weapon I will discuss now is the nailgun.

The nailgun is the traditional sub-machine gun of the Quake series. A single nail is negligible in damage, but a constant stream of nails can be murder. The nails are also slow-moving projectiles. The nailgun is useful for destroying SG from a long distance. The range is infinite(as far as the map will render it) with 100% accuracy. Due to these characteristics, the nailgun is also a good PDW for a spy if you have mastered its use. It's best fired in a sweep-and-clear style, and to ensure that nails hit, firing them in bursts is also ideal. You'd be surprised to what this "weak" weapon can do in the right hands.

Key points:

The nailgun doesn't have to be reloaded, use this to your advantage! When you need to finish off an enemy or save your shotgun shells for close-quarters, this is the weapon to use!

Accuracy COUNTS more than anything else with this nailgun. Ensure that every nail hits your target. Most often, an untranq'ed target will try to strafe and dodge your attacks. Scattering your aim from left to right is ideal for assuring that your target won't go unscathed. You also have to track your target to, and fire your nails in ballistic aim. A lot of nails have to be sunk in to kill any class regardless of armor type.

The nailgun is the weapon to use in long-range fighting. As a spy, you're usually not expected to fight like that, but it's still handy when you're taking out SGs or giving support. In a deathmatch situation, the nailgun does more damage than shotgun pellets at long range. Keep this in mind.

Try not to go full-auto unless you can keep the target still. If the target is fast on his feet, try firing nails in burst so you don't deplete your nail ammo too quickly.

In close quarters, the nailgun is a fine substitute with the super shotgun, and you can benefit from the short distance your nails have to travel. You still have to track your target and aim just like in long range.

The nailgun does more damage underwater. Keep this in mind because many underwater spaces are small and cramped.


I will conclude this guide with some tips I have for spy grenades:

As a general rule, learn to "cook" your nades. Holding a grenade for a short while before lobbing is handy when you want the nade to detonate upon the distance you lob it. Releasing it without cooking it may have an undesirable result because the timing may not be right for an enemy to get hit with it.

Two frag nades, just like the ol fashioned TFC, is still powerful to take down a SG at any level. Use them when you can't destroy them by sabotage or when you want to keep your enemy disguise.

Frag nades are useful for a variety of purposes which are indeed self-explanatory and won't be covered in this guide.

Hallucination(gas) nades are usually ideal to use in packed deathmatch situations or within heavy action on an O or D objective. The gas by itself puts out a green colored smoke screen, which can limit line of sight. The grenades add confusion to your sight by having you see wrong numbers of health and seeing opposite team colors. In rare cases, enemies can die from the nade upon the end effect of losing health. But for the most part, these nades can easily be avoided and they do negligible damage.

Don't use these nades unless you are sure they are aware of enemy spies. Using them right off the bat at the start of a round will already alert the enemy into spy checking.

Understand the game physics of nades. When you lob a nade, certain obstacles will affect its trajectory, such as walls and other teammates. Once it has securely landed and stopped, it will not move. It takes a personal acclimation to grasp this tip but once you do, you'll become intelligent in your grenade lobbing.

Additional Notes(3/31/0

You may not think that the spy is a good DM class. It really isn't. This guide covers deathmatching because when your roles get rough, you're going to be deathmatching. This guide will help even the odds against other classes better for DM but I can't guarantee 100% victory. So take what you learn from this guide and go PWN...

Last edited by Agent_W; 03-31-2008 at 02:14 PM.
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Old 03-30-2008, 01:38 PM   #2
Adamido
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Good post, congrats Agent W. Aaaalso, TRANQ + Nailgun = OMFGMURDER. Seriously,use this one. EXTREMELY usefull.
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Old 03-31-2008, 02:01 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Adamido
Good post, congrats Agent W. Aaaalso, TRANQ + Nailgun = OMFGMURDER. Seriously,use this one. EXTREMELY usefull.
First, I thank you solemnly for your compliment.

Yes, the tranq and nailgun combo is indeed MURDER. You can really go full-auto from there and every single nail will hit because you eliminated the most essential ability of deathmatching: STRAFING. Since each nail does 9 damage, theoretically, you can bring down sollies and HW guys with about 40-45 successful nail hits. Of course, this sucks because that's about half of your max ammo. But at least you'll get the satisfaction of downing the real DM classes.

If you're a 'Scoutkiller' such as myself, you can down a scout with just 10-15 nails after a successful tranq.

But what other class can do this so well? No other class can immobilize a target for a nailgun kill. That's the unsung deathmatch strength for the spy

Last edited by Agent_W; 03-31-2008 at 02:06 PM.
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Old 04-01-2008, 07:53 AM   #4
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Spy is more of a ambush deathmatch class. You don't attack people head on. You could hide in a dark corner while cloaked and then traq then go DM them.
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Old 04-01-2008, 01:32 PM   #5
dys
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Great thread.
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Old 04-01-2008, 07:02 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by slay2rr
Spy is more of a ambush deathmatch class. You don't attack people head on. You could hide in a dark corner while cloaked and then traq then go DM them.
I actually do a little of both, depending on the level of enemy traffic .
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Old 04-02-2008, 07:55 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dys
Great thread.
You too, have my thanks. I hope this reaches out to help nailgunners and shotgunners too.
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Old 04-07-2008, 05:08 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dys
Great thread.
^ tru dat

... but ...

fu dys
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