Third Time’s The Charm: JENING Reflects On Crit Headshot Ambassador & Dead Ringer

The Newest Ambassador
A few hours after JENING’s last post, in which JENING discussed the shortcomings of the second iteration of the Ambassador pistol, Valve released yet another patch which altered the Ambassador yet again! The third and latest version of the Ambassador:

• Delivers full critical hits of about 100 points of damage for each headshot (seemingly without any distance dropoff)
• Remains 15% weaker than the Revolver as to bodyshots
• Remains very inaccurate for a period of time after the first shot is fired
• Still cannot damage buildings (although many have reported that the bullets effectively go through buildings, so that it is possible to snipe out a hiding engineer)
• Will not deliver critical hits for non-headshots, even if kritzkrieged

After testing the new Ambassador for about three or four hours last night (including a few games with JENING’s good friend, and famed TF2 spy, OMFGNinja), JENING concludes that this Ambassador deserves our praise and appreciation! The crit headshots are very powerful and can give a spy a very decisive edge over his enemies if his aim is true! Three headshots will take down a solo heavy from the front — very useful if your backstab happens to slip.

At the same time, headshots are very difficult to get: not only does the gun have no scope (nor should it), but the accuracy dropoff after the first shot is so severe that even point blank shots to an enemy’s head after that first shot will often not register a headshot. Further, the 15% damage reduction to bodyshot damage is very noticeable, and protracted duels against enemies that would have gone your way with the Revolver may often end with a different result when using the Ambassador.

JENING believes that the damage reduction, coupled with the difficulty of getting headshots, fairly balances out the crit headshot feature of the Ambassador. Spies now have two very viable choices: the consistent damage output of the Revolver, or the high risk/high reward gamble of the Ambassador! Neither gun is strictly superior to the other, and JENING believes that both guns can be used to great effect!

The Dead Ringer
JENING finally unlocked the Dead Ringer last night, and was able to experiment with it for a couple of hours. For those unacquainted with the Dead Ringer, JENING understands it to work as follows, based on the several hours JENING was able to use it:

• Your cloak meter must be at full to engage it, which will be visually represented by you flipping out a pocketwatch in your left hand, while holding your weapon in your right
• While engaged, you remain perfectly visible to all enemies and friends alike, but you cannot use your weapon
• If you decide to unengage it before it activates, you can do so immediately (unlike the decloaking wait time on the Invisibility Watch), and then initiate an attack.  Assuming your cloak meter is full, you can reengage it right away
• When you are hit by enemy fire while engage, you will drop immediately into cloak while a fake corpse of yours is thrown to the ground. The damage you take from the hit that dropped you into cloak will most often be negligible at best, no matter what you were hit with.  The practical effect is that you are essentially invulnerable to that first hit
• Your cloak lasts eight seconds and does not shimmer. You may deactivate it before eight seconds, but no matter when you deactivate it, your cloak meter will be depleted to empty (this was the effect of yesterday’s patch)
• When you decloak, a loud electrical sound (some have compared it to the Tesla Coil from Command & Conquer: Red Alert) will alert all nearby persons to your presence.

JENING found the Dead Ringer to be far more effective than JENING ever imagined. The Dead Ringer shines brightest as an escape weapon. Simply engage it when you’re low on health and an enemy shot that would have killed you will do little to no damage, and you can cleanly escape without having to worry about your cloak shimmering (this feature also reduces the number of seemingly “random” deaths that spies with the Invisibility Watch often suffer while cloaked). In contrast, the Invisibility Watch is not quite as strong as an escape tool since it doesn’t protect you from damage, and your cloak will betray you if the enemy in pursuit is able to roughly guess where you are and fire in that direction.

The Dead Ringer’s most significant drawback, as compared to the Invisibility Watch, is the manner in which it impinges upon a spy’s initiative and surprise. While the damage soak and non-shimmering cloak does allow you to get behind enemy lines, you can only do so after the enemy knows a spy “tried” to get past. If your opponents are good, they will continue to hunt for you and you’ll continually be on the defensive against an alerted team. Even if you are able to get past the line, the loudness of the decloak will put all but the most unobservant of enemies on alert. Also, the fact that you have to wait until the Dead Ringer charges to full to re-engage it (and there is no way to speed up that process) also presents difficulties.  In contrast, the Invisibility Watch allows you to truly infiltrate the enemy lines so that you won’t have to reveal your presence to anyone until you are ready to do so.

JENING has concluded that the Dead Ringer presents a good, viable alternative to the Invisibility Watch. The Dead Ringer’s damage soak and helpfulness in aiding escape is a good trade for the initiative advantages of the Invisibility Watch. JENING is a bit concerned that the Dead Ringer’s extremely strong damage soak may present some issues–a rocket to the face probably should be enough to kill a spy–but on the whole, the Dead Ringer does not seem unbalanced. While JENING still prefers the Invisibility Watch, JENING looks forward to testing the Dead Ringer a bit more as well!

The Cloak and Dagger
JENING previously blogged about his thoughts on the Cloak and Dagger. JENING stands by those comments.

JENING invites your thoughts and comments, and encourages you to ask your friends, forums, and communities to join in the discussion!

JENING’s Thoughts On The “Fixed” Ambassador Pistol

After playing the newly “fixed” Ambassador (i.e. after Valve had patched it so that it was no longer broken and overpowered), JENING has concluded that it may be too weak to be a viable alternative to the Revolver. Here are JENING’s thoughts:

Ambassador’s Headshot Mechanic
Many JENING friends have expressed confusion over the Ambassador’s headshot mechanic. JENING’s understanding is that an Ambassador headshot does not do any more damage than an Ambassador bodyshot. However, Ambassador headshots do not suffer from any damage reduction resulting from increased range (in contrast, a bodyshot at point blank will do significantly more damage than a bodyshot from the other side of the map). As a result, an Ambassador headshot is exactly equivalent to an Ambassador bodyshot at point blank. At a short distance, the two shots are still roughly comparable. Only at medium to long range does the Ambassador headshot impart any advantage over an Ambassador bodyshot.

Compared to the Revolver
The Ambassador does 15% less damage than the Revolver. This means that even an Ambassador headshot is weaker than a revolver bodyshot (without distance damage dissipation). Thus, the only application in which the Ambassador is a better weapon than the Revolver is when the spy is consistently headshotting a target from long range (since a shot from the revolver at ong range will generally suffer damage dissipation of greater than 15%). In practice, however, JENING believes that this advantage is marginal at best because:

• Headshots from range are extremely difficult since the gun has no scope, and since accuracy is severely reduced after the first shot.
• The shots are not powerful enough to kill quickly (a full health sniper still requires at least three headshots) and a target under fire will likely move or take cover. In contrast, the Revolver is still decently effective at range, and very lethal up close.
• The Ambassador plays against the Spy’s strengths and role as a close quarters combatant by encouraging the Spy to stay at range and snipe, a role the Sniper plays far better.

JENING’s Proposed Solution
JENING believes that to be a viable “sidegrade” weapon, the Ambassador should be altered in one (but not both) of the following two ways:

• Significantly increase damage dealt by a headshot, and increase the cooldown time: Not as powerful as a sniper headshot, but powerful enough where even at close range, a headshot will do more damage than a bodyshot. Then, like the Revolver up close, the Ambassador would have strong lethality in a narrow, limited circumstance (i.e. headshots). As a tradeoff, the cooldown time for the reduced accuracy should be lengthened. JENING believes that this change would still present players with a viable choice: the Revolver for those who want the reliability of consistent damage output, or the Ambassador for those who are willing to trade away bodyshot damage to gamble on getting headshots.
• Alternatively, keep the headshot mechanic in place, but eliminate the 15% reduced damage: By doing this, bodyshots will still be strictly weaker than their Revolver counterparts (due to the Ambassador’s reduced accuracy), but headshots (at any range) would now be equivalent to a point blank Revolver shot. To a lesser degree, players would still be confronted the same choice as in the previous suggestion: the consistency of the Revolver versus the Ambassador’s promise of higher reward for higher risk.

JENING invites your thoughts . . .

UPDATE: Apparently Valve does not want JENING’s posts to stay relevant for long! The Ambassador has been patched to provide for full crits on headshots. JENING looks forward to trying this out!

JENING thanks Aldershot, Chadam, and Kimmy for their well-wishes!

As many of you know, JENING has been feeling a bit under the weather lately! JENING’s spirits were brightened when JENING’s good friend Chadam emailed JENING a get well card from Chadam, Aldershot, and Kimmy! JENING appreciates it very much!

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JENING’s Thoughts after Day One of the Spy/Sniper Release!

JENING has been asked by dozens of his good friends to share his thoughts about the spy/sniper release now that it is live and in play! JENING was able to play for five hours last night shortly after the patch came out! Here are some JENING reflections!

1. The New Unlock System

As many of you know, Valve has decided to decouple Acheivements from Unlocks. JENING approves of this because that system caused many players simply to farm acheivements on acheivement servers, rewarding most those players who wanted to spend their time pointlessly grinding away!

The new system, however, JENING believes is even worse. Unlocks are seemingly random, and obtainable irrespective of what class you play (JENING has seen heavies unlock spy weapons), or whether you’re even actively playing (JENING has seen unlocks during setup periods, and hears that even spectators can acheive unlocks). There is also no guarantee that you’ll get any unlock at all–many players have reported going many hours without an unlock. JENING has read that Valve’s Robin Walker has stated that the infrequency of some unlocks is a bug. But that still does not change the frustration engendered by the randomness of the system.

JENING suggests releasing all unlocks to all players at the time the patch is released. Since neither the Achievement or the Random system awards skill, or even time played (farming acheivements takes much less time than playing the game regularly, and dozens of hours played under the Random system may yet yield nothing), JENING submits that players not be forced to go through the motions and simply have the items from the start.

2. The New Spy Unlocks

• The Ambassador — Far stronger than it should be
  JENING was very happy to discover that his first unlock was the Ambassador gun as it was JENING’s most happily anticipated unlock! JENING found it to be extremely, almost excessively, powerful. JENING found that he could go in guns blazing, from the front, uncloaked and undisguised, and take out much of the enemy team. JENING even went 50-6 during one session of Arena Lumberyard in which JENING used the Ambassador exclusively. That session was with many of JENING’s friends — not just an assortment of novices Although JENING has played over 800 hours of spy, JENING still believes that such a high kill to death ratio strongly suggests that something is amiss and that the Ambassador is too strong.On paper, the Ambassador supposedly has a slower rate of fire than the Pistol, but in practice, JENING found that this was not at all the case, and both guns fired at substantially the same rate. The Ambassador is also supposed to severely drop off in accuracy after the first shot, but JENING found that the Ambassador was consistently accurate with every shot. The Ambassador is also supposed to do 15% less damage than the Pistol, but JENING barely saw much of a damage reduction at all.   Watch YouTube Video suggesting Ambassador is broken>>.

  On the other hand, the new headshot mechanic seems underpowered. JENING did not notice much of a difference in damage dealt as between headshots and regular shots. JENING strongly suspects that Valve will be issuing a subsequent patch that will operate as a severe nerf to the Ambassador. Although JENING will confess with guilt that he enjoyed very much being able to take out entire teams with just his gun, JENING believes that a nerf is needed.

• The Cloak and Dagger — Balanced and of limited use
  The Cloak and Dagger (“C/D”) drains at a seemingly faster rate than the standard Invisibility Watch (“IW”). A full sprint will give you just under 10 seconds of cloak (the IW gives you a full 10). The C/D also takes a full 20 seconds to recharge (the IW is faster, even without metal). If you walk very slowly and inch along, it is possible to move as far as you want while never dropping cloak with the C/D. But this is impractical.While there are many ways to play as spy, JENING’s preferred tactics rely heavily on swift and constant movement. JENING believes this style of play allows you to help your team more by shifting to where the action is, makes you less predictable and less susceptible to spychecking, and has a greater psychological effect on the other team (if they believe you are “everywhere”). The C/D is simply incompatible with that kind of gameplay. While there are certainly spies out there far more skilled than JENING who may be able to make great use of the C/D, JENING is not so skilled, and will not be using the C/D.

• The Dead Ringer — Better than JENING thought
  JENING has not yet unlocked the Dead Ringer (the “D/R”), but has seen it in action on several occasions. The D/R’s “fake death” is very convincing, and it includes a kill notification to the enemy, and can even trigger farena first blood! Decloaking out of the D/R is extremely loud, however, and most players will probably notice you if you try to decloak behind them with the D/R. JENING will reserve further judgment on this until JENING is able to unlock it and use it himself!

3. Other Changes To The Spy

Many changes were made to the spy’s disguises to make them even more convincing. While nice, JENING thinks the increased paranoia manifested in more spychecking will marginalize any intended benefit. Moreover, the spy’s mainstay for avoiding detection has, and will likely continue to be, cloak rather than disguise.

The spy can also now take enemy teleporters. JENING thinks this is nice, but it will probably be of limited application. Most engineer nests are already accessible through creative jumping. Still, a nice little buff, as engineers it will give engineers yet one more point of entry to guard and to spycheck.

4. The New Maps

Pipeline (Double Payload map) – Somewhat bland looking, and high potential for extended stalemates. Too linear, not enough side crevices ala Badwater. Fun and novel for now, but may become tiresome later.

Arena Sawmill - Dark, rainy theme is very aesthetically pleasing! Seemed a bit too big and decentralized at first, but played very well with 16 players. The moving sawblades are a nice touch.

Arena Nucleus - Fighting is too sparse and decentralized, as it all took place in piecemeal around the perimeter ring.

5. Jarate and the new scoreboard icon system

JENING has not unlocked Jarate. But it is awesome. JENING never thought being doused in urine could be so fun. Unrelatedly, Valve’s replacement of the scoreboard’s textual descriptions of classes with icons is confusing and was unnecessary, JENING thinks!

JENING invites your comments . . .

EDIT: VALVE HAS PATCHED THE AMBASSADOR. JENING HAS TESTED IT OUT FOR ABOUT 20 MINUTES. JENING APPROVES! The accuracy spread is much more severe now, and the damage also seems reduced. Firing rate seems about the same, but it is far less potent than before. However, it still seems like a promising, viable sidegrade. JENING will test it more later and invites your thoughts!

Wednesday Update: Jarate!

JENING has seen Valve’s latest update. The April Fools Day Jarate update is quite real.

JARATE appears to be a thrown weapon that will:

• Extinguish fires on teammates
• Eliminate enemy spies’ cloak bars
• Increase damage taken by enemies who are doused with it by 35%

JENING is very curious to see how this plays out! As reluctant as JENING is to be doused by urine, any additional tool that helps to extinguish fires is quite welcome by JENING! The damage multiplier effect on spies will likely be negligible, JENING believes, as spies go down pretty quick to most anything anyway! JENING is concerned about the effect it will have on cloak, but this can be no worse, JENING thinks, than a pyro’s constant flames! Snipers who wield Jarate will likely be playing more towards the front lines now, and may prove to be the decisive edge between heavy class battles!

Valve has also released their Sniper Unlocks! JENING does not appreciate that several appear geared at killing spies! JENING believes this update will be very very intriguing!

JENING invites your thoughts . . .

Tuesday’s Spy Unlock: Heavier Pistol (the “Ambassador”)

Valve has just released their newest spy unlock, the Ambassador pistol. At first blush, it appears to be a more powerful, accurate (from range) pistol with a slower fire rate. JENING thinks this could be quite useful against most classes, though as against scouts, it would likely be harder to use!

JENING also suspects that the Ambassador may also have some sort of headshot mechanic! The Skullpluggery acheivement suggests something to do with headshots, and the Ambassador’s description mentions that it has the “pinpoint accuracy of a sniper rifle.”

JENING strongly believes that one of the most important keys to good spycraft is frequent and adept use of the spy’s sidearm! It is far more reliable than the knife! JENING is very anxious to try out this new weapon!

As always, JENING invites your thoughts . . .

P.S. Many of JENING’s friends have recently emailed JENING a lot of new, original JENINGcontent (including sprays, songs, and the like). Once the spy update news has subsided, JENING looks forward to sharing these excellent creations with all his friends!

EDIT (at JENING min. past JENING o’clock, JDT): JENING wonders if one of the side effects of carrying the Ambassador would be to slow a spy’s movement. Since the gun makes the spy stronger at range, it would seem a sensible tradeoff to restrict a spy’s mobility. The description also emphasizez the weight of the gun: “the Ambassador is eight motherloving pounds of steel your enemies won’t want to negotiate with.” Whether this is a hint, or simply colorful inflection, JENING believes remains to be seen! JENING invites your thoughts!

Valve Reveals Spy Achievements And Confirms Genuineness Of MTS Video!

JENING has seen that Valve has updated the Spy Update and released the Spy Achievements: http://www.teamfortress.com/spyupdate/day05_english.htm

Many of the achievements appear to be James Bond themed (appropriately)! JENING is intrigued by the “Wetwork” achievement, which seems geared at the new map featuring weather effects! JENING will confess some dissappointment that JENING’s long-shot dream of having a Spy Achievement was not realized, but JENING thanks all his friends very much for their long-lasting support and encouragement in trying to help JENING in the endeavor! JENING appreciates it very much!

The update also confirms that the previously “leaked” Meet the Spy video was in fact genuine!

JENING invites your comments . . .

Meet The Spy Video!

Many of JENING’s good friends, including but not limited to, {TD} Crit Goes Where, Ska-Meister, Slowpoke, Alaskan Wolf, SHM Dr. Kelso, and others, showed JENING this purportedly leaked Meet the Spy video from Valve! Although at this writing Valve has not officially released it, the production value as well as the voice acting strongly suggests it is legit!

Alternate Link: In case YouTube takes it down

JENING wonders if the “are you president of his fan club” line is a reference perhaps to famous TF2 spy OMFGNinja and his following? Your thoughts are appreciated . . .

JENING’s Early Thoughts On New Spy Update (Cloak Unlocks)

JENING has seen that Valve announced a secret spy update with its sniper updates! Many of JENING’s friends have asked JENING to opine about the two new spy unlocks! Although any opinions at this point are mere speculation, JENING will still share some thoughts, based on certain stated assumptions that JENING will make.

1. THE “DEAD RINGER” SPY WATCH

JENING assumptions as to how it works:

• Ability to cloak engaged when hit with a non-lethal attack
• Creates illusion of dead spy corpse for other players
• 8 seconds of cloak

JENING’s Big Questions:

• Will you be able to engage the cloak at will? (if not, then trying to fool spycheckers by pretending they’re not hurting you will no longer work since you’d automatically drop into cloak)
• Will you be able to disengage the cloak at will?
• How does it recharge?

Pros: Theoretically makes escaping easier since opponent will believe you are dead and will more likely not give chase.

Cons: Assuming that it only engages after you are hit, you lose the ability to cloak at will and easily get past the front line. You will always be damaged when your cloak is engaged, and the enemy will already be alerted to your presence. Less cloak time and no obvious way of recharging. Will also increase spychecking. Will be even more problematic if you automatically drop into cloak when hit, since you won’t be able to fool would-be spy checkers by simply standing there and taking your lumps.

JENING Tentative Verdict: JENING believes it sounds intriguing, but will not prove to be very useful, much like the Scout’s Bonk drink. The primary advantage it gives you (fake death) is somewhat mitigated by (i) the fact that all players are aware that this item exists and will be less likely to be fooled by your fake corpse, and (ii) increased spychecking that will almost certainly follow from this.

2. THE “CLOAK AND DAGGER” SPY WATCH

JENING assumptions as to how it works:

• Cloak and decloak at will (same as current watch)
• Charges cloak when standing still (whereas current watch allows recharge through (i) metal; (ii) staying uncloaked)
• Drains cloak whenever you move (whereas current watch drains cloak based on time progression, irrespective of movement)

JENING’s Big Questions:

• Will it drain the cloak meter when you are moving, but uncloaked? (The update says “The Cloak and Dagger is ONLY powered by standing still”)
• Is the rate of cloak drain on the Cloak and Dagger greater than the current watch’s drain rate?
• Is the rate of cloak recharge on the Cloak and Dagger slower than the current watch’s recharge rate?

Pros: Makes it easier to perform sap and stabs on engineer setups since you can wait longer for the engineer to give you an opening. Makes it easier to perform ambushes since you can wait in one spot indefinitely. May make it easier to stalk targets when there is no metal around since you may be able to engage in a pattern of run/stop/run/stop behind your target, although by doing this it is likely that you will lose ground and fall too far behind your target.

Cons: Makes it harder to escape after having executed an attack since escaping is dependent on constant movement (rarely will you be able to simply cloak and hide behind some boxes if the pursuer is skilled) and you cannot rely on metal to recharge cloak. This will be especially true if movement drains cloak even when the cloak is disengaged since you would lose cloak when running around to perform your attack. Will also increase spychecking.

JENING Tentative Verdict: If the watch either (i) drains while you are moving even while uncloaked, or (ii) recharges slower than the current watch, or (iii) drains faster than the current watch, then JENING thinks it could be a balanced option as it would force you to significantly tradeoff your own mobility (including ability to escape) for the potentially infinite cloak.

If the watch has none of these drawbacks and is a pure buff, then JENING believes it would unnecessarily eliminate (or significantly reduce) the need for cloak management, and would thereby significantly reduce the skill required to play the class. JENING thinks this would be very regrettable as it would make the spy a much more shallow, boring class to play. JENING also fears that it may encourage more “do-nothing” spies who stand around in the idle safety of their cloak without significantly engaging the enemy, and therefore, doing little to help their own team.

JENING believes that spies who only come in for the infrequent, occasional, stab will most benefit from this unlockable. Spies who engage in constant assaults, and are consistently engaging the enemy team, will derive far less benefit from this since for those spies, movement will continue to be key.

JENING looks forward to seeing these items in action and invites your comments . . .

JENING Interviewed On TF2 podcast “Control Point”

JENING was interviewed today on the distinguished Team Fortress 2 community podcast Control Point hosted and produced by the Dead Workers Party! JENING would very much like to thank the very gracious Control Point hosts, particularly Eric “Nailhead” Fullerton who first contacted JENING, for inviting JENING on the show!

JENING hopes you will all listen to the Control Point podcasts and peruse their forums!

Here’s a YouTube video of their LIVE podcast:

• JENING Interview: 10:58
• Backstabbing Spy performance: 36:38

UPDATE: The official “Meet JENING” podcast has been posted!

JENING hopes you will share this with your friends, forums, and communaties, and invites your comments . . .