From Team Fortress Wiki

“ — Dead Ringer publicity blurb By the time your adversary races towards your 'body' to frisk you for cash and pull gold fillings out of your mouth, you'll already be behind him, poised for the killing blow. ”

The Dead Ringer is an unlockable PDA weapon for the Spy. It is a gold-plated pocket watch with an engraving of a hummingbird on its lid, and a circular Cloak display within.

This weapon's main attribute is to Cloak the user for 7 seconds upon being injured if it is held out, leaving behind a fake Spy ragdoll corpse to distract and deceive enemies. The Cloak generated is instantaneous and can generate certain information in-game that enhances the legitimacy of the user's "death" (listed below). If a player is disguised as one of their own teammates, activation drops a ragdoll corpse of their current class (which, to their team, will appear as a ragdoll of the Spy wearing a mask of the class they were disguised as). To use this cloak, the Spy must be holding the watch by pressing secondary fire before taking damage. The watch must be fully charged before it can be held, and holding the watch prevents the Spy from attacking. This also means the Spy is unable to cloak on command and will have to rely on damage instead.

Upon activation, the Cloak meter will immediately drop to 50%, and the Spy will receive a 3-second speed boost. The Spy takes 75% reduced damage for the initial attack that activates the cloak and will gain damage resistance depending on how much time is left for his cloak (from a maximum of 65% to a minimum of 20% after 3 seconds). The initial damage reduction allows the player to survive massive amounts of damage as long as the user has a sufficient amount of Health before the attack was made, with the exception of fully charged headshots by Snipers using the Machina, backstabs from enemy Spies, and Taunt kills.

During the first 3 seconds of cloak, the Spy will not flicker on contact with enemies or upon being shot, and he gains immunity to afterburn. This returns to standard cloak once 3 seconds pass (cloak flickers on contact, 20% reduced damage). The cloak takes 7 seconds to fully drain (from 50%) down to zero.

The Dead Ringer uncloaks with a very loud and distinct sound. The uncloak noise is noticeably loud up-close but rapidly fades with distance. Unlike the standard Invisibility Watch, Dispensers and ammo cannot replenish the Cloak meter.

Activating the Dead Ringer will remove certain status effects from the Spy:

Fire will be extinguished.

Bleeding will stop.

However, other status effects are unaffected. Notably:

Covering-inflict weapons and water will still coat the cloaked Spy.

Therefore, feigning whilst suffering under these effects will not be convincing. In addition, once the player is cloaked, the Spy is not immune to status effects, although such effects will have a reduced duration, similar to the Invis Watch.

The Dead Ringer is automatically given to any player who obtains 17 Spy achievements.

Feign death effects

Feign deaths have certain characteristics that affect the game. Some kill effects are replicated or faked as if the Spy is actually killed, while others are not, which may alert vigilant players of the feign.

Function times

Function times (in seconds) Effect Upon activation: Drop a fake corpse, 75% damage reduction, remove some status effects

For the first 3 seconds: Speed boost, no cloak shimmer upon collision with a enemy, up to 65% damage reduction

Subsequently: Normal invisibility

Cloak maximum duration 7.0 s

8.2 s

6.0 s

7.6 s Cloak fade time Instant Decloak fade time Player: 2.0 s

World: 1.8 s Recharge time 10 - 20 s Activation time Instant Values are approximate and determined by community testing.

Demonstration

Crafting

Blueprint

As a crafting ingredient

Strange variant





Related achievements

Spontaneous Combustion

Ignite 10 cloaked Spies.

Shorn Connery

Decapitate a cloaked Spy.

Spyalectical Materialism

Kill or assist in killing 10 cloaked Spies.

Search Engine

Kill 3 cloaked Spies with a sentry gun under control of your Wrangler.

Jarring Transition

Use Jarate to reveal a cloaked Spy. Shoot the Breeze

Kill a fully invisible Spy in a single hit.

Burn Notice

Survive 30 seconds after being ignited while cloaked.

Sleeper Agent

Kill an enemy who triggered your feign death in the last 20 seconds. Spies Like Us

While cloaked, bump into an enemy cloaked Spy.

Unused content

The Dead Ringer has an unused world model featuring a chain which would have likely hung on to the Spy's suit.

Bugs

In medium to high lag situations, pulling out the Dead Ringer and attacking at the same time while disguised will keep the player disguised, leaving bullet wounds on the enemy. However, the attacks done under this bug do no damage to players or buildings.

The Cloak meter displayed on the watch does not properly correspond to the actual amount of Cloak available, similar to the Enthusiast's Timepiece.

If the Dead Ringer is out during a taunt and the Spy takes damage after he is finished taunting, the Dead Ringer will not activate.

Feigning death on circumstances that should trigger a unique death scream will sometimes issue a normal death scream.

The damage reduction from the Dead Ringer applies to drowning damage as well. However, the Spy will recover the full amount of health that would have been lost without the Dead Ringer, allowing players to heal themselves by intentionally drowning.

Activating the watch upon round start will sometimes cause the Spy not to hold up the watch. This can only be fixed by dying.

There is an occasional bug that occurs with the Dead Ringer where, once activated, the watch reports that the Spy's killer "got revenge" on him, even if they were not dominated or don't exist. The same bug may report that the Spy's killer is dominating him even if said Spy was already being dominated by that player, or if they were nowhere close to dominating them. Both bugs may also play the accompanying sound cue. When the Spy is killed by environmental hazards or fall damage, "ERRORNAME" will get revenge on the Spy. These messages are only broadcast to the other team, just like all faked mechanics of the Dead Ringer.

When reloading the Revolver, switching weapon to the Sapper, or using the Sharp Dresser while quickly activating the Dead Ringer, three hands can be momentarily seen.

Some achievements that involve killing cloaked Spies can be achieved by attacking a Spy with his Dead Ringer ready.

Often the fake body will slide on the ground without moving its actual limbs upon faking death for enemies.

When a player holds the Dead Ringer with Specialized or Professional Killstreak Weapon, the sheen will be replicated on the Dead Ringer.

If the user has final hitsounds enabled, they will not always play if they activate the Dead Ringer of an enemy Spy.

Just like the Invis Watch and the Cloak and Dagger, if the Dead Ringer is deployed during the reload animation of a primary weapon, the reload itself will be sped up.

If the Spy has the Your Eternal Reward and disguises while holding the Dead Ringer, it will still be held up and appear charging despite the Dead Ringer not allowing the Spy to hold it while charging.

If the player takes out the Dead Ringer after their team has lost the round, the Dead Ringer will trigger upon being attacked and block one Humiliation Crit. If the player brings up the Dead Ringer again after getting hit, it will make a noise, and the Spy can take another Humiliation hit.[citation needed]

Trivia

Dead Ringer is a phrase used to describe an exact duplicate of something or someone else; for example, "He's a Dead Ringer for that BLU Spy we shot earlier!". The "ringer" part of the phrase refers to a replacement or impostor, especially in sporting events, making the fake Spy corpse an actual " dead ringer". The term dead ringer has also been suggested (implausibly) to have risen from the 18th-19th century concept of installing bells on coffins, which people mistakenly presumed dead could ring to signal they were still alive, similar to how a Dead Ringer Spy can be presumed dead, only to reveal he is still alive.

ringer".

Gallery

RED first-person view.

BLU first-person view.

Unused world model.

References