test driving the dead ringer

hey guys - last night i got the dead ringer, and i had a couple people asking me how it plays out, so i made a short video with me running around playing with it.  enjoy

So no normal cloak at all? And it needs a recharge? Hmpf, disguise spy only Too bad.

yeah pep, that's true - you cannot cloak on your own, you HAVE to take damage to cloak.  in fact i need to make note of that in the video description

I envy you for getting it so early.

Looks useful, especially with friendly diguises. Cloak does drain very fast though...

Does it recharge by ammo btw?

Mine did not recharge by ammo. It had very limited usage in game, much like the Kritz is very situation specific.
In my opinion, if the enemy is shooting at you thinking you're a spy, it is already too late to cloak, fake dead body or not.

true. i doubt that this will see much use because its too unlikely that you'll actually fake someone out with this.  however, i did manage to get a couple kills (not shown in the video) by disguising as a friendly engineer or medic, letting someone "kil" me then circling back around. 

most of the time however the short cloak time and the loud de-cloak noise will kill any chance you have to take advantage of the situation even if you manage to fake someone out.

still, it is kinda fun.  last night as soon as i got it stabby was asking me how it worked, and then he ended up being my first victim

I am having tons of fun with the Dead Ringer.
I just murdered poor mini Kraft with it, and then did the same thing to a demoman.

One tactic I've picked up is to go face-to-face with a heavily injured soldier then whip out the dead ringer.  They point blank rocket me, they die, I take one or two damage AND get the kill. Thank you, good night.

Another move I tried out earlier was to run out in front of my allies while holding the dead ringer.  I take the alpha strike(A rocket, or stickies or what have you) and lose a few health.  They stay unharmed and know exactly what and where they're fighting.

So it isn't just me that seems to be getting a damage reduction when hit while using the Dead Ringer?

and a note I've made of it: It's possible to be attacked by a Pyro using the flamethrower and not catch on fire if you're holding the dead ringer out

Its fun to run around enemies, take a hit, then immediately uncloak. As soon as you uncloak you can activate it again, the only opportunity they have to hit you is during the uncloak. I can usually 'die' 4 or 5 times before they actually get me. I actually got the last point of freight doing this because they didn't stand on the point.