Blizzard said:Semi thread-derail: How does one be a good spy? It normally seems like any decent team finds spys pretty easily unless they attack immediately out of decloaking (in which case they die shortly thereafter). Going backwards through chokepoints is hard as a cloaked spy with demomen/soldiers/pyros/heavies shooting constantly.
Being the spy involves a lot of patience and quite a bit of luck. When you're crossing the front line to try and get behind them while cloaked, try not to do it when the other team is fighting with your team. Try to sneak through during a lull in the shooting. As you said, trying to get through the middle of a firefight will most likely get you killed or shot (and revealed, since shooting makes your cloak visible).
Not to mention as far as I know, you can't see what name you're disguised as, so there's a good chance that you'll be disguised as a player who's playing a different class, or you'll be running up to a player who has the same name as you.
Again, that's just a matter of luck. Still, on a 12v12 server, you've got a 1/12 chance of running into a player with the same name, so your odds aren't too bad.
Not to mention, most importantly, spies become incredibly obvious because most of the time any class in team fortress is constantly shooting, healing, or meleeing. Anyone who isn't is a spy, or is a lousy teammate who should be teamkilled. TOO BAD YOU CAN'T. ;_;
That's why it's often good to run WAY behind enemy lines and pretend to run up to the front lines with another group. You won't appear too out of place if you're not shooting. Otherwise, try and wait until the enemy is involved in a major firefight with your team before striking. It's like the opposite of when you cross to get behind them: you want them to be so busy and distracted by shooting at your teammates that you have a better chance of sneaking up behind them.