The Knife + Backstab

The Knife (also known as Butterfly knife or Balisong) is the Spy's melee weapon as well as the weapon most responsible for his kills. Spies usually sneak behind enemies to backstab them, which can kill the target in one hit if striking any part of the enemy while standing in a radius of 180° behind them. Uniquely, Critical hits do not occur randomly with the knife, but they do happen during humiliation and when critboosted by The Kritzkrieg.

The Knife used from the side or front is the third weakest melee weapon in the game, behind the Axtinguisher and the Equalizer at 200 Health or more. From this angle each hit is roughly as weak as the Scout's Baseball bat, but the Spy lacks the Scout's movement speed to close in on a target and the knife attacks at a slower rate than the bat. Rely on evasion or the Revolver for medium range combat or in situations where a backstab is difficult to achieve.

Taunting with the knife equipped makes the Spy perform a deadly fencing maneuver.

* Base: 40 (28-54 damage)
* Mini-Crit: 54
* Critical Hit: 120, but only during Humiliation or charged via Kritzkrieg. Instantly kills (600% damage done to the target) if you backstab a target while standing in a 180° area behind them.

Note: Damages are approximate and determined by community testing.|

* Attack Interval: 0.8

All times are in seconds. Times are approximate and determined by community testing.

The knife has Developer weapon variants.

Backstab

A Backstab is a context-sensitive attack with the Spy's Knife that results in a one-hit kill (unless the target is using the Dead Ringer, has the Razorback equipped, or is under the effects of an Übercharge). A Spy may backstab an enemy as long as the enemy is close enough to be hit with a melee attack, and as long as the Spy is within a 180° range of the enemy's back. To indicate that a Spy is within the required range to perform a backstab, his Knife will become primed, with its tip facing downwards. The Knife will remain in this position until the target is no longer in reach, or the Spy attempts a backstab by attacking.

A backstab can be performed while you are disguised, although your disguise will be removed upon attacking, regardless of whether the attack connects with the enemy or not.


A useful technique that can be employed by a skilled Spy is to sap an Engineer's Sentry gun and then immediately backstab the Engineer. As most Engineers will turn to face their Sentry gun to remove the Sapper, this gives the Spy an excellent opportunity to backstab his enemy. Trickier still is backstabbing the Engineer first, then quickly changing weapons to the Sapper and then sapping the Sentry before it is able to turn and fire.

The Sniper's unlockable Secondary weapon, the Razorback, prevents one backstab per life (unless the Sniper returns to a resupply cabinet) and stuns the offending Spy momentarily. This weapon makes Snipers less susceptible to backstabbings, and forces Spies to use other methods of attack.

Due to an in-game glitch, a backstab can sometimes occur upon stabbing an enemy in the front of their body, referred to by the community as a 'facestab'. While these problems have been reported to be fixed in the developer notes accompanying various patches, facestabs do still occur occasionally.

Another community-coined term, is the 'failstab', which refers to a backstab which should have succeeded but instead did only normal Knife damage, despite the backstab animation playing fully and the Knife connecting. Failstabs are often caused by lag compensation.