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Solvaxus-KunSpy 101 with Solvaxus
I recently posted this to Legends, so I figured I will post this here as well. Some of the information I just went through and adjusted as they do not apply to this server, such as the Assassin's Mark nerf on Legends and RC on this server is even more desirable due to the Root immunity it also has here. With that in mind, here's the guide.

Welcome to Spy 101, here you will learn just about everything I know about Spy.

Now for introductions, I am Solvaxus, I will be your instructor for today. I am someone with an unquenchable desire for competition. To that end, I have played several games (SWG included) at a reasonably high level. I am well versed in everything Spy related and have played it at a reasonably high level in battlefields, albeit infrequently due to extraneous factors not in my control. I am a former DJO player as well as a former Kun, although I would like to stress that I have no existing connection to Xaos and his merry band of misfits anymore. I have been a Spy main since live so it's safe to assume I know a thing or two about the profession. Hopefully after you finish reading this, so will you.

Section 1 - An Overview

Spy is a very versatile and incredibly game knowledge heavy profession. A Spy can just do about everything in the game except replace a Medic, although they already can do that for themselves to some extent. If you can think it, you can probably do it with Spy. It is one of the most fun professions I've played in the game and something I derive a lot of enjoyment from excelling at. People will want to shoehorn you into a lone wolf role because you are self sufficient, but by doing so they miss the opportunity to be taking advantage of two extremely powerful group buffs and they are also not amplifying your damage potential with Officer buffs. This problem mostly exists in the PvP sphere, and most of the PvE sphere has come to accept that Spy is in fact viable in PvE, with some caveats of course. Spy is THE profession to play if you have no friends (Like me!), enjoy playing by yourself (Also like me), or maybe you're just a tad bit anti-social (Also like me!). In all seriousness though, there's nothing wrong with playing Spy and enjoying it for what it is, in the hands of a knowledgeable player, Spy can and will be one of the most annoying professions you will ever deal with. It could also end up being one of the weakest in the hands of an inexperienced player. An advice I can give you, never underestimate who you're fighting. Spy is a strong profession, but it isn't invulnerable and it isn't invincible. There is no shame in just dipping from an unfavorable fight, you are a Spy, you have stealth and you can pick and choose your fights. Take advantage of this to the fullest extent and you will be a successful Spy in no time.

Section 2 - Buffs

Any serious Spy should have all these buffs, but I will list them and in parenthesis I will list them as low, medium and high priority.

Lair Crystal (High)
Dented IG Head (Medium)
Sprint Stim (High)
Shard of Retaliation (Low)
Tactical Electrobinoculars (High)
Hoth Radio (Low)
Nnar Root (High)
Doll Gourds (High)
Acca (High)
Flameout (High)
Breath of Heaven (High)
Veronian Berry Wine (High)
Rancoraid (Low for RC, High for other 5pc sets)
Ice Cream (Low)
Biological Focus Crystal (Medium)
Synapse Focus Crystal (Low)
Serpent Shard (High)

Section 3 - Attributes

Luck: each point grants 0.0033% dodge, 0.0033% evasion chance, 0.1% evasion value, 0.0033% critical hit chance, 0.005% strikethrough chance, and 0.1% max strikethrough value, 0.05% minimum strikethrough value.

This is your bread and butter for most Spy related builds. There are some builds you can make where you can get away with not running any luck in your build, but they are sub-optimal most of the time. I recommend always running this in your 35's, the ST Value you get from having this in your suit is amazing. The evasion value is also nice as it synergizes well with another Spy ability that we'll get to later.

Precision: each point grants 0.005% parry, 0.005% block chance, 0.01% critical hit chance, and 0.005% strikethrough chance.

Very straightforward stat, it increases both your ST Chance and your Critical Chance. Clear cut that you would want to prioritize this if you are going for a more DPS-route.

Strength: each point grants 0.005% block chance, 0.5 block value, 0.01% hit chance, and 0.33 melee damage.

The Hit Chance from this is incredible, I would run a few of these in your suit regardless of if you're playing Melee or Ranged. Reason for this is that if you don't kill your target in melee range, they will likely run away and you want that Hit Chance for when you're forced to swap to a rifle. Try to get this to at least 500, but don't beat yourself up too much if you go over that. More here in this case is generally better.

Camouflage (Should be self explanatory but this affects how effective your Stealth is outside of Without a Trace)

Very solid stat to run, generally avoid this if you're going with a strictly ranged build, but if you plan on using Melee at all, you will generally want to get this to at least 250.

Constitution: each point grants 8 health and 2 action points.

This is what you should replace Camouflage for in your suit if you are running a strictly ranged build. Very good stat, would also recommend running this for group content over Camouflage.

Agility: each point grants 0.01% dodge, 0.005% parry and 0.01% evasion chance.

This is your bread and butter if you are going for a more tank-esque approach to Spy. Agility and Luck both increase your dodge chance so they synergize perfectly together.

Stamina: each point grants 2 health and 8 action points.

Garbage, ignore it until it gets reworked at some point. (If it ever gets reworked that is)

Here are some examples of ways you can gear out your Spy with 35's:

Ranged Tank:

Melee DPS:
4x Str/Luck/Pre
5x Pre/Luck/Camo

Ranged DPS:

Melee Tank:
4x Agi/Luck/Con
5x Agi/Luck/Camo

These are some examples and are by no means set in stone, but these are what I've personally found to be the most optimal.

Section 4 - Exotics/Powerups

Strikethrough Chance - This is what Spies ran on live, it has a poor rate of return and you will end up getting more Strikethrough Rolls by just running Critical Chance in your setup thanks to how Critical Chance and Strikethrough share the same dice. Would advise against running this, if you must stack a stat in your exotics that increases your Strikethrough Chance and ONLY your Strikethrough Chance, I would run Luck instead, but that still is sub-optimal.

Damage (Rifle/Unarmed/One-Handed/Two-Handed/Polearm) - This is straight forward, you stack these and you get more damage. It is arguable whether the rate of return on these are worth it. I personally run them in every build, but I have made Spy builds that run three types of Crit before and experienced no noticeable drop in DPS. Get weapon damage IF you are running a crit build and it will not hinder your chance to guarantee crits. Keep in mind there are people who can get 60% CHR, which makes weapon damage more worth it because of how common these CHR stacking builds are. Weapon damage is useful if you are augmenting it with things in your expertise like Preparation (30% Weapon damage) on top of other % Damage modifiers like Puncturing Strikes in the expertise. If you are not augmenting it in your expertise, don't bother running it at all. I would also like to stress if you are going to run this, get this everywhere. Getting this in small amounts is completely pointless.

Critical Chance (PvP/Rifle/Unarmed/One-Handed/Two-Handed/Polearm/Generic/Humanoid) - These have great synergy with a lot of Spy related abilities that I will touch on later, just know that the more Critical Chance you stack, the less likely you will be run to into action issues during a fight and the harder you will hit faster and over a greater length of time. Humanoid Critical Chance is for PvE and PvP Critical Chance is for PvP, remember that if you decide to throw those stats in any build. While we are on the topic of Critical Chance, PvP Critical Chance is not worthless and I would like to dispel the rumor that it gives you a second chance to Crit. I have seen the code related to this and I can share it with anyone interested. The formula (Thanks Lemoney) for PvP Critical Chance and Weapon Critical Chance is the exact same, and they do not DR together. Take your PvP Critical Chance and Weapon Critical Chance and separate them into this formula and add the values together:

X * (1 - [X / (50 + X)])

tl;dr: The hard cap for PvP Crit and Weapon Crit is 3 Exotics and 1 Powerup point for point. Beyond that you are getting the exact same amount of crit from those, if not less, than you would get for running generic critical chance. IE: your exotics can have both PvP Crit and Weapon Crit in all three slots and you can run one of each in Powerup form to reach this cap.

Add this to your Critical Chance in your Skill Sheet and that is your chance to Critically Hit a target. Remember to add your Strikethrough Chance to this equation as well and that becomes your chance to Critically Hit or Strikethrough a target.

Strikethrough Value - Kind of a pointless stat with how it works. There is a myth that it is supposed to increase the minimum strikethrough value beyond what is projected to be the hard cap of 49% but through testing I have been able to confirm it does not. You can make an argument that you can slip it into one of your exotics to save luck in your entertainer buff, but I wouldn't as you can get luck from a few other sources. Basically, Luck is a superior version of ST Value, as sad as that is. If you wish to know what your ST Value is, use one of these two formulae.

10% + (Luck / 10) + (Strikethrough Value / 2) = Max Strikethrough Value
5% + (Luck / 20) + (Strikethrough Value / 4) = Min Strikethrough Value

Dodge Chance/Agility - Generally would avoid running Dodge Chance, but there are some Tank Spy builds that make good use out of running Agility and Dodge Chance in their exotics. Would not try running this in Group related content unless you know exactly what you are doing by stacking this.

Assassinate Damage/Assassinate Critical Chance - Very good stats to run when you are running with the Assassin set for Group Related content. Would highly recommend this.

Assassinate Freeshot/Assassinate ACR - Assassinate ACR is sub-optimal but Assassinate Freeshot can be incredibly useful as an alternative. The Assassin set gives 15%
Assassinate Freeshot chance, exotics give 4% per exotic for a 12% bonus total and in powerup form you can get 14% per. In solo play with this in your exotics and with two powerups you can hit 55% Assassinate Freeshot Chance which is insane.

Section 5 - Expertise


1.) Precision/Strength/Agility/Camouflage: I went over earlier which of these stats you should pick up depending on what you are doing. For Melee you want to grab the camouflage box and generally speaking I would prioritize the Strength Box here over Precision. I would rather land more attacks more often than Critically Hit 0.5% more often. Agility is solid if you are stacking Dodge.

2.) Advanced Strikes (Blaster Burst/Razor Slash): Very solid ability, it stacks up to 5 for a 10% overall damage bonus and a 100% damage bonus to Razor Slash/Blaster Burst. This is a very hard hitting ability that I would recommend taking as often as you can. It provides you great sustain DPS as it ramps up.

3.) Cheap Strikes/Cheap Shots: For now I would ignore these unless you are running Assassin for PvE. These are okay boxes and some Spies have had decent success running them in the past, but I would ignore these for the time being. There may be a reason to run these boxes in the future, we will have to see.

4.) Protective Armor: More passive armor. I have heard there is a misconception about these boxes and they suffer the same penalty as the Smuggler Hidden Padding. They do not, grab these. Even if they did, I would still grab these Avoid Damage at the bottom of the tree.

5.) Improved Spy's Fang: Great DoT, can do upwards of 2,750 Damage a tick at 6 stacks. Nowhere near as strong as a Commando DoT but you'll frequently see this hitting 3-6 stacks depending on what type of content you do. It also does respectable damage up front as well, prioritize grabbing this.

6.) Opportunity: 8% Critical Chance for 4 points. It's a steal. (Pun absolutely intended.) Always grab this, there's no reason not to.

7.) Balanced Armor: 10% Dodge Chance for 2 points. This is what makes Tank Spy viable. It's an amazing buffer that allows you to benefit even more from Officer buffs as well. Always grab this.

8.) Equilibrium: Grants you freeshots which refund action every time you miss an attack, an attack gets parried, or an attack gets dodged. This is a great contributing factor to why Spies currently don't need to run ACR in their setups. Always grab this.

9.) Close Quarters/Sniping: 6% Melee or 6% Ranged Damage for 3 points. They are okay, if you have a filler point somewhere that you don't know where to place, you can place it here but I would argue there are better options.

10.) Avoid Damage: Your bread and butter DCD (Defensive Cooldown), always pick this up in every Spy build you make, it's absolutely amazing and the line leading up to it is just as good.

11.) Assassin's Mark: The damage it does (~2k) is still point for point more value than anywhere in your expertise that you will find for one point (Excluding Ambush/Snipe, but we'll get to that later), I would recommend always picking this up, as it is immensely valuable and even more so in PvE content.

12.) Jagged Edge/Savagery: 15% passive Critical Damage and 5% Critical Damage bonuses as you Critically Strike a target up to a maximum stack of 3. Always pick this up.

13.) Preparation: 30% Damage Bonus for 15 seconds on a 3 minute cooldown. It also makes it so that every Strikethrough or Critical Hit you throw out comes back as a Freeshot, restoring the action you spent on the ability you just used. Very good ability, would pick this up all the time.

Covert Operative (Next Page):

14.) Quiet Steps: 5% Block/Dodge/Parry reduction when an attack is made out of stealth. Poor value for poor rate of return. You will only ever see this twice in a fight, once when you open and the next when you decoy. (We'll get to that.) I wouldn't run this as you won't see the bonus often enough to warrant investing in this.

15.) Run It's Course: Your mileage may vary. I personally don't find this ability to be all that valuable, Covert Mastery does this ability's job and then some. It's a very weak ability that never got the update it deserved. It can be very good in a few matchups, but I value consistency above all else. I would rather take something that's sub-optimal in every situation than take something that may be optimal half the time.

16.) Improved First Aid: 20% Heal Potency from ALL sources. Always take this, there is no reason not to, it increases the healing that Medics will do to you, which will quickly make you a Medic's best friend.

17.) Cloaked Recovery: Very good ability, always pick this up. 5200 heal (With Improved First Aid) on a reasonable cooldown.

18.) Diversion (Improved Decoy): Diversion is an excellent box for a plethora of reasons, not least of which is that it has the same effect as Without a Trace when you use it and if you grab both points to get the version that puts you in Stealth when you use it, you can actually use it to drop combat and reset a fight assuming you don't have any DoTs on you. I would recommend getting this, but it's not a big deal if you choose to save a point here. At least 1 point here is recommended unless you would prefer running Run It's Course instead.

19.) Spy Reveal Line (Reveal Shadows/Careful Observation/Expose Shadows): This line makes you the strongest revealer in the game. If you are tired of Spies, you know the old addage. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Then pick up this line and reveal 'em. Very good line, but you will be substantially weaker in combat if you grab this full line. Avoid this unless you are trying to be a reveal Spy as the base version of the ability is rather weak and doesn't actually get serviceable until you throw at least two points in Expose Shadows.

20.) Rapid Concealment: Niche box but exceptionally good for the tier it's placed in as well as the value you get from it. I only run this when I run ghost, you want two points here to make sure that both procs from Ghost will fully reset your Smoke Bomb cooldown. Otherwise, you can run a couple points in here but it won't be optimal unless you run Ghost.

21.) Assassinblade: 4% Strikethrough Chance for 2 points. Same value but less overall that BH's get from Man Hunter in their expertise. Very good box, would highly recommend so you can grab Resonance later.

22.) Puncturing Strikes: 10/20/30/40% Damage Bonus to Ambush/Razor Slash/Blaster Burst/Snipe. You get great value from this box because of the increase to Blaster Burst/Razor Slash damage. If it were only Ambush/Snipe I'd probably tell you to pass on it, but I would invest at least 3 points into this. 4 will be more optimal for DPS gains, but 3 will be just fine.

23.) Cloaked Attacks (Snipe/Ambush): Great damage, great DoT and a 50% heal cut. Don't think too much, just grab this. All around amazing ability for 1 point in this tier of the expertise.

24.) Smoke and Mirrors: Another amazing box, great value from this as it allows you to use Stealth related abilities while out of stealth. This includes Cloaked Recovery, Ambush/Snipe, Burst of Shadows (We'll get to that), and Shifty Setup (We'll get to that). It may also grant you the Quiet Steps bonus as well since Shifty Setup is usable and consumable while this is active, would like to hear from someone else on this as I have no interest in testing this. Regardless, pick this ability up, it is bonkers.

25.) Vibrogenerator/Resonance: 6% passive Armor Neglect and a stacking Armor Neglect (up to 6% at 3 stacks) from Resonance. The way this works is bonkers and I would recommend always grabbing this. It doesn't multiply your opponent's armor value, it multiples your opponent's absorption % from Armor. So if your target is running armors up to 68% Absorption, they will effectively have 60%. If you want to calculate the value of this ability, throw the armor your target has into this formula to see what their absorption % is.
1.2 - 10,000 / (A + 8,000) = absorption%
where A is the armor value as displayed on the character sheet
(Credits to LemoneyTwist for this, as he created the formula based on the code that was found involving Armors.)

26.) Crippling Traps: An underrated box, I love this box and I always pick up at least two points in this. An argument has been made in the past that every hit Venomous Ploy does has a chance to proc the snare. This is not true, it functions in a similar way to Dire Traps (Without the dire of course) in that every time you use the ability, it rolls whether or not the snare will take effect. If you find yourself wanting to run this, I recommend biting the bullet and throwing two points into this, as consistency is king.

27.) Cloak and Dagger/Initiative: This line is okay, I have some experience running it but it is sub-optimal when you think about it. There are some ways to make this optimal with the use of Shifty Setup, but that is incredibly niche and I wouldn't recommend trying it.

28.) Burst of Shadows (Or Brust of Shadows as Oekevo called it): Very useful ability, moving faster is always better and it is very handy for running down those pesky Jedi. Would recommend always picking this up.

29.) Without a Trace/Covert Mastery: Basically two mandatory points for any serious Spy player. Without a Trace currently gives you 30 seconds of true invisibility. (You cannot be detected) and Covert Mastery purges all negative effects from you, including roots and snares of the non-dire variety. A must have series of boxes.

30.) Shifty Setup: Very niche box but can be extremely potent with the right build. Good to experiment with if you're looking for a bit of fun with an alpha strike build. Outside of that, save the point and put it elsewhere.

Here are some examples of complete Expertise setups:

My Expertise that I personally use:

Without Venomous Crippling Traps:

If you don't find Run It's Course to be particularly worth taking (Take this for group related content if that's mostly what you do):

Some examples of some sub-optimal but still serviceable expertise setups (Do not bring these for group content):

Solo Savagery:

Solo Melee Resonance:

Ideal Ghost Expertise:

Section 6 - Heroic Jewelry Sets

Razor Cat - By far the most optimal 5pc. Snare invulnerability makes you incredibly slippery, Luck and ST Chance are both amazing and on this set (The ST Chance you get from this yields far better returns than the exotic/powerup variety) and you get a free 20% ACR which is effectively like having a free 8 extra points in your expertise since it affects both Melee Range. The value you get from this set is insane, every serious Spy should own one.

Ghost - Niche but incredibly good set. The extra strength means you have to stack less of that in your 35's, making it a good alternative to Razor Cat for Ranged Spies. Your mileage with this set may vary, however. I personally don't run it because I find it to be wildly inconsistent. Either I use Smoke Bomb 6 times with no proc or I will get 6 Smoke Bomb resets in a row. Good to play around with and have fun, beyond that would advise running Razor Cat instead.

Assassin - The Group oriented set. As our lord and savior, Danish Jesus once said, this turns your normal Spy into a Machine Gun Spy. Not quite as bursty as Razor Cat but can definitely go the distance in sustained damage. If you do group content, consider picking this up after you get yourself a Razor Cat set. It is highly recommended to own both a Razor Cat set and an Assassin set.

Section 7 - Abilities

For abilities I will be limiting myself to covering ones that have effects you should be aware of that weren't covered in the section about the Expertise. Most of the relevant Spy abilities were covered in Expertise so this will be a shorter than average section.

I.) Arachne's Web: This is an ability can apply a weaker version of the Venomous Ploy DoT and potentially apply a snare. This can be used with a rifle so think of this as your ranged Snare, something you can tack on somebody without having to move into Melee Range.

II.) Fight or Flight: On demand action regeneration with an imperceptible movement speed bonus. You should only be using this for the action regeneration if you need it.

III.) Smoke Bomb: This ability is tied to Without a Trace in your expertise, think of this as Without a Trace and not Smoke Bomb. Something to note is that Smoke Bomb will actually reduce your base movement to ~60%.

IV.) Venomous Ploy: Applies a DoT to the target in range and deals minor AOE damage to targets that stay in the gas cloud. Very short range, relatively short cooldown, as a ranged Spy you shouldn't go out of your way to hit someone with it, but if you run through an area that has a narrow entryway, consider dropping this down as you run through. For melee Spies this should be a part of your opener, consider dropping this when all your other single target abilities are on cooldown.

V.) Flash Bang: Arguably the most important ability in a Spy's toolkit, Flashbang is what can allow you to kill targets in the middle of a group of 20+ in Restuss. Find a target you wish to attack and make a macro to target them, then find the medics and if you land Flashbang on both of them use the macro and kill them in the middle of everyone there.
Note: If you attempt this, be sure to pop decoy before opening or you will die instantly. Be ready to smoke bomb out of there as soon as you get the kill and don't be afraid to smoke bomb early to avoid dying. Not getting that kill isn't the end of the world, surviving and denying more GCW to the opposing faction should take priority in this situation.

Section 8 - Tips and Tricks

(One): Stagger Preparation and Fight or Flight. Open with Preparation and once you hit ~30% of your action remaining pop Fight or Flight. This will ensure you have the most uptime (30 straight seconds) of no real action problems.

(Two): Strictly in 1v1's you want to save your DCD's for when you need them. Save Avoid Damage as that is your strongest DCD in the game, Decoy can be used for a quick Cloaked Recovery heal if that is off cooldown and Spy's Respite isn't. Most spies try to use Decoy offensively, which is an option but don't be afraid to use it defensively as well.

(Three): In small scale where no officer is present or 1v1's, try to save your Flash Bang for when you land a snare via Arachne's Web or Crippling Traps. This will almost guarantee it lands or it can force an ability that breaks snares if they want to avoid it. Terrain can interfere with this occasionally so that's why I used the term "Almost"

(Four): If you are low on action prioritize using Blaster Burst/Razor Slash. Your passive action regen will offset the action cost of this ability and it does some of the most sustain damage out of anything in your kit.

(Five): If you are a ranged Spy, try to open as close to 64m as you possibly can. As a melee Spy, try to approach your target from behind LoS to minimize the amount of time they have to passively detect you. Even while in Stealth good positioning can save you from terrible things, so don't slack off!

Section 9 - 1v1 Matchups

Spy vs Smuggler

Starting with the easiest matchup you will have. You are the hard counter to Smuggler, you are about as oppressive to them as a BH but you can choose when/if you want to die. Don't sleep on them, however, as some smugglers can turn the tables on you and potentially kill you with a well timed Pistol Whip, this is a non issue though if you see it coming. Things to keep in mind are:

(Uno): Always have Nnar Root on you for Pistol Whip Smugglers in particular.

(Dos): Try to start at 64m so as to deny them competent opening damage (They will have to swap to their Blackhand Annihilator and dire you to close the gap)

(Tres):  Chasing them into buildings can be a death sentence if your Nnar Root is down, avoid that if possible.

(Quatro): You don't need to run Critical Chance powerups, so run Damage powerups.

Spy vs. Medic (Non-BM) (Medic/BM will stalemate you without difficulty)

The second easiest matchup you will have. This isn't quite as easy as the Smuggler matchup but still decently easy if you know what you're doing. The only thing that will make this annoying is if the Medic decides to spam purge on you. Some things to keep in mind are:

(Uno): A good DOOM Medic will turn this from a straightforward fight into a nightmare and this quickly goes from the second easiest matchup to the second hardest. Be wary of good DOOM Medics and follow the rest of these tips and you should be fine. It is advised that you run melee for fighting Medics.

(Dos): Never open up with Ambush/Snipe, open up with Razor Slash and pop Smoke and Mirrors right away. When you are ready to Ambush/Snipe make sure you use Assassin's Mark first to eat up their Serotonin Boost. Arachne's Web can also eat that up in a pinch if your Assassin's Mark is on cooldown.

(Tres): Razor Cat can win based on burst damage alone if you play well, but the optimal set to run for fighting in this matchup is going to be the Assassin set. Having a constant series of outgoing damage is going to wear down the medic much faster as you will be doing more damage than their ampules can keep up with, forcing Spray and Bomb out of them faster than they might like.

(Quatro): You will generally end up having to kill a medic four times. Once when you force stasis, twice when you force Evasion (if they have it), three times when you force their Stasis Other, and then a fourth time when you force their second Stasis Self which will be up by this time. During the recourse after their second self stasis this is your window of opportunity to kill them, if they live to see their next evasion, mentally prepare yourself for the longest fight of your life. You might be here a while. At any point however you can force a kill window by timing your flashbang for when they are at roughly 50% health. Good medics will notice the flashbang on the ground and attempt to deny this with a big heal but if you combine this with the Arachne's Web into Flash Bang trick and the Assassin's Mark into Ambush/Snipe trick, you have a good recipe for a dead medic.

Spy vs. Bounty Hunter

Another easy matchup but there's more to consider here, with the way shields work you want to be wary about hitting into it too much. You need to be aware that if they get too greedy on their shields you can kill them through it, good BH's will be aware of this and not try to greed on their shields too much and pop it early. Being able to notice this little difference will help immensely in planning out the fight.

(Uno): When fighting a BH of any kind (excluding BM), the first thing you want to do is force out PAS (Power Assisted Sprint). This is their getaway ticket, if you force this out early they won't have it to push you with shields later, to this end Crippling Traps is one of the best boxes in your expertise to assist with this endeavor. If you can land it, Arachne's Web can also work. You want to be a Ranged Spy for this matchup as Dires will gimp your damage if you start as Melee and end up having to switch to ranged which will inevitably happen against competent Hunters. If you can force PAS out of them early, you've already won the fight as you can keep them perpetually slowed throughout and control the fight at your leisure.

(Dos): Get armor in your ent buff for this one, if they get five stacks of armor break on you and you don't have armor in your ent buff, don't cry when you get three shot. It's going to happen.

(Tres): Use LoS to your advantage as much as possible, slow them with Crippling Traps and keep them in combat with the DoT that comes out of this. When they pop shields they won't be able to make use out of it if your positioning is good enough when they pop it.

(Quatro): It is worth mentioning that if you can get them in an Arachne's Web -> Flashbang -> Snipe/Ambush combo they are incredibly likely to die before they can pop Prescience or Shields. This is your alternative win condition if you want to just two head go at them without worrying about positioning, but the end result may be less consistent the better the Hunter you are fighting is.

Spy vs. Commando

This matchup can be either easier or more challenging depending on the player you are fighting. The burst from a good Commando can be very scary, their grenades hurt and if your health is too low there is a possibility you can instantaneously die if they get Devastation procs and Crits. Some things to keep in mind for this matchup are:

(Uno): If you space your cooldowns out you can face-tank Stand Fast pretty comfortably. This isn't recommended as it can be easily punished, the more consistent approach to this will be to LoS away from and snare them with Crippling Traps similar to how you would treat a BH's shields. Be wary though, as Commandos can sneakily do damage to you around corners with their heavy weapons.

(Dos): Similar to the BH ent buff, get armors here. Commandos can armor break too and they hurt way more than any BH.

(Tres): Weapon damage is king in this matchup. Commandos can get the most CHR in the game making Crit less worthwhile.

Spy vs. Officer

Not the easiest but also not the hardest matchup. This one is about middle of the road, good officers will make you waste a lot of time trying to kill them. This matchup is similar in nature to the Medic one. All of the medic tips are applicable here except for the one that involves the Arachne's Web -> Flashbang trick and the bit about the Assassin set being optimal.

(Uno): It is not advised to fight Officers as Melee. Razor cat and Accaragm are mandatory here as Officers will be in Charge/Scatter 24/7 so you need to be able to keep up with them. Crit is not advised to be ran in this matchup as most Officers will stack CHR, so run Damage if you can.

(Dos): Load them up with debuffs like Arachne's Web and Assassin's Mark so their Synaptic Stimulator doesn't remove the heal debuff of Snipe/Ambush. Be wary of them running into Melee Range, they are going to crippling vortex you and potentially drop an SFP on your head, you can counter this with decoy or good positioning. If you can save your decoy here, try to.

(Tres): There's no need to fear Emergency shields, they also nerf their damage when they pop it, but to be safe you should probably try to LoS this if possible.

(Quatro): Pressure here will win the day, you don't need to kill them quick. If you can, that's good, but keep a consistent amount of pressure on them from range. Their heal resets can be very annoying, especially if they get multiple in a row.

Spy vs. DSJ

Spy vs. Jedi can be a tossup in general, the DSJ matchup is infinitely easier and probably one of your easiest matchups as a Spy in general. Location here is everything, if you fight a DSJ on their terms in a location they're comfortable with you will struggle, but the Spy should still win the day eventually. Some things to keep in mind are:

(Uno): It is advised that you run melee for this particular matchup. If everything lands, you can potentially blow up the DSJ in question before they can get a chance to pop saber block. If they do end up popping Saber Block, don't panic because they aren't an LSJ. You can still land attacks through their saber block so just keep on the pressure. If the going gets tough, snare them and run away until it's down and then go for the throat. They cannot withstand a constant barrage of attacks so your objective is to stick to them like glue and kill them either slowly or quickly. Eventually DoTs will kill them.

(Dos): One of the more common tricks I like to use to see how good the DSJ in question is, is I will generally throw a flashbang at their feet and see if they panic and pop saber block before I've even opened. If they pop it, wait it out and then go for the throat. Fight smarter, not harder.

(Tres): Both LSJ and DSJ's can mind trick your decoy and remove Avoid Damage and all the buffs on your decoy and make it squishy enough to blow up in three hits. This works out for you in this matchup because that means they've just blown their Lightning, Sweep, Strike, Maelstrom and potentially their drain just to kill it. If they do this, pile on the pressure and make them regret their decision.

(Quatro): Make sure to run damage in your build here. DSJ's are notorious for stacking CHR so it minimizes the effectiveness of Critical Chance modifiers.

Spy vs. LSJ

This is your hardest matchup... if you are melee. As ranged you have more tools to deal with LSJ's that I will go over. Some things to keep in mind are:

(Uno): The goal here to save your burst for after their Saber Block and Saber Reflect have gone down. Keep them snared with crippling traps if you have them, it is advised you run them for this matchup if you don't run them for any other. You can kite them indefinitely with this and keep them at bay. Do not auto attack into their saber reflect as if they are running a heat weapon, which they should for this matchup, it has a good chance of proccing and doing a good chunk of damage to you by itself. Try to stack Blaster Burst/Razor Slash stacks through their Saber Block and Saber Reflect so that you will bring the pain when they are down later.

(Dos): If they get a lucky root on you, don't panic. Wait for the root to go down in duration then pop a defensive and re-snare them if they broke it with Force Run to close on you. Panicking here will get you killed. If you are fighting a dead pet LSJ, they don't do enough damage when they close on you to be a threat, so you can just passively heal through their damage and wait out the root while you do damage to them. In this specific instance, going melee is probably better for this matchup, but I would still advise against it as they can just root you in place and sit 6m away from you to deny you any pressure.

(Tres): This is going to be a long fight if the LSJ is competent, be prepared to roll the dice on your Dented IG Head for Assisted Aim to end this quickly.

Spy vs. Spy

Honestly a waste of time, I won't even bother covering this as these fights can and will go on indefinitely if both players are at least semi competent at the game.

This has been Spy 101 with Solvaxus, if you can think of anything you'd like me to cover that I may have missed, let me know. Also if you have any questions about something I might have glossed over, don't hesitate to add me on discord and ask me. My discord is Solvaxus#7926, and I'm generally always available to answer questions for aspiring Spies.
Very nice Spy guide

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