SHAZBOT!

L4D Beta is now available, should make for some great new maps.

Today we are opening the beta of the Left 4 Dead Authoring Tools to the public. It is available as a free download for all owners of the PC version of Left 4 Dead, and can be found under the “Tools” tab in Steam.
 
The L4D Authoring Tools include modified versions of the same tools we used to produce Left 4 Dead.
 
Using the L4D Authoring Tools, you may create your own campaign maps, character skins, 3D models, sound effects, and music and load them into the game.
 
Here’s what’s included:

• Updated version of Hammer, the source level editor
• Updated suite of command line compiling utilities
• Updated Particle editor
• Updated Faceposer
• Example maps, common infected, props, and explosives

This release also introduces a pair of plug-ins for SketchUp, a 3D modeling program you may download for free. You may use these plug-ins to create building blocks and props that can be imported into Hammer for use in game levels.

So how can other people play the maps you create? Don’t worry, we are updating matchmaking to fully support the new maps.
 
Our plan is to release a beta of the Authoring Tools now so the community can start working on maps in the full environment. In a few weeks we will then release the updated match making to allow users to play those new maps and campaigns.
 
If you want to get started on the beta, we suggest joining two mailing lists:
http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/l4dmapper
 
And the general Source mapper’s list.http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlmappers
 
This is beta software, so if you have any problems or issues, please send them to the l4dmapper email list.
 
We have also updated our developer Wikihttp://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Authoring_Tools/SDK_(Left_4_Dead)
 
And don’t forget. The matchmaking system will be updated in a few weeks so everyone can play your hard work. We will be releasing additional information and tools next week to show how you can package up your maps and how they are delivered to players. We want to make sure everyone has a smooth experience as they download and new Versus maps, Survival mode maps, and single and multi-map campaigns.

Source –> http://www.l4d.com/blog/post.php?id=2510

Originally posted in the steam forums another great guide by Kaizoku. As usual he will be sure to revisit this post and make edits based on comments it receives and his own further testing.  There is one comment by Woden that I have quoted and added myself because I agree with what he has stated regarding melee. 

 

Tank Guide

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As promised, I present the Tank Guide:
 
This guide will explain everything I know about the tank, and will be used as a place to share and update knowledge on the game from this car chucking behemoth’s perspective. Just like any other guide, this is to be used as a compendium, and not a work created by a single author. If you have knowledge, share it, if I give incorrect information, question it, if you don’t understand something, ask for an explanation.
 
This guide, as the others, will be separated into two sections: Knowledge, and tactics. Knowledge being intrinsic properties about the tank, the other being in-game application of said properties.
 
Knowledge
 
–The tank’s punch will hit multiple survivors within roughly 10 degrees of his centre of attack in a cone (centre of attack = cross hair). This means if you are centred on a survivor, and another survivor is in horizontal range of the attack, they have to be within that cone to be hit also.  

Quote Woden

“This is not true. Rather, the tank’s punch hits everyone and everything that his fist/forearm travels through. Because there is no way to anticipate or control which punch animation the tank will play (nor even a way of telling which punch animation he is playing other than tanking in 3rd person), there is no way to predict exactly what area of effect or what range the punch will have.
 
The closer your targets are to the reticle, the better your odds are of hitting more than one. Beyond that, nothing definitive can be said about using the tank’s punch intentionally “

 

–The tanks punch can be used to “stun lock” a survivor. What this means is that once you hit a survivor as long as they don’t go flying away or up the side of a hill, you should be able to hit them again before they can completely recover. Meaning you can do this over and over until they’re incapped.
 
–You can jump and attack at the same time, as an example of it’s range and usefulness, you can hit people crossing the pipes in the No Mercy campaign’s finale from the ground with this.
 
–The tanks punch range is slightly more than the survivors melee range.
 
–The tank slows down considerably when being shot, but *NOT* from being set on fire in VS. Fire does incremental damage to the tank in VS.
 
–When spawning, the tank is still under AI control, and can be lit on fire and decimated during this time.
 
–While any survivor is in the safe room, the tank will *NOT* lose any of his rage meter. Hitting the survivors with a rock or punch will re-fill their rage meter to full. Hitting people with physics objects (trees/cars) will not re-fill the rage meter at all. Staying within visibility range of the survivors will also keep your rage from going down, but this is a bit glitchy.
 
–Rocks have a bigger hit box than the physical rock, you can hit people around trees and other cover by getting the physical rock as close to the cover object as possible, making the hit box go through it ant hit the person. Survivors are stunned for ~3 seconds when hit by a rock.
 
–Rocks go incredibly far, chances are the survivors are in the range of a good rock throw from the second you spawn in as the tank.
 
–If a tank runs out of rage in a situation where the AI can’t take over, the tank will instantly die.
 
–Tactics– (Tanktics?)
 
First off, I want to point out that the tank is NOT a lone killing machine. You need your team to make openings in 90% of the situations that come up in an even-skill game just to not waste the tank.
 
Also, and say this with me in your best Frankenstein voice now: FIRE BAD!!!. *Ahem*, yes, fire indeed bad. If you get lit on fire, you can count on the survivors out running you unless your boomer is spot on with a horde. To avoid said fire, you’re going to have to trick the survivors into wasting molotovs and gas cans. To do this, charge in like you don’t know what you’re doing and you’re going to waste the tank. At this point someone will probably shoot their gas can, or throw a molotov directly at you. If you see a molotov coming, try to dodge to the left or right, since it can be hard to judge if the survivors threw it too far, or are coming up short.
 
Now that we’ve covered not getting bathed in flame, I’ll move on to actual team tactics, and Tank tactics. 
 
The first one, which I love, is the rock to smash combo. This is *very* useful if the survivors are all green and out-running you. Try to get them into a situation where they have to curve around you to get away, and at this point, throw a point blank rock. They’ll probably light you up with whatever guns they have, but it’s very hard to dodge a rock at that distance. Once you hit them, you can usually charge them and “stun lock” them, or at least get them to yellow.
 
Another great rock tactic is rock sniping, though this takes a lot of practice, can make a tank useful in a place where otherwise it would be wasted. Basically the whole strategy is to stay just out of visible clip range, and throw rocks. Since it just takes one hit to re-fill your meter, you can do this for a decent while. This gives your team (specifically your boomer) a chance to cause chaos and give you time to rush in and mess some people up.
 
Camping downed survivors, or killing them if you can, is extremely useful and far too often overlooked. Your team has to help you with this most of the time, but if you incap someone, stay in range of them. Use them as bait, and keep hitting them until someone tries to come to the rescue. Either way you get heave damage on one survivor (sometimes killing them), and damage on the other survivors slowing them down, making an attack for the rest of your team much easier.
 
The boomer is your best friend, but can be dangerous to be around… if your boomer can get a horde to come, it often means game over for the survivors. Rush in with the horde, and start doing damage. The dangerous part comes if your too close to them, they act as propane tanks and wills tun you just like an explosion, giving survivors plenty of time to shoot you, or even light you on fire.
 
Smokers and hunters need your protection, if a hunter pounces someone separated from the group, stand in front of him, take the hits for him and let him do the damage. This way, the survivors will have to get close or move out of cover to save their friend. Smokers you should also treat this way, but there’s much more you can do with them. This takes practice to find the distance, but just like the other infected, you can hit the smokers victim without hitting the smoker. So find the distance, and go nuts on the survivors while blocking for the smoker.
 
You should also always be looking for “home runs”, by this I mean places to hit the survivors off the map, or off a high surface for extra damage and team separation. Any time the survivors are on a higher surface you can do this, just be aware of any lips the surface might have (like the nm5 ammo pile roof) that might prevent them from flying off. Once separated, let your team take care of them, and work on doing the same to another survivor.
 
This is what I have for now, I don’t doubt this guide will evolve just like all others. I hope (as with any guide) this will help people be better tanks, and have more fun playing them with their team. As stated above, additions, correction, questions, and opinions are encouraged.
 
As always, good tank’ing, -Kai.

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source –> http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=836121  

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Originally posted by Kaizoku in the Steam Forums. His guide is the result of 40+ pages of discussion much experimenting and testing. His original post has had many edits and changes and reamins a work in progress. It has become quite an advanced guide for the hunter so if you’re new to the game this probably isn’t the place to start.

Hunter techs [Video tutorials up]

 

 

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I decided to create a compendium of my Hunter knowledge, so that it can be discussed, corrected, and improved for hunters everywhere. I’ll start off by stating the properties of hunter jumps and wall jumps; these are the building block mechanics hunters have to “jump” off of.
         

As a disclaimer, I turn you over to -Onions-:

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by -Onions-          Please for the love of L4D, do NOT practice these techs in VS. Unless you are 100% comfortable with them, stick to utilizing the situation.

 

Use the practice server setting at the bottom of the guide to practice these, because no one wants a hunter on their team pouncing around like a hopping chicken with its head cut off.
 
Pounce: 
 
Fairly simple, the hunter’s best friend. Causing up to 25 damage maximum (yes, even while on fire) depending *solely* on the distance from point a (jumping off point) to b (victim). It can be hard to quantify how much distance will net you a 25, so get out there and find your favourite spots. I find new 25’s every day, and soon me and a friend will try to release a tutorial to show hunters just where they all are. *Fire now does nothing for the hunter, and I for one, don’t care. I also want to add that you do not need to hit crouch again to wall jump at any time. If you know you’re going to hit the floor though, you’ll want to tap or hold crouch just before you hit the floor to immediately jump again.
 
*Patched Mechanic*
The hunter initial damage from pounce has been altered, and needs to be tested to see if it has an impact on the hunter meta-game.
*Needs testing*
 
In addition to everything above, if you pounce someone close to his team mates, said team mates will be stunned and shoved away seven or eight feet. They are always pushed away in relation to where the team mate is that got pounced, and while slightly useful in most scenarios, there are some maps that give this mechanic potential. If you mange to stun someone off a ledge, it will incapacitate them in the hanging state, functioning exactly like as if a smoker pulled them off.
 
*New mechanic*
 
It’s been elusive to nail down, but the “push” mechanic of pounces is indeed a consistent and intended mechanic. For anyone who doesn’t know, you can “push” people off surfaces for extra damage in pounces, while it has a minimum drop distance of about 35 feet to do damage, it scales up VERY quickly, getting up to 75+ damage at 45+ feet for a fall. To do this, pounce someone on a ladder (no mercy map 3, final ladder is a great place), you may not see it, but when you pin them to the ground below the game will make a “ding” noise confirming the push damage, if you’re in the air long enough or don’t do initial pounce damage, you will see “player pushed other player for xx damage”. This is extremely deadly, and I would like to see if there are other ways this mechanic can be implimented into the hunter game.
*Needs testing*
 
Pounce Sliding: 
 


 
something I’m sure everyone has accidentally done, you can actually slide your jump if you know what you’re looking for. If you hit *any* edge of a surface at the end of a pounce, you will slide off the edge with the velocity and angle you hit it at. The angle and speed of approach is irrelevant for the success of this mechanic, the sweet spot for sliding is *very* hard to hit, so if you’re going to try it, prepare for a lot of practice, or a little luck. The most important part of this mechanic is that it DOES NOT re-set your jump distance like wall jumping does, thus, elongating your jump for more damage and range. The places you can do this tech and hit someone are very few, but if mastered, can really take people by surprise and do a lot of damage.
*TESTING DONE*
 
I am now 90% sure that pounce sliding is cause by landing on the ankles/feet part of the hunters model on the edge you want to slide off. I will have a video linked to this soon. This is why curving is so important, because curving positions your model so that you can hit the edge with nothing but your models ankles/feet.
 
Wall jump: 
 
A hunter’s best friend. The true virtue of the wall jump itself is its ability to get a hunter out of bad situations quickly. If you miss a jump, bounce off the floor, get out of there, and re-set. The wall jump can also be used as a wonderful distraction, if you can wall jump quickly and accurately, you can distract a group of survivors long enough for a boomer or smoker to make his move. The actual mechanics of the wall jump are generally known, but haven’t been specifically discussed much. Left click to jump off wall when you hit it, right? Well, there’s much more to it. First off, wall jumping has minimum angle requirements. These numbers aren’t quite concrete, but they are very close to accurate for in game purposes. You must be looking roughly ten degrees away from the wall, and at least 10 degrees up or down, to initiate a wall jump. This creates a conical “jump zone” while you are touching or gliding on a surface you can leap off of.
 
*old-ish mechanic, new to the post*
 
Since people have been talking about it so much, I’ll explain the “silent wall jump”, if you pounce once as a hunter during that specific life as a hunter without wall jumping with that pounce, you can do the “silent pounce”. After you’ve done a normal pounce, you can then jump against a wall (Like a wall jump, but you’re just normally jumping) and left click. You will hop off the wall instantly. This is useful if the survivors are either bad, or bogged down and can’t kill a hunter whose been bashed off for a quick getaway. This isn’t so useful as an attack opener, it may work here and there, but it’s not as useful as the other techs are for openers.
 
Also, you do *not* have to hold crouch the entire time, and it’s actually better if you don’t. I’ll explain why next…
 
Jump curving: 
 
 

 
Many people know you can slow or even stop your jump mid-air by using the “s” key, but for those of use who have “surfed” in CS or TF2, we know that “a” and “d” are even more useful. Using your mouse look, and “a” and “d” you can curve your jump to an extent. Obviously this has great utility for correcting your aim mid air, but it also has some more technical uses involving wall jumping. First, I’ll explain how to curve specifically. To curve left, gradually look to the left and hold “a” mid air, it’s the opposite for right. If you are holding crouch, stop it! You’re losing a lot of air control if you do, so stand up mid air to better your curving. Now for wall jumping, knowing the minimum wall jump degree “cone” helps here, as you can curve yourself into a wall you would have otherwise missed, and jump off of it. Curving also helps you attack from places survivors can’t see. Now, curving leads to an even more advanced tech…
 
Strafe Jumping, A.K.A, Kai Jumping
 
This tech comes in two versions, diagonal, and vertical. I’ll explain diagonal first, since it’s the easier of the two. To attempt this, it would be a good idea to have wall jumping, and curve jumping mastered first.
 
Diagonal:
 


 
To do this, first you must find a relevant place to practice it. No Mercy 1, off of the spawn to the right there is a really tall building with some stairs on it, that’s where I suggest practicing both of these. Once there, remind yourself of the jump degree cone, because it’s going to be really important. Jump and curve into the wall you want to do this on at a 45 degree angle upward (diagonal is focusing on both horizontal and vertical distance). When you curve into the wall to jump, look 10 degrees away, and jump again, holding your strafe button to curve the entire time, curve *back* into the wall, and do it again. Doing this, you can jump up a single wall diagonally. You can, of course, adjust your angle for what is appropriate, but much under 30 and you start to lost altitude. This is best suited for long flat walls close to areas the survivors pass by, and can easily get 25’s in places you can’t usually jump from. For vertical distance without much space to work with, try vertical…
 
Vertical: Much more difficult than diagonal vertical requires that you have the following mastered: Wall jumping, curve jumping, diagonal jumping, jump cone.
 

 
To perform this, begin your jump just as you would for a diagonal, only instead of around a 45 degree angle up, you will need to use something much closer to 75/80. Do your first jump, but instead of holding your strafe key and looking away from the wall again, turn all the way around towards the wall, going from your beginning strafe key, to “w”, to the opposite strafe key.
The goal of this is to keep yourself sliding on the wall the entire time you’re turning around, once turned around, proceed just you would with a diagonal jump with an angle of 75-80 still. If you can repeat this, congratulations, you’ve learned the hardest hunter tech I know of. This is useful for 25’s in mostly unknown and unexpected places, much faster setups for jumps, awkward escape angles, and very high angled attacks.
 
*100% vertical* method of vertical oriented hunter jumping. 

 

 
You can climb straight up any mostly flat surface, no matter how thin it is. To do this, simply put your back to the surface you want to climb, hold “s”, jump straight up, and wall jump by looking 10 degrees down. While holding “s” you will continually go back to the wall. While this tech gains no horizontal distance, and gains it’s vertical the same speed as the strafing method, it is much easier, and just as applicable in many scenarios.
 
^credit: Foxdie^
 
NEW TECH!!
Bunny Pounce
 
This combines the old school “bunny hop” that most veteran steam gamers know and love, and applies it to the hunter game. As posted and discussed before, you can bunny hop from a pounce with the correct timing of the space bar. Using the momentum of a low angle pounce, you can launch yourself at a low angle, long range jump. The problem is, is that most of the time, it is just a *jump* and not a pounce (this will be discussed later). The best method of using this tech/mechanic is to do a single low angle pounce, hold the direction key you want to use to move (A, W, or D), hit space with the right timing, and land on your target. The most difficult part is the bunny hop timing, so don’t get frustrated if you don’t get it.
 
Bunny pouncing has been solved, for a quick explanation and tutorial, here’s kraljevo8’s thread on it:http://forums.steampowered.com/forum…d.php?t=825136 Basically, in order to use this to pounce, you need to be looking at -1 degrees or lower on the pounce before the bunny hop. It’s still a difficult tech to master, but will expand the hunter game.
 
Updated, there is a range of angles that this tech will work 100% with, which is -1 to -10 degrees. Just for fun, I tested if you can wall jump to a bunny pounce, and that is also confirmed. There are some scrips around that claim to make bunny pouncing easier, but so far I’ve found that nothing beats just getting the timing and angle down.
 
*TESTING DONE* (for now)
 
This is what I know, and I wanted to share this with the community in hopes of upping everyone’s hunter game. If you have anything to add, questions, or corrections, please let me know. Hopefully soon there will be video tutorials to go with this, but until then, send me a PM to add me in steam to practice with me in-game.
 
If you want to watch all the tech videos in one stream, here’s the master video list: http://iwantbrains.com/
 
To practice on your own, use the following:
 

At the main menu with console enabled, drop console and type “Map l4d_vs”, use the arrow keys to cycle through the vs maps until you find the one you want. Hit enter and you’ll start your own server, when the game starts, drop console again and type these commands:
 
sv_cheats 1
director_stop
sb_stop 1
sb_all_bot_team 1
 
Along with those command, you’ll want to know these commands:
 
z_spawn <class> (class is hunter, boomer, tank, smoker, and witch)
god
give health (use this to be able to pounce again as a hunter)
noclip
fire
jointeam 2 (join survivors)
jointeam 3 (for infected)
warp_far_survivor_here (puts a survivor where you’re pointing, thanks jon_the_d)
 
As a quick aside, I wanted to thank everyone for the +rep, support, and 20k views that you guys have given me and this thread. You guys are what’s made it worth working so hard to keep on the cutting edge of the hunter tech game.
 
Good hunting, and as always, questions are welcomed. 

source –> http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=770952

 

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Melee fatigue: my further impressions

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After further post-patch playing, I have experienced some opinion creep with regard to the fatigue system. I expected this, which is why the first thread is titled “first impressions” instead of “unalterable truths.”  

 

 

Hamstringing Your Opponents For Fun And Profit
I have always felt that the infected team should have the advantage. I continue to feel that this change shifted the advantage to the infected side (which is good), but that it did so by making the survivors suck (which is bad). I feel that the fatigue mechanic significantly increased the requirement for teamwork on the survivor side (which is good), but in so doing, it reduced the requirement for teamwork on the infected side (which is bad). However, the reduction on the infected side was disproportionately small compared to the increase on the survivor side, so the net effect is firmly in the good column.

 

The Boomer Is Dead, Long Live The Boomer
The role of the common infected and the boomer have been significantly altered by this patch. In the first 48 hours after the patch, I saw several teams wiped out by the actions of a single boomer, operating alone. Now that peoples’ tactics are adapting to the change, that is rapidly becoming as rare as it was before the patch. However, because of the greatly increased threat from the common infected, the boomer has been restored to a state of usefulness on the infected team, instead of only being the guy who distracts and/or blinds the survivors for a little while. I feel that this is a positive change, because burning the boomer to get the 3+1 is no longer the only strategic choice the infected make. It has become just one viable option rather than the one and only choice.

 

M-16: “The Report Of My Death Is An Exaggeration”
As survivor tactics have evolved in response to the melee change, my pronouncement of the uselessness of the M-16 has been proven premature. I, myself, have resumed using the M-16 even in pub games as I have gotten better at using fewer melees to do more. Ammunition is still more of an issue than it was before the patch, but I am finding that it is manageable with increased experience.

 

Survivors! Form ranks and lock shields!
The single biggest result of the addition of fatigue seems to be the enforcement of teamwork on the survivor side, on pain of death. Before the patch, a competent survivor team could detach elements or even separate entirely with few negative consequences as long as they were within a few seconds’ travel of each other. After the patch, in a horde situation, each lone survivor is at serious risk of death, and the threshold for a cascading failure is very close to normal operating levels–when one dude dies, everybody else generally dies in short order.

 

Over the past days, I have watched many teams wipe as a direct result of one person running off by himself. He runs away from the team, gets pounced or smokered, and at the same time, the rest of the survivors are vomited on and attacked by the infected team. The horde on the main body of the team will often entirely prevent them from being able to physically reach the lone survivor, who quickly ceases being a survivor.

 

At its core, the post-patch survivor game is simple: We must all hang together, gentlemen…else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.

 

If you separate from your team, you are courting death for yourself AND the rest of the team. Survivors are now required to exercise far more teamwork than before; many things which were entirely acceptable before the patch are now fatal errors. The survivors must maintain line-of-sight, stay within extremely close proximity to each other, keep lines of communication open and active, and most importantly, must provide fire support when needed without being asked.

 

A boomered survivor in an open area can quite easily take fifty points of damage if he is not supported. His teammates need to lend some of their melee allotment to keep the horde safely away from the victim, and use some of their bullets to remove the horde permanently. When a teammate is vomited on, don’t wait for them to ask for assistance. You can safely assume that they ARE in trouble, so get on the stick right away to minimize the damage they take. While you are lending assistance, remember that a horded survivor will almost certainly not be able to fight through the horde to reach anyone else, so don’t neglect to maintain your watchfulness against hunters and smokers while helping them.

A Great wall jumping tutorial by mystrdat

How to do the advanced walljump curving? 50% bullet-time HD tutorial.

I have seen about 5 other walljump tutorials around, but none of them really separated the 2 basic curving techniques which I think people should be aware of:

Fake Curving – using backpedal (S) + strafe (A, D)
Manual Curving – using mouselook + strafe (A, D)

Fake is more precise and easier, while Manual offers way more effective curving and generally more control without losing air time.

*I wanted to leave the crosshair in the video, but haven’t found a possibility on how to do it with hiding all other UI parts*

Many thanks go to evolution, the guy with the Jean Gabin voice quality.

Posted by DerbyDriver1985 in the steam forums this is one of the best guides I have seen for playing as infected. For the experienced player most of this will be obvious, but for the new player it’s an essential how to guide for infected.

The responsibilities of an infected player:

Hunter

I understand that, as the fastest and most agile classification of infected, that my job is to deal as much damage as possible, WHEN possible. I am not invincible, rushing headlong into a group of perfectly healthy survivors will be suicide – that’s the Tank’s job.

 

No, as a Hunter, my job is to stalk my prey, hence my name. I need to position myself to do the most damage possible either by leaping from a great height or by being sure to tackle the target furthest away from his friends, or has something between him and his friends. I understand that I’m not always going to incapacitate the person whom I pounce, but the more time I have to slash at their abdomen, the more damage I can cause, and the further the other survivors will have to back track to save my victim. Also, rather than pouncing them from a direct line of sight, say while in a tight corridor, maybe it’s best for me to use my wall jumping talent and jump onto a wall from inside a room, bounce off it and tackle the survivor, so they have less time to line up a shot.

 

The Boomer is my greatest ally. Once the Boomer has blinded several of the survivors, I can take my pick and tackle one of them. It’s likely that they won’t even notice me there! Again, I may not always incapacitate my victim, but at least I’ll have caused damage – and that’s ultimately my main goal, to cause damage. If that damage eventually incapacitates someone, then all the more better… but if not, at least I have caused them to use up their first aid, and I have slowed them down, hopefully long enough to give my teammates a chance to respawn.

 

Concerning the Witch… she is very susceptible to heavy weapons. Any human player who has been around the block a few times knows to charge the Witch and blow her away with a powerful weapon before she has a chance to strike. Knowing this, I will lay in wait and use the Witch as a trap for the survivors. The moment they get within range of the Witch, I’ll pounce. Even if I miss, there is a high chance that the survivor will have startled the Witch, and she’ll be ripping them to shreds before they realize what happened. I know that when I hear or see a Witch, my priority should instantly change from stalking the survivors to setting a trap involving the Witch.

 

The Smoker is an ally with whom I work indirectly. The Smoker has the ability to hold a survivor all on his own, he doesn’t need my help. Instead of taking his prey, unless he asks me to, my focus should be to tackle the person who comes to rescue the Smoker’s victim. If executed properly, a fellow Hunter might be able to tackle the third, and our Boomer friend could call in a horde of zombies to keep the fourth busy. Things don’t always work out this way, but it’s at least a valid tactic to keep in mind.

 

The Tank absolutely relies on the Hunter, the Smoker and the Boomer to help wipe out the survivors. If the Tank is chasing someone, I won’t nip at his heels.. I’ll go ahead of where they are running, and try to slow them down enough for the Tank to strike. Another smart thing to do would be to tackle any survivor that might be off on their own. My fellow special infected can assist me by neutralizing anyone who might come to my victims rescue while the Tank is preoccupied elsewhere. Again, we might not manage to fully incapacitate the survivors, but at least we’ve slowed them down and caused damage.

 

Finally, if I know that the survivors are near the safe house, i should coordinate an effort with my team to stop them at the last possible chance. Maybe the Boomer can puke on them, while the rest of us can grab the few that make it to the safe house. It never plays out the same, but sometimes you get lucky. It’s called a last ditch effort, and it’s a lot better than individually attacking the survivors as they make a run for it. Grouping up and attacking all at once is the best way to prevent them from making it all the way inside the safe room.

 

Smoker

My duty as a Smoker is to separate the survivors, period. That’s why I’m blessed with a long tongue that I can use as a lasso. That gift also comes with a curse, however, as I cough uncontrollably and emit a cloud of smoke, so I can be easily spotted no matter where I try to hide. Therefore, I really have to rely on my teammates to create the proper amount of chaos before I strike. Hiding around a corner, in a room, below the survivors or above them, and then coming out to snare one of them while they’re busy fighting off a horde is generally my best tactic.

 

As a general rule of thumb, if my victim happens to have just climbed a ladder or a flight of stairs, I want to wait until they’re as far away from the ladder or stairs as possible before I pull them back down to the level I’m on, that way they have to walk all the way back to the ladder or stairs to get back up, or their teammates have to do the opposite. This isn’t necessarily so I have more time to do damage to my victim, but mainly to slow the survivors down enough for my teammates to take advantage. Also, pulling a survivor through fire can be quite useful. If I notice that a survivor has low health, I’ll often sacrifice myself by walking into the fire before dragging them, so that when they stop, they’re in the middle of the flames. Even if the fire kills me, it might incapacitate them, leaving them to burn for a while before friends can come to the rescue.

 

If there is an environmental item that might alert a horde, like a car alarm or a metal detector, it is very beneficial for my to try to drag a survivor into or near that item. Even if they don’t touch it, the one who comes to the rescue might set off the alarm if the Boomer manages to puke on them, or the Hunter manages a pounce.

 

The Boomer can assist my goal to split up the team. Maybe I can grab one and drag him away while the Boomer pukes on the rest, leaving my victim without rescue for a period of time. Or maybe I just drag away one of the survivors that’s already been puked on.

 

I can work in tandem with the Hunter. When he’s pounced one person, I can snag the person that comes to the rescue. This is the opposite situation of what was described above in the Hunter section. This works even better when coupled with pulling a survivor down from a ledge or into any of the other hazards.

 

Witches make for a good trap. Much like the Hunter, I want to prepare for the survivor to crown the Witch, and snag them before they get too close.

 

When a Tank is present, my best strategy is to try and isolate one of the survivors while the Tank keeps the other preoccupied. The Hunters can assist me if another survivor breaks free of the Tank.

 

During the last ditch effort as the survivors make a break for the safe room, I usually find it best to try and drag one of them back away from the safe room so that his friends might have to come back out to save him, if they can’t manage to shoot me from afar, or I’ve incapacitated him. Having a Boomer ready is quite useful in this situation, as is getting a Hunter or two inside the safe room during the confusion.

 

Boomer

I am the ultimate weapon against a group of rushing survivors. I am, in essence, the one who buys time for the rest of the infected. I should always spawn ahead of the survivors, and not until the last possible moment, and I should always approach from an unexpected area, or an area where I am in range the moment I’m visible.

 

My order of objectives should be to first attempt to puke on the survivors, as many of them as possible. If I can only puke on one, I should take that opportunity, then run into hiding. When his friends come to his aid, I will run out into the fray and hopefully be shot by them during the confusing, showering the rest with that bile that the infected seem to love so much. If I can manage to cover all four simply by vomiting, I should escape if possible and wait further down the way to either attempt to vomit on them again, or surprise them by jumping out and hoping they shoot me on sight. Even if I only successfully vomit on one of them, I’ll have managed to temporarily halt the survivors progression, and that’s the perfect time for the rest of my team to execute a coordinated attack.

 

I can use ledges to my advantage. When I am killed, the explosion will make anybody within range stumble slightly, possibly falling from the ledge, left hanging.

 

When a Hunter pounces someone, I should be there to either puke on the ones who come to the rescue, or puke on the Hunters victim to draw a horde. I have to be careful though, as the concussion from the explosion when I’m killed might knock a Hunter or a Smoker away from their victim.

 

The Smoker and I work in a similar way. When a Smoker drags someone away, I can either wait with the Smoker and puke on the rescuers, or I can try to puke on them before they get anywhere near the victim.

 

The Tank can benefit from the blinding effects of my bile, as the Survivors will have a hard time running from something they can’t see. Also, the common infected will usually trip them up as they try to run, giving the Tank a brief moment to catch up and smack them down.

 

I am slightly less useful than the Smoker or Hunter when it comes to the Witch, but if I move swiftly, it is possible to surprise a survivor and cause them to pause just long enough for the Witch to get up and do her thing. When I run out between the survivor and the Witch, they may take a moment to decide what to do. Do they shoot me and startle the Witch? Do they melee me backward and startle the Witch? Do they turn around and run the other way, just so I can puke on them? Either way, there is a good chance I can confuse them with my presence and hopefully it will be enough of a diversion to allow the Witch time to attack.

 

During the survivors break for the safe room, usually it is best for me to slow them down whatever way I can. If it means getting ahead of them and blocking their path with an explosion of bile, or puking on them as they run past, whatever I can do, I should do. Any effort of mine helps, even if I only manage to puke on one of them, the others might leave him behind, or even worse, risk a rescue attempt which often leads to major casualties.

 

Tank

I am all about brute force. My prime directive is to run the survivors down and deal as much damage as possible during my life span. I know that the first thing the Survivors will do is try to light me on fire. Their second objective will be to crawl into a tight area where I can’t maneuver as well. Whatever the case, I must cause as much damage to them as I can.

 

I should always try to knock them off of high objects. Sometimes they will fall to their death, other times the fall damages will incapacitate them, and even if they walk away from the fall unscathed, at least they’ll be separated from their team.

 

I should keep an eye out for any objects I can smash toward them. Cars, fork lifts, dumpsters, all of them will easily incapacitate the survivors, and also serve as somewhat of a bullet shield for me.

 

Once I incapacitate one survivor, I should immediately move onto the next. If I notice someone helping up the one I just knocked down, I should try to run in and scare away the rescuer if possible, unless my infected teammates take care of that for me – which they should always try to do.

 

If I see that a teammate has a survivor in their grasp, I will turn my focus to the others.

 

Throwing rocks is a hard learned skill, but it can be extremely useful when mastered. If I can’t catch up to a healthy survivor, I might attempt to hit them with a rock, which will slow them down enough for my to catch up and hit them.

 

All in all I will take advantage of my power and strength for as long as I can, and as long as my team works together, my presence may decide the fate of the survivors.

Originally posted by Kaizoku in the steam forums. I made a few minor edits but mostly it’s unchanged.

 

Boomer Guide

---

The Boomer Guide:
(videos pending)

This guide will explain everything I know about the boomer, and will be used as a place to share and update knowledge on the game from this fat bag of vomit’s perspective. Just like any other guide, this is to be used as a compendium, and not a work created by a single author. If you have knowledge, share it, if I give incorrect information, question it, if you don’t understand something, ask for an explanation.

  

I’d like to start this guide by listing some points about the boomer’s primary (and nearly only useful) ability, the vomit:
 
–Knowledge–
 
–The vomit acts, not surprisingly, like a short range liquid spray, though instead of a spray it will only hit people that are on or near your cross-hair, or where your cross hair makes the “physics based liquid shot” fall.
 
–The vomit has a delay after spawning that it cannot be used of about one second, long enough for the survivors to hear you and start spraying, so choose your spawn spot carefully if you plan to vomit close-range.
 
–The max range of the vomit is roughly 30 feet away, for reference on range, this is from the opposite wall of the NM1 spawn point, to where the survivors spawn.
 
–The vomit is at it’s maximum range when first shot, then rapidly reduces its range to zero, so if you’re going for range, you need to be on them right when you click.
 
–The shot does act like a physics object, and will retain its maximum horizontal distance (roughly 30 in game feet) from up to a vertical range of 60 feet. This means if you’re high up, you can rain vomit down on people from relative safety if you know how to aim it….
 
–Aiming the vomit from above needs a bit of adjustment of aim, instead of aiming directly at the person, you will want to aim above their head more and more as you get higher and higher. If you’re 10 feet above, aim just a bit over their head, if you’re 60 feet up, you’ll want to aim almost 0 degrees (straight ahead of you above your target.
 
–A successful attack only needs you to have the vomit stream on them for a fraction of a second, so flail it around to secondary targets as soon as you hit the first before your range goes down.
 
–The boomer’s death explosion is a non-physic radial attack, this means that it extends outwards on a plane, not up and down, and it does not fall on people like the vomit does.
 
–The boomer’s death explosion goes through doors, often this is a great trap to set for survivors that like to blast boomers by sound before getting a visual. If you can checkmate them on a door, you’ll get at least one person with either your vomit (if they open it) or the explosion (if they fall for the trap).
  
–You can become a “fire bomb” if lit on fire as a boomer, you don’t have much time at all, but you can kamikaze into the survivors once lit to replicate self-detonation.

Quote:

+ A Boomer explosion can set off a Witch ( I think you need to scratch her once before you go boom)

 

Quote:

+ The Boomer explosion causes both Survivors and Infected to stagger , this can be bad as it can stagger a Tank …and good as it can cause Survivors to stagger off ledges and required to be pulled up.

 

Quote:

+ Surprisingly a Boomer is very hard to spot (easy to hear) in a Horde, use this to get as close to a group of defensive survivors.

 

Thanks to Asnogard for the above quoted notes.

 
With these things in mind, I would like to move on to tactics and team play. In this section I’ll explain how to work with your team mates, and use the horde to its fullest potential.
 
–Tactics–
 
First off, I’d like to talk about something relatively new and unused. I might be giving my enemies some good ideas here, but combined with a hunter/smoker a boomer can vomit *while moving*. Now most of you already know what I’m referring to, a boomer can start his vomit, and a hunter/smoker claws the boomer, moving them in the direction and angle that they were hit at. Most people don’t see the application of this… yet. Specifically for the No Mercy campaign this has a lot of potential. Using this to launch boomers off of roof tops combined with a boomer skilled at aiming can create an unavoidable boomer vomit. Even better, if not shot the boomer tends to land in the middle of the survivors. There are many applications, but I’ll leave it to the community to discover them…
 
Another tactic not used often is to use the smoker/hunters to create an opening for the boomer to separate the survivors unavoidably. This is most commonly used on BH 3 near the spawn. How this works is you have a boomer spawn somewhere safe near the smoker. The smoker pulls someone, and usually one person will come with them to help, the boomer vomits on those two people while the hunters pounce the other two. In this situation the horde will be between the still standing survivors and the people downed by hunters. While this only leads to incaps in very well synced scenarios, it still does a ton of damage if set up properly.
 
You can also use the following idea in a few situations:

Quote:

Survivor melee doesn’t do damage on hit. It is scripted so that after a certain number of hits, the target dies outright. A boomer with 1 HP will still last four or five melees, just as normal. The right way to do this trick is to have a hunter soften the boomer up until the boomer’s health is at 6 or less. Then one melee from the hunter will explode the boomer.

 

With this idea, specifically in relation to ladders, you can get a boomer to cover survivors in vomit after he has used his projectile vomit attack. While this will stun the hunter, the other two members of the party (assuming they are alive) will be ready to attack, and I would say that even the hunter who hit the boomer could get away for a pounce. Used on ladders this can be a great stall/chip away strategy if you’re trying to stagger spawns to keep attacking on said ladder.

 

Something a little more practical that some people still don’t do with the boomer is a double horde. What I mean by this is vomiting, getting away, and suiciding when the first horde fades. I’ll turn you over to Woden for exact info:

 

Quote:

The vomit wears off in exactly 20 seconds, so when your meter is approaching 2/3 full, start putting on your suicide vest.

 

This gives your team a huge window of time to act, and usually ends up blinding the whole survivor’s team. The timing this should be done at is just before the vomit wears off, and they’re dealing with the last stragglers in the horde, you should suicide. This is roughly 15-20 seconds, 10 seconds faster than just vomiting again, and it keeps them in the same position. This is a great way to set up hunters for 25’s since it’s much harder to bash a hunter coming from above when boomered.

 

Quote:

+ A Boomer makes a decent shield, jump between a pounced victim and his would be rescuers to leave them with a nice dilemma. You can help the Smoker too. (I am pretty sure that if the Booomer gets shot and explodes, the explosion will push a hunter off his prey, or to cause the Smokers tongue to release)

 

Thanks again to Asnogard. On top of this idea, there are places where a smoker can pull near an edge, the boomer can then get in between him and his team mates, boom the team mates, and if he’s shot he will push the survivors off the nearby ledge. The other approach is to claw the survivor while he’s smoked, keeping in the checkmate position so the other survivors don’t shoot you.
 
This is what I have so far, I really hope this helps people do better as boomer and understand why they might not be hitting people, or how people are hitting them. Again, I’m open to any and all questions, comments, corrections, or clarifications.
 
As always, good boom’ing, -Kai.

 

Source → http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=815442

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This guide was originally posted by doberle in the steam forums and is made up from multiple sources. It has also been edited a few times based on replys following the original post. A few good tips for teams trying to make it through on expert.

1. In expert mode, friendly fire is your worst enemy. Make one person the established leader (and point man). Where the leader goes, the other 3 follow. Know where your friends are at all times so that you are less likely to shoot them in the face.

 

2. Travel in a consistent formation. This will reduce friendly fire incidents a great deal, because you have an expectation of where your teammates are, even when you have to turn to shoot at a charging zombie. A commonly suggested formation is this:
The leader and a buddy travel crouched up front with assault rifles and/or shotguns. The other two travel standing with assault rifles and/or scoped rifles. This will allow the standing players to fire over the heads of the crouched, and the crouched can melee incoming hordes. Others suggest an offset diamond, with the point man crouched. Still others don’t reccomend a formation at all, but just to stay close. Either way, consistency of team member placement in relation to one another does seem to help a great deal.

 

3. If a teammate gets incapacitated, he should be close if you are doing your job. Friendly fire damage appears to be disabled when a teammate is incapacitated by a hunter or smoker, so blast away. But fire in short bursts so you don’t damage your teammate when they are released.

 

4. If you are getting mobbed by the horde, crouch down so an assault rifle teammate can headshot the infected’s heads around you. If your teammate is getting mobbed and you are close, jump in and start meleeing, shooting away from your teammate. 3 players can stand over a downed teammate, melee the horde off while shooting away from the center.

 

5. Follow a wall so you are not out in the open. You have less time to prepare for a horde in expert. The trick is to fall into an easily defenable location when the horde hits.

 

6. If you are indoors and a horde is building, let the leader (pointman) pick a place where your backs aren’t vunerable. If in a hallway or up against a wall, 2 crouch and 2 stand with the wall at your back, each set has a 90 degree arc of responsibility. If in a corner, each player has a 45 degree arc of responsibility. (Again, assuming no tank is around.) The best place to be (if there is no tank around) is a small room or closet. This strategy is frowned upon in versus, but used often in expert coop if the goal is to be slow-and-careful as opposed to speed runs.

 

7. If you see a hunter that is far away, gun him down. If the hunter is close, melee him away and then shoot while he is stunned. If you start to shoot a close and crouched hunter, he can pounce on you before you get enough shots in him.

 

8. TANKS – like the intro movie says “run or shoot?” – “both”. The mass consensus seems to be this: If you have room to maneuver, every player has > 40 health and you are in a location where there are attractive places for the tank to climb (NM final, DA final, barn area on BH final), light the tank up with a molotov and run. Let the fire do its damage over time. Run around obstacles so the tank takes time to climb or throw. He will be faster when on fire, but again, if you have the space to offer him distractions, this is the way. If a teammate goes down from a tank fist, they are dead – don’t try to save them (as much as it may pain you). Get distance on the tank with options for exit in case he comes after you and blast away. If your maneuverability options are not optimal for this or you can not run due to low health, do NOT light the tank on fire. The consensus is to run to a location where you can offer him distractions (like the rooftop crane area on DA). This seems to be the most debated strategy.

 

9. In each group, there should always be one person with a molotov (for strategy 8.) and one with a pipe bomb (for suprise hordes in locations that are not optimal). Do not waste these assets in easy areas.

 

10. Don’t burn through your health packs and pain pills. 20% or lower for health packs – some people will argue that you should be in the “black-n-white” before using a health pack. Since pain pills can be administered quickly, save them for when you need them – when a tank shows up or for a final sprint to the safe room.

 

11. Don’t take a health pack if you have teammates there that need it more – or take it and heal them yourself when they get less than 20%. That means DO NOT heal up when you reach the safe room, then take another when the next round starts. Remember that keeping your friends alive keeps you alive.

 

12. Some experienced players asked to be team-killed near an exit safe room if their health is below 50%. They would prefer to die and be respawned with 50% health for the next section, as opposed to starting the next section with a low health and possibly needing to burn through a health pack. I myself think of this as an exploit of sorts (this wouldn’t happen in real life, since there are no respawns), but others argue that there wouldn’t be a zombie apocolypse in real life. If you are ok with this strategy, it can help your team be more successful.

An excellent piece on the tank originally posted by civil06er in the steam forums. The update released on the 12th March may have caused a few minor changes to the information detailed below

This guide is intended to list all known tank mechanics and to list and discuss available tactics. This guide will be limited to discussing the tank as it appears in a versus game.

Tank Basic Stats

• The following are all basic stats that can be found on the L4D statistics thread.
  • Health: 6000
  • Tank Melee: 24/hit, 2s/hit = 12 dps
  • Tank Throw: 24/hit AOE, 2s/throw + 4 s recharge = 4 dps
  • Tank running: 210
  • Tank walking: 100
  • Survivor Running (40+% health): 220
  • Survivor Running (1-39% health): 150
  • Survivor Running (1% health): 85

Tank Movement

The Tank moves slower when being fired upon by survivors:

From WarKirby’s thread on actor speed results, a tank is slowed to 150 from a full blast from a shotgun. This has not been extensively tested but let’s assume that an autoshotgun was used and that all 12 pellets hit the tank. This means that each pellet slowed the tank down 5 movement points. We cannot assume that each weapon will cause the same slowing effect on the tank, but we can use this as a rough estimate. From my own observations, a tank cannot catch up with a survivor moving at a speed of 150 when under continuous fire. Pending further testing, we will assume that 4 survivors with tier 2 weapons can reduce a tank’s speed to some value less than 150.

Tank on fire

The Tank DOES NOT move slower when on fire:

A player controlled tank is not slowed when on fire. However, an AI controlled tank actually moves faster when on fire. This only applies if the team loses control of the tank twice.

Once on fire, a tank will die in 30 seconds regardless of health:

A tank has a 30 second timer started when he is on fire. Even if the tank manages to put out the fire by running through water, the fire animation will disappear but the fire timer will not be reset.

Control Bar

The tank does not die when the control bar runs out:

When the control bar runs out on the tank, the tank is given to another randomly assigned player. If the second player also loses control, the tank is given to AI control. If the tank is within the immediate vicinity of the survivors under AI control, it will attack. If the tank is further away it will wait until triggered by the survivors. If the tank is far enough away from the survivors it will be despawned by the director.The tank despawning during a game may just be a randomly occuring glitch, or incorrect. I have never seen a tank despawn in a game. If you have been in a game where the tank despawned, please post it here.

Resetting the Control Bar:

Tank frustration timer is only reset by hitting Survivors with rocks, fists, or physics objects. (i.e. cars and tree limbs)

Maintaining line of sight is what keeps rage meter from declining:

What causes the rage meter to go down in when you are not able to see the survivors/they can’t see you. The system is the same one used for spawning special infected, if you can see the survivors you can’t spawn — or for the tank, if you can’t see the survivors you lose rage meter. Distance away from the survivors has nothing to do with the rage meter.

Tank Stealth

Stopping the tank music:

You can stop the tank music from playing by holding down crouch and waiting at a distance from the survivors. You can still have the survivors in sight, but you have to remain crouched and make no attacks. Also, when a survivor has been boomed on, he can’t hear the tank music.

Tank tactics

Make the survivors come to you:

Although this is not always possible, you should always try to attack the survivors on your terms and not theirs. Communicating your intentions with your team should also be mandatory. The levels are mostly linear and you can position yourself in such a way that the survivors will have to kill you to proceed. The longer you can delay them, the more time you give to your team to attack them and wear them down.

Hide and attack the survivors from a distance:

On No Mercy 3, it is possible to hide in the upper levels of the open area with the gas station. Once the tank music has stopped ( when you’re playing as the tank it may not be possible to tell when the music has stopped but you can guess by the movements of the survivors), you can throw rocks down at the survivors with no warning. During this time, as long as you can see the survivors you won’t lose control. This is just one instance of this strategy. Now in most cases it is counterproductive to try and hide as the tank, but in a few cases, making the survivors think that the tank is dead, despawned, or ai controlled is not a bad thing. This strategy would be most effective in areas with wide open spaces that allow you to maintain visual contact with the survivor team while throwing rocks from a great distance away. Some areas in Blood Harvest would work well for this tactic.

Do not attack a group of survivors in a corner/closet:

Survivors can stack on top of each other in a corner in such a way that you can only hit one. For example, you incapacitate the first survivor, but your following melee attacks continue to hit the downed survivor. This tactic could allow a team of survivors to kill a tank with tier 1 weapons easily. Therefore, if you have to attack a group in a corner, throw rocks from a distance.

Melee the survivors through walls:

The tank can hit survivors through walls. I have not tested this mechanic everywhere, but it works for thin walls such as drywall or wood that are found in the hospital or in the houses in blood harvest respectively. This is best used against survivors that are hiding in a corner. On No Mercy 4, if you get an early tank spawn and the survivors hide in the safehouse corner, you can hit them through the walls by running around the outside wall. Keep in mind that they can also shoot through the walls. On the Blood Harvest finale, when the survivors group up in that corner near the ammo on the first floor, you can hit them through the wall on your right as you come in the door. These tactics work best when you can wait for a boomer to attack first. During the confusion you can get in several hits before they are aware of what’s going on. I will try and test this for concrete walls (walls in a tunnel)

Avoid fire at all costs:

Once the survivors have set you on fire, they have turned you into a set piece. A tank on fire is worse than an AI controlled tank on normal. You are forced to rush in and attack and you no longer have the AI benefit of laser accuracy on your rock throws. Therefore, if the survivors have molotovs DO NOT ATTACK. Stay as far away from the survivors as you can, reset your control bar by throwing hitting survivors with rocks, and simply wait for your team to attack to give you the diversion you need. A boomer attack will provide enough infected for you to make a move. Try and make the survivors use their molotovs by feinting moves towards them. Identify which survivors have molotovs and direct your team to target them first. Their accuracy for their throws will be thrown off if they are being attacked by normal infected, even more by a hunter/smoker. Also, a thrown molotov will bounce off a tank if it hits him. This can be used to your advantage, especially if you are top of a roof. You can run and jump into the molotov to knock it away from your roof. The fires from a molotov are restricted to one level and the molotov has to hit the ground or another object to break.

Use rock throws as a distraction/skirmish:

Throwing rocks is time consuming but effective when you are buying time for your team to attack or trying to hit a group of 3 or more survivors. To aim a rock throw, aim higher above your target based on your distance away. Compare throwing a rock to pouncing as a hunter, you want to aim above and beyond the survivor to hit. For distances greater than 20 feet, you will need to arc your throw to hit the target. It is possible to throw the rock a great distance by angling your shot at around 45 degrees or when throwing from a height. You can also throw rocks over objects such as houses (Blood Harvest). On the No Mercy finale you can hide behind the helipad and throw rocks to hit the survivors on the roof. Also, rocks can be shot down by survivors with a few shots. Rocks have a health value of less than 200. If you’re long range tanking, you can have whichever special infected (smoker, hunter, or boomer) teammate is the least useful depending on the situation stay near you, so you can kill him to refill the control meter in case you throw a few consecutive misses. Another note, a tank CAN throw a rock into the safehouse when the door is closed. Move the tank right up against the door and look through the opening. It doesn’t always work, but you can use this technique to kill a survivor that is in the safehouse, while waiting for another survivor to die outside the safehouse. If you aim ALL THE WAY UP and throw a rock, it will land about 10-15 feet away from your current position. This is useful for NM5 rooftops. However, you need to be at least 5 feet away from the wall or you will hit the wall to throw it up or you will hit the wall.

Separate the survivors:

Use your melee attack to separate the survivor team. Once you have incapacitated the first survivor, you can guard the downed survivor if the rest of the team is still moving as a group. Ideally, a hunter can pounce the downed survivor and you can keep the rest of the team from rescuing until the survivor is dead. A boomer created mob can also finish off a downed survivor quickly if not aided by his team.

Attack after survivors have been boomed:

The normal infected spawned by a boomer will slow down the survivors and blinded survivors will not be as effective shooting you. This mean you will take less damage and not be slowed down by survivor attacks, while at the same time they are held in place for your attack. A blinded survivor that is hit quickly after boomed will be separated, disoriented, and surrounded by normal infected.

Hit survivors off ledges:

This is harder than it looks sometimes because it is based on the map you’re playing and when you hit the survivor. You cannot affect the upward lift on a survivor by how you melee them. To knock them off a ledge you must time your hit so that you hit them in a direction that doesn’t have any fence/rail/support that will catch them and keep them from flying off the edge. This is fairly easy to accomplish in some Blood Harvest levels because the ground slopes down to the edge, allowing you to hit the survivors OVER the fence. Try coordinating with your team to setup the survivors in front of ledges so that you can knock them off. A great example of this is having a hunter pounce a survivor near a ledge. Even if the hunter is shot off by the team, you can knock the survivor off the ledge while he is recovering from the pounce.

Use moveable objects to attack:

Easily one of the most exciting experiences of the game is to smack a car into a team of survivors and incapacitate the entire team with one blow. When you are hitting tree limbs or cars, aim for one of the ends to create a rotating motion about its center. This will cause the object to incapacitate more people in its path than if you had simply hit it straight on. You can also aim your shots by aiming slightly above the object. You can use this to hit an object straight up in the air or at a lower angle based on the angle of your melee. For more controlled shots, crouch and aim your punch straight ahead to keep the object close to the ground. Keep in mind that any moveable object, after it is hit once, will disappear after a set period of time if it is not hit again. Therefore, if you are waiting on the survivors, try to only hit ONE moveable object and keep hitting it so it does not disappear. As mentioned above, plan your attacks around the availability of these objects.

From my own observations, when hitting a car, it is best to hit one end of the car to create the spinning motion for better control. For hitting anything else, you should crouch to avoid hitting the object over your target.

Landing Melee Punches, avoid misses:

A few tips to avoid missing the survivors when you are up close trying to melee. For this section we will assume that the survivor is facing you and moving. (A survivor that is running away not looking at you should be easy to hit). Also a survivor in the green should not be chased if there is a survivor in the yellow available, hit the easier target first. First you should usually start your attack just before you get in range (exception: trying to knock survivor off a ledge–timing). There is a short delay between when you click the mouse and the punch connects. By timing this, you can hit the survivor more consistently and not give him a chance to dodge your swing. Most survivors, especially if they are too slow to just run away, will try and run past you when you get close. They will wait until you get close and then run towards you at a slight angle to avoid your fist. By using the above practice of attacking right before the survivor comes into range, you can usually hit them regardless of what dodge they attempt. It has also been noted that jumping right before you attack will allow you to develop a more consistent attack. A survivor could shoot you before an attack to slow you down and throw off your timing. While jumping, you cannot be slowed, so you can develop this attack to achieve a more consistent melee attack. (note: do not crouch during this jump — Thanks to T3A1C)

Decision — Attack or Ambush?

With the changes brought on by the 1-14-09 patch, you can no longer take the tank to an area with moveable objects and wait for the survivors to attack (because your control meter will not be reset by hitting cars). You either can attack immediately (staying away and throwing rocks included) or you can lose control of the tank to the AI in a suitable ambush area. In some instances, an AI controlled tank in an open area is more useful than a player controlled tank in a closed area. A good example of this would be NM 2. If the survivors have tier 2 weapons already and the tank spawns, you could take the tank outside and leave it to the AI in the open area in front of the end safehouse. This would force a tank attack in the most vulnerable spot for the survivors, after they have been worn down by all infected attacks up to that point (i.e. low on health, slow). Coordinate with your team to determine which course of action to take, but if you decide to “plant” the tank somewhere, the sooner you start towards your ambush site the better. When the tank first spawns, you are given a grace period before the rage meter begins to decline. It is best to use this time if you are traveling a great distance to setup an ambush.

Locations of moveable objects

No Mercy 1: There are 3 cars and a dumpster in the streets including the alarmed car.

No Mercy 2: There are at least 2 cars and 2 dumpsters out in the street before the safehouse. There are also the pillars in the room below the door panic event. Punching the pillars launches chunks of concrete at the survivors for damage (not instant incap).

No Mercy 3: There are 2 forklifts around the main open area involving the lift. One of them is behind the breakable door. The other is behind a truck. There is a car in this area too, but it is in the garage next to the gas station. It can be knocked into the open by hitting it to the entrance and crouch punching it. Once out of the sewers at the end, there are at least 2 cars that can be used. However, there are several non-moveable cars in this area so identify the correct cars.

No Mercy 4: There is a generator and a forklift on the top level right before the end safehouse.

No Mercy 5: None.

Blood Harvest 1: There is a treelimb along the path before you get to the bridge. Note: there are 2 non-moveable cars near the bridge.

Blood Harvest 2: There is at least one forklift in the main room before the alarmed door. There is also a forklift immediately outside the alarmed door.

Blood Harvest 3: There is a treelimb in the main area once you exit the tunnels in the beginning. There is another treelimb when you exit the next set of tunnels located somewhere around the house with the ammo before you get to the breakable bridge.

Blood Harvest 4: There is a treelimb on the upper level of this map between the barn and the train station. There is an alarmed car to the right of the train tracks between the warehouse and the first house once you have dropped to the lower level.

Blood Harvest 5: There is a tree limb located next to the barn at the finale. There is a tree limb next to the small shed which is next to the grain silo. There is an additional tree limb and 3 hay bales available to hit as well.

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