Basic Tips for Beginners

[Kanati]

hrmmmmm
COMMUNICATE: Use your microphone. Period. If you don't have one you are a liability to the group. Less so as infected but as survivors, you are DEFINITELY a liability. You HAVE to use the mic to communicate that you are pounced, smoked, boomed... etc. There is nothing more important to this game than verbal communication. Nuff said there.

Medkits: I don't like to use my medkit until I've been down once and revived. But that's only when not having to deal with a tank. If you know a tank is coming soon, you should either use pills or use your medkit if you are moving slower than full health speed. The tank isn't going to care what speed you are moving at, so make sure you are moving as fast as you can. One person getting downed by a tank can change the outcome of the encounter. So... If you have a good team, wait until you are downed and revived... They will protect you while you heal. If you have a bunch of pubbers... Might be worth it to heal BEFORE you are downed. If there's an extra medkit and someone is only moderately hurt... best to heal up and grab it rather than leave it. Just so many variables to that question...

Pills: Pills fade after time, but no matter how slowly you are moving, if you take pills you are moving at normal speed. Well worth it when you have a tank, to take them. Always take pills instead of healing if possible as well as every med kit in the safe room at the end of the map adds to your health bonus. Same goes for pills, though they should be USED before entering the safe room (there's two schools of thought on that and some say that it doesn't matter if you take them or not, but simple fact of the matter is... it doesn't hurt to take them so you should probably do so.)

STAY TOGETHER: Nothing will kill a party faster than one person running ahead or going off to explore on their own. That person will get pounced. One will run up to help and the rescuer will get smoked, pounced, boomed... whatever. Even if everyone comes up and saves the person in short order, they took one or two swipes more than they would have if they had stuck with the other three survivors. A good, organized team (which everyone here at TTP is capable of forming) of infected can pick apart a team of survivors relatively quickly if they don't stick together tightly.

Witch: If you have the autoshotty the witch is nothing to be afraid of. You can very easily run up behind her and unload 2-3 shots into her upper body / head and she'll be down. This assumes a smoker isn't trying to drag you into her... Or a boomer trying to disorient you as you are trying... etc. But the witch is an easy kill under normal circumstances. If you think the witch is protected by specials and have a nice long shot at her... it's best to get everyone ready to shoot her and pop her long range. Shoot her as she's running at you and you can usually take her out before she gets there. The only thing is, you need to decide this quickly. If you stand around long range pointing your guns at her for more than a few seconds, the specials on the other team will know what you are doing and reset their attacks to your location instead of where the witch is at... And getting boomed while a pissed off PMSing witch is bearing down on you can mean one dead player.

Tank: Early tanks (right out of the safe room) generally are very bad things and wind up wiping people out pretty quickly. You need, optimally, to have a nice open area to run around in to avoid the tank. Tight, enclosed areas are BAD. The tank can concievably hit all four players with one swipe. That's why you'll hear people yell "FOUR CORNERS!" occasionally. That means everyone get in a corner of the room and fire at the tank from there. That way he can only hit one person at a time.

Things you need to do with the tank... Light his ass on fire whenever you can. Every time you can. (Note that if you are in the sewers or near water of any kind, he can put it out by running into the water). The fire will damage him constantly while you are running away from him. Run backwards (BUT NOT INTO A CORNER!) firing the whole time. If you need to reload, turn around and run so you can get your bearings again. Rinse and repeat.

Tier one weapons I like the uzi for the tank... Tier two, nothing beats the autoshotty at close range. The tank can be taken down in a few seconds with a party full of autoshotties. If you have a long range tank go for the M16.

Angles... You can often escape a tank swipe if you suddenly try to run past him and jump at the same time. Works for me most of the time. DO NOT be near a ledge, cliff, etc where you can die if you fall off... The tank can "home run" you right out of the ball park. Instant Kill.

General stuff: There are places on some maps that are "insta-kill" spots. These are places where a smoker can pull you and you will be dangling over a drop that will kill you when you fall. No questions asked... No quarter given. If someone mentions one of these spots (blood harvest finale map, dead air rooftops, etc) make sure you stay EXTRA tight together. This will give the person(s) next to you time to melee the smoker off of you before you are dragged to your death. Just remember that if the tongue is broken IMMEDIATELY after snagging someone, the smoker resets very quickly and can do it again. If he is able to drag a few feet it takes 20-30 seconds or so (guessing) to reset the tongue and you can get away during this time.

Related note... DO NOT CHASE THE SMOKER!!!! You might think he's an easy target if his tongue is broken. But it might have been a momentary break which resets quick... and at close range he can drag you faster than you can kill him... Or worse, he has a hunter backing him up just waiting for someone to chase after him. Then you just broke the STAY TOGETHER rule and you are taking unnecessary damage. It's best to just leave him behind. He'll show up to be a pain in the butt later but if you outpace him, or close some doors in his way, you can guarantee that you just eliminated one quarter of your threat from the other team.

SHOOT HUNTERS! Do NOT melee them off and forget them. I can't count the number of times I've been meleed off of a survivor and then been ignored so that I can either start swiping, or repounce. I once got 4 pounces on players for this reason. TOTALLY unnecessary damage.

Players that are pounced or smoked CAN BE SHOT WITHOUT DOING DAMAGE TO THEM. Shoot the hunters... Shoot the player being smoked, or the tongue if you don't have a clear shot at the smoker himself. You will NOT hurt the player by shooting at them in this case.

For the love of all that's holy do NOT shoot the gas cans accidentally. I swear... Every single game I play SOMEONE lights my ass on fire. Nothing sucks worse than a party going from full health to 2/3s health without ever getting touched by a zombie. Just because someone shot a gas can while they were all standing at ground zero.

Alarm cars bring the horde... DO NOT SHOOT THEM! If you do you will regret it and people will yell at you. I know. If someone gets dragged to an alarm car by the smoker, run to them... do NOT try to shoot the smoker. MELEE the smoker and do not do so as to push him into the car. Then get away from it.

As infected: Stay together 2 - electric boogaloo. It's IMPERATIVE that you coordinate your attacks as the infected. If everyone is attacking randomly, the infected will get picked off one by one and the survivors will win EASILY. There's a few easy plans that work...

The Boomer Lead: The boomer runs out and booms as many people as he can. Then while everyone is unable to see, the hunters / smoker do their thing. Just do it QUICK after the boom. Extra damage is there to be had.

The Smoker Lead: The smoker drags someone back and as people try to come back for the dragged player, the hunters jump in and take out the rescuers. The boomer jumps in and booms whomever he can.

The Distraction Boom: If the boomer is going to have a hard time getting a boom (wide open spaces are hard to find a spawn point and get to the survivors before getting shot), then a hunter will start bouncing around, distracting the survivors while the boomer moves in for the boom. Sometimes it's necessary to sacrifice a hunter for the greater good.

The mythical Three Hunter One Smoker Gangbang: This only works if the survivors are not super tight knit... But it's quite possible to use three hunters and a smoker to end the game IMMEDIATELY. Smoker starts to pull and three hunters pounce at the same time. If done right (EvO team was very good at this) there's no counter. The survivors are all incapped immediately no matter how much health they had.

Boomer: It's generally best to try to boom from the front of the party as a newer player. There are times you can get booms from above or behind, but you have to have enough experience with the boomer to know when those times are. Generally, rule of thumb is, do NOT spawn until the last second. If you spawn early, they can hear you and a good team can eliminate you quickly before you can boom them. Try to get as many people as possible with one boom. If you only get one, or two, keep running... Run into the middle of the survivors and start swiping at them. Chances are, your secondary explosion when you get shot, will "paint" the rest of them if they are tightly grouped.

Smoker: Just the opposite of the boomer, it's better to try to smoke from behind. The idea is to drag a player BACK. This delays them and forces them to backtrack to save the person. Best times to smoke are when the last person is moving slowly and getting outpaced by the others. The longer you can drag the better. The swipes the smoker does is very weak, so he's basically a support role used as a distraction for the other specials. HOWEVER... he's also the only infected that can INSTANTLY kill a player by dragging them off of a building or cliff. So he is important. The insta-kills are difficult to achieve, but can be done and when done correctly, changes the outcome possibility instantly.

Hunter: The soldier of the bunch... This is the primary special infected. Generally you want to pounce people from as high as you can. The higher you pounce from the more initial damage you get. The most you can get is 25 points (1/4 of total health). However, getting those high pounces are difficult and it takes a lot of practice with the hunter to get good with him. You have to know the limits of the pounces... You CAN control his flight in mid jump with the directional keys and you can even CURVE in mid air if you know how to do so. Suffice it to say... practice practice practice.

One thing to note is that a hunter's swipe does far more damage than one hit while on the ground. Meaning that if you run up to someone and right click to swipe at them, you do more damage than if you pounce and hit one time.

Sometimes, if a player is pretty hurt, it's worth it to just run in and swipe at them rather than go for a pounce. The hunter, when not crouching is silent... and the only special infected that IS silent. So when you spawn, if you don't want the players to hear you... don't crouch. Soon as you do, the hunter starts growling and basically being a pain in the ass if you are trying to be quiet. Being silent is the key to getting a lot of good swipes. Some call this a "ninja scratch".

Witch: Because the witch is so easy to kill, you have to support her attack as best you can. Set up around her... A smoker can pull a player into the witch where she will be "Startled" and start her attack. Her attack is very strong. Her initial attack will incapacitate a player immediately. If she isn't taken out immediately thereafter she will kill the player in about 4 swipes. So as soon as she attacks, everyone needs to hit the players as fast and hard as possible. A good boom while the witch is attacking is an almost certain kill of the player getting attacked.

Tank: Many new players make the mistake of attacking with the tank and chasing after a bunch of green survivors with full health... That's almost certainly a dead tank in the making. If all the players are full health, or even if some of them are... WAIT FOR YOUR TEAMMATES TO SPAWN IN BEFORE ATTACKING. You HAVE to get support from the other infected. Optimally you need to let the boomer get in there and paint some players. If they have to deal with a horde along with the tank you are almost guaranteed a couple of incapped players.

If you are the tank and the smoker grabs someone, or a hunter pounces someone, LEAVE THEM ALONE. They are down. If they are released, THEN swipe them. But don't break the attacks. What you can do then is try to position yourself between the smoker/hunter and the other players so they can't rescue that person.

Do NOT run right at the players if they have molotovs or gas cans. Once they light you on fire you are dying very quickly. Avoid fire at all costs except in rare cases where you have water around you that you can put yourself out in.

If you think you are going to have trouble with the situation (no support, fire, etc) then simply throw rocks from a distance... if you get good doing this you can do a lot of damage with just rocks. And it gives your teammates time to try to change the situation for you. One tip on throwing rocks... Players will run at 90 degree angles from you to get away from rocks thrown at close range. These are the best because you simply lead them about 5 feet and the rock will hit every time. This also gives you time as they get up to run in and hit with a swipe.

Use the environment to your benefit! Downed trees, cars, garbage cans, luggage carts... They are all hittable by the tank and fly through the air quite nicely. And if they even TOUCH a player they will be instantly incapacitated. It generally takes 3-4 swipes to a player to incap them from full health, but a car rolling on their head will incap them immediately. And repeated rolling over them will kill them. There's no faster way to take out all four players than to hit them all with a single car in the tunnel at the opening of death toll for instance.

Ok... that's enough... Someone could write a book on strategies for this game. And I'm supposed to be at work.

[Walkerxes]

Kanati.. the only extra time would be editing tweaks and adding images.. you already did the core work, so not having time is no excuse

Also, you might want to note that this is an expanded/updated set of tips from what my origional L4D Basic Tips article is/was.

[DancingCorpse]

Yeah, like Walker said, it took me a while to realize this was for L4D, make sure people know what it is, and what it is for.

[Adsartha]

Yep. Needs an intro and a conclusion, and for survivor tactics I would move the discussion of special classes all into the same area, just for consistency. Other than that, looks good!

[DancingCorpse]

We could really use some pictures for this, make it look better.

[DJ Ms. White]

poke