So I’ve spent a bit of time playing the game now, got the support specialist up to level 2, got several other perks up to 1 — just enough to figure stuff out and learn a thing or two.
The first tip: If you’re starting out, want to level a perk you haven’t touched and are doing it solo — go with beginner mode. Especially if you’re looking at doing a perk like Firebug. It should be pretty obvious, since it is the easy mode, but the higher levels can get you killed pretty fast without the perks or support. (or knowledge of the weapons)
Tip two: Bloats and corridor maps don’t always work so well — especially if you use the bloat mutator. They’re huge and literally take up the entire space. Another obvious tip, but if you want to get the achievement for killing them, try west London or the farm.
Tip three: West London is probably the easiest map. Three of the shops are located in easy to access areas, the map is well lit — save for the police station, but you don’t even need to go in there — and the streets are nice and wide. If you’re wanting to work on your sharpshooter perk and get it up fast — select this map, make it beginner and long and add the clot mutator, then just grab your favorite handcannon and blow the specimen to bits. I’d also recommend this map to anyone wanting to get the firebug perk up.
Tip four: Flamethrowers will get you killed without proper use. You need to hit targets that are at a medium distance from you and keep things at that range. This can be hard while solo, especially in cramped maps, so take the above tip and choose west London for the easiest time.
Tip five: Specimen don’t try to dodge grenades — get some good use out of them! If you’re a support specialist you can get even more damage with them.
Tip six: Melee is quite good. Try the Berserker perk out with a chainsaw — you’ll be tearing through gobs of enemies! Works very well on the Patriarch and the Fleshpound, too.
Tip seven: Pick up any ammo laying around that you can before visiting the trader — it’ll cut down on costs. (another obvious one, yup — another coming up) Also, when starting out — if there’s equipment laying around that no one wants you can pick it up and sell it — quick boosts in cash to get you what you really want.
Tip eight: Banshees may not deal a lot of damage to you, but their screams will mess up your vision quite badly — kill them quickly to avoid taking more damage from the other specimen.
Tip nine: Bloats explode, similar to the boomers in Left 4 Dead, and spray acid everywhere — kill at range, even if you are a berserker.
Tip ten: Crawlers can be a pain in the ass, literally. They hug the ground so any melee attacks will need to be directed towards it — recommend killing at range, shotgun works quite well.
Tip eleven: Decapitating enemies can really help — especially against larger ones like the fleshpound. It doesn’t always kill them, but it does make them effectively useless and they’ll just run around spurting blood. It’s also quite funny — try taking out a fleshpound’s head and one leg, he’ll hop around spurting blood for a bit.
Tip twelve: There are a few specimen that charge when taking damage or when they get close. These are: fleshpound, scrake, and gorefast. The fleshpound and scrake can both take a decent amount of damage, but they can be killed before they close in. The gorefast is just a step up from the clots, but deal a good bit more damage. Crawlers can leap and close range. Stalkers use their stealth to get close, and are quite fast. These zombies aren’t all slow, remember that.
Tip thirteen: Welding doors can be used for more than keeping specimen out — it can be used to keep them in. A perfect example is the chain gate on the west London level. Weld that shut and any specimen that spawn within that section will have to tear it down to get out — which will provide you some possibly needed time, or you can take the opportunity to shoot through the gate and kill them.
Tip fourteen: Sharpshooters have a few options available to them. The rifle, lever-action, holds 10 shots and has a pretty fast semi-automatic time between each shot, but the reload time is quite long. The crossbow has the best scope and is quite lethal, however it is a single shot with a bit of a reload between each — not really recommended for solo play. The handcannon is my choice, but only a single handcannon. You can dual wield them, but that will throw your accuracy off. Taking a single handcannon offers a good bit of damage, a decent clip, and pretty fast reload times. It won’t pack the firepower of the larger weapons, but handles most things quite nicely. The bullpup does not count for the sharpshooter, though it is the commando’s weapon.
Tip fifteen: Lastly, the only flashlights in the game exist on the 9mm pistol (which everyone has) and the pump shotgun. Using the flashlight hotkey of ‘F’ will bring up whichever weapon you have that has one. If you’re prone to accidentally hitting buttons you didn’t mean to hit, you may want to change this hotkey.
That’s all the tips for today. To end it, here’s some Killing Floor screen shots — bloody gore and support specialist level 2 stats. Yay!
Shotgun fun.
Support Specialist Level 2 Stats.
Bullpup scope, Clot head 'sploding.
