KF2 Berserker Guide: How to Be a Team-Protecting Tank

This guide is one player's opinionated view on how to play the Berserker in Killing Floor 2 for team success. It is written for coordinated Hell on Earth play, and the author notes that the build is a team-first choice rather than a personal-DPS choice.

The mission

A Berserker's mission is to keep things off the team. Everything beyond that is a bonus. Any time a teammate is hit in the face, the Berserker should have a good explanation for why the zed did not come after him instead.

General tips

• Do not rush to buy weapons. The Crovel is fine early; the author considers it the most powerful starter weapon and a bit overpowered.
• Do not spend money on armor, except on the boss fight as a little extra insurance at the start.
• Turn every block into a parry and look for the green flash every time. With good timing you can parry both strikes of a charging Fleshpound, plus the follow-up swing.
• Learn to "dance" with Scrakes. You should be able to kill one with any melee weapon without blocking or parrying and without taking damage.
• Overhead strikes near the dead center of a head do the most damage, and each weapon has a distance "sweet spot". A well-placed overhead Crovel hit can decapitate a Rioter. You can hit vulnerable parts through a zed, such as striking through a Husk to its backpack from the front for a one-hit kill and explosion.
• Do not pick up ammo boxes unless you carry a weapon that uses ammo. Taking them only for the grenade is a bad habit.
• Share dosh. You will not need it after about wave 3 or 4, and the Medic and Support should get priority.
• Learn every perk, including its strengths and weaknesses, so you know whom you are protecting.

Skills

According to the author there is only one optimal loadout now.

Take these:

• Dreadnaught: modern KF2 has no reason to go any other way.
• Vampire: survivability over DPS.
• Resistance: consistent, guaranteed damage reduction, and it also blunts the worst of the Bloat bile effect on your vision.
• Smash: you should be landing headshots about 90 percent of the time, the headshot bonus also applies to light attacks, and the stumble is valuable.
• Berserker Rage: pauses the zed AI script, which usually freezes a zed in place like a stun, and instantly heals half your maximum HP.

Why not these:

• Skirmisher: you do not need the speed, the regen is weak, and losing the extra 100 HP hurts.
• Butcher: survivability over DPS.
• Parry: in group games with many incapacitations you will miss parries at bad moments and miss hit-stun opportunities while trying.
• Massacre: once you are good at headshots, Smash outperforms it.
• Spartan: utility over DPS.

Exceptions: with a disciplined team that will not ruin your parries, the Parry skill is viable. If your Medic is so good that your extra survivability is pointless, Butcher and Spartan add DPS. The author would not take either in a pick-up game.

Positioning

Stay close to the team so you can handle anything that forces its way into the group, and stay aware of everything happening around them. People do not always call for help when they are being hit. Position big zeds so that their swings point away from the team. Be aware of precision perks: bad positioning or making zeds jump around only reduces team DPS. Play nicely with Commandos, because if one does not want to lane with you, that is your fault.

When a precision perk fails to decapitate a Scrake, step in from behind them with an overhead strike. This hit-stuns the zed without moving it sideways. Then back off so the precision perk can reload and finish it.

Damage avoidance

Every strike causes hit stun, so the zed briefly stops attacking or even stumbles. Use it: swoop in, hit, and leave range before the counterattack.

• Crescent pattern: attack while moving left or right, withdraw, repeat.
• Circling: run around your foes to gather them into a group while staying on the outside, which lets you control where they go.
• Keep moving all the time. Learn to jump out of sticky spots and to dodge E.D.A.R. fire and Husk bolts.

The author's benchmark is a full 6-player Hell on Earth The Descent run without a Medic. If you take enough damage to die outside extreme situations, you have not trained avoidance enough.

Incaps

Learn how incapacitation works and which situations call for which. Good incaps help a team far more than your DPS. Learn which weapons give which kind of incap, and do not be afraid to use an off-perk weapon as your ranged option.

DPS

On a decent team your DPS will not matter much. In a balanced team of skilled players the Berserker's kill count is last, even below the Medic. In general choose utility (incaps) over DPS.

Weapons

Any Berserker weapon works, except the Eviscerator, which the author calls bad. Technically, a good Berserker could play every wave with only a Crovel. Know what each weapon does:

• Hemoclobber: poisons enemies. Bigger zeds are only poisoned by the heavy attack when you have charges, which is very effective against Scrakes. After recovering, they are immune for 10 seconds.
• Static Strikers: the heavy attack applies EMP, very effective at controlling Scrakes. Use a heavy attack, three small attacks, back off, repeat.
• Frost Fang: can freeze but is too fiddly for a role that needs fast incaps, so leave it to other perks.
• Blunt weapons stumble and knock down better; bladed weapons decapitate more easily.
• Teslauncher: particularly effective against E.D.A.R.s, Husks and Sirens.
• Bone Crusher: highest damage reduction of any weapon at 70 percent, it can also block certain bullets, and its shield smash has very high knockdown power.
• Battle Axe and Zweihander: good DPS when chaining light and heavy attacks, with good range to control groups. These are the choice if you trust your team enough to go full DPS skills.

A fun all-round incap build is Hemoclobber (poison), Ballistic Bouncer (knockdown and stun) and a Kaboomstick for boom jumps and extra damage. It gets boring after a while, so try other loadouts.

Grenades serve three purposes: take pressure off teammates, stop Husks from broiling you, and slow Scrakes when there are too many.

Boss strategies

The Bone Crusher is generally the best boss weapon because of its damage reduction and decent DPS; the author pairs it with a Kaboomstick. With a good Medic any melee weapon works.

• Abomination: stay at his back so he keeps spinning in place and cannot hit you directly. The Medic keeps you alive and the team damages him.
• King Fleshpound: stay close and keep him on you. Parry his attacks. During his chest-blast phases move in from time to time to take a parried hit so he does not use it. Back off before he enrages to avoid the area damage. Circling him and jump-parrying lets him land only one hit at a time, since the hit pushes you out of melee range in the air.
• Patriarch: stay on him, though he changes aggro randomly. When he shoots his gun, run right next to him so the bullets cannot hit you. When he prepares missiles, run away.
• Hans Volter: stick to him, preferably behind his back, and parry. If the team cannot break his shield, make sure you are the one drained. Learn which dialogue lines mean dynamite is coming.
• Matriarch: keep her on you, but her area attacks hurt, so learn when to go in and when to hang back. During her plasma beam she turns slowly, so circle out of it and attack her beam hand. EMP interrupts the beam, and the Teslauncher is extremely effective against her E.D.A.R.s.

For more Berserker material see the Berserker perk page and the Berserker advanced guide.