KF2 Perk Leveling: A Wave-by-Wave Route Without Cheating

This is a wave-by-wave route for gaining perk levels in Killing Floor 2 on a long (seven wave plus boss) game, without using the practice maps that give XP unrealistically. The idea is to put you against large Zeds early, so you gain XP and learn to deal with them, while saving dosh for big weapons. It was written during the 2016 beta, so some weapon behaviour has changed.

Recommended difficulty

These recommendations come from the game itself:

Difficulty	Perk level
Normal	0-5
Hard	5-12
Suicidal	13-25
Hell on Earth	25

Wave 1

Spawn as Field Medic and knife everything you can. If you see a Bloat, kill it with the 9mm rather than the medic pistol, since Bloats resist the medic pistol. This levels the Medic perk quickly without leaving your team short.

Waves 2-4

Switch to Berserker and buy the Crovel. It handles trash Zeds well and you save a lot of dosh because you buy no ammo. You will want to change perks for waves 5-10 (unless you stay Berserker), so buy a perk weapon of the class you plan to switch to, so you can collect its ammo crates early.

Waves 5-10

Switch to any perk you like (or stay), and buy your big guns right away with the dosh you saved. Always land headshots on the Scrake (unless you use the Microwave Gun), and burst down the Fleshpound before it rages on its own (after 11-15 seconds).

Boss wave

Buy your best big gun, fill it with ammo, drop it, and repeat. Also tag the boss with your medic pistol so you share XP with your Medic perk. Note from the author: ammo crates have no limit on the boss wave and weapons stay for about 5 minutes; ammo crates and weapons respawn every 30 seconds divided by the number of players, so you do not need to do the drop trick unless you want to.

Final notes

• During trader time you can weld and unweld doors to level the Support perk.
• Do not use the SuperPerkTraining map for levelling; the author considers it a bad way to learn the game.

Community discussion

• Playing short games (four waves) levels you fastest, because you fight bosses more than twice as often and a boss gives nearly as much XP as a whole long game. New players are advised to try long games for the full experience.
• One suggested ladder: solo on Farmhouse on Normal until comfortable, then Hard until level 5, Suicidal until level 10, then continue on Suicidal until you are ready to try Hell on Earth.
• The author prefers long games because there is more time to practise on the hardest Zeds, and a boss is easier to learn than a crowd of varied enemies.
• Practise maps and console custom spawns are useful for learning big Zed takedowns in a controlled environment before going to team games.

See also: perk leveling for all classes and leveling 1 to 25 with difficulty ladder.