KF2 Real Survivalist Guide: Weapons, Melee, Bosses and Playstyle

The Survivalist is not a beginner-friendly perk. Out of the whole roster it depends the most on knowledge, so learn the other perks, the mechanics and zed behaviour first. Think of it like New Game+ in other games. This guide, updated several times between December 2020 and June 2022, covers the kit, skills, grenades, melee tools, weapon choices by situation, the early game, boss rounds and general playstyle. Other Survivalist pages: skills, weapons and builds and the OP Survivalist build.

Your kit at level 25

Passives:

• Weapon damage +15 percent
• Global damage resistance +25 percent
• Heavy body armor +25 percent: armor goes up to 125 and, while you have it, you do not lose health (except to a Siren scream, which pierces armor). Nobody cares early, but later it is a resource worth preserving.
• Zed Time reload speed +75 percent
• Weapon switch speed +35 percent. Because it applies to both the put-away and the pull-out animation, this is about 54 percent faster switching.

Active skills:

• Tactical Reload / Heavy Weapons Training: switch depending on your weapons.
• Medic Training / Melee Expert: Melee Expert all the way. Speed is very useful, and with it your knife can carry you through the first round. Do not try to be a medic.
• Ammo Vest / Weapon Harness: switch depending on your weapons.
• Spontaneous Zed-plosion / Make Things Go Boom: Zed-plosion is the best Survivalist skill. It massively improves trash killing, often kills Crawlers and Clots with the explosion and stuns the rest. It can stun raged Scrakes and calm Fleshpounds, buying time for quick takedowns. Thirty percent sounds small but it triggers often since you kill about 500 zeds per game.
• Zed Time - Madman / Zed Time - Lockdown: Lockdown is great team support: it lets you stun raged Fleshpounds with your starting pistol.

Grenades

Since the Tidal Terror update the Survivalist may use flashbangs and nail bombs; they are not tied to a skill, so Weapon Harness can carry a useful grenade. The flashbang is one of the strongest grenades, and on-demand stun can matter more than Medic grenades. The author keeps Medic grenades for the first two waves and uses flashbangs afterwards.

Melee weapons

Past wave 3, always carry a melee weapon. Melee works as a primary trash killer, but the author advises against it: close combat costs armor that you should save for emergencies, makes you incompatible with precision perks and stalls your growth. The perk thrives on multiple loadouts and experimentation.

Weapon	Price / weight	Notes
Crovel Survival Tool	200 / 4 kg	Cheap light parry tool, fine in waves 1 and 2. Block reduces damage 40 percent, parry 50 percent; heavy attack headshot one-shots Rioters with Melee Expert. Keep it if you spawned with it, buy it by wave 3 if you have no parry tool.
Hemoclobber	1200 / 4 kg	The best purely offensive melee tool, longest reach, low weight. Heavy attack with the weapon reloaded gives an AoE gas explosion healing yourself and teammates 15 HP; light attack heals teammates 30 HP; the gas hurts zeds. It needs a hit on a player or zed. Block 40 percent, parry 50 percent. The author thinks it teaches bad habits (healing unnecessary damage).
Pulverizer	1300 / 6 kg	Best utility melee for a range-based build. Explosive heavy attack kills Quarter Pounds in two hits and clears crowds in a 150 degree arc; light attacks can knock down targets; helps perks that need body damage to take down big zeds. Block 50 percent, parry 60 percent.
Bone Crusher	1600 / 8 kg	Pure tanking: block and parry both reduce damage 70 percent, heavy attacks use no ammo. Covers a lot of the screen.
Eviscerator	1600 / 9 kg	Ranged Bone Crusher: block 60 percent, parry 70 percent, weaker in melee. Use it for bosses.
Katana, Road Redeemer, Fire Axe	Same price as the Crovel	Same damage reduction as the Crovel with stronger offense, but a big problem: Battle Axe, Katana, Road Redeemer and Fire Axe take about twice as long to equip as other melee weapons, delaying Melee Expert speed, sprint and parry. In the late game, when melee is used as a parry tool, the Crovel is effectively better. This is especially sad for the Fire Axe, one of the few weapons with stun power.

Weapons for lesser and medium zeds

Prices and weights are as listed in the guide; the author assumes you know the basics of each weapon.

• .50 Desert Eagle (550 / 2 kg, Tier 4 for 700 / 3 kg): one of the best Survivalist weapons. Cheap, light and quick to reload; one body shot kills Crawlers, Clots and Stalkers, and penetration plus Zed-plosion often kills several low-tier zeds with one bullet. At Tier 4 it kills Rioters with a headshot.
• HMTech-201 SMG (650 / 3 kg): lightweight headpopper that can heal.
• SCAR-H (1500 / 6 kg): a gem. 55 base damage hits key breakpoints: one body shot kills Crawlers, one headshot kills Gorefasts, two kill Gorefiends. Use single-fire 95 percent of the time. Accurate and ammo efficient.
• Heckler & Koch UMP (1200 / 5 kg): cheaper, lighter SCAR but Gorefiends need three headshots, smaller ammo pool, no single-fire and strong kick.
• SA80 L85A2 Bullpup (650 / 5 kg, Tier 3 for 600 / 6 kg): buffed in the 2021 spring update; upgrade it once to kill Crawlers in the body and Gorefasts in the head. A side-grade to the UMP with a good single-fire mode.
• Mkb.42(H) (1100 / 7 kg): a less accurate, heavier SCAR; ammo is expensive and it needs Tactical Reload.
• M4 Combat Shotgun (1100 / 6 kg): hits hard and fast with tight spread; can take down a big zed in a pinch; ammo is an issue if used exclusively.
• HMTech-301 Shotgun (1100 / 6 kg): side-grade to the M4 with more ammo and healing, but weaker.
• Dual HRG Buckshots (1100 / 4 kg): similar to the 301, its main benefit is 4 kg weight.
• Dragonsbreath (650 / 5 kg): great for crowds and on maps such as Containment Station; avoid it when holding a lane with precision perks.
• Boomstick (750 / 5 kg): not for sustained fire; clears groups when it gets busy and can help kill Scrakes.
• M79 (650 / 6 kg) and M32 (2000 / 9 kg): decent when holding a lane with a Berserker. Blunderbuss (1500 / 7 kg): an M32 with a lightning reload and much higher impact damage, decent against big zeds.
• SPX 464 Centerfire (650 / 5 kg): the author's favourite, a multi-tool. Cheap, light, accurate, stuns innately and is tube-fed. Kills medium zeds with a headshot (Bloats and Husks excepted); the 5th or 6th shot stuns a Scrake and at Tier 4 it kills Scrakes in 6 headshots. Tube reloading lets you interrupt without losing progress.
• .500 Magnum Revolver (750 / 3 kg): a lighter SPX with half the clip, 25 more rounds and a lot more recoil. Worth taking with free weight.
• Rhino (550 / 2 kg): underrated. Each shot fires 3 shrapnel for 80 damage each (240 total). Good handling and cheap ammo; strong in tight spaces and against Quarter Pounds.
• Winchester 1894 (200 or free, 2 kg; Tier 2 for 600 / 3 kg): not worth using without upgrades; only upgrade it if you spawned with it.
• VLAD-1000 Nailgun (750 / 5 kg, Tier 3 for 600 / 6 kg): decaps Gorefasts in one headshot and Gorefiends in two, treat as an extended melee weapon because of the spread. At Tier 3 it rivals the SCAR in mag and ammo.
• HMTech-501 Grenade Rifle (2000 / 8 kg): hits the 50 damage breakpoint but is only worth it with a support who welds doors every wave, or on Biolapse where healing grenades penetrate doors.

Weapons for big zeds

Freezing opens many options (HRG Winterbites, Freezethrower and now Frostfang), but elaborate takedowns take time and need an isolated target.

• Frostfang (DLC, 1300 / 7 kg): currently the best big zed tool. Both the shotgun and the axe get bonuses from Melee Expert, and the axe deals a huge multiplier on frozen targets from any freeze source (around 324 damage with the Melee Expert bonus). It is good against everything. A reliable big zed killer from wave 3.
• Railgun (1500 / 9 kg, Tier 5 for another 1500 / 10 kg): fully upgraded it can kill a Fleshpound in about 2 seconds, before the rage animation ends; unupgraded it takes 4 shots instead of 3. You must manually reload after each shot and reload-cancel. Combined with Frostfang freezing, aiming gets easy.
• RPG-7 (1500 / 9 kg): 4 rockets per Fleshpound; with 16 rockets without Ammo Vest that is 4 dead Fleshpounds if you never miss. Use it mainly when holding a lane with a Berserker.
• HRG Incision (1500 / 8 kg): 5 shots to kill a Fleshpound (4 at Tier 5), but the EMP makes Scrakes easy. Fight Fleshpounds only with help.
• HRG Kaboomstick (1100 / 6 kg): shreds Quarter Pounds (two alt-fires), can kill a Fleshpound quickly but weak against Scrakes; benefits from small zeds nearby thanks to Zed-plosion.
• Killerwatt (2000 / 8 kg): the EMP makes Scrakes easy; the charged shot also makes short work of Quarter Pounds even in groups.

Early game

Since Tidal Terror the Survivalist chooses a starting weapon: Crovel Survival Tool, AR-15 Varmint Rifle, SG 500, HMTech-101 Pistol, HX25 Grenade Pistol, Caulk n' Burn, Dual 1858 Revolvers, Winchester 1894 or MP7. The author prefers the Crovel or the 101 medic pistol since both stay useful well past wave 1.

For wave 2, if you have the Crovel and feel confident, keep it; otherwise buy a full MP7. Other options: .50 Desert Eagle (550), Dragonsbreath (650), HZ12 Multi-Action (750, wide spread), SA80 Bullpup (650), Tommy Gun (650, 50-round mag), MP5RAS (650, accurate and cheap ammo), Glock 18c (750, hard to hit with), M1911 (325), Spitfire (325). After that use game sense: assess the map, team composition and player count.

Boss rounds

Consider your team. A key trait is total damage from your ammo pool.

• Seeker Six (1500 / 9 kg): in theory 25,650 damage if every rocket hits, versus 14,400 for the RPG; explosive, 12 rounds per ammo box. Use tracking mode only. Avoid with many precision perks since explosions obstruct vision.
• Dual Rhinos (1100 / 4 kg): each shot fires three 80-damage shrapnel pieces (240 total, versus 160 for a Magnum), and piercing damage is often less resisted by bosses; in theory 28,800 damage.
• Railgun (ammo may be an issue), HRG Incision (EMP, lighter), Killerwatt (alt-fire applies EMP; regular fire shreds E.D.A.R. on Matriarch), Hemogoblin (budget support that heals and debuffs), Blunderbuss (total damage similar to Seeker Six) and RPG.

Playstyle

• Pick weapons for the situation and be as independent as you can, unless you hold a lane with someone; then cover their weaknesses. Holding with a Sharpshooter: take trash killers. He uses M14 plus FN FAL: take an Incision, SPX or crossbow. Holding with a Berserker: take weapons that need no aim (Demolitionist, Firebug, Support).
• Do not spend the whole loadout on that: you have 20 blocks of capacity. Consider what happens when a teammate dies or the other lane is breached, and ALWAYS carry a melee for parrying.
• Learn cheap weapons and the ones that can spawn on the floor.
• Tank damage for teammates when you can (not a Berserker, or at 10 HP). If a raged Fleshpound charges your Medic, take out a melee, block and step in front. At level 25 you have 25 percent damage reduction.
• When kiting, watch behind you; zeds spawn around corners. Move through chokepoints fast with Melee Expert speed, and re-evaluate your path if three Fleshpounds spawn on it.
• You are a great clutcher: if your Medic died use the Hemoclobber more, if the big zed killer died step up with the Railgun. Do not sacrifice yourself unnecessarily.

Conclusion

To play this class seriously, get a test map and try different loadouts. Survivalist is all about experimentation, so do not be discouraged by forum or Reddit posts and keep practising.