KF2 Solo Commando Guide: Skills, Weapons and Loadout Combos

This is a solo-focused guide to the ammo-heavy, sixth-sense perk of Killing Floor 2. Commandos use mainly assault rifles and can be built for crowd control and near-limitless bullet spray, or for efficient damage against small and medium Zeds without losing power against large ones. Their only real struggles are money, because ammo is expensive, and sometimes Fleshpounds, which resist bullets. See also the Commando perk weapon stats.

Perk passives

• Detection: health bars and cloaked Zeds are visible within 10 meters at level 0, plus 2 meters per level, reaching 60 meters at level 25. This basically cancels the threat of Stalkers and the Patriarch sneaking up on you.
• Zed time extension: one extra second at the start, growing by five more seconds to a total of 6 seconds extra.
• Night vision, like the Berserker, which is nearly irrelevant because your flashlight is enough.
• Reload speed: 10% faster at level 25.

Skill choices

• Tactical Reload or High Capacity Mags. Tactical Reload speeds up magazine swaps, especially empty ones. If you have no skills from level 15 onward, High Capacity Mags is better; with the Stoner LMG specifically, Tactical Reload is far more useful because its long reload hurts.
• Fallback or Impact Rounds. Fallback doubles damage with the 9mm and knife, which is more than enough to remove small Zed heads in one or two bullets and is great on a tight budget or a 9mm/knife-only run. If you never use your pistol, take Impact Rounds instead.
• Tenacious or Prepared. Tenacious gives +25 health and armor, valuable on Hell on Earth. Prepared helps if you run out of ammo or use huge clips.
• Hollow Point Rounds or Eat Lead. This is the real fork: the left side is damage per bullet and accuracy, the right side is spraying as many bullets as possible with few reloads. Hollow Point Rounds gives much less recoil and much more damage on all guns. Eat Lead doubles clip size; with the Stoner LMG that means up to 188 rounds in one clip at 150% clip size. The author calls Hollow Point objectively more useful.
• Tactician or Machine Gunner. Tactician helps reload both guns quickly when Zed time arrives as you run dry. Machine Gunner is for Zed time with ammo still loaded: the 3% damage bonus is negligible, but the near real-time fire rate is worth experiencing once.

Weapons

The Commando's grenade is the High Explosive grenade, which detonates quickly and deals massive damage in its radius.

Weapon	Cost	Weight	Magazine / total ammo	Notes
AR-15 (starting)	200	4 kg	20 / 260	Semi-burst rifle; burst is good against early Bloats and Gorefiends, single fire for trash Zeds
Bullpup	650	6 kg	30 / 300	Slightly more damage than the AR-15, noticeable against Gorefasts
AK-12	1100	6 kg	30 / 330	Full auto and burst, high fire rate, heavy recoil
SCAR-H	1500	6 kg	20 / 360	Semi/full auto, ACOG scope, the highest bullet damage of the assault rifles
Stoner LMG	1500	n/a	75 / 575	Largest magazine of any perk; same damage as the Bullpup but very high fire rate; slow reload
HMTech-401	1500	7 kg	40 / n/a	Full auto with healing darts; steep recoil and a distracting sight, so Hollow Point Rounds is a must
M16 with grenade launcher	1200	6 kg	30 / 300, 14 grenades	The launcher benefits from perk bonuses; only one grenade can be loaded at a time
Dual 9mm	150	2 kg	15 per clip / 240	Cheap, great with Fallback

The author rates the Stoner plus SCAR pairing above the HMTech-401, though the latter is good in team games because it heals friends.

Strategy

• Focus on ammo management, positioning, movement and aim. Some Zeds soak up many bullets to the head, so body shots waste ammo.
• Upgrade from the AR-15 as soon as you can. If needed, abuse Fallback early: 9mm ammo is cheap and plentiful.
• Melee bash to cancel reload animations. Once the new magazine is in, you can bash and immediately fire again.
• With full auto, fire controlled bursts against non-large Zeds and use single fire at range.
• When a large Zed charges, pull out your strongest full-auto weapon, backpedal while hip-firing at the chest. Scrakes usually die in one or two clips; for Fleshpounds, do as much headshot damage as possible or use grenades.
• Health bars are sometimes buggy; count bullets to kill instead.
• Hip firing can be as accurate as aiming down sights; turn on the in-game crosshair in the gameplay options. Crouching improves accuracy and recoil recovery.
• With the M16 grenade launcher, close-range grenades do not explode on contact but deal ballistic damage, which can remove more than half a Zed's head. Scrakes resist explosions but not ballistic impact, so this kills them quickly.

Recommended combos

• SCAR + Stoner: high damage and high damage per second.
• GL-AR + Stoner: for Fleshpounds and bosses, plus everyone else.
• AK-12 + SCAR + Dual 9mm: reliable headshots, trash clearing and a handgun, based on Hollow Point and Fallback.
• HMT-401 + AR-15 + Dual 9mm: more fun than efficient; best with a full clip size build.

Final notes

The Commando is a versatile and probably the simplest perk, and it counters Stalkers, one of the harder Zeds. Crawlers and their awkward hitboxes may still be a problem.