KF2 Essential Tips for Beginners: Awareness, Aim, Zeds and Bosses

This beginner guide was written by a player with about 800 hours who started back in the pre-release phase and returned years later to update it. It collects the essentials that help a new player contribute to the team, practiced mostly on Hell on Earth with a coordinated team. Related reading: simple survival rules, beginner basics and the Zed bestiary.

Welcome to Killing Floor 2.

1. Play at the right perk level and difficulty

Start from the lowest difficulty and move up as you level. The author often sees players below level 10 joining Suicidal or Hell on Earth without knowing what they are doing. Level matters because almost every perk gains damage per level, small at first and game-changing from level 15.

Perk bonuses grow with levels.

The game scales spawns and Zed health with the number of players, so a low-level player on a high difficulty is a liability. Normal to Hard is a mild step, but Hard to Suicidal is unforgiving.

A flow diagram of how the difficulty system works.

Rough recommended levels: Normal 0 to 4, Hard 5 to 14, Suicidal 15 to 25, Hell on Earth above 20. If you boost to 25 by cheating you will still have no experience and die early. Level one perk at a time and master it.

2. Awareness

• Map awareness. Know the map to find good spots to camp and kite. Always know where you will run next.
• Kiting. Keep moving forward, slowly and safely dispatching Zeds, and look forward about 90% of the time, especially near doors and corners. Choose routes that do not lead to cramped spaces, do not trap you if a Bloat or large Zed appears, and have an alternative route.

A common kiting spot on Burning Paris with three routes; route 2 is the safest, route 3 the most risky.

• Team awareness. Buy an HMTech pistol to heal people, tank for a teammate in trouble, share dosh.
• Health awareness. Heal teammates with the syringe, which also recharges yours faster; if a Scrake or Fleshpound is about to hit someone low, stand in front of it and take the aggro.
• Spatial awareness. Keep your head on a swivel, learn where Zeds spawn, and never trust others to watch your back in public games.

3. Improve aim and reflexes

Suicidal and Hell on Earth are won by headshots and quick kills with good prioritization and communication. You often will not have time to aim down sights, so practice hip-fire. Practice on the Controlled Difficulty mod with the Hillside Enhanced map from the Workshop: a one-lane map where Zeds come from one direction. Enable demi-god to see your mistakes (cheats disable stat gains).

Mouse acceleration is on by default and can only be disabled in KFInput.ini. If you struggle to find the screen center, use the in-game crosshair until you are comfortable.

4. Perk objective and team composition

Always buy perk weapons for the damage bonus; off-perk weapons are acceptable only for a purpose, such as medic weapons to heal.

Perk	Main role	Priority Zeds	Main weakness
Berserker	Tank	Large	Trash
Commando	Trash cleaner	Trash	Large
Field Medic	Healer	Trash	Large
Support	Heavy DPS	Large	Trash
Demolitionist	Heavy DPS	Large	Trash
Firebug	Trash cleaner	Trash	Large
Gunslinger	Heavy DPS	Large	Trash
Sharpshooter	Heavy DPS	Large	Trash
SWAT	Trash cleaner	Trash	Large

A good team has a Tank, a Medic, two trash handlers and two large Zed handlers.

An example balanced team.

Quick perk tips:

• Berserker: tank large Zeds and keep them busy rather than attacking constantly; block and parry; the EMP grenade calms raging Scrakes (a raging Fleshpound needs 2).
• Commando: trash cleaner; keep trash away while others handle large Zeds; the grenade is the strongest and 5 can take down a Fleshpound.
• Firebug: never flame an unraged Scrake or Fleshpound and watch where you spray; Molotovs are a good placeholder to hold a lane.
• Gunslinger: a large Zed handler; leave them alone when aiming at one.
• Sharpshooter: the Rail Gun can two-shot a Fleshpound's head and one-shot a Scrake's; freeze grenades need 2 for large Zeds; at level 25 a headshot has a 5% chance to trigger Zed Time.
• SWAT: flashbangs stun an unraged large Zed with one grenade; a raging Fleshpound needs at least 3; raged Scrakes can still be stunned.

5. Zed prioritization

Medium Zeds such as Husks, Sirens and Bloats are bigger problems on higher difficulties than small ones, so kill them as soon as you see them. Scrakes are friendly on spawn: do not enrage one if you cannot kill it fast. Unless you can solo a Scrake or your team backs you up, never shoot a Scrake and rage it intentionally (a classic example is a Demolitionist using the M79 on Scrakes or a Firebug flaming an unraged large Zed). When you see a Scrake or Fleshpound, type SC or FP in chat to warn your team.

6. Large Zed weaknesses

Aim for the head when possible. A Scrake takes 400% damage when hit directly by an RPG-7. A Fleshpound takes 50% more explosive damage; with 3 rockets and dynamite a Demolitionist can drop one quickly.

A direct RPG hit to the head of a Scrake.

Dynamite plus rockets on a Fleshpound.

7. Bashing

Do not underestimate the bash (default V): it interrupts most Zeds' attacks briefly, giving you time to act or gain distance, especially when kiting and a Husk, Siren or Scrake blocks your path. Some large Zed attacks cannot be interrupted, do not bash bosses, large Zeds have about a 3 second cooldown between bashes, and a raging Fleshpound cannot be interrupted. Bashing is for pinch situations and leaves you briefly vulnerable.

A bash interrupting an attack.

8. Miscellaneous tips

• Leveling. Joining higher difficulties levels you faster, but the XP gap between Hard and Suicidal is small, so take your time. Buy a medic pistol for any perk: healing teammates earns Medic XP.

XP per Zed from the Tripwire wiki sheet.

• Welding doors. Do not, unless you have a reason such as a Fleshpound chasing you.
• Kill stealing. KF2 is co-op; do not get angry.
• Reload cancel. Hold fire and tap the bash key when the ammo counter rises; this can shave seconds off reloads. Press reload, and when the magazine goes in (the counter rises 0 to 30), hold fire and tap bash. You can bind it: setbind x "GBA_Fire | GBA_TertiaryFire". A Scrake alert bind: Bindings=(Name="L",Command="say Scrake incoming!",...) in KFInput.ini.

Reload cancelling in action.

• Returning weapons. If you find a tier 2 or higher weapon on the floor, a player probably died there; return it rather than selling it.

9. Boss wave basics

Losing at the boss wave costs you 1000+ XP, so plan for it:

1. Use a heavy DPS perk (Support, Gunslinger, Sharpshooter, Demolitionist); a Berserker and Medic are always good. Do not use a trash cleaner perk; if you want to level one, shoot the boss a few times with its weapon for half of the boss XP.
2. Buy an HMTech-101 pistol (200 dosh, weight 1) to heal; carry a Katana or Pulverizer to parry or block.
3. Always have cover to fall back to; never fight a boss in the open.
4. Learn the boss's strongest attacks.
5. During the boss's heal phase, kill all trash fast.
6. Demolitionists should stick C4 on the Patriarch so the team can see him.

Patriarch. Ranged specialist: minigun and rockets are his strongest attacks. If he chases you run and do not shoot until his aggro changes. Stay with the team but not too close, since rockets can kill three players at once; use cover.

Patriarch attack patterns.

Dr. Hans Volter. A melee and grenade specialist; at low health he charges continuously, so do not run off alone; run to a healthy teammate or your Berserker and rotate aggro while the Medic heals. Switch to a Katana to parry his charge, fight where the team can kite in circles, break his shield quickly (headshots still do extra damage to the shield), keep away when he drains a teammate because the nerve gas that follows hurts everyone nearby, and be ready to parry during his red phase when his explosive grenades and melee are deadliest.

The Hans Volter fight.