KF2 Lone Agents Guide: Solo Missions, ZEDs, Bosses and Perks

This is a paraphrase of the first part of a community "Lone Agents" series, written in the style of a Horzine briefing. It covers how to set up a solo mission, who you will fight, and what each perk is expected to do when you join a squad. The author planned perk-specific solo guides next. For ready-made solo builds, see solo Commando and Berserker solo skills and weapons. The facts reflect the game around mid-2017.

Mission customization

Mode. Choose Weekly for the event, otherwise Survival or Endless.

Map. Different maps have different properties and difficulty. Find the ones your style survives best on.

Difficulty.

• Normal. Recommended for newcomers: ZEDs are slow, weak and few, and you get more Dosh per kill.
• Hard. More ZEDs with more health and harder hits, with less Dosh per ZED.
• Suicidal. Not recommended even around level 15 unless you are good at headshots, dodging, kiting and resource management. ZEDs are tougher, elites join in and all get new attacks. Dosh per kill is lower.
• Hell on Earth (HoE). A test of skill and patience, Suicidal increased by about 50%. Dosh is small, ZEDs are fast, hard to kill, hit hard and will suicide to kill you. Get your perk to level 25 first. Expect bosses to tear you apart quickly.

Wave length (not selectable in Endless).

• 4 waves. Short, best for farming XP at the lowest risk, with much more Dosh per wave even on Suicidal.
• 7 waves. The typical length: more ZEDs, less Dosh, a bigger test.
• 10 waves. Forget HoE here; you will barely afford to max your weapon. Headshots are a must or you run out of ammo.

The mutated army

ZEDs are not zombies or infected, but created abominations originally made for a British super soldier project.

Trash ZEDs

• Cyst. Weak, slow, almost no damage. The catch: it grabs and holds you for bigger friends and is very quiet.
• Clot (including Alpha). Faster and hits harder than Cysts, with a Rioter variant that boosts the damage and speed of nearby ZEDs. Can grab.
• Slasher. A Clot with claws and an adrenaline shot: fast, shreds armor, grabs, but has a weak skull.
• Stalker. The only naturally invisible ZED. It cannot grab, is fragile, and cannot attack without revealing itself, but always comes in packs.
• Crawler. Fast, agile, annoying; you have to aim down to hit it.

Medium ZEDs

• Gorefast and Gorefiend. Basically the same ZED, with one or two blades, sizable health and a mad dash when close.
• Bloat. The highest health of the mid tier, slow, with acid bile that obscures vision and does damage over time; also leaves acid puddles. Usually the last ZED you kill in a wave. Only headshots are worth it.
• Siren. Slow, cannot grab, hard to kill. Her scream ignores armor and hurts more when closer, in a radius.
• Husk. The only true ranged ZED, with napalm and fire damage. It fires fireballs from range and charges to suicide when hurt; on Suicidal and above it also uses a flamethrower.
• Quarter Pound. A recent addition, smaller than a Fleshpound but dangerous: fast, resistant (even explosives may need more than one shot) and often in groups of three or more. They can rage on spawn like Fleshpounds.

Large ZEDs

• Fleshpound. Resists bullets and takes more from explosives. Lots of health, wild club swings, periodic rage with its chest covered. Headshots are recommended for bullet classes.
• Scrake. An arm-mounted chainsaw deals huge damage even through armor. It advances slowly until it takes a certain amount of damage, then chases quickly. Beware when its arm is red.

The overlords

The ZEDs exist because of two former scientists of Horzine's super soldier program, Dr. Hans Volter and Kevin Calemey (the Patriarch). At the end of the waves you face one of them, or the newer King Fleshpound.

Patriarch. Back with his usual tricks: invisibility, an arm minigun, fast movement and a self-heal after fleeing. Recent upgrades give him 50mm homing rockets, an extending waist arm and more damage as health falls. He also bashes and kicks. You can cut the fight short by bringing him to zero before he heals. Weak spots: head, waist (grapple arm) and the large right arm.

Dr. Hans Volter. A German scientist who prolonged his life with Horzine Biomass and by feeding on others. He carries two old assault rifles with armor-piercing rounds and swings them in melee. His grenades come in three kinds: gas (like stronger Bloat bile), smoke (to hide while he chases an agent to heal off) and high explosive (hard to avoid). Below a health threshold he retreats and deploys a shield, then rushes to grab and drain a player. Break the shield before he heals and he resumes attacking; explosives are best. If you cannot break it in time, stop shooting and let him grab you: no other ZED approaches while he heals, so you save ammo and get a chance to run and heal. His weak spot is the power core on his back (hard to exploit alone), so headshots are best. He gets more aggressive as health falls and drops the rifles for melee.

King Fleshpound. Like other Fleshpounds he can enrage, but he runs surprisingly fast for his size and hits as hard as the Patriarch. He is always enraged on spawn and has no particular vulnerability to explosives, though plenty of health because he cannot run away to heal. He spins wildly and rockets toward you, does a jumping flail, and at lower health his ground punch causes a damaging explosion, making close range a bad idea. Arguably the easiest boss, though that is opinion. For team tactics, see Poundemonium strategy.

Abomination. A huge armored monster with lots of health. It cannot take health damage where armor is intact, so break as many armor parts as you can; the helmet is weakest and breaks first. When a part breaks or health drops enough, he runs at you, leaving acid globs that act as mines. He makes an endless army of Spawn: little fast monsters that explode near you, with decent health and a toxic gas on death like Elite Crawlers. He summons regular ZEDs at a high rate and can eat them to make more Spawn. If you are too close when he starts sucking things in, he pulls you into melee, where he swings axes or vomits. Avoid the vomit.

Classes and their roles

Rules of team engagement

1. Be patient. If you are low on funds, do not beg allies for Dosh; you will get more next wave.
2. Be compassionate. If an ally is low and you have a syringe charge, use it. Your recharge is faster and you get a little Dosh.
3. Share as needed. If an ally is 100 Dosh or less from their next weapon, give it. Toss leftover Dosh to allies once you have your final loadout.
4. Retrieve ally weapons. Pick up a fallen ally's weapon and hand it back next round, or tell them where it is. Basic weapons such as the Crovel you can keep and sell.
5. Do not run off alone. Team missions have more and harder ZEDs; a lone Sharpshooter becomes "Scrake bait".
6. Do not be dead weight. If you keep dying or have a bad connection, drop your weapon and Dosh for the team and leave. Do not play a difficulty above your level.

Roles

• Berserker. Face tank: draw aggro, melee and keep going. Do not waste money on armor unless alone; rely on Juggernaut (extra 75 health) or Skirmisher (health regen).
• Commando. Make invisible units useless, remove trash quickly and make ZED time last as long as possible.
• Support. Supply ammo (sometimes armor) and deal with large waves and single medium targets. Shotgun penetration clears Cysts, Slashers and Crawlers; the AA-12 gives huge DPS for Scrakes and bosses.
• Field Medic. Heal a lot. The grenade heals the team and helps kiting; darts recharge faster. Do not forget your own defense.
• Demolitionist. Remove groups and Fleshpounds, and burst down bosses, especially Hans' shield. Do not blow yourself up.
• Firebug. Kite, kite, kite. Ground fire plus kiting is a direct counter to every trash ZED.
• Gunslinger. Remove high-priority targets and the heads of trash, trading damage for mobility. Keep moving.
• Sharpshooter. Remove heads of high-health ZEDs. Use cryo grenades to get out of a tight spot.
• Survivalist. A "jack of all trades, master of none": you can partly fill other roles but not as well as the real class (for example a Medic with Healing Specialty). Firebug is not covered by its perks, so the author advises not using flamethrowers.
• SWAT. An odd spot: good at headshots, trash and stumbling, and armor tanking, but Berserker, Commando and Gunslinger do those better. Flashbangs are great support. SWAT is more of a solo class than a team class.

Final debrief

The author closes by promising in-depth guides for each class in solo missions and thanks readers.