KF2 Beginner Guide: Difficulties, Perks, Zeds and 15 Team Tips

A Vietnamese community member translated English guides and added his own notes to build a full starter guide for Killing Floor 2: terminology, difficulties and modes, perks, Zeds and bosses, and 15 tips. This is an English paraphrase of it. For more beginner material see KF2 beginner basics.

The guide's intro artwork.

Terms and abbreviations

• Trash Zeds: everything medium and below. Medium Zeds: Husk, Siren, Bloat (and E.D.A.R.s). Big Zeds: Fleshpound, Quarterpound and Scrake.
• Spawn: Zeds appear on the map and rush the players. Dosh: in-game money for weapons, ammo, armor and upgrades.
• Enraged: a Zed speeds up and hits hard. Derage: lower that rage.
• Kite: shoot while retreating. Loadout: your weapon set. Callout: warn the team or ask for help. Takedown: kill.
• Off-perk: a weapon outside your perk's loadout (no perk bonuses). Cross-perk: not the main loadout but still gets perk bonuses.
• Alt-fire: secondary fire mode (middle mouse by default). Fire-panic: burning Zeds stumble around. DR: damage resistance. DOT: damage over time. RC: reload canceling. MS: movement speed.

Difficulty and modes

Use the Server Browser with filters for difficulty, wave count, map, mode and ping instead of the quick match options.

Difficulty	What to expect
Normal	For new players: learn Zed types, weapons and perks
Hard	Slightly harder, good for practicing aim and gun feel; Zeds get more damage and health
Suicidal	A big jump: teamwork needed, larger and faster hordes, new Zed skills such as the Husk's flamethrower, and Zeds run instead of walking
Hell on Earth (HOE)	Zeds have more health, damage and speed than Suicidal, and dodge bullets and move unpredictably

Wave size, the number of Zeds on the map and their health grow with the number of players. A rough perk level guide is Normal 0-4, Hard 5-14, Suicidal 15-25 and HOE from 20.

Perk level bonuses such as damage and ammo capacity grow with each level.

Game modes: Survival (the most common: Short 4 waves, Medium 7, Long 10, plus a boss wave), Weekly Outbreak (Survival with Zed modifiers such as big heads or exploding bodies), Endless (waves keep getting harder with a boss every 5th wave and occasional special waves) and Versus Survival (play as Zeds, rarely played due to balance). All modes add more Zeds each wave.

Perks

There are 10 perks, each with 25 levels, and every 5 levels you pick one of two skills.

Berserker.

• Berserker: tank and survivor with melee, soaks lots of damage and buys time for the team. EMP grenades disable special attacks of medium and trash Zeds and derage big ones.

Commando.

• Commando: assault rifles with steady damage, plus detection of cloaked Zeds, health bars and zed-time triggering. The best perk for a newbie to practice on; great against trash.

Support.

• Support: shotguns with high damage that pierce Zeds, so they suit narrow corridors. Welds doors quickly and is the only perk that can repair destroyed doors, but reloads are slow and ammo is costly.

Field Medic.

• Field Medic: nearly all guns fire healing darts as alt-fire (except the HMT-501 which fires grenades). Strong healing, a faster Syringe and team buffs for damage and resistance.

Demolitionist.

• Demolitionist: area-damage explosives for crowds and big Zeds. Beware self-damage and explosive damage that easily enrages a Scrake. Weapons (except the HX25 and M16-M203 main fire) need range; welded doors become bomb traps.

Firebug.

• Firebug: fire gives damage over time and fire-panic. Do not ignite big Zeds, which resist fire, and note that fire-panic makes life hard for precision perks like Gunslinger and Sharpshooter. Good at clearing trash.

Gunslinger.

• Gunslinger: one or two pistols, high damage and speed, great kiting, quick firing but slow reloads, and some recoil that demands accuracy.

Sharpshooter.

• Sharpshooter: long, powerful guns with long range that turn big Zeds into trash targets. Needs cover because of slow fire and poor mobility. The Freeze grenade freezes Zeds for the team.

SWAT.

• SWAT: SMGs with the highest fire rate of any perk and plenty of ammo, with armor skills. Low damage per bullet, so better at clearing trash. The Flashbang stuns big Zeds.

Survivalist (listed in the guide without a description).

Zeds and bosses

Trash: Cyst and Alpha Clot die to one 9mm headshot. Slasher is fast and can roll to dodge headshots on higher difficulties. Clot, Cyst, Slasher and Rioter can grab you. Crawler is very fast and deadly in packs. Stalker is cloaked, fast and drains health. Gorefast is quick to start walking and then runs when hit or spotted. Elite variants (Rioter with armor, white Elite Crawler with a gas burst, Gorefiend with two knives) have more health and damage, appear more on higher difficulties.

Medium:

Bloat.

• Bloat: slow, vomits and leaves bile pools; aim at the head.

Siren.

• Siren: her scream hurts through armor and destroys grenades and bombs. Kill her early.

Husk.

• Husk: ranged fire attacker with a weak fuel backpack that explodes. From Suicidal he also uses a flamethrower at close range, and a dying Husk may suicide-bomb.

E.D.A.R.

• E.D.A.R.s: Blaster (lasers), Bomber (mini rockets that can stumble other Zeds) and Trapper (a ranged grab that other Zeds can block). The weak point is the chest core, and they dodge shots well. They may explode into an EMP.

Big Zeds:

Scrake.

• Scrake: chainsaw arm, high damage and health, enrages when hurt and does not stop; resistant to explosives, fire and poison.
• Quarterpound: a weaker, faster Fleshpound that moves in groups of about 4-7.

Fleshpound.

• Fleshpound: can spawn enraged, otherwise walks for about 10-14 seconds or until shot, then rages. The most health of any non-boss Zed, resists bullets, fire and poison, weak to explosives.

Bosses:

King Fleshpound.

• King Fleshpound: laser from the chest core, armor at low health, light quake when angry and constant Quarterpound summons.

Abomination.

• Abomination (King Bloat): three armor plates (head, front, back); breaking one makes it charge. Spawns many trash Zeds and can eat them.

Dr. Hans Volter.

• Dr. Hans Volter: a scientist obsessed with nerve gas, dual guns, poison and explosive grenades, summons nearly everything except a Fleshpound, and uses a shield and health drain at low health.

Patriarch.

• Patriarch: can cloak, has a minigun arm and a rocket launcher, retreats to heal, and mostly summons trash Zeds.

15 tips

1. KF2 is co-op PvE. The scoreboard is mostly for show, so do your role.
2. Kills and assists give the same XP and Dosh. Wound a Zed and let the team finish it if you want XP.
3. Stay with the group. Loners die easily and make it harder to help against big Zeds.
4. Every role matters. Pick a perk the team does not have.
5. Communicate: chat or the quick-chat command wheel (Z by default). Call out danger, ask for help, thank the Medic.
6. Share Dosh (B by default), especially with the Medic. Do not spam dosh requests, especially in early waves.
7. If a teammate dies and drops a weapon, pick it up and return it at the trader.
8. Avoid off-perk weapons: they get no perk bonuses. An exception is the HMT-101.
9. Buy the Medic Pistol (HMT-101, 200 Dosh, 1 weight) and use the Syringe to heal teammates. The Syringe heals teammates faster than yourself.
10. Weld and close doors only when needed: when chased or last in line, and only if you have another way to flee.
11. To save money, use the 9mm and knife in early waves.
12. Do not buy armor in early waves; it is expensive.
13. Learn to kite and know the Zeds and the maps.
14. Bash often (V by default). It interrupts most Zed attacks and pushes them back, but some big Zed attacks and an enraged Fleshpound cannot be interrupted, and bashing bosses is a bad idea. Big Zeds have about a 3 second bash cooldown.
15. Leveling: higher difficulties give more XP, but not much more. Play Normal and Hard first.

Sources named by the author include the Essential Tips for Beginners guide, a Suicidal and Hell on Earth team guide and the Tripwire wiki pages on perks and mechanics.