KF2 Endless Mode: How to Finish It Fast - Solo Elysium Guide

This is a Russian-language marathon guide to completing Killing Floor 2 Endless mode, translated and paraphrased. The author finished it on Normal difficulty in a single session (14 hours, 39 minutes and 36 seconds), says it was exhausting but memorable, and plans to try harder difficulties up to Hell on Earth. It is less about mechanics than about preparation, endurance and a few smart choices. For other Endless pages see solo fast leveling with Skyfall loadouts.

The Endless victory screen from the author's run.

Before you start

• Start in the morning. In the evening or at night the monotonous waves tire you, and tired players lose efficiency and time. Wash, eat and sit down at the computer fresh.
• Do not start if you cannot play most of the day. You will spend more time and the rest of your day will suffer.
• Perseverance. The more you can sit without breaks and without thoughts of quitting, the faster you finish.
• Luck. You need no bugsplat, death screens, power cuts or game freezes.
• The stakes are high. If you die near the end or quit, you lose hours for nothing, and your condition after 7 to 8 hours gets worse. Approach it carefully.

Setup

• Solo. Fewer Zeds and less health means less time to clear a wave.
• Map: Elysium. You do not waste time running to the trader or searching for supplies, and the changing arenas keep the scenery from getting dull.
• Difficulty: Normal. Fewer Zeds means less time. The author argues Hell on Earth is possible in theory but you cannot afford corner traps, big hits from Husks, E.D.A.R. Eliminators, Fleshpounds, Scrakes and bosses, or low-HP situations with a crowd of Fleshpounds. On Normal you can make many mistakes and still save time. Hard difficulties also cost time on retreating and healing.
• Perk and weapons: the best are explosives and melee. Explosives hit masses and Fleshpounds, and melee lets you clear waves for a long time without restocking. The Pulverizer fits perfectly. That points to Berserker or Survivalist; the author chose Survivalist for fast reload, explosion resistance, reload in Zed Time, grenades and carry weight.

The Survivalist perk, chosen for its flexibility.

For the build, the author used the "Easy and best Survivalist build" guide with two changes: the left option at level 15 and Medic grenades instead of the Crossbow, preferring speed and safety. The Hemoclobber, they say, seems to exist just to scratch your back.

During the run

• Keep killing. Run only to chase kills. Do not get reckless: watch your health and avoid corners.
• Buy spares. Once you have hundreds of thousands of Dosh, buy several copies of your main weapon per wave so you can keep firing without hunting for ammo. The author only started this after wave 200, realised the center could be cleared with ten Pulverizers instead of one, and then ran 30 waves in a row without a break.

Best positions on Elysium

Choose spots with many supplies and lots of room. Each arena is different:

• Heart of Elysium: stay near the center. Zeds drop on your head and you will not run to the trader, but ammo is far and rare, so spares matter.
• Desert: go right from spawn, where three boxes stand in a row. Supplies are easy and there is room.
• Toxic swamp: up to four boxes can appear in view. Less space but playable.
• Space: Zeds rain onto your head, and supplies are scarce, only two boxes in view.
• Abyss: fairly spacious, good supplies.
• Old city and forest: the author just notes positions for the last two arenas.
• Botanica and the Sanctuary of the Master of Knowledge: not opened; they look spacious but supplies are unknown. The author does not recommend Botanica.

An Elysium arena seen in the run.

Another arena.

A third arena.

A forest-style arena.

Special waves (ranked best to worst)

Seven special waves are bound to appear in a run:

1. Butcher ("Мясник" in the Russian client): practically a skip. Killing forty Scrakes, or forty plus 150 Zeds, is easy.
2. Rotting Flight ("Полёт гнили"): Zeds have less HP, so waves clear faster.
3. The "Отбивальщик" wave: good if you use explosives, since it replaces many Scrakes with Fleshpounds, and fewer Scrakes make it easier.
4. No special wave: also a good wave.
5. Small and Bodybuilders ("Маленький" and "Качки"): tied; same as no wave but slightly annoying.
6. Boom ("Ба-Бах"): with Survivalist's 75 percent explosion resistance it is not disastrous, but it forces you to retreat.
7. Tadpoles ("Головастики"): the worst. On wave 254 you can end up with 200 of them for half an hour. HP is too high, and Scrakes need four or five charged right-clicks from the Pulverizer.

Bosses

The author often used getall KFGameReplicationInfo BossIndex to know which boss is next and whether to buy spares of a Barrett. Bosses have low HP, but shields and armor become unbreakable for the Pulverizer or rocket launcher, so a Barrett is used.

• Patriarch: walk straight at him, bring him low with the Pulverizer and finish with the rocket launcher. No spares needed.
• Hans Volter: walk straight in with the Pulverizer and ignore breaking the shield. Let him grab you, and he takes damage from the Pulverizer. Four times. No spares needed.
• Matriarch: her armor is hard to remove, but shooting her until she loses half her health makes the armor drop on its own, then finish with headshots. No spares needed.
• King Fleshpound: has a shield that cannot be bypassed like Volter's or the Matriarch's, and it is very thick in late waves, so you must break it. Easy boss. Spares required.
• Abomination: use the Barrett to remove the helmet and then the head in long headshot series. It is skill-dependent, but the author counted it the fastest. Spares required.

A Barrett sniper view for boss fights.

Bonus: hitting a Siren with explosives

Sirens delete explosives with their scream. For a test, the author bought a Siren from the Patriarch and found three ways around it:

• Get very close, so the Siren hits with her hands instead of screaming.
• Wait for the scream to end. She needs to take a breath again, and that is when to blow her up.
• Walk away, turn around and send her into space.

A Siren, the explosives-eater.

The author thanks readers and asks for warm comments.