KF2 Map Positions, Tips, Class and Boss Overview (Community Guide)

This long community guide covers fundamental map positioning with screenshots, miscellaneous tips, a quick profile of each perk and advice for each boss. For other holding spots see HoE camping spots by map.

Movement and handling

• Cornering: walk or sprint tightly around corners and props. ZEDs turn away and attack with a wild 270-degree swing, and bosses can miss completely. Circling pillars does the same.
• Walk or sprint: walk when things are calm and visibility matters. Sprint-dodge right before a hit lands, and when a large ZED will hit you, jump and face away to get launched farther.
• Doors: close a door the instant before a ZED goes through; it will attack the door and can be held for a few seconds, which is great for cutting off Fleshpounds. A healing grenade seeps through a closed door. Never weld a door with a teammate on the other side.
• Scum spawning: ZEDs can appear out of thin air around the nearest corner. Never go around an unseen corner with an empty magazine; reload at least five paces back.
• Melee bash: stumbles ZEDs, kills trash after a headshot (most accurate after a jump) and silences a Siren scream. Against a Bloat, repeated bashes are the best knife kill.

Team etiquette

• Pick up a dead teammate's weapon and drop it at the trader pod or hand it over.
• Support and Demolitionist should stay alive for at least one magazine so teammates can resupply; stand away from the trader after shopping.
• Be positive. Heal squadmates whenever possible, and donate your remaining dosh before the boss round or when leaving a match.
• Do not aggro Scrakes unless you can put them down.

Economy

Depending on style, buy a Tier 2 after wave 1 or upgrade the starting weapon. Before the boss wave consider maxing the 9mm upgrades. More dosh comes from 4-wave games than 7-wave ones per wave. C4 is worth buying to remove Fleshpounds and Quarter Pounds with a weak perk (but you get less XP for non-Demolitionist C4 kills). Keep one grenade for emergencies, and combine grenades with headshots on a Fleshpound. Fleshpounds and Quarter Pounds often follow a hit with a quick second attack, so sprint away in a straight line after a hit or parry.

Map positioning

The author names a primary spot per map, then secondary and tertiary ones. Highlights:

• Airship: ZEDs can spawn from the blimp above the primary zone.
• Biotics Lab: ZEDs mostly come from a second-floor room on the right. Jumping from the railing is a reliable escape.
• Evacuation Point: a drop-down from the right window onto a bus avoids fall damage and makes a choke point; crawlers spawn outside the window.
• Ashwood Asylum: full of drop-down escapes.
• Nuked: most ZEDs come down the ramp at the bottom right; avoid the central building mid-wave.
• Farmhouse: Firebugs get big kills holding the staircase.
• Prison: the door at the top of the secondary spot is a great weld.
• Catacombs: probably the hardest non-multistage map with hard-to-find escapes.
• Desolation: very large; follow the staircase up if lost in the subfloors.
• Burning Paris: the bar is the all-time best spot against the Patriarch.
• Lockdown: a perfect map to get cut off by scum spawners.
• Black Forest: rocks in the secondary spot are great for dodging bosses; the third spot is an outdated solo hold-off.
• Containment Station: with two or more players, split between the two corridors that lead to the same room.
• Hostile Grounds: the truck is the only good spot (a Demolitionist loves it); most ZEDs spawn from the EMT truck side.
• Spillway: one of the best beginner maps thanks to its long retreat space.
• Tragic Kingdom: ZEDs spawn from both ends of the coaster.
• Moonbase: drop-down escapes matter less; stay in the open so you can use the low gravity to jump away from attacks.
• Multistage maps (The Descent, Power Core, Nightmare, Biolapse): the most difficult because of tight spaces. Pick up the two ammo boxes per stage before the trader pod.

Netherhold seasonal objectives

• Finding the Nether Heart: find the trader pod in the room with pink growth and destroy the indicated wall; physically walk or jump into the room to get credit.
• Chapel and dining hall: use your key on the pillar switch in the atrium to open the chapel doors; shoot the floor vent by the sub-floor trader pod and jump down to be teleported into the dining hall. Destroying the wall with the purple-hued painting gives a weapon and ammo; another weapon is on the desk. You cannot teleport there again because the vent seals.

Perk notes

• Commando: top priority Bloat, Husk and Siren; its callouts show Stalkers glowing red; ZED Time at level 25 is long.
• Support: last long enough for teammates to resupply, and keep away from the trader pod. Firing a double or quad shotgun at the ground while jumping gives hop height for stomps. A blast can break Hans's melee flurry. The Resupply Pack skill is a must at level 20 in a squad.
• SWAT: best starting class. Close Combat Training lets you sell your pistol for 75 dosh. Aim slightly toward the neck when autofiring. Flashbangs set up Scrake kills. The author calls it the worst class against bosses.
• Berserker: best economic class, since melee needs no ammo. Two styles: the team-oriented Bone Crusher blocker and the lone eviscerator. On solo, a SWAT wave one then Berserker lets you sell the MP7 and second pistol for over 1,500 dosh.
• Survivalist: the glue of the team; use your favorite off-perk weapons when a perk is maxed, but expect lesser perk bonuses.
• Gunslinger: high damage, small magazines; fastest class, so dodge rather than tank. Buy a double-barrel before the boss to interrupt Hans's red melee flurry.
• Demolitionist: stay close to teammates, prioritize Fleshpounds, then Quarter Pounds. An RPG at point-blank to a Scrake's head kills it without arming.
• Firebug: area denial in doorways; the microwave gun's alt fire right before a Fleshpound swing breaks contact.
• Sharpshooter: headshot large ZEDs; cryo grenades help the team on Fleshpounds and Scrakes.
• Medic: stay in the center of the team, keep teammates in sight, and use left-side skills when playing with a squad.

Bosses

• King Fleshpound: the easiest boss. Block at the end of his spinning enraged attack for minimal damage, then he walks calmly and you dump damage. Dangers: summoned Quarter Pounds, the laser on stairs or ramps (it cannot be blocked or dodged) and getting cornered by his mass.
• Patriarch: the fairest boss. Circle behind props such as the Paris pub bar to avoid rockets and minigun fire. Never stand in the open.
• Hans Volter: the easiest solo, the hardest in big squads. His red-phase melee flurry can be interrupted by a precise point-blank shotgun blast; surround him in a circle and let a Berserker block.
• Abomination: difficulty depends on map size; keep moving in a circle and do not chase behind him. He has three armor pools; do not break two or three at once because the stumbles do not stack.
• Matriarch: the most annoying. Invisibility, robots, long-range weapons and chain lightning. She gets easier as damaged, since her long-range weapons are destroyed.