KF2 Advanced Movement: Recoil Boost, Circlestrafing, Backwarding

This chapter of Tamari's KF2 Survival Handbook is aimed at advanced to expert players. It covers movement tricks that raise survivability and let you help the team: recoil force boosting, damage force boosting, circlestrafing, backwarding, corner kiting and looping. It assumes you know the basics from the AI pathing and defensive tactics chapters (see the handbook index). More on general techniques is on advanced movement techniques.

Good positioning and movement matter in any first person shooter, and KF2 is no exception. Situational awareness counts for more than aim.

Tactic 1: Recoil Force Boosting

Some weapons push the shooter backward when fired. The two that matter are the Double-barreled Boomstick and the Doomstick. Recoil Force is a vector added to your velocity, always straight opposite to the aim direction. Using it deliberately is a recoil force boost, and any perk can do it, not just Support. The guide uses the Boomstick because it is cheaper, reloads faster and weighs less than the 10 kg Doomstick.

To boost: aim downward, jump, press alternate attack, in that order. Shallow angles send you further sideways, steep angles send you higher.

Recoil boost angles: the recoil direction is always opposite to where you aim.

Requirements:

• You must be airborne, which is why you jump first.
• You need at least two shells loaded, i.e. a full Boomstick magazine.
• Fire as early in the jump as you can. Waiting until the jump peaks shortens the distance.

Because vectors add velocity rather than replace it, firing against your own movement only slows you down.

Uses:

• Crossing gaps and reaching ledges you cannot normally jump to, which also helps with looping.
• Getting to the trader quickly or catching up with a team that is kiting.
• Escaping the kill zone of Zed or boss attacks and getting away from fast Zeds.
• Reducing fall damage: aim along your movement so the recoil cancels part of your fall speed. In the author's clip fall damage dropped from 24 to 1.
• Goomba stomping or crowd surfing: launch yourself onto a Zed's head anywhere, even with no platforms around.

Tactical Reload and reload cancelling make repeated boosts faster. The main drawback is that you must carry one of these weapons, which is hard to fit in many loadouts.

Tactic 2: Damage Force Boosting

Most Zed attacks apply a damage force in addition to damage. If you jump at the moment you are hit, that force launches you away, giving you breathing room to reload, heal or flee and keeping you out of follow-up attacks.

It is defensive and an emergency tool, because you have to take the hit first. Berserkers and Survivalists benefit most thanks to damage resistance, and SWAT and Survivalist have Heavy Armor, but any perk can do it.

• Melee attacks push you in the direction the Zed was facing. Projectile attacks, such as Husk fireballs or Patriarch rockets, push you away from the projectile, and the point of impact decides the angle.
• Large Zeds and bosses (Fleshpound, Quarter Pound, Scrake) have the strongest damage force and are the only ones worth using this on.
• To do it with a parry: face the Zed, jump and parry its attack all at once. Stronger melee weapons reduce damage taken further.
• Sprinting backward just before the jump adds initial speed.

Watch your surroundings: it is easy to launch yourself off a ledge or down stairs and take fall damage.

Tactic 3: Circlestrafing

Fleshpounds and Quarter Pounds attack by lunging at the target and turn too slowly to follow someone running tight circles around them. When done correctly, no hits land and you buy time to heal, reload or let teammates shoot. It is easier for fast perks such as Gunslinger and Field Medic.

Two parts: get the first attack to miss, then circle.

• Passive (not enraged): use a bash cancel (V) to interrupt the attack.
• Enraged: bash cancel does not work, because enraged Zeds have 75% resistance to all afflictions. Instead dodge. Pass as close as possible to the front-left or front-right of the Zed, nearly touching it, then turn toward the attack so it has to make a 90 degree turn and misses. The lunge is the easiest to dodge; other attacks are less reliable.
• Stay close during the circle so every new attack misses and the loops are short.

Limits: it works only against Fleshpounds and Quarter Pounds. Scrakes are too precise and bosses, including King Fleshpound, cannot be strafed. Slow perks have a harder time.

Tactic 4: Backwarding

Backwarding means moving through the map while backpedaling (S key). It is the basis of kiting. It lets you deal with threats behind you, block, parry or bash Zeds that chase you, and heal teammates, while still moving away from danger. This improves situational awareness, which is the most important skill on higher difficulties.

Practice during trader time: try to reach the trader walking backward, or run laps through several rooms without catching on walls and objects. Slowing Zeds helps in practice: the Freezethrower, SWAT level 20 skill Cripple and Gunslinger level 20 skill Skullcracker all apply Snare, and the Freezethrower can freeze enemies.

The downside is that you cannot see ahead, so only turn around for immediate threats such as an enraged Fleshpound, or to heal and cover teammates. Sometimes a spawn around the corner will still catch you.

Tactics 5 and 6: Corner Kiting and Looping

Corner kiting forces an attacking Zed to miss by using corners. Looping traps a Zed in a movement cycle so that it never reaches you. Both are explained in the AI pathing chapter of the handbook and are worth learning even for veterans.

Closing note

The author runs the Tamari's KF2 community of over 800 members with modded servers built around the Controlled Difficulty mod, extra prestige levels, custom server achievements and game modes like Arms Race, True Endless and ZED Wars. The chapter art is by littletino.