Playing Guides

[Benny]

General Survivor Advice

Decent guide here - http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Hellforge/Left-4-Dead-for-Dummies-Surviving-the-Zombie-Apocalypse

The dMw way

1. Stay Together - I can't stress this enough. If you wander off and look for ammo/health/bombs you will get pounced or smokered somewhere where your friends can't ge to you. Initially great for your friends as they can't save you from meeting the fate you deserve, but leaves them a man down so you will impact your team hugely. They will generally lose because you were selfish. If you want to check a room, tell someone and go in twos.
If you get picked off alone and someone is smart enought to 'boomer' your colleagues, you've had it.

2. Being swarmed - If you are being swarmed, running around flailing arms and weapons will help your friends shoot you and not be able to help. Crouch and they can concentrate their fire at head height at the maddened crowd. It clears the infected quickly with you taking minimal damage. Even better if you can get yourself into a corner.

3. Stay Together - As well as not wandering off be wary of being last or first to the edges of drop offs / sewer entrances / house windows. It's safe to assume that you will get pulled out/back/down by a waiting smoker. They have nothing better to do than to try and pull you away from your group. Again, timed with a Boomer to stop you being rescued, you are going to be in trouble.

4. Dealing with;
   Boomers - For sake, push them away first. If you get vomited on, push them away from your friends and then shoot them. Just because you've been hit doesn't mean your friends want to be puked on out of sympathy. Push them away! They are useless when recharging so if you've been hit and he's in amongst you and some haven't been hit - DON'T SHOOT HIM. A simple swarm against one player is less damaging than against all of you.

   Smokers - If you get targeted and caught or you see a fellow survivor being dragged, shoot across the map to break the link.  If you're teammate is being held by a smoker you can knock them out of the grip of the tounge using right click but don't need to run to the source and hit him with your gun. A couple of bullets won't kill him but they will break the tongue link. Secondly don't go wondering back across the map to catch the Smoker who is 'somewhere' behind you. He's generally hanging around with his friend the 'Hunter' who is much more of a pain in the ass.

   Hunters - These ones aren't too bad if you listened to point 1. On your own? You've had it. Use the secondary attack to push them away mid pounce and then shoot them - preferably in the face. Likewise if they are on top of a colleague - don't worry about the rifle but, kill them - shoot them - quickly, again across the map if neccessary. Shooting a 'mounted' hunter doesn't damage your colleagues - so do it - quickly. If you are being swarmed at the time - and you can bet you will be as Hunters aren't overly polite, shoot through the swarm to release your friend. Once your hit you are out of the game until someone helps
you.

Held by Hunter (or Smoker)

If you're pounced by a Hunter or tongued by a Smoker then let your team know as soon as possible and in the clearest terms that you need urgent assistance. The generally used term is 'Hunter/Smoker on me'. It may be beneficial to also add a rough location of where you are relative to your team. If you are pounced/tongued during a horde rush then you might have to wait to get assistance - shouting won't make your help come any quicker but a reminder that you are still being held might be necessary. If your team includes bots then be prepared for them to totally ignore you in your moment of need.

   Witches - Avoid. Turn off your flashlights, go slowly and creep past if you can. Now.....assuming you are playing versus, that's going to be hard as there will be smokers, boomers and hunters all hanging about with her, stroking her hair, acting like ugly sirens trying to draw you in. If you have just passed one wave of 'bosses' then some concentrated fire will help. As will a face full of molotovs.

   Tanks - Once you spot him, let your friends know where. There's nothing more disappointing than getting swatted in the back because some screaming fool ran and hid, neglecting to mention the 9 foot shick brickhouse bearing down on your calm and coollected form. If your health is green you can out run him, so do so, shooting all the while. If he's chasing your colleagues, get up close and shoot him in the back. The right tank strategy should see you all emptying magazines into him, generally a single person running, flailing tank behind and three colleagues behind him shooting him in the ass. Cue up the Benny Hill music if you have it.The other thing is stay away from roof edges, you'll get swatted off the map. Tanks can also throw cars, one hit with a car will kill/down a Survivor.

General Play

Try to save your health packs. To get maximum benefit wait for as long as you dare. You can go looking for more but you can never be sure where they are and the longer you are out there the more times the Infected can attack you.

To get maximum points as Survivors you need to get all four in the safe room with maximum health, So if you're in there and have the time heal up the lowest. Look after your colleagues, they are worth points. The best games are when the last limps in bleeding and crying and you slam the door as the next wave comes. You get a points multiplier for each saved life....

Last Man Standing

If your team are down then you are the obvious target of the infected. Before you try to assist them you need to clear the area of any horde and then assess how best to go about it. If you are low on health then heal yourself before attempting to help your team. If you have pills then use them before a health pack as it's quicker. Only if you have no pills/health packs or if you estimate that there is time before the infected respawn to assist a team member should you do so. If there is more than one incapacitated team member close by then assist the one with the most health. You both then stand a better chance of assisting the rest.




Infected

Against a well organised defense it's hard to do anything singularly. Combined though it's both rewarding and frankly entertaining. Pouncing on a wondering survivor and having someone puke on the other three to stop the rescue. Catching someone with a tongue off the back of the pack and pouncing the last to return to help. Pulling someone off a ledge with a tongue and adding some puke allows them to get stomped mercilessly in some cranny. The possibilities are endless, which is what I think makes the game fun. Some are intentional, some are sheer conincidence, but all entertaining.


Smoker
Has a very large tongue, when the gauge is full and you have a red targeting sight, you can fire and wrap your tongue around a victim. When you pull them against an object of hang them from a height, their health will steadily drop. Good guide here - http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Random-Ravings/Left-4-Dead-The-Smokers-Guide-To-Smoking


Boomer
Has the brilliant vomiting attack, get close and vomit all over the survivors, this causes a zombie hoard rush against the sprayed. The more are barfed on the larger the swarm. This also has the bonus of temporarily blinding the victim.
Recharge time for the vomit attack is quite long, so if you want to attack again quickly, to get the ones you missed, try and run right into the middle of them and get them to shoot you. I like to call this the gut-buster, you will explode and cover the surrounding area in vomit. Wait until their pink outline has gone before attempting to attack again.
If you are spawning in wide open spaces you have no hope. It's worth trying a rooftop spawn and a jump into a crowd of survivors, some fool always ignores the other guidelines and will shoot you.


Also don't hit the Boomer too often with your butts because he bursts very easily.

Hunter
Holding down the crouch button will charge the pounce attack, releasing it will reset it to 0, so get into position and when they are close, crouch and press fire when ready. The higher the pounce, the more immediate damage you cause, face up into the air to get a good hight. Keep holding down the crouch button during the attack to be charged as quickly as possible. On some of the 'natural' maps you can crouch and reverse up the cliffs to get extra height (and more damage) on your pounce. You can also bounce jump off walls to get more height. Turn and jump as you hit the wall. Bear in mind you can steer your pounce whilst in the air using WASD for some tweaking en route.
As a hunter, you are completely silent until you crouch. Don't wait for an ambush in the crouch position, you'll give yourself away.
Then we come to the best special infected of them all, the TANK. Occasionally the game will spawn a tank and one of the infected will get to control it. The attacks are swapped over on the tank and it is the secondary attack which is bound to the charging bar, although it charges very quickly. If you spawn as the tank and can't move forward, let go of the forward button and try again. Occasionally it freezes the key you are holdong when you spawn.

Tank
Primary attack is the swipe, you can knock the survivors right across the map with a good wallop.
Secondary attack is the throw, the tank will dig into the ground and pull up a large chuck of rock, once started it will automatically throw the rock once in position, so keep aiming at your victim.
You can only outrun the survivors that are yellow or red, green health survivors can easily run away, so use the throw to take down green players.

As a tank you should move on once you have incapacitated a player as they are out of the battle except for pistols and the other player need to be slapped around.

Additionally, tanks can bash around cars and certain other mobile objects using the swipe attack which instantly incapacitates any hapless survivor.

[KKND]

Nice info there Benny..:thumb:

[T-Bag]

Smoker: If you're teammate is being held by a smoker you can knock them out of the grip of the tounge using right click.

[Benny]

Edited to reflect T-Bags comments.

[b00n]

As a hunter, you are completely silent until you crouch.  Don't wait for an ambush in the crouch position, you'll give yourself away.

If a hunter is on top of a teammate, shooting it will almost always require several shots (and precious time) for a kill, but meleeing it gets it off straight away.  Always melee a hunter who is on a teammate if they're in range, if you're fast enough your teammate might only take the pounce damage and avoid getting hit at all.

As a tank avoid throwing rocks unless absolutely necessary, it leaves you wide open to getting shot to pieces and the rocks are generally easy to dodge in most areas.  Also, stay away from vents, you're big and will get stuck moving extremely slowly if you try to enter them.  Obviously, as a survivor head for vents if there are any handy to avoid the tank.

[OldBloke]

Held by Hunter or Smoker

If you're pounced by a Hunter or tongued by a Smoker then let your team know as soon as possible and in the clearest terms that you need urgent assistance. The generally used term is 'Hunter/Smoker on me'. It may be beneficial to also add a rough location of where you are relative to your team. If you are pounced/tongued during a horde rush then you might have to wait to get assistance - shouting won't make your help come any quicker but a reminder that you are still being held might be necessary. If your team includes bots then be prepared for them to totally ignore you in your moment of need.

Last Man Standing

If your team are down then you are the obvious target of the infected. Before you try to assist them you need to clear the area of any horde and then assess how best to go about it. If you are low on health then heal yourself before attempting to help your team. If you have pills then use them before a health pack as it's quicker. Only if you have no pills/health packs or if you estimate that there is time before the infected respawn to assist a team member should you do so. If there is more than one incapacitated team member close by then assist the one with the most health. You both then stand a better chance of assisting the rest.

[T-Bag]

If there is more than one incapacitated team member close by then assist the one with the most health. You both then stand a better chance of assisting the rest.

After they've gone down when you revive them the have 30hp anyway. Does it make a difference which order you pick them? I'd revive the one in the safest spot first/or the best one if they're both equally safe/dangerous.

[Benny]

Top post amended to reflect additions.

[Anonymous]

Don't know if this is a bug or not but I have noticed that if you are in the process of reviving a team-mate and you get attacked your health reduces very slowly if at all. That is why you will see me ignoring an attack if I am helping another player to their feet, I'm not losing much health

[Bastet]

Car alarm + Smoker = Fun
 
Smokers can drag survivors to car with an alarm, thus triggering the alarm. If they see you and are careless, they might shoot & hit the car, archieving the same result

[Bastet]

No Mercy campain, level 3, if survivors leave the petrol station up, smoker  can drag one to the explosive stack. Most of the time the reaction of the survivors will be to come running while shooting. If they hit the explosives the petrol station will go up in flames, taking the whole team with it.
 
Worked like a charm last nite :norty:

[OldBloke]

Worked like a charm last nite :norty:

DOH! :doh:

[Dr Sadako]

When playing as the infected do not spawn immediately unless you have to. Use the possibility to move to a good spot that doesn't mean that you will be shot instantly. Also it could be worth while to wait for your fellow team mates to devise a coordinated attack. For example:Smoker pulls one in. Boomer and hunter standing by to deal with the survivor(s) coming to rescue the pulled survivor.

Also use the sound that you know that the infected makes to draw the survivors attention in a certain direction. At the same time someone else could do an attack from the opposite direction.

If you look at the outlined colours of the survivor (throught the walls) you can see how much health they have. That could be very useful if you are e.g. a tank as you cannot catch a survivor with full health by just running. Then you should focus on the survivors with less health that cannot run as fast.

Playing as a boomer I recommend to almost always spawn in front of the infected and not behind. That will increase the chance of actually getting a swarm going. Note that the size of the swarm is dependent on the number you puke on. 10 per puked survivor i.e. 10-40 infected.

[Benny]

Something so obvious that people are missing it.

Always close doors. Ahead, behind, beside, it doesn't matter. Close them.

It's stops to mass swamping of ambling corpses getting at you. It stops sneaky infected boss guys creeping up on you. It stops everything and makes you play in sections which is much easier.

The best example is the stairwells, get in, get up and shut the top, shut the bottom and sort yourselves out. Don't SHOOT the doors, they are your little wooden friends.

[DuVeL]

When the zombies made a whole in a door, shoot through it.
 
Another guide here on L4D @ Bit-Tech