This guide is meant to be a massive pile of information regarding a large variety of things, from perk roles, to zed disposal, to gameplay mechanics and health formulas. My goal is to make this guide into something that everybody can learn something from. It will be updated frequently over time. If you can think of something that isn't in this guide already, just let me know in the comments, and I'll add it in somewhere!

This is your main gamemode, and the one that you'll spend the most time in (unless you're weird). There are various difficulties and lengths. Your goal is to survive the designated amount of waves and defeat one of (currently) 4, randomly selected bosses.

The Lengths

Short: 4 waves + the boss
Medium: 7 waves + the boss
Long: 10 waves + the boss

The Difficulties

Normal: The easiest difficulty. Learn the basics here and stick around this level until you've gotten most things figured out. Less zeds, more money per kill, and less health

Hard: Still an easier difficulty. Some special zeds will start *rarely* spawning here, such as the Gorefiend, the Elite Crawler, and the Alpha Clot, each bringing some mildly frustrating extra perk with them. Still a little more money on kill, and the HP of every zed has gone up a bit

Suicidal (SUI): This is where the difficulty starts ramping up. This mode is recommended only for perk levels 15+, because you unlock your 3rd configuration at that point, something I will get into later. In suicidal matches, specialty zeds will spawn more often. Less money per kill, and zeds are far more resistant to your attacks. Learning to hit headshots becomes important here.

Hell on Earth (HoE): The hardest difficulty in the vanilla game. For an unexperienced player, it's insanely unforgiving. You need to know what works and what doesn't here, or else you can screw over your entire team. Specialty zeds spawn far more often and in higher numbers here. You get far less money per kill in this mode, and the health of the zeds is ramped up to the extreme. You need to be able to land headshots to survive.



Ever wanted to play as the zeds you're constantly splattering on a wall? VS Survival is the mode for you (when you can find a good server, that is). This mode lets players be on 2 teams: the Survivors or the zeds. As the wave goes on, you'll be assigned zeds ranging from the weakest of the weak to a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bodybuilder with meat tenderizers for hands. It's heavily team based, so a good team of humans can make or break a lobby. Good perks for this are those that can dish out a ton of damage and those that can survive well. While this is tied in with your personal skill, I've found that the most successful tend to be the Firebug, Berserker, Demo, and Gunslinger, although any perk can be viable if you're good enough. A tip about playing biggers boss zeds: You can access their other attacks by moving in certain ways and then attacking (i.e left clicking playing as a Scrake and walking back, and then forward and left clicking gives you a different attack.).



Every week, you can queue up for a gamemode simply called "Weekly". It adds a weird rule to the game that changes, very obviously, by the week. Completing them will earn you rewards. The difficulty is locked to Suicidal, so be careful trying to complete one.

Berserker

A melee centered perk, the Berserker is arguably the more powerful perk in the game. His abilities allow him to reduce damage taken on hits by parrying (which is an INSANELY helpful skill that you should work on, even carrying over to other perks), regenerate health, move faster, and run/attack at full speed during ZED Time, just to name a few. Your grenade disables Zed's abilities and calms raging enemies. See this guide for more details.

Commando

One of my personal favorites, the commando in a gun weilding perk that's good at taking out trash. Most of the time, all it takes is one shot to the head to paint the blood of a Gorefast on the wall behind it. When it comes to bigger zeds, the Commando isn't nearly as good as other perks, but he can still get the job done. The key is to spray down their heads and hope for the best, really. You passively reveal cloaked enemies, and you can see their health bars. See this guide for more details.

Support

Support is a bit of a weird perk. It specializes in shotguns and burst damage. Unlike the commando, Supports are a sort of all around perk. The only main downfall is the range limitations of a shotgun, so don't be afraid to get in a zed's face. Passively, your teammates will be able to take ammo from you (don't worry, you don't lose any of yours). As a support, you'll also be able to take a nice chunk out of the health of big zeds. Just remember, aim for the head. See this guide for more details.

Field Medic

This one's a bit self explanitory. You're a medic. Heal people. By pressing alt-fire, you shoot healing darts that can fix your team up from far away. Even if your shot is a bit off, the darts like to home in on your target, so you don't have to worry. Your weapons are mainly for self defense and for taking out trash, but your main priority will almost always be to heal your teammates. Each gun has a seperate cooldown for their healing dart, so carrying more than one weapon is always a smart idea for close situations where you need the extra heals. Your grenades also have an AoE healing/damage effect. See this guide for more details.

Demolitionist

Explosions. That's it. The Demo focuses on explosives. This perk may have one of the more awkward skill ceilings, as it isn't dependant on aim as much as it is on situational awareness and knowing what to shoot/when to shoot it. Your ammo reserve is small, and with certain weapons like the RPG, you deal massive damage. The Demo's main job is to deal with large groups of trash, and even some bigger zeds, if somebody on your team isn't playing a perk that can already deal with them. Your grenade is a stick of Dynamite that can stun large zeds on a direct hit, making killing them that much easier. See this guide for more details.

Firebug

Firebug is one of those super situational perks. You deal entirely with fire. Flamethrowers, Shotguns that light zeds on fire, molotov cocktails, you name it. Firebug has a bit of a bad reputation as being a "less useful demo" to some people, but honestly, they're fairly different. Your job is to clean up trash. That's literally it. If a firebug is a high enough level, if the area is tight enough, and the player is good enough, they have the potential to be a more efficient killing machine than any other perk, simply because zeds like to walk straight into your flames. Your grenade is a molotov. Use it in choke points with large amounts of trash. See this guide for more details.

Gunslinger

The gunslinger specializes in pistols. You can carry two of just about everything in his arsenal, and, with the right aim, can handle himself in any sort of situation. Your headshot damage is insane, making a good gunslinger a valuable asset to any team. See this guide for more details.

Sharpshooter

The Sharpshooter is a perk entirely devoted to taking out bigger zeds. He's the closest thing to a sniper in Killing Floor 2. At high levels, he can oneshot literally anything except the boss with a headshot and a railgun. Where he falls short, however, is dealing with trash. Ironically, a sharpshooter will die more often to a horde of gorefasts and clots than they would to a scrake. Your grenade freezes enemies, making large zed disposal easy. See this guide for more details.

Survivalist

No.


Just kidding. The Survivalist is regarded as the worst perk in the game. It's the Jack of all Trades, and master to none. Basically, a survivalist can use any weapon that any other perk would use. It sounds great, but he carries the less useful buffs of all classes and the more obnoxious weaknesses of them all. However, a Survivalist CAN be used, and a good survivalist, as hard as they are to come by, can be an asset to a team. They are usually used as a Medic/Damage hybrid, carrying a medic weapon and a damage dealer. See this guide for more details.

Swat

The Swat is the definition of "trash cleanup" That's his main job. Try and leave larger targets to perks who can kill them faster, but don't hold back in certain situations, like if your large zed disposal died, or if you have a really weird team comp. You are fully capable of taking out a Scrake by stunning it and landing all of your shots, though. Your job should be to headshot small and medium zeds with your high firerate SMGs. You carry a flashbang, which stuns zeds. Use this against big zeds and unload on them. See this guide for more details.

Small Zeds (Trash)

These are the easy ones.

Cyst

This zed is the lowest of the low. It's weak, slow, and has anuses for eyes and falls down when it misses you. In higher difficulties, they have a chance to speed up slightly upon seeing you or getting shot, but it's such a small detail that I never noticed until I did research for this guide. The only threat these guys hold is their ability to grab you, which can let other, bigger zeds deal some damage. Berserkers are immune to being grabbed.

Clot

A cyst, but mildly intimidating at the very most. Doesn't really do much. It's a bit faster.

Slasher

Slashers are fast, and just run at you and deal damage. They can't grab you or anything, but they can run just as fast as you do. Still, fairly easy to take out. In higher difficulties, they gain the ability to do sweet ninja rolls to dodge your attacks.

Crawler

Crawlers are basically the herpes of Killing Floor 2: Nobody likes them, they're not very likely to kill you, and they're obnoxious. They usually come with a few others and just jump at you, making them awkward to headshot. Nothing special about them besides the hatred they create in the hearts of players everywhere.

Stalker

The Stalker is an invisible enemy. They tend to come with a few friends, much like crawlers. Certain perks will have a harder time dealing with them than others, but if you have a commando on your team, they'll have a red glow on them. While they're still trash, don't underestimate them. Especially in higher difficulties, it's possible to get overwhelmed by a handful of stalkers if you're something like a Sharpshooter, where they could shred your armor or health.

Gorefast

The Gorefasts are the Zeds that hold the biggest threat to your safety, while still being considered trash. They have a saw for an arm, and like comboing you. The best way to deal with them it to headshot them from a distance, or if you're playing a close up class, kill them before they know what to do. If they see you or take damage, they start running at you. However, if you break line of sight with them, their tiny brains get confused and they calm down.

Medium Zeds

Here is where the zeds start to be problematic

Bloat

First off, screw bloats. These overweight, waddling piles of fat can give your team a hard time if they aren't acknowledged. On higher difficulties, they do a surprisingly high amount of damage if they throw up their leftover taco bell on you. The best way to deal with them is to keep your distance and just shoot their heads, since it'll take a while to kill them with only bodyshots. Demos and Berserkers seem to have the hardest time getting rid of them. For those perks, I recommend using your 9mm pistol.

Husk

Husks are the zeds with the flamethrower for an arm that are surprisingly bad at aiming their shots. If a Husk fires at you, simply jump over their shot and you'll avoid it. On lower difficulties, they only shoot at you, but on Sui and above, they can use a flamethrower and SUICIDE AND ONESHOT ANY PERK AT CLOSE RANGE. If you damage a Husk enough, they'll start sprinting at you, trying to drag your ass down to hell with them. Either bait it out, or shoot them. If you shoot the tank on the back of a Husk at just the right time as it's firing, you can blow it up. This damages other zeds around it.

Siren

Sirens are arguably one of the most obnoxious zeds, or one of the easiest to dispatch of. They walk slowly and like to scream at everything. Their screams will make your grenades and projectiles disappear, which is a nightmare for a Demo (unless they have the Skill enabled that ignores this effect). Sirens alone don't tend to kill you. However, if you have a horde closing in on you, and a siren in the middle screaming, it'll start to bring down your health and make your life harder. Kill them from a distance. It's also important to note that bashing them using V will make them stumble on every hit, effectively turning it into a potato until you bash its skull in with your gun.

Large Zeds

HAVE A PLAN.

Scrake

When these guys spawn in, you can hear a chainsaw revving. The Scrake is the least intimidating out of the 2 (possibly three, if you count Quarter Pounders, discussed in the Specialty Zed section below this) Large Zeds. Well, at first, at least. Up close, the Scrake can be deadly, but there's one easy way to deal with them; don't. A scrake is one of the slowest zeds in the game in it's calm phase, but once it takes enough damage, it'll be enraged until it either dies or kills your entire team. So, naturally, it's a good idea to try and leave them for last and take them out before they have a chance to rage. A SWAT can throw a stun grenade, which allows your team to unload on it's head. On higher levels, a Sharpshooter has the ability to oneshot a Scrake with a railgun. There is one, VERY important rule with scrakes if you have a berserker on your team; make them meatshield. A Berserker can parry and tank a ton of damage while you and your team unloads on it. Scrakes are resistance to explosives, but aren't very fond of bullets to the brain. It's possible for a Demo to be an important asset to killing Scrakes though; although they have explosive resistance, if a demo gets close enough so that way an RPG will hit a scrake's head and not explode, depending on the difficulty and amount of players, they can oneshot it.

Fleshpound

These are the big boys with hands that look like something out of a horror movie. Fleshpounds are easily the biggest threat your team will face during a game. When they spawn in, you'll hear some random noises and a loud growl/scream. Fleshpounds have a similar calm/raging system to the Scrake, except much more dangerous. A fleshpound will randomly rage and sprint at you full force. If you see it coming at you, no matter your perk, pull out your melee and try and parry the attack. They can also rage just from taking damage. The only way to calm them down is for them to hit somebody. They have a massive weakness to explosives, making a Demo something of use here, yet again. Just like the Scrake, they can sometimes be oneshot by a Sharpshooter's railgun.

Specialty Zeds

The rare spawns that decrease in rarity as the difficulty goes up.

Alpha Clot

An alpha clot is the exact same thing as a clot, except that it can use an ability called "Rally", which gives every zed around it a speed and damage buff.

Gorefiend

The most intimidating of the specialty zeds, the Gorefiend is a black Gorefast with two saws instead of one. They have more health and have more possible attacks, including the dreaded "autistic helicopter spin". The Gorefiend will spin in circles with it's arms out and completely shred your health.

Elite Crawler

These are just like normal crawlers, except for the fact that if you kill them with a bodyshot, they explode into a gas that deals damage to you and your armor. The damage is almost nothing, so the only real threat it poses to you and your team is that it can take away your armor. If you kill it with a headshot, it won't explode at all.

Quarter Pounder

Just a smaller Fleshpound. All of it's stats are less of it's beefier counterpart. They like to come in waves.


The Big Boys

The Patriarch

The Patriarch is the returning boss from Killing Floor 1. His arsenal includes a rocket launcher, a minigun (which he uses as a melee), a weird stomach worm thing, and mortars. This fight has a loooot of attack to it. Mainly, he can only hit you if he has line of sight. The exception to this are his mortars, which can go above cover in some cases. The Patriarch can also heal three times. It is possible to kill him before he even heals once, though you have to be fast about it.

Dr. Hans Volter

Hans was the first boss of Killing Floor 2. He's a scientist that seems to have a bit of a problem with grenades and guns. He dual weilds assault rifles and deals some decent melee damage, although the real threat comes in his later phases. After you get his health down to around 3/4, 2/4, and 1/4, he will create a shield around himself and latch onto a player to steal their health. If you destroy the shield before he can finish his lifesteal bit, he'll be knocked on the ground for a few seconds, giving you a chance to unload on him.

King Fleshpound

The King Fleshpound is exactly what the name says it is; King of the Fleshpounds. It's simply a fleshpound, but bigger. During his fight, he'll spawn a bunch of Quarter Pounders. Their spawn rate is decided by how fast his health goes down. When he's almost dead, he'll have a shield around him, and go into his next phase. He has a chest beam that he'll shoot at you, which does insane amounts of damage. Simply crouch to avoid it. Whenever he rages and punches the ground, it'll begin to send shockwaves around the area, which can tear apart your health if you aren't careful.

The Krampus

The Krampus is a bit of a weird boss. He has no ranged attack, and everything he can do to you is up close and personal. He has armor for his head, back, and front, which you will slowly damage and destroy as you hit him. He also has the ability to eat zeds and pump out green midgets that run up to you and suicide, leaving an explosion of bloat bile around you. Just keep your distance, and you should be fine.

On the Killing Floor 2 Wiki page, there's a list of just about all of the zeds in the game, and every bit of information about them. The entire list is located here[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com], but in case whoever's reading this doesn't want to sift though it all, visit these websites (scroll down to the "Resistance and Weaknesses" bit):

Cyst[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]
Alpha Clot[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]
Slasher[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]
Crawler[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]
Elite Crawler[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]
Stalker[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]
Bloat[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]
Gorefast[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]
Siren[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]
Gorefiend[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]
Husk[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]
Quarterpounder[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]
Scrake[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]
Fleshpound[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]
Patriarch[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]
Hans Volter[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]
King Fleshpound[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]
Krampus (Abomination)[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com] and the Abomination Spawn[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]

Health scaling is a bit weird in Killing Floor 2. With each difficulty, Zed health ramps up. Trash only has health rampup from Normal to Hard, and stays constant all the way to Hell on Earth. Health also ramps up per player there is on the server, which also isn't constant between zeds. There are various increases and weird bits of information, which can all be found on the Specimen wiki here.[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]

There's a ton of other details that would take me days upon days to include in one guide. Part of the beauty of Killing Floor 2 is exactly how many small details go into the game regarding the gameplay itself. These things included Zed Frustration, Armor mitigation, Zed Time, Units of Measurement, etc. All of this can be found here.[docs.google.com]

One of the most important skills you can learn in Killing Floor 2 is reload cancelling. It's possible to do with almost every, if not every, weapon in the game. When you reload your weapon, watch the ammo counter in the bottom right corner of your screen. You'll notice that your weapon will say it's loaded before the animation cancels. If you hit V to bash the second you see that your magazine is full, and shoot to interrupt the bash, you can cut down on time.

Door Welding is something in Killing Floor 2 that is so criminally underused and misused, that I thought it deserved it's own section of this guide. In order to weld a door, shut it and hold E. This equips your welder, where you can hold left click to weld it shut, and right click to undo it. Welding a door gives you Support XP. It isn't very popular due to the fact that it cuts off an escape option, but if used right, a welded door can save you a lot of hassle.


You may be thinking "Why can't I just keep welding a door forever and just keep it shut to help my team?". Well, Tripwire thought of that. Doors all have a maximum HP value, and, if the door is still welded shut after taking enough damage, it will just break anyways. After a door breaks, it can't be used again, with one exception; a support. If your team has a support, they can repair a door, letting you re-weld it. This DOES take a long time, so just watch out for zeds coming your way.


One of the biggest perks to welding a door is the fact that big hordes of zeds like to pile up behind them and attack it, letting the Demolitionist shine. A Demo can weld a door, and rig it with a door trap, making it explode when broken. This can take out massive amounts of trash stuck behind it, and heavily damage other, more resillient zeds. A Firebug can also throw a molotov at the door, and have it's AOE damage travel under it and damage zeds.

Below are some very important things to remember while playing in matches.

Share your dosh with teammates! If everybody contributes a little bit, it'll add up.

Heal your friends. Healing a teammate gives you Medic XP, heals more, and gives you a shorter cooldown. If you're on 80 health, and your friend is at 30, heal them up. They'll return the favor when you need it.

Callouts are your friend. If you see a scrake or a fleshpound anywhere, call it out. Even if you don't have a mic, just type "SC left" or "FP behind us". People will understand.

Don't shoot scrakes before your team is ready to deal with them. All it takes is one ♥♥♥♥♥♥ to light up a calm scrake for it to go chase down and kill your medic. Don't be that guy.

On early waves, use your bash for 95% of the horde, you can oneshot clots, cysts, easily take out other zeds with only a bash to the face. Ammo conservation will save you Dosh.

Play around with different perks and figure out what you like. You'll find some more fun than others, and that's fine.

You can sprint in all directions, at full speed. This means that you can run away while looking at the horde behind you, or your teammates. This is helpful if you're playing Medic, but applies to every perk.

If being attacked by a larger, more dangerous zed (Fleshpound, Scrake, Quarterpounder, or a boss), jump as they hit you. This launched you further away, and effectively creating more distance between you and your enemies.

Keep an eye on your health and surroundings. If you get pushed back and forced to retreat, evaluate your options. If one way out has a clot or two, and the other has a scrake and two bloats, you'll want to take the safer direction.

Pay attention to large zed spawn sounds. If you hear a Scrake spawn and you don't see it for a while, watch your backs.

If a teammate is grabbed by Hans during his lifesteal phase, and his shield has too much health to kill before he's finished, just heal said teammate.

I'd like to thank anybody reading this for checking out my guide. I've never made one before, so I kinda had to figure out how to write one myself. I appreciate you using this as a reference, whether you used this for a quick reference or as a damn bible. I'd love it if you could vote this up and add it to your favorites, or even to send it to a friend or a new player in a match. Comment anything you think I should add, and if it's good enough, I'll throw it in there.