Killing Floor 2

Killing Floor 2

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Rango's High Level Berserker Guide
By TheDjango90 and 2 collaborators
This guide focus's on the Meta Berserkers or the absolutely most effective Skill tree's, buy strats and Loadouts. Theres a plethora of minor tips And I'll write them up as soon as I grab good footage of using them.
   
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Should you even play Berserk?
To answer this question, you must answer two others:

1. What is Berserker good/bad at?
Berserker has high durability and mediocre damage output. It lacks ability to kill at range. This Perk may also drain resources of the Medic, as this Perk is designed for close-quarters combat, meaning you will take damage, and you will take damage often.

2. Will picking this Perk disrupt the current team composition?
If your team is already composed of Precision perks (Gunslinger, Sharpshooter, Commando), then picking Berserker may not be a good choice.


Here's a very rough tierlist of the perks. Although I find tierlists distasteful, it is a good guide on what's considered griefing at higher levels of play. You may be kicked on the spot for playing Borderline or Unviable perks. The Ballistic/Precision perks synergize with each other very well, and in a team game, teamwork is the most important thing. Some call these precision perks given that these perks focus on head damage, or are most effective when dealing head damage. Precision teams are very powerful at high levels of play because of head damage. Head health is 30-50% of the body health, meaning headshots kill at least twice as fast.

At higher levels, Berserker is frowned upon as it can disrupt precision perks. You may body block their shots or stumble large Zeds, making it difficult for precision perks to land effective shots. Inexperienced Zerks tend to go for body damage, which is a no-go at higher levels where body damage is a waste.

Zerk doesn't fill any niches that other perks don't fill better. Berserker's access to high parry value (the ability to stumble large Zeds and take much less damage upon parrying) is nonetheless outclassed by Support's ability to stumble raged Fleshpounds. Berserker's tankiness is outclassed by Medic's ablilty to make the whole team tanky. Berserker's real-time kill power is beat by Gunslinger, Sharpshooter, and Support. Berserker's Zed time ability, Spartan, is beat by Gunslinger's Fan Fire. Berserker is an inexpensive perk; regardless, a competent team knows how to manage money. A side-benefit to playing an effective Berserker is that you will be making a lot of money - but spending very little - allowing you to pour excess money onto your teammates.

Berserker may have a low skill floor, but it does have a decent skill ceiling, so it's still rewarding to invest time into the perk. It's far from braindead, assuming you wish to actually play better. You can and should always go for headshots.

Despite damage and range shortcomings, let's see what Zerk can do!
The Zweihander - Combo Master
Zweihander has the Highest DPM (52000) of the Zerk weapons. It's so good it completely outclasses Pulverizer and Bonecrusher. Zweihander may not be able to knockdown zeds, but it can Combo Lock them, which is even better.

Here's a quick stat comparison.
x
Zweihander
Pulverizer
Bonecrusher
Price (less is better)
1000
1200
1500
Weight (less is better)
6 KG
6 KG
9 KG
Melee range (more is better)
2m
1.9m
1.85-1.70m
Alt-fire swing rate (more is better)
59
55
56
Alt-fire base damage (more is better)
195
145
165

If you doubt the Zweihander's power, here's a practical test of DPM. A commando can extend zed time for 18 seconds. Let's directly compare the Zwei and the eviscerator Zed time carnage.

https://youtu.be/oN8jhDyZSAw

https://youtu.be/Ulplht5Pj0w

As you can see it outperforms the Eviscerator slightly.

First things first: if you think the Zweihander is "slow", you are simply using it wrong. It's the fastest and strongest high-tier melee weapon.

Here's where the misconception of the Zweihander "slow" comes from: for every other melee, light attacks are for trash and heavy attacks for bigger Zeds. But for the Zweihander, the stab is for trash and is very fast. Light attacks are somewhat slow for stumble power, and heavy attacks are for bigger Zeds.

It actually has the fastest Heavy swing of the 3 high-tier melees, and the stab is faster than both Bonecrusher and Pulverizer light attacks. This totally outclasses them against big Zeds and trash.

x
Stab
Light attack
Heavy attack
Swing Speed
Very fast
medium
slow
Base Damage
63 Piercing
85 Slashing
195 Slashing
Melee Hit incap Power
100
100
100
Stumble incap Power
50
250
100

Optimal Zweihander vs Scrake 2.2 second kill demostration
Heavy > Light > Heavy > stab
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0O64zVSsCQ
Heavy > R canceled Heavy > R canceled Heavy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymFUDpfLPeU
Optimal Zweihander vs Fleshpound 4.5 second kill demostration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNHO-p_PTPw
An easier Zweihander vs Fleshpound demostration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAlprIKQrto

Swing Cancel
To combo a big Zed, you need to learn how to cancel your heavy attack. As soon as your heavy swing connects, press R (for reload), and immediately perform another heavy attack. Some people make a dedicated Heavy melee bind.

setbind [DEDICATEDHEAVYMELEEKEY] "gba_reload | gba_ironsightshold"

I personally do it manually since Heavy attacks are pretty slow.

Combo Scrakes

Scrakes have a slow and predicable attack. The trick is to aim high on the approach swing. The tracer will wrap around, past its arm and hit the head. Cancel with R.

For the second swing, you want to "accelerate" the melee tracer; this means you connect with the earliest hitbox. To do this, crouch and look at the knee level. The head should be off-screen. Cancel with R.

For the last swing, you have to follow the stumble. You do have to aim differently depending on the stumble. You will need to practice following the stumble animations.

Combo Fleshpounds

The idea is to rage it with your first attack. If you rage it during a Melee Hit incap, it will FORCED to go into Rage Taunt. R cancel and do another Overhead and as soon as that connects, R cancel. Then do a horizontal Heavy attack, because once it dips its head, you can no longer hit it with an Overhead. As soon as the Overhead connects, stab it. This causes another Melee Hit incap, which will interrupt its Rage attack.

Normally Melee hit only pauses its AI for 0.85 seconds, but it clearly stands still for almost 2 seconds. This is because you have just interrupted It's rage attack and it goes on a Cooldown. This is so when you nearly dodge an attack, it doesn't just immediately jump at you. What we do is interrupt its attack with a Melee Hit. We abuse this to get 2 free headchops and a Stab to finish it off.

I call this "combo-locking the Fleshpound". It's even useful for team takedowns since you cause massive head trauma and cause the Fleshpound to stand still for almost 2 seconds allowing for free headshots. You can crouch to help with Line of Sight to the FP's head.

Combo Quarterpounds

Zweihander vs QPs is currently bugged. I'll share the combo once TW fixes this. The combo is [stab > overhead x3], but right now stumbling QPs is bugged with the Zweihander.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiMDM4u4Iek

Medic boosted Zweihander vs Scrakes 1.2 second kill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIkHArj6Cjw

If you run all 3 damage skills, the Zweihander can 2 shot Scrakes with a Medic's help. Butcher + Parry + Smash + Zweihander does 660 damage to a Scrake's head. Medic Focus can give a 20% damage boost. 660*1.2 is 792. 792*2 is 1584, which is the exact head health of a 6p Scrake HoE Scrake, allowing you to kill a Scrake in 1.2 seconds. To ensure a kill you can [stab > overhead x2].

Trash Clearing

First you want this bind: replace your bash key. This will let you stab as fast as you need.

setbind [YOURBASHKEY] "customstartfire 2 | customstopfire 2 | customstartfire 3 | onrelease customstopfire 3"

The Stab does as much damage as the Katana, but has more reach, is faster, and has more stumble power.

Crawlers and stalkers die to a single body stab.

Clot Variants are weak to piercing. With Butcher+Parry+Smash the stab will One shot body shot All Clots.

And the rioter can even be popped in one head stab

Gorefasts can be popped in one head stab.

Gorefiends and sirens can be killed in one light attack.

Bloats can be killed in one heavy swing or stab+light attack.

Husk backpacks can be popped in one stab, and they can be decapped in one heavy swing.

You really must get used to Using the optimal attack/combo for every zed. You save so much time (and more importantly, Zed time). You can be much more effective with precision.

You can spam heavy attacks if you can hit multiple zeds.

The VLAD-1000 - Fleshpound Popper
Technically the Vlad-1000 has the Third highest DPM (41291) of all the Zerk weapons. However it has many many shortcommings to overcome to have access to such destructive power.

The nails are Projectiles, not hitscan, Zeds that can dodge will dodge. Stalkers and Crawlers will jump out of the way of the nails.

To compensate for the horrendous spread, you must face hug zeds. To compare your melee weapons have a greater Effective range than the VLAD-1000.

It's still a shotgun and is super effective at clearing tightly packed hordes. And since Fleshpounds have a 50% resistance to Slashing, but only a 25% resistance to shotguns, it's Zerks Best weapon for Fleshpounds. With some quick napkin math, 40,000 Shotgun DPM becomes 30,000 DPM and 50,000 slashing DPM become 25,000 against a fleshpound.

Quaterpounds are in an awkward spot. 50,000 DPM becomes 31000 DPM because of their 38% resistance to slashing and 42,000 shotgun DPM becomes 31500 DPM because of their 25% resistance. Technically you kill them faster with the Nailgun because it has much higher Burst DPM and slow reload, but considering they come in groups you may find the Zweihander more effective. but the DPM is the same.

Scrakes resist shotguns by 10% so it's much better to zweihander them. Even the burst DPS only makes it match the Zweihander's Time to kill, then when you factor reload you kill them twice as slow.

By min-maxing damage types you can achieve massive carnage in Zed-time

https://youtu.be/2mB_5_N1AUM

VLAD-1000 vs Fleshpound in Real time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef0PqQ5xs0M
this is how to wreck Fleshpounds with the VLAD-1000 optimally in real time

Scrake and Quarterpound Stumble Follow demonstration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-PVL8rZFOQ
This is how you follow the stumble on Scrakes. Shoot (stumble) > Crouch, shoot > stand, Shoot , shoot. You can get a guaranteed 3 shots, however it takes 4 shots to kill. You should just use a Zweihander on Scrakes, but if it takes too long to swap weapon, this technique can be a great finisher on an already weakened Scrake.


This is how you follow the stumble on Quarterpounds. Shoot (stumble) > Crouch, shoot > stand, Shoot > Jump shoot (ded)

You should also use Zweihander on a single Quarterpound but if you can't find time to swap weapons, you can do the stumble Follow tech. However for multiple Quarterpounds you can just spam into the body. Body damage is a viable way to kill Quarterpounds since they have very low body health, and High head health.


Trash clearing

Spam m1

SEGMENT INCOMPLETE
The Eviscerator - Double Killer
The Eviscerator has the Second highest DPM (51118) in Zerk's arsenal. It also has the highest Parry damage reduction of 70%.

Eviscerator Demonstration
https://youtu.be/xlwZvO3NBRY

An Eviscerator is a monster at killing pairs of HVTs. With Butcher+Parry+Smash you can kill Double Scrakes, Double Quarterpounds, Fleshpound+Scrake, Fleshpound+Quarterpound in one magazine.

First Rule is always run ALL 3 damage boosting skills Butcher+Parry+Smash. If you don't the Railgun easily beat's the Eviscerator.

x
Scrakes
Quarterpounds
Fleshpounds
Off-perk Railgun
2 shots
2 shots
3 shots
Eviscerator 3 damage skills
2 sawblades
2 sawblades
Bash+3 sawblades
Eviscerator 2 damage skills
2 sawblades
3 sawblades
4 sawblades

Scrakes

Scrakes are very vulnerable to the Eviscerator. You don't even need Parry activated to 2 shot them. The evisc Sawblades have Melee Hit Incap power so they flinch for 0.85 seconds and allows you to easily get the second shot. Because of teh Melee hit Incap Power, It should be as easy as after you line op your sights, click twice.

Fleshpounds
The Eviscerator deals Slashing type damage. Fleshpounds Resist slashing by 50%. Thus the VLAD-1000 has a higher effective DPM vs Fleshpounds than the Evisc.

An eviscerator takes 4 sawblades to kill a Fleshpound which is acceptable since it's the tankiest Zed, but with that many shots to kill, an off-perk Railgun is more effective.

Learn to Bash+3 sawblade Fleshpounds, that way you can kill fleshpound+Scrake or Fleshpound+quarterpound combos. You need parry activated for the combo to work.

Quarterpounds
Quarterpounds also have a very high slashing resistance, but only enough to make it have about the same DPM as the VLAD-1000.

You need parry activated. If you don't it'll take 3 sawblades per Quarterpound. This is a very bad threshold, since you'd need to reload inbetween each Quarterpound.

It only takes 1 Saw Blade to Stumble and Rage the Quaterpounds. An effective strategy to handle multiple Quarterpounds is to use Stumble and rage animations to buy you time to handle them all. Shoot a calm one once as it approaches then quickly shift focus on higher priority Quarterpounds such as raging ones or closer ones.

Review

Overall if you're on point, Eviscerator can be more effective than the Off-perk Railgun, but you're not practiced, you'll quickly perform worse than the Railgun because of how punishing the Rate of Fire is. Practice your Double Big boi takedowns. However the Zweihander will always be better overall.

Trash Clearing

It has high stumble power and a high rate of fire. It's dead simple, Buzz their face. However this spends lots of gas. You can Bash Zeds with more health to save a ton of gas. Between Bashing, Katana and Deagle you should be fine with Gas.

You can speed up your Bashing by replacing your bash key with this bind
setbind [YOURBASHKEY] "customstartfire 2 | customstopfire 2 | customstartfire 3 | onrelease customstopfire 3"

Butcher+Smash is enough for a Bash to one shot Sirens, elite clots, and enything lower.

Butcher+Parry+Smash is enough for a bash to one shot Gorefiends

But a Bash + a single buzz is really enough to handle anything below a Scrake.
The Off-Perk Railgun - Lame but Effective
This build is probably takes the least amount of skill and is still very effective. Since the addition of Quarterpounds that have very high Slashing and Blugeon resistance, it's even a more appealing option. I personally find railgun very lame, but it is very effective so I can't discriminate.
Off-perk Railgun Demonstration

An Off-perk Railgun can 2 shot a 6p HoE Scrake and 2 shot a 6p HoE Quarterpound and 3 shot a 6p HoE Fleshpound.

An off-perk railgun is an all-around good pick for large zed extermination. It's very straight forward. The railgun is a hitscan weapon, so it's as simple as point and click. Tracking a Fleshpound's isn't that hard when you only need 3 shots in and shooting Scrake twice isn't that hard as long it's at a distance. If you need it to be even easier to shoot throw an EMP.

If you throw an EMP, The fleshpound won't rage and you can easily get 3 shots as it walks slowly. You can derage a Scrake long enough to clean up with your railgun.

Heck if you reload cancel you can kill Scrake as it stumbles from the first shot. 1 railgun (stumble)
> Reload cancel 1 railgun (dead).

You can do the same thing to Calm QuarterPounds as you do to Scrakes.

The Smash skill give's 200% stumble power to the ALL bashes since Bash count's at a melee. stumble anything aside from a Raged fleshpound or Quarterpound with a single Bash.

That's about as advanced as it gets for the railgun.

Trash Clearing

You may in a pinch Railgun a Husk or Bloat.

If you have Parry activate, You can bash a Gorefast and kill it in one hit.

You can bash very rapidly if you replace your Bash key with this bind
setbind [YOURBASHKEY] "customstartfire 2 | customstopfire 2 | customstartfire 3 | onrelease customstopfire 3"

It's can be useful when you cleared most of the Trash around a big zed and then a Gorefast or stalker or crawler appears out of nowhere, but you don't want to waste time switching to the deagle or katana.

However since the katana has a special Unsheath attack, it kinda makes this unique ability less useful.
The Katana - Trash Clearing Only
The katana. It's a very popular weapon to inexperienced players however it's only a decent weapon choice. It's a side-grade to the Crovel in terms of damage and utilty.
It's chosen because Katana+Deagle > Crovel+HM-101

However The katana gets the job done.

As for trash killing, It's possible to one shot anything below a Scrake with the katana.

Katana and Big bois
First rule. Don't bother with Big Zeds with the Katana. Not even to Parry de-rage Fleshpounds.

At higher levels of play Parrying isn't that useful when a medic can easily heal you up, so you might as well tank a hit with the railgun out and try to get some head damage in. Switching to katana just to parry is a waste of time since the Medic can just heal you up and with your extra damage resistance tanking a few hits isn't a problem.

If the katana is already out, and a Raged Fleshpound turns the corner out of no where then sure de-rage with a Parry. But you should really whip out the Eviscerator or Railgun if you hear one coming.

Ninja Husk Tech
If you hit the husk pack pack then it dies. There's a pretty awesome tech to reliably hit the tank super fast. You jump then immediately do a light overhead. It will wrap around and pop the tank instantly. If it fails just spam light attack and aim for the head. as long you aim for the head or gas tank, you shouldn't worry about blowing up form suicide.

Bloat Tech
Butcher+Parry+Smash Heavy katana can Decap a in one shot Bloat. This is particularly useful for Zed time. But it's situational since you need zed time, and Parry up at the same time.

Headstab + Heavy overhead is the go to combo to Kill Bloats.

It's very reliable to stab the head. The stab causes a Melee Hit Incap, which will interrupt it's attack and it will stand still and take the Heavy Overhead.
It may Block after the Stab, however Heavy overheads circumvent Blocks, so either way it's a free kill.

Smaller Zeds? Spam m1
You could one shot decap Gorefiends, sirens and elite Clots with a single Heavy attack but spamming light attacks at their heads works really well.

Everything else you just spam light attacks and aim for the head.

It's not the ideal weapon In my opinion, but it gets the job done. what more can you ask for from a tier 2?
The Off-perk Deagle, The way of the team oriented Zerk.
The Deagle Covers all of the Zerks team woes.

A Deagle is perfectly fine for contributing to a lane without disrupting other perks by body blocking.

You those times when the lane is well kept, like a Gunslinger locks down a lane, and then The Zerk over extends trying to get close enough to melee zeds, but then the zerk either gets in the way, disrupting the lane or dies horribly when ganked from behind (he honestly deserves it if he pulls that such a stunt). The Deagle solves these problems.

Deagle can one shot decap gorefasts and lower. Since all bashes get Zerk bonus's, you can one shot Clots, Crawlers and Stalkers with a bash. Heck most of the time The Deagle is more effective against trash than using your melee. For comparision. A Deagle During Zed time can kill at about the same rate as a Spartan Zweihander, even better than the Zwei if the zeds are spread apart. This is just simple Fire rate and Range advantage.

You should really only use your melee if you want to push back a lane. You can put out consistent dps since melee's obviously doesn't need to reload. Let's say for example a Gunslinger is reloading their SPX and dual .500 magnums. They just killed a 2 scrakes + 1 Fleshpound. So you push back the lane with the katana or Zweihander as they reload. as soon as they can return to trash killing you can run back and Deagle.

Since All bashes benefit from Berserker bonus's you can one shot clots and anything lower with a bash. Th deeagle has an incredibly fast bash. You can even rapidly bash Gorefiends, elite Clots, and Sirens if they catch you reloading.

TL;dr
don't be afraid to just sit back and shoot with the Deagle, and Don't be afraid to bash trash. It's very effective.

Learn to Off-Perk Deagle. It's the secret to being an amazing Zerk.
Skills
If you want the Quick and dirty answer. Always use Skirmisher, Butcher, Parry, Smash, and Spartan. You can choose Dreadnaught instead Skirmisher, but the other choices are pretty obvious. Always choose more damage.

You can break up the skills into a few categories, Damage, sustain, Passive, Active.

Berserker has 3 Damage Skills
  • Butcher
  • Parry
  • Smash
3 Sustain Skills
  • Skirmisher
  • Vamp
  • Berserker's Rage
Few active skills
  • Parry
  • Vamp
  • Skirmisher (your active weapon must be a melee for a speed boost)
Few passive skills
  • Dreadnaught
  • Skirmisher (regen)
  • Butcher
  • Resistance
  • Berserker's Rage
  • Spartan

Active vs Passive skills
Generally speaking Active skills can be better than the passive skills, but only if you can utilize them. Vamp's 4 HP per zed is can be much stronger than Skirmisher's regen. And Parry gives much more damage resistance than Resistance. however if you're caught without Parry activated you'll quickly die. and Vamp won't help you heal if the immediate threat is a Raging Fleshpound and there's no trash zeds around to Vamp. Skirmisher's speed boost is wonderful but it doesn't work with the VLAD-1000.

Sustain
Building a skill tree is pretty straight forward. You never need more than one sustain skill, I'd even argue the medical syringe self heal is enough considering how tanky the perk is. So if you choose Skirmisher, forgo both Vamp and Berserker's Rage. Or if you use Vamp, forgo Berserker's Rage and Vice versa.

Damage
Hey the more power the better, but sometimes more important for some builds than others. If you Use Zweihander+VLAD-1000 you need at least 2 damage skills. If you use The Eviscerator, you need at all 3 damage skills or else an Off-perk railgun is more effective.

Dreadnaught or Skirmisher
Remember that Skirmisher speed boost is an Active skill. It is really depends on if you can use the speed boost from Skirmisher or not. A team healing you gives you 10 hp/s regen.

If you use eviscerator and Katana, You basically always have the speed boost, so Skirmisher is a good option.

If you use Zweihander+VLAD-1000, Dreadnaught may not be that bad. The VLAD is very useful in a kiting situation to clear trash, but you can't shoot and enjoy the speed boost at the same time.

By the same coin, dreadnaught is only really useful if you can use it. it simply saves you should you take absurd amounts of damage in a short time. as long you never take critical damage over 100, skirmisher is just gonna be better. Avoid getting insta killed when parry isn't activated and boom it's just better.

Resistance or Parry
When Parry is activated you get a massive +40% damage resistance to ALL damage. That means you have 55% resistance to everything with Parry. Resistance gives you +20% to all sources damage or 35% to all damage. And you get an additional +20% to Poison and Siren screams. That's 55% damage resistance to poison and Sirens. Resistance also prevents Bloat shti from obscuring your vision as an added bonus.

Parry is basically better in every way. You get even more damage resistance than Resistance, and a swing speed and Damage bonus. But only as long it's active.

So if you use Skirmisher, it may be beneficial so run Resistance, since if you run alot and may not have the opportunity to parry and you are extremely vulnerable without it activated. If you use Dreadnaught you should always use Parry.

Always use Smash
Massacre only gives a +30% damage boost to only light attacks and (despite what the description may say) 5% only to light attacks. Smash however gives a +25% headshot bonus to ALL attacks and +200% stumble power to ALL attacks. And then on top of that you get a massive +50% bonus to Heavy attacks. By choosing smash you lose a measly 5% damage to light attacks and gain massively everywhere else.

Some people say Massacre is good with katana or crovel but that's just plain wrong. Both those weapons benefit massively from the +200% stumble. With Smash you can stumble with 1 light attack and katana can stumble with one heavy attack. The stumble power makes using a melee weapon very safe. If you take Massacre, you'll quickly learn, by how fast your HP is drained. the only weapon where it's not that bad to use Massacre is the Bonecrusher. This is because the Bonecrusher has insane stumble power and the +200% stumble bonus is overkill.

Berserker's Rage or Spartan
This is pretty easy. Basically, always use Spartan. Spartan let's you move, shoot, reload, swing, swap, and even heal in real time. The only time where berserker's rage might be useful is if you're using Dreadnaught and no other sustain skills. When you consider you heal in real time using Spartan, the instant health from Berserker's rage isn't that competitive. With Spartan If you got shot by a medic a few times, you'll heal to max before zed time is over. You even move in real time, so you can run to the medic and get the AirBorne Agent gas heals. And Berserker's Rage fear affect is disruptive to other perks. without aggro aim at their heads is hard.



Zerk builds
There are 2 basic ways to build a zerk either as a Hybrid perk for trash and Giant Slaying or as just a back up Giant slayer.

Back up Giantslayer
This is probably the best way yo clutch or solo a game. You're not as effective as a Dedicated RPG+C4+magnum demo or Railsharp, but you have survivablility.
  • Railgun+katana+deagle with RRLLR skills
  • Eviscerator+katana+deagle with RRRLR skills
Which build to choose for this role is largely up personal preference. they perform very similarly. I find railzerk very cheesy so I perfer evisc.

Railgun+katana+deagle
Pros:
  • Best Overall Real Time Large Zed Disposal.
Cons:
  • Worst Loadout During Zed Time
  • Worst Loadout for trash
  • Worst parry at 50% damage
Eviscerator+katana+deagle
Pros:
  • The Fastest double Scrake slaying
  • The Fastest Double Quarterpound Slaying
  • Access to the best parry, 70% damage reduction
Cons:
  • Worst Loadout for handling 3 or more Large Zeds
  • Most Expensive Loadout

The Legendary Zweihander and VLAD-1000 build
It's a Hybrid, similar to Support. This build works like a Ultra CQC Hybrid. The VLAD-1000 is a shotgun and can clear trash very effectively. The VLAD-1000 is the fastest way for the perk to kill a Fleshpound. The VLAD-1000 can also dumpster multiple Quaterpounds through body damage. And the Zweihander potentially has even double the DPM than the Evisc if you can line up your swings. It has the most potential of all the Builds, but the risks sacrifices are immense considering the build can only be effective at face hugging range.

Optimally you use LRRLR skills.
Pros:
  • Best Trash clearing.
  • Fastest Fleshpound slaying
  • Most Zed time potential
  • Cheapest kit ($1780 for Zwei and Vlad full ammo.)
  • Can fit Both a deagle and HMtech-101
  • Handle multiple scrakes CQC
Cons:
  • Poor range.
I personally use Zweihander+Vlad, it is simply the most effective way to zerk.

Some other considerations:
Boncrusher+Vlad, since Bonecrusher can stumble Raged Fleshpounds, but it has some severe drawbacks such as slower Scrake killing, and no Deagle. It just doesn't have any Solo kill power, and nothing team oriented outside of Vlad Single Fire mode Vlad, which is like an improvised 1911.

And the ability to Stumble Raged FLeshpounds isn't worth the drawbacks. Especially when Zerk can just tank the hit. Bonecrusher just has too many drawbacks for what little it offers. It has to compete with Zweihander+Deagle+HM-101 (9 KG) which does more damage, More team play.

If you don't have access to the Zweihander, then sure, it's the best you can do.

Pulverizer is really, really bad so it's a no go. Don't get me wrong it's a fun and unique weapon but It's just fundamentally bad weapon at higher levels. It primarily does BODY DAMAGE. It kills Fleshpounds faster with no ammo. despite Fleshpound's 40% blugeon resistance. That's how important head damage is. It has to compete with Zweihander and Vlad, and Katana+Deagel+HM-101. yeah it just can't. It's totally outclassed.

You've probably seen many zerks use pulvy+Bone Crusher or Zweihander + Pulvy, but that's just plain silly to see.

The rationale being pulvy is for fleshpounds, but I just said how the pulvy has the worst Time to Kill for fleshpounds. "Let me switch weapons to kill the Fleshpound slower" that's how ridicuous it is. You should really only ever have 1 Melee weapon. VLAD+Pulvy, Zwei+VLAD, Bonecrusher+VLAD. never 2 Melee weapons. You should really help and inform the poor souls that do this madness.
Buy strategies
I'm going to assume you're playing a long game on HoE.

Wave one
Wave one, the optimal strat is to play 5 Swat and one Support. The support will drop his shotgun, and you may pick it up and grab ammo off of him to fill his shotgun for him.

If you play Swat, You need at least the Close Combat skill. This is what really kicks off the economy. It sells for 75, and if you drop it then pick it up again it sells for 112. Selling both the 9mm and mp7 gives you 212. Even if you plan on keeping your tier one weapon, it's still better to spawn as swat.

Also the mp7 is the best tier one weapons as it will just annilate clots and gorefasts and 1 or 2 headshots. Bloats have a weakness to 9mm so Close Combat dual 9mm will pop bloats really fast.

If you are the Support, run Resupply, then drop your shotgun, so your teammates can fill it up for you. then go kill.

Wave two
Switch to Berserker, Buy a Crovel and HM-101. Then share your money if your teammates need it. You can save extra money buy skipping th HM-101. You never need to buy a katana early game since katana is a side-grade to the crovel in the hands of a higher level player. Katana only really offer something with more reach and a little lighter which isn't important early game.

Crovel vs Katana Comparison
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNlQGqb8fLA

Wave Three
Wave three a scrake can spawn, so buy a Zweihander so you may dispose of it.

or

Skip Zweihander and continue to share money. Between the Crovel and EMP's and teamwork you don't necessarily need more.

Wave Four
Hopefully your team is fully equiped at this point thanks to you now they can share money with you.

Sell Zweihander then buy Railgun or Eviscerator. Railgun+Crovel+HMtech-101 and Eviscerator+Crovel+HMtech-101 is a pefectly fine endgame loadout.

Or

You can buy a Zweihander+Vlad which is very cheap and just as or more effective.

Wave Five+
You can sell your Crovel+hmTech-101 for Katana+Deagle

Or if you're Zweihander+Vlad get buy your last item, the Deagle. You can buy a few VLAD spares. It's cheaper to buy 3 VLADs than to buy an Eviscerator so don't feel guilty buying spares.

Boss Wave
The Zweihander is best for Patty, Hans, and the Abomination. The VLAD-1000 is best for King Fleshpound. Buy 3-4 nailguns just in case it's king FP and you should be good.





Advanced Tech. *Under Contruction*
Sharing Aggro
Most perks are more effective when they have aggro, but chances are you're gonna steal aggro and make it hell for them. You can share aggro. It's as simple as standing behind the player you want to share it with.

However you have to think if it's optimal for you to just finish the zed or lead it to a teammate.

If you weaken a Scrake, but trash zeds interrupt your takedown, Try to lead the Scrake to a teammate and switch your own focus to trash clearing.

Or if a Raged fleshpound has aggro on you and A support player has his boomstick out, you can do a team takedown. Share aggro with him, He can stumble it with a Boomstick alt-fire and Alt-fire again. Afterwhich it you can finish it off easily with a single hit.

Damage boosting
You're first instinct is to simply run away, but Jumping and parry/tanking the hit is a very effective way to escape, and not just for big zeds.

It's a movement tech you should use to the fullest.
Ensuring you have Parry Activated
Get in the habit of getting your Parry off the last zed of each encounter, not refreshing at the start of each encounter.

Learn to parry Decapped Zeds. Decapped Bloats and Fleshpounds are the most common decapped zeds.
Team synergy *under contruction*
Zerk has a hard time with perk synergy. As soon as a Zerk shares a lane with someone there will be some inefficiency. You benefit massively from headshots, but you make it harder for other perks to have precision.

If you team with a Chaotic perk like Demo or FIrebug, They ruin your headshots. But you you team up with a Precision perk like Commando, Swat, Gunslinger, and sharpy, you cause them grief.

Your best bet is Suppor. People generally consider it a Neutral perk. Because Support has penetration, you accidentally body blocking their shots has little consequence roughly only 16% damage reduction, not that inefficient. And you both benefite massively from headshots. You also cover support biggest weakness with is their reload time. If they find themselves with all theier guns empty because of a large wave of big zeds, you can continue to push a lane as they reload. You can use the deagle to pick husks as the support is generally better at handling trash and big zeds, just not both at the same time.

Your second best perk is Medic. Not much to say here. If you're playing well you shouldn't be stealing the medics attention. The only worry is a lack of power on your lane.

Sharpshooter, Commando, and Swat have a really bad time with Zerk. They have no penetration and you cause tons of aiming problems. You don't really cooperate but try to stay out of their way.
How to Crovel, Pulverizer, and Bonecrusher.
Stay updated
Subscribe to the Comment thread below to stay updated on any changes. This guide wasn't meant to be anything super formal so I won't have an update log or anything like that. Just whatever I have the time to add. Feel free to suggest even the most niche tactics. Map specific even! Or suggest just cosmetic stuff like to add pictures, videos, or change the format.
misc.
Gamplay
Synergizing with a Gunsliner
https://youtu.be/rCz-h5_GJ_Y?t=7m23s
Red Dwarf EU CD, Hardest difficulty on an Easy map
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj57xPMovQM
Red Dwart EU CD Outpost
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y58fVKWuN_M
Speeding up a Scrake wave with the Zweihander.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g7g5bf250A
HoE Endless with randoms
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi3-BFZdpYg
Knife vs Fleshpound and Scrake
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hRa6KM3DS0
100 Comments
amathy 6 May, 2020 @ 11:28am 
nobody gives a shit about your track record in pubs
also this guide was last updated 2 years ago you clown
aXe 6 May, 2020 @ 10:32am 
Lol Firebug in D? Sorry but considering my track record that's entirely false.
blingi 28 Apr, 2020 @ 8:03am 
Might be a bit late, but maybe someone is going to read this.
Is there a difference between swing canceling with reload and bash?
And what exactly does the trash clear bind do? How are you supposed to use it? Just spam your bash key as fast as you can?
tom 9 Jun, 2019 @ 2:36am 
Is rango ever to return?
󠀡  [author] 10 Dec, 2018 @ 8:06pm 
It's not up to date, but a lot of what is mentioned here still matters. It's been stated by rango himself that there is gonna be a rework. Either this guide will be heavily edited in the future or he is gonna make a new guide for the current version.
hydralisk_mk2 19 Nov, 2018 @ 4:29am 
I found some parameters are dated. Is this guide still accutare?
Is your weapon of choices still the same?
󠀡  [author] 24 Oct, 2018 @ 6:17am 
Heavily recomended to not use the eviscerator and the katana at all, lol.
Testiculitis 18 Sep, 2018 @ 11:08pm 
So the Eviscerator + Katana isn't considered having 2 melee weapons?
󠀡  [author] 23 Aug, 2018 @ 3:18am 
@Void, omae wa mou, shinderu!
TheDjango90  [author] 14 Jun, 2018 @ 8:29pm 
combo cheating