(Next things to add are some pictures, a new video (try to guess which heist shall it be, he-he) and a part about preferable tactics on different heists and days.)

Greetings, heisters, and welcome to my introduction of my first guide ever. Neither am I pro in the game, nor the best in English, but I never count myself too bad in both. So what am I doing, is trying to practice in writing with a good use for Steam and Payday2 community. This guide is just an opinion of a person who got to learn a bit about the game, and I beg you not to take it as some kind of show-off or dominance on other players. It is much more of an article to help you understand what's explained in it, than of a guide that will teach you how exactly to play. I just hope that someone, someday, will say “thanks” to me and my job done here for being useful for him and his game experience. Still listening? O'k, let's DO THIS!

“One-man army”. You ask: “What does the author tries to say with that? Is it another guide for solo sneaking? There are plenty of them! Or maybe it's some coolstory about a wannabe-pro saving his newbie team?”. Nope. This guide will explain, how to play “overkill” and higher difficultly heists alone. I mean, totally alone. No loyal A.I.s, not even a single sidekick. Only feds, you, and your bare hands armed-to-teeth character. “It takes a lot of time to master, not worth spending for the PvE game”, you can say. Wrong again. Me, for example: I got less than 200 hours spent in the game (most of which were spent for playing with friends, getting levels, etc etc.), and even after very long rest of this game I can pass overkill Big Oil, giving it a single try. It is more of an art, than of a science or even of a skill, remember that. All you need (except at least medium-level shooting accuracy, 40-60% with single-shooting weapon) is to learn the following things I will explain in this guide. Experiencing the game from this angle, when there is no crew but only you and your limit to push to, is very fun, I promise. Or you can just note advises I give here to improve your overall playing preformance, if you find them any useful. Still interested? :)

This very part of the article will explain my point of view on what needs to be done right before you turn an average heist into a hellbound slaughter. Let's begin with your character and skills, shall we?

I did not experience new-fashion skillsets yet, but according to a couple of playthroughs on new (for me) “deadwish” difficultly, I tottally rely on oldschool skills; they did not suffer many changes afterall. I wish not to discuss which build is “tru” and which is not, because it is really cool to manage your own build to be efficient as a solo player. I will just explain my opinion of what you must take and what you should avoiding to spend your points to. The easiest way to explain is to give a couple of advices that will ensure you what to aim for.

Rule#1. Survivability is number one priority.
There is no doubt. You can survive an assault wave just wearing a suit. But what's next? What will you do with those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bags needs to be carried through enemy crossfire? Two best options as I see them are ARMOR (obvious) and MASTERMIND skills. The second might be pretty obvious for some people because they will thing that he can heal himself, but may cause some questions because without much armor a person can drain medkits away pretty fast. Actually, there is such skill like “Dominator”. Well, the point is that despite your convinced ally's gunfire sucks, he is really a meatbag with tons of health, that can consume enemy damage instead of you. Just make sure you use this advantage in the right way, with a good shooting on distracted enemies or some additional perks you would like to combine with this stuff.

Rule#2. Both of your weapons are primary.
Focus on using both of your weapons in combat. Because sometimes you will have to use both of them even against a single enemy (ding, dozers). I really, REALLY advice to use button “1” (or “Q” instead of grenades) for switching between weapons. You got only two of them, afterall.
Let your two guns be a deadly couple, pick something you will use, not something shiny and good-looking.

Rule #3. Wise weapon choice.
Weapon must shoot, you say? No. Weapon must kill. If you take a weak SMG because you like how does it look and combine it with “Mosconni” scattergun because it's gangsta – get ready to retry your heist over and over.
Let's get closer to the question of weapon choice. What do you need and what should you take? First, and main. When you press a button, you must be sure you will instantly kill your target, no options. So the secondary-primary weapon is Locomotive 12G scattergun; a cat Desert Eagle is fine too, if you are a mastermind with certain perks. Speaking of other options - Bronco is the only decent optional second weapon because of it's high damage, but it is unstable in rapid shooting, while it's big game model makes it harder to aim far with snapzoom. SMGs have only ONE perk, that does not raise this weapon's damage enough to kill an armored fed even with 3(!) headshots, and pistols other than Deagle/Bronco have the same problem even WITH their perks. I know it is a matter of choice - so choose if you want to have a weapon or a good-looking water pistol when you face a dozer with no ammunition on your first weapon.
And your primary-primary weapon must be something you need to do the stuff your scattergun/deagle can't do. And both of them are not very good at two things: picking up distant kills (can be fixed with mod DLC pack, containing scopes for Deagle) and lack of burst damage (doubt that it can be fixed). AK rifle or m308 are the answers. Both kill green-armored feds with one headshot (requires perk, will be explained further), m308 does the same with shell-armored feds. And you need less than a magazine to send a dozer to his dozer gods, pretty good feature, don't you find so? Other options are not very good. Assault rifles suffer lack of damage, and Rainfield shotgun loses to nerfed(!) Loco scattergun in stable melee-range killstreaks, because it's fire rate is still lower and it's model fires bullets from very uncomfortable angle (spread is higher, but it is only disadvantage with current mechanics). Mosconni, that used to be overpovered sniper rifle with homing AoE bullets once upon a time, is nerfed to hell now. It still does a great damage with a meatshot, but two shots are not enough to kill a dozer, while other guns are not supposed to be reloaded after each kill. So my advices are m308 and AK762.
(P.S.: Please note that I don't observe DLC items here. I am too greedy to spend money for something I have free replacement for, so if you think that a cool sniper-rifle will work – try it!)
(P.P.S.: I don't tell that other guns are crap. They are fun to try in a group, but those advised are just efficient in solo playthrough.)

Rule#4. No melee weapon.
I know that a new feature is pretty fun. But an instant gunshot is much more reliable that 1,5 seconds of charge means you will one-shot an enemy within like 2 seconds each. Feds are very stupid, but if they are on their open visual contact with you, they never delay and shoot pretty accurate. Spending two seconds for one kill instead of instant killing spree is not what you need.
So why remove melee and use your handle hits instead? First, it will not bait you to do something stupid. You will know that your melee attack is VERY situative and will never suicide just to use a feature you brought with you. And the second – you can use your weapon handle as a quick attack when some certain enemies survives with a couple of hitpoints from your shooting (used to do so myself, before I became more accurate with my gunshots).

Rule#5. Nothing unnecessary.
Remember the scene in the “300” movie, when the Spartan king with his three hundred well-trained warriors “brought more soldiers” than five thousand Arcadian army of peasants and craftsmen? This is what you want to do too. Even a single mastery point spent in +5% damage instead of +5% loot counts, and this very point can make it out with 100% loot instead of losing 105%.Words about your efficiency is not a cheap pathos, just trust me.

This is a sequel of previous section, where I can tell what I think of masteries. I am not giving you a certain “pro-build_guide2014_works_100%_info.txt” because this will just murder half of amusement from exploring the side of Payday2 gameplay I am writing about. So let's just speak of every mastery tree advantages in your solo mission, shall we?


Enforcer. “Sometimes you have to make a door.”

Enforcer itself is a very good branch, born and forged for combat. There is not much to discuss – being an enforcer, you are an armored bully that hits hard and ain't afraid of getting hit even harder. A nope-guy for any assault wave. Going with enforcer, make sure you got certain perks for your Locomotive scattergun. You don't need them all, but damage and reloading speed are musthave. Forget that snapzoom, it's not a sniper rifle. Remember that shotguns are the only weapon supported by this branch, spending ALL your points in it makes no sense.
Our goal is reaching the most survivability in close combat. Forget offensive skills (except shotgun), and go for being most beefy. Armor gain, health, camera shake and stun reduce, bag throwing and stuff. I really recommend maximizing Iron Man perks. Possibility to face shields is just a tasty feature – you will really love how you can clean up a corner from enemy squad without quiting your sprinting.
Saw is optional, but only one main perk in it, not even aced. It's just for missions where sawing is a necessary alternative to lock-picking. I repeat, this is about fun, challenge and pushing yourself to the limit, not about looting and farming.
Make sure you have aced ammo bags and got 0 skillpoints in mastermind... unless you have some ideas of a genius crazy mix with it. If you find one that will work – you got my very best respect.


Mastermind. “Oops! That was not medicine!”

Heals are mostly for the team, not for you, but you will need them maxed to compensate your low amount of armor. Spending points in this branch will cause you some troubles with shields and enemies they cover, or with high-damage enemies, but you will be surprised of how easy you get rid of feds with your accurate shots. I've experienced this branch and found it very enjoyable to try, but I rely on my agility and exploiting of certain game possibilities, not on my accuracy (I really suck at shooters, let me tell you) so I did not manage to push this playstyle very far in my overkill soloing progress. But I believe those who like to shoot far, fast and deadly, will find this branch very pleasant to their own. Medic and support at the teamwork, Mastermind becomes a deadly sniper when he stays alone against his unlucky enemies.
Dominated fed is a great tanky sidekick. He is very stupid, but very loyal – and both of this are the positive lines in his characteristic. He will sit still and tank most of enemy gunfire wherever he is, just make sure that enemy sees him. You may even use it as a living cover. Just remember that you can not shoot through him.
Any rifle and the Deagle are your best friends, and even with this branch maxed, you can take all perks that exist for them.


Technician. “Hasta la vista, baby.”

Great branch that can be combined with ANY other branch in the game. Your main rifle perks are located right here in the very bottom, so I strictly recommend to take them at least. In any build.
The top of this branch can excite you with two of three best survivability perks in the game: Bulletproof and Shockproof. If you are focusing to max them (I did), you may also want to max your drill, because you use it almost in every heist. Additional ammo in magazine is fine too. Don't forget about steel nerves, it is awesome for doing objectives while there is nobody to cover your back.
I beg you, do not take trip mines or sentries. Both cost many mastery points, while they do not worth them. Well, if trip mines can one-shot dozers with a 5% chance of not being accidentally activated by a non-armored security or a civilian, the sentry will spend ALL it's ammo for the first shield or even shell-armored fed it spots. With no result. Please don't take those unless you certainly know what you are doing.


Ghost. “Faster than a speed of bullet.”

You run. You run fast. You run ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fast in any direction. You switch your weapon in a blink of an eye. You can start a combat in a good position, after doing objectives that are still hard for you do to during endless enemy waves.
...If only you max this branch, which I do not recommend for players that focus on survivability, because it costs way too much. So much, that you don't get all perks you need, combining it only with mastermind, which, for me, is only good usage for this branch if you go for high tiers in it.
But there is also another use for it. Though it's dodge was nerfed and does not give you a bonus dodge over armor dodge penalty anymore, this mastery branch have some interesting perks to get. Namely, first part of “Shinobi”, plus stamina and falling damage bonus reduction. Shinobi and stamina are pretty nice for compensating a part of your lack of mobility (you are not going to take off your armor, do you?), while falling damage reduction is used to get to Shinobi tier, including some interesting escaping ways on certain maps. You also want to use “cleaner” to get one last point for Shinobi.

This is where the game begins. And this is where you decide, what is the most fun and sportsmanlike to you – do objectives fast as possible or make a real slaughter with pushing yourself to unbelievable limits trying to do, what others have never done in team, only on your own. It's up to you to learn something new, or to have fun by killing cops old-fashion – you have my great and endless respect for any your decision. But I've got some very important tips for you. They are mostly basic, but when you face enemies without crew to fix your fatal mistakes, remembering them once again will do a good thing to you.

Rule#00000. Duck, hide, cover!
The most important part of the game, but many people forget about that when they have someone to pick them up from bleedout. Always hide to get your armor – enemies are pretty fast and accurate even for good players, and even a little amount of armor is your best friend! Remember: if you can't shoot an enemy from your cover – MOST likely he can't shoot you either. Even if a part of your game model comes out from a corner.
Armor compensates everything – even lack of accuracy, but only when it's full.

Rule#1. Carve a path!
Always move. There is entire map to run around, and you do this way faster than enemies, that need to assemble before moving forth to your new disposition. Move from cover to cover, cleaning map from enemies on your way. It is much more effective to let enemies get closer, kill them and fall back, than camping them on the same distance wide open for a surprise buttsex by a random bulldozer, that will be able to make it to your position totally unnoticed if you don't scout around.

Rule#2. Don't corner yourself.
A “toilet control”, cornering yourself in a small room with only one entrance, is a good choise only if you are sure that you will be able to escape your fortress on your feet instead of travelling out in a bodybag. Every wave is different from each other, and if you successfully protect yourself from one assault in your fortified room, the second wave might bring a shield+dozer+flashbang deadly combo at your spot. Always make sure you have at least one way to escape without losing HP at all.
If you are cornered by a dozer and there is no escape – god bless you, but try to focus on escaping past them instead of fighting, if his face windshield is not damaged. Or, if it is, you can try to do this Texas-style, and may the fastest and the most accurate win the duel. Don't forget, when your armor is full, and your west is pretty heavy, you may tank at least one dozer's meatshot without losing your health.

Rule#3. Still got the ammo!
Focus on one kill per 1-2 bullets – it is the certain way to stay at full ammo even in the worst situation. Perk for additional ammo drop is not very effective and costs much, while grabbing ammo from your bag costs unnecessary time waste. If you follow my advise about one-shot weapon, then, when one weapon's ammo runs out, you may switch to the other weapon – every looted ammo certainly gives you 1 bullet to primary and 1 bullet for secondary weapon. This number is higher for some weapons – but not for those that I advised.
If you are not sure in your shot – it is not necessary to rapidly shoot at the same enemy. I don't mean that you should avoid long-range combat, but please, take an aim to make a kill instead of firing out all your ammunition. Find another target or wait your victim to come closer, when you can kill him, his family and his dog, and even receive your ammo back.

Rule#4. Don't panic!
You will experience many situations, when all ways to escape from danger are crowded with feds and fighting them will be a certain death; you will be stunned with a flashbang when surrounded by enemies; you will get damaged to red screen, caught wide open by cops while carrying an objective bag. This happens almost in each high-difficultly game, no matter how good you are at avoiding situations like that. The first thing to know: don't panic. This is the game, and adrenaline in your blood will not help your character survive. You are trapped by overwhelming group of feds in a room with no covers in it? Turn on your memory and try to remember, if there are covers BEHIND them! You might sprint through, hide and restore your armor to be able to escape forth, instead of fighting back and dying. Stunned by a flashbang? Release your mouse, remember the way to the nearest cover, go there with your WASD and crouch: enemies can move when you are unable to see them, safe hideouts – can't. Caught by a crossfire with a heavy cargo? Throw it under your feet and run to the nearest cover – you can always steal your loot back from cops when time will come.

Rule#5. Improvise!
The game is full of features, as it is full of exploitable bugs too. Even a corner made by open door is unbreakable cover, and you can't be shot there by enemies who can't see you widely. When enemies don't have close visual contact with you, they will start rescuing civilians or looting your bags over killing you – use those baits! Shielded enemies, or shields dropped from the dead can still block bullets! Cops don't shoot through civilians! Enemies keep doing script animations (opening doors, rescuing civs, disabling devices or lights, climbing) even when they spot you or you shoot at them: helpless pillows for multiple headshots! There are even spots to hide in that only specialists can reach!
The game is full of puppets to control, and made of features to exploit. You just need to start thinking outside the box: if no one ever did that – it doesn't mean that you shouldn't give it a try.

Rule#6. Specialists can be ignored!
Right, you didn't misunderstand. The strongest and the most dangerous enemies might be taken as they don't even exist! ...Well, that's not very correct. They still do exist, and still are dangerous, but only if you want them to. Want to challenge two shields, a taser, a cloaker and a bulldozer squad thirsting revenge at you for their friends you've murdered? At your pleasure. But, as you're alone and don't need to protect weaker players, you may simply avoid them.
Did you know that dozers are awful at pathfinding and mostly walk scripted ways unless they face you? They can't even cross a street where they need to, only where they MUST to! Did you know that shields never chase you, if you run, and just slowly assemble to your position to support assault on it? They also do very little damage! Or did you know that cloakers won't try to one-shot you with their famous melee strike, if they are forced to return fire to you? You can force them to fight at range simply by staying on a middle distance at their sight.
Tasers are a bit of a problem, but they only strike from certain positions. Only the god knows which position is “certain” for them, so they can run around you a couple of minutes until they choose the correct one.
Also remember: if specialists know your position, they will not interrupt your objectives.

Rule#7. Be assertive!
If you know that there is a crowd of enemies behind a wall – your best option is to take them out instead of falling back. If they are not protected by specialists, you don't need to wait for them to assemble. This is where you must strike, not just fight back. Non-special cops or feds are the flesh of any assault, they are not dangerous without assistance of something serious. Enemies won't attack you one by one, it's up to you to kill them this way, before they gather an army to melt you with dozens of guns. Attack on weaken enemies – even if there are lot of them, you can always kill a couple without spending any health. Just watch your back in case of a taser that might stun you from behind.

This part of an article does not bring you to the world of statistics and specifics of each enemy you will face during your cop exterminating, there is a nice wiki[payday.wikia.com] for that. I will just tell you something new about your enemies and fighting them you might not know. Only useful knowledges, no boring mathematics or large trivia.

Deathwish difficultly doubles health of most of specialists and greatly increases survivability of other cops and feds. Snipers are affected too. (Fixed)

Cloakers don't know the kung-fu if you are the last man standing (or just the only on your team). When you are the only survived, treat them like endangered harmless fluffy animals they are. Actually you can force them to use their Chuck kick with some glitch, but is this what you really want to happen? Also note that it affects downed allies too, but does not cancels cloaker's charge if he have already decided to kick your ass.

There is no damage to put down GenSec elite guard (white-armored guys) with one bullet, if you are using non-shotgun and not-DLC weapon. They survive M308 or Deagle headshot. Berserker skills can fix this, but they are too situative to use them when it is enough to land one more bullet to your target.

Shields can be killed with a headshot even if they are focused at you. A small part of their white vertex can be seen over their shield. And might be not. One or another, you always have a chance to surprise him with a headshot over his shield. Does not work if shield looks down on you.

When Bulldozer's windshields are down, you can kill him with a headshot in any part of his head. Also, his chin and his neck are counted as parts of a body, try to aim a bit above while facing a dozer.

When Snipers take aim on you – be sure they will shoot whatever it takes. Let them spot you and quickly hide back. Loud gunshot, and life of a harmless sniper is at your mercy for a couple of seconds.

Tasers' therapy can be interrupted with any incoming damage, not only by a threating or killing blow. If your gun is empty by the time taser lets you out, it can be instantly reloaded if it was forced to shoot once during the shocking therapy.

Humanoid (non-doser) enemies got their head hitbox a bit lower than it should be. Taking aim to their neck at shoulders-level will deal a headshot while shooting a bit over them with a tangential wound on their vortex will cause a bodyshot instead of a headshot. Shields' head hitbox, in opposite, is a bit above their heads.

Armor of your non-special enemies represents their weapon damage and accuracy on “Overkill” and “Deathwish” levels. The less armor your enemy has – the harder he bites. Police and FBI officers deal about 15X damage with their single-shot weapons, hostage-resque units deal about 8X with automatic guns, when “X” of this formula is a damage of a shell-armored or green-armored fed. Shotguns and GenSec elites are exclusion.

Melee-attack of each enemy can be dodged by simply going out of it's range. You can also avoid cloaker's special attack by dodging his jump, but note that you can not dodge the attack itself.

As you stay alone, ou have no choise but to rely on your own attention. There are no roles and no responsibilities, and you do whatever it takes to get to your payday. So it's not just about defending or carrying objectives anymore. Most of the time it's just impossible to stand in objective room and kill everyone who enters it, as you could act in a good team. So there are additional, unobvious objectives to you, which can assist you completing your main mission targets. The most important of them are:

Objective#1: Partisan harassment.
As I told before, waiting for your destiny in a room with one entrance will go badly for you. Carefully prepare for your last stand by securing the area, killing as much enemies as you can before they strike back. It is clear that you will finish your fight in an objective room, but you may start it wherever you like. Even with camping enemies on their spawn. Pick up every kill you can.

Objective#2: Prioritize unarmored enemies over the others.
Armored enemies do very moderate damage to you, while specialists are supposed to be in certain situation to play their role effectively. Unarmored enemies, in opposite, are supposed to do damage. They usually don't join an assault, but neither they fall back after it. These enemies have their own objectives (securing the hostages and assaulting the outer territory for FBI resque squads, holding outer positions and spawns for FBI officersfficers, dying first in the match for simple cops), but their main target is to interrupt you from doing yours. Their main tool is very high damage in any situation, and these guys usually don't die with the rest of the assault. So when you see one - try to kill him as soon as possible, because you might not get a better chance. Expect them to painfully fight back.

Objective#3: Slow down assaults.
There are some factors that can slow down enemy assault. The first assault can be slowed simply by capturing some hostages.
An assault needs an amount of cops to begin faster. The bigger amount of enemies have survived the attack, the faster their number will grow large enough for a new wave. Finish off every weakened enemy you can catch - if you will succseed, enemies can begin an assault very late and almost without any forces on the map. Enemies are easy victims when they fall back, because they usually spread and don't protect each other.

Objective#4: Do your missions before everything else.
Most of your objectives can be done without your interacting. Launch your drills and stuff before everything else, your first couple of minutes after raising the alarm is the easiest part of the game - use this time wisely!

Objective#5: Fight for your mission objects.
It's pretty obvious that you must protect your drills and computers that can be turned off by the cops. Turning them back on may be much harder than protecting it. It doesn't mean that you stay near them till your death, just try to be around at safe distance and interrupt any cop that attempts to disable it.

First video is added to the gallery, enjoy.
A few more are coming in a bit.