Everyone is welcome to play suicidal, and hell on earth. You don't have to be good at the game to play it, I'm just trying to show you how not to be a burden if you do.

- Don't stand directly behind anyone if you can avoid it

People need a few steps of clearance to dodge certain zeds, and to set up certain large zed takedowns. Things like dodging gorefasts while reloading, baiting crawler leaps, or getting headshots on raged scrakes/fps without moving the mouse (by backing up proportionate to their advance)

It's like driving, leave enough space so if they need to back up they can and so you have time to react to them backing up, and when they back up you should back up or step to the side so you aren't under their feet.

- Try not to stand in front of sharpshooters and support specialists (with some exceptions)

These classes are usually going to be responsible for sc/fp takedowns, and not only can they not shoot through you, or your head, they also really need aggro to be on them.

There are exceptions. Some maps and some camp spots are basically narrow hallways anyway, or just cluttered, a sharp can usually make this work even if they don't have aggro, and a support can usually make this work by just pre-damaging and jumpshotting whoevers about to get hit.

Zerks and medics (and occasionally anyone honestly) can step in front to either block the path of a raging zed or just take the hit. There's very specific times to do this, it's not every time, and if you're learning anything from this guide, you probably aren't ready to make this call. When you block a zeds path like this *and* when you take the hit, it makes the zed pathing and head hitboxes less predictable, making it harder for other classes to kill the sc/fp. If you do this, always crouch so everyone behind you can still see and aim.

- Don't stand in front of Sam, hes a god and you were actually just dumb for thinking he needed your help.

- In general, never shoot something you can't kill on your own (with exceptions)

Never set big zeds on fire *unless* you're the only one in the lane, you can kill it yourself, or its with a huskcannon at an already raged scrake. There's a lot of reasons for this so i'll list them all.

Zeds that are on fire move unpredictably, this makes them significantly more dangerous in general and can single handedly kill an entire team.

Scrakes that have been on fire (or flinched in general) cannot be flinched again (with a melee weapon). This is deadly to support specialists that require that flinch to cleanly kill scrakes.

Zeds that are on fire also swap aggro in an unpredictable manner, which is it's own issue.

The exception is if it's already raged and whoever was attempting to kill it clearly failed, either by dying or taking damage in general (except zerks, they tend to get hit when kiting fleshpounds). At that point start shooting it at will.

- Never shoot a scrake or fleshpound after someone else has engaged it (with some exceptions)

If you see someone shoot a scrake or a fleshpound with a 9mm, it's because they're trying to get it's aggro on them, with the intention of then killing it themselves. If you shoot it after they've done this you could end up swapping the aggro onto you and very likely killing the person that was going to otherwise kill the zed.

It's fine to assist with the takedown *after* it's been initiated (ie the person intending to kill it has shot/stunned/raged it) just do so from behind and not too far to the side of the initial person; the only weapons worth assisting with are m14/musket/lar/crossbow/hunting shotgun altfire/husk cannon fully charged. anything that isn't reducing the amount of headshots needed to decapitate it by at least an m14 shot at the cost of a bullet isn't worth it

anything that would make it behave less predictably (spraying it with an auto weapon to the side of the sharp, fire weapons, demo weapons, bile thrower when not trying to save the person, to a lesser extent the zedgun effect) should not be used to assist

Sharps and Supports have clean takedowns of scrakes and fleshpounds most of the time. They don't generally need any additional damage whatsoever, so save your bullets unless they've messed up.

If you see a support grenade and hunting shotgun a fleshpound or multiple, and a siren pops the grenades, that is sort of worst case scenario. Definitely start shooting if you see that.

- Don't shoot scrakes with an m79/m32 after someone else has engaged it

This knocks the scrakes to the side which ♥♥♥♥♥ up sharpshooters, because they have to re-aim, and ♥♥♥♥♥ up support specs because they dont get another shot to cleanly kill it (because the uppercut is fairly precise, and they don't have time to reposition for it, and also because the melee flinch wouldve been consumed at this point)

Don't use grenades on scrakes/fps when it isn't necessary, any class. Grenades mess up their pathing, use only as an emergency or as part of your takedown setup or you could do far more harm then good. If other classes are throwing grenades without good reason, you should too. sometimes its better just to guarantee the area is cleared and reset. Demo/Support grenades are more important and should be used more sparingly.

If you're being attacked by a raging scrake, stand still backing up will kill you much faster, and worse- it'll make it way harder for anyone else on your team to save your life. If you're playing sharp with revolvers/hcs/mks/m14 or a musket/lar, aim over *it's* left shoulder and keep shooting, you can repetitively flinch it this way and not take damage, you need to stagger your shots for handguns to do this. With lar/musket you should be able to stun it at which point you can back up or just finish the job.

With hunting shotgun, same applies, aim over its left shoulder and altfire. (this does not flinch the scrake but- 2 of these kill a scrake most of the time, if it's sufficiently predamaged just one should kill the scrake, so it's always worth just standing still and altfiring its head in this position. if it takes 2 you will live to reload and fire the second)

With dual flares same applies as with sharp guns

With demo same applies with m32

(worth noting that if the scrake isn't actually raged, as in it's just walked up to you while you were unaware, you can probably back up and get away from it. Again though, if it is raged this is the wrong thing to do)

If you aren't confident that you can kill it as it's attacking you, instead of backing up, just crouch, this will increase the odds someone else can kill it for you. Backing up is basically choosing death just don't do it.

- Don't put random single pipe bombs off-screen

Usually these are a waste in general but often they just rage zeds; if you insist on doing this do stacks of 2; a single pipe (on the floor; im not sure if putting them headlevel in the wall would help, i assume not if only because it's probably even further away but-) a single pipe doesn't do enough head damage to scrakes reliably for either sharp or support to kill them any faster (it's not enough predamage for a jumpshot alone -ignoring the literal perfect one- to kill a raged scrake this way, which is a problem) body damage would honestly benefit no one if it's a scrake that gets raged- if it's a fleshpound, raging them offscreen is a detriment to the entire team; it deprives sharps and supports from setting up to kill them (both classes utilize it's rage animation, supports rely on that animation for the grenades to detonate at their feet, sharps get half of the headshots they need during that animation) and again the body damage is less helpful than just not doing it would be.

On-screen is different for a couple of reasons; if you intend to shoot it as it's detonating for the double damage bug, in vanilla public hoe though I would only recommend predropping in stacks of 2 or not at all (you can miss, you can rage multiple things at once, there's a lot of room for error) I would also just recommend seeing what you intend to blow up before even dropping the pipes in general.

Don't interrupt someones patriarch lock, don't stand close to them at all, don't ever be the 3rd person in melee range of the patriarch. These are the easiest ways to get the person locking killed, yourself killed, and the team killed. Two people can trade off a lock, assuming they both know what they're doing, but in general it's a one person job, medic does it better, theres basically never a good reason for two people to be doing it.

I don't personally care anymore about living in this game, but generally firebugs are not welcome in hell on earth.

If you don't know how some classes need to be played on hell on earth, and what other players are expecting from these classes, you would be better off playing something else until you learn and practice yourself.

Support: people are expecting you to be able to cleanly take down fleshpounds when necessary, scrakes when necessary, and otherwise not to be in the way, and also not to rage things far away with random shotgun spray.

Demo: people are expecting you to deal with multiple fleshpound spawns (mainly wave 10) and know when it's appropriate to shoot m32/m79 (when theres 6 crawlers and no scrakes/fps, or to detonate your grenades) and when not to (when someone else is already engaging a single scrake/fps within the aoe of your weapon) when demo accidentally rages things, especially because the smoke makes it so players cant see to aim, they are expected to kill everything they raged (usually at the cost of grenades and a lot of inefficient/panicked ammo use or their life, as they've probably pulled aggro)

Sharp: people are expecting you to kill scrakes and fleshpounds, stun stray scrakes, stun multiple scrakes when necessary; people are expecting you not to rage things without killing them, or rage them from far away. people are expecting you to deal with husks and sirens with higher priority and from further away; people are expecting you to hold your own lane when necessary. (generally people are expecting you to have a lar or musket, crossbow can work better for things like hardcore mod and fleshpound party, its generally less reliable. less ammo, more downtime between shots)

Zerk: people are expecting you to stun/kill scrakes if you're playing in front, and to tank (because you're pulling aggro you're making it harder for everyone behind you to help, zeds head hitboxes won't be where they're expected to be because the zeds are "looking" at you) People are expecting you not to be off on your own, not to randomly show up with a zed horde at camp, not to die off on your own, not to extend the game in annoying ways (if camp gets overrun, because they're a person down for instance, no one wants to watch you spend 10 minutes on 100+ remaining zeds. generally people will stick around to continue the map but if it happens again, literally just die) People are occasionally expecting you to pull big zeds away from camp/other teammates

Firebug: people are expecting you not to ever set scrakes or fps on fire, regardless of whether done intentionally or accidentally. If you do set these things on fire, odds are you will end up with aggro, people are expecting you deal with anything you do this to yourself. if you're playing a firebug in hell on earth, the only acceptable weapon in normal waves is husk cannon. It is acceptable to hit scrakes with fully charged husk cannon shots, despite it setting them on fire, but you should finish killing it when necessary.

Medic: people are expecting you to be focused on keeping people alive, in whatever ways necessary. people are expecting you not to be in the way when it isn't necessary, tank when it isn't necessary, or be focused on killing things when other players are dying. people are expecting you to melee lock patriarch (no other reason to be medic for patriarch wave)

Commando: people expect you to not be in the way, and not to shoot big zeds, not to steal aggro from other people killing big zeds by shooting them with automatic weapons too close by(as commando you should only every be shooting big zeds when you can see their health is critically low anyway, or not at all) people are expecting you to assist with scrake/fp kills by killing the smaller zeds nearby it (crawlers/stalkers/sirens/husks etc) making it safer for the others

There are other guides out there for how to play each class, that's not the main purpose of this guide. This is mainly how not to screw over your teammates. Occasionally not screwing over your teammates is going to require you to play your class as they expect the class to be played. (You'll be expecting the same things of them)

You can join, you can be perk 0, you can be firebug and honestly it's probably not actually going to matter how well you perform or what you end up doing, most of the people playing hoe have literally nothing invested in the outcome of any given game, it really just doesn't matter. Follow the above if you want to make fewer people mildly upset for 30 second spans of time.