Left4Dead General Tips.

Greetings ladies and gentlemen! Tired of zombies and infected ruining your fun? Sick of those pesky humans not letting you violate them? Don’t QQ and rage quit, it’s time to take a stand! I’ve prepared for all some tips to keep in mind to maximize your game and your fun!

Timing is Everything.
Left4Dead like any sport is a game of seconds where time management is key. The main objective of the survivors is to get from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible while taking as least damage as possible. The infected’s main objective is to prevent the survivors from reaching their goal by stalling, distracting, and ultimately killing them.
Remember that time is very important so it’s best not to waste it doing silly things.

Survivors:
-Keep moving forward!
Stay too long in any one area and you’re asking for trouble. You have limited resources. The longer you stay in one area, the more health you risk losing from attacks.

-Stick together!
Keeping your teammates alive definitely works to everybody’s advantage. Spacing is very important. Don’t stick so close together that enables a Boomer to tag everyone. Don’t separate from your teammates; make sure you are always within their sight and range. People in the front should crouch when they fire to avoid getting shot in the back by their teammates.

-Be aware of your surroundings!
Sound is a good indicator of incoming danger. All infected have their own signature sounds. Boomer puking, Smoker choking, Hunters growling. Tanks and witches have their own respective music. A horn also indicates incoming horde.

-Search that room! Close that door!
Exploring rooms can yield extra supplies but make sure you stick together while doing so. Normal zombies cannot open doors so shut the door behind you to slow down the infected.

-Melee is your friend!
Melee is a very useful tool but know when to use it.
Use melee in the following situations:
1. Shoving zombies when they get too close, following up with shooting them.
2. Shoving hunters off of a pounced survivor. This is essential when the survivor is pounced on and is being mobbed by zombies. Although it is tempting to shoot the Hunter off your teammate, the hunter can take a good amount of damage before he dies so it’s best to knock him off then shoot it to prevent your teammate from taking additional damage.
3. While reloading. The reloading continues while you melee so keep that in mind. For automatic weapons, the clip won’t show up until you stop meleeing for 1 second.
4. Releasing teammate from Smoker tongue. Melee your teammate’s body when you see him/her dragged or hanging to release them.
5. Shoving boomers away. Push them a good distance back then fire to avoid getting tagged.

-Boomer and Slime!
Being tagged by a Boomer puts you at a disadvantage. Not only does it block your field of vision, it prevents you from seeing outlines of your teammates. If they are pounced on by a Hunter or pulled away by a Smoker, you won’t be able to see it. In this type of situation, you would have to rely on the screams of your teammates to know the situation.

The most important thing to do when you are slimed is to clear your field of vision as much as possible. This means you have to start shooting and meeleeing accordingly to get rid of the mob of zombies blocking your view. Many people’s first instinct when they get slimed is to back themselves into a corner and start meleeing like a madman. Unfortunately, melee doesn’t kill zombies effectively. Make sure you don’t shoot your teammates while blinded, look for their names. Throwing a pipe bomb while slimed is another option to easily take care of the horde.

-Witch!
Don’t spend too much time figuring out how deal with the witch because it gives time for the infected to respawn or use it as a bullet shield. The safe but slow route is to not engage the witch so if it’s possible, turn off the flashlights and walk behind her. A person with an auto shotgun can instantly kill a witch by sneaking behind her and unloading on her head but there’s a huge risk involved. The 3rd option is to focus all fire on the witch from a safe distance. Burning the witch before hand causes it to down even faster. If a witch is not taken care of after she downs her attacker, she will rip that person to shreds in seconds.

-Tank!!
Focus fire on the tank from different positions but don’t go too far away from the main group as it leaves you vulnerable to the infected. Have one person lead the tank while having the other 3 focus fire. Anyone who is using a shotgun has to get close to a tank in order to do effective damage so aim for the back. Watch out for cars that tanks punch at you as it instantly incapacitates you. In Mercy 5, be careful with tanks on the higher level as it can send you flying off the building to your death. Setting the tank on fire, gives it 30 seconds to live.

Infected:
-Stalling
As the infected, your job is to stall the survivors as much as possible and wear them down for easy pickings. You are the defense so don’t let those humans get that past the line of scrimmage. Keeping the survivors busy is important as respawn times are fairly long.

-Distraction and Intimidation
Humans will be aware of your presence by the sound you make. This serves to distract and intimidate them. Use this to your advantage. One strategy is to make the humans look in your direction and having your teammates attack from their blind spots. You can stay behind and tempt a survivor to chase after you for the purpose of singling him/her to create openings and also wasting their time.

-Hunter
Hunters are the main attack class. Use their speed to your advantage. Hunters are the only infected that don’t make it a sound except when crouched to attack. Use the sound wisely to intimidate and distract survivors. The hunter’s melee attack does a decent amount of damage (10 hp) so do try to melee those in red to incapacitate them. Meeleeing a survivor while he/she tries to help a person up is another good strategy as they cant attack in that situation.

Use the Hunter’s pounce to quickly cover ground or for getting into a good position. Something to note about a hunter’s pounce is that if you were to go a considerable height into the air and then land on a human, it counts a pounce (imagine a mortar). A pounce from the top is most effective as melee is less likely to affect you. If you want to get real fancy and challenge yourself, the hunter pounce mechanism has a damage bonus based on horizontal jump distance. If you manage to pounce a great distance and land on a survivor, you can effectively deal 20+ hp upon landing. Jumping off from a high position (roof) unto a survivor below is the best way to accomplish this.

-Boomer
Boomer is a class that supports the other infected but sometimes needs the support of the other infected to be effective. The boomer’s puke has the ability to spawn a new horde to attack tagged survivors while the tag by explosion on death just alerts all nearby zombies to attack.

Positioning is very important for the boomer so it’s best to only spawn when you know you won’t be killed instantly. General rule of thumb for spawning is the ability to puke on survivors within 3 seconds of spawning. This can be done effectively by having other infected distract the survivors and coming in quickly to puke. Another thing to keep in mind is that the boomer explosion causes knockback that is useful for pushing survivors over a ledge or delaying them for 2 seconds. Also note that the explosion effects all characters in the area including infected.

-Smoker
Smoker is another support class. The primary goal of the smoker is to inconvenience the human team. Smokers are useful for isolating a single person and slowing down the advance. Knowledge of the map is important for the smoker as it’s best to snag a human while you’re a position of cover. Pulling down a human from a higher level or into harms way is greatly encouraged. One thing to note about the tongue is that you can’t catch a human until they are open (the tongue does not go through zombies).

-Tank
Tanks spawn randomly. Usually the person with the most points on the team gets chosen. The tank is the ultimate tool of distraction and intimidation. As a tank you will notice a bar on your screen. This is called the frustration meter. If you wait around too long without causing harm to the humans, the bar will run out at which point the AI Director will take control of the tank or choose another person to take over.

As a tank, your main goal is to deal damage while providing your infected buddies easy targets (distracted survivors). It is in your best interest to stay alive as long as possible to provide support to the other infected. Use the environment to your advantage, moving in and out of cover to minimize damage. Punch cars and dumpsters into survivors to instantly incapacitate them.
The tank should make an effort to pick off the survivors with the least health as they run the slowest. Close the distance by throwing rocks and immediately running up to a human then punching them as they recover. Try to vary your targets to prevent yourself from being leaded. Don't blindly chase a human if you know you can't catch up. Change your route if it takes too long to get to one person. Never climb to get to a survivor as it exposes you to gunfire in a wide open space. It’s better to let them come to you. Avoid fires like the plague.


-Random tidbits
When on the infected, there is only 1 support character type at any given time so you will never see more than one boomer or smoker. Witches and car alarms are great for distraction and stalling.


Okay! So there you have it! Feel free to add any other tips or comments. I hope you found at least some of this information useful. May the AI Director bless you and lead you on the path to victory.

Wow Bundy, that was super informative! Thanks so much for posting; I definitely learned some new tricks from it.

Someone (faith maybe?) told me that the best defense against the tank is fire because once the tank has caught on fire, the max amount of time he will get is 40 seconds (or some shit) after that, and will die even if he has done lots of damage and/or has full health. I found that interesting.

Also, if there is a mini-gun around, use it against the tank as it will rip it a new arsehole.

Any other hints for being tank? I find that I really have a lot of trouble when I spawn as tank and do very little damage before my death. I haven't quite figured out how to aim the rocks when I pick them up to throw and my swing timing is way off during a regular attack.

Great tip about taking down tanks, Kristy!
I found a video confirming that tanks go down in 30 seconds while on fire. 40 seconds on expert campaign.


As for aiming rocks, keep the cursor on the person you're aiming for. It's kind of like throwing a football. You have to anticipate their path and aim accordingly. Luckily most people stand still often to shoot at a tank so it's not as difficult as you'd imagine. There is a wind up on punching, if you're gaining on a person it's best to start the wind up when close and having the punch land as you get even closer. If you miss, there's a 2 second delay before you can punch again. Safest bet is to get next to a person and punch to avoid missing.

I also found this funny link where the tank airs his grievances

Introspective Tank