‘Figured I’d combo off Phneri’s work. The word on the street is the DLC is coming that’ll let you use the other 10 missing maps in Versus mode. Maybe somebody should pass some good word about how to play as infected. I’ll start the party with some general group communication and ambush tips and make a nifty little section for each zombie type across the week. May everybody learn how the killing works so an entire versus campaign can be completed in twenty minutes…because I got stuff to do.

Tips on playing as zombie are as follows:

- Keep Up Pressure After Ambush –
If an ambush happened recently and your zombie teammates are making [damage] headway into the survivors, forcing them to stand around or run around in the same area and you still see a random flunkie zombie running toward the survivors, don’t hide and keep pressing the attack (on the survivor furthest away from group if possible).  Forcing the survivors to continuously defend themselves for long periods of time only benefits zombie team by giving your buddies more respawns and more chances to shave even the smallest damage. Don’t bother hiding for the next group ambush until you observe the survivors have nothing left to shoot at.

- Synchronize Your Attack With Idiot Teammates –
In a perfect world, all four of your zombie teammates would be talking, coordinating an ambush, and synchronizing when you’re going to attack survivors in the same room. This rarely happens and furthermore, playing as zombies requires far less effort on coordination than survivors do. However, the key to success is to know your role, attack as a group, and demonstrate an understanding on when and how to attack. Therefore, when you see a teammate do something stupid like a Hunter trying to pounce a short distance into a group of three or four green-health survivors, just follow him and do the same thing, provided you know you can make your attack hit while the other guy has somebody pinned down if only for a second. Otherwise, hang back.  While this does seem like a waste of effort, it has a fair chance of getting your other two teammates to accidentally jump in and launch their attacks as well, not to mention the rare opportunity the remaining healthy guy gets so disoriented he just reacts poorly or is distracted by something shiny. All you need are two players to start a decent ambush. Sometimes, a double Hunter pounce into a group gets the party started for some big damage.

- Single Stray Survivors –
If you are already in position for an organized ambush, don’t worry about moving out of position just ‘cause you see an opportunity. However, if you’re still trying to get in position or you just spawned and are getting your bearings, the second you see a survivor run off by him/herself AND SURVIVOR IS AROUND A CORNER OR ON A HIGHER PLATFORM, by all means attack that person right away as a Smoker or Hunter. If you think you got a decent chance to pull off x6 damage as Hunter or waste 6 seconds of time forcing survivors to come rescue the person [as Smoker], then the attack is worth it. Any damage or time far less than that and the attack is a waste of time. You don’t cause satisfactory damage and lost time unless you constrict or pin the person for about 5 seconds.

- Split Into Two’s –
When a group breaks into two groups of two, Two-man Smoker/Hunter teams can deal efficient damage provided the other attacks while a survivor is pinned. Often times, one survivor will do the backtracking when a stray survivor gets pinned or constricted. This is the time a second Hunter or Smoker should be picking the second survivor off before he rescues the first survivor. All this will force the others to backtrack and both zombies now have their x6 damage or a shitton more.

- The Last to Drop Down –
Some parts of the stage require all survivors to drop down from a higher platform. It is pretty hard or an afterthought for the last two in a survivor group to coordinate dropping down at the same time. These are one of the best ambush locations. This is because if you can hit a survivor and he’s pinned out of view from below, you easily get several free seconds of killing if there is no ladder nearby. Other locations there is no way to climb back up at all. It is possible to obtain a survivor death by attacking the last survivor several feet from the edge and the others not figuring out a way to shoot you off. A Smoker trying this technique is ideal, as you can pull the dude far from the edge of the drop, way out of view.

- Using the Witch –
Plan your ambush FROM BEHIND the Witch. Don’t bother pouncing on people in front of the Witch.  Relying on a stray shot to hit the Witch is pretty hard to do unless you try just standing in plain view right ontop or behind the Witch as really obvious shooting bait.  Survivor proximity to the Witch is a far more promising way to trigger it. Hunters can move the Witch if you want to force it to be somewhere the survivors have to touch, like a stairway (More on this in Hunter Section) Or you can just pounce the Witch a few times if the survivors avoided it already and Hunter heads straight back into or jumps over the survivor group, potentially steering the Witch straight into somebody else.  But this is less effective than a survivor triggering the Witch on his/her own.  Finally, if a survivor draws Witch’s attention [making her stand up] a melee attack from any zombie or Boomer explosion can startle it, but only if the survivor remains in close proximity to the Witch at the time of the zombie claw attack.  You can use similar tactics on car alarms. Boomer explosions will set them off.

- Hiding in Plants and CPU Survivors –
Computer controlled survivors can see through plant camouflage, so the only way to truly hide from them is to figure out what is a solid tree and stay behind that. The other downside is that CPU players have a crack shot. But an A.I.’s weakness is they don’t shoot  zombies at great distances. The exception is CPU Zoey because she’ll usually grab the sniper rifle when given the choice. In general, this means you can plot your pounce or pull from a reasonable distance and connect your attack almost every time. Another weakness is that A.I. will lag slightly behind human players, especially when turning corners, granting many opportunities to attack the survivor out of sight of the rest. Finally, the A.I. reaction time is just slow enough you can take a Boomer and peek around a corner and immediately do a vomit attack.

- Zombie Vision –
Your ability to see survivors through walls relies on their movement. If a survivor stands still for like, three seconds, the colored highlight will disappear. Unless you are inattentive long enough, expect the survivor to be standing there waiting to kill you if the glowing outline disappears.

- Melee while Melee’d –
In certain cases, the claw attack works while you’re being smacked around by a survivor, even if you’re forced into third person view. This works better as Hunter than the rest.

- Recommended sequence of ambush: Tight/Close Survivor Group –
* -> Boomer -> Smoker -> Hunter
Boomer attacks first, triggering hoard attacks (read: decoys). 1-3 seconds after, Smokers pull survivors** away from the group while vision is most obscured. Hunters then pounce or claw remaining survivors**

* Optional – An expert Hunter should function as a diversion by pouncing in-between hallways or areas that would draw survivor attention, but safe from being shot. This is so a Boomer can have a better chance to sneak into the middle of a group. This is an advanced tactic. But “advanced” means “not lazy” in this case.

**Non-bile-covered survivors if possible. An un-vomited survivor will almost always rescue a pinned/constricted teammate first.

- Recommended sequence of ambush: Scattered/Chained Survivor Group –
Hunter/Smoker (on stray, first to climb, or last in line) -> Boomer
This is more like an improvisation ambush since it’s based around Hunters and Smokers executing their solo strategies at the right places at the right time. Formally coordinating one of these ambushes efficiently is much harder. Anyway, the focus is the Hunter or Smoker initiates first strike on a lone survivor, the first guy who climbs to the top of a ladder or scouts ahead, a trailing-behind member of a group, or even just a good [Smoker’s] pull of a survivor off a ledge. The other Hunters or Smokers should pick off anybody coming to rescue the pinned or constricted guy, meanwhile, the chaos should give the Boomer enough space to sneak up from any other direction. If Boomer is successful, ambush is go. Maintain pressure on the group until there’s nothing for survivors to shoot at.

- When Three Survivors Remain –
Advanced tactic. If your team coordination is outstanding, you can end the game basically any time you want. A non-Tank roster of four human infected consist of a Smoker, a Boomer, and two Hunters. When one survivor is dead, you have enough resources to simultaneously pin and constrict all three survivors. Try to work your ambush in an open area and send the Boomer first as a distraction. If the Smoker and Hunters can hit different people no more than a few seconds apart, the round is over. Instantly.

- Target the Same Guy –
Another advanced tactic.  If you’re up against good survivor players, when going up against the group, coordinate with zombie teammates to try and always target the same survivor.  There’s benefits to scoping and targeting either their best player or worst player.  But avoid this move if you’re turning your round into over-plotting.

- Over-Plotting –
One detriment to experienced players exercising non-verbal group attacks is that if you’re on a zombie team where all four players are used to waiting for another to give the signal by-…-you know-…-attacking, you’d be surprised just how long players are waiting around while the survivors are burning through the level.  Sure there are two or three expected places per stage where everybody is going to attack no matter what, but to only ambush at those two or three obvious places  (events drawing hoard, etc.) leaves a ton of room for survivors to heal and prepare.  One player taking the reigns and saying “3-2-1-Attack!” is all you really need to get  two people to friggin’ get out there and cause some damage.

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Tags: DJ Incompetent, Guide, Infected, L4D, left 4 dead, SCIENCE!!!, Strategy, Versus, Zombie, Zombies

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