• Please make sure you are familiar with the forum rules. You can find them here: https://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/index.php?threads/forum-rules.2334636/

Tactics How to use the Chainsaw/Hunting Shotgun?

OiLime

Member
Dec 10, 2011
24
8
Australia
Hello all, I have been playing Killing Floor for a good 8 months or so and I have been following these forums for a while and have finally decided to grab an account. I have used every weapon in the game [somewhat] effectively except for the damn Chainsaw and Hunting Shotgun. I just, have no idea how to use these weapons.

Using the chainsaw as zerker (mines freshly levelled to 4, just yesterday), I find;

- It's heavy in the inventory, weighs 8 blocks
- It's heavy in terms of movement speed, going against his other weapons
- It's difficult to use on the larger specimens such as scrakes or fleshpounds because you do not have the speed nor instant power that the other melee weapons possess
-It reduces his speed severely while pressing M1
- Not as effective for trash as the other melee weapons are

I just have no idea how to use it and what its' uses are. If it's for groups, the katana can do that just fine.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Using the Hunting Shotgun as support (also level 4), I find;

- It is very heavy at 10 blocks
- It doesn't do all that much damage compared to the pump or combat
- The only useful part is it's massive spike damage with the alt fire, but again, it is too powerful for medium zeds like husks, sirens and gorefasts which can easily be taken out with the combat/pump
- The alt fire isn't powerful enough to kill large zeds like scrakes and fleshpounds effectively
- Very expensive ammo

So forum, how do I use these weapons effectively? Thanks! :D
 
Well I don't know much about zerking cause I hate kiting and running around for 30 mins for 2 waves...anyways on to some support help.
First off the difficulty your playing on makes a difference when using the hunting shotty. Its uses can be broken down like this.
Crowd control, in tight spaces like hallways or conserving ammo for your aa12/pump/combat or instead of reloading alt fireing to get some breathing room
Big zeds, after shooting the fp and throw nades at his feet or shooting the scrake with other weapons to damage them then alt fire there face to finish them.
sirens will fall with two well placed HS shots as well as husks if you can get in range.
the best and worst thing about the HS is its spread. It can be great at the right distance or can get you killed if used to early or late but this goes for any weapon..


Your biggest problem will be reload times and if you miss ur alt fire. I like to use one barrel at a time for let's say clots and gorefasts charging me. The closer they get the more chance your pullets will kill more of them due to penetration and spread. You should not that if they are 1 foot infront of you it will mosty not go through them leaving you to deal with what ever is behide them reloading or with only one shot left in the chamber. Good range would be something like 5 to 10 meters any further and you need to make sure you going to hit what ur aiming at due to the spread.

You should be aware that if there are 2 or more scrakes and a sharp bolt stuns one of them you should get close to it and crouch and alt fire there face most of the time it will kill them but this is only in oh **** moments.

The hunting shotgun is good for when you need to get rid of a group of smaller zeds fast or a big zed that is charging your team and can hurt them badly when they cannot defend themselfs. It will take some time to get good with it and when to use it at the right time but by lvl 6 you should be pro.

Iam sure I left a few things out that I can't remeber and some one else can fill you in. Experience is king.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
and for the chainsaw. if you use chainsaw you wont get thrown very far away. so you can easily block patriarch so he cant run for heals :) and it is good for the few first waves. since you will insta kill gorefasts, clots simular if you aim with normal attack in the head :) and use alt attack on husk and siren. but yes in the end it pretty much sucks :/

KF - Chainsaw Patriarch - YouTube
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
I personally use hunting alts to vaporize close crowds of small stuff generally. I also take out husks and sirens in an emergency. I personally prefer a pump and revolver or HC over AA12, mainly because of my emergency use of the hunting, I need it available immediately when I press 4. Also, the pump is 1/10th the cost, more powerful per shot, more range, and you can use it one shell at a time in emergency situations, like the LAR.
 
Upvote 0
When you get high enough Perk level with Support you will understand how good the Boomstick is.
I never use the M1014, the M3 + Boomstick/AA-12 + Boomstick combos are much more efficient in my opinion.

The Boomstick should be used for :

-Killing or taking away a LOT of health quickly from Scrakes/FPs/Patrick
-Killing quickly a large group of Zeds

NEVER EVER use it as your primary weapon, the Boomstick is a backup!

Also, pro tip : Firing 2 seperate shots, while slightly slower, can does MORE damage than firing both shells simoultaneously. This can help to do a large damage spike on Zeds with a smaller target area, as the shells will fire within the same area (with a slight difference do to 1st shot's recoil).


As for the Chainsaw, it's preety much useless UNLESS you are camping a room's only point of entry as a high leveled Berserker.
So many times a Zerker with a Chainsaw has allowed for teams to camp in the room by the garage in Departed.
Other than that, it is mostly useless until you and your team wanna go *** mode and gangrape Patrick with a cluster of Chainsaws.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
Also, pro tip : Firing 2 seperate shots, while slightly slower, can does MORE damage than firing both shells simoultaneously. This can help to do a large damage spike on Zeds with a smaller target area, as the shells will fire within the same area (with a slight difference do to 1st shot's recoil).

Where'd you hear that?

I think the primary mark of a bad support is one that uses single fire on the hunting. You know why? No reload cancel. If you alt fire, you can immediately switch to your pump or aa12, shoot it once or twice, and the hunting is now reloaded. If you use single fire, you're stuck in the animation. If I see any support that does two single fires, every single time the support is awful. They will invariably never know the advanced tactics on how to take care of scrakes and fleshpounds. They also get hit more due to the reload animation.

Even if the pellet spread is lower (which I've never noticed), it still means less damage over time since you can get in one pump shotgun in between.

I also think the best support combination's pump shotgun and hunting. 5 extra slots for katana, magnum or handcannon + pipes/machete or axe. I dislike the low damage shots of the AA12 nor do I need it since hunting takes care of everything big anyway.


And chainsaw's damn awful. Never use it unless you're like me and want to mess around sometimes. It's basically a berserker handicap due to the low movement speed associated with it.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
Chainsaw - situational, I never really liked it to it being too cumbersome.


Hunting Shotgun - every support should have this on scrake waves and up. Has many tactics you can use with it. Katana/Boomstick combo as listed above, wittle scrakes/fp down with your main(Pump/AA12/Combat) and pull out the boomstick when the zed gets close or use it to tear down large hordes. Also good as your "oh ****" back up weapon, when you pull it out, it will always have ammo loaded(Say you're retreating and a big group of zeds spawn in your wave, the boomstick will clear your path so you won't get dragged down and mauled.).
 
  • Like
Reactions: Blockbot
Upvote 0
Where'd you hear that?

I think the primary mark of a bad support is one that uses single fire on the hunting. You know why? No reload cancel. If you alt fire, you can immediately switch to your pump or aa12, shoot it once or twice, and the hunting is now reloaded. If you use single fire, you're stuck in the animation. If I see any support that does two single fires, every single time the support is awful. They will invariably never know the advanced tactics on how to take care of scrakes and fleshpounds. They also get hit more due to the reload animation.

why does using a single barrel make you bad if you are killing 3 to 5 clots or a group of gorefast with one shot instead going over kill on them? What happenes if you only have 12 shells left? Do you alt fire and get 6 or use one at a time?
 
Upvote 0
from my own experiences with the DB, firing two single fire shots at a group of zeds usually results in less damage/kills than a using the alt fire.

As a general rule when using the DB, you have to use it as a backup weapon and never as you main. Its unlikely you'll ever need to fire 2 single shots anyways because an alt fire will clear the immediate area of anything short of a scrake.

The DB is best used in alt fire mode against raging scrakes and FPs in point blank range or agains a large horde when they become unmanageable with your pump/AA12 or you ran out of ammo and need to reload.

Also, you can switch between weapons right after you alt fire with your DB. This is extremely useful to spike some damage in between pump shottie shots.
 
Upvote 0
why does using a single barrel make you bad if you are killing 3 to 5 clots or a group of gorefast with one shot instead going over kill on them? What happenes if you only have 12 shells left? Do you alt fire and get 6 or use one at a time?

Read what I said. Using alt fire is better simply because it allows you to reload cancel. Also, if it's just clots, use your pump shotgun. If it's a bunch of gorefasts in a straight line, use your pump shotgun. If it's a couple side by side, then I'd think you'd want to use alt fire in case the group of gorefasts don't die. The spread is random. You need a good pellet distribution to kill the gorefasts like that. If it's a bad one, well, you gotta shoot one more shell anyway, then what was the point? And if that one didn't kill it, you're kind of screwed. You can't change weapons. You have to sit through the long reloading animation as it hits you a few times for 27 damage each.

You also have to think about the stuff that comes after that. You'll want as much time as possible to reload your regular shotgun. Or you'll just want to have it out so the specimens behind the first group don't get too close.

And as others have said, I don't use the hunting as my main weapon. You typically see people using single shots on the hunting because they utilize it as a primary weapon. The reload speed on it is quite awful for it to be utilized in that way.

Lastly, I don't get to 12 shells on it. Just need to have ammo preservation tactics. Last game HoE I played, I still had around 30 shells on my hunting and 25 shells on my pump shotgun on wave 10. This is with highest kills. You can typically see these single shot hunting guys using it on lone clots, lone gorefasts, lone crawlers, and lone stalkers. Use your katana . Use your pistol. Heck, even if it's a group of stalkers and clots I'll use my katana on them. You can also use your knife on things if you don't have a katana or fire axe. Alt-fire will decap them. You can save a ton of ammo by doing that. If something does go wrong, you can still backpedal and use your shotguns.
 
Upvote 0