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Tactics How to avoid getting slashed by Hans when he's charging after you as a slow perk.

MrRogersBestNeighbor

Grizzled Veteran
Nov 3, 2015
484
19
I felt pretty dumb when I discovered this. It seems pretty obvious now. But in game after game seeing people getting demolished by Hans' mellee when he's charging after them I thought I'd share this simple technique to avoid him getting close to you.

Here's a video to demonstrate the technique (quality will improve as soon as Youtube finishes processing it):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9rcHNHWRFk&feature=youtu.be
Worth noting in the video-
@ 0:27, 0:54, 0:58 and 1:25 I could've pulled out my weapon to resume kiting him by shooting his face. I might make another video to demonstrate that.
When he does that slash over his head and the triple side slash you'll be able to gain enough distance and have enough time to pull out your weapon to resume shooting his face to kite him.

When Hans is charging after you, if he takes a headshot or several he will: dash to the side, stumble back or cover his face.
With that in mind, here's what to do to avoid him from ever reaching you:
1. When he's charging after you, fire at his face while moving away from him (only ADS if you're at a comfortably far distance away. He'll gain much more ground on you if you ADS).
2. The SECOND you see him dash to the side, stumble, cover his face, STOP FIRING and sprint backwards/away from him.
3. As soon as he resumes charging after you, stop sprinting and begin firing at his face again while moving backwards/away (repeating step 1).

When he dashes/stumbles, it's an opportunity for you to gain ground away from him. If he covers his face, you won't gain any ground, but there's no point in firing at him as you will be unable to get him to dash or stumble and you won't do a significant amount of damage. So the best option in that scenario is to avoid him from gaining a lot of ground by sprinting and as soon as he uncovers his head, begin firing at it again so he'll dash/stumble for you to gain some ground.

Keep in mind if he's close enough to you firing at his face won't save you from taking a hit. He will not dash to the side if he's close enough to you. At which point you have 2 options:
1. Pull out your knife and parry his hits.
or
2. Use a weapon with 100% stumble chance (Example: M16 alt fire grenade/boomstick alt fire and of course RPG, M79, etc..) or bash him in the face/chest to MAYBE stumble him (unreliable and not worth doing).

With the 2nd option, you have to pay attention to when Hans was last stumbled. He can only be stumbled every 10 seconds (being stumbled by his own grenades counts). So unless you know for sure he hasn't been stumbled in the last 10 seconds, pull out your knife and parry and as soon as you've parried his attack IMMEDIATELY sprint to gain distance until he takes another swing at you. If you've gotten enough distance, pull out your weapon and fire at his head to get him to dash/stumble so you can resume keeping him at a distance.

There's also a third option, but it's VERY unreliable, which is to go around a corner/obstacle RIGHT as he begins to strike. Some of his moves he's able to move around the corner/obstacle while striking which will then hit you, unlike King Fleshpound and the Patriarch where you can dodge 100% of their strikes by going around a corner/obstacle as they start their swing.
But firing at his face while moving around an obstacle (like a truck or ambulance) makes it way more effective. It takes Hans a bit longer to move around obstacles.

Worth mentioning, it also helps to practice. You can use training maps or console commands (enable cheats, Demigod, spawnai HansVolter, spawnhumanpawn to increase his health, etc...). I've admittedly spent hours practicing on Hans to come to this realization and found Hans to be surprisingly incredibly easy to deal with when discovering this. Even playing against 6man Hans (spawnhumanpawn X 5 in hard to reach places zeds can't kill them). So hopefully this helps!

Edit: Reworded "unparriable" to more accurately describe his special attacks and included the obvious knife parry in my tips. The main intent of my post was to just include that tip on gaining distance on him, didn't really intend to do a FULL guide on Hans mellee. But I included when to knife parry/stumble at close range along with a few other things for a more detailed explanation.
Edit again: Just tested it and bashing to stumble Hans doesn't seem to be viable anymore. I recall being able to do this pretty effectively before, but it's clear knife parrying is really your only hope when he gets close enough, unless you got a weapon that has a 100% stumble chance and he hasn't been stumbled in the last 10 seconds.
 
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Dr. Lethal;n2324033 said:
In terms of what can't be parried, those tips are a lie. All melee attacks can be parried; the only difference is the heavy hits won't cause the zed to stumble back. You should always party heavy attacks if you want to avoid taking 40 hp of damage.

Uh, my response was flagged as spam, so I can't edit it.
Anyways, here's my edited response:

I never said his mellee attacks can't be parried, hence why "unparriable" was in quotes. That's kind of a reference to attacks that Tripwire stated were unparriable, but really are just attacks that cause more damage/won't cause a stumble with a parry (knife parries don't cause stumbles anyways). Though I should reword that, since most people won't understand the reference so I can see the confusion.

I didn't mention knife parrying originally because I assumed it's a given, but it's obvious I wasn't clear enough when I mentioned stumbling him and new players would probably think I meant that trying to stumble him is the only option. It's pretty obvious that I should have mentioned knife parrying.

Also after testing, it appears bashing him to stumble him isn't in any way viable anymore, so updated my post to reflect that. It can potentially help if Hans is after a teammate, but you need to know exactly when to do it. Though stumbling him with a weapon that has a 100% chance is still effective.
I think I also neglected to mention the 10 second window where Hans can't be stumbled after he's already stumbled, which is very important to mention if you want to stumble him.
So yes, if Hans does get close enough to you, ALWAYS knife parry, unless you have a weapon with a 100% stumble chance and you're SURE Hans hasn't been stumbled in the last 10 seconds.
 
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RuneVivi;n2325507 said:
This was helpful, I didn't know about the 10second window... it's abit ridiculous.

+1 and thank you

No problem. I updated my post with a video to demonstrate the technique as explaining it can be a little tricky.

Also about the 10 second window.. If Hans could be stumbled every 3 seconds, it'd trivialize the fight. Especially in a 6man game. It could be decreased slightly though, to around 7 or 8 seconds, which I think would be ideal. Especially with how long he chases after players.

But as long as you use that technique and particularly around a truck or some other obstacle, you can keep him at a distance pretty consistently.
 
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