Support tricks

[akstylish]

I've seen these for the first time today. Apologies if they are well-known.

On 5-6 man HoE, I saw a support kill scrakes and fps alone without taking damage.

First he alt attacked a scrake with katana. While the scrake was stunned he quickly crouched and alt shot with the hunting shotgun right in the face.
Result: instakill+hilarious ragdoll animation. Somehow crouching seems to maximize the number of pellets hitting the scrake's head.

When a fleshpound came, he threw 3 nades, raged him with hunting shotgun just when it was standing right on top of them, and finished him with another alt shot after the explosion. I knew explosvies were deadly against fp, but this tactic never occurred to me before.

This was done on westlondon. I reckon they won't be as reliable in small closed maps.

 

[poosh]

On suicidal/hoe you can't stun scrake with katana even being Level 6 berserker.

 

[scary ghost]

Poor word choice there as the scrake isn't stunned, nor is he flinching. He just plays a quick, hit animation (HitF if anyone is curious), which is enough of a pause for the support specialist to line up the HSG and blast the scrake's head off. If you try to katana a scrake off perk on suicidal+, you can see the scrake's attack will be interrupted by the HitF animation, but very briefly so you will still trade hits. I removed the brief hit animation if a non-zerker strikes the scrake with a melee weapon in my super zombies mutator, so it's much harder to pull off there as a chainsaw will be in your gut.

An easier way to describe what's happening is with a video. I did this with the KF Beta so I could see perk progression but it works just the same with the normal game. I couldn't believe how easily the scrake was being killed when Devante showed me this months ago so I wanted to check perk progression to make sure nothing funny was going on. After we've figured out that hunting shotgun pellets can hit twice, I don't believe you need the katana/axe to pull it off. It's just there to momentarily stop the scrake so you have time to set up your aim.

YouTube - ‪Killing Floor - Katana+Hunting Shotgun vs. Scrake‬‏

And yeah, this technique is not widely known. Devante, the creator of said technique, doesn't post here and he only showed a handful of his friends. Axe also works too. Same method, just compensate for the slower swing speed.

 

[FSUBoo]

Poor word choice there as the scrake isn't stunned, nor is he flinching. He just plays a quick, hit animation (HitF if anyone is curious), which is enough of a pause for the support specialist to line up the HSG and blast the scrake's head off. If you try to katana a scrake off perk on suicidal+, you can see the scrake's attack will be interrupted by the HitF animation, but very briefly so you will still trade hits. I removed the brief hit animation if a non-zerker strikes the scrake with a melee weapon in my super zombies mutator, so it's much harder to pull off there as a chainsaw will be in your gut.

An easier way to describe what's happening is with a video. I did this with the KF Beta so I could see perk progression but it works just the same with the normal game. I couldn't believe how easily the scrake was being killed when Devante showed me this months ago so I wanted to check perk progression to make sure nothing funny was going on. After we've figured out that hunting shotgun pellets can hit twice, I don't believe you need the katana/axe to pull it off. It's just there to momentarily stop the scrake so you have time to set up your aim.

YouTube - Killing Floor - Katana+Hunting Shotgun vs. Scrake

And yeah, this technique is not widely known. Devante, the creator of said technique, doesn't post here and he only showed a handful of his friends. Axe also works too. Same method, just compensate for the slower swing speed.

Like Scary said, it's all about the placement of the hunting shotgun blast. It works with pretty much any melee weapon (except knife, and Machete doesn't always register that hit on first alt fire)

 

[Dolphin Buff Man]

Well with Support bring my favorite perk and the Hunting Shotty being my favorite gun, I have some fairly nice tricks and tips.

One of the main ones is to wait until the Scrake is raged, then pump him with the Hunting Shotty alternate when he is going for someone. With a FleshPound, I normally run up to it and pump it with alternate Hunting Shotty, and then as he is going through his rage mechanic, I switch to the AA12. At this point I back pedal insanely pumping him full of shells. I can normally kill a FleshPound by myself without a scratch on Hard 6 man.

A fairly obvious one is to line up as many of the zeds as you can, and then fire your shots, as Shotty ammo is a little tight at times, you can't afford to stuff around with single small zeds.

The grenade of large enemies works just as well as the Hunting Shotty followed by AA12, but I prefer to save grenades for large groups if possible.

Another thing is to not underestimate the Pump action, it is a Supports best friend when facing small/medium zeds. Generally don't aim for the head, as the shotgun pellets spread really bad over even relatively short distances. Centre of visible body mass is ideal, it will deal the most damage. get as close as possible as well.

Also some wierd thing that really helps is that when you alternate fire the Hunting Shotty, you end up firing 20 pellets. If you do two single shots, you only fire 6 (or 8...?) pellets per shot. So you get an extra 8 (or 6) pellets which really helps in the long run. Thanks to... I don't remember who, but it wasn't me who discovered this, but it has helped me ever since I found out!

Most of the stuff I've said most people will just find themselves as they play, but there may be some interesting things here that you may not have known. They are relatively simple things, but in the end everything counts I guess

 

[Aze]

With a FleshPound, I normally run up to it and pump it with alternate Hunting Shotty, and then as he is going through his rage mechanic, I switch to the AA12. At this point I back pedal insanely pumping him full of shells. I can normally kill a FleshPound by myself without a scratch on Hard 6 man.

That won't work as well on Suicidal and especially not on HoE. There is a different trick then...

The grenade of large enemies works just as well as the Hunting Shotty followed by AA12, but I prefer to save grenades for large groups if possible.

Only use handgrenades on big groups if you have spare grenades. Grenades are THE best way to dispose of Fleshpounds by far and that definitely seems to be something most players forget! 2 or 3 handgrenades, some AA12 shooting (so he rages on the grenades is even better), then switch to Hunting Shotun and double blast the crap out of him. That's what you gotta do on the higher levels or else you are mince meat!

Also some wierd thing that really helps is that when you alternate fire the Hunting Shotty, you end up firing 20 pellets. If you do two single shots, you only fire 6 (or 8...?) pellets per shot. So you get an extra 8 (or 6) pellets which really helps in the long run. Thanks to... I don't remember who, but it wasn't me who discovered this, but it has helped me ever since I found out!

Not true anymore!
Thanks to the forumite named Compass who provided picture evidence of that previous flaw, i further provided that to TWI and they changed it to become consistant: Single fire shoots 10 pellets (means 10+10 pellets if you shoot both barrels one by one), doubleshot shoots 20 pellets all at once. Meaning, each barrel now ALWAYS provides with 10 pellets each, so no need to worry about that efficiency anymore

 

[FSUBoo]

The longer I play support specialist, (which it was my first level 6 perk, and I have 35 mil damage and 1.5 mil welding) the more useless I realize that the aa12 is. Yeah, when you first get into the game it seems so amazing and awesome because you get 20 shotgun shots in one clip from a gun. Now after playing a lot, you realize that it is 20 weak shots, and that it's overpriced to be out powered by 2 guns that cost less to buy and fill combined than it costs just to buy the gun. The only viable way on HoE to play with the aa12 is to use that as your main trash gun instead of pump shotty cause it has around 100 (somewhere around there) shots. By this I mean targeting Clots, Gorefasts, Stalkers, Crawlers, and Bloats. Easiest way to do this is learn the aiming with it and aim high around the head on a specimen. We did HoE on Filths Cross last night with 6 level 6 supports, the use of AA12 as a gun vs Fleshpounds and scrakes almost got us wiped.

 

[outofrealman]

At least for me, I use aa12 for trash instead of bigs. Unlikey most people out there. I enjoy more than double total ammo of AA12 then pump shorgun, while enough to 1-2 shot bloat or below.

I nearly always use hunting shotgun is I need some dps. Becasue hunting shotgun is POWERFUL. AA12 is only good for trash. It really dont do great against bigs.

And back to topic, I see many people doing this on Japanese (or asia?) server a long time ago. So I done some tests. I'm not sure if that's a bug or not, if the distance is long enough, all shotguns can hit twice. And if you place those shots when croaching, while hitting the head hit box, actually every pellet is hitting 3 times (which is proved after scary ghost's mut, I jsut guesting so before).

 

[Steeps]

I knew about that scrake trick since I've seen some of the players on the Japanese servers do it. When I'm drunk enough 250 ping on a jp server is the same as 20 ping to me. Unfortunately I can't reliably do it ( get it right maybe 1 out of every 3 or 4 times) so I never bother in-game.

Also, aim for the head... sometimes. This is the only way to kill gorefasts in one hit with the pump shotgun, and if my math is correct two point blank bodyshots will not kill a siren (leaves her with basically no health though). I like to aim for the upper body, right below the neck. This way my pellets hit and some touch the head. For the longest time I was wondering why I was killing gorefasts in one hit from mid-range and they were walking right through my point blank buckshots.

I like to use AA12, pump shotty, and handcannon most of the time. Sometimes hunting shotty instead of pump but then I can't carry a handcannon and it has too many weaknesses to be my primary weapon. I like to save AA12 for when I need it (fp's, raging scrakes, overwhelmed) and pump for everything else. Sure, AA12 has more ammo but is weaker and has less penetration, so you need to fire it 2-3 times for the effect of one shotgun blast. Handcannon is for the single trash mobs so I'm not wasting shotgun ammo on them.

 

[Rainydaykid]

Not sure how this would work, it takes 2 hunting shotgun headshots to kill a scrake on 6 man HoE. I have a hard time believing that an off perk katana hit does the same damage as a hunting shotgun.

I almost always go hunting, pump, and handcannon. I can get a lot more kills with the pump than I can with an AA12. The pump shotgun is cheaper, and you can also carry a handcannon, so it is win win for me. The pump has half the shell capacity, but it seems to have a lot more damage and range than the AA12. I always aim for the head with the pump shotgun, I've gotten 5 gorefasts on 6 man HoE with one shell like that.

I forgot one more benefit of the pump, you can use it continuously, putting in one or two shells at a time, instead of a long reload with the AA12.

 

[scary ghost]

Not sure how this would work, it takes 2 hunting shotgun headshots to kill a scrake on 6 man HoE. I have a hard time believing that an off perk katana hit does the same damage as a hunting shotgun.

Um what? No one said an off perk katana deals equal damage to a HSG blast All it does it momentarily stop the scrake so you can line up a double barrel blast w/o having a chainsaw ripping you apart.

There's a video in my previous post showing how it's done.

----
Makes sense that you'd mostly see it on the JP servers. Most of people Devante taught this technique too play on the JP servers.

 

[Rainydaykid]

Um what? No one said an off perk katana deals equal damage to a HSG blast All it does it momentarily stop the scrake so you can line up a double barrel blast w/o having a chainsaw ripping you apart.

There's a video in my previous post showing how it's done.

----
Makes sense that you'd mostly see it on the JP servers. Most of people Devante taught this technique too play on the JP servers.

I meant if it normally took 2 hs headshots to kill a scrake, the crouching and firing upwards thing must do a lot more damage. I did it today on an injured scrake, no katana, crouched and fired upward, seemed to do more damage, I guess because the pellets do a ton of bodyshot damage, then headshot damage.

 

[outofrealman]

I meant if it normally took 2 hs headshots to kill a scrake, the crouching and firing upwards thing must do a lot more damage. I did it today on an injured scrake, no katana, crouched and fired upward, seemed to do more damage, I guess because the pellets do a ton of bodyshot damage, then headshot damage.

As far as I know, zeds have two body hit boxes. Ranged shotguns will hit BOTH hit boxes. If you croach down and aim upwards, you can hit both body hit boxes AND the head hit box. So there's 60 hits with a hunting shotgun alt-fire.

At point blank range without croach and aimming upwards, you only get 20 hits with hunting shotgun. And with pump shotgun or aa12, it is not even enough kill a clot on HoE if you cant hit the head.

And btw, aa12 is doing less damage with one shot compare with pump. However, if aimed for the head, even aa12 is enough to one shot a bloat or a line of gorefasts. I prefer aa12 just because I run into "oh shxt" suituations a lot and aa12 can save me from those LOL.

 

[poosh]

5900 damage per 1 shot? I would call it an exploit rather than a trick.

 

[scary ghost]

5900 damage per 1 shot? I would call it an exploit rather than a trick.

I fail to see where the exploiting is. 1 Alt fire shot = 20 pellets, each one doing 50 damage. Combined that damage with head shot, perk, and decapitation bonus and pellets possibly hitting multiple times and you get 5900, easily.

 

[Dolphin Buff Man]

Thanks for the tips Aze! Good to hear that the Hunting Shotty was fixed.

I also like using the Pump Shotty, it's alot of fun to use, but the good thing about the AA12 is the fact that it has a great rate of fire and a large magazine. I'm not sure of how effective it is on later levels though, so i'm willing to take peoples words on the fact that it's only really good for trash.

 

[poosh]

20 pellets x 50 damage each = 1000.
Level 6 support gets +60% dmg bonus, that is 1600 in total.
Even if each pellets penetrates through the body and hits the head (this should be practically impossible due to large spread even at a close distance), it will be 1600 * 1.65 (shotgun headshot multiplier) = 2640. Practically this damage is lesser due to penetration damage deduction. But even without it 1600 + 2640 = 4240 and it is not close to 5900.

 

[poosh]

I think I got it. Scrake receives 225 head damage from katana. In 6p HoE game his head has 2843hp - 225 = 2618. So theoretically (and as we can see from video - practically too) you can kill him with 1 HS double shot, if all pellets hit the head.
And when you kill specimen, all his health points (not only head's) is added to perk progression, i.e. 6125 - 225 (damage made by katana) = 5900.

 

[brick_top1982]

Devante showed me this in the training room awhile back. We both just got tired of seeing a bunch of zerkers in a room thinking that they were a god send to kill scrakes. Fang, Von, and a few others practiced this a bunch, they being able to do it better than I the bastards xD.

But all thanks to Devante for being the KF robot that he is

 

[fearless87]

I saw a snippet of how a support specialist deals with a 6p HoE FP at the end of some video before. Can anyone link me to that video?