Zombicidal

We noticed a great guide for Scavenge on the official forums that you might be interested to see. These tips, courtesy of noisy_, may help even an experienced player to get the most out of the Scavenge experience. Reproduced with permission.

The Golden Rules

• Communicate goals and status via mic early and often. Remember that leadership is earned and not demanded. Ask your teammates what they want to do. Volunteer to cover them as they run for cans. Get them involved. Gain their trust.
• Maximize your odds. Jump survivors with cans at point blank. Attack with double the number of infected. Send redundant rescuers to disabled survivors. Never attack all four survivors at once unless it’s to serve as a distraction while someone gets pulled/charged/etc.
• Be likable. I know this will be hard for some of you to grasp, but if you act like a jerk, you’re just another sad little person whose parents beat them a little too much. You’re not funny, aggravating, or interesting. You’re played out. Encourage your teammates when they mess up or hit a rough spot. Practice good sportsmanship. Thank the other team for the game. Do you taunt ragequitters? Guess what? They’re probably quitting because you’re unlikable and they don’t want to waste another minute of their life in your company, not because of any personal defect of their own.

Survivors!

• Run safe, not fast. You have time. Always gain control of your situation first before moving.
• Look up and look behind you. If you have ammo and no horde, you should almost always be firing your weapon at anything suspicious looking. Getting hit by a stray shotgun pellet makes infected stay put. (especially fragile spitters and boomers)
• Expect to get hit hard in the beginning. They spawn 4 in at round start. Expect staggered spawns after. Do not split up in the beginning under any circumstance. You will lose.
• Go for an easy can first. Focus on execution. Build confidence. (See golden rule #3)
• Learn to run backwards. In groups of 4, 3rd man should be running backwards. In groups of 2, do not run in straight lines and frequently (~15 seconds) fire a few rounds behind you.
• Get visibility behind blind corners and walls to prevent infected spawn. Example: mall – behind car, behind plywood walls. This frustrates infected more than you will ever know.
• Do not ration supplies. Pipe out of a boom every time you can. Announce your pipe. Use every pill bottle first, adren second, health third. Use anytime you are yellow. Your concern will generally be to get the first 10 cans, not the last 6. (see golden rule #2)
• Notify your status on disable. Explain where you are in relation to other survivors, because otherwise it takes too long. You know you’re screwed before you auto-vocalize (”smoker’s got me! halp!”). See golden rule #1. Scan the survivors to see who is in the best position to help you. (ex. “Smoker! Hey, Spiderman… I’m smoked directly behind you about 20 feet behind a planter. Help me out? *BANG BANG* Thanks, man.”
• Announce infected cooldowns. Announce every dead spitter, dead boomer, and spitter cooldown. Nothing else is really bad.
• Flatland levels: Never attempt to bring back four cans. 3+1escort. Escort should have a shotgun. Don’t be afraid to drop your can and deal with threats! The only thing that can burns cans is survivor negligence. (friendly fire, letting it sit in spit)
• Vertical levels. 2 up, 2 down. BUT… as soon as one person in a pair gets hit, *everyone* run to break that person out. If they get out, fine, the two people downstairs or upstairs ran for nothing. But if they didn’t, you prevented a round-ending event. Congrats.
• Breaking a survivor disable is your default primary objective, not cans. You must get there before a trap can be set. Do not send 1 guy. Sending 2 leaves one behind. You must send all 3. You cannot get more than another can or two with 3 survivors. Don’t be afraid to pepper a teammate in trouble with friendly fire. Control is more important than health. The only exception is if the next batch of cans running in will win the game.
• Generator tactics: Expect to get hit at the generator. Always. Make a test pour for 1 second and move away if you haven’t recently killed 3+ infected. Immediately look up and try to spot for your escort. You do have an escort, right? Blind fire into the upper floors if you are on a vertical level. If you must drop your can, drop it far from the generator. Dropping it near the generator gives a spitter a two-for-one threat of burning the can and area denial.
• A can that is spit on is priority one. They respawn after the fire goes out, but running back there is time you generally don’t have. Toss the can(s) out of the spit/fire and deal with the threat first. Then carry the can. A single spit should never be able to destroy more than one can at a time.

Infected!

• Always work with a friend. Everyone says it, but who actually does it all the time? Preferably all 3. 1 is generally suicide unless you’ve caught survivors making a grand tactical error/gamble. Don’t try to spawn in on the tail end of a failed attack. Learn good situational awareness and don’t be afraid to wait.
• Hit them when they’re coming back with cans. You have less guns to worry about.
• Setting up your 25 pounce is pointless without a friend. There’s enough health to easier get 10+ cans while constantly healing. Focus on teamwork, not raw damage.
• You must spit the generator/car just before they start pouring. Otherwise, the pour will finish.
• When faced with a 2/2 split, pick a pair and send all 4 at them. (see golden rule #1)
• Disabled survivors make the best traps. When survivor disabled, all infected drop what they are doing (unless there’s 2+ cans incoming) to set up a trap around the disabled.
• Distractions don’t earn points, but they kill teams. Use intimidating, random movement (hunters, especially) to stall and confuse survivors if you are solo, especially ones holding cans running on open ground. You should be able to get them to all be looking in different directions.

Elunah Left 4 Dead 2 Scavenge, Special Infected, Survivor