Augury

Smoker - The Smoker is the odd man out of the special Infected. When I first began playing L4D, the Smoker was by far my favorite Special Infected. These days it is my least favorite. The Smoker’s main role seems to be to incapacitate and separate the Survivor group.

Basic Gameplay:
Left Mouse Button (LMB): Tongue lasso. Pressing LMB by default will cause the Smoker to “shoot” out his tongue at the crosshair location. Note that the actual tongue attack only occurs if the Smoker’s crosshair is hovering over a Survivor (this will be indicated by the crosshair turning red).

The tongue lasso is dead-simple, but there are a few things that bear mentioning:
First, the crosshair will light up within say 15%screen of any Survivor. This means that closely packed Survivors mostly cannot be individually targeted. Whoever you grab is up to the pseudorandom computer algorithm to determine.
Second, Survivors can continue to move for the first second or two of being hit with the tongue. If you try and grab someone as they run past an obstacle the chances of your tongue breaking on that obstacle are very high. Additionaly, Survivors can shoot at you during this period, often allowing them to kill you.
Third, there are two types of cooldowns for the Smoker tongue. The first is the “miss” cooldown. This takes approximately ~3-5 seconds. The second is the “tongue broke” cooldown, which is ~15-20 seconds. If you experience the latter in an intense situation you may decide it’s better to run in and attempt to claw the Survivors since dishing out 10 claw damage now is probably going to be more useful than waiting 20 seconds to dish out 6 more tongue damage (in addition to being out of position). The context is important though, you don’t want to die as the Smoker in a critical area.

The damage done by the tongue itself seems to be 3 per second. This increases to 6 per second at the point where the Smoker begins clawing the Survivor. Overally his damage output is quite low by Special Infected standards, so if you are playing as the Smoker do not expect to do major damage unless you are in very specific environments (certain map segments) or the rest of the Survivor team is entirely occupied with other Special Infected. Your main goals in almost every situation should be attempting to separate one lone survivor from the group, or to create a distraction for a Boomer or Hunter (however the Smoker is quite weak at doing this since his tongue can easily be melee’d off or shot, so use at your own risk!).

Right Mouse Button (RMB): Claw attack. Negligible damage (~4-6 damage).
Hit Points: 250. You can take a few bullets, but you will be killed outright by a shotgun blast or sustained automatic fire.
Sound Cues: The Smoker makes a loud hacking cough when he is spawned in the game. The location of the cough itself can be somewhat difficult to pinpoint, but don’t expect to sneak up on any Survivors. There is a delay between coughs that you can use strategically to maneuver, but overall you should expect Survivors to have a good idea where you are. The one exception is when a Tank is in play, as his footsteps and grunting can disguise your own sound cues.

Advanced Properties:
Body Blocking: This is a fairly basic tactic but many people do not understand it. When a Survivor is disabled by the Smoker tongue their body itself can serve as a shield to protect you from a shot or two. This is most effective when the other Survivors are otherwise tied up (such as by a Boomer horde) and cannot close on you. Unfortunately, the Survivor will not take friendly fire damage, so sadly you cannot use this tactic to force Survivors into a choice between freeing their comrade and damaging their comrade.

Tongue Noose: When a player is suspended by a Smoker tongue they take marginally more damage than they otherwise would. The damage seems to increase from a terrible 3 per second to a tolerable 6 per second. Use this to your advantage when you can, but also keep in mind that smoking Survivors from elevated positions often makes you an extremely easy target.

Falling Damage: Your most signficant chance for damage as a Smoker is to utilize falling damage to your advantage to severely damage Survivors. One key example is the scissor lift in No Mercy 3 by the gas station. The Survivors must all run along a roof of a warehouse building. This is the quintessential Smoker location, and it is very nearly your only chance of doing anything productive in this level. Your one goal here is to snag one of the last Survivors and drag him off the roof and down to the ground. Doing this is important not only because it deals additional damage and exposes the Survivor down below to the horde triggered by the crescendo event, but it also separates the group and usually forces a difficult choice: Survivors can either defend the grounded Survivor from their location, risking further attacks by SI as the lone Survivor attempts to make his way back to the group, or the Survivors can rush forward and attempt to open the warehouse door. All in all, this is a win-win situation for Special Infected if executed properly.

Hard Separations: Hard separations is a natural tactic that arises due to the environments in some maps where a Survivor who falls behind literally cannot catch up with the rest of the Survivors. A hard separation is a guaranteed, or mostly-guaranteed kill. For example, in No Mercy 3 the Survivors must drop into the sewer, but there is no way out of the sewer to save a teammate who gets smoked at the last instant before dropping inside. Similarly, there is a small cliff in Blood Harvest 5 that requires all the Survivors to jump down, but offers no way back up. Hard separations are places where the Smoker can really do some good, so always try to maximize them.

Witch Hookups: A witch hookup is another natural tactic that arises with fortuitous positioning of a witch in a level. The Smoker can pull a Survivor into the witch, disturbing her and potentially allowing her to do something useful other than die instantly. If you hear a witch and you are the Smoker you should always plan on attempting to take advantage of her, as the Smoker-Witch synergy can be uniquely effective. One thing to keep in mind though is players will also expect you to attempt to drag into the witch, so at times it can be useful to drag the last person away from the group (which, in effect splits the group into 3, and can be quite powerful if a horde is triggered by the Boomer and the Common Infected spawn in the right locations).

Hunter Setups: Another good trick that you might be able to use with some coordination is that of setting up Hunter pounces. A high-damage pounce by a Hunter can be difficult to pull off, but is much easier when the Survivor is stationary and being attacked by the Smoker. At the same time, a Hunter is a much more efficient damage dealer than a Smoker, so Smokers should usually be willing to give up their prey to Hunters. In short, if you have managed to drag a Survivor away and a nearby Hunter can instantly deal a good 20-25 damage with a pounce, this should generally be encouraged. This also frees up the Smoker to attempt to grab another Survivor, although you will have the long tongue cooldown, so you may be better served rushing and attempting to claw.

Horde Blocking and Horde Assists: When you have Smoked a Survivor, the Survivor must pass through both the world geometry and any zombies that intervene if you want to execute a full tongue-to-claw drag. This is something you must be aware of when playing as the Smoker, as you should always try to drag away from a Horde if possible (although you rarely have much control over this, and less time to react). Doing so ensures the smoked Survivor is separated as much as possible from the rest of the group. However, one slightly good thing about intervening Common Infected is they will give you assists if you have smoked a Survivor and they begin attacking him - Good for your score, and adds a slight bit of DPS, but it’s usually nothing to get excited over unless you’ve got a huge swarm on the guy you smoked and the other Survivors are somehow out of the picture unless you’ve already won.

Play Tips and Tricks:

The Smoker is by far the easiest Special Infected to begin playing as, and in my opinion the Smoker often contributes very little to the Special Infected team. If it weren’t for certain key map locations where Smokers can utilize fall damage or hard separations to their advantage, Smokers would be almost useless. Three well-coordinated Hunters and a Boomer will frequently be more effective than the typical 2-Hunter-1-Smoker and Boomer combo.

The Smoker, like the other Special Infected, will benefit from the Survivors being in open “risk zones.” However he receives the least amount of benefit of all from these locations. The Smoker’s true utility comes in areas where he can drag Survivors down heights, off buildings, into fire, or hard separate a Survivor. A typical risk zone will be more effective than an indoor corridor for all the usual reasons, more attacks from more angles, easier to separate Survivors and keep them tied down with Common Infected, but since the Smoker’s damage is so low and Common Infected have a penchant for getting in the way you will rarely capitalize much on the damage potential offered by these areas.

In many ways, risk zones for the Smoker must have a certain level of obstruction within them that will allow the Smoker to drag the Survivor out of immediate line-of-fire of other Survivors. So overall he probably requires general risk zones the least, but also benefits from them the least. You can expect the Smoker to perform mediocre across the board, except in key areas. Learning these spots is pretty quick once you have played through a couple matches, and there really aren’t a lot of successful ways to handle them, so once you’ve played a few public games you’ll probably quickly plateau as the Smoker.

After reading Shamus complaining about how there is no instruction to playing as the Infected (zombies) in L4D, I figured I would write up a bit covering some of the basic tactics and important things to consider while playing.

Boomer - The Boomer is, in some ways, the crux of the special Infected strategy in L4D. Unless the survivor team is incompetent, or just randomly extremely unlucky, all successful Infected strategies tend to revolve around the Boomer.

Basic gameplay:
Left Mouse Button (LMB): Shoots a stream of bile. Survivors struck by the bile glow purple, and will attract a small horde of zombies to directly attack them. The attracted zombies will specifically target the puked-on target(s). Targets who are puked on get the “my-screen-is-blocked-by-puke” effect that Valve decided was a great idea to use even though my back was turned.
Right Mouse Button (RMB): Claw attack. Negligible damage.
Special: When the Boomer dies, he explodes. The explosion has an area-of-effect status the same as the Boomer’s LMB. Additionally, it will “knock back” or “stun” nearby Survivors for approximately 0.5 to 1 second.
Hit Points: 50. Unless the survivors are using Pistols, you can safely assume that you will die instantly as soon as you are targeted. This can be both a good and a bad thing.
Sound Cues: While the Boomer is alive, he will repeatedly make digestive sound noises that make him very easy to anticipate. Always try and hold your spawn until the last possible second so that Survivors are not aware of your presence until it’s too late. Due to bullet penetration through walls in L4D, even hiding behind corners will not protect you if the Survivors know you are there.

Advanced Properties:
Bile Delay: As of this writing (March 24th 2009) there is a 1 to 1.5 second lag that occurs after LMB is pressed before the Boomer actually begins to “shoot” bile at the survivors. Furthermore, the bile will only “connect” with Survivors if the stream reaches its full extent (which takes another 0.5 to 1 second). If you are interrupted at any time during this process your bile attack will fail.

Bile Hit Detection: As of this writing (March 24th 2009) Bile hit detection is extremely problematic and can be the source of many ruined games. If you are playing as the Boomer, do not assume that your bile will reliably pass through minor obstructions like random decorative plant-matter in Blood Harvest or other miscellaneous objects. My advice here is to always go for the “safe” shot, and to take this into account when you position and spawn yourself.

Melee defense: The Boomer is “disabled,” meaning you [the controlling player] lose all input control, for an extremely long period of time when struck by a Survivor’s melee attack. For example, a Survivor player can melee a Boomer, take a bathroom break, and return and find the Boomer has still not recovered from the initial melee attack. The actual length of this recovery period seems to be approximately 3 seconds, and the Boomer is knocked substantially further backward than the other Special Infected. In short, if you are the Boomer and you are meleed, your attack has most likely failed. If you must spawn in melee range, try to do so in tight quarters.

The Boomer has two main uses: Stalling, and distraction. It also has a third use, DPS.

Stalling. The Boomer can usually stall the progress of the Survivor team by blowing up in their faces, which forces them to crouch down and melee spam for the next several seconds until their vision clears and the common infected are mostly cleared out. Stalling is most effective in close quarters where the common infected will form a literal wall of bodies that make it difficult to proceed. Stalling is usually not productive but can be productive if your other 3 teammates are dead. For example, if the enemy team is inside a building and is about to exit the building into a wide-open area (aka, a “risk zone,” usually a very good location for hunters to perform pounces), it might be worthwhile to stall the enemy team in order to give your teammates time to spawn and set up their pounces.

Distraction. The Boomer’s most valuable use is in distraction. When survivors enter a “risk zone” (risk zones vary by map but almost always are larger spaces with an elevation change that allows Hunters to pounce effectively and Smokers to either hang or drop Survivors) an effective Boomer attack can provide cover for one of the other Infected to do their job. One thing to keep in mind is that when a Survivor is hit by the Boomer bile, they temporarily lose the colored outlines typically allow them to see their allies. Thus it is often most effective to use the Boomer to initiate an attack, and then have the other Infected target players who weren’t slimed. This usually results in at least a second or two of attack time before the other Survivors can react. If you get more than a second or two out of this you are ahead of the curve. Distraction also encompasses use of the Boomer to simply create another threat that players must react to. If one player is pounced, and then the Boomer contaminates the other Survivors, if they are in a risk zone they may be forced to hunker down into defensive positions instead of immediately moving to rescue their ally. Although Boomer hordes are usually not effective at all, in risk zones where you can get surrounded they do pose a threat and can also be physically difficult to wade through (see: Stalling).

Damage Per Second. Although the Boomer is not primarily a DPS class, the fact that it can summon a horde of 30 zombies means that it can cause a lot of accumulated damage if the players are in trouble. However, one reason why this is not listed as a primary use of the class is because if you are using the Boomer as a DPS source then you are probably already winning. That said, using the Boomer to puke on an incapacitated survivor is one of the best ways to kill them. The other Infected should almost always try to take down the functional survivors before going in for the kill, but the Boomer can and should attempt to finish off downed survivors. Keep in mind though that incapacitated Survivors can still shoot you with pistols.

Play Tips and Tricks:

The Boomer is all about knowing the map, and, in particular, knowing where the risk zones in maps are. My simple guideline is this: If the survivors have to defend one area from which zombies can attack, then do not waste your time trying to boom them (unless you have no other option, such as in NM4 at the elevator). If the survivors have two areas where they can be attacked from, then it is probably not worth your time unless you need to stall them. [One thing to keep in mind here is that if you purposefully try to stall weak teams, their psychological reaction is most often to take things slowly and methodically, which means your stalling tactics can actually become much more successful than anticipated.] If the survivors can be attacked from three different directions (ex. Foward, behind, and above) or four directions then you must attack. Keep in mind though that it can be tricky to spawn in areas that are too open. The Boomer must always spawn within a certain proximity of the survivors to be able to successfully contaminate them — Too far away is vulnerable to gunfire, too close will not allow you to spawn, or is easy to predict and melee away.

One technique that can help as the Boomer, although it is very situational, is to have another Infected melee you. This will lower your HP so that when a Survivor attempts to melee you, you blow up instead of rolling away. This can be a guaranteed boom for you, but unfortunately due to the Boomer’s extremely obvious sound-effects, you usually don’t want to spawn so far in advance that you could actually use this tactic.

1. Other players. L4D is no fun unless you are playing with friends. When I first purchased this game I immediately hit the online lobbies to play through the campaigns. Within five minutes of starting the game I already had one person who went idle leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves. And that’s relatively minor. Playing L4D in public games will expose you to the seedy underside of gaming - The imbeciles with 80 IQ or the Sociopaths who take glee in disrupting your play. Don’t even bother.

2. Terrible hit detection. L4D has the worst hit detection I’ve ever seen in a game. That’s pretty bad considering I’ve played Unreal Tournament 3. But at least Unreal Tournament 3 has the excuse that it’s a much faster paced game where huge numbers of projectiles can be in flight at any one point in time, many of which have sophisticated in-flight mechanics. L4D has only simplistic instant-hit bullet weapons and melee attacks. There’s really no excuse these things to not be honed to a mirror-shine. If you’ve never been killed by a special infected clawing you to death through 15 feet of concrete wall, count yourself lucky.

3. Unbelievable lack of content. Four campaigns that might last you an hour, and only two of them available for versus mode play. After having played No Mercy and Blood Harvest about fifteen times each I am just simply bored of them. I could care less about any supposed balancing issues that are holding up Death Toll and Dead Air, I just want some new venues to play on. It’s now almost six months after this game was released and Valve still hasn’t flipped the boolean variable to allow the other two campaigns to be played in Versus.

4. Shockingly bad netcode. Look, Left 4 Dead only supports eight people. Many other games are pushing 32 or 64 players around at the same time. There’s no excuse for the constant hit detection, lag, and teleportation issues with this game. There is a very slim margin for error in L4D, and constantly having to fight against the game’s netcode just makes the entire experience frustrating.

5. Lobotomized user interface. Trying to find a server with good ping? Too bad, you can’t. The game does not even show you a server browser. Every time you start up a game you’ll be constantly amazed at its tendency to host your games on servers halfway across the world. You can’t even check your ping numerically, since apparently numbers are too complex for the people they are marketing this game to - You have to try and take a stab at what one, two, or three bars means for your connection. From what I can tell, three green bars is something like 0ms - 500ms, two orange bars is 500ms-1000ms, and one red bar is 1000ms+.

6. The waiting game. When playing as a special infected, you most likely spend the majority of the time you’re playing … not playing. That is to say, you’re waiting the 30 seconds it takes for you to respawn. Coupled with the fact that you die essentially instantly if you are shot, means you are waiting around an awful lot. And there’s no benefit to trying to stay alive either - Spawn, attack, and die in one second, or play strategically and try to stay alive - Your performance, or lack thereof, doesn’t impact how long it takes for you to actually be able to play again.

7. Atrocious balance. On your first play through this game, you might be inclined to pick up the tier 2 weapon the Hunting Rifle. Thereafter you will quickly realize that shooting a single bullet to take out one or two zombies is somewhat less effective than using an auto-shotgun that can wipe out a mob of 30 zombies in one shot. The game is just rife with obviously poor balancing decisions that make you wonder if they even had anyone playtesting the game at all.

8. One-dimensional characters. Survivors have two valid choices. Boomers are only there to die, and Smokers are so neutered that they’re almost totally worthless except in very specific circumstances. The only character that even has a learning curve is the Hunter, and half the maps are so cramped you can’t even do anything useful when playing as one.

9. Linear maps. At first, the maps seem rather large and complicated. But after a few playthroughs it becomes obvious that they’re actually extremely linear. This is even more apparent when playing as an Infected, since a good number of ideal ambush points are explicitly blocked off. There are rarely any navigation branches, and even when they are, you’re quickly forced back onto the rails.

10. The hype. Look, L4D is a fun game, but it’s not a $50 purchase. I don’t even think it’s worth the $25 you may have paid if you got in on the weekend special. And it’s wishful thinking to buy a game based on promises of future patches. L4D has been released for almost six months already and they still have yet to actually do any substantive updates. The one update they did do was simply minor tweaks and small exploit fixes. This game clearly needed more time in the kitchen if that’s all they can do in this time period.

Bonus!: Ankle-biters. Whether you’re playing as a survivor or as a special infected, chances are you’ve gotten your ankle caught on a stray cardboard box on the ground. In tense situations it seems like my character is constantly getting stuck on some nonsense environmental prop, which ends up getting me killed. Even though it’s a game about a “horror” scenario, L4D is a fast paced arcade shoot-em-up. Getting stuck on some random thing two inches off the ground should not happen. This is a lesson that most fast paced games learned five years or so ago, when complex level geometry really started showing up - Shame L4D didn’t get the memo.