The Complete Guide to Left 4 Dead

Tank

The final playable infected character is the tank. It doesn’t spawn as often as the other boss infected, and when it does everyone in the infected team is informed a few seconds before he appears.

This is important, because the tank can easily break up a team of survivors and a well organised infected crew should be able to take advantage of the fleeing survivors and pin them as they frantically attempt to escape the tank’s wrath.

If you spawn as the tank there are a few things you need to keep in mind as you’re attacking. You need to avoid chainguns and players with automatic shotguns. Both of these will end your happy rampage very quickly. Stay back and use the right mouse button to lob rocks at those with these weapons, or take a path that doesn’t put you into their line of fire.

Avoid fire; if you’re set alight your death is inevitable, perhaps within as little as 30 seconds. Don’t just walk into flames or jump on lit barrels. Press tab and check to see what weapons the survivors have. If you see Molotovs, then try to feint towards them and force their throw, then fall back and wait for it to burn out.

While you’re evading the survivors, the aggro bar will count down. When it reaches the end you will lose control of the tank to another infected player. This is preferable to losing the tank altogether. When you’re reasonably sure it’s safe to so, charge into the survivors, and punch them with left mouse. It takes a maximum of three hits to incapacitate a survivor, but when they’re on the ground you do negligible damage to them. As soon as one survivor goes down move your attention to another. If you don’t think and move quickly you’re likely to be shot in the back.

The tank’s back is a lot less resistant to damage than its front. Just one survivor behind you piling shots from any gun will kill you extremely quickly. Because of this no tank should work alone. You’ll need backup from the other special infected if you are going to have a chance to knock down the whole team.

Again, you need to be aware of what’s going on. As soon as you leave the downed survivor it’s likely another will try to revive them. As soon as you see them start to revive run back and smack their saviour into a coma. As the tank is so powerful you can even smack survivors off the roof in the last two levels of No Mercy, instantly removing the player from the game.

You can punch vehicles at survivors, and if you clip one of them with a car or any other large movable object, it’s an instant incapacitation. It’s generally a good idea to use cars instead of fists, if they are lying about. The best car to use is the alarm car. You can’t set the alarm off yourself, but if the survivors try to shoot you they’ll hit the car and summon the horde. Then they’ll have lots of regular infected, boss infected, and a tank to deal with. They’re unlikely to survive.

If they run into the starting safe-room and close the door you can break through and punish them severely. If they get to the end of the level and close the door they’re safe. There are clipping issues with the tank punch, though. You can still punch them if they are standing right behind the door.

Tank parking

As a tank you should never follow survivors into enclosed spaces (such as the starting safe room). It’s all too easy for them to get behind you and kill you with extreme prejudice. You should also try and avoid vents as you’ll have to crouch to fit inside. This slows you down and leaves you utterly defenceless. There’s a vent at the start of No Mercy’s second level, and one after the elevator in No Mercy’s four section. If the survivors go in either of these places, then you should never follow them.

If the survivors do head for a confined space, there’s a tactic you can use to save the tank for later. It’s called tank parking, and while it’s weak it’s a sight better than just having your tank chewed apart without even getting a single punch in. Tank parking works as follows: after your rage timer runs out the tank is passed to another infected player, and if their rage timer runs out the tank returns to AI control. Until the tank sees a survivor it will stay in the place it was when the last infected player lost control. If you decide that the tank will be killed needlessly, just move it to a better position, and hand the AI the keys.

The survivors will still be wise to the fact there’s a tank somewhere in the level as they know they didn’t kill it and if they’re close to it, they’ll hear its breathing. It’s likely they’ll take a long time moving carefully up to it, and you should use this period to lay an ambush, preferably with a boomer ready to spawn right in their path of escape. Eventually they’ll trigger the tank and they’ll have a fight on their hands. There’s a major downside to this: the AI tank is uselessly stupid. It still thinks it’s in co-op, so it will keep pounding at the first survivor it incapacitates. This makes it very easy for the survivors to kill.

Witch

The last infected of note is the witch. Although you can’t control the witch, you can still use her as an infected. The easiest way to use it is to aggravate her by clawing at her. She’ll stand and start to shriek, but won’t attack you. This removes the warm up period that survivors are used to.

She won’t go through the usual alarm procedure where it slowly gets up when startled, which clever players can avoid or use to get a headshot in. Instead, she’ll be instantly alarmed and start to attack. This effect only lasts a couple of seconds before she cools down, though, and makes it very obvious to the survivors where the witch is, which may not be to your team’s advantage.

If the survivor team tends to keep away from the witch there are several other ways you can trick them into startling her. The easiest is to stand right in front of the witch, and let the survivors shoot you. Hunters and smokers are great for this (survivors can’t resist shooting crouched hunters) and if you grab one of them with a smoker tongue they’ll shoot you too.