The Complete Guide to Left 4 Dead

Killing infected

Killing the infected is surprisingly easy. Apart from the tank and the witch, you can drop them all in a couple of shots. The key is to kill them as fast as possible - if at all possible get them with a headshot.

The boomer is probably the trickiest infected to kill. When he’s shot he explodes in a cloud of bile that summons the horde, and blinds anyone who’d caught in its area of effect. The proper way to kill a boomer is to melee him backwards, back-pedal yourself and shoot. If you melee it too many times it will explode and if two of you melee it, he’ll also go pop.

Never shoot a boomer if a team-mate is standing next to it. Let them take care of it unless they are pinned or surrounded by the horde. The best way to kill a boomer is to shoot him through a wall. Use sound cues to get an approximate location, and spam shots until you get kill confirmation. No one will get puked and no horde will come. This approach works particularly well in the woods of the Death Toll and Blood Harvest campaigns.

Hunters are easy to kill, but if you don’t put them down quickly they can tear a team-mate to shreds in just a few seconds. Listen for their growls and the screams they make as they pounce. If you see one pouncing towards you, keep your cool and hit melee moments before he lands on you, or quickly change direction to make it miss.

Once you’ve bashed a hunter, he’ll stagger about. Keep meleeing him until it dies or quickly put a few rounds in him. Don’t panic when you see or hear a hunter as that makes him a lot more dangerous than he actually is. Use his growling and screaming to work out if he’s up above you or on fire – and thus extra dangerous – or if he’s just trying to distract your attention from something more deadly.

If you are pounced upon, make sure your team knows about it by telling them – it’s quite easy to miss a pounced team-mate, especially if they’re behind you. Some people may complain and tell you they already knew you’d been pounced. Ignore them, what they mean is they didn’t care.

Smokers are even easier to kill than hunters. They’re slow and a visible green cloud follows them about. If you see a smoker, kill it as soon as possible. If you don’t he’ll follow you and grab one of the team. The fastest way to save someone from the smoker is to melee attack them or the smoker’s tongue. If you’re too far away you can shoot the tongue or the smoker to release your team-mate.

As long as they aren’t hanging in a smoker’s noose, or are right next to the smoker getting clawed they shouldn’t sustain much, if any, damage. The one time this doesn’t hold true is if they’ve just been boomered and are being dragged through a horde. Affectionately known as a ‘survivor piñata’ this is one of the most devastating attacks in the game. Free them instantly, they’ll be losing as much as 30HP a second.

Tanks are the most difficult infected to kill. The best way to go about killing them is to set it on fire. As soon as it’s set alight an invisible timer starts, and when the timer reaches zero the tank will die, no matter how much health it has left. On normal a tank takes 30 seconds to burn, 35 on advanced, and 40 on expert. The tank can run faster when on fire, so be extremely careful!

On easy and normal shooting the tank isn’t a problem, however on expert and advanced it’s a very dangerous job. If you absolutely have to engage the tank because you can’t set it on fire then you need to play smart if you’re all going to survive. As soon as you hear the tank make sure you’re above 40HP, use pills if you have them, or a medkit if you have time.


At long range a tank will stand back and throw rocks at you. It throws on an incredibly accurate intercept course. If you’re still running in the same direction you were when the tank threw the rock the rock’s going to hit you. On expert, that’s an instant incapacitation! You have two choices, either change direction, or stop and shoot the rock mid air.

The best gun for this is the Hunting Rifle, as it will destroy the rock with one shot at any range. Both shotguns will also knock down the rock in one shot but you’ll need to let the rock get uncomfortably close. The other guns all work well but take more shots to destroy it. If you do choose to shoot the rock out of the air don’t try to be smart and wait until it’s really close. Start shooting the rock as soon as it’s thrown and keep shooting until it’s dust.

Never back-pedal trying to shoot a tank that’s chasing you because you’ll move slower than the tank and get pummelled. Your team should work out who’s the tank’s target, and everyone but that player should blast as many bullets at the tank as possible. This slows the tank down, and makes it easier for the chased player to escape. If the tank does incapacitate a player, it will keep pounding away at them until they die. The only surefire way to save them is to melee attack the tank – and then transfer the tank’s aggravation to yourself. There’s a fine line between punching the tank and flying through the air on the end of its fist, so sometimes it’s better to let the downed player die, especially in expert. Of course punching the tank won’t work in versus, as real players will have their own agenda.

Witches aren’t a problem unless you alarm them. All they do is sit on the floor sobbing, you can quite easily run right past them. They’re a particular menace if you find one on a narrow area, such as the train carriages in the subway level. Never annoy the witch on expert – she’ll kill you immediately.

The best way to pass the witch isn’t walking slowly with your flashlights off. Flashlights have no effect on the witch – whether she wakes up is a calculation based on distance and the number of survivors in her vicinity. Give her a wide berth and nothing will happen to you. If you’re in an enclosed space with the witch one player should pass it at a time. Run past the witch at full speed – or if you’re feeling particularly confident, some players have even been known to jump over her. The next player should wait until the witch has calmed down again before they pass. All four survivors can pass her in this manner.

The alternative is to kill her. Setting her on fire is a good ploy; one player throws a Molotov and then runs away. She’ll only attack the player who disturbed her, unless the other players block her path. The other three players then hose her with lead until she drops.

If you want to be clever you can cr0wn the witch, which is an achievement if you do it properly, with a single shot. Creep up behind the witch, and shoot her in the head as she’s rising to her feet. This is tricky with the pump-action shotgun, but incredibly easy with the automatic shotgun. The trick is in the timing; you have to shoot just as she stands to her full height. Done correctly it means the witch isn’t a problem, as long as there’s at least one guy with a shotgun on your team.