Here are a couple things to keep in mind as Survivor and Infected to make sure we do well (based on a true story):

1. Communication

This one is pretty big. I know we don't know each other or our surroundings well enough yet for that Immediate awareness about everyone else's condition, but that's why we playing together guys! So, if you get caught by an SI or are hoarded, just say something so all of us can hear you (make a bind if you need to). If jockeyed or smoked to somewhere out of your team's range, try to say exactly where you are ("jockeyed off first ledge on barn" or "pulled back by this tree next to this big rock") whatever you can say to help get your team closer to you to clear will help us keep that health bonus we so desperately desire. Fast clears are good clears guys so let's get them whenever possible. Also call out SI when you see them, and try to keep a mental note of spawn timers and when you think SI will hit. We should be as vocal as possible until the last seconds when the SI could come right at us.

P.S. - When you are calling out si if you feel it is needed to, lets work on not overtalking the rest of the spawns we also really need to hear. I say this more for myself than anyone else :P As we play together more we will find we gain the awareness in our positions as to what is coming and all hearing the spawn without talking as much, and we will be able to hopefully effortlessly take down some attacks that are rather obvious :) That will take time to learn though, so don't ever get discouraged when playing. We will only get better over time...

1a. Teamwork

"Kill 4, RUN." This, as well as sticking together and running as a team, should be our motto for Survivor play. We need to run as fast as possible while SI are down, clearing common as we go. Shotguns/melees up front killing common, SMGs behind picking off stragglers and ones the Shotty/melee didn't get. Try not to go shopping at all, because the health gained by finding some pills could be completely useless if we get hit by SI for it. When SI are up, move back if you can. This helps us funnel the SI into a more clearable area by US controlling where THEY go, and not the other way around. Watch each others backs, and if we get into a spot where we can't move backwards (Dark Carnival map three tunnels or similar), juke the SI and get your m2's and melee's ready.

Spawn Blocking - Spawn Blocking is one of the biggest parts of this game, whenever you are getting close to that full new fresh attack, keep that time left logged into your

head. Always be spawn blocking so that the SI have to commit from farther away. Especially block the better boomer spots, so that it has less of a chance to get the jump on your team.

2. Roles as weapon holders -- This is an important one :P

2a. Shotgun - as a shotgun player you are to have no fear, but lots of intelligence. There are times when you should push to bait a spawn, and there are times where you should pull away to safety. It is a hell of a lot of judgement and deciding in the heat of the moment, in these decisions you sometimes make the big plays for your team, and can sometimes make mistakes that cause seperation, A very, very deadly thing. It will take more time than anything in this game to become a great shotgun player, but it is also very rewarding. (Even as I write this, I am not a very good shotgun player) Learning equals a lot of trial and error, there will be mistakes. You will never NOT make mistakes, and you will sometimes make the big ones, once again like always, never get discouraged if this is what you want to learn :) Shotguns are essential for a team, because it is easier to play uzi than it is shotgun in my opinion (That may also just be because I have always played uzi since I started this game until recently xD)

Shotguns Roles - Someone playing a shotgun will usually want to be where they most likely think the attack will be started from, as they will do the most damage in a single shot to the SI. This way even if they don't manage to self clear themselves, the uzi's can then eliminate that threat SO much faster and move onto the next target. They are the berserkers of their team that are afraid of nothing, they are great at being on the forefront and baiting spawns and shutting down the more essential SI (i.e. Boomer) and are usually allowed to take the brunt of attacks in order to save the higher health bonus that will hopefully still be on their uzi teamates :) Good places for any shotgunner at least from my experience to stand/watch are:

1 -- Rushing before the attack? Stay to the front of the group, this is an easy one :P. Standing at the front of the group makes you not ever have to worry about "FF". Something that is impossible to avoid, but should be minimilized at all costs, because it only makes Free Damage for the opposing team and less work then they should need to do to ruin our round. The other great advantage to standing in the front of the group is common clearing, BY GOD does your shotgun slice through zombies, it can kill mingling groups all at once, and saves so much ammo for your teammates using uzi that will most definetly save your ass more than once in any given level.

2 -- Watching corridors and being more aware when in tight/small places. You're the mother fuckin' BoomCannon and as such; just like what was stated above, you will

deal the most damage in a short amount of time at a closer range, so why not watch those pesky doorways and corridors as you pass by them, be aware of your surroundings in the bubble around yourself that you can protect just in case that boomer or the other initiator SI might waddle out from em' :P

3 -- Backpedal once you hear spawns. This one is also pretty damn important. Being the shotgun you may be in the front more often than not. It will be very beneficial in corridors when you know that the attack will most likely be coming from the front. We know from earlier that you usually want to try and at least take a couple steps back to be in the safest place possible to take the attack and so you don't draw more zombies to you. As the shotgun one of your main jobs is to bait spawns when you can -- Sometimes you will be forced to walk into an attack slow, especially in the beggining of maps with indoor hits (i.e. Almost every Hard Rain Map) When making these very sluggish advances, just listen for the first SI to spawn. As soon as that audio cue is heard -- Back Up -- You don't want to get yourself seperated. This works to your advantage very simply because the SI take longer to close the gap, even if it is only one second more - you can run and gun when moving back as the shotgun :D One last tip, Reitterating once again -- While back pedaling, always be listening for that Boomer spawn from another angle :)

4a -- In the case of a smoker that wants to pull you to him. Smokers are the bane of your existence... They say, "always a smoker..." at the end of every smoker wipe for a reason. Shotguns have a harder time dealing with smokers then anything else. You need to play more cautiously around a smoker than any other infected class. Why is this? Because he never needs to come near you in order to immobilize you. You want to stay as fucking far away from the smoker as possible with a shotgun. Let your uzi's help you out with this guy, while you listen for a more important spawn like the boomer. Can I ever push the smoker? The answer is basically no, but at one time is it very necessary to push the smoker as a shotgun. If he is already very close to you, and it is a one on one situation, you can try to juke and cave his face in. Juking is one of the smartest things a shotgun can know how to do effectively and should try to learned as fast as possible, but I will talk more about juking in general later. If you are not very very close to the smoker, that smoker is standing far away for a very good reason! He wants to seperate you from your teamates and your very effective way of shutting down the other SI and saving your teamates lives. If you can juke behind cover and make his tounge miss then you may have a chance to back out of his tounges range, that will then force him to persue you. This makes it many many times easier for your team to kill him when he is 100% ineffective until he shows himself again - This will ruin the element of surprise that your enemy was hoping to have on you that attack and will have the added benefit of frustrating them ever so little >:]

4b -- Even when you know you're not gonna juke that smoker, this is an important thing to remember about smokers in critical situations, you have Time To React -- A

second; maybe second and a half time period before you no longer have control of your gun. In these very brief moments you have two options in order of priority:

1. If there is another spawn coming for your teamates that is of a higher priority, and you are pretty close to that SI when you do get pulled -- Please for the love of god if you can shoot him, DO SO, do as much damage as you can in that one final blast. Doing so could pop a very cruicial boomer or even just do more damage to another pinning SI, like that charger that really just wants to cap you for a spit charge, or you may be chipping the hell out of another SI that your teamates now need to take out on their own before saving you. Why am I not shooting the smoker for them to clear me faster? The reason that you actually don't want to shoot the smoker if there is something else next to you that you can do some substantial damage to, is simply because the smoker is the least damaging SI and is of least priority. Yes Yes Yes the smoker is one of the best support classes in the game and can set up some nasty spit charges or create good serperation, but more times than none you will be far enough away from the smoker that your one shot you got left is usually not going to be as effective as you might think. Usually, you are in fact FAR better off making another SI die off faster if you have the chance and making the clear on you that much quicker in return. :)

There Is One Time you absolutely always want to focus the smoker. That is when he is trying to pull to set up something far greater than just damage by himself (i.e. quick spit charge, or just lining up a charger to get huge seperation or the death charge) Sometimes even more deadly for the team as a whole, is when the smoker tries to pull a survivor in the direction for an easy hit for a tanks car. A sucessful capitalization on this for infected could set up the wipe for a whole team in the near future.

2. If you have no other targets that are in close proximity that you can quick shoot, then obviously you want to pelt that smoker with as much buckshot as you can get into him. You will get more damage with your one shot you have left the closer you are to him, so if you wait just that extra little time, that could make the difference between you taking less damage because of a faster clear, or even a super sexy self clear. Everyone on your team loves those :3

5 -- There are two last fundamentals that I can think of that are very important to shotgunners new and old. They are short but sweet reminders to never forget your roots. First one is to always be reloading when given a break - Using a shotgun means that you should almost never have to deal with the pesky empty clips that every uzi player has to think about in the back of his/her head. Instead; you get the opportunity to reload at any time you are given even a second or two break, just getting one single shell back into your chamber gives extra firepower in case of an emergency. Never get caught off guard having an empty clip with a shotgun, just another one of many small intelligent thoughts that can sway a life or death situation in the direction you are hoping for.Second one is to always request a melee if you want one - You will be in close quarters with everything you are dealing with, so why not have a trusty weapon for even faster

kills and clears. If you M2 a capping infected and need to eliminate it as fast as possible, pull out your axe. When your team is chipping that charger on his way in, when you've got no other option in close quarters, have that axe in hand and on the ready. A bladed melee can cut smoker tongues when you can get the timings down. One of the most reliable uses for a melee in pesky common clearing, especially while boomed. You can swing in a smooth motion across your screen, and wipe out whole lines of zombies in front of you, effectively clearing a path for you to continue pressing forward, or towards one of your teamattes that is being pinned by another infected if the situation is dire enough. If you can learn to be comfortable carrying a melee weapon at all times as a shotgun it will make you a common clearing machine, and you can keep your shotgun full at almost all times for when you want to switch to it for being ready for the next attack :)

2b. Uzi - As an uzi you are a personal bodyguard and the main source of damage on most SI and the Tank. If you have not read on how to start playing the shotgun, Please do so now! Inside that portion on the guide it will teach you a lot of what you will want to do and the kind of teamate you will want to be to help out your fellow comrades the most. Now having hoped you have taken my advice and read the above section - These Helpful Hints and Tips will not be nearly as long, for most of the information has already been covered.

1. When playing uzi, sometimes you need to focus a specific SI; especially the one that is in tandem focusing only on you. At other times if you want to play a very strategic uzi you may want to split your bullets between certain SI, this is especially important with any of the support classes (i.e. Popping the boomer or spitter, or killing that smoker before he can seperate your teamate to a very unwanted position)

2. Your shotgun player or shotgun player's are your best friends, you need them in order to attain victory. They are going to try and take the attacks for you so that you do not have to worry as much, they put themselves on the line and pray to fucking god you are going to save them when the going gets tough... Don't ever try to let them down as you are their personal bodyguard. Sometimes they need us - even though they don't like to admit it :3

3. Stand your ground. Whenever possible keep your feet planted as an uzi, which is the opposite to the role of the shotgun player. Keeping yourself still keeps your crosshair as tight as possible, with the only more accurate position being crouching. You should not however crouch as much as you think. Times where it may be appropriate to crouch is when you are clearing the last si, when you are forced to skeet a tank rock, and also when chipping tank from a distance.

4. Time your reloads. Reloading with an uzi is just a tad trickier than with a

shotgun. The reload time is still not all that long, but it can be enough that if the whole attack is not taken care of and somone else gets capped you will be giving free damage to the SI. Learning when to reload is a very judgement based skill, It is different for every situation as to when might be a good - or sometimes needed time to reload. For starters though, try to always have a full clip ready for when the attack comes in so that you will less likely need to reload in the middle of an SI attack. This can sometimes even mean reloading a couple seconds early on certain choke points and asking for your shotgun player to slowly kill the straggling zombies they need to until the attack finally decides to pile in.

3. Charger focusing

If we can kill their charger before it lands a charge or gets more than one punch, the infected attack won't do nearly as much damage as they want it do (e.g. Spit/charge), so if possible everyone should shoot the charger as it comes in. The only time we don't want to shoot the charger is if a boomer spawns, and that brings us to the next point:

4. Boomer pops

If we can kill a boomer as it comes in before a boom or proxy, we won't be blind and our clears on the rest of the SI will be much quicker (which is what we need). So bringing back #2, focus the charger unless you hear a boomer, in which case pop the crap out of him. Then hunters/jockeys/smokers can be easily taken care of.

5. Pill usage

Let's say an SI attack came in that left one of us with red health or downed once and bleeding (a rare occurrence, I know, but hypothetically it could happen). If you are slow and have pills most of the time it is alright to take them. There are times when you should hold them, however. This is where !tank comes in. If a tank is really soon, don't take your pills! If you take your pills before a tank, all the tank has to do is throw rocks and bleed you or the team out. Only take your pills when the tank is committing, so then we can juke the tank and clear SI with style.

6. Tankplay as Survivors

Fighting Tank Before Commitment

6a. If the tank has not committed, this is the best time to spawn-block and block the tank from getting LOS (line of sight). This makes it harder for SI to spawn and when they do, easier for US to clear them. If the tank is committing, get out of spawn-block mode and into shoot-the-hell-out-of-the-tank mode. Do not worry about SI, keep shooting the tank. Only when you hear the SI spawn do you move about 90% of your attention into clearing and the other 10% into continuing to shoot the tank. Also, when SI spawn, let everyone on the team know about it, so we can prepare ourselves.

6b. It is best to LOS once an attack has just been wiped out. It gives you maximum time to make the opposing tank lose their passes before the next wave of infected spawns come in. You should still always be counting spawns, because you want ample time to move away from your cover when you need to start spawn blocking for the next attack again.

6c. Sometimes the tank will be in a position that it will want to simply watch us from afar. Tanks sitting on a perch are trying to simply buy time for the next SI hit to help him land a rock if he is on first pass, or possible get the right combination of SI to commit with if he is on second pass. If this is the case and you cannot just simply LOS the tank where you are, you have one of two options --

1. Rotate to another position quickly (meaning moving to a different point on the map to take cover) It may be a single person that is visible by the tank, or the whole team as a whole. What this will then do is allow you to keep tanks sight off the survivors, so that he then has to make the next decision as to what he wishes to do. All the while ticking down his available time to keep you pinned in the same location.

2. Chip tank and make him LOS himself Tank wants to take as little damage as possible so that it will have a bigger health pool left when he wants to commit on the survivors. Sometimes it is better/needed to push the tank if he will have to drop down off of a ledge or building in order to stop taking chip. Because the time it will take for him to climb the infected ladder and reach his perch once again for his next rock, he will have lost percentage on his rage meter. This tactic is the most useful when you will not be able to LOS so easily because the tank has a height advantage over you, and you need him to drop off of somewhere to continue dropping his rage meter.

Fighting Tank After Commitment

6d. When SI get cleared and tank is still up, push that tank as hard as possible, while at

all costs avoiding getting punched. Getting punched by a supportless tank, at least out in the open, should never happen. So also don't be afraid to keep your distance, that is what the uzi is made for! :) Without support, we can easily bring the tank down another 2k HP or even kill him, so remember to push tank when he is without support and trying to make his escape!

6e. If you have a melee weapon and think you will get (or are getting) cornered by the tank, pull that melee weapon out as fast as possible. The damage that an axe, bat, pan, etc. can do to a tank is huge compared to your other guns, and could mean the difference between a wipe and staying alive.

7. Tankplay as SI

7a. If the survivors arent bleeding much before we get our tank, we need to do as much as possible to ensure that they will start bleeding DURING the tank. This means getting attacks in for the tank to land rock hits, and drawing this process out for as long as possible while trying to keep LOS.

7b. Rotating works the same way for playing the tank as it does for survivors.

7c. If we cannot play rocktank, for example if they are managing to block the tank's LOS, we need to commit the tank with a plan. A tri-cap is the best option but a boomer can suffice is spawn order doesn't get us a third capping SI. When tank commits, the tank should try to corner someone and down them (make sure to time your punches and hold M1 AS YOU PUNCH then let go [gives a larger punch range]), and then try immediately to rock or capture another survivor. If tank cannot corner a second survivor, or gets down to about 3.5k-4k without cornering ANYONE, SI MUST go in to help tank secure a down. If we as SI land good hits during tank and the tank is still alive, a possible option for the tank is to escape and play with rocks and SI hits. If tank cannot escape, try to throw rocks at survivors if they are too far away to punch, or punch if they are close enough. If the tank manages to escape but has too low HP (less than 500), a good strategy is to let the tank pass to AI and go in with it. The tank will probably get killed really quickly, but it gives us time to get another attack in for more damage.

8. SI Play

8a. ALWAYS GO IN TOGETHER! If our hits land staggered, the survivors have time to think and clear whichever SI has landed. Going in at the same time means confused and nervous survivors, and the difference between 5 points of damage and 50 or more. Spitters absolutely need to land spits, either on a charger or hunter, as this gives us spit damage both as the charger/hunter is pounding/scratching AND as the survivor is getting up.

8b. Boomers NEED to get people boomed! If you are boomer and you see a boom which you know you can land while we are spawning or right before we are ready, absolutely go for that boom. It helps us as SI that much more by blinding survivors, and blind survivors mean harder-to-clear SI. Otherwise, if no free-boom spots are available, one (jockey/hunter, possibly even smoker) SI needs to spawn and distract (not exactly GO IN, just distract) so boomer can land a boom. After which, we go in and kill the survivors. If boomer misses a boom or gets popped, SI must still spawn up and hit the survivors to keep sac order going.

8c. Sac order is everything. SI dying at the wrong time is not good, and will give us a 2-2 attack grouping, which nobody likes. So do everything you can to make sure support SI (boomer/spitter) die LAST. The one case this should not be followed is if we ALREADY have a 2-2, in which case ONE support SI must die FIRST, then the other support SI LAST. Depending on where our next attack point will be, we will decide then whether it will be Boomer or Spitter dying last, but I think in most cases we should have the spitter die last to get us a Boomer in our next SI group (see 6b).

9. Team Morale

Don't get upset. Confogl is very comeback friendly, so by no means is a game over if we are behind until the finale has actually finally ended. At that point you lay down your GG's :]

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That's all I can think of for now, and if you guys have any other input, send a message to me and I will put it into the main text. To sum it up, be vocal as Survivor and hit together as SI.

"Enjoy Every game, Respect the players"-Infested Soul-