Firebug Comprehensive Speedrun Guide for Solo

General Overview -
	Firebug is a Perk that is best at killing many zombies in very close proximity quickly. I would recommend using this perk on the two harder difficulties, Suicidal and HOE. Typically on Normal and Hard the zeds don’t come after you quickly enough. Firebug gets outshined by other Perks on those difficulties. Either way this is my all encompassing guide to using Firebug in your solo KF2 speedruns.

Perk Skills - 
	5: Bring the Heat
	35% more damage > Double ammo capacity It is just better to do damage faster than to spend less time reloading.
	10: Barbecue 
	This one is a bit of a toss up but the ramp up in potential damage is better than your ground fire doing more damage. Especially considering that your grenades are going to insta kill most of the lower health zeds in the game anyway. 
	15: Napalm 
	The longer burning effect stacks with the previous skill as well as makes it easier to light an entire group of zeds on fire without having to individually hit all of them.
	20: Heat Wave
	This skill is absolutely instrumental to keeping you alive. With the ability to push back any zeds in your way you will never get stuck in a corner ever again. The range with the Firestorm skill is nice but it’s just not as strong as Heatwave.
	25: Pyromaniac
	This one is very close and down to personal preference. I value being able to shoot infinitely during zed time while I have the Helios Rifle out. That weapon is just broken and when paired with Pyromaniac has ridiculous peaks for damage potential. Although if you already have a ton of zeds burning as you go into zed time then you should theoretically get more value out of Inferno.

General Strategies - 
	For weapons I would recommend you use The Caulk and Burn (starting weapon), Dual Spitfires, Flamethrower, and Helios Rifle. Use both of the flamethrowers and molotovs to stave off the lower health zeds that you can essentially “one shot” and use the Spitfires or Helios Rifle for the larger health zeds. I also could understand if you preferred using the Dragonsbreath over the Dual Spitfires as they are the same price. The Mac 10 Is also a good choice, however it’s price makes it a bit awkward to find a good spot to buy it. It is usually just better to buy the Spitfires or Dragonsbreath. Only go for the Mac 10 if you really like it and accrue some extra dosh. Another very important thing to know, it is absolutely pivotal that you get a ranged weapon before the round that Scrakes spawn on. Which is 3 for Short, 4 for Medium and 5 for Long. Both the Caulk and Burn as well as the Flamethrower kill Scrakes and Fleshpounds incredibly slowly. To add onto that, I would recommend resetting if Quarterpounds spawn before you get your ranged weapon. They can spawn before the aforementioned rounds.

Starting Weapon and Grenade - 
Your starting weapon is the Caulk and Burn, a close range weaker version of the Flamethrower. This means that for the lower difficulties, where zeds are slower, it is easier to use your 9mm pistol until you get a long ranged Firebug weapon. As for your grenades, the Firebug has molotov cocktails. These are best used in choke points where a lot of zeds are coming through. On top of the initial burst of damage, fire stays active on the ground for about 7 seconds. So it is very effective at killing a lot of zeds coming out of a spawn point.  

Specific Difficulty and Length Strategies for Normal and Hard - 
	These strategies are for the 6 different categories of ILs that you can run for Normal and Hard on any given map. This will be done by difficulty then length and is a round by round breakdown of when and what to buy and when to skip straight to the next round. These are a rough template of how I usually run these categories with Firebug. However, there are certainly other ways to make it work. I encourage you to use these as an outline and figure out a strategy that best works for you. Additionally, these are assuming that you don’t complete any objectives, pick up any ammo boxes or stray guns. If you do you may be able to buy certain guns earlier depending on the Diff+Length combo. C&B = Caulk and Burn, MAAG = Max Ammo, Armor, and Grenades.

Normal -
	Short 
1. Survive and Skip
2. Survive and Sell C&B, Buy Dual Spitfires or Dragonsbreath + one Upgrade, MAAG
3. Survive and Skip 
4. Survive and Buy Helios Rifle, + one Upgrade on Secondary, MAAG
	
	Medium
1. Survive and Skip
2. Survive and Skip
3. Survive and Sell C&B, Buy Dual Spitfires or Dragonsbreath, MAAG
4. Survive and Skip
5. Survive and Buy Helios Rifle, MAAG
6. Survive and Skip
7. Survive and Buy + two Upgrades on Secondary, MAAG

	Long
1. Survive and Skip
2. Survive and Skip
3. Survive and Skip
4. Survive and Sell C&B, Buy Dual Spitfires or Dragonsbreath + one Upgrade, MAAG
5. Survive and Skip
6. Survive and Skip
7. Survive and Buy Helios Rifle, MAAG
8. Survive and Buy + one Upgrade on Secondary, MAAG
9. Survive and Skip 
10. Survive and MAAG 

Hard -
	Short
1. Survive and Skip
2. Survive and Sell C&B, Buy Dual Spitfires or Dragonsbreath + one Upgrade, MAAG
3. Survive and Skip
4. Survive and Buy Helios Rifle, + one Upgrade on Secondary, MAAG

	Medium
1. Survive and Skip
2. Survive and Skip
3. Survive and Sell C&B, Buy Dual Spitfires or Dragonsbreath, MAAG
4. Survive and Skip
5. Survive and Buy Helios Rifle, MAAG
6. Survive and Skip
7. Survive and Buy + two Upgrades on Secondary, MAAG

	Long
1. Survive and Skip
2. Survive and Skip
3. Survive and Sell C&B, Buy Dual Spitfires or Dragonsbreath, MAAG
4. Survive and Skip
5. Survive and MAAG
6. Survive and Skip
7. Survive and Buy Helios Rifle, MAAG
8. Survive and + one Upgrade on Secondary, MAAG
9. Survive and Skip
10. Survive and Buy + one Upgrade on Secondary, MAAG

Suicidal and HOE - 
	For Suicidal and Hell on Earth I personally don’t have any set plays, so I can just give you some pointers. You end up making more money on these difficulties because of the increase in the volume of zeds. So for short you can go straight into buying the Helios Rifle after round 2. For Medium and Long on these difficulties, it is typically too difficult to not buy after the first round and still make it fast. I would recommend buying just enough Ammo and Grenades in the beginning to survive. After you accumulate enough dosh to full buy, you should be able to skip every other round. Obviously this can also vary if you pick up any drops. These latter two difficulties is where the Flamethrower shines. Normal and Hard are easy enough where you can skate by with the ranged weapons. However it becomes much more difficult to ward off the sheer volume of zeds that spawn on every round. I recommend keeping the Caulk and Burn when buying your Spitfires. Then upgrading your Caulk and Burn to the Flamethrower and subsequently the Spitfires to the Helios Rifle. 

Conclusion -
	Overall I recommend using Firebug on Suicidal and HOE. The zeds just do not move fast enough for Firebug to get it’s maximum potential value on Normal and Hard. Gunslinger, Commando and the like just perform that much better. Firebug is my Perk of choice for the Suicidal difficulty. If there's anything that should be added or that I got wrong please let me know. GLHF!

Hemo/Kaboom Survivalist

This isn't really a massive guide, more a step-by-step on new tech, when it's good, when it isn't, and what I haven't tried with it yet.

You start the game as Zerk, as soon as you enter Wave 1, swap to Survivalist, remember not to try and use molotovs wave 1 since you don't have them. The other option is to do an absolutely endless amount of resets until you start Crovel with Survivalist on a run that has Hans, but that sounds like a really boring time.

For perk talents: 
Heavy Weapons Training: Kaboomstick is your FP/Scrake/Boss Killer. Demo weapons damage, good. 
Melee Expert: Hemoclobber is your primary once you get it, this makes that work.
Weapons Harness: Molotov is super effective trash clear on Normal/Hard. Live it, learn it, love it. Save for clumps of 4-5 or more, or multi-spawns.
Make Things Go Boom: More collateral damage on kaboomstick, less suicide by hemoclobber.
Madman: Whatever, Zed time perks on this loadout almost never actually matter, but this is slightly less boring.

Now, I have NOT had time yet in the two days since Kaboomstick launched to test as heavily as I'd like, but I've had a few effective runs with it in Normal/Hard Medium and Long. Haven't done anything in Suicidal or HoE, but I'm skeptical. Suicidal is a definite maybe, but you'll probably trade a bit more for Hemo ammo and armor, which kills some of the efficacy of this strat, which primarily buys itself time on the easier difficulties by having some of the safest trade routing properly.

Your ideal boss is going to be Hans, he dies stupid fast to Kaboomstick+Molotovs, you should just be able to facetank him with your massive damage resistance and extra armor. Patty as always is theoretically a faster kill on this difficulty, but these weapons are particularly trash for 1-cycling, so just don't. Next least terrible is King FP, and for Matriarch and Abomination, just expect to take some extra time.

Maps: I haven't played this on every map, but there's a bunch I never want to play it on anyways. The guideline is: If the zeds are spawning in reasonably close distance and the trade routing blows chunks, this has the potential to be faster than what you're doing already. It works well on maps like Descent, Sanitarium, Biolapse, Desolation. It's a dumpster fire on maps like Burning Paris and I haven't even wasted time thinking about Black Forest. In general if you don't need to move much to kill the next thing, and you need to free up some movement, it's probably worth a look.

On Normal Long, you're absolutely not trading more than 3 times, and could easily route for 2. After Wave 3, you should be able to afford Hemo (buy nothing else) and after wave 5, buy Kaboomstick, ammo, grenades, and some armor. You can also just get most of an autofill here.

You want to go into Hans with about 2 Grenades, you don't need to be super greedy, he's going to die fast to Kaboomstick, so just lob one at him at the start and the second time he shields, otherwise just spam shotgrenades into his face. I'm not even technically sure the molotovs are needed as long as you have the Kaboom Ammo leftover. (Note, don't get too wild with it during the run for exactly this reason, especially if you're going for the 2-trade run.)

If you shop the third time, do it at somewhere between waves 8-10, upgrade kaboom, refill.

Hard Long works similarly, but the third trade  is mandatory for speed, pick a late wave when distance is good.

Note: I make no promises Kaboom doesn't get nerfed, but I doubt "New tech for a fraction of the levels and a handful of settings in speedrunning" is a specific enough "really strong new weapon" to qualify for a nerf, and frankly I expect it's only barely passable in situations like Suicidal/HoE for 6 players due to the extreme short range.

As a side note: Kaboomstick, along with being a shotgun, meaning you need to be close to hit with everything anyways, also has a fairly short max range, and the pellets actually deal impact damage prior to exploding as well. This is part of your fast kills on big zeds and Hans, so you absolutely ARE walking into melee range and giving them both barrels center mass if you want to be efficient.

Gameplay example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFFsK-PnA1k

How to speedrun KF2

Use console to open the match

EX.

Open KF-BioticsLab?Difficulty=3?GameLength=0

GameLength
0=short
1=medium
2=long

Difficulty
0=normal
1=hard
2=suicidal
3=HoE

lobby) predict boss. The boss is predetermined at lobby.

getall KFGameReplicationInfo BossIndex

0 = hans
1 = patty
2 = KFP
3 = Abomination

keep reopening until you predict patty. Use teh console command, it's way faster than quitting out and restarting the match.
If  doing a multiplayer record. just reset the match using the webadmin and have everyone type reconnect untill you have the desired boss.

1) Clickfast/firebad/Swat
2) Zweihander/Deagles+1858s/Boomstick
3) Trader sell 1858s, buy af2011s and refill Deagles  or no trader t3 zwei
4) Trader upgrade deagles to T4 and refill 2011s and deagles or no trader t3 Zwei
boss) Trader. Strikers/Railgay
RailSpam or Click fast with strikers.

If you want to take the time to steal all the records these are my strats. All the records are free atm.

There are 2 major strats.

Use Deagles, this means you have to refil at the trader like every other wave.

Or use T3 Zweihander. After you buy it, you never need to go to the trader. Zwei one shots Scrakes and 2 shots FPs/QPs. You save time buy never going to the trader.

Deagles are way faster. So the Zwei strat is really only for big maps where you lose tons of time on traveling to the trader.

Short games you can get Deagles/Zwei wave 2.

any other length it may be better to get a Boomstick, then swap to deagles when you can afford it. Boomstick is better than single deagle.

As for Wave 1, Use Swat if you need money, Selling the 9mm gives you 112 dosh. Firebug for the fastest wave one or you can Click Fast with Zerk. If you don't know how to click fast, use Firebad or Swert.

If you don't know how to zerk you can watch this guide. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxfVsw6DSHg&list=PLVFIBTny83VhT8tW-aHD3rNhufqYQVlP4

Or use a better perk like Slinger. I was too lazy to level it up. I might steal all my own zerk records using deagles. Learn to Buffer your shots. If you don;t know how the buffering system works you can use this auto buffer bind.

setbind v "Customstartfire 0 | customstartfire 0 | onrelease Customstartfire 0 | onrelease customstartfire 0"

You can consistently get max RoF with Deagles.

As for patty. Technically clicking fast is the fastest way to kill him. It does it almost instantly, But it's inconsistent since he runs a like a bitch. Railspam is for more consistent quick kill or if you don't know how to Click Fast.

setbind v "customstartfire 2 | customstopfire 2 | customstartfire 3 | customstopfire 3 | onrelease customstartfire 2 |onrelease customstopfire 2 | onrelease  customstartfire 3 | onrelease customstopfire 3"

Use this bind to Click Fast with the Strikers. Basically you Hold M1 and mash reload and Bash. If you can't figure it out I can't help you. It's really simple to do but hard to explain.

Replace your bash key with this. Just do it.

setbind v "customstartfire 2 | customstopfire 2 | customstartfire 3 | onrelease customstopfire 3"

I'll make a video guide soon enough.

How to start a demo recording in Killing Floor 2 Solo.

You will need the console commands to enter in these commands:
DemoRec (Starts the demo recording)
DemoPlay (Plays the demo, as long as you have the file name infront of it) (Example: DemoPlay KFMainMenu-12345678)
DemoStop (Stops the demo recording)
ShowHud (Shows the hud)

To play the demo, you need  to find out the file name. To find the file name, you need to go to this file path:
C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\My games\KillingFloor2\KFGame\Demos

Be aware that starting recording in multiplayer will cause a game crash unless you log in as admin on the server and do the command "admin DemoRec" (or "DemoRec" if you login the webadmin and use the command in the console there). The file doesn't store in your client-side when recording from multiplayer, but in the server-side instead. The server's path is KF2Server/KFGame/Demo. You do DemoPlay from ingame console. The demo you recorded in Solo will automaticly end after a map switch. When you play the demo, it will take some few seconds to load the demo. This feature is very useful for recording endless speedruns due to its very low file size compared to recording with recording softwares like OBS, Shadow Play, XSplit & Fraps. Demos are recordings that are a lot more interactive then other methods of recording with very low file size without sacrificing video quality. It adds a bot with the name "DemoRecSpectator" which does not effect the player count on server browser, but does pop up in webadmin's playerlist. This feature has been a feature ever since the arena shooters like Unreal Tournament & Quake. The hud is off by default on demos, so if you want to see the hud, use "ShowHud" Command.

Fauxy found this out btw.

Nome	Autore
Firebug Comprehensive Speedrun Guide for Solo	powergamerstop 3 years ago
Hemo/Kaboom Survivalist	jinglehell 5 years ago
How to speedrun KF2	Rango 6 years ago
How to start a demo recording in Killing Floor 2 Solo.	GKOOPZ 4 years ago