A Boomer Guide

[Sogui]

The boomer is the centerpiece of any Infected team's offense, the skill of the boomer player can shape the outcome of many a versus match. Aside from tanks, witches, and the occasional horde... boomers are the only player-controlled means of generating an "opening" in the survivor's defenses. Normally (and I use this word lightly) a competent survivor team can quickly deal with the other 2 infected classes very quickly.

Why is he so important:
1) The blinding effect of your vomit makes it very difficult for blinded teammates to help each other out. Most of the time they have to resort to spamming their weapons at headshot level and spamming melee until the effect begins to wear off. The effect makes it almost impossible to save allied players at first unless they are very close to you.

2) The music that plays after a successful boomer attack on a players + screams of the charging infected also make it extremely difficult to hear what's going on around you and find out who needs help.

3) The obvious free infected swarm that comes with any successful attack.

4) The combination of the above 3 factors creates chaos and confusion among even the most coordinated survivors. The inability to see or hear teammates that well makes it quite a challenge to save them, and being surrounded by infected makes it very difficult to accurately shoot or run to their rescue.



So here are my tips for maximizing the usage of the boomer:
1) Don't attack until at least 2 of your teammates have spawned unless you think you can "get away" after vomitting on survivors (Not very likely)

2) Spawn IN FRONT of the survivors, or ABOVE them, spawning behind them is a dead giveaway for anyone with headphones and forces the boomer to follow them... boomers who spawn behind players are usually free kills unless there are very tight quarters... in which case why dont you just spawn in front of them anyway?

3) Tight corners and roofs are almost guaranteed "win" spots. 90% of teams will have no way to stop you if you camp the right corners, if they shoot you as they turn the corner they will be covered in vomit, if they run to melee you then you can vomit on them anyway... one more reason to spawn in front of them.

4) Don't risk your (boomer) life if the enemy is already fighting a horde. This may seem controversial but when a horde is coming the survivors are already hunkering down for the storm, they will be extra wary and even if you manage to blind them they are probably in a good defensive position where it wont matter. Furthermore adding a few infected to the horde doesn't really make much of a difference. On the other hand blinding + summoning infected after the survivors just finished a horde will wear their health and ammo thin and slow them down.

5) Boomers take fall damage, you can "suicide bomb" enemy players from tall roofs giving them very little warning.

6) Suicide > Vomit against better players. There is a slight delay before the vomit begins and your constant burping will give them plenty of warning, if given a chance to fall from a roof, charge around a corner while someone is firing, or simply run right into their midst and wait for someone to panic and shoot as long as one person gets "boomered" you will be doing your team a service. Many times I've seen novice boomers trying to vomit from rooftops or standing near corners and they went down without doing any good... suicide charges are much more reliable than a vomit attempt.

7) Learn the maps, there are a number of boomer "win spots" where it's almost impossible to avoid the boomer, if a spot doesn't work the first time it probably won't work the 5th time.

8) Consider re-blinding. Ok so you pulled off a successful vomit and lived, hunters and smokers are starting to dismantle the enemy team and the infected are making things difficult for them. Now you can stand back and ambush them at the next turn after they clear up and kill your teammates, or you can just wait about 12 seconds and charge in and suicide into them again. Blinding them again will keep them confused and blind for a combined 25+ seconds giving your teammates plenty of time to finish off their target and wipe the enemy team. Is Bill being wrapped up by the smoker but Zoey is blind firing trying to rescue him? Are 2 or more survivors being disabled by your teammates (smoker/hunter)? Does it just make SENSE to keep your enemy blind for another 10+ seconds? Then run into their blind gunfiring and slap them with right click and they will blow you up 99% of the time and buy your teammates an even bigger window to do their job.

Bonus tips:
1 - You make a distinctive noise and have a large body frame, rely on the "zombie vision" through surfaces to track your targets and don't expose yourself unless you plan on dying. I've seen so many boomers try from "peeking" over roofs and around corners. You have 50hp, one burst from the M16 will kill you before you can react at almost any range.

2 - Smokers... Hunters... you guys are practically useless on your own. Wait for the boomer to make you an opening unless there is a straggler survivor. That doesn't mean you can't run around and distract the survivors to give your boomer an easier opening to run in on.

3 - Smokers... Hunters... target those lovely NON-BLINDED survivors first. They are the ones coming to the rescue, the infected aren't targetting them as much and they aren't blind... they will gun down and free any teammates in a matter of seconds if you don't pounce/smoke their ♥♥♥. Likewise if 2 survivors are blind and 2 aren't... if 2 hunters go for the blinded ones first then you are just going to die a couple seconds later when their non-blind teammates melee you off or just gun you down. Does it make sense for a hunter to jump on a target being attacked by a smoker? No. Does it makes sense for a tank to go for a target being attacked by a hunter? No. Boomer vomit makes a target blind, near deaf, and unable to move because they are surrounded by infected (or will be soon), it's a great form of Crowd control and why would you cancel it out by just jumping on them? You will see your damage increase several fold when going for the non-blinded targets after a boomer assault.

4) Dying near the tank stuns it, which isn't very nice. Tanks spawns are probably one of the few times where it makes sense to come from behind while they are distracted. (courtesy of Faur)

5) Don't forget that your puke arcs. You can extend its range by aiming upwards. You can also use this fact to hit players you can't directly see by puking over objects/obstacles. (courtesy of Ydiss)

[rlwnek]

cool!!!

[Rick_Astley]

I totally gonna bind kill

Saves me the frustration of getting shoved and killed.

[Ydiss]

Your guide is good

Edited.

[LooseCannon!]

Originally Posted by Ydiss

1 star for the thread, just because of that, basically. I loathe exploiters almost as much as I loathe people that spread the methods to exploit to others.

The less people who know about an exploit and how to do it, the more slowly it gets fixed. I guarantee you that if every player knew about and used the boomer exploit today, Valve would fix it tomorrow.

[Sogui]

Originally Posted by Ydiss

Your guide was good until you told people to use the kill exploit.

Players get banned for using it on my server. It's exploiting an obviously unintended mechanic. Don't do it.

1 star for the thread, just because of that, basically. I loathe exploiters almost as much as I loathe people that spread the methods to exploit to others. You already have one poster above saying they're going to use it.

Annoying and unfair on players that want to play the game properly.

What exploit? Jeez you guys shouldn't go talking about it if you don't wan't people finding out.

p.s. give me my 5 stars now

[Burning]

Great strategy on the Boomer. Very informative and useful. Thanks!

[Denshoni]

Great guide. People need to appreciate the Boomer more.

Boomer <3

[ShogunShotgun]

He he he, as human I give boomers "wtf" moments, a boomer jumps off the roof and I shoot it in mid air before it suicide bombs. But yeah, most of these things as boomer I have naturally delved into. For the most part boomer is a game of patience rather then going boom boom.

[Templarion]

Originally Posted by Ydiss

Your guide was good until you told people to use the kill exploit.

Players get banned for using it on my server. It's exploiting an obviously unintended mechanic. Don't do it.

1 star for the thread, just because of that, basically. I loathe exploiters almost as much as I loathe people that spread the methods to exploit to others. You already have one poster above saying they're going to use it.

Annoying and unfair on players that want to play the game properly.

Suicide strike with a boomer is not an exploit. NPC boomers do that as well. If you suicide, you need to wait for respawn. If you vomit, you only need to wait for cooldown.

Far from exploit. It is meant to be there.

[Templarion]

Originally Posted by Ydiss

As I said, your post is good except for that; all sound advice and all within the fair and intended rules of the game - except the boomer exploit. If you don't want to remove it from your post, that's your choice.
Right... The NPC boomer binds "kill" to a key and hit it when they get close to the survivors?

Sure they do.

You do realise we're not talking about the boomer suiciding by running in and taking damage, yes? You are aware I'm talking about human players binding a key to "kill" which automatically blows them up without even needing to be hit once by a single survivor, right?

If you're trying to tell me the NPCs have a self-destruct mode that makes them die without being shot or bashed, burned or fall... the words "idiot" and "village" spring to mind.

No.

I was not aware of it but still it doesn't matter much.

You can jump from the roof to kill yourself in the front of them or you can walk near enough and they will shoot you and they get blind.

[BorisTheMad]

I don't see his post mention binding keys for kills, just standard boomer stuff, run into the humans and hope one panics and shoots. Unless I missed a part or he took that out.

[AttackNodeB3]

I'm confused as to how the suicide jump tactic would be an exploit. You know, seeing as how you have to be in a position to do such a maneuver. You can't just run into a wall and go boom, so it's not like a suicide bomb button...

Unless I missed something, which could have happened within the past minute or so.

[aslan00]

what the hell are your talking about. He mentions only suicide by fall dmg and not the kill command.

[Ydiss]

Originally Posted by Templarion

No.

I was not aware of it but still it doesn't matter much.

You can jump from the roof to kill yourself in the front of them or you can walk near enough and they will shoot you and they get blind.

Personally. You can use it against me anytime you want. I will beat your 4$$ anyway.

Originally Posted by BorisTheMad

I don't see his post mention binding keys for kills, just standard boomer stuff, run into the humans and hope one panics and shoots. Unless I missed a part or he took that out.

The OP has edited the offending item out from their post.

As such I am now removing my own references to it.

I think we can draw a line under it now.