Tank Guide/Tactics -- Versus

[civil06er]

This guide is intended to list all known tank mechanics and to list and discuss available tactics. This guide will be limited to discussing the tank as it appears in a versus game.

**Updated to match the March 25th Patch. If anything has been left out or is VOID, let me know and be as specific as possible when letting me know what to change.

*** I am interested in the rate of fire damage done to a tank. Someone please post the damage per second. Also I am trying to develop strategies that are related to the new tank's multiple hit ability. Any observations are appreciated. Also I think the tank's movement may have been changed OR the tank's movement as it is affected by gunfire. Any help is appreciated.


Tank Basic Stats

• The following are all basic stats that can be found on the L4D statistics thread.
  
  • Health: 6000
  • Tank Melee: 24/hit, 2s/hit = 12 dps
  • Tank Throw: 24/hit AOE, 2s/throw + 4 s recharge = 4 dps
  • Tank running: 210
  • Tank running on fire: 178 ** WarKirby's Thread
  • Tank walking: 100
  • Survivor Running (40+% health): 220
  • Survivor Running (1-39% health): 150
  • Survivor Running (1% health): 85

Tank Movement

The Tank moves slower when being fired upon by survivors:

From WarKirby's thread on actor speed results, a tank is slowed to 150 from a full blast from a shotgun. This has not been extensively tested but let's assume that an autoshotgun was used and that all 12 pellets hit the tank. This means that each pellet slowed the tank down 5 movement points. We cannot assume that each weapon will cause the same slowing effect on the tank, but we can use this as a rough estimate. From my own observations, a tank cannot catch up with a survivor moving at a speed of 150 when under continuous fire. Pending further testing, we will assume that 4 survivors with tier 2 weapons can reduce a tank's speed to some value less than 150.

Tank on fire

The Tank DOES move slower when on fire:

Refer to WarKirby's thread, a player controlled tank is slowed when on fire. This changed after the Jan. 23rd Update.

Once on fire, a tank will take damage at a constant rate until dead or the fire is put out:

Once on fire, the tank loses health at a constant rate that is additive with the damage from the survivors weapons. The tank can put out the fire but running through water if it's deep enough (Death toll, No Mercy Sewers).

Control Bar

The tank does not die when the control bar runs out:

When the control bar runs out on the tank, the tank is given to another player (chance assignment based on scores). If the second player also loses control, the tank is given to AI control. If the tank is within the immediate vicinity of the survivors under AI control, it will attack. If the tank is far enough away or cannot pathfind a way to attack it will die.

Resetting the Control Bar:

Tank frustration timer is only reset by hitting Survivors with rocks or fists.

Maintaining line of sight is what keeps rage meter from declining:

What causes the rage meter to go down in when you are not able to see the survivors/they can't see you. The system is the same one used for spawning special infected, if you can see the survivors you can't spawn -- or for the tank, if you can't see the survivors you lose rage meter. Distance away from the survivors has nothing to do with the rage meter.

Tank Stealth


Stopping the tank music:

You can stop the tank music from playing by holding down crouch and waiting at a distance from the survivors. You can still have the survivors in sight, but you have to remain crouched and make no attacks. Also, when a survivor has been boomed on, he can't hear the tank music.

Tank tactics


Make the survivors come to you:

Although this is not always possible, you should always try to attack the survivors on your terms and not theirs. Communicating your intentions with your team should also be mandatory. The levels are mostly linear and you can position yourself in such a way that the survivors will have to kill you to proceed. The longer you can delay them, the more time you give to your team to attack them and wear them down.

Hide and attack the survivors from a distance:

On No Mercy 3, it is possible to hide in the upper levels of the open area with the gas station. Once the tank music has stopped ( when you're playing as the tank it may not be possible to tell when the music has stopped but you can guess by the movements of the survivors), you can throw rocks down at the survivors with no warning. During this time, as long as you can see the survivors you won't lose control. This is just one instance of this strategy. Now in most cases it is counterproductive to try and hide as the tank, but in a few cases, making the survivors think that the tank is dead, despawned, or ai controlled is not a bad thing. This strategy would be most effective in areas with wide open spaces that allow you to maintain visual contact with the survivor team while throwing rocks from a great distance away. Some areas in Blood Harvest would work well for this tactic.

DO attack a group of survivors in a corner/closet:

After the recent patches, a tank can hit multiple targets huddled in a corner. This opens up some new strategies such as herding the survivors into a corner by your hits so that you can hit multiple targets. However, keep in mind that the actual range of your hit is limited so you will probably only hit survivors that are touching each other. This is NOT god mode.

You cannot melee the survivors through walls anymore:

This tactic has been patched out.

Avoid fire at all costs:

Once the survivors have set you on fire, they have turned you into a set piece. A tank on fire is worse than an AI controlled tank on normal. You are forced to rush in and attack and you no longer have the AI benefit of laser accuracy on your rock throws. Therefore, if the survivors have molotovs DO NOT RUSH IN. Stay as far away from the survivors as you can, reset your control bar by hitting survivors with rocks, and simply wait for your team to attack to give you the diversion you need. A boomer attack will provide enough infected for you to make a move. Try and make the survivors use their molotovs by feinting moves towards them. Identify which survivors have molotovs and direct your team to target them first. Their accuracy for their throws will be thrown off if they are being attacked by normal infected, even more by a hunter/smoker. Also, a thrown molotov will bounce off a tank if it hits him. This can be used to your advantage, especially if you are top of a roof. You can run and jump into the molotov to knock it away from your roof. The fires from a molotov are restricted to one level and the molotov has to hit the ground or another object to break.

Added after the latest patch: the only time you should go through fire is when your team has already lost control of the tank once and you are nearing the end of your control bar. If you have to choose between getting on fire or giving control of the tank to an AI, just go in and attack.

Use rock throws as a distraction/skirmish:

Throwing rocks is time consuming but effective when you are buying time for your team to attack or trying to hit a group of 3 or more survivors. To aim a rock throw, aim higher above your target based on your distance away. Compare throwing a rock to pouncing as a hunter, you want to aim above and beyond the survivor to hit. For distances greater than 20 feet, you will need to arc your throw to hit the target. It is possible to throw the rock a great distance by angling your shot at around 45 degrees or when throwing from a height. You can also throw rocks over objects such as houses (Blood Harvest). On the No Mercy finale you can hide behind the helipad and throw rocks to hit the survivors on the roof. Also, rocks can be shot down by survivors with a few shots. Rocks have a health value of less than 200. It is beneficial to have your team guard you when you are in the vulnerable position of a stationary rock throw to avoid being set on fire by the survivors molotovs. Having a smoker or hunter ready to intercept any survivors with molotovs is important to rock throwing. Move the tank right up against the door and look through the opening. It doesn't always work, but you can use this technique to kill a survivor that is in the safehouse, while waiting for another survivor to die outside the safehouse. If you aim ALL THE WAY UP and throw a rock, it will land about 10-15 feet away from your current position. This is useful for NM5 rooftops. However, you need to be at least 5 feet away from the wall or you will hit the wall to throw it up or you will hit the wall.

Separate the survivors:

Use your melee attack to separate the survivor team. Once you have incapacitated the first survivor, you can guard the downed survivor if the rest of the team is still moving as a group. Ideally, a hunter can pounce the downed survivor and you can keep the rest of the team from rescuing until the survivor is dead. A boomer created mob can also finish off a downed survivor quickly if not aided by his team.

Attack after survivors have been boomed:

The normal infected spawned by a boomer will slow down the survivors and blinded survivors will not be as effective shooting you. This mean you will take less damage and not be slowed down by survivor attacks, while at the same time they are held in place for your attack. A blinded survivor that is hit quickly after boomed will be separated, disoriented, and surrounded by normal infected.

Hit survivors off ledges:

This is harder than it looks sometimes because it is based on the map you're playing and when you hit the survivor. You cannot affect the upward lift on a survivor by how you melee them. To knock them off a ledge, you must time your hit so that you hit them in a direction that doesn't have any fence/rail/support that will catch them and keep them from flying off the edge. This is fairly easy to accomplish in some Blood Harvest levels because the ground slopes down to the edge, allowing you to hit the survivors OVER the fence. Try coordinating with your team to setup the survivors in front of ledges so that you can knock them off. A great example of this is having a hunter pounce a survivor near a ledge. Even if the hunter is shot off by the team, you can knock the survivor off the ledge while he is recovering from the pounce.

Use moveable objects to attack:

Easily one of the most exciting experiences of the game is to smack a car into a team of survivors and incapacitate the entire team with one blow. When you are hitting tree limbs or cars, aim for one of the ends to create a rotating motion about its center. This will cause the object to incapacitate more people in its path than if you had simply hit it straight on. You can also aim your shots by aiming slightly above the object. You can use this to hit an object straight up in the air or at a lower angle based on the angle of your melee. For more controlled shots, crouch and aim your punch straight ahead to keep the object close to the ground. Keep in mind that any moveable object, after it is hit once, will disappear after a set period of time if it is not hit again. Therefore, if you are waiting on the survivors, try to only hit ONE moveable object and keep hitting it so it does not disappear. As mentioned above, plan your attacks around the availability of these objects.

From my own observations, when hitting a car, it is best to hit one end of the car to create the spinning motion for better control. For hitting anything else, you should crouch to avoid hitting the object over your target.

Landing Melee Punches, avoid misses:

A few tips to avoid missing the survivors when you are up close trying to melee. For this section we will assume that the survivor is facing you and moving. (A survivor that is running away not looking at you should be easy to hit). Also a survivor in the green should not be chased if there is a survivor in the yellow available, hit the easier target first. First you should usually start your attack just before you get in range (exception: trying to knock survivor off a ledge--timing). There is a short delay between when you click the mouse and the punch connects. By timing this, you can hit the survivor more consistently and not give him a chance to dodge your swing. Most survivors, especially if they are too slow to just run away, will try and run past you when you get close. They will wait until you get close and then run towards you at a slight angle to avoid your fist. By using the above practice of attacking right before the survivor comes into range, you can usually hit them regardless of what dodge they attempt. It has also been noted that jumping right before you attack will allow you to develop a more consistent attack. A survivor could shoot you before an attack to slow you down and throw off your timing. While jumping, you cannot be slowed, so you can develop this attack to achieve a more consistent melee attack. (note: do not crouch during this jump -- Thanks to T3A1C)

Decision -- Attack or Ambush? -- VOID

With the changes brought on by the latest patch, you can't park the tank anymore. An AI controlled tank either rushes in or dies.

Locations of moveable objects

No Mercy 1: There are 3 cars and a dumpster in the streets including the alarmed car.

No Mercy 2: There are at least 2 cars and 2 dumpsters out in the street before the safehouse. There are also the pillars in the room below the door panic event. Punching the pillars launches chunks of concrete at the survivors for damage (not instant incap).

No Mercy 3: There are 2 forklifts around the main open area involving the lift. One of them is behind the breakable door. The other is behind a truck. There is a car in this area too, but it is in the garage next to the gas station. It can be knocked into the open by hitting it to the entrance and crouch punching it. Once out of the sewers at the end, there are at least 2 cars that can be used. However, there are several non-moveable cars in this area so identify the correct cars.

No Mercy 4: There is a generator and a forklift on the top level right before the end safehouse.


No Mercy 5: There is a forklift/trolley on one of the rooms on the right hand side of the hallway as you are traveling from the start to the roof.

Blood Harvest 1: There is a treelimb along the path before you get to the bridge. Note: there are 2 non-moveable cars near the bridge.

Blood Harvest 2: There is at least one forklift in the main room before the alarmed door. There is also a forklift immediately outside the alarmed door.

Blood Harvest 3: There is a treelimb in the main area once you exit the tunnels in the beginning. There is another treelimb when you exit the next set of tunnels located somewhere around the house with the ammo before you get to the breakable bridge.

Blood Harvest 4: There is a treelimb on the upper level of this map between the barn and the train station. There is an alarmed car to the right of the train tracks between the warehouse and the first house once you have dropped to the lower level.

Blood Harvest 5: There is a tree limb located next to the barn at the finale. There is a tree limb next to the small shed which is next to the grain silo. There is an additional tree limb and 3 hay bales available to hit as well.

This is a work in progress. If anything above is incorrect please be as specific as you can and let me know what needs to be corrected. For the purpose of debating strategies and tactics, teams with tier 1 weapons should be treated the same as teams with tier 2 weapons. Therefore all tactics that will work against tier 2 weapons should also work against tier 1 weapons. Please help me update my list of moveable objects.

[namrog84]

There is also a forklift immediately after the alarm door in BH2

BH5, there are 3 logs, and 3 hay's that you can hit


although you cannot hit a survivor with an intended arc or angle.
hitting logs/cars while looking slightly upward DOES affect the angle it flies off. As you can hit cars almost straight up, or straight forward.


2 finale tank strategies

You can hide behind the helipad and throw rocks and hit the survivors if they are standing near the gun up on the roof there. Have your fellow infected tell you if you need to angle up or down(closer/further)

Blood harvest, its possible to throw rocks over the house and hit survivors. they never see it coming at such high angles.


Rocks I believe have 50 health or 200 health and can be broken/destroyed when hit enough.


Cars and logs and such will eventually disappear, I am not sure if its timer or health or inactivity based.


The tank can only hit 1 target at a time, so if there is an incapped survivor in a corner, and they are standing ontop of incapped survivor. The tank might keep hitting the incapped survivor instead of the standing one. This is a cheap tactic used sometimes.


Rocks can be thrown the ramp if angled correctly. And from a location survivors cannot hit the tank.


The molotov will BOUNCE off the tank if it hits the tank first. Ive seen it bounce off his chest a lot. So if your standing up high on a edge, they throw molotov, you can run into it and pounce it, then jump somewhere else.
This can be used to your advantage if you can get on a good location as fires are only on 1 level. the molotov will break on EVERYTHING else, except the tnak himself.
Throw rocks at his feet or near him. Its funny to see a molotov bounce off chest then come flying back at survivors burning them all.

[clockwork211]

Resetting the Control Bar:

You can reset the control bar by hitting any moveable object including cars, tree limbs, garbage cans, etc. You can also reset the control bar by destroying objects including pillars, doors, windows, etc. Also by killing any special infected (AI or player controlled, including witches).


Use rock throws as a distraction/skirmish: If you're long range tanking, have whichever special infected (smoker, hunter, or boomer) teammate is the least useful depending on the situation stay near you, so you can kill him to refill the control meter in case you throw a few consecutive misses.


Use moveable objects to attack: When you punch movable objects while crouching, they go flying in a more predictable direction and stay closer to the ground if you're not aiming the punch upwards.

Locations of moveable objects

No Mercy 2: There are at least 2 cars out in the street before the safehouse. There are also the pillars in the room below the door panic event. Punching the pillars launches chunks of concrete at the survivors for damage (not instant incap) and refills the rage meter.

No Mercy 3: There are 2 forklifts around the main open area involving the lift. One of them is behind the breakable door. The other is behind a truck. There is a car in this area too, but it is in the garage next to the gas station. It cannot be knocked out in the open. Yes it can. Knock it towards the entrance then get behind it and launch it out the opening. Use the crouch punch, so it doesn't go flying crazily.


No Mercy 4: There are some crates and hospital beds that can be moved. There are also generators on the top level after the elevator that can be launched for instant incap.

[civil06er]

Thanks nam & clock, I've added your responses.

[zig0]

nice thread. thumbs up.

[Downy]

Excellent thread.

[Downy]

You should also throw in there that one of the best possible times to take out a team is when they're vomited on, so it's wise to wait as a tank until a boomer can hit'em up.

[civil06er]

Added a section about coordinating with boomer

[Mishap 7T]

Nice thread! I haven't read through it all just yet, but so far so good.

[socalsmith]

Great thread!

[civil06er]

I tested the water resetting the fire timer. The water puts out the flames but the timer continues so the tank is still dead in 30 seconds.

[mikeon]

There is also a another three limb on the third level of blood harvest after the survivors leave tunnel area and get near the breakable bridge. The tree I think is right next to the bridge.

An example of me using the tree
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeK9h2WJnGk&fmt=22

[Lord_Simeon]

+1 thread, great read.

Also by killing any special infected (AI or player controlled, including witches).

I just joined one day on infected and won the tank lottery, i killed the witch after incapping the team and was suprised during the loading screen i had 1000 points for "Witch Hunter".

[civil06er]

Added a section about Tank Stealth and an applicable section in tactics. It is possible to stop the tank music from playing by holding down the crouch key for awhile (sneaking). Once this is done, you can throw rocks from a distance and the survivors would have little to no warning.

Added your comment Mikeon

[NooBesT]

BH4 has a tree between the barn and the train station, just a bit before the jump down to the lower area.