This game's got a crap-ton of DLC that's actually more or less required to stay in the meta and to have all the game's characters and weapons. Under no circumstances would i reccomend puchasing the base game.
If that's not your style, i completely understand.
If it is, or you're willing to tolerate it, i have everything every DLC until the Silk Road update (I've stopped playing since then, and that was around when this guide was originally made.)
I mainly play loud heists and have experience with all that the game has to offer.
That being said, i was at one point addicted to this game.
This guide is me trying to make use of my former addiction and providing you with some useful information.

This guide will not go into the numbers or the specifics of weapons, and should be considered more of a general guide that gives some general ideas and pointers. I kinda made this for fun and it shouldn't be taken too seriously.

You're part of a gang. The Payday gang. You control one of their members as you go and do missions, which all vary, both in difficulty in gameplay. One day, you'll be raiding a local bank's safe deposit boxes. Next thing you know you're assaulting a military base. To be honest, you'll forget the story even exists after a while. Apparently there's a narrative going on about the gang trying to find some secret and all that junk, but all that'll really matter for you is a giant piece of toast and a toothbrush. Not sure why but they're kinda valuable. And yes, that does mean you get to steal them.

For ♥♥♥♥♥ and giggles i'm gonna write down heisters and my immediate thoughts of them, be it stereotypes or just comments.

Dallas:
The default heister, constantly requires medic bags. Usually indicative of a new player as nobody really likes playing as him.
For some reason though he has transdimensional properties and has made an appearance in other franchises. His mask even more so.

Chains:
Token black guy?
Not racist by any means but he's pretty much the only black guy in the crew.
Not really much to comment on.

Wolf:
I think he's a self-insert of an Overkill employee since canonically and in real life, there are hints of him being swedish, which is the nationality that Overkill is. He used to be part of a software developing company. My thoughts are that it's basically what some Overkill employee would do if their company tanks.

Houston:
In the beginning of Payday 2, he replaces the original Hoxton because of the original voice actor for Hoxton not being available to do the lines during the game's development. He's kinda generic, though.

Famous for saying "Don't act dumb."

Hoxton:
Everybody loves Hoxton because he's a ♥♥♥♥-talking brit. He's the only unlockable heister because you have to do the Hoxton Breakout heist to get him.

John Wick:
He's cool i guess. He doesn't sound like he does in the movies and most certainly doesn't look like it. He came in around John Wick 1 but the ending suggests that after the events of the game, John Wick 2 happens. There are stencil sprays in a couple of the walls in John Wick 2 that support the notion of a connection between the movie and this game.

For some reason he has a voice line of him just saying "ONE!"

Clover:
Hoxton's Apprentice?
That's about it.

Dragan:
The voice actor for this guy is a literal criminal, but in lore he's considered a former cop.
He lives a decent real life though.

Jacket:
THE Jacket from Hotline Miami 1. Communicates through cassette tapes. ♥♥♥♥♥ your ♥♥♥♥ up.
You need to own the deluxe edition of Hotline Miami 2 in order to use him.

Not really worth it though.

Bonnie:
Take Clover but make her trashy.
That's about it.

Sokol:
He's russian and is where the grinder perk deck comes from.
He's basically a russian dallas only actually charismatic.

Jiro:
He exclusively speaks japanese and his son is the bane of all heisters' existences.
okay so maybe he only speaks english at the safe house.

Bodhi:
I don't know how i got into this game but this character channels me to a tee.
A vendetta against every cop in the map, a disregard for stealth, and an affinity for the extreme.
You make an insane impression by having your opening heists being about STORMING A ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ MILITARY BASE and JUMPING OFF A PLANE.

Jimmy:
Coke addict, technically a man in a spare body, owns two masks. He's actually a contractor on crime.net, but only has two heists, loud only and stealth only respectively. He's probably on drugs during the heisting section, but thankfully you can play the game just fine.

Sydney:
Tumblr but as a heister. Makes masks, screams a lot.
I think there's a mod out there that mutes her. I just want the screaming to stop.

Rust:
Ron Pearlman.
He's a biker but i don't know much about bikers other than they ride around and have clubs.
Shoutout to my dog for letting me know it's Ron Pearlman.

Scarface:
Doesn't have the original voice actor but the voice he's got is okay i think. It doesn't go for accuracy but rather something different. People had an issue with that when he came out.

Sangres:
Mexican John Wick, nobody has lines for him. He changes shirts, funnily enough, making him the only heister that actually changes his friggin' outfit by default.

Baby steps, i guess.
He brought akimbo revolvers with him, something everybody wanted.

Duke:
The community incarnate. For some reason his grandfather can be seen in a heist and he's closely related to the big secret, just like the community.
Some real black ops ♥♥♥♥ going on with him and the secret.

Ethan & Hila
Literally them from the youtube channel.
Why are they here?
WHO ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ KNOWS.
I DON'T EVEN WATCH THEM.
Ethan's got a nice chin though.

Joy:
When Payday 2 came out for the switch, she was marketed as an exclusive heister. When it came out, people hated it because it was pre-update 100 and hadn't received any post-launch support. Therefore, she was carried over to the PC version of the game where she actually fukn belongs.
I like her mask and perk deck, but not her character. She's basically a second Sydney, but she doesn't scream as much.

When people plan for heists, usually they have a particular loadout for whether or not they want to stay silent or go loud. Hardly ever will you find a person who even considers building to partially stealth something, which is usually done to bypass a section that would take longer/is more tedious if done loud.

The game is spread out into 7 difficulties with 1 modifier. The higher the difficulty, the tougher the cops are, and the more special units you're likely to encounter.

The difficulties are as follows.

Standard difficulty of Payday 2. It's a pushover on this difficulty, and i'm not saying that because i'm good.

Still pretty friggin' easy. Specials come out but they're pretty easy to deal with.

This should be the entry-level difficulty to Payday 2 in my opinion. It's easy, but not "Pushover" easy. Perfect for an entire party of low-level heisters.

The most common difficulty setting i've seen for lobbies, and for good reason. It's a good normal difficulty and offers a decent mix of regular cops and specials. The metagame comes into effect from this difficulty onwards, and as difficulties rise, the less and less guns/builds become viable. It's here where your pre-heist game matters. For casual play though, this is the ideal difficulty.

This gamemode was added to be an easy transition from Overkill to Death Wish, but to be honest it kinda sucks because the meta's awkward with this one. You can't really find a comfortable build with this one, i think.

Formerly the hardest difficulty in the game, and it's manageable enough once you become high enough level and skilled enough to be proficient in playing in this gamemode. Dodge is heavily reccomended from here onwards.

In my honest opinion i hate this gamemode so much. It makes 90% of the weapons in the game unviable and makes it so that you'll die in one to two shots. If you like to be masochistic, be sure to be level 100 before playing this. Otherwise, be competent in stealth.

This is the one modifier that comes with all standard difficulties, and it does exactly what it says on the name.
However, you can very easily use your skills to earn a second down, but overall you're still dealing with a smaller margin for error in the defense side of things. Be confident in your abilities when you use this thing.


Overall, you have a primary, secondary, and melee weapon, with a throwable and deployables for extra gear. You also have a selection of skillsets called "Perk Decks" that give you a variety of perks/bonuses that can set you up for some niche builds, like vampirism, dodge, or armor, which are the 3 methods of defense.

Firstly, those three defense measures are as follows.

acts like a shield from those futuristic FPS games, where it's the replenishable health before your actual health goes down. It's viable up until Mayhem and possibly Death Wish using the anarchist perk deck.

gives you a percentage chance to negate all incoming damage from an attack. The higher value, the better. It's really only useful for difficulties above Overkill.

It can be viable, depending on the requirements. It can be incredibly useful for staying in combat, but is really only useful up until Death Wish, depending on your build. Consult your perk decks and skill trees for circumstances in which your health will regenerate.

Primaries will most likely be your main damage dealing weapon in a heist, and as such should be chosen and built with this in mind, since your selection of weapons will suit this the best. Each type of weapon comes with a considerable gimmick that should be considered when choosing your primary.

These usually consist of backup or gimmicky weapons that are of note. Try using them in a pinch, or during certain situations if you got a special one. Some people assign their saws on their secondary slot because their build doesn't rely on a secondary. Do note that this is the weapon you will start the heist with, but you can immediately switch to your primary.

They are good at cutting down hordes of enemies, but can be rendered inneffective by shields or dozers, and their range might make aiming at distant targets a bit of an issue, and when i mean distant, i mean like half a football field away. Still. It's worth noting.
I categorize DMRs in here too because they're conisdered the same thing by the skill trees, but the only good DMR in my opinion is the M308. All DMR kit rifles are inherently bad because their ammo efficiency is so low that even if you were to land kills and pick up on a 1:1 ratio you'd still have very little room for error.

LMGs also benefit from AR skills, and they tend to be more powerful than regular ARs, but have less customization options and overall have longer reload times. Obviously though, they come with larger mags, and they're only good for loud.

They're good at nuking an enemy at close range, and they have different ammo types that specialize in DoT or firing a single pellet that penetrates shields.
Do note that the damage value for each shotgun is on a per-pellet basis.

In this game, pistols are amazing. If you're skilled, you can consistently land headshots and snipe enemies from light years away. There's a pistol-shotgun called The Judge that utilizes both pistol and shotgun skills and can be pretty useful when going up against armored enemies, or simply using it against foes in a pinch. My personal favorite pistol is the Bronco .44, because it is the easiest to aim with, has a decent reload time, and can kill most enemies with a single headshot.

There's a panzer like pistol that's objectively better than the bronco though, but the problem with that is aiming's a ♥♥♥♥♥ with it. You know how you got sights on your weapons? The panzer says "♥♥♥♥ you" and makes you install a red dot sight to see ♥♥♥♥.

Slow, but powerful weapons whose gimmick is that they are inherently armor-piercing. Mark a shield, shoot their head, shield's down. Other than that, they're decent at picking off distant targets, but don't have decent ammo efficiency. I reccomend having a secondary weapon that can kill well on standby so that you can replenish your supply from pickups so you won't have to use an ammo bag.

Wind up bow for increased damage, release to fire. Their gimmick is that you can pick up their ammo again, but you can't get them from ammo boxes. Really only useful in Death Sentence. Would not reccomend otherwise.

If you got Dragon's Breath rounds on your shotgun, this is worth reading. Fire works on a DoT system that can fade out with the enemy still standing. It's good for stunning enemies though, and with enough exposure, you can kill. However, it is ineffecient at doing so in terms of ammo all across the board and you will most likely rely on your other weapon for kills and your flamethrowers for stuns, hordes of enemies, and easy pickings.

Be it Rocket Launchers, Grenade Launchers, Grenades or "Grenades", all explosives can deal friendly fire and have a very small AoE for a short amount of time. Do note that they have an extreme damage falloff, so you gotta land your hits carefully. Also, RLs need ammo bags in order to replenish their ammo reserves, but they are the most powerful explosives in the game, and can kill enemies like bulldozers in a single hit. Just be careful where you point those things, because you can down your teammates and they might not like that.

Very kill-inefficient hailstorm generators that dispense lead on those who dare stand in front of them when you fire them. Recoil and damage are your biggest concerns. One of those you don't need to reload though, so that's a bonus, right?

To be honest, there are only two questions you should realistically be asking yourself when choosing a melee weapon.
Do you want to convert the enemy to your side or do you just want to kill them?
If you want to convert them, get the buzzer or the electric fists. Those two shock the enemy and you can intimidate them while they're stunned. It's a very reliable tactic.

If you just want to kill them, you can either do it though poison or by straight-up damage.
Damage-wise, i would reccomend the climbing axe. It's got the best damage stats out of all the melee weapons and has a fast enough attack animation that it can be used as a reload cancel if neccesary.
The syringe can be too, but its animation is slower and its range is extremely close. Not reccomended for regular play but can help out a lot in later difficulties.

In a heist you can choose a deployable to bring with you. If you have the Jack of All Trades skill, you can bring two, but both deployables will be in half of their normal supply.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I NEEEEEEEEEED A MEDIC BAG!

That's the first thing you'll hear when somebody gets low on health.
Oddly enough using one is only good for when you get downed two-three times. If you start seeing black and white, THAT'S when you should go for the medic bag, because it is the only item in the game that can replenish your downs.
I mean this thing restores your health in full, sure, but the fact that this also replenishes your downs contributes heavily to your long-term survival if used properly.

If you just need your health replenished, use one of these. You can walk in with more FAKs than medic bags in a heist and be able to use them significantly faster.
People pair these with dodge builds and use them as their means of recovering health.

This replenishes your ammo when used, but that's really only useful for ammo innefficient weapons, which i'll get into later. Just know that if you can manage to replenish your ammo just fine using the pickups enemies drop when killed, you'll do just fine, because some weapons require you to use an ammo bag to replenish their supply, and that's important for things like saws. Save a life and a mag by emptying one in a cop, huh?

Think of them like tripmines that have an alternate sensor mode. Shooting these will detonate them and they can be used to open doors and such. Some stealth builds utilize the tripwire sensor function because they can mark guards who pass them. Be sure not to mess with them if someone places them. They're doing it for a reason.

These jam radio communications of all guards in the AO, or can be used to hack doors without using keycards or drills. There's a niche group of people who use them in loud heists due to their global stun capabilities. You'll mainly see them being used in stealth missions, though.

When placed, it supplies you with body bags, which you can use to scoop up corpses in stealth mode to move them. Crucial to any stealth build but can usually be placed in the preplanning menu. Useless on loud.

If you have an armor on that isn't the suit with this deployable equipped in a heist, you'll be wearing the suit until you use the armor bag, which will then equip you with your selected armor. Good for partial stealth builds, but why would you ever want to use this. It's pointless. Would not reccomend under any circumstance, especially for a slot so important.


You have the ability to place turrets, and to build loadouts for them. Here's where things get pretty interesting.

Turrets have health and ammo supplies, and can switch between a regular and armor-piercing mode. Overall you'd want to use the AP mode because it's more likely to kill an enemy and you won't have to worry about shields and the like.

However, using the AP mode means that they'll be less ammo efficient, which means you'll have to replenish their supply from the ammo you have with your current weapons.

Ideally, you'll want to have weapons with low ammo caps because it's based on how much of your maximum ammo you have, so if you have grenade launchers in both slots, the low ammo cap will make it so you'll need less ammo pickups to fill up your turrets' ammo supply.

It'd also be a good idea to pick up and place down your turrets after a while to replenish their health supply. Why is it like this? I don't know. All i know is that once they're broken, they're gone for the rest of the heist, so take care of them and they'll take care of you.

I use quotes because there are some perk decks that are reliant on things that take up this slot and the key associated with using them. Do note that unless you have a certain skill, you'll most likely be relying on throwable cases to replenish your supply. Otherwise you'll find them in ammo pickups.

anyways, the jist is simple.

Your standard explosive, tick tick tick, boom.
Like all explosives, grenades have a small damage radius and the falloff is extreme, so precision is key. Different grenades have different properties, but the only one that's really worth noting is that almost all of them can detonate when fired at, save for the dynamite.

There's a concussion grenade that stuns and a fire grenade that sets people on fire. Both are decent for their AoE and their lack of effect on fellow heisters.

Tomahawks, throwing stars, knives, and even javelins. They all function similarly.
Throw at enemy, deal damage. Retrievable. Stars have a DoT effect that lasts until the enemy's death and javelins can pierce shields.

The only good fire-based damage dealer in the game, in my opinion.
It deals damage, stuns enemies in the pool of flames it creates, and can replenish your health if you use grinder. What's not to love? Do note that it can harm your teammates.

This is the second most important thing in your loadout. Each perk deck gives a particular set of traits alongside some general bonuses when you level them up. They run on a seprate EXP system and they will not reset if you go infamy.

Here's a list of them and their gimmicks. More perk decks can be added through modding.

Damage reduction, stamina increase, and hostage health regen.

Slow automatic health regen, increased health cap and larger target profile. Can stun enemies at random by simply firing.

Armor buffs.

Dodge chance increases with AP chance.
This is used in endgame difficulties.

Dodge chance for ballistic vest users.
Good for dodge/armor builds.

Armor replenishment speed buff and akimbo pistol bonuses.
This is the John Wick Perk Deck.

Gives bonuses to stealth-based actions. The only stealth perk deck you'll ever need.

Midrange combat damage reduction with health restoration upon melee attacks.

Melee heavy midrange combat build with bonuses for kills and panic stun.

Restore teammates health and ammo upon obtaining an ammo drop.
A decent support perk deck. People will love you for using this.

Damage vampirism with bonuses for kills.
Can only be used with either the suit or the lightweight ballistic vest.
My personal favorite. Use this to become an unstoppable killing machine.

Lower health, higher armor recovery, movement speed. Pair this with beserker for devastating effects.

Dodge and health storing with each kill. Health applies when armor is broken and replenished.
When calculating dodge chance with this perk deck, add 5% to the chance. The perk deck lies.

Damage reduction based on kills. Consistent kills results in higher amounts of damage reduction.

Slow armor recovery, massive armor pool. Trade health for armor.

Regenerate health for enemies you and your team kill. The more armor you're missing means the more health you regenerate.

Renerate armor lost into health while under the effects of the injector, damage reduction to hits on health. Once your armor breaks, retreat into cover.

Throw a smoke bomb and stand in it to get insane dodge increases.

You recieve 25% damage, but recieve the rest of the damage in DoT effects. Use the flask to cancel out the remaining damage you have yet to recieve. You convert all your armor to health using this perk deck.

Tag an ally to get health for kills they land, which extends the duration. Each enemy you kill will lower the cooldown.

Loud ECM build. Can use a throwable with this perk deck, but basically gives a re-usable ECM with a cooldown and some nerfs. Health regen and dodge if you/your team land kills while its efffects are still active.

Your priorities in heists should be focused on two things: Objective and Enemies.

Objectives are simple. You'll be told what to do by Bain or Locke or whatever, and you do what they say. Usually it involves placing a drill and defending it for a while. In fact, a decent chunk of your objectives will be sort of a mix between defense on a timer countdown, moving objects from point A to point B while moving slightly slower than normal, and watching circles fill as you press a button. It sounds boring on paper but unless you're fixing drills or something it just means you'll be fighting the majority of the time.

When selecting a job, you'll sometimes see a little ghost next to the name of the job. That basically means that the mission can be done in stealth, but there are some missions that can only be done in stealth, and there are some that can only be done on loud. The stealth only missions are few and far in between but the loud only ones are pretty common. Not that i think you'll mind.

Other than utilizing preplanning to try and skip some steps to completing the objective and telling you to not try and fix the damn drill when 900 million people are firing at you, there's not a whole lot i can tell you about completing objectives. C4 is good for blowing open doors and safes, but it's a better idea to use saws when you can if you REALLY must go for something like a safety deposit box. I reccomend getting a silent saw and getting extra reserves with those perk thingies in the weapon customization screen. You'll see it.

While using saws, do light taps on the fire button when using the saw, otherwise you'll be using more than neccesary.

Remember to watch the bags you obtain during heists. Hotline Miami day 2 is a good example of why you should. In short, bags can be lost, moved, and destroyed. However, loot that is unbagged cannot be moved, lost or destroyed.
If you're doing high-level heists, it would be wise to use bags as lures since it'll move individual cops away from your position, and if you can manage it, you can use them as sort of carrier mules for your loot, since unlike you their movement is not inhibited by their loot weight.

Speaking of, there are weight classes for loot bags that affect your movement, throw distance and view.
All bags tilt your view to the side a little bit, which is meant to show that you're off balance or something.Personally i hardly notice it unless i look at the ground for a little bit. While holding bags, you will not be able to use your deployable and in most cases you won't be able to sprint.

Anyways, i personally classify loot bags into 4 categories rather than the 5 i think it actually is.

Lightweight:
Exclusive to paintings, cocaine and its variant, yayo, this is the only bag weight you can sprint with. It's really easy to move this type of stuff around and is worth slightly more than regular money.

Medium Weight:
Money, Artifacts, Body Bags and a decent selection of other loot items fall under this category.
This weight just makes you move slightly slower than your regular walk speed and makes it so you can't sprint. If you can hold your own while carrying one of these bags, that's great, but do keep in mind you can throw the bag and come back for it later, but don't leave it alone for too long.

Heavy Weight:
For things like gold and servers.
It'll slow you down significantly, and mind the throw distance. They're generally worth more than their medium weight counterparts though.

Lard:
The only thing that i can remember that has this weight class would be the Butcher's Bombs and Vlad's nukes.
These things SUUUUUUUUUUCK to carry, but usually there can be ziplines or something you can use to make life significantly easier.
Try manipulating the cops into carrying these for you. You'll feel like a pro once you get the hang of it.
Screw this weight class.

When you secure bags, you'll get a monetary value for them that will be given to you at the end of the job, and you can check to see how much you've earned by pressing tab while in-game. Bags give experience, too, based on their monetary value, so grab a lot of bags if you want a lot of EXP.

This is the main focus of the game and it shows. This section will focus more on assault states, cop AI, and the meta for loud heists.

When you go loud, the cycle of assault states begin. These basically determine the spawn rates of cops in the AO. You can tell which state you're in by the state of the music. Do note that the game doesn't tell you any of the information i'm about to give you.

The states are as follows:

Control: There isn't a lot of cops in the AO and the game knows this. It's basically the game's way of saying you have control over the map and you'll be generally undisturbed, but for how long is the question. Here's a hint: Not for long.

Anticipation: The music builds up and an initial wave of cops starts spawning to kick off the assault. Prepare for battle when you hear this state because it usually means you're almost out of time to prepare.

Buildup: The transition state from Anticipation to assault, in function it's really only notable for the fact that it's the signal that the assault is coming, and the music is currently changing to accompany this.
You really only hear this if you're in a multiplayer game and have a subpar connection with the host, or in brief sections as the game is processing the transition to Assault.

Sustain: The longest state, cops consistently pour in and it's up to you to take them all out. Kill a certain amount or last long enough and the assault will transition to the fade phase.

Fade: In this phase, the assault is winding down and the enemy is pulling back. You can either take this time to complete objectives or eliminate enemies to speed up the process of the next assault coming along.

The game will repeat these states until the heist is completed.


If you have the suit or lightweight ballistic vest, you have a small 1-2 second gate of invincibility that is more powerful than dodge whenever your shield breaks. Don't rely on this but it helps in a pinch. This does not work against snipers.

Reload times and switch speeds are important (To me at least) because they determine how fast you can get back into action. With switch speeds this is especially important because you'll be seeing the weapon switch animation every time you use an object. If you want to find out the switch speed of a weapon, equip it and then switch out of it and back to it to see its switch out and switch in animations and keep in mind you'll be seeing them every time you use a melee weapon.

Your connection to the host of multiplayer games and their specs will determine how much cops will spawn in the AO and their reaction speed towards you and your teammates. If you want to cheese your way through a heist, install the game on a weak rig and have midrange-high pings.
Problem is that the hosting system is PTP and you can't actually check your ping. I don't know why.

Some weapons take longer to reload if they're completely empty.

There will only be a particular number of cops in the AO that can act at once. Unless you have a mod that increases the capacity of action for the enemy units, expect the cops closest to you to act first, unless there are special units nearby, in which regular units will give up their autonomy to them. However, all cops will take at least a brief moment to "Sight" you before taking any action against you. Use this to your advantage.

The Threat stat will determine the likelihood a cop will enact evasive maneuvers when you're firing at them with your weapon. Pretty useful if you don't want to be fired at, but could be an issue if you're not exactly accurate with your weapon.

While juggling completing the objectives and taking out the enemies, you're going to notice a bunch of different looking units amongst their ranks. Pressing the use button while aiming at them will mark them for you and your teammates, allowing both of you to see them through walls through an outline, and direct focus on them in particular. Even when going alone, it's a good idea to still mark targets because of the ability to see them through walls.

The Specials are:

If all the specials were lined up next to each other and i had to choose which one to shoot first, i'd shoot the tazer first. They have the ability to stun you if you're within their line of sight, and unless you have a certain skill, you can't do much about it other than kill them before they can stun you.
If in the event they do stun you, they'll lock you in place and force you to fire your weapon, which if you're lucky you can use to hit the tazer and knock them off balance, which will cancel the stun. Otherwise, you'll be shocked until either you get downed or someone rescues you from the tazer.

Do note that if you get downed from tazer shocks and do not lose all of your health, it does not count as a down.

Bodhi has a passive where if you kill tazers with a headshot with his platyplus sniper, they will be decapitated.

I dedicate my secondary weapon slot to dealing with them because they're that annoying. If you can't just shoot them with an AP round, circle around them and shoot them from behind. They have low health pools and can be staggered with explosives.

These guys function like normal units but rez an ally upon them suffering a fatal hit. They're relatively easy to deal with, either by taking them out directly, or making them waste their ability on a generic unit before killing a more important target.

You'll recognize them by the red laser that their snipers use. They're basically enemy damage nukes that are the bane of everybody who fights out in the open. However, they're as weak as shields, so a well-placed shot can deal with them just fine. Kill them before they shoot at you, and remember where their spawns are, and check them occasionally. Find cover if you see the red laser.

If you're solo heisting with no AI teammates, this guy might as well be a tougher than normal enemy.
If you're not in that incredibly niche situation, kill them immediately because a melee attack from them will result in you being downed instantly. Now, it won't count as a down but you can still go into custody if nobody helps you.
Can you believe people asked for this special to come back into the game?

Not exactly a special unit in the traditional sense, but turrets can be marked and are affected by skills that would affect marked targets. Turrets are stationary death machines that dish out consistent volleys of bullets before pausing for a little bit to reload. They share the same laser color as snipers when active and have a blinking yellow laser when they're reloading.

If someone uses an ECM while one's in the map, they'll turn over to your side and have a green color. Do note this effect isn't permenant, and will only last as long as that ECM is active. Anyways, dealing with them is more complicated than simply shooting at them.

Once you shoot at them enough, their front plate will fall off, revealing a glass-looking circle thingy where the laser comes from. That's where you should fire at with your precision weapons, because that deals critical damage and is the fastest means of killing the thing. Police turrets can repair themselves up to three times and regain their front plate when lost, so it's usually best to just take out the plates so you can have some respite from them and then finish them off if you have to.

If you're fast, you can dodge the gunfire it throws at you and act as a distraction for your teammates, just be sure to keep firing at the turret to maintain aggro.
Or if you have a rocket launcher you can just shoot the damn thing. It'll go kaput before it has a chance to repair itself.

Occasionally the police captain will come in and lock you in an assault state with modified AI, and apply damage reduction buffs to them once he's in the field. Take him out with molotovs or explosives when he arrives, which you can tell by the shield symbol next to the assault status bar. You can either get him to leave by taking out his shield goons or damaging him directly, though his goons are easier targets than he will be. Respond timely to him and he's a joke.

Some maps, however, have a bug where if you kill him too early, it'll lock you in the assault state as the captain never gets a chance to enter the state where he's considered "officially in the field" so to speak. Basically, don't hurt him too bad until that shield symbol's up.

Bulldozers come in a variety of flavors that mainly determine the weapon, and therefore level of pain they use against you.
All except one can be taken out through eliminating the faceplate and the glass underneath it, which will expose their head for easy and quick kills. Do note that you'll need to land shots on their face in order for your hits to be effective.
If you're using sniper rifles, i reccomend using the Thanatos .50 cal because it is THE fastest way to kill bulldozers and it takes out shields and turrets pretty decently too. Just land headshots and you're golden.

The types of dozers are:

Greens/Blacks:
Greens have shotguns, blacks have LMGs. The rule is simple with them both though. Don't stay in front of them for too long and take them out quickly. Otherwise, stay a decent distance away from them.

Skulldozers:
Usually seen on Mayhem or above, they're a significant threat to you and your crew, and must be pointed out immediately when spotted. They deal pretty significant damage at midrange and can tink you at long range at the very least. Bring long ranged weapons when dealing with them or use corners to your advantage, but beware, they tend to have faster reaction speeds than most of the other cops in the AO.

Minigun Dozer:
I have a vendetta against this bulldozer in particular. People think Skulldozers are bad, but the only thing that makes a minigun dozer manageable is the fact that they don't immediately fire at you when they spot you. Their minigun revs up and if you're not out of their line of fire, you'll suffer heavily for it. He's got twice as much health as a regular dozer and moves slightly slower, but packs a serious punch.

Spawns on Death Wish and up.
It used to be exclusive to crime spree, back when it was introduced.

He is feared throught the payday community.

Medic Dozer:
Literally just the medic but it's got dozer armor. Has some unique voice lines though.
Spawns on Death Sentence and was also originally a modifier on Crime Spree.

Headless Skulldozers:
Presumably tougher than regular skulldozers because their headshot section is slightly harder to hit. Have them face you and land those Thanatos shots, and may the almighty loaf have mercy on you for you getting into a situation where you have to deal with them.

When i make a build and i'm choosing my weapon, i like to think of exactly what difficulty i plan on using it on, because i want to be able to sustain myself using only ammo pickups from fallen enemies. As the only means of procuring ammo pickups is by killing enemies, i have to come up with a ratio of damage to kills that accounts for my accuracy so that i can realistically expect how much ammo i should expect to use and gain for each kill.

In layman's terms, i want to have enough ammo to keep fighting.

It's actually more along the lines of feeling out certain difficulties and looking for particular damage values for weapons that would make it viable for certain difficulties. For instance, 180-ish is a good frame of reference for revolvers because they'll one-shot almost all specials (Upon headshot) on Overkill.

It's heavily reliant on your skill, but avoiding using ammo bags can potentially free up an equipment slot, which will come in extremely handy.

When you actually go into stealth, the situation becomes more of a matter of not leaving any traces of you being here, not being spotted by the guards, cameras, or civilians, and having a fair amount knowledge of the map in general.

I honestly don't know much about stealth other than the fact you should bring silenced weapons and eliminate the person operating the cameras. Even when going loud we kinda do anyways because he's a jerk and everybody hates him.

You get bonuses for doing stealth though and if you're spotted you get a free pass to kill whoever spotted you.

Honestly, this game's stealth is unforgiving and i'd rather just play MGSV every time i think about it.

Go ahead and consult another guide for stealth because it's a map-for-map basis and i'm not the person you should be consulting about this kind of thing.

I'm just adding this out of obligation.

If you want to get into modding for Payday 2, look up a program called BLT on this website.

It's the main modding community of Payday 2.[modworkshop.net]

It's basically the modding client to this game and will automatically update mods for you and stuff. It's kinda cool.
It also utilizes other tools like beardlib and stuff that allow for custom heists and music tracks and masks and stuff.

Beardlib and SuperBLT might be more your speed too depending on what you're looking for, just check the requirements for your mods for if you'll actually need them or not.

I personally use superBLT because of the music mods that depend on it.

Some mods will require you to put things in a folder called mod_overrides which will be a subfolder of a folder in your Payday 2 directory called "Assets". All you have to do is just simply create the mod_overrides folder in the assets folder and put whatever it is that you're putting in in there and you're good to go.

Otherwise most mods usually will give install instructions.

Just beware not everybody likes Payday 2 modding because of one reason or another.
Some people think its inherently cheating and others are just purists.

To be honest i've even used cheats myself. I got fed up with Overkill locking DLC weapon parts and masks behind stupid achievements. I paid for those, i should get them immediately like we did in the first game.

If you ever get fed up with the BS as well, look up a tool called Pirate Perfection and use cheat functions to unlock things. Be warned though, it will unlock DLC you don't own and will mark you as a cheater for those who look over your profile and stuff. Buuut considering you probably don't care, just be warned that there are lobbies that have auto-kick scripts if they detect you've cheated.

And whatever you do, don't use them in public lobbies. Please. Unless it's to avoid the grind, then i understand. Just don't be a jerk is all i ask.

Alright, so here's the deal.

The people who probably care to know about me are probably interested in the lobbies i make.
Tons of cops, all acting at once. Massive gunfights, just the four of you versus thousands of them.
It's an uphill battle that not many people can take and the game most certainly isn't designed for it.

Obviously this is where modding comes in.
Assuming you've installed BLT, you're probably wondering what i use in order to get that result.

If you have a low-end computer, do not install the cop spawner, for your sake. Although these mods do include optimizations for enemy movement, and AI, this is intended to lower the workload of your computer when it comes to managing the behaviors of the enemy cops, and will not counteract the workload of having a ton of them in your game.

Also, be sure to lower the animation quality and the number of corpses allowed in your game to decrease the amount of physics objects in the game, and therefore improve performance. Having a ton of cops in front of you all acting at once will take a toll on your performance, and having ragdolls will not help in the slightest.
Lower resolutions and graphics settings can help, but it will only reduce the general performance impact on the game, not the cops in particular.
Lowering the resolution but keeping the same aspect ratio may be a good compromise if you can help it.

For midrange computers, you won't want to go over 500 cops tops in a given heist, and that hard cap can save your performance. 200 is good for multiplayer matches as the base spawner multiplier still applies to offline and online games, and will be adjusted as such.

Anyways, that's all. Moving on...

3 of these mods are created by a user called TdIQ, with the enemy spawner being created by Dr_Newbie, who i have to thank for bestowing upon us this experience. The options in all 3 of these mods are very user friendly and can help you find that perfect balance between visuals and performance. I just want to say that because i'm happy about it. Thanks, Td and Dr_Newbie.

Full Speed Swarm [modworkshop.net]
This mod will allow much more enemies to act at once than in the base game.
Normally, there is a set number of enemies that can do things, be it move or shoot at once. This is usually determined by the power of your PC specs, but can be mitigated by installing this mod.


Iter [modworkshop.net]
"Iter improves navigation of all AIs."
In Layman's terms, it spreads out the AI and tries to fix cops from being clumped together in a single spot.

Allow me to explain.
Modders complain about Payday's AI because you have to set where AIs stand in a particular map and make paths for them to move point to point. This is map specific and i think must be created by hand. Quite a few games do this if they want to put an emphasis on enemy positioning in the context of a shooter.
However this becomes an issue when there's a ton of enemies in the area or a group of enemies spawns into the map because of the fact that they tend to overlap onto each other, like players standing inside of each other. This mod tries to fix this by having them spread out so they're in separate positions.

Spawn More Enemies [modworkshop.net]

Pretty self explanatory, however, it is also the most important when it comes to determining the perfect experience.

Just don't do small heists like Jewlery Store or Four Stores with it on, because things tend to be pretty claustrophobic.

Don't immediately shoot up the cop count because you want to fight as many enemies as possible.
Try to get a feel as to how many cops you feel comfortable with going up against, i heavily reccomend starting at around 200. The multiplayer multiplier seems to be x4 so keep that in mind when going online. I could be wrong but it does increase.
Mind your performance and put that hard cop count on if you don't want to be overwhelmed every once in a while. It can even make enemies more active as a result, though.
END CRUCIAL PART

Announcer [modworkshop.net]
This is just a dependancy mod that announces your mod usage to any joiners of your lobby. It's made obsolete by Crime.net's search filters but thankfully you can disable it in the mod options menu. Half the time i never even saw the thing in action, so...

I call it "Gold".
Pair this with the Grinder Perk Deck and use an AR of your choice as your primary (I use a CAR-4) with a China Puff GL as your secondary. It's good for solo heisting on Overkill-Mayhem but is also effective in multiplayer. I used this when i had a modded lobby on my multiplayer matches that would kick up the cop spawn rate to insane amounts.
People either loved it or hated it.
Personally, that gamemode was my religion because it had tons of cops, tougher specials, and offered fighting up the wazoo. Look for mods that increase the spawn cap if you're interested.

Let me know if there's something i miss or if there's something i should add.
Remember, you're not supposed to take this seriously.