First of all, if you're reading this guide, you're already doing an amazing job, for this guide will help you understand the basics, the essentials and the extras.

Lots of you new players are in this game for a short time of fun and you just do whatever, not paying attention to other players, but think of this, what's more fun than actually winning in the game, so pay attention and don't go all-out rambo, because if you die it'll be making your team that small bit weaker.

After you've done both "the basics" levels, you'll have leveled up. You should spend the skillpoints you get as soon as possible. Go into inventory and then into skills and spend those skillpoints on either mastermind, enforcer or fugitive, this way you can already be of help to your team.

I want to make clear, if you're a new player, you should stick to doing heists on normal and hard difficulty, so you can learn the basics of the game and how the game plays in a safer environment. If you have almost zero experience in the game, and you want to learn a lot of it, harder difficulties will make it nearly impossible to learn, since you'll be going down really fast, not knowing what you're doing yet.

My advice, wait for a free job (the white circles that pop up from time to time on crime.net) that has normal difficulty (no skulls next to it), take it, and make the lobby. You'll be the host in this, so nobody can kick you. Just make sure it's on NORMAL difficulty if it's your first heist. Same for your second and third heist. Also make sure the job you choose is not called Shadow raid, Car Shop, Murky Station, Election Day, Framing Frame, Rats or Firestarter. These are either stealth heists which are not recommended for new players or 3-day heists that will take lots of time and effort and will not pay well on normal difficulty.

Then there's also the fact that, when you join a lobby on a harder difficulty and the host is very experienced, you might get kicked, and you don't want to get kicked now, do you? If you're not infamy 1 yet, people will not think too highly of you, might judge you early and kick you, I, as a kind host, always give people a chance, unless it's on the really really high difficulties, of course.

Talking about high difficulties, don't call this game stupid and abandon it just because you joined deathwish and died right at the start, it's your fault for joining a deathwish heist. Just keep doing normal difficulty and, once at level 15 to 25, you'll be more useful in battle and will be able to help in hard lobbies.

After you've gained some more levels, get a new gun, the starter primary, the AMCAR is one of the worst guns you can have, so you need an upgrade. You should be around level 10 or 15 after a couple of heists, so you'll have some new weapons unlocked for buying. I recommend going for the Union 5.56 rifle when you unlock it. A very stable rifle that does not need many attachments to perform well (and it's Belgian woooo).

I see lots of people who are new to the game just spraying their bullets at cops and killing a maximum of 4 cops with about 30 bullets. This game requires a little more precision when you're just starting out with no skills. If you're just going to fire away and hit nearly nothing, you're just wasting ammo and you might think "Oh, I'll just go take some ammo from the ammo bag", this is wrong, this is a team game and you need to take into account that your teammates might need ammo too, so be a little sparing with your shots. (also burst fire is quite helpful for stability)

Last but not least, some info about skill builds. Your first heists should be in loud, certainly not stealth, so: In your first build, don't go full-ghost, just don't. Ghost is mostly for stealth and if you bring an ECM jammer into a loud heist without even knowing what it does, it's just dumb. It'd be a much wiser decision to put some skill points into the middle subtree of technician, the drill skills, you'll be a great help for other players by being able to complete some objectives faster. Other than that, go for enforcer, since any new player should begin with a tanky build that can take a lot of hits. (see middle tree of enforcer for armor skills)

Your armor circle is shown around your health circle as a white, thin circle on the bottom of your screen. It detears everytime you get shot, but staying in cover for a few moments without getting shot makes your armor regenerate.

ALWAYS keep an eye on your armor bar if you're wearing heavy armor. Once it gets to 30%, it'd be wise to go find cover, to minimize or to protect yourself from health loss. If you see a teammate getting shot up with almost all his armor gone, why not cover him and kill a few of the guys attacking him, so he loses less health?



Your health circle is the big green circle on the bottom of your screen. Everytime you get shot with no armor left, this goes down, the best thing to do is trying to never lose health, it's very hard, though, but risks are not to be taken by armored guys.

Once your health circle is completely gone, you go down. You can go down 3 times, this is when the screen will be very gray-looking, if you get downed a fourth time, you're dead. Doctor bags replenish your downs, so use those when you've been downed 3 times, or else, you'll be in custody.



Custody happens when you've been downed and ran out of bleedout time or when you've veen downed 4 times without having used a doctor bag before your 4th down. On normal and hard difficulty, you can easily get out of custody by just waiting. It doesn't take that long.

On the other 5 difficulties, you'll NEED a hostage to trade, there's no other way to get your teammates back in the fight, and you can still talk to your teammates, so give them info about where what is, perhaps a black dozer killed you and you saw 2 shields along with him, say that to your teammates! So they don't get surprised by these fellas and can prepare at least a bit.


Most assault rifles and SMG's have the two firing modes, auto and single. Pressing V on your keyboard changes your fire mode. Auto fire is good for anything and single fire is exceptionally good to pop off quick headshots on lone targets.

Single fire is also good when you know you're going to get tazed by a tazer that's quite far away, with auto fire on, getting tazed will eat all your ammo in your assualt rifle/SMG, since it'll be less accurate because the screen moves every now and then and while being tazed, you're firing your gun, getting huge recoil effects. Single fire, on the other hand, will let you automatically pop off a single shot towards the tazer while being tazed. Meaning you can center the tazer on your screen between the shots you make. Making survival a bit easier.

If the tazer is right by you though, unload with auto fire on that sumb*tch.


Dead cops drop ammo, these ammo pickups give you a small amount of ammo for both your guns, the only weapons that do NOT have ammo pickups are the OVE9000 saw, the HRL-7 rpg and the Commando 101 rocket launcher. Ammo pickups can make the difference between 0 bullets and two whole mags.

Every perk deck has the walk-in closet perk, which increases the amount of ammo you receive from ammo pickups. The fully loaded skill in the enforcer skill tree gives more max ammo in the basic form and increased ammo pickups in the aced form. You should always get ammo pickups whenever it's safe enough to go get them. There can only be 20 on the map at a time, so if they're in a safe spot, go get them!

The gambler perk deck uses ammo pickups to heal yourself and teammates, as well as give a small amount of ammo to teammates when you pick them up, of course you get much more than them.


Positioning is one of THE most important things in the game, if everybody in your team each covers a different entrance or side, it'll work out really well, if you watch eachother's backs, you won't need to worry about going down without someone nearby to help you back up.
If you get behind some cover and use it as a front line, you'll gain a more tactical advantage if your teammates back you up from a distance. If you need to hold out, make sure the cops don't close you in, keep them back and make your area of influence bigger, but don't go too far from your teammates, even for veterans, it's smarter to stick in a smaller area and pick off many targets from a distance if it's purely holding out you have to do.

The first aid kit is the first type of equipment for the Mastermind.
First aid kits are a really helpful thing if you know when to get away, and where to. Having 1 guy in your team with these miniature doctor bags really helps out. You can get up to 14 first aid kits.

This is how they work: They don't replenish downs, but they're a full heal in just a split second. I'm the kind of guy who keeps an eye on the health of my teammates, to see when they need one, for inexperienced players, I grant a first aid kit at around 35% health, for more experienced players of who I know they can survive a bit longer, I tend to give them at 15 or 20% health, I then say in chat "(name), heal", this way, I can keep moving while typing a little, I also tend to shorten their names to the first 3 or 4 letters, or a word I can get out of their name. for example: if there was someone called W33DL0RD69, I'd say "weed, heal" (lol)

Of course, you should never place all of your first aid kits at once all for others to use, you should keep at least 4 with you, 5 preferably, in case you or someone else away from the base you set up is in a tight spot and needs a quick heal. just look straight at the ground and place it whenever you're in cover and then use it as fast as you can, if not... you might die. do this when you are at 20% health or less to get the most out of your first aid kit.

One last tip, if you hear a cloaker around and you want to heal, kill the cloaker first, or you'll be healed, he'll come charging in and kick you in the face, bringing you back to 40% health after a revive.



The doctor bag is the second equipment for the Mastermind.
Doctor bags are there for when you know you're gonna go down in a heist. You can almost always buy these in assets if there's any assets available. You can get up to 8 doctor bag charges with 2 doctor bags each having 4 charges.

This is how they work: they don't just fully heal you, but they also replenish all of your downs. This is why you should never use them just when you are hurt and haven't been downed yet. only use them when you've been downed 3 times (cloaker downs do not count), you'll know when you've been downed 3 times, because your ingame vision will be gray at low health, use them at that moment, that way, the full potential of the doctor bag can be utilised.



The ammo bag is the Enforcer's skill tree equipment.
Ammo bags are used to... well... fill up your ammo supply, of course. Just like the doctor bag, you can almost always buy these in assets. If you have the Bulletstorm skill, you can keep shooting without losing ammo for 5 seconds in the basic form and 15 seconds in the aced form. This can be useful on harder difficulties when you need to escape from sticky situations or when you just want to massacre a bulldozer with HE rounds on a shotgun.

This is how they work: The basic ammo bag contains 3 uses for a completely empty weapon (300%). The fully upgraded dual ammo bags have a 1000% ammo supply, meaning you can resupply a completely empty weapon 10 times. If both your weapons are empty, it will take 200% of the ammo supply. The ammo bag will always prioritize your secondary weapon, meaning that if there's not enough ammo in the ammo bag for both guns, the ammo bag will only fill up your secondary ammo as much as it can.



The ECM jammer (electronic countermeasure) is the Ghost's first equipment.
These little things are used only for stealth 80% of the time, but can also be used to quickly open security doors on heists like nightclub, they can also be used to open ATM's for good amounts of cash. Fully upgraded, you can get 2 ECM jammers each with 31.25 seconds of jamming.

This is how they work: ECM jammers disable cellphones and cameras for a limited period of time and with the aced ECM specialist skill, it delays gaurd pagers until the jammer is done, you should use the ECM when you want to get a lot of civilians down and tied, but there's too many to do all at once, meaning you'll have to move after you've tied some of them, if any civilian or gaurd tries to call the police, the ECM jammer will prevent this.

The ECM overdrive skill makes it possible to use these ECM jammers to open security doors that would normally need to be opened with a keycard, a drill or a saw. The ECM can also open ATM's, this does not need any skills.

You can also make them do an ECM feedback loop, which incapacitates all enemies, even special enemies, except for cloakers. ECM feedback makes all cops stand still and try to cover their ears, making them weaker and vulnerable for headshots. Even Bulldozers will be stunned. Don't do this in stealth or everyone will be alerted.



The body bag case deployable is the second equipment of the Ghost skill tree. With the right skills, you can place 2 body bag cases, each containing 3 bags, used to bag and hide dead bodies of civilians and guards

This is how they work: after having put down the body bag case, you can always return to it whenever you need a new bodybag, it only contains 3 body bags though, so make sure that you don't kill someone in a bad spot when you have no body bags left. If you do solo stealth, you should always have the maximum amount of bodybags on you. Nobody else will need them, so why wait?


The tripmines are the first kind of equipment of the Technician's skill tree.

This is how they work: The tripmines in their basic form are just used to set up a temporary line of security, for example, by placing it against a wall, with the laser covering an entrance. You can also set them to a sensor mode, which detects special cops like bulldozers, cloakers, tazers and shields. when a special is detected, it will make a beeping sound, as well as mark the special with a red outline, like it was spotted. The explosion radius, damage and deploy time can be enhanced with the right skills, there's also a skill that makes it create a fire trap on ignition, burning any cops that try to walk through it.


Having tripmines also gives you shaped charges, the amount of shaped charges you have will increase with the right skills, these can be used to blow open doors, safes, and so on.



The sentry gun is the second kind of equipment of the Technician's skill tree. This is another defensive kind of equipment. It uses your ammo supply. This thing runs out of ammo quickly if placed in a bad spot, but you can resupply it with your own ammo by picking it up and placing it back down. There are many skills to upgrade them or to get a silenced version, making them less noticeable for cops.

This is how they work: The sentry gun auto-targets cops, with the right skills it can do a lot of damage and get a lot of accuracy. I would recommend putting this behind an opened door, so that any incoming cops will be surprised at close range, which will also take way less ammo.

For the love of god, you must spend your skillpoints! Too much, I see new people who haven't spent any skillpoints! They are essential. They can allow you to get awesome skillz, such as increased bag carry speed, increased damage on shotguns, and so much more! there are 5 skill trees, The Mastermind, The Enforcer, The Technician, The Ghost, The Fugitive.

The Mastermind is best for players who like to be in control of the situation, and who know what they're doing.

The Enforcer is good for players who love just shooting the whole place up.

The Technician is for players who like to micro-manage and keep tabs on things. Also good for players who are sick with the crappy arse drills.

The Ghost is for agile players, the majority of stealth skills are also in this tree

The Fugitive is a jack of all trades, and a master at none.
Badasses who don't care what they're doing, they just do.




However: DO NOT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD FOCUS ON ONE SKILL TREE! Close to all the skill trees have essential skills. You should mix it up a bit.

Eg,

Master-forcer
Tech-forcer
Fugi-mind
Tech-mind
etc.


There are also perk decks. These are permanent, although you can only select one at a time. As you gain XP you will gain perk points, which you can put into perk decks. The basic non-dlc ones are: Crew-chief, Armorer, Muscle, Rogue, Hitman, Crook, Gambler, Ex-President, Sicario and Stoic. Of course with the Ultimate edition being the only thing left you can purchase, this includes the rest except for the Tag Team perk deck from the h3h3 ethan and hila character pack.


Crew-Chief is about helping your team and taking hostages.

Armorer is about giving you and your team that little bit more armour to let you stay in the fight longer

Muscle is about being the biggest ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ beefcake you can be, and take whatever is thrown at you.

Rogue is all about moving all the time, and literally dodging bullets.

Hitman is all about the Akimbo pistols.

Crook is the same as rogue, but gives you a little extra armour. Recommended for new players.

Gambler is about giving your team health and small amounts of ammo through picking up ammo yourself, the lower the normal ammo pickup amount is for your teammates' weapons, the less ammo they'll receive from the gambler ammo give-out, for example: an M308 rifle will get 1 or 2 bullets from the gambler ammo give-out, while a clarion rifle or commando 553 rifle will get about 4-7 bullets from it.

Ex-president is about building up excess health to be used later on.

Sicario is about combining dodge and armor with a smokebomb that buffs your dodge abilities and makes cops shoot less accurately.

I won't get into the DLC perk decks, but some of them are pretty overpowered.

This build is very easy to alter or change depending on your playstyle. This build is focused on loud since most non-DLC players would be playing loud.

The weapons

For the primary, I chose a Mosconi 12G shotgun because for close encounters, this weapon is a beast, like when you come toe to toe with a bulldozer you can break his plate and glass and maybe even kill him if some teammates peppered him with bullets. Also always use 000 Buckshot on a shotgun because you get 2 free even without the DLC and due to a recent update the ~30% ammo reduction has been removed so it's a no brainer to use. A great pick!

For secondary, I use the Heather Submachine Gun with the Stubby Copensator (Diffrenet to the picture) because of it's good base damage and above-average accuracy. If you don't want to use this weapon then I recommend using a SMG with a high ammo capacity because you would be using you secondary as a primary with this setup.

The skills

Mastermind:
In Mastermind, a must have is Forced Friendship so you tie up more civillians, the only reason it's Aced is to reach tier 3 of Controller in which you can accquire Stockholm Syndrome, an invaluble skill, which lets you exit custody during a assualt. I chose to be a medic with Combat Doctor Aced and Inspire for this example but you really could choose any deployable and playstyle.

Enforcer:

These builds are designed to specialise in one particular thing, and the majority are support builds so you shouldn't have a team running with these builds. You will need DLC and Level 100, though for a few weapons there are some non-dlc alternatives.


The Firebat

This build is all about utilising the game's mechanic of FIRE! This build will specialise in holding out close-quarters objectives and rooms and clearing out large groups of cops at once. It is also relatively good at stopping Bulldozers, though this is not it's primary focus.

The Skills

These Mastermind skills are more over convenience more than anything, none are essential to the build and can be done without. However, I still recommend you get the first skill in the controller tree to at least basic.

Underdog is the only essential skill here, like Mastermind every skill in the Tank tree is not required but definitely recommended.

The focal point of the build. Make sure you have every skill for trip mines, as they will be your weapon of choice for this build. the drill skills are also invaluable, so be sure to pick those up.

Speed is always key for rushing in and roasting those pigs. These skills will vastly increase your speed, and the shockproof skill will prevent using up your valuable flamethrower fuel on being tazed.

None of these skills are required either, but as a support you need to make sure you stay in the game for as long as possible which makes revenant invaluable.

The Biker Perk Deck is the ideal perk deck for this build. Making sure you keep your armour and health up, it's like ex-president and anarchist had a child who grew up to become fat and grow a giant beard and wear a leather jacket 24/7. You even get health and armour from your team kills, letting you stay back till the time is right. If you don't have the Rust character pack, then gambler will also do.

The Weapons

The flamethrower with this extra ammo will make sure you keep on burning those cloakers till there's none left.

The rate of fire of the Patchet is perfect, not too fast but not too slow. Accurate too, it proves to be a worthy secondary weapon for this build. Make sure you get the full stock and the large magazine to real make a difference. Use this to deal with snipers when the need arises. Should you not have the gage historical pack, the Mark 10 will be an adequate replacement.

The melee weapon doesn't matter, but the spatula is quite appropriate, no?

To make the most out of the fire effect, the molotov cocktail will be your throwable. Throwing this at a dozer will stun him, rendering him unable to move or fire, and, with the fire lasting as long as it does, you can cut off valuable chokepoints for the cops with this. While using it, make sure to not throw it in a large open area or the cops may just walk around it. Very effective for dealing with shields.

Shown with 0 skulls.
Normal is the easiest difficulty there is, all with weak cops that don't have over 60hp and die quickly. These are also very untrained and are dominated easily. The only specials you'll see on this difficulty are shields and dropoff - dozers. The shields usually come accompanied by 2 or 1 bronco revolver cops, meaning that these cops are too afraid to go in without any special help. The rewards for this difficulty are very low. Even if you do a lot.



Shown with 1 skull.
Hard is the second easiest difficulty, with a slight difference, cops with more armored helmets and armor will show up and tazers and cloakers can be seen up to 5 times, or more if you stay long on the cookoff heist. Shields will now start coming in teams more often. Rewards are still low.



Shown with 2 skulls.
Now this is where it really starts. Cloakers, tazers, bulldozers and a lot of shields, they will be more common on this difficulty, also, way more experienced swats will be coming in, even with tan-colored armor swats who can almost only be damaged by shooting the head, works much like a bulldozer. Starting with this difficulty, rewards start getting better.



Shown with 3 skulls.
Overkill is basically very hard with a doubled spawn rate, making early elimination a priority so important paths or places do not get overrun. Specials run galore on this difficulty. And cloakers never stop coming. The rewards are great.



Shown with 3 skulls and a devil skull
Considered to be the midground between Overkill and Deathwish. In my opinion, it does lean towards the harder option, so only do it if you're certain you're ready. The enemies have far more health and are more accurate in Mayhem, but they do not have increased damage like Deathwish. The enemies you face will be almost exclusively GenSec and Bulldozers. Skull dozers will NOT be encountered in this difficulty, so if they're the reason you fail at Deathwish then feel free to hop on over here. Since this is a very new difficulty, there is still quite a lot of information unknown to us, so this info is subject to change.


Shown with 3 skulls and 2 devil skulls.
Now this, this will be your nightmare if you're not doing stealth. Loud deathwish missions are always extremely hard, since a couple of hits will get you down before you know it. The Gensec Elites literally show up on your doorstep and give you a couple of skulldozers, armed with f*cking KSP light machine guns, which hold 200 bullets. The Gensec Elites can be recognized by their white digital camo, and the fact that you need to shoot at least 4 bullets into their head before they FINALLY DIE, since they have 240 health. The skulldozer is the most menacing thing you'll ever see in this game. But please, kill it, preferably with fire, and bullets to the face, lots of those. Teamwork is highly needed on this difficulty.


Shown with 3 skulls and 3 devil skulls.
The ultimate challenge. You are no longer fighting just SWAT units, FBI and cops, but Zeal Force. Basically the game's version of the Navy Seals. You probably want to at least get the Death Wish Skull before even ATTEMPTING this difficulty. It is the hardest difficulty I have encountered in pretty much any game. Zeal Force have many things: triple the health of normal Deathwish units, triple the damage and triple the accuracy. You definitely want to cover hop in this difficulty. The Zeal Force bulldozers are a force to be reckoned with, they have a whole extra plate on top of what the skulldozers would have. Since this is a very new difficulty, there is still quite a lot of information unknown to us, so this info is subject to change.

One down additional difficulty setting

The One Down setting makes it so you can only go down once before the next down is fatal, unless you have the nine lives skill, making it 2 downs before your next is fatal.

Recommended perk decks on high difficulties with ONE Down
Alot of health based perk decks require you to kill cops (Ex-president,Biker,Sociopath,Gambler) in order to regenerate health and since the health pool of cops is extremely high it will be hard to regenerate health and maintain health.

Grinder
Grinder will allow health to regenerate health for dealing damage. However the grinder perk deck only works if you the two piece suit or the lightweight ballistic vest. I recommend the lightweight ballistic vest because this will allow you to tank a little bit of extra damage before taking health damage.

Muscle
Muscle will give more health and also regenerates 3.5% of your health every 5 seconds. I recommend the ICTV as this will give you an extra 221 hitpoints.

Crook
Crook is a semi-dodge armor perk deck. This perk deck grants dodge and armor to all ballistic vests making you able to tank damage and also ignore damage at the same time. I recommend the lightweight ballistic vest as this will have the lowest dodge and speed penalty and grants 130 armor if fully upgraded.

Anarchist
The Anarchist is an armor based perk deck that grants 120% more armor with the cost of 50% of the players health. it also regerates armor differently. I recommend wearing an ICTV with Frenzy while having this perk deck equiped as this will grant you 400 armor and 25% less damage taken.

Recommended Weapons
When the Difficulty "rebalance" update came out the damage on crossbows and bows (also grenade launchers) were increased to an unrealistic amount. The English longbow and the Crossbow did more damage then a Barret .50 Cal.

English longbow
The longbow is by far the best weapon in the game. Having a high rate of fire (compared to other high damage weapons), high damage and a concealment of 29 allowing it to hit Low Blow(crits) and Sneaky Bstrd. (skill name gets censored)

Grenade Launchers
Pretty much any grenade launcher will do since they deal the same amounts of damage. The damage was increased from 340 to 1300 on the day that the difficulty "rebalance" update came out. I recommend the Piglet becuase of its increased ammo pool(compared to other grenade launchers) and the China Puff becuase you can equip it as a secondary. I recommend also to bring incendiary rounds if you dont have fully loaded aced and dont have molotovs.

Recommended skills

Body Expertise
This skill will allow headshot multipliers to be applied on the body increasing damage more than any other skill (depending on the weapon and multiplier) but however this only applies to SMG's, LMG's, AR's or special weapons set on full auto (this also applies to bows making them really op)

Insipre
The inspire skill will allow you to revive a teamate instantly with a 20 second cooldown between shouts and has a radius of 7 meters. I recommend to not use this skill if a teammate is down and has no enemies near him and just manual revive as the basic version of inspire will also give you faster revive speed. Inspire shouts give a movement + reload speedboost.

Uppers and Combat Doctor
Uppers aced will allow your First aid kits to used when a player should have gone down with out a use of his "bleedout" its only handy if you are planning to stick in 1 room. Combat doctor will your Doctor bags to have 4 charges granting a total of 8.

Shields are the most common special units, and appear on each difficulty. They're basically normal cops with shields and a little more health. They usually come in groups.

How to kill them: The most effective way is to let 1 of your teammates distract them and then shooting them when they're looking at your teammate. But you can also get up close and circle around him until he can't keep up anymore, then give him a quick bullet barrage.
Another way of killing them, is with the Enforcer's iron man skill, if you have this aced, you can't only shoot while sprinting, but you can also knock shields back by using melee on them.



Cloakers are sneaky little bastards, they hide under cars, behind doors, behind dumpsters, anywhere you won't expect them, the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ even come out of the sewers! This is why you should always listen closely for cloakers, they have a kind of high pitched static noise (idk how to describe it), and if they get close to you, that sound will change into the dreaded WULULULLULULULULLULULU noise, indicating that they're coming for you. If this happens, shoot them in the face as fast as you can, or you're down!

How to BLOCK them: The fugitive has a skill called counter-strike that, when aced, allows you to counterstrike cloakers by charging your melee (holding E) before they get you. The counterstrike does no damage but knocks them to the ground, this is when you shoot the hell out of them.

Extra info:
- Cloakers have massive headshot damage multipliers, so headshots are THE way to take them out quickly and effectively, while using small amounts of ammo.
- Cloaker downs (or cloaks) do not count as actual downs, so, even if you've been downed three times in a row without replenishing your downs and you get cloaked, it doesn't count as the fatal fourth down.


For most players, tazers are the most annoying enemies, they either stop you in the middle of a horde of enemies or they taze you when you're out of ammo, at that moment, you know you're dead unless you have some good teammates to back you up.

How to kill them: When they taze you, find them around you immeadiatly and keep your aim on them. After they've been shot around 5 times, they'll be staggered and you'll be freed. Then you need to run away from it, or finish it if you have the ammo. You can hear them charging their tazer with the loud charging noise.



Bulldozers are mean ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. They either have pump action shotguns, automatic shotguns or on deathwish, the dreaded KSP light machine gun. They have a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of health and armor on every side.

How to kill them FAST: If you have a rapid fire weapon then go for the headshots, you can remove the faceplates with relative ease. The Thanatos can also kill them in 2 shots if you don't get headshots, and the RPG can instantly kill them, too.



Snipers are, of course, long range units that don't get close to the fight very often. Their shot is extremely deadly, taking up to half of your health away with a single shot. Snipers usually work in teams. Keep these guys out of the fight, or they'll be your death.

How to kill them: It's best to leave it to the armored guys to take care of the snipers, dodge players or light armored guys have the risk of getting shot once and losing tons of health, if not getting downed in a bad spot.



The rapid-firing swat van turret is a stationary special, sometimes there's 2, sometimes there's 1, and on heists like meltdown, there's loads of them, and those move.
Swat van turrets fire exremely fast and they'll do a good load of damage to you if you don't watch out, their damage output is low though. But you should always be careful since their aim is on point if you're not fast enough. Non-player bots who walk out in the open tend to be massacred by these turrets really fast.

The swat van turret also needs to reload some times, you'll know it's reloading when the red laser has turned yellow and it stops shooting or aiming at you.

Now you might be thinking, "Ooh, I could just hide right next to it, it can't get me there!" But you would be wrong, my friend. Those pricks have the indecency to have cannisters of gas with them! On Very Hard - Overkill difficulties, they can only blast gas once. But on Deathwish difficulty, they have infinite gas blasts!

The turret is NOT IMMORTAL, you can in fact destroy it after having it break down 3 times, after it has been broken 3 times, the gun will be unable to repair again and will just take in the last hits until it explodes.


Placing an ecm jammer with an active turret nearby makes the turret your ally for a short time, the turret will then shoot cops and not you.



The Captain, when you see him, back the hell up and get to your teammates, every one of his companions has an immense amount of health. It is extremely difficult to take him down on your own unless you have an rpg.

There's 2 ways to go about this guy. Engage with shield-penetrating weapons or explosives from a distance, or get up close and personal with your teammates and run around them, looking for open spots to shoot them. You should always try to kill some side-units before going for Winters himself. It'll be easier to shoot him once there's less obstacles in the way.

Winters is unique for his ability to lock the assault. Once he arrives, the assault keeps going until he has fled. Winters never dies, he only flees from the area of operations. This is why he always returns. Winters can only come once in a heist. His arrival is always announced clearly and he only shows up in heists on very hard, overkill and deathwish difficulty.



This ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ jizzdrinking ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is your worst nightmare. Unless you have a rocket launcher or the Thanatos, you are not taking him on by yourself. Especially since bulldozers started being able to run, he is a massive threat. the Zeal dozer. Only appearing on the One Down difficulty, he has 5 layers of face protection to chew through, he has double the health of a skull dozer, and he will absolutely castrate you if you aren't ready.
tl;dr, run as fast as you bloody can, Zeal Team 6 is coming for you.


Medics have the ability to save any unit from fatal damage and slightly heal that unit when the save is triggered. The medic's ability has a 2-second cooldown. It has around the same health as a tazer making him quite tanky. Beware he can save dozers.

There are 7 types of bags

Light - Doesn't effect walk speed, lets you sprint.
These are easily taken to the secure zone, and should be an easy grab
Examples include: Jewelry, Coke, Meth


Medium - Doesn't effect walk speed, cannot sprint.
These are less easy to be secured, due to their trait of stopping you from sprinting. Dodge builds beware!
Examples include: Money, The Dentists loot, Artifacts


Heavy - Effects walk speed, cannot sprint.
These can lead to your death, if you don't coordinate properly with these. I advise caution if you're using a dodge build.
Examples Include: Gold, Middle Bomb Part, Turret legs


Very Heavy - Same as Heavy, but with less throw range.
Same advice as heavy. However, congaline tactic is not advised. More on that down below.
Examples Include: Turret head, shadow raid artifacts (not the same as medium artifacts!), Almirs Toast


Super Heavy - Drastically effects walk speed, cannot sprint. Super small throw range.
Do not carry if you have a dodge build. Cover whoever is holding it.
Examples Include: Prototype, Server

Ultra Heavy - Same as Super Heavy. Practically nonexistent throw range.
Usually these loots are worth the weight, so escort whoever is holding these.
Examples include: Warhead, Engine, Samurai Armor


Equipment Bags - These bags cannot be secured, and are used to aid the PAYDAY gang. They can range from Light to Super Heavy.Examples include: Thermal Drill, Beast Bit, Fireworks

Bag Securing Tactics
There are many ways to secure multiple bags. You may find your own tactics, but here are a few efficent ones.

• Bag Juggling best for two bags, but skilled players can probably do it with three. It's as simple as it sounds, you throw a bag, pick a bag up, run over to said thrown bag, then throw the bag on your back, pick the one up on the floor, so on and so forth.
  
  
  
  
• Congaline In my opinion, the best way to move bags. But watch out for those cops, they could snatch them up! Best used for over 4 bags. Like juggling but in the masses, you throw all of them to one designated "Hotspot" and go over there, and follow suite.
  
  
  
  
• Air catching Very tricky to master, the most impractical of the three, and best used for only one bag. You throw the bag in the air, run towards where it will land, and catch it before it hits the ground. If you do it right, you can instantly pick it up, making this very efficent if used correctly, but tricky to master.
  

The reason why hostages gets a section apart, is because they are so damn important.

Hostages make cops advance into battle slower, distract cops and can be used to free teammates who have gone into custody.

In the mastermind skill tree, there is even a skill called Stockholm Syndrome which makes it so that there's a chance a random nearby civilian will revive you when downed right next to them. This could be a lifesaver, but it is nearly never used. Another skill in the mastermind skill tree, called hostage taker, makes you regenerate health if you have at least 1 hostage.

The crew chief perk deck uses hostages to make your team more combat-efficient, by adding slight improvements to your team's stats for each hostage you have, up to 10 times. Highly underestimated, but good for a team player who wants to help his team in this way.

You can even make cops hostages! This works by shouting at them to drop their weapon and put their hands up (simply pressing f on the keyboard while facing them) the cop will put his hands up and surrender, after which you tell him to get down on his knees and apply handcuffs on himself. These cop hostages can be used to trade for teammates or to convert into jokers, making them fight for you, this also needs a skill, called joker in the mastermind skill tree. To make it easier to dominate a cop, damage him first so he gets more scared, then shout at him to surrender with your interaction button.

The infamous leveling system in Payday 2 is an more indept leveling system that has 25 levels to it.
You get the chance to go to another infamous level after you have completed the normal level of 100.

Going to the next infamous level will cost you a sort of a big amount of 200 million credits from your offshore account, which is the same account you use for buying new contracts from Crime.net.

When you get to the first infamous level, you will start kind of like from the perspective of an lvl 0 player, with no spending cash, you'll have almost none of the weapons unlocked except the AMCAR-rifle and the chimano 88 pistol (if you haven't bought any DLCs that have level 0 weapons), no skillpoints, no equippables, no armor, but the good thing is that you get to keep all of your weapon modifications, masks and other things you've gotten from card drops or achievements.

You also get an infamous point, which with you can get an new mask you can't get from an atchievement or from a card drop. With the infamous point you can also buy an exp bonus which you get an 10% boost to the experience you get from a completed job. From each infamous or "inf" level you get an achievement.

Author's advice: after you go infamous, do a quick and easy heist on normal so you can at least have 1 skillpoint to use, a simple doctor bag or ammo bag will already help your team.

Accuracy
Lower than 40
Only for close range, except if it's a light machine gun, then it's normal.

Between 40 and 70
Mid-range, chance to hit snipers and other far away targets is still small, lots of weapons that have huge max ammo can't get any higher than this for accuracy, but those are meant for close range or silent killer builds. It's okay to use a gun with high max ammo but low accuracy.

Over 70
Good for all ranges, you just need to aim your shot.

Starting from 90, bullets will only veer off slightly.

100 is pretty much laser accurate.


NOTE: For shotguns lower accuracy is better. This is due to each individual bullet sprayed having the total damage, unlike the majority of games wherein all the bullets combined make up the total damage. But if you are using flechette or slug ammo, which are both meant for accuracy, higher accuracy is better. Flechette can still be used as a spread fire shot, but a slug is 1 solid lead, not multiple pellets, this means accuracy is key with this ammo type.


Stability

Lower than 30: your gun will be uncontrollable if it's an assault rifle / submachine gun and you'll have to re-adjust your aim after each shot with a sniper or modded DMR, recoil is also greater. This is nearly impossible to get with most assualt rifles.

Between 30 and 50
Better, but snipers or DMR's will still need re-adjustment.

Between 50 and 80
Recommended, you will have a gun that's stable enough for sustained fire.

80-100
A bit overkill, except if you can. (krinkov smg can have both accuracy and stability at 88 or more with butcher AK/CAR mod pack DLC) if you waste too many mod slots for stability, your other stats might be too low. a gun with 100 stability but 48 accuracy is not recommended. It's just a waste.

If you're hosting the lobby, you make pretty much all of the choices. First off, what you really want to do if you don't want your fun ruined by random hackers, turn on the auto-kick cheaters option if you're hosting a public game.
You can turn it back off when you're hosting friends-only lobbies, you know them, they know you, so it's not that much of a problem in that case, unless you really hate playing with cheaters.
For me, it's okay if it's for fun, but not for exploiting to get easy cash and money.

You can put your privacy modes to 3 options:

• Public
  
• Friends-only
  
• Private

Public makes your lobby accessible to anyone who can see it pop up on crime.net.
Friends-only makes your lobby accessible only to your steam friends and friends of your steam friends.
Private makes your lobby non-accessible to anyone unless you directly invite them into the lobby with the invite friends option.


Hosting a lobby also gives you the option to kick other players when they misbehave, keep teamkilling or just make sure you can't escape the mission. Lots of my lower-level friends say they've gotten kicked from games a lot just because the host was at the escape and they were making their way to it. Do NOT do this just to assure your escape, if you do this, you're just a plain ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

The trashcan jump

No, it's not dumpster diving, it's a lifesaving trashcan at the left side of the house, at the hill where the cops jump down. You can easily jump onto this trashcan and onto the stairs, then into the house, even if you have heavy armor, the jump is still possible. You lose less armor or health when doing this, making this trashcan a lifesaver.



The pickup truck

The pickup truck parked in that one area where almost nobody ever goes. If you're gonna be cooking the meth, go to this pickup truck first, it has loads of ingredients in the back some times.



The vantage point + balcony

If you've unlocked the vantage point and you'll be using it, mind that you can jump down on this balcony anytime if you need ammo from downstairs or if you want to assist your team in close quarters. Try to jump on the railing, so you don't lose any health.




The copier room

If you're going loud in one of the bank heists, the copier room is the best room to stack up your hostages, since it'll be a room you'll be going trough a lot.



The roof

Don't ever go on the roof if you're doing stealth, civilians and guards can spot you really fast trough the skylight windows. If there's no skylight windows, it's a good way to get inside the building.

The leader and patriot of the whole group. This one is good for players who like the good old classic payday, and want to feel a bit of leadership.


An ex-military that speaks very fast, yet very understandable. Recommended for more tactical players.


In the earlier days of the game, his name was Hoxton, since he replaced the original Hoxton.
He's also Dallas his younger brother. Not being able to find a job that he could hold for long enough, he became a member of the payday crew after Hoxton was ratted out by a traitor. Recommended for players who like to keep it simple.


The Swedish guy with the loud voice and psychological problems. After having lost his entire company, he became a criminal. In between assualts, he's extremely calm. But when assualts start, he starts to be way more panicky. He really really hates bulldozers. (as seen in the hoxton breakout trailer). Good for more brutal players.


The real Hoxton who was left behind and caught during a heist, ratted out by a traitor. You can unlock him as a playable character by completing the Hoxton Breakout mission, which you can get by joining the Payday 2 Steam community group. You could say that he's "overly British". Also good for more brutal players.


The ex-hitman. Of course, taken from the movie John Wick. He almost never swears and he's to the point, so he's good for younger players and more tactical players.


The Scottish woman, and yes, the one that weighs the most. She swears almost in every single voiceline she has. Good for players who wanna have a laugh with her voicelines.


My personal favorite. The young Irish woman. She's the second youngest crew member next to Sokol and she grew up in a really rough environment, making her the rough burglar/heister she is now. She swears a lot, she does have A LOT of voice-lines, though. Good for players who like diversity or just good for female players.


Ever wanted to play as the guy you don't want to ♥♥♥♥ with? Well then here's Jacket.
He's a sociopath that once eliminated the entire Russian Mafia presence in Miami by himself. He refuses to talk, so he uses a tape recorder with lines of answering machines, language learning tapes and much more. Jacket is good for more brutal players and also players who like comedy in the characters' voice-lines.

The former Croatian corrupt cop who thinks he's invincible and an accomplice of the Butcher. He hates special units, seeing from voice-lines as "I hope there's a lot of specials." Or "Yeah... Bring the dozers", good for more brutal players, since he hates cops with a passion.

The youngest of the crew, a Russian former hockey player and lone heister who invented the Big ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Drill, or BFD in short. In my opinion, his accent is nice to listen to. Good for players who are used to hearing younger voices in other videogames.

The Japanese ex-Yakuza member with the sad past. Speaks almost entirely in Japanese. He is also now the oldest crew member, being over 50 years old. He is in America to search for his lost son Kento. Good for Japanese players or brutal players. His screaming can be funny sometimes too. Beware: He screams every time you charge your Katana during the assault wave. Upon killing cloakers with his Katana, they can be either decapitated or sliced clean in half.

You might recognize this terrorist from the film Point Break. While he is based off the Bodhi from the newest one, he gets a 10/10 for the nostalgia factor. A very fun-loving character, like his movie persona, Bodhi still gets the job done. His special kill lines are usually not in the same fashion as the others, instead of telling the rest of the crew who he got, he just shouts taunts such as "♥♥♥♥ you!" or "How do you like me now?" Good for 80's movie fans or brutal players. Upon headshotting Tazers with his unique sniper rifle, the Platypus, a small (large) portion of their head will be blown literally out of existence.

As part of a collaboration between the first ever POV film, Hardcore Henry, Jimmy is a true maniac, hence his perk deck. Using the most profanity out of all the heisters, he says some of the funniest and wackiest lines, probably due to being drugged up on a fudge ton of Coke. His pager lines are particularly funny, in my opinion. If he doesn't wear a mask that covers either his entire face or head, his hair will fly free, and he will have a messy afro sort of cut.

The heister teased at Paydaycon 2015, Sydney is an Australian punk. Her perk deck is very useful when used with the ICTV, but let's talk about the character herself for now. During assaults, she screams quite a bit, usually Australian profanity. She is the youngest member of the PAYDAY gang. She has sideburns, which don't really look all that great if you ask me, but thankfully there are mods out there to get rid of those.

The Rust Character pack... I honestly just call it the Ron Pearlman character pack. Or for you Sons Of Anarchy fans out there, the Clay Morrow character pack. Because that is basically what it is. His lines don't seem to differ all that much between assaults and during, so if you're not a fan of really calm voices inbetween then SUDDENLY SHOUTING DURING ASSAULTS he may be for you. Also, like I said, he's basically Clay Morrow from Sons of Anarchy, so if you like that show he may also be for you.

Except for the bit where he dies, that pretty much sums it up.

Coming straight from an infamous mexican cartel called the Sicarios, he crossed the border, grouped up with the payday gang to make more money than he ever could back at home. His signature weapons are the Verdugo machete and an intimidating looking .44 revolver called the Castigo, 2 of them, even. With this character, the first akimbo revolvers were introduced.

Art and history lover, now playing a decent part in the unveiling of Bain's secret "golden grail". Also his voice is damn cool play him now.

Part of a collab with the couple from H3H3, they have taken up the guns and joined the payday gang to make more money for fighting the lawsuit they are in. (which is now no longer ongoing)
Good for fans of H3H3.

A young Japanese gamer and hacker who gives herself points after every special kill. Her LED mask is very nice.

There are many contacts who you will do work for throughout the game. Many are locked by DLC, but you will still likely come in contact with them, even if you don't buy the DLC.

• Bain, the head of the gang. Heists for Bain are really just heists for the gang, but he takes 20% off the top.
  
  
• Vlad, the Ukrainian who lost most of his influence and power after being betrayed by his old friend, Dmitri. His heists are either about getting revenge on Dmitri or re-establishing his power.
  
  
• The Elephant, a republican who can't get to power the hard way, so he takes the easy way. His heists are about his political struggle, and getting him into power. And that slimy ballbag McKendrick, his mayoral candidate.
  
  
• The Dentist, it's not everyday you go to your dentist and find out he's actually a criminal mastermind who wants to use you to perform the greatest robberies the world has ever seen.
  
  
• Gage, the arms dealer. While never directly doing things for him, he asked Bain to do the Shadow Raid job, and he is also the gang's primary arms dealer.
  
  
• The Butcher, a croatian woman who has struck a deal with Bain to rob a bomb. Don't know what she needs a bomb for, and I don't wanna know. She's also a weapons trader, and stood in for a while during Gage's vacation.
  
  
• Locke, the mercenary. Works for Murkywater, head of the cyber division, and was tasked to shut down Crime.net after multiple attacks on Murkywater facilities. Instead, he struck a deal with Bain; help him take some of Murkywater's loot for himself, and Crime.net stays alive. Thought to be a traitor after certain events, but seems to be a double-agent. Treason on allies in order to commit treason on the enemy.
  
  
• Jimmy, the only playable contractor. Loves getting into the action himself, while also funding it. Both of his current heists are actually connected, similar to the Heist Setups in GTA V or GTA online. In Murky Station, the gang steal an EMP which is later used in Boiling Point.
  
  
• Hector, the head of a cartel moving into D.C. His heists are about taking down rival cartels and moving sweet, sweet drugs. But he's got a secret behind him, I can feel it. Just what is it about him that puts me on edge...?

This section is not that important, but for everyone who likes weapon skins, this should be in the guide, the section is small because we can't really place this topic in any other section.

Safes are like the crate system from CS:GO and TF2. You open safes with drills, which you have a very small chance of finding in a card drop, or from buying from the Community Market.

As of update 100, all future generations of safes will be completely free and not require a paid drill. However all safes from Sydney backwards will still require a paid drill.

This is an example of what can be found in safes. This specific safe is the "Goat Safe"

The "Headquarters" of the gang who have the info necessary to find the scientist.

These thugs react extremely fast if they've spotted you and will burn anything that might be of help finding the scientist, this means, if you're not doing it stealthy, which needs precise shots, speed and good reflexes, you better rush the extra things as fast as you can.

The items

The items spread around the house can be of big help on day 2, they all have something that will come in handy somehow, only the guard intel and the scientist intel is not helpful at all. The game will choose 3 random items to spawn on day 1.
The most helpful outcome would be to find the plane keys, the GenSec keycard, and the shutter codes, be sure to check the intel in preplanning on day 2 before going in.

Blueprints – A map of Day 2, showing four points of entry.
Intel (guard) – A picture of two circled guards.
Intel (codes) – Shutter codes for the house. Note that you can toggle them on or off. (These will block the view of cops and even snipers outside the house.)
Intel (scientist) – A picture of the scientist in the lab, Mr. Rossy.
Intel (engine prototype) – A classified piece of paper indicating which gas and electrodes the reactor uses.
Plane keys – Allows the crew to escape via the small plane as soon as the correct reactor is delivered and verified; faster than waiting for the helicopter to return.
GenSec keycard – Unlocks any of the three possible server rooms; one-time use.
(adapted from payday wiki http://payday.wikia.com/wiki/Big_Oil )


You'll need to do a bit of Math on this day, and you should never, EVER EVER bag any engines if you don't know what you're doing. If you have someone who fully understands the process of finding the correct engine, let him do his work and do NOT make this already quite difficult work even more difficult, do NOT bag any engines.

Even more important, you MOST CERTAINLY SHOULD NOT DESTROY any of the computer monitors in the lab, for they have the most valuable info on them.

There are 3 things you need to find to know what engine is correct.
Be sure to keep notes on everything you find!

1) The amount of hoses connected to the blue hydrogen tank that stands upright.
To find this, you need to find a clipboard anywhere around the house or in the lab with a note on it, as shown in the following screenshot.






2) The color of the gas canister of the engine (either yellow, blue or green), corresponding to the type of gas.

Nitrogen: yellow
Deuterium: blue
Helium: green






To find which type of gas it is, you need to find another clipboard with a note on it, at the bottom of the note, it will say which type of gas it is, as shown in the following screenshot.




helpful tip: once you know what color is right and how many hoses should be connected to the hydrogen tank, bag all engines that do not have that color or that amount of hoses and throw them in a corner, don't move these, all these are faulty engines, process of elimination, people.


3) the amount of BAR for the correct engine (bar meters on engines)
For this one, you'll need the computers, one of the computers in the lab shows the amount of psi you need to convert into BAR.

See top right of computer screen






1 psi = 0.07 BAR



This means that, to calculate how much it is in BAR, you need to do this calculation:

amount of psi x 0,07 (This will always be around 410)

You also need to look on the computer screen with the psi for the next part, you need to look if it has either the symbol > or < next to the psi.

If the symbol is < then it means the amount of BAR calculated is BIGGER than the amount of BAR on the correct engine.

If the symbol is > , then it means the amount of BAR calculated is SMALLER than the amount of BAR on the correct engine.


So, if you've been paying attention, you'll now know that my correct engine was an engine with:
1) 3 hoses attached to the hydrogen tank
2) a blue gas tank
3) under 406,84 BAR on the engine's meter

Did your math right? Good, then go play this heist and test it yourself, don't mess up! Don't forget that the clipboards, the computer, the psi and the gas tank are all randomized, so it'll be different from what I got!

In cook off, you're making meth purely for profit, in Rats, you're making it to trade it for intel from a gang called the Cobras. The heist is situated at an old, abandoned little house in the outskirts of the city. The biggest mistake you can make is to blow up the lab by adding the wrong ingredient for the meth. You can make an infinite amount of bags on cookoff, but you can only make 7 bags on the Rats job.



There's a total of 3 ingredients for the meth:

Muriatic acid (Mu)
This ingredient goes into the large phial in the following screenshot.





























Caustic soda (Cs)
This ingredient goes into the large blue barrel in the following screenshot.




























Hydrogen chloride (Hcl)
This ingredient goes into the bucket in the following screenshot.





























Bain will give you information on what to add, listen closely and always wait for his second line, don't just add whatever he says in his first line. If he doesn't say anything like "Hold up! You didn't put it in yet, right? It's supposed to be ..." as his second line, then it's fine. But ALWAYS wait for his second line. He might have made a mistake and if it's wrong, he will always correct it in his second line.

If you're uncertain about it and you think you're gonna mess up, let someone who knows how to cook do it and just defend the house, don't go outside if you're not skilled enough, though, you can get overrun pretty fast.

Now, you should also take into account that lots of players have the game's language set to their language, which is not always English. So here are some translations for the ingredients.

French (Français):
Mu = Acide chlorhydrique
Cs = soude caustique
Hcl = chlorure d'hydrogène

Dutch (Nederlands):
Mu = Zoutzuur
Cs = Bijtende Soda
Hcl = Waterstof Chloride

German (Deutsch):
Mu = Salzsäure
Cs = Ätznatron
Hcl = Chlorwasserstoff

Polish (Polska):
Mu =Kwas solny
Cs = sody kaustycznej
Hcl = chlorowodór


The ingredients are scattered all around the map, but always in the same spots. The following screenshots show where you can find ingredients.












We recommend taking the ingredients from the truck and the basement first, since they'll be harder to get while you're fighting.

On Cook Off, once almost all the ingredients are taken, you can light a flare to request new ingredients dropped by a helicopter, the ingredients will be in a bag, which you will need to place next to the meth lab, this is not possible on Rats.




The cops come from 3 different directions. Bain will always announce which side they're coming from.

Forest next to the road




























The hills on the side (Railroad)



























Backyard (lumbermill)


























The snipers also show up at all these locations, to be more specific, here are the exact locations where they will stand still.











































































Sometimes, the cops will send a helicopter to drop off either 2 swats on the balcony, or a bulldozer outside, we highly recommend to take care of the bulldozer as fast as you can because he gets dropped off really close to the entrance of the house.





















































Last but certainly not least important, there's always 5 sets of planks lying around on the map which you can use for barricading windows. You can see how they look in the following screenshot.

Every assault has phases as long as it is not an endless assault like some heists have. The names of the phases are Build, Sustain and Fade. Furthermore there is the pause or rest phase which can not really be called an assault phase since it's not part of the assault. Each phase will be explained separately.


The build phase is the small section between Rest and Sustain, where the cops are preparing to go full force. This is when you see cops cheekily peeking around the corner to see if it's safe, or the moment when cloakers get into their hiding positions. Try to get some stuff done quickly but know hell is just around the corner.


Things just got real, cops are coming down hard on you and your team and they'll keep coming. So focus, try to keep them away from your hostages if you'd rather keep some around and keep those helmets flying. In short, this is the actual ongoing assault.


Cops are losing morale and thinking to change their plan of attack and regroup, the assault slowly fades away until any remaining units are called to retreat.

Rest

Cops are planning, area of operations is cleared except for the occasional straggler that's left behind or the cloakers who are still hiding. This is the best time to do any objective because you have pretty much nothing stopping you.



Note

Assaults get more intense after a while, the intensity maxes out around the third assualt. Intensity means amount of special units and amount of cops in general.