Last Updated on by Samuel Franklin
Killing Floor 2 Demolitionist Guide – Best Build, Perks & Weapons Loadout
This article provides a Killing Floor 2 Demolitionist guide for players to build their ideal chaotic class and maximise the carnage against waves of enemy ZEDs. The Demolitionist is an explosive class choice in Killing Floor 2 with a focus on grenades, rockets and even a stick of dynamite to counter small and large Specimens that spawn in waves. When not carefully using your destructive power against the enemy the Demolitionist can be found welding doors shut with explosive traps or passing around extra grenades to their teammates to boost their own utility. Combined this playstyle makes the Demolitionist a class that is comfortable running across the battlefield and between lanes to provide extra firepower when necessary.
Most notably the Demolitionist is a key counter to Fleshpounds with their weakness to explosive weapons which if left alone can dramatically disrupt your team and potentially end a run by themselves, with the right setup you can also counter Scrakes that are similarly deadly. While the vast majority of your weapon choices have a destructive element to them the Demolitionist also has a small number of rifles, melee weapons or the potential to utilise off perk weapons to provide some traditional gun based gameplay and conserve your explosions when necessary. The Demolitionist also has the fall back of high base damages on gun bash attacks although you don’t want to be in melee range often. With Reactive armour the Demolitionist is also their own personal explosive device with the ability to emit an explosion if you run out of health (limit once per wave). You thrive in larger teams where your ability to improvise for the situation is supported with some core classes of KF2. To reach the master ranks of this class you’ll also need to be careful on the trigger and consider the impacts that your explosives have on your allies.
This guide to the Demolitionist will give players a starting point to build from and adjust based on your own personal playstyle preferences. It’s intended to provide a full Demolitionist build covering strategy, tips, perks and weapon choices that when combined together provide a suitable default path to take for most situations. It is not possible to take into account every Killing Floor 2 situation though with team, map, difficulty and playstyle potentially impacting the perfect loadout so players should always adjust as necessary when you obtain sufficient skill as playing the Demolitionist. If you are still deciding on the best class perk option for you then visit our Killing Floor 2 tier list guide.
Killing Floor 2 Demolitionist Strategy and Tips
Playing the Demolitionist to maximum effect in a party requires a number of considerations which also ensure you stay friends with those in the lobby given your destruction potential. These tips and strategies ensure that this chaotic class perk delivers on its explosive promises:
- Your role as the Demolitionist will vary based on the party dynamics and will be somewhere between being the trash or large ZED specialist. Consider other members in your party at all times and ensure that you adjust your build accordingly to provide the greatest overall benefit to the team. While you aren’t the best at either of these roles your ability to be flexible across this spectrum drives your value to the team.
- When playing the Demolitionist your explosive potential is kept in check by your low ammunition pool, long reload times and the potential to damage yourself in the process. For this reason a careful trigger discipline that only has you firing your weapon when it won’t impact your teammates plans and when there is a large swarm of ZEDs (or a large ZED that you are responsible for taking down) to maximise your ammo is ideal.
- Players should also be utilising their full weapon kit which includes their sidearm, off perk weapons and even the deadly gun bash attack as each of these has a use and helps you fend off lone weak ZEDs without consuming your vital explosive ammunition. Even with these options players should not willingly separate from their team as you are most effective when supporting other allies with your devastating explosions.
- With your own explosive power it can be easy to forget that you also give your own teammates additional damage or utility by handing out additional grenade supplies. The trader between waves is the obvious place for this transaction and a good opportunity to remind your teammates and ensure you provide the necessary space around you for them to activate the restock.
- The Demolitionist’s effectiveness is tied closely to the length of rounds with shorter round matches hurting your potential significantly as you need time to build up your power and have greater effectiveness on large wave sizes. In short round games consider giving the Demolitionist a miss for another class perk instead.
- While firing at the centre mass of a ZED is effective if you miss you’ll potentially lose a lot of damage and for this reason it is often better to aim at the feet of your enemies as even your misses will deal strong explosive damage in a radius around them. The exception is when the direct damage is important to dispatching a large enemy ZED.
- The Demolitionist weapons have minimum activation ranges so players should always be careful about firing these at close range. Clearing close range ZEDs or retreating first is often the first step before unleashing one of your explosive themed weapons.
Killing Floor 2 Demolitionist Perks Build
The Demolitionist has the following perk bonuses at maximum level:
- 25% perk weapon damage (1% per level)
- 60% explosive resistance (10% base and 2% per level)
- 5 extra explosive ammo (1 per 5 levels)
- Grenade supplier
- Door traps
- Reactive armour
The Demolitionist has the following active perk skills to select from:
| Perk Category | Left (L) Option | Right (R) Option |
|---|---|---|
| Technique | Bombardier: Increase damage of explosive perk weapons by 25%. | Shock Trooper: Increase reload speed of perk weapons and increase their knockdown power 10%. |
| Explosives | High Impact Rounds: Increase direct hit damage with explosive weapons by 25%. | Extra Rounds: Increase the maximum ammo for explosive perk weapons by 10. This does not apply to C4. |
| Advanced Techniques | Sonic Resistant Rounds: Your explosives are immune to the siren’s scream and will always explode. | Fragmentation Rounds: Increase Perk weapon explosion area of effect by 50%. |
| Weapon Techniques | Armour Piercing Rounds: Increase damage of direct hits to critical areas with perk weapons by 50%. | Concussive Rounds: Increase reaction, stun, stumble and knockdown power of perk weapons 50%. |
| Advanced Explosives | ZED TIME – Destroyer of Worlds: During ZED Time, your explosives dish out massive radiation damage, poisoning ZEDs and explosive rounds will explode at any range | ZED Time – Mad Bomber: During ZED Time, you shoot and reload in near real-time, the area of effect of perk weapons increases by 25%, and explosive rounds will explode at any range. |
Notable active perk skills when playing as the Commando are:
- Technique: A fairly typical trade off in Killing Floor 2 with a choice between improved damage of your explosives or improvements to reload speed and knockdown power. The raw damage of the left option is simply too hard to pass up in the vast majority of situations that can make the difference against ZEDs regularly. While the reload speed is nice it’s not dramatic enough to beat out the additional damage and at an advanced level of play can be replaced with reload cancelling anyway.
- Explosives: A difficult choice as more explosives can result in greater potential for carnage when playing as the Demolitionist on the surface. Don’t underestimate the direct damage though as this allows you to reach some important break points for direct damage kills and allows you to better fulfil your role of large ZED killer when required. As a result you simply can’t pass up on the left side option of High Impact Rounds in your end game Demolitionist builds. Note that prior to obtaining some perk levels and the level 20 Armour Piercing Rounds these breakpoints may not apply so while levelling the right side additional ammunition can be viable option during progression to max class level.
- Advanced Techniques: With Sirens being a staple ZED enemy you simply can’t do without the Sonic Resistant Rounds option as their ability can completely nullify an explosive attack and might result in a cascade effect across your team. On waves without Siren spawns though this effect is obviously useless and in these cases Fragmentation Rounds is the better tier 3 perk choice, it’s also viable if your role in the current Killing Floor 2 multiplayer party is focused on clearing trash level ZEDs and you’ve got a party member prioritising Sirens for you.
- Weapon Techniques: Armour Piercing Rounds is all about hitting key break points when you target the heads of the larger ZEDs and ties in perfectly to our role in a team most of the time. For this reason it’s hard to ever consider the right side of these level 20 perk options as the extra crowd control doesn’t offer us as much of a benefit as most of our targets are on the lower tier end of the scale and dying from a single explosive anyway. There are some niche situations where maybe you want the extra crowd control for team safety and to setup your big hitters to take out larger ZEDs though.
- Advanced Explosives: The left hand choice once again reigns supreme for the Demolitionist allowing us to empower our damage and area of effect even further by adding a nuke attack to our ZED time while allowing for instance explosions. While this makes Destroyer of Worlds a great default the ability to reload and fire at an extreme speed that Mad Bomber provides can feel fantastic if you have a reliable Commando that is maximising refreshes every single opportunity.
Given the above the Demolitionist best perks setup is LLLLL as your default option. That being said the Demolitionist has some flexibility based on your party needs and preferences so you can experiment with options like LLLLR (preferably with a good Commando) or LLRLL (focusing on low tier ZEDs only with a Siren killer on the team).
Killing Floor 2 Demolitionist Weapons Loadout Guide
The Demolitionist is the explosive weapons expert in Killing Floor 2 which allows you to achieve your goal of low tier ZED killing on mass and supporting the take down of larger enemies when necessary. The vast majority of your weapons have an explosive component to them which you will want to lean into as much as possible while ensuring you have a backup option for clearing individual low tier ZED targets so you don’t waste your precious ammunition for a lone weak enemy. Like most Killing Floor 2 classes your initial starting loadout (HX-25) does a passable job but needs to be quickly replaced with higher tier weapons to remain effective. Your final loadouts to aim for when playing as the Demolitionist include the following Demolitionist best weapons:
- RPG-7, C4 Explosives and .50 Desert Eagle: The standard build that you’ll want to aim for when playing as the Demolitionist that gives you everything that you need to get the job done. The Desert Eagle provides you a reliable method to take out lone weak enemies while saving your explosive ammunition for better situations and ensures we are self sufficient enough to move around the map to find those opportunities. Meanwhile the RPG-7 is a staple of all our strong loadouts which with the appropriate perk selections (and upgraded to weapon tier 5) can one shot a Scrake enemy to the head. The RPG-7 is also wonderful at handling large waves of ZEDs to ensure that waves are thinned for our allies to clean up although this should be used sparingly as it’s primary role is large ZED damage. Pairing this with another of your top tier utility options in the C4 this will create some explosive combinations to handle Fleshpounds, doubles as a wave clearance tool and allows some additional strategy given you can place a C4 and explode it when the time is right.
- RPG-7 and HRG Kaboomstick: This Demolitionist build retains the RPG-7 for the reasons noted above as it is simply too powerful to not include in a final loadout for later waves and the flexibility it provides. Instead of C4 though we opt for the Kaboomstick which is an explosive shotgun in Killing Floor 2 and fills the role of clearing out weaker groups of enemies while keeping us mobile. The ammunition is limited so players need to be careful when they fire this explosive shotgun but it does provide a well rounded alternative to the standard build above for those that want to stick to their perk specific weapons.
- RPG-7 and M79 Grenade Launcher: Holding onto the RPG-7 for the reasons above this build pairs it instead with the M79 Grenade Launcher and is a potential build for when players can stand safely behind their front line classes. Both weapons are good across the spectrum of potential ZED encounters with the M79 packing a huge explosion radius with the trade offs being the magazine size of 1 and the long arm time that makes it ineffective if enemies get close.
