Imagine a world…
Where Hunters could become completely invisible when flush against a wall, Boomer explosions did damage, Smoker’s could use their tongue as a whip.
It was the days of the pre-release version of Left 4 Dead, when Turtle Rock was still it’s own separate company from Valve. Left 4 Dead was still very rough, there was no idea of there being two different modes. There were only the campaigns, which you played through as either Survivor or Infected, not switching sides at the end of each map, supposing the Infected let them get that far.
It was a complicated day, Boomers didn’t bile people when they exploded, they relied on their vomit for that, Smokers could drop pitch-black smoke at will, and Hunters had an alternate attack where they just lunged at people without pouncing them, hitting them for small amounts of damage and knocking them back a distance.
The lunge is still there…
Well, yes, it’s not supposed to be there, and it’s a very situational turn of events that gives it life. But it’s there. And it’s awesome. Watch below for a quick semi-visual tutorial on how it works, I’ll get into gritty details soon after it.
A definitive part of being able to pull off a lunge is the ability to “bunny-hop” as a Hunter. Bunny-hopping involves, as you may have picked up in the above video, pouncing at a low angle, then jumping at precisely the right moment, just before you hit the ground, to continue the pounce. This doesn’t reset your contact damage counter, so it can lead to some interesting tactics indoors where otherwise the Hunter could not do much contact damage. A limitation to this is, although you can string together bunny-hops from a single pounce, you cannot successfully land a pounce after two successive bunny-hops from that one pounce. You’ll just bounce off the Survivor.
kraljevo8 from the Steam Forums has a more in-depth video on bunny-hopping than the few seconds I gave on it:
Check out his thread on it here.
In case I didn’t explain it well-enough in the video, the Hunter’s lunge mechanic only seems to activate where the ‘bounce’ of the bunny-hop (when you time your jump) is within a certain distance of the Survivor, if not right next to them. The ‘bunny-hop-push combo¹’ (or ‘lunge’, whatever you want to call it, you boring buggers) also seems to have a sweet spot, as some pushes certainly don’t move them much at all, whereas others send them flying, even along a flat surface.
In any case, this is for all the Hunter maniacs out there. While the usefulness of the ability itself is extremely situational, and not very useful in most situations, one day it will all line up. You will narrow your eyes, remember your lessons, launch yourself at the Survivor pulling his mate up off the edge, nail the bunny-hop……and as your palms flatten outwards in anticipation of the shove……as your momentum throws you recklessly towards your victim’s back, a man dead in all but name, you will whisper…….oh so evilly the sound will slither through your teeth……in your room you will hear but that one chilling word….
“Yes.”
It will make your day.
Anyone who deems themselves worthy of becoming advanced Hunters, or just anyone interesting in improving their skills, check out Kaizoku’s brilliant thread on the Steam Forums. To the rest, Felix Venatio.
¹ - You can shorten that to BHPC! How awesome does that sound?!
