PAYDAY 2: HTFC 5-Maps Beginner’s Guide | Optimized Infamy Farming

ECM rushing is the current fastest method to earn infamies in PAYDAY 2. However, depending on what rotation you play and the size of your crew, the time for getting one infamy can change drastically.

Over the years many rotations were invented and optimized, especially when new heists came out. This guide will exclusively explain (at least for the time being) one of the fastest, easiest and newest rotations, which was made possible thanks to the introduction of the Hostile Takeover heist into the game: we call it the “HTFC 5-maps” rotation.

In previous guides, each rush had 4 roles and any player was able to pick what role they wanted to do for each heist. However, nowadays it is preferred (and expected) that each player will do specific roles depending on what color that player wishes to be (Green / Blue / Red / Yellow). This way, we can ease coordination and beginners can learn quicker and find lobbies easier (it also makes it possible to optimize the strategies more, because some tasks are more efficiently performed by specific colors).

IMPORTANT: This guide will explain how the rotation works, what type of weapons, skills and perk decks you will need, what each is player supposed to do in each heist, and much more. However, for properly learning ANY rotation or rush, complementing this guide with VODs for your desired color is essential.

An example of this rotation being played from a Blue PoV can be found here:

The pinned comment also has full VODs for Host, Red, and Yellow, which are great for learning. The time on this run could easily be beaten, but it’s a good reference of what to expect when you master what to do on each heist.

When talking about these rotations, you will see that all heist names are abbreviated for convenience. Here’s a full list of these abbreviations so you can understand them!

• DS = Diamond Store
• DS0 = Diamond Store, rushed at Level 0 (therefore with no skills at all)
• HT = Hostile Takeover
• FCat = fast variant of the Black Cat heist, skipping the bug objective
• ED = Election Day
• EDG = Election Day with all 7 gold, and also bonus money during the free downtime
• BB = Big Bank
• BB7 = Big Bank rushed with 1 Hacker and 3 Yakuzas, going for exactly 7 bags only
• SR12 = Shadow Raid, aiming for exactly 12 bags

The heist order for this rotation is:

1. DS0 (only 14 bags needed)
2. HT
3. FCat
4. EDG (with 2 money)
5. BB7
6. DS14 (again 14 bags only, but now with full skills)
7. SR12
8. HT
9. FCat
10. EDG (with 2 money)
11. BB7

A detailed XP breakdown for this rotation can be seen here:

This section will introduce you to all the builds you’ll need, depending on your chosen color, and the heist. The optimal perk deck, skills needed, mandatory and optional loadouts…

For almost ALL heists, everyone has to be using the Yakuza perk deck (if you don’t have the Yakuza DLC, Copycat-Yakuza is fine).

• Needs the Copycat-Hacker for Big Bank (set to 4/4/4/4/21, see image below).

• Needs the Copycat-Yakuza specifically for Hostile Takeover (set to 4/4/4/4/12, see image below). This will give you more movement speed when carrying heavy bags such as the NEO-2, compared to regular Yakuza.

• There are no exceptions.

• Needs the Copycat-Hacker for Diamond Store at level 0.

Copycat-Hacker setup:

Copycat-Yakuza setup:

This rotation has the first skill break after DS0 (Level 47), then after HT1 (Level 59), and finally before BB1 (Level 75), although HOST doesn’t get any skills on the 3rd one. Your skill order depends on your color, so check the one you need below: you should learn and remember which skills you need on each skill break!

• After DS0 (level 47)[pd2builder.netlify.app]
• After HT1 (level 59)[pd2builder.netlify.app] (Shotgun CQB basic, Parkour aced, Second Wind aced)

• After DS0 (level 47)[pd2builder.netlify.app]
• After HT1 (level 59)[pd2builder.netlify.app] (Stockholm Syndrome, Equilibrium, start building for Frenzy)
• After FCat1 you can get Frenzy basic.
• Before BB1 (level 75)[pd2builder.netlify.app] (Frenzy aced)
• After BB1 you can start building for Inspire basic inbetween heists, in order to have it for BB2.

• After DS0 (level 47)[pd2builder.netlify.app]
• After HT1 (level 59)[pd2builder.netlify.app] (ECM Overdrive, ECM Specialist aced)
• Before BB1 (level 75)[pd2builder.netlify.app] (Inspire basic)
• After BB1 you can get Parkour aced.

• After DS0 (level 47)[pd2builder.netlify.app] (Same as Red)
• After HT1 (level 59)[pd2builder.netlify.app] (Same as Red)
• After FCat1 you can get Parkour aced.
• Before BB1 (level 75)[pd2builder.netlify.app] (RFD aced)
• After BB1 you can start building for Inspire basic inbetween heists, in order to have it for BB2.

Notice how Host/Green only has 2 skill setups? That’s because the host only gets 2 skill breaks in the run! The other players can skill as they wish, as soon as they can get into the Inventory while the Host is buying the next heist.

Speaking of weapons, it is crucial that everyone has the Team Boost equipped on ANY and ALL guns they use, otherwise the team will not be able to reach level 100!

The OVE9000 Saw (whether primary and secondary) always uses sharp blade and silent motor as modifications.

Your default weapons are:

• Primary: Akimbo Judges with HE rounds
• Secondary: any shotgun with a big magazine (such as Locomotive, Grimm, Argos) with Poison shells (Tombstone slug) equipped. If you don’t have poison shells unlocked, you can use 000 Buckshot, but unlock them ASAP!

Your default weapons are:

• Primary: OVE9000 Saw.
• Secondary: automatic pistol (Igor Automatik, STRYK).

For certain heists you need to take other MANDATORY weapons:

• Hostile Takeover – needs to take a primary Flamethrower for the lab role (and any secondary, Igor/STRYK recommended).
• Election Day, DAY2 – needs to take a 5/7 AP Pistol to kill guards through walls after taking money.

• Election Day, DAY2 – needs to take a 5/7 AP Pistol to kill guards through walls after taking money.
• Big Bank – needs to take a primary Flamethrower (for Stockholm civ control) and a Single HE Judge (for instant SW immediately after masking up).

• Needs to take a secondary OVE9000 Saw for both Election Day 2 and Big Bank (Saw is needed at the start of the heist, and switching weapons would be too slow).
• Shadow Raid & Black Cat – needs to take a shotgun with a big magazine (such as Locomotive, Grimm) with Poison shells (Tombstone slug) equipped, which is the best way to kill enemies with 480 HP.

• Needs to take a secondary OVE9000 Saw for both Election Day 2 and Big Bank (Saw is needed at the start of the heist, and switching weapons would be too slow).
• Black Cat – your secondary has to be a weapon without silencer (for loud check at the start of the heist), usually Igor/STRYK unsilenced. Also take a primary shotgun with Tombstone: Raven, VD-12… to easily open cabins and clear casino.
• Shadow Raid – needs to take a shotgun with a big magazine (such as Locomotive, Grimm) with Poison shells (Tombstone slug) equipped, which is the best way to kill enemies with 480 HP.

Regarding everyone’s weapons for DS0

Keep in mind that for Diamond Store at Level 0 you won’t be able to pick your usual weapons.
We recommend Interceptor Pistol as your secondary.

Further reading…

If you’re interested in the most optimal weapon choice for each heist, check out the bonus section «Optimal Heist-Specific Weapons» for a full list, although that isn’t necessary for beginner runs.

This section will be dedicated to learning how to buy contracts and starting heists ASAP. Many people overlook this but it’s actually very important.

We have to establish a few rules before we get to contract buying.

1. Host is never allowed to get any skills outside of skill breaks — just focus on buying the heist as quickly as possible, and then starting it!
2. Buying contracts before doing skills is generally faster.
3. Relevant for clients as well: during skill breaks, if clients leave the “in skills” status at any time, the Host will assume they are ready, and start the heist. outside of those exceptions, the Host will insta-start anyway, even if someone is “in skills”.

To make clicking the ‘Contract Broker’ easier, you should expand the sidebar so the button for the contract broker is much bigger. This makes it easier to move your mouse to it, and makes it less likely that you will missclick some other buttons. On the image next to this text you can see an example of how it looks: very wide, and extremely easy to click even when your mouse cursor isn’t even close to where the usual tiny icon is.

When buying heists from the contract broker, scrolling down until you find your next heist would take way too long. Clicking on the search bar to type the name of the next heist is also not needed. The most optimal way to buy heists when you reach the lobby after finishing the previous heist is as follows:

1. In lobby, press Enter to go into CrimeNET. You should already be moving your mouse towards contract broker, click it.
2. Type a couple of characters (specific list for each heist is below) so that the broker will filter and only show you the heist you want. For example, for Diamond Store, you would type «d s», «re», or « st», which your game will automatically type into the search bar.
3. Use your mouse to click on the contract.
4. Now to confirm the contract press Enter, Arrow key up, Enter again and the contract is purchased (Death sentence dif. should already be selected, use the Lobby Settings mod). All together it should look like this.

This technique applies to all heists but they have different words you need to type to see them in the filter or whatever. Note that spacing is important, won’t work otherwise.The full list is as follows:

• Diamond Store: «d s» or «re» or « st» (there is a space before ‘st’)
• Hostile Takeover: «ver» or «e t»
• Black Cat: «ac»
• Election Day: «da»
• Big Bank: «g b»
• Shadow Raid: «w » (there is a space after the ‘w’)

For most heists, Host will need to buy certain preplans / assets which will help to complete the heist as quick as possible. This is the reason why he is the only player who takes Sixth Sense aced, since nobody would be able to buy some of these preplans / assets otherwise. Additionally, for FCat and BB, Blue will need to help Host with the voting.

Since buying each preplan manually everytime you play a run would be quite slow and boring, we usually use a mod which saves and loads the preplanning for each heist with the press of a button! You can download the mod from this link, and it will have all preplannings already set for each heist, so that you don’t have to worry about saving them![discord.com] You can change the “Save preplan” and “Load preplan” keybinds from the options menu. Note that this mod does not buy assets, so you will need to buy those manually for Election Day (just the Spotter asset for both days).

However, if you would like to know what the saved preplans are on each heist, scroll to the bottom of the guide and read the section «Preplanning in detail».

How hard are these runs?

Quite easy after you understand what to do! The guide might seem long, but it is written in such a way that you only need to pick a color (Green / Blue if Second Wind; Red / Yellow if Saw) and read the parts of the guide corresponding to that color. Everyone else will already know what to do, so things will work out very smoothly!

Best place to play these rushes?

Definitely our Discord server! https://discord.gg/nAJSqDzqz3
We have daily runs for players of all skill levels: learning runs, beginner runs, experienced runs… And everyone is familiar with this guide, so coordinating the runs is extremely easy!

Any mods that I should remove?

The smaller your mod list is, the better. This leads to fewer crashes, sometimes faster loading…
One mod that HAS TO BE REMOVED is BeardLib. The mod is bugged in such a way that your Team Boosts will not apply to your team, which means some teammates might not reach Level 100 at the end of the rotation. Never use BeardLib while rushing!
For more information on this, read the section «How to avoid crashing» at the end of the guide!

Can I rush without mods?

For beginners, it is recommended to play with an ECM Timer, as well as a Second Wind timer if playing Second Wind (either PocoHUD or VanillaHUD+). You can follow this modding tutorial, with download links for the mods, here: https://youtu.be/-ZXS1UpjTqI However, once you know what you’re doing, rushing modless is quite easy because most ECMs are placed at set points in the heist rather than based on time left (for various timesaves by doing ECMs during free time).

What if I don’t have a full crew of 4?

That is fine! Join our Discord server, get the ECM Rusher role, and head over to LFP! That is currently the best way to find crews for this coordinated Infamy Farming 🙂

Do I need to reset my Level back to 0 for every rotation, or can the Infamy Pool be used for this?

The Infamy Pool is recommended for beginners (so you don’t need to worry about your skills while learning the heists) and for those who are not yet Infamy 25. However, the grind is much faster with the level reset approach, and it’s also more fun when you need to worry about your skill points and learn your optimal skills, so this method is recommended for all rushers after they get used to the basics.

Can I follow this Guide if my Infamy Level is currently low?

The XP Bonus from Infamy caps out at Infamy 25, so for any Infamy higher than this you can follow the guide without issues. For any Infamies lower than 25, you can still follow the same guide, but you will get less XP, and therefore will have fewer skill points at the intended skill breaks (you will also need more than one rotation to reach Level 100).
The previous question mentions the obvious alternative for low infamy (using the Infamy Pool), but with experience you can start following this guide as early as Infamy 0, and the skills are never an issue as long as you start at Level ~40 rather than 0 (which can be done with 1 quick heist before the rotation).

Do I need any DLC to follow these strategies?

At the end of the day it doesn’t matter: in any case, your team will always be able to adapt to whichever DLC you have, so if you don’t have any, you’re fine!

However, the real answer is that it depends. If you want to host, you will definitely need the DLC for a few heists (Big Bank, Black Cat, Hostile Takeover…). If you simply want to join, those are not needed, but you would still get a massive benefit from the Yakuza DLC (although Copycat-Yakuza is free, albeit not as fast). For SW you also need the Gage Shotgun Pack to apply HE ammo to your shotguns.

And with the Frequently Asked Questions out of the way, let’s move on to the list of heists, with a brief description of the roles on each one!

We call the first Diamond Store of the rotation “DS0”, because everyone is at Level 0 during the rush. This means nobody will have ANY skills, so each player only has 1 ECM which lasts for 20s and won’t block pagers. You won’t have Jack Of All Trades (JOAT) as well, so you will take 2 seconds to place an ECM.

In this rotation, we take 14 bags (minimum amount of bags to escape) on both Diamond Stores.

IMPORTANT: The display cases for the jewelry are alarmed, so if you break them the alarm will go off. Because of this, everyone should wait until Yellow inserts the keycard to start bagging. However, any other glass (e.g., windows of the store) is NOT alarmed.

ECMs are done in Lobby Order as usual, but Yellow (KC role) starts with a PCM to give Host a bit of time to clear the store and place his ECM.

Enter the store through the door and kill / dom any guards you see. Prioritize the middle and back areas, as other roles can cover other sections.

After dealing with the guards, go to the right corner where Blue is throwing 2 molotovs, and zerk to ~5% HP. Around this time, Yellow’s PCM will be ending so you’ll have to place your ECM.

After zerking, go answer a pager. If 3 pagers went off, make sure to type “3” in the chat, so that one saw player can help with it, as they will usually not check pagers otherwise.

While answering the pager, look around for any jewelry you can spot, so that you can quickly take it after answering (by that time, Yellow should’ve already inserted the KC).

After taking your first bag, proceed to securing. Since nobody has any skills (which means no SW, no extra movement speed, low stamina, short throw distance), securers will NOT take the bags straight to van. Instead, you will throw bags to the right of this tree.

Whoever is bagging cams side will be throwing 5 bags outside of the store for you. When you take the last of these bags, take it straight to van and then start securing the other bags next to the tree.

Go into the store through the right window. Shoot the window when you’re in front of it, and dom/shoot any guards on the right side of the store and upstairs.

Then, throw 2 molotovs in the corner to zerk to ~5% HP, and run to any pager to answer it. While answering the pager, look around for any jewelry you can spot, so that you can quickly take it after answering.

After taking your first bag, you will need to start placing your ECM, while exiting the store. However, depending on pager distance, you will sometimes need to place your ECM before grabbing your first bag, or you can also request another PCM from Yellow (by typing “pcm” on chat) to line up your timing better.

Since nobody has any skills (which means no SW, no extra movement speed, low stamina, short throw distance), securers will NOT take the bags straight to van. Instead, you will throw bags to the left of this tree.

Whoever is bagging stairs side will be throwing 5 bags outside of the store for you. When you take the last of these bags, take it straight to van and then start securing the other bags next to the tree.

Go to the left side of the store, where you will zerk with 2 molotovs to ~5% HP.

Kill/dominate any guards you see on the left side. If there aren’t any guards left, you can also destroy some windows while zerking.

The keycard player will sometimes type “c”, indicating the keycard panel is inside the cams room. In this situation, you saw open the security door, and go to the stairs side for bagging (read “Store Distribution” below). Do NOT kill the guard inside the cams room, since you would need to answer his pager, which is a time loss. Most of the time he won’t shoot at you, and even if he does, he can be played around or feedbacked.

If Host or Blue call “3pg” or “3” in chat, it means there’s an extra pager that either you or Yellow need to answer. Otherwise, if “3” is not called, don’t bother with pagers.

Once Yellow inserts the keycard, you can start bagging jewelry. You need to take 6 bags (you can count them in your head): throw the first 5 bags outside of the store for the securers, but take the 6th one with you to the van, and start securing the bags next to the tree.

You will have to get the manager’s keycard (she can be in one of 3 spots) and deactivate the alarm. The alarm keypad will be in 1 of 4 spots. You will also need to use a Copycat-Hacker profile, since you will be using PCMs.

Mask up as usual, and check the third keypad spawn through the window.

Run into the store through the right window, and use a PCM as soon as the first alert appears.

Check the first keypad spawn, and look for the manager to get the keycard. You can usually ignore guards, as the other players will take care of them, and so that you can focus on fast keycard. However, you can try spamming F in your way to keycard for some free dominations.

Upon reaching the 2nd floor you will have checked 3 out of 4 keypad spawns, so you will know where it is. Proceed with your role if you’ve seen it, or type “c” if the keypad is inside the security room. As Yellow, don’t kill any guards upstairs, because it’s not worth answering their pager. If they are dangerous, Green or Blue will kill them for you.

If Host or Blue call “3pg” or “3” in chat, it means there’s an extra pager that either Red or Yellow need to answer. Otherwise, if “3” is not called, don’t bother with pagers.

After inserting the keycard, you can start bagging jewelry. You need to take 6 bags (you can count them in your head): throw the first 5 bags outside of the store for the securers, but take the 6th one with you to the van, and start securing the bags next to the tree.

We split the store into two halves (see image below):

• The red display cases are cams side.
• The yellow display cases are stairs side.

The reason we split like this is because we don’t want to waste time searching the cases another has already searched.

By default, Red will do cams side (since he will be close to cams already) and Yellow stairs side (since most of the keycard panels spawns are on stairs side).

However, if Yellow calls “c”, Red will saw open the cams door and they will switch sides, so that Yellow doesn’t have to go back to stairs side. Therefore, in that case, Red will do stairs side and Yellow cams side.

In some cases where RNG is really bad, a bagger may not have 6 jewelry on his side. In this case, it’s perfectly OK to go to the other side for more bags.

Mask up and immediately start placing the first ECM. In front of you, there will be a staircase going down to the lab: go there and switch to the flamethrower when jumping down the stairs (as there will be no speed penalty).

In front of the door, there’s a guard who will drop the keycard necessary to enter the laboratory. Sometimes he can be behind the desk, or going up the stairs (depending on how much time you wasted in the preplanning screen):

Kill the guard, get his KC and open the laboratory. You will now need to destroy 8 microscopes inside the lab. Each microscope takes 3 hits to break, but the flamethrower has very high Rate of Fire, so they break almost immediately.

After destroying all the microscopes, exit the lab through the other door and head into the library (you can ECM2 before entering), and start searching the bookshelves in the corner to the right, in a counter-clockwise direction (so opposite of Yellow):

Continue searching bookshelves with Yellow until both sets of 3 documents have been found (when this happens, all remaining interaction icons will disappear). Read the final section “Library Bag Moving” to see how these bags are moved between Host and Yellow!

You are in charge of ECM3+4.

Mask up and immediately swap to your Akimbo HE Judges to start applying SW. If this is the first Hostile Takeover (so Frenzyless build), spam your entire magazine with your first shot of SW to zerk yourself to 50%.

Enter the main office building through the front doors, and go up through the first flight of stairs and then straight ahead into the office space!

There are 7 computers in your room (some will be off randomly on each run). You have to check all of them and interact with any screens that are on. The last 4 are in sets of 2, so for each pair you can always see the outline of the next one if that PC is on (in this case it’s faster to jump over the desks after finishing the hack interaction, instead of around them).

While hacking the PCs, check the office nameplates for Gabriel Santiago (the voicemail objective will be in the room with said nameplate):

Each PC hack takes 5s, and if you find the correct one, a “Hand” floating icon appears (this can be in Blue’s or Red’s rooms): interact with it again to get the blackmail, and stop hacking any more PCs!

After hacking all PCs and checking both nameplates, head back downstairs (at this point you can place your 1st ECM early) and then right into the event room, where the NEO-2 is located. The NEO lady has 2 spawns. If she’s in front of the display case, just tying her will automatically open it:

However, if she’s behind it: you need to make her stand up, then you sit here during her “standing up” animation (hugging the display case as close as you can, and a bit towards the right side), which will make her move in a path that opens the display case.

As soon as the display case is opened, the civillian is no longer needed – you can safely SW on top of her, and focus on transporting the NEO-2 over to the van:

At the start of the heist, kill the guard in front of you (always at the spawn area) and swap to your HE Judges. After Blue stops spamming HE, you can shoot twice for a quick zerk, then swap back to pistol. Go straight into the main office building, up the stairs (kill the 1 guard who is always between the 1st and 2nd flight of stairs) and continue up to the 2nd floor.

When you reach your floor, enter the room straight in front of you: there are up to 10 computers, and you have to interact with every PC that is on. While doing that, check the nameplates of the 2 offices in that room (on opposite corners): if the nameplate says Gabriel Santiago, the voicemail will be inside. When the voicemail is found, type “v” in the chat so Blue and Red can stop searching!

Each PC hack takes 5s, and if you find the correct one, a “Hand” floating icon will appear on it (this can be in Blue’s or Red’s rooms): interact with it again to get the blackmail, and stop hacking any more PCs! Type “g” in the chat so Blue also knows this is done.

After checking this first room, go to the other room on that same floor. There are 7 more PCs (hack them only if PC hasn’t been found yet), 1 more nameplate (which has the voicemail if “v” hasn’t been called yet), and the CEO Office (Alice Rainey) which has a drawer with the 3rd and final piece of blackmail:

You can go straight to the recorder, or after hacking all PCs, which gives you something to do while waiting for the 5s hacks. After all this, jump out of the building. For this, you have two options:

• Jump on library side, if you are early and can help the team move library bags.
  
• Jump on van side, if the team is almost done and most bags are close to the escape.
  

At the start of the heist, kill the guard in front of you (always at the spawn area) and swap to your HE Judges. Walk forward towards the far entrance (image below) and after Blue stops spamming HE, you can shoot twice for a quick zerk, then swap back to pistol. Kill the lead scientist down at the lab, and get his RFID tag to open the library:

Inside of the library, there will be several interactable bookshelves:

Start searching through every single bookcase, going in a clockwise direction from the closest bookcase from the entrance. Continue searching bookshelves with Green until both sets of 3 documents have been found (when this happens, all remaining interaction icons will disappear).

When both sets of documents are found, each player immediately grabs 1 bag. Yellow walks all the way to the staircase and throws his bag up the stairs (don’t re-enter the library). In the meantime, the host has thrown 2 more bags out from the library, which Yellow will move (throw one more up, then get the final one). The host, after throwing 2 bags, gets one more and walks straight out: at this point, Host and Yellow have to decide if they use the golf cart to move bags, or throw them towards the van / team to move them without cart. This choice is very simple:

• If PC has been found, Red will soon be dropping down to help move bags → manually start throwing bags towards the van, skipping the golf cart.
• If PC hasn’t been found yet, the team will be behind and unable to help → throw bags into the golf cart, which the host will drive.

Blue starts with ECM 1, then Host does ECM 2+3, and Blue places his second ECM shortly before the 15s PC hack finishes. Afterwards, Red will do one free ECM while walking out of the vault with their first money, and Yellow will do a free ECM while walking out of the vault with the final money before 12/12. This covers the entire securing process, for the fastest inks.

Head towards the PC in the room next to where you spawn. Throw a single molotov in front of it, then start interacting with the PC immediately (to zerk and apply SSW during the PC interaction).

While interacting, Yellow will shoot his loud weapon and alert everyone around. This is done so that you can call which spa room (Left or Right) has the safe with the vault code. Here’s the explanation of how it works (or you can also check this video):

As a rule of thumb, you can follow this guideline:

• If you see the lady is alerted above you, you type “L”.
• If not, you type “R”.

As soon as you finish the hacking interaction, jump out of the molotov and type in chat the cabin number you see on the PC. After this, head straight to the casino while killing any guards you see along the way.

Once you reach the casino, go up the stairs on the right side and stand on the casino trigger (see image below). This will automatically complete the “Find Xun Kang” objective as soon as the spa safe is opened. You can place your first ECM when you reach the top of the stairs.

While standing on the trigger there are 2 things you need to do:

• Check for the tea in the meeting room (see image below). If it’s not there, and Red hasn’t called it, you need to call “far tea”.
• Kill any guards you see on the casino.

After a few seconds the shutters will open, so kill Xun Kang and grab his hand. Then jump down to the casino and head for the control room (Yellow will have opened it for you) to hack the PC there.

After the PC interaction, you can finish clearing the casino if there are guards still alive, and you should go back for the tea if you saw it in the meeting room. If all of that is OK, just wait in front of the lasers until the hack is finished and Yellow disables the lasers.

Start the heist with ECM 1, while heading towards the spa (make sure you take the short path, through the bow of the ship). As soon as you reach the spa, wait in the spa trigger (see image below) until intel is reached and the spa objective updates.

While you’re waiting there you should be killing guards, especially the 40 HP ones, and pay attention to which side was called by Host:

• If the side is L, your priority is killing the 40 HP guards around Li Deng, as the Painting role will go straight into the room, without helping at all.
• if the side is R, the Painting role will kill those 40 HP guards while running through the spa (for the shortest path to his painting), so your priority is killing guards at the center of the spa, to protect him.

As soon as the question mark appears on the center of the spa, you can run towards Li Deng, kill him, take his keys, and go to the room where Red is lowering the painting. Once the painting has been lowered, open the safe with the keys, grab the money inside, type the code in chat, and throw the money through the window.

After this, exit the spa towards the casino and go to the LEFT corridor to start checking cabins for the coke. While exiting the spa, swap to your HE judges and start SWing until Host picks up Xun Kang’s hand.

If you see that 4 contiguous cabins are open, you can skip those, as Yellow will have already checked them. You should also skip cabin number 10, which is always empty. When you find the coke, type “c” in chat and start securing both cokes and weapons.

Sometimes, Host will call “far tea” before you start checking the cabins. If this happens, you will need to go to the crew deck to grab the tea (near where you spawned):

After the cokes and weapons are secured, go straight to the casino, and if you have spare time you can help clear it, if any guard is still alive. At some point before the hack finishes, you should place your second ECM.

When Yellow starts cutting the wires, throw a molotov and zerk to around 40% HP (10% HP if you are playing the second Fast Cat of the rotation), which will also give SW to the other players, especially so that Host can reach the keypad quicker.

Head to the spa (make sure you take the short path, through the bow of the ship). Host will call which spa room has the safe:

• If it’s L, you go there directly.
• If it’s R, you break the glass to take the shortest path, killing the two 40 HP guards next to Li Deng along the way (both shown in the image above), otherwise you’ll be killed. The 480 HP guards are irrelevant, due to their low damage, so don’t shoot him nor Li Deng.

Lower the painting in the safe room (sometimes you will need to wait a bit until the spa trigger is activated), then check for the tea in the left spa room. If it’s there, secure it and type “t” in the chat.

Before exiting the spa drop a molotov and zerk to ~5% HP. Exit the spa towards the casino and go to the RIGHT corridor to check cabins for the coke. If you see that 4 contiguous cabins are open, you can skip those, as Yellow will have already checked them. When you find the coke, type “c” in chat and start securing both cokes and weapons.

After the cokes and weapons are secured, go straight to the casino and get ready for the vault section (if you get there early, you can help clear casino if any guard is still alive).

First thing you do is head towards the intel (briefcase). When running under the second door, you must shoot your unsuppressed pistol, which will alert the Spa Civilian upstairs if she’s there (useful information for Host and spa players).

When you reach the briefcase, open it and take the keycard inside. After this, Host will have typed in chat a room number (1 to 16): you must go to that room, and grab the Phone Card immediately.

Check 3 more cabins next to where you are, and if you find the cokes and weapons, type “c” in chat and throw a bag in that room (skip cabin #10 because coke never spawns there). Then go to the casino to open the control room with the keycard you got from the briefcase.

Around this time, the host will be getting ready to grab Xun Kang’s hand, so you have to safely stand inside the casino as explained in this video, for the casino trigger (clear any guards you can see around you for safety). As soon as the hand is picked up, an objective marker “!” will appear on the lasers: if coke hasn’t been found, go to the side where you didn’t open any doors and check 2 more cabins. Then return to the wires and be ready to cut them after the 15s hack finishes.

At any point before the vault section, you should zerk to ~5% HP. This can be done after opening the control room, after finding coke, or while waiting next to the wires during the 15s PC hack.

For the vault section, there will be 2 baggers and 2 securers. To be more precise, 1 bagger and 1 securer will do Normal side, and the other bagger and securer will do Odd side.

You may be wondering what does Normal and Odd sides mean? Pretty simple. When exiting the vault, we call the right side “Normal”, and the left side “Odd”. There are 2 reasons for this distribution:

• We avoid ghost bagging, as having both securers on the same side could lead to both of them going for the same bag, which would result in a ghost-bag for one of them.
• One of the securers (Blue) will be doing SW for the entire vault section. By using this distribution, we can avoid the SW player from doing SW on top of the other securer.

Or if you want another perspective…

Another thing baggers need to know about is “Down-Right” (DR) and “Left-Up” (LU) bagging: Down-Right bagger bags the money on the bottom half of the vault, while Left-Up bags the top half. This is done to guarantee that there will be no ghost-bagging between the two baggers. You will understand the “Right” and “Left” parts when I explain baggerswap.

• Green: Down-Right Normal (DR normal) Bagger.
• Blue: Normal Securer + SW.
• Red: Odd Securer.
• Yellow: Left-Up Odd (LU odd) Bagger.

Before the vault opens (realistically, before the lasers are turned off), both baggers should call what side they’re bagging (DR or LU) and to what side they’re throwing (Normal or Odd). So, for example, if we follow the usual roles, Yellow would say “LUO” (Left-Up Odd) and Host “DRN” (Down-Right Normal).

After Yellow cuts the wires and the lasers disappears, Host will rush to the keypad, type the code that Blue has written in chat and use the hand to open the vault. Because the vault opening animation is pretty slow, everyone will take their first bag through the wall, following these guidelines:

• The 2 Saw players will be on the right side of the vault. Red will be crouching to grab the money on the bottom, while Yellow will be standing up to grab the money on the top.
• The 2 SW players will be on the left side of the vault. Blue will be crouching to grab the money on the bottom, while Green will be standing up to grab the money on the top.

Grab your first money through the wall and walk up to the vault entrance to throw the bag to your respective side (Normal or Odd side).

Go back to the vault and repeat this with 4 more bags. However, you will secure the last one yourself, taking it straight to the sea (through the short path, not the long one), leaving 4 moneys inside the vault.

Speaking of the last 4 bags, as baggers you should try to leave these 4 moneys on the vault as shown on the screenshot. However, this is just a commodity more than anything, so don’t worry if you accidentally took some of these bags.

If you’re Yellow, then you should be placing an ECM while exiting the vault with your 5th bag (while walking the short path to throw that to the sea).

After grabbing your first money through the wall, exit the vault and head to the sea to secure it, following the long path. The baggers will be throwing you 4 more bags which you will need to secure (so 5 in total, counting the first one you took).

If you’re Red, you should be placing an ECM while exiting the vault after taking your first bag through the wall.

This strategy is done to secure 12 / 12 money bags as soon as possible. When we secure our 12th bag, the game gives us the option to place ink to render the remaining money useless. The reason why we place ink instead of just grabbing the money and securing it is because it triggers the “lower the lifeboat” objective quicker. However, before the ink explodes, each player will take 1 more money bag from the vault. That way, we secure all money bags for the full XP, while also achieving faster completion times.

After everyone secures their last 5th bag, you will return to the vault, where there should still be 4 more moneys. The securer who arrives there first will start placing ink (usually we leave this for Red, but if he’s late and the ink interaction already appeared, Blue or Host can do it too).

For the 4 final bags, each player should follow these guidelines to avoid any ghost-bagging:

• Blue will take the Top Right money.
• Red will first place ink (if it hasn’t been placed already), and after that take the Bottom Left bag.
• Whoever was bagging Down-Right (usually Host) grabs the bag on the Bottom Right.
• Whoever was bagging Left-Up (usually Yellow) grabs the bag on the Top Left.

After taking these 4 final bags, Yellow will drop his, and run towards the wheel to lower the lifeboat. The rest of the team will secure the bags, and either Host or Blue will go back for the bag Yellow dropped. At this point, either Red or Yellow can place their final available ECM, while waiting for the escape area to appear.

The main reason Election Day is so good in many rotations is because of the huge 20% XP stealth boost you get for the next heist (Big Bank in this case).

The basic idea of the first day is:

• 1 person goes to tag the correct truck, while remembering the colors of any open containers he sees.
• The other players check the colors of the open containers, typing their initials in chat (Red, Green, Blue, Yellow).
• 1 of these players uses the PC if needed.

Always make sure to kill any guards you see while doing your role, in order to prevent other players from getting downed when running through the map.

For this short heist, Blue takes care of ECM 1+2. Note that ECM1 always has to be done very quickly, immediately as the heist starts!

I’ll provide images showing the containers each role needs to check, as well as the pathing they’d need to follow. The white arrows indicate the pathing, and the purple rectangles and circles the containers (the purple arrows indicate in which direction the containers would be open).

As soon as you spawn, throw two molotovs and zerk to ~5% HP for the yakuza boost, while also doing SSW for your team. After zerking, rush to the trucks using the following path.

There’s always a total of 6 trucks, and you need to tag the correct one. But how do you know which one is the correct one? By ruling out trucks based on their color and their company. Let me explain.

You can rule out colors by looking for open containers. Each role is assigned a specified set of containers they need to check for around the map, and if they find any, they will type the initial of its color in chat. Host should also be looking for open containers on his way to trucks, with the only difference that Host doesn’t need to type them in chat, since he’s the only one who needs that information.

Once all containers have been checked, you will usually end up having 3 colors, which means you need to tag the truck whose color was not found.

The correct truck will always have a unique company. This means that if 2 trucks have the same company, then you can rule them out. However, most of the time this information will not be enough, as there will always be 2 trucks with unique companies, and that’s why we also need the color information.

Depending on RNG, you will encounter one of these situations when having to tag the right truck:

1. The simplest scenario is when there’s only 1 truck of the correct color. In this case the company doesn’t matter.
2. In some cases you will have 2 trucks of the correct color. If this happens, you need to check their companies and look at the other trucks’ companies to determine which one is unique.
3. Sometimes, when the above happens, you may also realize that both trucks have unique companies, at which point you need to call their initials in chat (this gives more information to whoever has found the PC, so he can tell you which is the correct one earlier).

You will be in charge of ECM 1+2 (although usually only 1 is needed), so place your first ECM immediately while heading towards the gate.

You have a total of 6 containers to check, using the following path.

As for SW, you don’t need to start SWing as soon as the heist starts, since Host will be doing SSW for everyone at the start. Instead, you want to swap your weapon while jumping on the containers, then start SW and keep it up until the end.

Start by killing the guards at spawn and opening the gate if it’s not open.

You need to check 5 containers, and then head to the Far Left warehouse to search for the PC in case it’s in there.

Pathing and containers to check:

Possible PCs spawn locations in your warehouse (the upstairs ones are behind a metal door which often spawns closed, so you will need a saw to open those):

If you find the PC and Host didn’t tag yet, start hacking immediately until you figure out which company is the correct one (check the AK Rule below) or until Tagger tags a truck, at which point you can head to the escape.

You need to check 8 containers (some of which are at the very spawn), and then head to the Mid warehouse to search for the PC in case it’s in there.

Pathing and containers to check:

Possible PCs spawn locations in your warehouse:

If you find the PC and Host didn’t tag yet, start hacking immediately until you figure out which company is the correct one (check the AK Rule below) or until Tagger tags a truck, at which point you can head to the escape.

When using the PC, there are 2 things that you need to keep in mind:

• The order at which the companies appear is always the same: Avalon → Kranich → Omni Exports → Hefty.
• However, the correct company will NOT appear.

And this implies two things:

• When you complete a hack and the company that appears is not the expected one (according to the order I specified above), then you can immediately stop hacking and call the company that didn’t appear.
• You will NEVER need to do 4 PC hacks. If Avalon and Kranich appeared on your first two hacks, by process of elimination you can determine if the right company is either Omni or Hefty immediately after your third hack.

But it doesn’t end there. When Tagger has 2 company options, he will type them in chat. So for example, if both Avalon and Omni are an option, Tagger will type “AO” or “OA” in the chat. At this point, the player that has PC would only need to do 1 PC hack: If Avalon doesn’t show up on the first hack, then we know that Avalon is the correct truck, but if it does appear, then the only remaining option is Omni.

So, as a rule of thumb, when Tagger types two companies in the chat, you should think which one should appear first on the PC, so that you can easily determine the right company with just the minimum amount of hacks possible.

The worst case would be when Host calls “OH” or “HO”, since you will need a total of 3 PC hacks to determine whether Omni or Hefty is the correct company.

Every now and then the 4 colors will be found, in which case Host will type “4” in chat to let everyone know. When this happens, this means that one of the containers spawned containing voting posters, which means that container’s color is the correct one.

For this reason, after you checked your respective containers and if you don’t have PC, your next priority should be to check all the containers you can in case one of them has the voting posters, until Host finally tags a truck, at which point you can go straight to the escape.

As an example, if you find the voting posters, you can type “r vote”, to let the Tagger know that red is the correct color. However, since this has a 5% chance of happening, we always assume no voting posters spawned for faster completions.

Your goal is to hack 6 voting machines, which will be inside random crates: each time someone finds a machine, they will count it in chat while interacting with it. Each hack takes 30s to complete.

You will need a crowbar to open these crates. There are always 6 available crowbars, so everyone will be able to find one. Two players will be entering the building from the left side, and two from the right side, to make sharing crowbar spawns easier. Here’s a video that shows paths for checking crowbar spawns (timestamp = 13m00s):
https://youtu.be/ZnsTzScQeaE?t=778
After starting the last 6th hack, the team will search for AT LEAST 2 money bags inside the cages, and when the last hack finishes they will take the 7 golds inside the truck.

Important notes for all players:

• The “no cages” rule: You may notice there are crates inside some of the cages (the same ones we’ll search later for money). However, do NOT open the cages until the 6th machine has been found. There will always be 6 machines outside of the cages.
• The backup rule: When you finish your role, you should go help others if they have not finished theirs. You can usually help with Mid or Outside crates, but if you notice that a teammate doesn’t have a crowbar by the time you finish your role, you can definitely go cover him.
• We will be performing a trick known as the “loud escape”. With this strategy you get more than double the usual stealth experience AND you get to keep the huge 20% stealth bonus. However, to perform this strategy, every single guard and civilian needs to be dead by the time the last hack is finishing. So, when you are leaving the building, if you see that anyone’s alive and you are the closest, you should go and kill him. For this purpose, Green and Blue will bring 5/7 Pistols to this day, as it can greatly help dealing with enemies through walls. Here is a video to explain this strategy better.

For this heist, we’re dividing the building into 5 areas: Left, Mid, Right, Upstairs, and Outside. Each of these areas has a fixed amount of possible crate spawns, as well as a limit in how many crates can actually spawn in them. Here’s a video that explains the crates spawns for each of these areas, so make sure to learn at least your area (timestamp = 10m45s):
https://youtu.be/ZnsTzScQeaE?t=645

Important note for all players: As a formality, we say that the LUO role (Blue) will be the one doing Outside. In reality, any role that has finished his area can cover Outside. Whenever you are OPENING your last crate in your area, you can decide either to cover another player (remember the backup rule), or you can call “o”, meaning that you will be doing Outside. If you happen to have a machine in your last crate, that’s ok, because if you type a number immediately after calling “o”, everyone can assume you’ll be going outside after a 6s delay, so other people can also call “o” if needed.

Similar to DAY1, first thing you do is throw 1-2 molos to SSW, and zerk a tiny bit. Follow Red and enter through the Right side of the building, but you’ll be doing the Mid room, which has a total of 8 crates to check, all of which may or may not spawn.

Blue will be doing ECM 1+2. As for your ECMs, if the 6th machine hasn’t been found yet and Blue’s second ECM is running out, you can place an ECM anywhere without worries. However, after the 6th machine has been found, you want to place an ECM on any window/glass you can see, that can also be easily shot from outside.

Once the last hack has around 2 seconds left, shoot the window/glass where you placed your ECM, then secure your money, and get ready to take your gold and perform the loud escape trick (more on this at the end).

Similar to DAY1, you’ll be in charge of ECM 1+2, so as soon as the day starts, immediately place an ECM while heading towards the Left side.

You’ll be doing the Upstairs and Outside crates (although remember that in reality, any role can do Outside if they finished their role, so if that happens, just help another area).

There’s a total of 6 possible crate spawns upstairs, but only 2 crates will actually spawn, so as soon as you open your second crate upstairs, you can stop checking the other spawns and go Outside if nobody’s doing it, or help another player.

There’s a total of 4 possible crate spawns outside, but only 1-2 crates will actually spawn.

If you get a crowbar quickly, you should be able to place your second ECM around the time that you open your second crate.

You’ll be doing the crates on the Right side of the building. Make sure to equip a secondary saw, as you will need it to cut open the fence to the right of the gate when you spawn.

You need to check 2 rooms. The first room has a total of 4 possible crate spawns, but only 1-2 crates will actually spawn, and the same goes for the second room.

You will be checking the crates on the Left side of the building. Make sure to equip a secondary saw, as you will need it to cut open the fence to the left of the gate when you spawn.

You need to check 2 rooms. The first room has a total of 4 possible crate spawns, but only 1-2 crates will actually spawn. The second room also has 4 possible crate spawns, but will always have only 1 crate.

All cages and loot are ignored until the 6th machine is found (i.e., someone types “6” in the chat). At that point, the two saw players will go to one side each, and open the cages on their side to find money. Open all 4 first, and then check inside starting from the last one you opened. At the same time, each SW player will follow one Saw player, and start checking for money inside the cages, starting from the 1st cage.

If you find 2 moneys inside a cage, and the partner on your side doesn’t have money, you should throw one out for them, and grab the second one for yourself. While you do this, you can also type “2” in the chat, to make sure your partner notices. This is much faster than forcing them to continue checking cages until they reach your current one, and it also lets them know immediately if there aren’t any more.

For this rotation, you only need 2 moneys on each ED, although most of the time you can get 3 without any time loss, sometimes even 4 if the spawns are nice. Never risk the run for bonus money beyond 2 though!

As soon as the 6th hack finishes, the gold will spawn inside the truck after a brief ~0.5s delay, so we’ll grab the first 3 golds through the wall before the truck even opens. These will be taken by Blue, Red, and Yellow, and the line-ups are as follows (check POVs at the top of the guide for detailed line-ups):

The truck will finish opening very quickly after securing these 3 golds, and all 4 players will go inside to grab one more gold each. Each color is assigned one of the 4 golds, to avoid ghost-bagging:

After all gold has been secured, all clients (Blue, Red and Yellow) will stand inside the escape area. Host will be hugging the truck wall (which is slightly out of the escape area, see image below), and as soon as one pager triggers the alarm, he will walk into the escape area, therefore performing the loud escape trick described in the video above.

Don’t kill any civilians, nor the camera guard. You should only tie the manager and keep him alive in order to delay the assault later on. That way, Host can break the final ECM sooner and let the alarm go off as soon as possible without worries, which is important for the fastest bus possible.

• Green PCM, Green ECM, Green PCM, Green ECM.
• Blue ECM x2
• Yellow ECM x2
• Green PCM, Red ECM, Green PCM, Red ECM.

For this Big Bank rush, the first bag must always be taken in stealth, because this will give a huge XP bonus when we go loud. This is what we call the “Vault XP” bonus. But to achieve this, Host is required to bring PCMs (otherwise you wouldn’t make it in time for taking the first bag in stealth).

Red and Yellow will look for the server room and hack the PC inside, while the other players position themselves in the offices, where the PCs are. When Red/Yellow interacts with the server PC, one PC in the offices area will make a beeping sound and will display the following red flashing prompt in its screen for a brief moment.

Whoever sees this red message needs to start hacking that PC immediately, and type “got” or “g” in chat to let everyone know the PC has been found so that they can move on.

If nobody was fast enough to see the red message (i.e. nobody called “got”), everyone should try hacking a PC using the beeping sound as a guide. Red/Yellow will keep interacting with the server PC until someone calls “got”, so when they finish their second interaction you will be able to see if the red message appears on the PC you were hacking. If it appears, finish hacking it and call “got”. If it doesn’t, just cancel interaction and probably someone else will call “got”.

There’s also a rare 5% chance that the correct PC will be the server one, which will result in no beeping sound and in an instant hack, so if this happens you can just move on.

Get ready to PCM as soon as you hear a camera beep, since Blue will apply instant SW with his secondary Judge. Enter the bank and go up the right-side stairs. Keep attention to your PCM’s remaining time and place your first ECM.

Then stand around this middle point, where you’ll have good sight of 4 PCs, plus you can quickly move to the side when the beeping sound starts, to get to the other upstairs PCs and reliably see the flashing prompt in just 1 server interaction.

As soon as you mask up, shoot yourself 2 times with the secondary HE Judge to apply SW, so that the saw players can reach the server room quicker. Head to this corner of the downstairs offices and stand in this position:

Once the PC has been hacked, it’s your job to wait in front of the time lock and interact with it as fast as possible (time lock interaction becomes available 20 seconds after hacking the PC), and start applying Stockholm Syndrome (SS) with your primary flamethrower (you should actually do one first quick flamethrower shot once you reach the offices corner, to ensure that none of the civs are running away).

Head straight to the right server room location.

If it’s there, saw it open and start hacking the PC until someone says “got” or “g” in chat. If it’s not there, go to the downstairs PCs area and position yourself here.

You need to check these two server room locations:

If you have either of the server rooms, saw it open and start hacking the PC until someone says “got” or “g” in chat. If it’s not there, go to the downstairs PCs area and position yourself here.

Once the timelock is started, it will take exactly 2m30s before the door opens. In this time, everyone should be focusing on finding two keycards (which are needed to disable the timelock door lasers):

• Random keycard (called “R”).
• Manager’s keycard (called “M”).

“R” will spawn somewhere in a random location. When you find it, type “R”. Check this video for all random keycard spawns (timestamp = 5m10s):
https://youtu.be/Rx28CUgI-Xs?t=312

For “M”, first look for the manager (see image below) and tie him up. If he drops a keycard, take it and type “M” in chat.

If he doesn’t drop the keycard, type “SM” or “MS” to let the others know that the M keycard is inside the manager’s safe (in his office behind the painting).

Red or Yellow are the most suitable players for lock-picking the safe, as Host doesn’t have Nimble aced, and Blue has to keep up the Stockholm Syndrome.

After finding the keycards, you will probably still have a lot of time, so you can look for the 10 gage packages scattered around the map. Here’s a video showing all packages spawn:
https://youtu.be/dTp2bT7QZVM

Yellow will die in front of the time lock when there’s around 20 to 30 seconds remaining. Start reviving him when there are ~6.5 seconds left on the timelock. At aroud the same time, you will have to PCM, just before Red’s first ECM (so when Yellow’s 2nd ECM runs out).

Keep using your flamethrower to keep up SS (Stockholm Syndrome), and stop shooting when the timelock has around 40-45s remaining. This way, the civs will start getting up and calling the cops just in time for the fastest alarm.

At any moment before the timelock ends, you should zerk like usual: take the initial splash damage of the molotov and 4 hits of the fire.

Additionally, remember that Host will be using a PCM before each of your ECMs. However, note that your first ECM should already be placed by the time the door opens, since you can’t place your ECM while also running towards the right button. So basically, if there’s spare time in Host’s PCM or even Yellow’s ECM, just place your ECM 2 seconds before timelock finishes.

After you place your last ECM, and between 20 to 30 seconds remaining on the timelock, throw a molotov in front of the timelock door and kill yourself. Host will be picking you up just before the door opens so that you can make use of the RFD (Running From Death) skill for the next part.

Something everyone should know for these next two sections is that the vault will spawn in 1 of 4 possible different locations. We differentiate between these vault spawns by calling them V1, V2, V3 and V4:

So, once the timelock has finished and the door opens, everyone will do the following.

Head for the left button and click it as soon as the interaction appears.

After this, go to the vault to open it as soon as possible (Yellow will also be doing this with you), and remember to PCM before Red’s final ECM.

You’ll be staying at the manager’s PC. Once the timelock finishes, start applying SW and keep the uptime until you can interact with the manager’s PC (after Host and Red press both buttons).

After hacking the manager’s PC, head to the vault and check the 4 remaining gage packages spawns along your way. Before the vault opens, you can zerk to around 2% HP, since Host will be the only one doing SW from now on.

Head for the right button and click it as soon as the interaction appears.

After this, go to the left button room and be ready to place your last ECM on the bulletproof glass (remember that Host will be using a PCM before your ECM, just like your previous ECM):

With the RFD speed bonus, rush straight to the vault after Host revives you, and interact with the keypad. When the timelock door opens, an exclamation mark will appear wherever the vault spawned, which lets you know to which way you need to go.

After interacting with they fingerprint scanner, kill any nearby guards and wait for the vault interaction to appear, to open it as soon as possible (Host will also be doing this with you). At any point during this, or while the vault door opens, you can complete your zerk by throwing a molotov to the ground (without taking initial splash damage), and taking only two hit from the fire.

We call this rush BB7 (Big Bank 7) because, instead of getting all bags, we only get 7. This way, we get a much faster completion time while also getting most of the EXP, and nearly eliminating all effects from vault RNG.

Once the vault door starts opening, be ready to apply SW for the clients going in. Once they enter, go towards the last ECM (which Red placed on the bulletproof glass), and as soon as the Vault XP is awarded, shoot yourself with your HE Judges to break the ECM and apply SW at the same time (see clip). Remember that you’ll be in charge of keeping SW uptime until the end of the heist.

After breaking the ECM, go to the adjacent bus room and wait for the phone interaction to call the bus. Once the bus has been called, go to the vault and grab only 1 bag. Note that you can take either gold or money, since with Copycat Hacker there’s no penalty for moving heavier bags like gold. Take this bag straight to the van, and then secure the bags that the clients will be throwing under the bus.

When the vault opens, you will simply go to the closest gate, which is usually to the left if it’s V1, or to the right for the other vaults. Check the “Client bag moving” section to know how to move your bags.

The 2 saw players will be splitting the vault either into left and right sides, or upper and lower floors, depending on the vault layout. Because of this, before the vault opens, they need to say which side/floor they are doing, by typing “LU” or “DR” in chat.

• The DR (Down-Right) player will do Right side; or Lower floor if the vault is a 2-floor vault. This is usually done by Red.
• The LU (Left-Up) player will do the Left side; or Upper floor if the vault is a 2-floor vault. This is usually done by Yellow.

For beginners who are not quite familiarized with the layouts, you can think of it this way: if it’s a 1-floor layout, just stick to the Left or Right wall (depending on whether you are LU or DR respectively), and open the cages you stumble upon. If it’s a 2-floor vault, just go up or down depending on your role, and start by opening the closest cages.

Each client will take only 2 bags from the vault. When moving bags, basically pretend you’re playing solo and focus on moving only your 2 bags. It’s important to not go back for a 3rd bag at any point, because someone will already be going for that one, so you would end up either wasting your time or your teammate’s time.

The exact way you move and secure these bags will depend on the vault spawn, but the main idea is always the same:

1. Throw the first bag into this corner in the bus room.
   
2. Take the second bag through the bus and throw it under the bus.
   
3. Then go back to the bus room corner to get the first bag you dropped there. Move it through the bus and throw it into the van.
4. Finally, secure the remaining bags that were thrown under the bus.

Additionally, after the alarm went off and during the entire bag moving until the end of the heist, if you have Inspire you SHOULD be frequently shouting at your teammates to give them a 20% speed boost.

When Vault 4 spawns, we change a bit the way in which Host and Blue move bags, since it’s too far for Host and it wouldn’t make sense for him to walk all the way from the bus room to the vault just for 1 bag.

For this reason, whenever you get Vault 4, Blue will need to take 3 bags (instead of the usual 2), while Host will NOT go to the vault, but instead will take 2 bags thrown from the vault and move them as the “Client bag moving” section describes.

Finally, something that all clients can apply when Vault 4 spawns is the tarramas throw for the last bag you take out of the vault (2 in Yellow’s and Red’s case, or 3 in Blue’s case)

We do this jump to throw a bag up the stairs, so then we can take 1 bag from the bottom of the stairs. That way, we save a bit of time by not having to go back downstairs when we go back for the second bag.

If the vault is V1 we move bags like I just described. However, if the vault is not V1, we always do one intermediate throw between the vault and bus room corner. So, it would look like this for each vault:

If the vault is V1, we go through this door:

However, if it’s any other vault, we go through this door:

For the second Diamond Store of the rotation (aka DS2) we will still apply the overall idea of DS0, but with some really important changes. The main and obvious one is that now you can kill all guards without needing to worry about pagers, since the ECMs now block pagers.

Furthermore, everyone will be using a Yakuza profile, including Yellow (who previously used PCMs in DS0). Host will be doing ECM 1+2, which should be more than enough.

The roles are overall the same, so I’ll be explaining the changes.

Since Yellow won’t have PCMs this time, as soon as you mask up place your first ECM. After that, do the usual thing: dom / kill guards on the store. When the keycard is inserted, take your first bag (usually from the back of the store) and immediately start spamming the entire mag of your HE Judges while sprinting out, for the fast zerk:

In this DS2 you won’t need to throw the bags to the tree, since you already have skills. Instead, you will have enough stamina and speed (with SW) to take the bags straight to the van. At some point of the securing process, you will need to place your second ECM, so pay attention for that.

Blue role changes quite a bit. You won’t be entering the store instantly this time. Instead, you will throw one molotov here to apply SSW for everyone. You do NOT need to zerk to low HP, since you will be doing SW for the entire securing part.

If you see that a guard is upstairs near the window, you should kill him, or he will be a problem later when securing.

Swap to your HE judges and wait outside of the store, in the front row of display cases. As soon as the keycard is inserted, shoot yourself with the judges to apply SW and to destroy the nearby cases (on stairs side). If there is no jewelry on the front row, you can either go to the front row of cams side, or you can search inside, but try to be as close to the van as possible.

In this DS2 you won’t need to throw the bags to the tree. Now you already have skills, so you will have enough stamina and speed (with SW) to take the bags straight to the van. Remember to keep SW uptime for the entire securing part, until the heist finishes!

Unlike DS0, you don’t need to zerk (as you have Frenzy now), so you will open cams room immediately. Go into the store killing / dominating any guards on your way to the cams door. If you see that the keycard panel is there, type “c” in the chat to let Yellow know, and go to the stairs side to start bagging as soon as keycard is inserted. Other than that, it’s all the same.

Just like Yellow does, you can check two keypad spawns on your way in, and if you see the keypad then you don’t even need to open cams.

You really just do the same as DS0, but without using PCM at the start (since your perk deck is now Yakuza). You also have Lock n’ Load now, so you can shoot any guards you see on the stairs or upstairs, without losing any time.

Also note that Red will open cams door instantly, and will type “c” in chat if the keycard panel is in there. Regardless of that, you check two keypads early so you will often know if the keypad is inside cams even before Red types it. Remember that, whenever the keypad is inside the cams room, the two baggers swap sides.

Also unlike DS0, there is never a situation where you need to type “c” here.

SR12 refers to playing Shadow Raid, aiming for exactly minimum loot (12 bags).
The armor is always taken, so 8 more bags are needed. Counting to 8 would be very chaotic, and impossible to coordinate – in order to simplify the counting strategy, there are 5 specific bags which are guaranteed to spawn: so we always take them, and this means we don’t need to count them. The other 3 random bags (random cokes, loot inside of crates, close server for Yellow…) are counted in the chat.

The 5 guaranteed bags are:

• The coke located on top of a box upstairs (this one must always be picked up by Yellow).
  
• The weapons downstairs (on the shelf) always spawn at the same spot, and they are always taken by Red.
  
• The painting (which is inside of a square-shaped crate) always spawns, either upstairs (3 spots, checked by Green) or downstairs in the main warehouse room (checked by Blue).
  
• There are also 2 moneys, which are guaranteed to spawn somewhere around the warehouse (outside of crates). However, they won’t always be on the same place – to be precise, there are 8 spawn locations where these moneys can spawn: Blue (warehouse) has to check 2 spawns, Red (offices) has to check 2 spawns, and the four upstairs spawns are checked by Yellow (cages and cams), and shared between Yellow and Green (left side upstairs).

Blue starts with ECM 1, and then Host does ECM 2+3. If the rush is well performed, this should be enough, but if it’s needed anyone can place an ECM, especially while moving a medium or heavy bag (money-weight or heavier).

I’ll provide images showing the loot each role needs to check, as well as the pathing they’d need to follow. This is how to read these screenshots:

• If an item is colored PURPLE: you need to count it in chat.
• If an item is colored BLUE: you don’t count it.
• If an item is between parenthesis, it means it’s a POSSIBLE spawn (it may or may not spawn there).
• If an item is NOT between parenthesis, and it’s surrounded by a square, it means it’s a GUARANTEED spawn (it will always spawn there).
• Purple rectangles represent crates.
• White numbers are used for separating the entire pathing into steps, which will be further explained in a list format.
• The orange outlines mark windows through which you’ll be throwing loot.
• The orange numbers identify windows.

When the heist starts, all clients will need to help opening the gate (if closed), and killing any guard you see in the courtyard while heading towards the warehouse.

When the heist starts, throw 2 molotovs and zerk to around 20% HP for the Yakuza boost, and for SSW. Don’t zerk lower, because you’ll need to do a bit of HE SW later on. After zerking, follow the other players into the warehouse: you can take care of any guards that the other players may have missed.

Once you’ve entered the warehouse, go through the left door and head upstairs. Kill the orange civ near the stairs and pick up his keycard. Then, you’ll be following this path:

Let’s break down what you’re doing here (in order):

1. Go grab your crowbar. Sometimes there’ll be a coke next to it, in which case you count it in chat and throw it out down the window #1. Note that 5% of the time the keycard civilian won’t be on the stairs, but rather near this crowbar.
2. Check your first 2 painting spawns (one in front of, and another inside the cage). If the painting is inside the cage, Yellow will have sawed it for you.
3. Optional: open the crate (this is often skipped unless the team hasn’t even counted 1 at this point).
4. Check the last painting spawn, and the 2 far money spawns (sometimes Yellow will check these earlier than you). Drop down and insert your keycard on the vault.

Once the vault opens, start doing SW. You’ll be “taking turns” with Yellow to bag the armor, because two players can’t bag the armor at the same time, or their interactions get cancelled.

Video demonstration:
https://youtu.be/bb7gvRK81R8

First thing you do when the heist starts is place your first ECM.

As soon as you reach the warehouse entrance, swap to your primary HE judges and start SWing, since Host’s SW will be running out. You will be in charge of keeping SW uptime until the vault opens, at which point Host can take over.

Here is what role 1 does (the yellow rectangle indicates where you need to throw your bags):

1. Check the first money and weapons while running towards to the crowbar. If the money is there, take it immediately, drop it in the yellow area, and then keep doing the rest of the path. If the weapons spawned, count them but take them after checking all the other spawns and after 3 has been counted in chat.
2. Grab your crowbar.
3. Check the far money and painting spawns. If you have any, take them and throw them in the yellow area.
4. If 3 hasn’t been counted by the time you checked and dropped your loot, start opening crates.

After checking all your loot and after 3 bags were counted, proceed to securing.

Video demonstration:
https://youtu.be/eAi2re-qbkU

Here’s what you will be doing:

1. When you enter the warehouse, go through the left door and straight to your guaranteed weapons. While approaching, opening, and taking the weapons, you can check the first 3 coke spawns.
2. Once you checked these and bagged the weapons, go through the lockers room to check the 2 remaining coke spawns.
3. Drop your weapons bag through the window and check for the 2 possible money spawns while going back for any coke you may have spotted.

After you got all bags, go help Blue with securing.

Video demonstration:
https://youtu.be/OaLFuceg6XI

Once you reach the warehouse entrance, go through the left door and head upstairs. You can kill any guards you see, but do NOT kill the civilian on/near the stairs (Host will take care of him). You will be following this path upstairs:

Let’s break down what you’re doing here (in order):

1. Check the closest cage to stairs (white circle). If there’s money or painting inside, saw it open and grab the money if it’s there.
2. Open cams room, swap to your secondary, and kill the cams guard. Check for the money and server spawns in cams room, throw any loot you have down the window. Then, take the keycard dropped by the cams guard.
3. Take your guaranteed coke.
4. Head to the corridor and check the two money spawns (sometimes, Host will be a bit quicker than you and will already have checked them). If there is money, throw the coke you were carrying, and take the money. When done with these loot checks, drop down the window #2 and insert your keycard in the vault.

After inserting the keycard, if you are carrying loot you can approach the securers and drop it near them while you wait for the vault to open. Besides, you will be “taking turns” with Host to bag the armor, because two players can’t bag the armor at the same time, or their interactions get cancelled.

Video demonstration:
https://youtu.be/iSqsGRBvCMg

The mandatory weapons for some heists (based on your color) are already listed in the «Perk Decks, Skills, and Loadouts» section. Anything not mentioned there can safely be any weapon you like, depending on personal preference.

However, if you want to optimize the weapons on each heist for maximum performance (based on draw speed, damage, ammo…), here is a list for your Primary and Secondary, for each heist, depending on your color.

Optimal weapons for host on each heist:

Optimal weapons for Blue on each heist:

Optimal weapons for Red on each heist:

*(preferably the Káng Arms for the AP Underbarrel)

Optimal weapons for Yellow on each heist:

*(preferably the Káng Arms for the AP Underbarrel)

The section «How to host + Preplanning», at the top of the guide, already provided a link to a Preplanning Saver mod that takes care of all the preplanning. However, for those who want to read the details of which assets are being bought on each heist, here’s a full list!

No assets are needed at all! Easy enough.

The only mandatory preplan is the “Open Alice Rainey’s Office Door“. Without it, Red would need to do a 10 seconds lockpick to get the recording.

We still have plenty spare favors, so we can spend those on these spycams!

1. The “Crew Deck Entrance” vote for instant masking, and the most convenient spawn point (close to the crew deck PC which the Host will hack, close to intel for Yellow, and close to the spa for Red and Blue).
2. The “Crew Deck Unlocked Doors“, so that we don’t have to worry about closed doors.
3. The “Briefcase Keycard“, which Yellow will need for opening the Control Room.
4. The “Hall Medic Bag“, in case someone needs to heal. This is especially useful for Blue if he gets to a low HP: even though he needs to zerk a bit, he also needs to save some HP for SW during the vault section. It could also be useful if Red or Yellow got hit and they want to reset HP to get a precise zerk.

For both days, you should buy the “Spotter” asset (you can “Buy all assets” for quicker buy). It’s not really mandatory, but it’s always nice for easily spotting guards.

1. The “Bus Loud Escape” vote. We need a lout escape because this gives more XP after you grab the first bag in stealth. Out of all loud escape options, the bus escape is the fastest and safest one.
2. The “Time Lock Glitch Routine“, as it decreases the time lock wait by 30 seconds.
3. The “30s Alarm Delay“, since you’ll be going loud as soon as possible, so you want to delay the cops arrival as much as you can.

The only mandatory preplan is this “Loot Drop Off Point“, where you’ll be securing every bag.

We still have plenty spare favors, so we can spend those on these spycams, focusing on marking guards around the container yard, so everyone can easily kill them while running in at the start of the heist!

Some people really struggle with crashes when playing PAYDAY 2 casually, or when completing many heists in quick succession (like in the context of ECM Rushing), so if you’re one of them, this section should help with that!

Before explaining the typical causes of crashes, there is something more important you need to know about: the desync. Whenever someone in your lobby crashes, you are almost guaranteed to experience desync when they rejoin: the connection between two or more clients will not work properly (the Host will see a full lobby, but some of the clients will only see 3/4) and the heist will be unable to start, even if everyone hits READY.

There is only one reliable way to fix this desync: everyone has to restart their game. You can’t exit to main menu or you will lose your current stealth bonus, so the fastest way to solve this is for everyone to Alt+F4, which will preserve the stealth bonus. Whenever desync happens, the Host will usually type “everyone alt+f4” so that everyone knows what to do.

After this, everyone can relaunch their game, get the new lobby code if needed, and rejoin in the same order. Very importantly, the desync will not be fixed if someone skips the Alt+F4 step (there will still be desync in the newly opened lobby), so whenever there is desync and the Host tells everyone to Alt+F4, don’t be lazy and do it!

The obvious reasons to explain crashing are listed here:

Texture Quality set to HIGH.
It doesn’t matter how good your computer is: PAYDAY is a 32-bit game, so if your textures are set to the highest available option (HIGH) it will run out of memory in some heists like Black Cat.

The fix, obviously, is to lower the Texture Quality. The “Medium” setting looks virtually the same, and will almost never crash, depending on your PC. If you still struggle with crashes, lower it even more, and consider also lowering the rest of the settings (Shadow Quality, Animation Quality…).

No ALT-TABBING during loading screens!!!
The same can be said for Shift-Tabbing (which opens the ingame overlay).
There is nothing going on during loads, so many players are tempted to alt-tab to do something else while waiting. This will lead to crashes very often, so try not to alt-tab unless it’s absolutely necessary!

Discord Overlay or other external software.
Some programs such as the Discord overlay will sometimes cause the game to crash. As more common programs are confirmed to be connected with crashing, we will add them to this list!

Unstable mods.
There are a few common mods that can be unstable and lead to crashes often. A classic example is ‘Anticrash’, which supposedly fixes crashes but there have been multiple reports of it crashing instead. ‘Celer’ is also a great mod which many heisters use, but it broke with a recent update and hasn’t been fixed since then. Some people have also mentioned crashing due to the ‘Bag Tilt Removal’ mod, although others use this one without issues. If you’re unsure about a particular mod, ask us about it, and we’ll clarify! Other than these, some mods or mod overrides might increase the memory usage of the game, making it easier for it to run out of memory.

Outdated mods (especially SuperBLT) often lead to crashes too. Although sometimes older versions of mods are more stable, so the simple solution here is to keep your modlist small, using only mods that are stable, and knowing which ones can safely be updated to the latest version!

On the topic of certain mods that should be removed, definitely remove BeardLib if you’re thinking of rushing: as explained in the FAQ, this mod is bugged in such a way that your Team Boosts will not apply to your teammates, which often causes people to finish the rotation at Level 99 instead of 100.

Fix all your ingame settings.
These are less likely to be relevant, but if you’re still crashing after all this, try playing around with all your Video Settings, and see if something helps: the Effect Quality should either be set to 100, or 0 (values inbetween have led to problems in the past), you can try different Anti-Aliasing options, lower the Resolution slightly…

Heist restarts (especially with ‘Instant Restart’ mod).
Unfortunately, game restarts (when a heist fails) are one of the most common situations where people crash. The reason for this is unknown (could be mods, could be the game), but the simple solution is to play better, so that you never need to restart! If you’re a beginner, always focus on placing your ECMs in time even if your objectives are done a bit slower in exchange. As you gain more experience, you will be able to perform objectives at top speed, and place ECMs at the proper time without even thinking about it!

If you have read all the possible crash reasons, and you’re still unable to understand why you’re crashing, you will need to troubleshoot! First of all, whenever you crash, find your crashlog, and look at the latest crash. The path to the file crashlog.txt is:

%localappdata%\PAYDAY 2\crashlog.txt

or

C:\Users\UsernameHere\AppData\Local\PAYDAY 2\crashlog.txt

Once you locate it, open it with any text editor (such as Notepad). Scroll all the way down to the end of the file, ensure that the date of the crash (reported at the start of the crash) matches with the crash you would like to troubleshoot, and copy-paste the crash information (from the date all the way to the end) somewhere you can ask for help! Either the PAYDAY 2 Discussion Forums, or the Comments section under this guide, or our Discord, where many others will be able to help you!

Thanks for reading! If you’ve made it this far, leave a comment just under here to leave your permanent mark on the guide. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask!

SRelampago for spearheading the entire new guide and doing most of the work.
Marcmb for proofreading and editing multiple sections for accuracy.
Dominik361 for writing sections of the guide and helping with loadouts.
fitty for helping with pictures, video demonstrations, and suggestions.

Also special thanks to zmani and Char for typing previous beginner guides for older rotations, and starting early attempts at typing a guide for this one!

Discord server for Infamy Farming (and more)

While you’re here, make sure to join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/nAJSqDzqz3

This is the best way to learn and master the art of ECM rushing! There are plenty of people to help and teach you the things you don’t understand. Furthermore, we have daily lobbies for players of all levels: learning runs, beginner runs, experienced runs… so this is also the best place to be if you want to rush! Perfect to play for fun, to grind infamies for achievements or for max level, or to speedrun for world records! Regardless of your reason for rushing, good luck in your runs 🙂

Finally, before you go, you would do us such a big favor if you rated (and favorited if you want) the guide to show support!