The PAYDAY 2 Enemy Guide

A guide with all enemies, both special and non-special that appear in Payday 2.

Common Enemies

Security Guard
These guys appear on almost every heist, from GO Bank to Four Stores. They patrol around the general area the heist takes place, and will sound the alarm if they notice anything suspicious. If you kill one you have to answer their pager. If you answer too many pagers the alarm will automatically sound. By default they wear a white uniform, though on certain heists such as Firestarter day 2 they look different. In the case of Firestarter day 2 they wear a black tuxedo and have some sweet shades. They commonly carry arround a Chimano 88 with flashlight, though they also can use the Compact-5 submachinegun.


Cop
Not much to say about them. These guys are the first responders, they drive up in patrol cars and start shooting at you. They carry the Chimano 88 pistol, Reinfeld 880 shotgun, Bronco .44 revolver,
or Compact-5 submachinegun. If you see one carrying a Bronco .44 revolver, don't underestimate him. They hit harder than you might think.


GenSec
The basic GenSec officer is a suprisingly rare sight. They appear on the armored transport heists, or, (albeit very rarely) on GO Bank. They are very weak and pose virtually no threat whatsoever. They aren't very hard to spot either, considering they wear all bright red. They carry Chimano 88s and Compact-5s, like most low-level law enforcers.


Blue SWAT
The Blue SWAT (or just SWAT) is the first enemy that will start to appear in large groups. They pose some threat at lower levels. They generally try to storm the building you are in during assault waves. They don't care about suppressive fire, so aim for their head. They wield Reinfeld shotguns and Compact-5 submachineguns.


Yellow SWAT
Sometimes known as Heavy SWAT, these guys are only seen on the lower difficulties, Normal and Hard. Basically a beefed-up Blue SWAT. They have more health and pack Car-4 Assault Rifles. They spawn alongside Blue SWATs and generally charge in your direction.


HRT (Hostage Rescue Team)
These guys appear in between assault waves. They wield Compact-5 Submachine guns, but they have a special trait that other cops don't. Rather than blindly charging at you, they will actively seek out hostages and try to free them. If the hostage is tied, they will un-tie them. There are three variants, ranging from lowest to highest threat. First up is the FBI variant.

A rather rare sight to see, they appear near the beginning of early assault waves on lower difficulty heists. They never appear on Overkill or Deathwish, and rarely appear on Very Hard. Sometimes, rather than a Compact-5 SMG they will use a Chimano 88 pistol. Whichever weapon they use, you don't really need to worry about them. Next up is the common variant.

These guys don't pose a very large threat to you, but they are pretty good at rescuing hostages. They always use the Compact-5 submachinegun and they sometimes use flanking routes. Last but certainly not least is the veteran HRT.

Though they look like they have less health than the common HRT, they have roughly the same amount. However, you always want to keep one eye open for these guys. They use advanced flanking maneuvers (also known as going through the back door rather than charging at you head-on) and they wield Car-4 rifles. I'm not sure if they use hollow point ammunition or what, but these guys really hurt. Try not to get shot by them.

Heavy Respone Unit
Commonly known as greens, you will kill a lot of these guys over the course of your heisting career. They use Car-4 assault rifles or Reinfeld 880 shotguns and spawn in hordes. They are cannon fodder, but they will try to overwhelm you with sheer brute force and numbers. I would go so far as to say they are the most common enemy in the entire game. Get good at killing them, you'll meet a lot of them.


Maximum Force Responder
Commonly known as tans, these guys appear frequently on Overkill and Deathwish, wielding Car-4 assualt rifles. They appear sometimes on Very Hard. They are immune to all damage from the front and sides (unless using a sniper rifle or shotgun with explosive ammunition), so you have to shoot them in the head or the back. Though even if you are behind them, I would still suggest shooting them in the head. They can be annoying, even at higher levels because they spawn in large numbers. Their aim is pretty good too, so be careful.


GenSec Elite
Watch out, here come the GenSec Elites! Only appearing on the aptly-named Deathwish difficulty, they spawn alongside greens and tans. They have a lot of health, and they pack a punch too. They aren't immune to damage in the chest like tans, but you should still shoot them in the head. They are a hassle to deal with because they hit so hard and have so much health. They wield M1014 semi-automatic shotguns, UMP-45 submachineguns (can we have the UMP-45 Overkill? Pretty please?) and JP36 assault rifles.



Cobras
The Cobras are a street-gang that appear on day 2 of the Rats mission. They wield Mark 10 submachineguns, and, similar to the veteran HRU, they deal a suprisingly high amount of damage. They have set locations and don't respawn, so once you kill all of them for that mission they won't respawn.


Overkill MC
This biker gang appears on day 1 of the Big Oil mission. They wield Mark 10 submachineguns, but they don't hurt as much as the ones the Cobras use. They have set locations and will not respawn for the rest of the mission.


Russian Mobsters
Appearing only on Nightclub, they are rivals of Vlad. They wield Mark 10 submachineguns and don't actually speak Russian. Have set locations and do not respawn.


Mendoza Cartel
Appearing on days 1 and 3 of the Rats mission, they use (you guessed it!) Mark 10 submachineguns. They are rivals of Hector and, now that you've burned all their money, probably hate you too. They do not respawn.


Murkywater
Only appearing on the Shadow Raid heist (and Slaughterhouse in Payday: The Heist) Murkywater is a private military company that goes all around the world and works for whoever pays them the most. They wield UMP-45 submachineguns and Eagle Heavy assault rifles. They are pretty hardy, so you should bring a suppressed Locomotive or Deagle. They wear a slightly-different looking Alpha Force mask. Keep in mind that they do have pagers that need to be answered.

Special Enemies

Taser
Tasers appear during assault waves (and rarely before assault waves) and stun you. They wield Car-4 assault rifles, tasers, and they do what their name implies. They have some neat voice lines that you should listen to sometimes, and if they get close enough to you they will tase you. When tased, you can not move (you can still look around with the camera), the screen is shaking, and your gun randomly fires. It's as bad as it sounds. Generally tasers aren't a problem because you can kill them before they get too close. If you or a teammate does not kill the taser currently tasing you, regardless of your health, you will go down. Something that a lot of Payday 2 players don't know is that you can hold down left click and fire your gun like normal while being tased, rather than waiting for it to fire.


Sniper
Snipers appear in set locations, so learning these locations is important. They appear in groups on GO Bank and the C4 tunneling escape on the Big Bank heist. Otherwise, they spawn alone. Luckily, they have a giant red laser that shows where they are currently aiming. Unfortunately, this laser is usually pointed at you and/or your head. The first shot a sniper takes at you will always miss, so use that to your advantage. They have low health, so if you can hit one they should die easily. It is unknown what type of sniper rifle they use, though on GO Bank the plane can be shot down and the pilot will report that he was hit by a .50 cal, so they may use the Thanatos or something similar.


Shield
The shield can be an annoying enemy to deal with because their shield is completely immune to all damage (again, unless using a sniper rifle or a shotgun with explosive or armor-piercing ammunition). If you try to strafe around them, usually the shield will turn. Teamwork is required to take shields down most of the time. There are two kinds of shields. The SWAT Shield appears on normal and hard. They wield a Chimano 88 and have a full-frontal shield.

The FBI Shield appears on Very Hard and above and wields a CMP-9 submachinegun and has a shield that extends slightly to the sides. The man behind the shield also has more health.


Cloaker
The Cloaker is the Bain (see what I did there?) of most heisters' existences, and with good reason. They wield the Compact-5 submachinegun with a suppressor, grip, sight, and other attachments. The main ability of Cloakers is leaping right at you and instantly downing you in one hit. Fun, right? Luckily this does not count as one of your 3 downs before you go into custody. Cloakers throw smoke grenades, and often drop one on top of themselves. They spawn in air vents, so a common tactic is to place a tripmine across an airvent so when a cloaker spawns and climbs out they die instantly. Once they have downed you they beat you repeatedly with a telescopic baton and tell you to go whine on the forums (no, seriously). This is a good time for your teammate to shoot the cloaker and revive you.


Bulldozer
BULLDOZER! This is an icon of the Payday series for a good reason. They have an insane amount of health, strong weaponry, and good AI pathing. The have loud footsteps, so listen for those. The weakness of the Bulldozer is it's head, so shoot it there. In between assault waves they go to where you were recently and guard that area or circle the building you are in. When the assault begins, they enter the building and charge you. Well, more like shuffle towards you. Ironically, Bulldozers take more damage from grenades and explosive ammunition than they do from bullets. Contrary to what most guides say, there are actually four types of Bulldozers. First up is the green bulldozer.

Green bulldozers use a Reinfeld 880 pump-action shotgun, and are the most common type of Bulldozer. The next kind of Bulldozer is the black Bulldozer.

The only differences from the green Bulldozer (besides outfit color) is weapon choice. The black Bulldozer uses an Izhma-12 semi-automatic shotgun with a drum magazine. Can we have that please, Overkill? It has a surprisingly long range, so be careful and make use of cover while engaging one. The next type of Bulldozer is the Skulldozer.

The Skulldozer only appears on the Deathwish difficulty and wields a KSP light machinegun. It has a lot of health too, so a Thanatos is usually required to bring one down. It is vulerable while reloading, so after it has fired it's 200 round magazine is the time to strike. Assuming you're still alive. The fourth type of Bulldozer that most guides don't mention is the Headless Bulldozer.

They functioned like a Black Bulldozer, (they wore black and had a drum-mag Izhma 12 shotgun) but they had a sword on their back (cosmetic, luckily) and no head! The weakness of the Bulldozer is it's head, so lack of one made it very hard to kill. They replaced black bulldozers on every heist for the duration of the Halloween event, and in the Halloween-exclusive heist Safehouse Nightmare they were the only type of enemy that appeared. They also didn't say voice lines while approaching, so they could sneak up on you easily.


SWAT Turret
Added in day 5 of the Spring Break update, the SWAT Turret appears on Diamond Store, Hoxton Breakout day 1, all Bank Heists, Election Day day 2 warehouse (if loud), Framing Frame day 2, Watchdogs day 1, Four stores, GO bank, Hoxton Revenge, and Firestarter day 3. It has a ton of health (~500,000 on Overkill difficulty) so killing it isn't usually an option. The preferable route is to avoid it whenever possible and only engage if necessarry. Shooting it is a great way to use all of your ammunition, and you won't be doing any damage unless you shoot the turret itself. Even then, the turret has small shields around it that need to be destroyed first. On bank heists up to two can appear, one by the front of the bank and the other by the parking lot in the rear. The turret emits a red laser like a sniper, and after targeting a player it takes a few seconds to lock on to the player and start firing. The damage is roughly the same as a SWAT officer.

April Fools Enemies

On Apriil 1st, 2014 Almir from Overkill showed three new law enforcers. Below are the pictures and exact words from the announcement.

"Introducing the Mirror Shield
Using the latest Gensec developed L.I.N.K. technology, the new Mirror Shields will be able to reflect any projectiles that are shot at them. Also, trying to melee the shield will make you melee yourself.


Introducing the Cloaker Cloaker
The Cloaker Cloaker has taken stealth to a completely new level. Instead of running, the CC's use a special device to teleport themselves to any destination of their choosing. The sound effect they transmit has also been increased to be louder.



Introducing the Titandozer
The Titandozer will be your biggest challenge yet, literally. Standing taller than most buildings in Washington D.C., the Titandozer is armed with a titan armor and heavy machinery.


The release of these three new law enforcers is to be announced, although it will most likely be overpriced DLC.

Almir
OVERKILL - a Starbreeze Studio. "

[Nucleus]

Black bulldozers are sometimes called "Killdozer" to make callouts easier so please add that and other than that, great guide ^^

[s k y]

Are You gonna do some on the Russian Mercs

[Walker]

A Cloaker Cloaker would be really cool to see ingame.

[artificialCatgirl]

Fighting the Titandozer would probably be fun, up until it destroyed you.

[Buckley Clamsfield]

I would really like to fight the Titandozer. it would be fun.
until I die.

[Portable Water]

>Good AI Pathing that's a lie Bulldozers always walk away from me.

[artedellaguerra29783[ITA]]

haahahahha good kill all!!!

[piss man bubs]

@Piggy No, it was april fools. I thought it was real and shit my pants.

[Midasmarine]

I miss the old bronco cops, could turn them onto your side and they would 1-shot most enemies.

[RisingEagle]

The snipers actually use the car 4 assault rifle
I used a hack to fly to one of them and saw that he used it and it acted like it was a sniper rifle rather then a assault rifle
Silly overkill FIX YOUR FUCKING GAME ^_^