Tangler

Description
The Tangler is one of the Special Infected you can become/come across in L4S. It currently costs 60 coins to become and can be very helpful in many situations.

Ability
The Tanglers main ability is to use it's tongue to grapple survivors and bring them towards them, when a survivor is grappled they would be in a "pinned down state" which is the same as Hunters pounce where the player cannot do anything unless someone kills the zombie. It's cooldown for it's ability is 5 seconds.

While getting grappled the survivor will take 1 damage under every second, once the grappled survivor get dragged to the Tangler the Tangler will now start dealing damage, this being 7 - 10. After killing the player or they free themselves you will stuck for a very short period.

For the player to use this ability they have to aim very precisely as once they press left click the tongue will start to extend.

Appearance
The tangler has a big bulge on the left side of his head and due to the bulge the Tangler walks much more differently then other zombies, this bulge is where the zombie keeps its tongue stored due to its length. The Tangler's face is "Angry Zombie" from the avatar shop. It formerly uses your avatar's face, which was replaced by Angry-Zombie when 5.8.7 was released.

Weakness
There is one way to counter the Tangler, and this is the Machete, if a survivor has this melee weapon and a Tangler grapples them, they can hold down with their machete to start cutting the tongue, which will free the player from their tongue.

Survivors

 * Bring a Machete to free yourself from a Tangler
 * Defenders can be used to free yourself from a Tangler as well. Just hope that the Tangler pinning you down is close to you.
 * Bring a Primary that can take them out easily and fast (such as the Crossbow), so you can kill them fast enough before they grab you.
 * Always take them out first if you see them, don't wait and kill a different zombie, just go for the kill.

Zombies

 * Try to predict where the survivor is moving too, As your tongue is a projectile.
 * Take out survivors that are more equipped than others (armor, items etc)
 * If they have a defender or Machete, the best you can do is to disarm them and let your teammates chip their health for you
 * If they cut your tongue off, immediately retreat and find a safe place to regain your stamina, then grab them again.
 * As a Spitter, work with Tanglers by spitting towards a pinned survivor to deal extra damage to the pinned survivor.
 * Avoid grabbing survivors that have Defenders, as they can kill you, allowing survivors escaping from their impending doom.
 * If your planning to pin a survivor that has Defenders without damage, go to a high place.
 * As a Chiller, Use the "Chilling Breath" towards a survivor for Tangler to pin the froze survivor if it can't catch the survivors especially if they are dodging.
 * Try to place yourself in a hard place to reach or to get shot at so any player that wants to help their fellow teammate will have a harder time rescueing them.

Disadvantages (Playing as)

 * You can easily be countered whenever a player uses a machete and Defenders.
 * Just like the L4D Smoker, you cannot capture someone that is more than your tongue range.
 * Easy to be killed, and can easily be one-tapped by a crossbow user and by a sniper (if headshot).
 * You can easily be detected whenever you capture someone, due to the loud music and the text like the banshee's and hunter's.
 * The tongue is a slow projectile making it difficult to capture survivors

Advantages (Playing as)

 * Good against newbie players.
 * Good whenever you capture someone and send them to a horde.
 * You can choke someone when they are on a roof, this means that they will take fall damage. And you can kill them faster, as long they don't have a defender or machete.
 * Try partnering with a spitter, tell the spitter to place goo on your spot and you choke a survivor.
 * Very low cooldown (5 seconds)

Trivia

 * Back then the Tangler could just click on the survivor and it would grapple them for the Tangler, but in a update it was later changed where you had to do it manually.


 * The Tangler is based on the Smoker from L4D in every way, the only difference is that the Tangler doesn't leave smoke when it dies, and the tongue can't be cut by sharp melee weapons
 * The closest thing to cutting the tongue with a sharp weapon is equipping the Machete while captured
 * In L4D2 if you swing a sharp melee weapon before a Smoker grabs you you'll cut the tongue
 * The Tangler is the first zombie to have a melee weapon that directly counters the zombie
 * The Tangler got a nerf In the 5.8.3 update, making his tongue projectile based. This makes it harder to capture survivors.
 * The Tangler's tongue was hitscan in older versions.
 * As of 5.8.7, Tangler got a remodel and the health is now 125, making it now one tapped by Sledgehammer user.
 * There is a glitch where when you spawn as it then got killed and spawn as any zombie, you can actually shoot it's tongue but cannot capture survivors and disables your moving leaving you Vulnerable. This also happens when your an survivor. This was fixed in 5.8.7_01.
 * This glitch, however ONLY occurs on iPhone, Android and iOS, PC and Xbox doesn't have this glitch.
 * Prior to 5.8.2 Infected Update, Tangler costs 70 coins to buy which is 5 coins cheaper than Hunter.