Zombies Take Too Much Damage To Kill?

[OldManBrian]

Is it just me or are Zombies kind of damage sponges in a18? This is on the lowest difficulty btw.

 

I can't seem to kill them without pummeling each one in the head over and over. So far I've tried the bow, spear, club, and hand wraps.

 

Is there a point where headshots will reliably kill in 1 hit?

 

Otherwise I'm not seeing how I'm going to be able to take on hordes, especially with the bursts of speed zombies get when you hit them while you're backpedaling. Much less horde night.

 

Though there are definitely fewer zombie spawns in the world, but I'd prefer higher spawns with easier to kill zombies so I don't feel like I'm hitting pinatas with a cardboard tube.

 

 

Also, I think it would help if we got separate % settings for Zombie HP and Zombie Spawn Rates in the game settings.

[Scyris]

I'm on warrior difficulty and once your perked with a decent weapon 1 shots are possible, I know I can stealth 1 shot zombies with pistol headshots on warrior as a agility build.

 

In a18 at the start of the game your weak, very weak, its important to get armor and perk up in a weapon asap. Best advice is to use guns as soon as you can early game, as they are the only ranged weapon that do any damage worth mentioning now. Hunting rifle if you have the bandolier chest mod is really REALLY good early game. a T4-5 hunting rifle can have over 100 base damage before perks. Even on warrior thats mostly 1 shot 1 kill even early game unperked. Pistol is also really good now, my t5 pistol I found had a base damage of over 50. I have 6 agi and 3 in deep cuts and with a tier 2 machete I can usually 2 headshot female zombies 3 headshot males with normal swings on Warrior.

 

Melee in general is not as viable for groups of zombies as it used to be due to the rage mechanic, even more so if your using a knives build, as the bleed effects can trigger the rage mechanic over and over non-stop.

[OldManBrian]

Melee in general is not as viable for groups of zombies as it used to be due to the rage mechanic, even more so if your using a knives build, as the bleed effects can trigger the rage mechanic over and over non-stop.

 

Well that sucks. I generally prefer melee \ bows and only use guns for horde nights when there's just too many zombies for anything else.

[Khulkhuum]

It's not common, but i occasionally behead zombies, currently having 2 points in each bow, gun and knives. Happened to me when i had 1 point in and not during sneak attacks even. Having 3 AGI surely helps, as someone somewhere stated that dismember chance is based off attribute points for certain weapons (AGI conforming to guns, bows and knives).

 

My solution would be to simply invest in specific tree or use weapons assigned under trees you've already invested in and compare that to those without investment. I'm currently 2 STR (for mining perks) and 3 AGI (for weapons and stealth), so i can dabble either one really.

[Scyris]

Well that sucks. I generally prefer melee \ bows and only use guns for horde nights when there's just too many zombies for anything else.

 

You actually find a ton more ammo than you used to. In most normal poi's up to tier 3 quests, I usually find more ammo than I spend to clear them. The Compound crossbow is really good though!, it reloads at least 2-3x as fast as the iron one does. I got a t4 one and it has like 40 base damage with stone bolts with no mods.

 

My advice is do what I do, carry 1 gun that uses each ammo type. A Pistol, a double barreled (or better pump) shotgun, and a ak47 or a M60 if your lucky enough to find one. Higher tier guns do respectable damage even when not perked into them. The bows kinda require perking into it pretty heavilty for them to be worth anything I notice.

[Kalarro]

Well that sucks. I generally prefer melee \ bows and only use guns for horde nights when there's just too many zombies for anything else.

 

between the bow needing parts, the enrage mechanics, the infection, and the ton of guns you find everywhere, it really seems they are trying for us to use guns right from the start.

[Scyris]

It's not common, but i occasionally behead zombies, currently having 2 points in each bow, gun and knives. Happened to me when i had 1 point in and not during sneak attacks even. Having 3 AGI surely helps, as someone somewhere stated that dismember chance is based off attribute points for certain weapons (AGI conforming to guns, bows and knives).

 

My solution would be to simply invest in specific tree or use weapons assigned under trees you've already invested in and compare that to those without investment. I'm currently 2 STR (for mining perks) and 3 AGI (for weapons and stealth), so i can dabble either one really.

 

Yeah my current build I have 3 str (2 base+ a cigar that bumps it to 3), 3 fortitude, and 6 agility. Base stats up headshot damage and dismember chance with all weapons under that stat. Getting a stat to 5 only costs 4 skill points, and thats 250% headshot dmg and 25% dismember chance with any weapon that stat governs.

 

The weapons got serious balance issues though imo for the melee ones. Clubs are still all around the best for melee, due to the chain knockdowns. Knives are pretty crappy other than the machete, and the bleed mechanic seems buggy as its not doing as much damage as it should be. a single bleed for me does 1 hp/sec dmg, but a power attack should stack 4 of those instantly, so that should be 4 hps/s, but it ends up only being 2/s. This coupled with knives no knockdown and the fact bleeds chain trigger rage mechanics makes knives really useless later on..

 

The Int weapons are to be frank, complete garbage damage wise. The Junk turret is only good for the stunlock it can do with 0 perk investment, its OP as ♥♥♥♥ to the point I will not actually use it due to it removing most of the challenge of the game when placed as it can shoot thru the player, ammo is easly made, and you can drop that thing anywhere and have a extra dps/stunlock source. The stun baton is just god aweful, extremly low damage, you could say the stun is nice, but there is clubs, that can knockdown pretty much every swing which basically does the same thing, puts a zombie out of combat, and they do 3x the damage of stun batons.

 

Knives: The lack of knockdowns+Bleed not doing the damage it should be+the chain trigger of rage mechanics makes these less and less viable the farther you get. Not to mention the hunting knife has garbage for base damage.

 

Fist weapons: I haven't used these myself yet, but having to get that close to zombies to hit them can't be good. Yes I know if you headshot them it disables their infection ability, but that doesn't help you when your basically exchanging blow for blow due to the short range, and the rage mechanic means they WILL be hitting you almost everytime you go in. Unsure if they knockdown, if they do simmlar to clubs they might be decent.

 

Spears: I don't care for these one bit, the range is nice, but unless you throw the spear its not very effective as a weapon due to its really low base damage. Takes far to many hits to kill anything and it cannot knockdown unless you power attack and throw your spear.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

between the bow needing parts, the enrage mechanics, the infection, and the ton of guns you find everywhere, it really seems they are trying for us to use guns right from the start.

 

Its actually much safer to use guns in a18 than ever, due to lack of outside spawns, you don't usually need to worry about pulling 5+ zombies from outside after you fire 2 shots, and most poi's have sleepers decently spread out so you don't usually aggro entire floors. Good luck meleeing in the shotgun messiah factory, some rooms in that poi have 7-10 zombies that will rush you all at once if you make any noise. Took quite a bit of ammo when I cleared that poi and tbh the loot sucks ass in there for how big it is. I'd expect a gun factory to have way more gun safes/gun boxes than it actually does. Once I get a head lamp or a gun light mod, I usually start raiding poi's at night with guns, melee is kinda too dangerious when they always run.

[Squigee]

I play on Warrior as well and don't find the zombies that hard to kill using an iron spear. I keep a hand gun for wolves, birds and when I get stunned by a zombie. I did find using a club harder than before which to me is a good thing. The game was way too easy, you could smash trough a zombie train very easily to get tons of xp and they could never even dream of reaching and hitting you.

 

My friend in another game use the sledghammer and very often one shot zombies if hit on the head. By the way I find that to hit the head you need to aim higher. If I aim straight at the face it often does not register as a head hit but if you aim above they'll get the face hit. try it you'll see a major difference.

[Khulkhuum]

I didn't compare between melee weapon types, but it seems that knives use less energy than others (perhaps fists similarly). I surely can make a couple power attacks in succession, back off for a few seconds to do more. I find it pretty decent, although would have to check out other weapons too. For the time being though, i'm content.

[Scyris]

I play on Warrior as well and don't find the zombies that hard to kill using an iron spear. I keep a hand gun for wolves, birds and when I get stunned by a zombie. I did find using a club harder than before which to me is a good thing. The game was way too easy, you could smash trough a zombie train very easily to get tons of xp and they could never even dream of reaching and hitting you.

 

My friend in another game use the sledghammer and very often one shot zombies if hit on the head. By the way I find that to hit the head you need to aim higher. If I aim straight at the face it often does not register as a head hit but if you aim above they'll get the face hit. try it you'll see a major difference.

 

Even the stone sledge hits pretty damn hard. But if I was to do a str build i'd go for clubs, baseball bats are god-tier later on, seen t6 ones at trader with 38-40 damage, and they are club class weapons so they benefit from pummel pete. Its easly the best melee weapon in the game currently. Then again, not all stats have tier 3 weapons yet. Int only has tier 1 for melee, Clubs has 3: Wooden club->Iron club->baseball bat. Fort fist weapons has 3 tiers as well, but damage wise they are so simmlar so yeah..

 

I don't think i'd ever spec into the int build weapons, they just aren't worth it, damage is to low. The Junk Turrent though is godly when placed even unperked due to its constant stun lock/knockdown it can do while you bash them with a baseball bat or some other weapon that can actually do damage unlike the batons. Then again, Junk turret in hand might be a decent ranged weapon, sure it doesn't hit hard per shot, but the stun lock/knockdown and the fact you can make the ammo anywhere and its dirt cheap (3 scrap iron each), means you have a ranged weapon with pretty much unlimited ammo. T6 junk turret can have like 15 or 16 base dmg. perks is +50% and 4 mods would be another 40%. Its not a ranged weapon you'll ever 1 shot things with, but as I said, infinite ammo pretty much, it also can take the extended magazine mod to add another 30 rounds to its clip. Its crosshair also gets tighter as you fire it when its in your hand.

[myrkana]

I'm on the one above scavenger and I routinely behead or 3 shot zombies with my level 3 knife. Only like level 3 with mining and motherlode perks mai ly. I have 1 level of the bleeding knife skill. Knives apply bleeding with power attacks so that helps as well

[Scyris]

I didn't compare between melee weapon types, but it seems that knives use less energy than others (perhaps fists similarly). I surely can make a couple power attacks in succession, back off for a few seconds to do more. I find it pretty decent, although would have to check out other weapons too. For the time being though, i'm content.

 

They do tend to use less stamina than the rest yeah. However when you got a feral in your face, you want to put it down fast not basically mosquito bite it to death with the hunting knife. If you screw up your hit timing or hit too fast, or miss, the zombie will get a swing in at you in between the flinches from being stabbed. With clubs, 1-2 hits knocks them down, and then said feral usually does not get back on its feet especially if perked into clubs, as they do enough damage (especially with baseball bat) to kill them before they can get back up. You could back yourself up with a unperked junk turret, that+knives and 1-2 zombie packs won't really be able to do much to you. But I find the Junk turrents OP as hell when placed, due to said stunlock/knockdowns they do. I guess the extra dps is also nice, its almost like having a second player with you always even in single player.

 

A real cheese strat with junk turret is to place it on the other side of a door, facing the door, aggro zombies, then run out and close said door, and just sit there laughing as the junk turret kills them for you (and you get the full exp too!) While the zombies are trying to bust the door down to get to you. Won't work on Big piles of zombies though as the Junk turret's clip size will eventually run out and it has to be picked up to be reloaded. I've seen them have as high as 62 or so base clip size though and a mag extender mod can up that by another 30+. At my base, as I have a ladder leading up to it then a door, I have a junk turret facing out, My base is small enough that even unperked the turret will be active when I am in the base, to serve as a early warning/threat detterant when I am in there. Only reason I use it is I am to lazy to constantly remove the wood frames leading to my ladder down lol.