Spears Are Overpowered

[Ramethzer0]

I say do it!

[hiemfire]

15 hours ago, edyonline said:

As an ex-world of Warcraft min/maxer

Explains allot.

[Pille]

Using a sledge hammer you can reach 1000+ zombie kills and level 30 (on insane, nightmare running speed day and night, 1h per day, 100% XP, 100% loot) before the first horde night on day 7. I doubt very much that this is even remotely possible with any other melee weapon. So in my eyes, spears are rather mediocre.

Edited March 11, 2023 by Pille (see edit history)

[edyonline]

1 hour ago, Pille said:

Using a sledge hammer you can reach 1000+ zombie kills and level 30 (on insane, nightmare running speed day and night, 1h per day, 100% XP, 100% loot) before the first horde night on day 7. I doubt very much that this is even remotely possible with any other melee weapon. So in my eyes, spears are rather mediocre.

Challenge accepted.

 

7 hours ago, Ramethzer0 said:

I say do it!

Ill render and upload tonight. Takes a while on my mobile data.

[edyonline]

19 hours ago, Pille said:

Using a sledge hammer you can reach 1000+ zombie kills and level 30 (on insane, nightmare running speed day and night, 1h per day, 100% XP, 100% loot)

Seems impossible. Trying to survive day 1 is doable. But it’s going to take 3-4 days before I can consistently kill things.

 

 Unless there’s some kind of cheese…

 

Im scoring the weapons based on usability clearing POIs, doing quests, and fighting out in the world. And fighting the horde like a man. I’m not a fan of standing in a cheesy base and AFK farming. 
 

Scoring on pure damage, obviously means sledge is top. But spear wins in a fight PVP. It’s range is phenomenal, and key to not getting hit.

Edited March 12, 2023 by edyonline (see edit history)

[FA_Q2]

14 hours ago, edyonline said:

Seems impossible. Trying to survive day 1 is doable. But it’s going to take 3-4 days before I can consistently kill things.

 

 Unless there’s some kind of cheese…

 

Im scoring the weapons based on usability clearing POIs, doing quests, and fighting out in the world. And fighting the horde like a man. I’m not a fan of standing in a cheesy base and AFK farming. 
 

Scoring on pure damage, obviously means sledge is top. But spear wins in a fight PVP. It’s range is phenomenal, and key to not getting hit.

If you sink all your points you are getting on that one skill and fire up a zed farm, I can see it.

 

It does not take much to set up a consistent farm and an amazingly simple cobble structure can let you just sit there and hammer away.

Only thing that I can see being an issue is food - you will get hungry killing all those zeds.

[RipClaw]

On 3/10/2023 at 12:02 AM, Roland said:

The books from the book sets are unchanged in A21.

This may be true for most volumes of Spear Hunter, but volume 3 allows you to craft a steel spear. I assume that this book has been replaced.
 

[FA_Q2]

1 hour ago, RipClaw said:

This may be true for most volumes of Spear Hunter, but volume 3 allows you to craft a steel spear. I assume that this book has been replaced.
 

Why? 

 

I thought all unlocks were being moved to books, not away from them.

 

[Uncle Al]

42 minutes ago, FA_Q2 said:

Why? 

 

I thought all unlocks were being moved to books, not away from them.

 

Crafting unlocks are being moved to magazines, a different thing.

 

@RipClaw is, as far as I remember there being a dev comment on this, quite right. The books that grant knowlege of schematics like steel spear, steel clubs and M60s are to be replaced, in the same way that schematics themselves will no longer be a thing except for weapon/armour mod schematics.

 

Thinking about it, Strong Arm and Punctured Lungs in Spear Hunter will need replacing too, as they're only relevant to throw attacks.

[edyonline]

3 hours ago, FA_Q2 said:

If you sink all your points you are getting on that one skill and fire up a zed farm, I can see it.

 

It does not take much to set up a consistent farm and an amazingly simple cobble structure can let you just sit there and hammer away.

Only thing that I can see being an issue is food - you will get hungry killing all those zeds.

Is that an achievement though?

 

we all know sledge hits the hardest. The increased run speed just makes a farm like that easier.

[Pille]

5 hours ago, FA_Q2 said:

If you sink all your points you are getting on that one skill and fire up a zed farm, I can see it.

 

It does not take much to set up a consistent farm and an amazingly simple cobble structure can let you just sit there and hammer away.

Only thing that I can see being an issue is food - you will get hungry killing all those zeds.

 

I doubt that sitting there and wait for zombies would be fast enough. It's done mainly by non-stop clearing of (preferably high-level) POIs. So a little luck is admittedly part of it, since you need a decent world seed / spawn point, and also some decent loot. Getting nerd glasses and stamina mod early is a big advantage. 

The rest is then

* focus only on offensive skills (strength, skull crusher and sexual tyrannosaur).

* wear only armor that doesn't slow you down.

* do trader quests only occasionally (if you pass by the trader anyway).

* have a high "headshot" rate

* don't build a base

* don't waste much time on sorting loot and deciding what's worth keeping

* if possible buy things from trader that improve offensive capabilities 

 

 

Edited March 13, 2023 by Pille (see edit history)

[FA_Q2]

4 hours ago, Pille said:

 

I doubt that sitting there and wait for zombies would be fast enough. It's done mainly by non-stop clearing of (preferably high-level) POIs. So a little luck is admittedly part of it, since you need a decent world seed / spawn point, and also some decent loot. Getting nerd glasses and stamina mod early is a big advantage. 

The rest is then

* focus only on offensive skills (strength, skull crusher and sexual tyrannosaur).

* wear only armor that doesn't slow you down.

* do trader quests only occasionally (if you pass by the trader anyway).

* have a high "headshot" rate

* don't build a base

* don't waste much time on sorting loot and deciding what's worth keeping

* if possible buy things from trader that improve offensive capabilities 

 

 

It is far faster.

 

You fire up a dozen or so campfires and once you get 2 screamers the flow of zeds simply never stops until you want it to.  Kind of breaks progression though.

[Roland]

15 hours ago, RipClaw said:

This may be true for most volumes of Spear Hunter, but volume 3 allows you to craft a steel spear. I assume that this book has been replaced.
 

 

I was responding to a statement that the book sets had fundamentally changed in A21. They have not. They work exactly the same. Reading a book grants a perk. Reading all the volumes in a set grants a greater perk.

 

It is true that specific volumes that gave recipes are changed to grant a perk instead. However, fundamentally, the book sets still work the same way in A21 as they did in A20

[edyonline]

7 hours ago, FA_Q2 said:

It is far faster.

 

You fire up a dozen or so campfires and once you get 2 screamers the flow of zeds simply never stops until you want it to.  Kind of breaks progression though.

I did this in the no loot challenge, as I had nothing else to do after clearing most POIs. I was too chicken to leave the grasslands without a gun until after Forde night lol.

 

But the screamers only summon a certain amount. They must have patched it. In the end I had three screamers running around screaming, but nothing happened. So I ventured into the burnt forest for some charcoal to keep the cookers running longer.

 

 After a while I found a cheese around the patch. Just run the cooker’s  until you see a screamer. Then turn them all off. When they run out of summons then turn them back on.

 

In a world where you can find a decent axe, you could probably just find enough coal to keep them running.

12 hours ago, Pille said:

 

I doubt that sitting there and wait for zombies would be fast enough. It's done mainly by non-stop clearing of (preferably high-level) POIs. So a little luck is admittedly part of it, since you need a decent world seed / spawn point, and also some decent loot. Getting nerd glasses and stamina mod early is a big advantage. 

The rest is then

* focus only on offensive skills (strength, skull crusher and sexual tyrannosaur).

* wear only armor that doesn't slow you down.

* do trader quests only occasionally (if you pass by the trader anyway).

* have a high "headshot" rate

* don't build a base

* don't waste much time on sorting loot and deciding what's worth keeping

* if possible buy things from trader that improve offensive capabilities 

 

 

I’ll have to try again with sledge. I had a few tries with spear. If I died then I tried again. Then I tried a few cheesy tactics, still seemed impossible.

 

Have you seen someone else do this, or do you have video?

[BFT2020]

Another way to farm xp is to build a horde base in the wastelands.  After surviving the horde night in my last playthrough, I think I ended up spending the next 4 hours just trying to get the screamer situation taking care of.

[FranticDan]

On 3/10/2023 at 8:49 PM, Urban Blackbear said:

You can use the Weighted Head mod in spears to give them a pretty decent chance of knockdown and that combined with the armor penetration they get makes them a pretty good sweeping weapon for POIs and wandering hordes.

 

And I don't believe Flurry of Blows works with spears in A20. The Penetrator perk does however apply to spears.

Misconception. The weighted head mod doesn't cause knock down at all. Dealing half raw damage of max health to a zombie is what causes knockdown.
(Raw: excludes DoT: example bleed damage)

Weighed head stuns targets (makes them walk)

In A20.6, the only weapons that DON'T cause knockdown are machete and stun baton.

Then there's ragdoll, which is different to knockdown, which can be caused by the metal chain mod for example, and points in skull crusher for sledges.

[Pille]

On 3/13/2023 at 5:34 PM, edyonline said:

In a world where you can find a decent axe, you could probably just find enough coal to keep them running.

I’ll have to try again with sledge. I had a few tries with spear. If I died then I tried again. Then I tried a few cheesy tactics, still seemed impossible.

 

Have you seen someone else do this, or do you have video?

Maybe I could make a video (although I tend to be very busy and I am a bit rusty ATM.). 

Edited March 19, 2023 by Pille (see edit history)

[Treb]

On 3/8/2023 at 2:33 PM, edyonline said:

I’m playing default. I usually play insane fists, but trying something new I’ll go default.

 

Im thinking the sniper buffs will make up for the spear. And explosives are huge AOE, best in game.

 

By endgame I’ll have duel 5 shot snipers, and stacks of explosives. I see this build being unstoppable.

If I do well on horde night then I’ll give it a go on insane.

 

And here's the problem. Any experienced player can play on default with any build with ease.

 

I was playing a full int crafting build when I played with my brother (who was new to the game), with weapons that I had no specs in and was doing just fine while he died a few times (while being combat oriented build). One time, I jumped solo in a small room containing 8-10 zombies with a low level iron sledge and a pipe shotgun and survived by just dancing in circle around them. It's actually a bit boring with how easy things are at default difficulty now.

 

Once you're used to the game, I believe you need to play a few settings up (especially zombie speed) to really judge if a build is decent.

[edyonline]

20 hours ago, Treb said:

 

And here's the problem. Any experienced player can play on default with any build with ease.

 

I was playing a full int crafting build when I played with my brother (who was new to the game), with weapons that I had no specs in and was doing just fine while he died a few times (while being combat oriented build). One time, I jumped solo in a small room containing 8-10 zombies with a low level iron sledge and a pipe shotgun and survived by just dancing in circle around them. It's actually a bit boring with how easy things are at default difficulty now.

 

Once you're used to the game, I believe you need to play a few settings up (especially zombie speed) to really judge if a build is decent.

Yeah just starting to to realise that. I was judging on the fact I could clear the hospital on day one. Something I found hard a while back… but considering I can clear hospital with bare knuckles on day one, maybe it’s not the spears that’s OP lol.

 

Maybe that’s the standard for veteran players. If you can clear it on day one with your favourite weapon, then your a veteran!