A Survivors guide to defeating Zombies

[Irish. 4886]

So after reading many peoples concerns and complaints about the Zombies being faster, and respawning, more dangerous, etc.. I thought I would make a thread where others can give their advice on how to DEFEAT zombies in a better manner. Helping those who are struggling to survive against them and maybe learning a thing or two while we are at it. Below I will give my tips on what I do to win each Zed battle, and I encourage others to do the same..

 

Being spotted:

Zeds have vision, and this is what makes them aggro on top of certain sounds made by you. If you can spot the Zombie before he spots you, there is a good chance you can avoid him altogether. The key though is their head, not their body, is what dictates if they can see you. And the distance is often around 150+meters that they can spot you from. Sticking behind cover is your best bet, as they do not seem to care if you are crouching or moving slowly. The sounds you make, including simply walking can also alert them to your presence. Walking up behind a Zed within 1-3 feet will typically alert them but not always.. if you move slow, you can sneak right behind them or up close enough to deal a death blow to the back of their head. DO NOT SHOOT YOUR WEAPONS. Unless you want wave after wave of Zombies to come after you, and to track you from several hundred meters away in some cases. The waves will eventually stop, but it will take some serious patience and effort to fight Zombies using your unsilenced weapons.

 

Aggro:

When a Zombie aggros on you, he will also cause other Zombies nearby to potentially aggro, compounding your problem. You can outrun a Zombie, even if you have something in your hands slowing you down.. BUT you must weave back and forth zig zagging so that they cannot hit you from behind, never stop moving forward or slow down by going uphill, and eventually that Zombie that seems like he will always be 3 feet behind you, will after some time and great distance, slow down and come to a stop. This works 100% of the time, and obviously works much better if you can run full speed without anything in your hands slowing you down. 

 

The Fight for your life moment:

So you have been spotted. Maybe you heard and saw the Zed coming first, maybe you just now heard him as he is sprinting to you and is now 5 meters away. Either way, its time to move.. and fast. Your best bet to killing a Zed is to get out in an open area of at least 3m or 10ft. You DO NOT want to fight them inside a building.. at all. So now you are out in an open area, with room to move around a little. The Zombie is quite stupid and will only attack head on.. so all you have to do is move to the side or walk in slow methodical circles until you have the chance to take an accurate swing with a melee weapon or your fists. It may take forever, it may take seconds. But if you keep moving slightly to the side each time they come in for the attack, or you just keep moving in small circles you will not get hit. For the melee to work effectively you must aim towards the head. Body shots do work, but they take much much longer to kill with unless its a OHK weapon. So aim high, put that aim dot right above their head ever so slightly.. it seems to work better if you aim slightly left also. Swing away, and don't stop moving and swinging until they stay down for good. A fireaxe is your friend here as they are a OHK or one hit kill for Zombies. 

 

Respawning:

Zombies do respawn now, that is for certain. If you have shot him to death, his new spawn will have the knowledge of where that shot came from and will proceed to track you down. Some have reported Zombies chasing them for great distances over long periods of time but I cannot confirm this myself. It does appear that you will need to either get up high, far far away or melee kill that respawned Zombie at some point if you originally shot him to death, so plan on that possibility. If you are fighting Zombies on the edge of the woods, beware. They spawn there. And each one you kill, may spawn very close to you, making you feel like its a never ending wave of Zombies. Get to town, and it will slow down. Or run away from that town further.. either or. If you ever see Zombies collected on the first floor of a building in a little group, you can in most cases be confident that someone ran upstairs away from them at one point and probably logged out directly upstairs above them or is still there.. If you see a Zombie attacking the air endlessly, someone probably lagged out, c-logged or crashed out in that spot. 

 

edit:

Kawa_ says:

You should include how to fistfight zombies.

 

Something like:

1. hit its head while strafing to make it fall unconscious for a brief period of time

2. keep hitting while its on the ground

3. when it gets up again, go to step 1

 

You can tell whether its unconscious or dead based on its position on the ground: face down – unconscious, face up – dead.

 

Actually its not that hard to kill ONE zombie with your fists, just takes some practice. You can manage without taking one hit.

 

 

Edited March 25, 2014 by lrish

[nl 986]

I don't really have a tip other than the ones you already gave but I doubt the Z's react to sounds, I have been literally sprinting toward them when they had their back to me, stopped at 1 meter, got my axe out and smashed their heads in, only rarely will they detect me and turn around.

[kihz 83]

I made a video about Zombies. They aren't hard to kill, but they never stop coming.

 

[Irish. 4886]

I don't really have a tip other than the ones you already gave but I doubt the Z's react to sounds, I have been literally sprinting toward them when they had their back to me, stopped at 1 meter, got my axe out and smashed their heads in, only rarely will they detect me and turn around.

I have tested it several times.. they will hear your footsteps, but not in every case due to lag, desync, bugginess, etc.. 

Edited March 24, 2014 by lrish

[Irish. 4886]

I made a video about Zombies. They aren't hard to kill, but they never stop coming.

 

Great video, pretty much proves everything Ive seen so far. FYI, you would have been fine if you started to Melee those Zeds to death. They would have just stopped eventually if you weren't using your FNX to kill them :)

[kihz 83]

Great video, pretty much proves everything Ive seen so far. FYI, you would have been fine if you started to Melee those Zeds to death. They would have just stopped eventually if you weren't using your FNX to kill them :)

 

I know what you mean, but I've had problems with melee after the .42 patch when the Zombies were made stronger.

 

Also, they still spawn when you melee them, but I think the difference is they don't know where you are on spawn.

[Iarfur 32]

Am I the only one who's never died to a zed? I've died due to pretty much every other hazard in this game, but never a zombie. They are a major pain in the ass before you find yourself a proper melee weapon, but you can always sprint away. I love how agressive they are now, but as long as you keep moving in circles they rarely land a blow, took down a group of 5 without a scratch yesterday.

[General Zod 1114]

Respawning:

Zombies do respawn now, that is for certain. If you have shot him to death, his new spawn will have the knowledge of where that shot came from and will proceed to track you down. 

 

 

I'm sorry what ? Newly spawned zeds already know where I am ? 

[kihz 83]

Am I the only one who's never died to a zed? I've died due to pretty much every other hazard in this game, but never a zombie. They are a major pain in the ass before you find yourself a proper melee weapon, but you can always sprint away. I love how agressive they are now, but as long as you keep moving in circles they rarely land a blow, took down a group of 5 without a scratch yesterday.

 

I've never died to them. But they have made me bleed a ton of times and ruined gear when they hit me.

Edited March 24, 2014 by Kihz

[Irish. 4886]

I'm sorry what ? Newly spawned zeds already know where I am ? 

 

Yes. If you have shot a zed to death, his new spawn will track you down in a sense.. Its not like a homing missile though. He knows where that shot came from and heads there.. but if he sees you while aggroing to you, its on and he will follow you for quite a long distance. This is not true if you melee him to death.

I've never died to them. But they have made me bleed a ton of times and ruined gear when they hit me.

Same here.. Ive been cut a few times by them, I think Ive used about 4 bandages total. Twice Ive died to them, my first life on purpose for a new spawn, and once as a new spawn on experimental I wanted to die and went out swinging with my fists on a group of 4 Zeds.. was funny as hell boxing them all for about 5 minutes straight. 

[General Zod 1114]

Yes. If you have shot a zed to death, his new spawn will track you down in a sense.. Its not like a homing missile though. He knows where that shot came from and heads there.. but if he sees you while aggroing to you, its on and he will follow you for quite a long distance. 

This explains why I had to run from infinite zombie horde today at krasno. 

To whomever added this :

[Irish. 4886]

This explains why I had to run from infinite zombie horde today at krasno. 

LOL.. exactly.. they just keep on coming, and coming.. but its actually not infinite if you keep moving out of town. Eventually they will start to die off if you keep moving away from the area you shot the last one at. People have done it.. like 150+ rounds later done it though ;)

[General Zod 1114]

LOL.. exactly.. they just keep on coming, and coming.. but its actually not infinite if you keep moving out of town. Eventually they will start to die off if you keep moving away from the area you shot the last one at. People have done it.. like 150+ rounds later done it though ;)

Yes but I wanted to loot that town and the base. Not run away from it, being chased by a long line of zeds. 

[Irish. 4886]

Yes but I wanted to loot that town and the base. Not run away from it, being chased by a long line of zeds. 

Oh I hear you.. I had to, one time in Vybor, run all the way out West in the fields with them chasing me.. then had to double back, killing each one with a melee before I could loot as even just doubling back (huge circle) I had a few aggro again. Learned my lesson about shooting them that day.. LOL.

Edited March 24, 2014 by lrish

[Feuerbart 14]

In my opinion, it doesn't matter if you are quiet or stay out of sight. Zeds are simply aware that you are there, and sometimes they aggro on you (haven't found out the game mechanic or logic yet).

It happend very often to me that they I was standing DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF THEM, running around, eating and drinking and they just didn't care.

Then, on the other side, even if you are crowling quietly somewhere out of sight (they can see you though, since buildings/objects don't exist for them), they'll propably aggro on you.

 

tl;dr

They can't see or hear, they are just aware of your presence and will maybe aggro on you.

[komadose 190]

it's quite simple, actually;

 

strafe, strike, rinse, repeat.

[BadAsh (DayZ) 1513]

Yes but I wanted to loot that town and the base. Not run away from it, being chased by a long line of zeds. 

 

Should have used your melee weapon then.

[Irish. 4886]

In my opinion, it doesn't matter if you are quiet or stay out of sight. Zeds are simply aware that you are there, and sometimes they aggro on you (haven't found out the game mechanic or logic yet).

It happend very often to me that they I was standing DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF THEM, running around, eating and drinking and they just didn't care.

Then, on the other side, even if you are crowling quietly somewhere out of sight (they can see you though, since buildings/objects don't exist for them), they'll propably aggro on you.

 

tl;dr

They can't see or hear, they are just aware of your presence and will maybe aggro on you.

Desync and lag, and its alpha.. otherwise they would aggro on you. I tested the hell out of all of this before posting :)

Edited March 25, 2014 by lrish

[kawa_ 13]

You should include how to fistfight zombies.

 

Something like:

1. hit its head while strafing to make it fall unconscious for a brief period of time

2. keep hitting while its on the ground

3. when it gets up again, go to step 1

 

You can tell whether its unconscious or dead based on its position on the ground: face down – unconscious, face up – dead.

 

Actually its not that hard to kill ONE zombie with your fists, just takes some practice. You can manage without taking one hit.

Edited March 25, 2014 by kawa_

[Irish. 4886]

You should include how to fistfight zombies.

 

Something like:

1. hit its head while strafing to make it fall unconscious for a brief period of time

2. keep hitting while its on the ground

3. when it gets up again, go to step 1

 

You can tell whether its unconscious or dead based on its position on the ground: face down – unconscious, face up – dead.

 

Actually its not that hard to kill ONE zombie with your fists, just takes some practice. You can manage without taking one hit.

Nice addition! Thanks :)

[kawa_ 13]

Np m8

[leefriendfield 438]

Irish your back! This might have been better put in the new player discussion nice work.

[Irish. 4886]

Irish your back! This might have been better put in the new player discussion nice work.

Aaaannnnnnnnnnnd they merge it.. LOL