How was I able to one-hit with a Baseball Bat?

[Seraguith]

I was messing around with melee, trying out different techniques and strategies when against 10+ zombies.

The first weapon I experimented with was the Baseball Bat.
Before I go any further, I chose Construction Worker as my job, with Lucky and Short-Tempered.

As I was killing the horde, there are times that I was able to one-shot zombies, and times when I wasn't. These were all done without exhaustion.

The following questions come to mind:

• Was hitting zombies with the tip of the melee weapon effective?
  
• Do baseball bats have an ability to randomly one-shot a zombie?
  
• Was the Lucky trait affecting my swings?
  
• Does not being exhausted affect one-shots?

This is a question about melee mechanics.

Can anyone explain to me how this works?

[Ser Jerald]

I know exhaustion reduces your damage, I don't know the exact effects of lucky but it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that it allows rare, random, one hit-K.O.s

From my experience only stabbing weapons benefit from how far away they are used. (as in knives can 1 hit point blank.) I don't know of any weapon that can randomly 1 hit kill.

[Gonzo Max]

All weapons have a sweet spot, an effective range, so hitting with the tip of the bat certainly has an impact on your ability to score a critical hit, a "one shot". All weapons have this capacity and depend on factors such as skill, effective range, exhaustion level.

The lucky trait AFAIK only has an impact on your chances of repairing weapons, and possibly on loot tables too.

[Seraguith]

Originally posted by Gonzo Macky:

All weapons have a sweet spot, an effective range, so hitting with the tip of the bat certainly has an impact on your ability to score a critical hit, a "one shot". All weapons have this capacity and depend on factors such as skill, effective range, exhaustion level.

The lucky trait AFAIK only has an impact on your chances of repairing weapons, and possibly on loot tables too.

Awesome, thanks for responding. =

[neofutur]

you start kiling Zs with one hit when you are fresh, not tired, but after you killed a few zombies, you get tired and will need many hits to kill one.

[Wolf]

arent some zombies more durable than others too?

[Liro Raériyo]

To boil it down to some math (not the correct math, but just example math so it makes abit of sense, since i dont have the correct math)

Lets say a baseball bat does 10 damage, and the average zombie has 30 health.

While you are not exhausted, you get a bonus of 50% more damage, bringing you to 15 damage per swing, from their, hitting a zombie at the sweet spot grants double damage, double 15 is 30, so under optimal conditions that ten damage baseball bat can deal way more damage then it should normally acomplish.

and this isnt even factoring increasing your skill with blunt, which for the sake of simplicity, lets just say 20% more damage per level, a person with level 5 blunt could hit for 60 damage while not tired and hitting the sweet spot, 30 damage while not tired and missing the sweet spot, 40 damage while tired yet hitting the sweet spot and 20 damage while tired and missing it.

A lot of factors determine just how powerful a melee weapon can be, and RNG does seem to play a role in the damage calculation, so this isnt exactly all correct, but essentially the best way to kill a zombie is to not be tired, and aim to hit it with the tip of the weapon, which is the sweet-spot zone.

Oh, and if it can be, use it with two hands for maximum efficiency, i have no idea if this increases damage or just makes the weapon less likely to degrade when striking or whatever, but whenever its an option for that weapon, always equip it with both hands.

[Lina]

seems to me some zombies have less hp then others, I have some zombies its taken me 6-8 wacks before they finally fall over for me to beat to death then other gets the home run hitter one shot wonder, which always feels good. This seems to simulated some zombies being older and more rotted(squishy) then others amazingly well. This happens reguardless my blunt skill level and reguadless my profession choice. Same thing with an axe. Granted the higher my blunt skill the more damage it do there for the more it happens, but bat and axe seem like a sure shot way to get some 1 shot wonders off right out of the gate. No fancy math required. Some zombies in this game just have less hp then others, and they have said as much that this is how they wanted it to be so it would seem to the player they are running into the freshly risen and few day to few week old shambling corpses. Only thing to keep in mind is the more you level up any skill for combat the better chance you have of getting those homeruns. Now if we can just get them to animate the head flying off and rolling away.

[Soma]

Dont forget about fatigue and accuracy+crits

[Lina]

meh even with fatigue bats deliver homeruns rather consistantly for me. Lost count how many times hauling logs I got jumped with major excersion and BLAM home run 1 shot hit. Even fought of groups with em. Get the transmorgafying bats mod and you can really go wild

[Jzin]

it's because you're an athelete-martialartist in game. You have the strength and skill to use any weapons and find the most effective way to use them. ^^V