Nightmare difficulty is real nightmare at beginning.

[PATENT]

Zombies are so hard to kill you literally have to hit them with pipe or wrench for 2 minutes to kill them, also you lose stamina instantly. I spent few hours on the bridge burning zombies with molotovs just go get strenght to lvl 9 so I could smash their heads with kick. I went for EXPcalibur and then realized it breaks after few hits. I went for Korek machete, wasted 10 alcohols and 20 metal parts to realize ''YOU CAN'T USE KOREK MACHETE ON NIGHTMARE DIFFICULTY''. I know this is the hardest difficulty but damn.. Weapons are so useless I only throw zombies into spikes using brutal judo throw or just SMASH their head with kick.

[PATENT]

I lost stamina faster than my friend his girlfriend.

[Regi]

I mean like you answered yourself with that topic
Is this just venting ?

[Pfaltzgraph]

yeah, seems like the nightmare mode is best suited to a player that's already done the game in normal mode and wants more of a challenge. Helps when you've got high levels and good gear to start off.

[hazzamanazz]

I recommend not engaging in combat in the first few levels of the game, like you said, your weapons do so low damage that takes forever to kill a simply zombie or even humans.
Since you lost stamina with every special move, you cannot spawn the one kill moves over and over again.

Do the quests that raise your survivor skill, like the ones in the beginning execept the one for taking the drug store where bandits are making phoney Antizin.
Believe me, I tried and was owned hard, since in normal and even hard difficulty is doable even in level 1.
Not this time.

After you start to have weapons that do 150/200 DMG you can start combat, only with not too many foes at one time.
Only with weapons that do damage like Korek, which isn't available in nightmare mode, you can keep a solid kill count. But don't fool yourself, you still can't face too much enemies at one time.
One tip I can give you: with the exception of purple and orange mods for weapons, you don't need to keep guarding the blue and green ones, the game literally flood you with them.

So use them to raise you weapon damage if they can get the weapon to achieve at least 200 DMG.
Knifes are a life saver in the beginning, unlike in normal/hard mode, give it a try. ;)

[Lenny Rat]

Ok, now I’m interested...in Hard mode I never even bothered to use a knife. Why are they useful in Nightmare?

[hazzamanazz]

Originally posted by Lenny Rat:

Ok, now I’m interested...in Hard mode I never even bothered to use a knife. Why are they useful in Nightmare?

Because your weapons don't do squat in terms of damage.
But knifes?

While the default survivor level 5 "pick a weapon" do at best 100 DMG, knifes do at most 70.
Except, since your stamina is still low and take long time do recover, at best you can do four or five swings with the weapon without being tired.

With a knife you can swing twice or triple than that and even in the beginning of the game kill low level zombies and Rais thugs if you combine it with the most basic eletrical effect in nightmare mode. ;)

Of course as the game progresses and your survivor skill go up you start to have access to weapons that rival and surpass the Korek machete, so you can stop to use knifes and start to use scythes, machetes and so on.

But I'm talking about naturally progressing your levels while doing quests, chasing drops and so on.
If you grind or exploit the game to raise your survival skill earlier, this goes out of the window and you won't need knifes.

[Balthazar]

It's not as tough as it seems to be. Once you get used to it and find alternative ways to kill zombies, using cunning instead of brute force, you'll realize it's quite simple to beat.

[Dadbod]

I dunno i still didn't really find it over the top hard, I had a "Overhaul mod" which made everyone 50% more difficult and enjoyed it but the zombies ended up doing way too much they would end up one hitting me randomly cause, why not so now i am just back to the default nightmare

[Blade Master]

Use kicks, these cost no stamina and are overpowered against biters and virals.

Get Vault as well. Stockpile on stamina boosters, herb farming guide is on my profile.

Also, EXPcalibur's use isn't in basic attack or durability, these don't matter. It's mainly used for its overpowered charged attacks, you need skill which allows you to charge your attacks with attack key hold.