Z-Level 8 Zombie Horde - Uh, wat do?

[Morkonan]

I dug down to z-level 8 looking for some more adamantium before cleaning up the last of the overland enemies. Pretty shallow, I thought, and I had a decent 40+ army, leveled up, etc..

I found the Zombies... fifty-something/fifty-something nasties. I thought that, since this was only z-level 8, I should have a chance.

Nope.

Hope is often cruel...

The only thing I had that could damage them were Trolls with their limb-chopping ability. (Trolls were fifty-something atk/def as well. Special 2h weapons, like "of bleeding" etc.) Occasionally, I'd get another hit-location related message, which I assumed was some RNG counter ticking off, and that was it. Magic hits, standard phys damage, magical attacks, ranged attacks, threw some torches... I couldn't do a thing to them.

I got the bright idea to see if I could lure them up to the surface due to their "sunlight vulnerability" after cranking away for about an hour on Full Control. Tired, I forgot to "ignore enemies" when I went into leader mode and lost half my units... They wouldn't follow me up, anyway, so I just "rage abandoned." :) Juvenile, yes. But, I'm retired, so the way it works is that I get to return to my youth when raging at a vidyo-gaem. (Stay off of my lawn.)

So, wat do?

What little I can find in a search/google that isn't entirely about the default zombie or zombie faction seems to indicate others don't have an issue with this encounter and just "kill them." I never once got any "damage" returns at all. Every hit/successful attack was "harmless," with only what appeared to be status effects and RNG limb-chopping showing any results.

Special uber-units or captures? Some mystical artifact? Something simple? "I missed the clue?"

Thanks in advance for any advice for my next playthrough. :)

[Papa Alexandre de Morais]

I killed then with my Keeper and Dopleganger in the 1x1 hole,It was a difficult fight taking turns who was in the hole in the wall tanking the damage, but I managed to kill the zombie with my keeper for the title, I realized that the titles make you stronger but IIt was a difficult fight taking turns who was in the hole in the wall tanking the damage, but I managed to kill the zombie with my keeper for the title, I realized that the titles make you stronger but I I don't know how much, if you know, tell me

[Morkonan]

There was a horde of them. I could have maybe won through using Full Control mode the entire time, which I normally do for tense fights, but it would likely have taken literally hours, maybe days, to fight that fight. (I'd have to win by RNG effects like Troll limb-chopping. I didn't score a single point of straight "damage" to any of them. Not one point. :))

I had to build bridge over lave to get there. I built a platform to the double-doors, expanded it so everyone could fit on it, then knocked down just one of the doors. I didn't know what to expect. :)

It's not terrible to encounter something tough that manages to end a playthrough. It's just aggravating to encounter a horde of mobs that you can never hope to damage. If the "secret" was getting through all those ranks until I got to the boss, then downing him, there's no way to do that going through the entrance and no way to know that's what's necessary. /shrug :)

I missed something, somewhere, I'm sure. The game's design wouldn't seem to insist that "when you reach this spot, you're doomed." :)

As far as "Titles" I don't know what that would bring. I know there are "unlocks" for certain Keeper starts and that could maybe be the one for a Zombie/Undead? Though, I thought that was a special "Halloween" thing. Dunno, didn't cheat the unlocks to check them... yet. :)

[di eshor ribly]

Oh, you found a Zombie Swarmer room. Each zombie with Swarmer increases the strength of other zombies with the Swarmer trait. Throw twenty of these guys into a room together and you get... that.

I've found this room twice, once on a Dark Knight keeper (lost most of my army), and a Platinum Dragon (mod - killed them all, but had to heal a few times). It's a tough fight, try to divide and conquer or just go in with overwhelming force. The swarmer trait is no joke en masse, but you will get a scroll of swarming that teaches (one) of your minions the trait. You'll need to find multiple copies to get full use out of it.

Edit: This fight gets easier as you kill the Swarmers and they start to lose strength on the full health ones. It's only so difficult when they are all "alive" and clumped together.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by di eshor ribly:

...
Edit: This fight gets easier as you kill the Swarmers and they start to lose strength on the full health ones. It's only so difficult when they are all "alive" and clumped together.

Ah, the "Zombie Swarmer Room."

There wasn't any way to kill them.... :) When I kicked in one of the double-doors, the whole place was filled with them. No attack I could muster did any damage at all. Phys/Magic/Ranged/everything. Not one single point of straight up "white damage" made it through their defenses. Zero.

The only evidence that anything could do damage came from a Troll proc'ing their limb-removal ability. Also, procs from a "hammer of collapsing" seemed to go through, but I got nothing from a "Battleaxe of Bleeding." I also got a "blindness" proc after a Harpy pegged one in the eye. But, I never got a heart-shot from a Dryad I had hoped to get or any other status effects as the result of combat hits/casts/actions.

(IOW - I think some procs might be tied to different types of damage and their Swarmer trait applied to some of those, but not all.)

There would not have been a way to damage them given that they were all grouped up behind the door with the Swarmer trait. (I had forgotten what that trait did, thanks for the reminder... I guess. :))

However, what I maybe could have done would be to carefully pull back, maybe? Then, I could hope to make string some of them out. Certainly, they'd get strung out a bit along the narrow part of the bridge I built, so maybe that could have helped reduce their defenses?

What's the effective range of Swarmer support? If it's big or party-based, I don't think I could have done anything against those numbers. (Abandoned, or else I'd load up and count them. It was the largest single group in that amount of tile area I've yet encountered, though.)

Thanks for shedding some light on this encounter!

[di eshor ribly]

I can't remember the exact radius of the aura buff (from running my own Zombie Swarmer horde with the old Vampire Master keeper), it might have been 10-20 tiles, it might have been group based... I've slept a few times since then.

A few hidden factors for combat:

Besides the enchantments, two handed warhammers have a small innate chance of causing Collapse on any hit. Likewise, the two handed battleaxe has the same innate chance for de-limbing.

When fighting powerful opponents like the Zombie Swarm or Adamantine Golems, or Dragons, these effects are very useful. You don't have to damage them to "damage" them, eventually they'll fall apart.... unless the zombie also has Regeneration. Then you're in a pickle.

If you use your keeper as your main combat beast they'll start to collect titles (+attack/defense per title) and eventually be able to casually walk through pimp slapping even Swarm Zombies to death.

When I eventually killed that one Swarm with my regular Knight keeper I went in with a lot of wizards, healers, and an ogre (troll now) in full adamantine gear (including shield and sword) to face tank the damage. I pulled them into a one-tile hallway so I only "fought" one at a time. Yes, it was a long war of attrition. Goblin Shamans could help too if you use their spirits as meat shields.

TL;DR - Use the Collapse and De-limbing debuffs to artificially weaken/kill strong enemy units, or stack up titles to boost your fighter past their limit.

[Morkonan]

Both the hammer and axe had an "affix" on them for Collapse and Bleed, respectfully. They were loot drops from something. (I didn't make them.) But, good to know about the default effects. (I seem to recall something about those, just forgot it I guess.)

I normally don't put my Keeper at risk. But, the Title thing is good to know... I guess I already knew about it for regular units, as I try to focus on them to get them titles, but I never really thought about it for my Keeper. /headslap :)

I always used those procs for tough mobs, too. Stacking debuffs is pretty critical. But, there's a ton of "fighting in a closet" in KeeperRL where units get stacked up behind others and just can't get to a good target. Upgraded Bow/Mage units are awesome - They can still be combat effective once they can ignore allies.

I remember making use of the Swarm mechanic a long time ago, so I'm surprised I had forgotten about it. I recall being pleasantly surprised by it, but I think Zombies had a permanent bad attribute at that time that made them less desirable. Can't remember what it was atm.

I have yet to find a good use for the Goblin Shaman. Incidental use? Sure. But, I haven't found a way to control his sprites or to really make use of them other than as a rearguard or flanking guard kind of unit. They can be effective at that and in areas where you've got water/lava tiles since they fly. In most engagements, the enemy is gone before they get the chance to contribute. In one like this, they couldn't have reached the "front" through the press of units. I basically just pushed them out of the way.

Maybe I should arm all Goblin Shaman with bows in the future? At least they'd contribute something.

[di eshor ribly]

Heh, nah, arming shaman with bows is a bad idea: they don't get any training and will just shoot your minions in the back of the head.

Their main use is as a caster with the Avoid Melee ai.. you get a group of 7 shaman and you've got 28 ghosts following them around. The ghosts, of course, are defaulted at Melee Combat. Take control of a shaman, park them around a corner, they'll huddle around your controlled one and a constant stream of ghosts go to play with whatever you're fighting. Is it cheap and cowardly? Absolutely. Mostly though I pick up a shaman only when they have Legendary Alchemy skills, and they do not join me in combat missions.

One other thing about using your Keeper for combat: start early. Don't recruit any minions until you have at least cleared out your starting map using only your keeper. The peasants are easy targets, the bandits are easy enough after the peasants (and you have iron gear), and then whatever other dangers exist. Kill them all with just your keeper, your stats will thank you for it. The early boost will help you snowball and still get kills after you start bringing your army with you.

[Morkonan]

Great tips, all!

I'll start another playthrough soon, so I'll try out the solo-keeper stuff this time to get some power levels.

Though, if I had done that in this play, the Kraken would have gotten me... He spawned with a cave entrance directly accessible from the top map, right beside another entrance that led to bandits and with only a few tiles before it's big pool was revealed. (He ate several units before I could run them out of there. :)) I would have probably walked right in there.

Those darn Zombies, though... I suppose if I had powerleveled my Keeper and/or had my changeling/whatsits adequately built with specials by that time I could have waded through them. But... it would have still been tough, I think, and would have taken quite a bit of time.

I did have Black Dragon armor and a gold staff. I could have switched over to White Dragon, I suppose, and magic'd them to death with the extra bonuses. I could have also enhanced a staff, too, I guess.

I just wasn't expecting that sort of challenge at z-level 8 so I was getting lazy about jumping on those things as soon as I could.

[di eshor ribly]

Ugh, Kraken are the bane of my existence in most playthroughs lol. Even when I'm playing my favorite Platinum Dragon (a *beefy* 40-combat training/12 spell training flying unit with +15 damage claws/fangs with the De-Limb effect) kraken suck. If I find one too early it's game over.

Funny enough, if you can find a Swimming Harpy the kraken is a joke. Just fly it out into the lake and shoot it to death.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by di eshor ribly:

...
Funny enough, if you can find a Swimming Harpy the kraken is a joke. Just fly it out into the lake and shoot it to death.

Dangit! I passed up a swimming Harpy in the immigration list... I remember because I lol'd... I do remember using swimmers against it way back when, though. So many forgotten bits. That's likely a big part of why I got into that situation - I was confident in my ignorance. That'll do it every time. :)

Thanks so much for all your advice and info! It's a big help!

[Papa Alexandre de Morais]

Originally posted by Morkonan:

Originally posted by di eshor ribly:

...
Funny enough, if you can find a Swimming Harpy the kraken is a joke. Just fly it out into the lake and shoot it to death.

Dangit! I passed up a swimming Harpy in the immigration list... I remember because I lol'd... I do remember using swimmers against it way back when, though. So many forgotten bits. That's likely a big part of why I got into that situation - I was confident in my ignorance. That'll do it every time. :)

Thanks so much for all your advice and info! It's a big help!

What to do when units enter the water? I tried to kill water elementals but then disappear

[di eshor ribly]

Your units have to be Swimmers to enter water or else they drown. Enemies killed over open deep water sink and cannot be recovered. Sometimes you can build a bridge to collect items or corpses left behind in shallow water.

[di eshor ribly]

Sorry for another post here, but not sorry about the info it contains.

Rings of Magical Damage. They convert a portion of your physical attack into magical damage, bypassing physical defenses. If the enemy unit has Magic Resistance this has reduced effect, but it will let your "white damage" go through on stronger opponents you may not otherwise be able to damage. As always, Regeneration negates this effect (healing and replacing body parts).

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by di eshor ribly:

Sorry for another post here, but not sorry about the info it contains.

Rings of Magical Damage. They convert a portion of your physical attack into magical damage, bypassing physical defenses. If the enemy unit has Magic Resistance this has reduced effect, but it will let your "white damage" go through on stronger opponents you may not otherwise be able to damage. As always, Regeneration negates this effect (healing and replacing body parts).

Yeah, I had those too. I even tried unequipping them to be sure it wasn't due to magic immunity/resists. It didn't matter as I guess the damage threshold was still too low to do "damage" versus their defense that was boosted due to the Swarmer effect.

[Crusader_bin]

It's pretty easy. The room is usually around water or lava. Build long bridge or corridor, that gets zombies seperate and loose their swarmer ability, just kill em one by one.