Zombies and fire giants

[brian14]

1. Do fire giants have vulnerability to cold?

2. Zombies are resistant to blunt weapons. My main melee set is holy mace of pure good and holy burst light hammer of pure good, so zombies take +3d6 (or more) with each hit. Still, CR 13 super-zombies in Orchard take an awful long to kill. Would I be better off using edged weapons? I tried the best (for this purpose) edged combination I have -- frost bastard sword and icy burst sickle, -- and they still take an awful long to kill.

My Improved Critical feat is on ranged, so it makes no difference in edged vs. blunt.

[squibly]

1.yes fire giants (as of when i last checked) do have vulnerability to cold, i think they take double dmg

2. well... idk, if i knew the exact dr of the zombies and the +of your weaps i may be of more help but i think your blunts are better in this case, unless u do a really high amount of normal dmg with your blades

[mws2970]

1. Yes.

2. Zombies are best carved up with slashing weapons. Blunt or puncturing do less damage.

[brian14]

2. Zombies are best carved up with slashing weapons. Blunt or puncturing do less damage.

I know that question is, is blunt weapon with extra 3d6 better than slashing weapon with extra 1d6 (and 1d10 critical)?

Specific weapons:

+3 Holy mace of pure good (blunt +3d6)
+1 Holy burst light hammer of pure good (blunt +3d6 +1d10 5%)
+1 Icy burst sickle (slash +1d6 +1d10 5%)
+2 Icy burst short sword (pierce +1d6 +1d10+1d4 10%) -- extra 1d4 as it has Force Critical ritual

[sirgog]

None of those weapons will work particularly well on zombies (they are immune to cold).

Look on the brokers for Holy or Flaming weapons that are slashing (they'll be quite cheap if they have other effects that noone wants).

[MrCow]

Zombies are resistant to blunt weapons. My main melee set is holy mace of pure good and holy burst light hammer of pure good, so zombies take +3d6 (or more) with each hit. Still, CR 13 super-zombies in Orchard take an awful long to kill. Would I be better off using edged weapons? I tried the best (for this purpose) edged combination I have -- frost bastard sword and icy burst sickle, -- and they still take an awful long to kill.

The zombies you are referring to have (if I remember right) DR 10/Slashing (DR 15/Slashing on higher difficulties). In your specific situation with the weapons you listed later stick with the blunt holy of pure good weapons for the explorer area, as they are slightly better overall damage.

None of those weapons will work particularly well on zombies (they are immune to cold).

Zombies are not immune to cold.

Skeletons are immune to cold. Frostmarrow Skeletons have 33% cold absorption. Doomspheres and Liches are immune. Vampires have Cold Resist (starts at 10, scales with higher quests). However, nearly all other undead have no resistance vs. cold (and some zombies like those in the Menetcharun are vulnerable to cold).

[vVAnjilaVv]

I know that question is, is blunt weapon with extra 3d6 better than slashing weapon with extra 1d6 (and 1d10 critical)?

Specific weapons:

+3 Holy mace of pure good (blunt +3d6)
+1 Holy burst light hammer of pure good (blunt +3d6 +1d10 5%)
+1 Icy burst sickle (slash +1d6 +1d10 5%)
+2 Icy burst short sword (pierce +1d6 +1d10+1d4 10%) -- extra 1d4 as it has Force Critical ritual

For a majority of cases it is far better to get thru DR than to rely on splash damage.

When ur seeing a weapon with 3d6 of splash damage...don't forget you may go on a long streak of only doing 3-6 points of splash damage....your not going to get 16-18 points everytime...whereas cutting through DR is solid.

[Mirta]

1. Do fire giants have vulnerability to cold?

2. Zombies are resistant to blunt weapons. My main melee set is holy mace of pure good and holy burst light hammer of pure good, so zombies take +3d6 (or more) with each hit. Still, CR 13 super-zombies in Orchard take an awful long to kill. Would I be better off using edged weapons? I tried the best (for this purpose) edged combination I have -- frost bastard sword and icy burst sickle, -- and they still take an awful long to kill.

My Improved Critical feat is on ranged, so it makes no difference in edged vs. blunt.

1. Yes, but most fire creatures in this game (caster class or not) tend to cast prot from cold for 500 points of cold absorption when they spot you. Just chew through it and slaughter them.

2. There used to be this awesome little quest in the harbor that taught new players that zombies are vulnerable to slashing weapons while skeletons are vulnerable to blunt weapons. Wonder what happened to that...

[vVAnjilaVv]

1. Yes, but most fire creatures in this game (caster class or not) tend to cast prot from cold for 500 points of cold absorption when they spot you. Just chew through it and slaughter them.

This is why I usually tend to use a nice shocking burst with a high crit range for fire elementals.

[brian14]

There used to be this awesome little quest in the harbor that taught new players that zombies are vulnerable to slashing weapons while skeletons are vulnerable to blunt weapons. Wonder what happened to that...

Really? My OP asked -- does good damage outweigh zombies' blunt weapons resistance? Seems like I remember that little Korthos lesson...

[MalakRevan]

2. There used to be this awesome little quest in the harbor that taught new players that zombies are vulnerable to slashing weapons while skeletons are vulnerable to blunt weapons. Wonder what happened to that...

It's called Heyton's Rest now on Korthos..............

[brian14]

The zombies you are referring to

They are called Harbinger Corpses, for anyone who does not know

have (if I remember right) DR 10/Slashing (DR 15/Slashing on higher difficulties).

How do you know? I am not being sarcastic -- Turbine does not give out stats on creatures much, and I had seen some very creative (and time-consuming) techniques to figure out for example, AC of this or that mob. So I am genuinely curious: how can you figure out DR of harbinger corpse -- or anything else?

[Zeruell]

How do you know? I am not being sarcastic -- Turbine does not give out stats on creatures much, and I had seen some very creative (and time-consuming) techniques to figure out for example, AC of this or that mob. So I am genuinely curious: how can you figure out DR of harbinger corpse -- or anything else?

Given that this is MrCow we're talking about, he's run the numbers and the field tests to nail the figures down.

DR values aren't difficult to determine, as long as you're not getting zeroes on every non-breaking hit -- find, by calculation or observation, your ordinary damage range (specifically, the extrema without criticals or other weapon effects), then compare it to the numbers you see against the creature with DR. Once you've got the same range of numbers in your dataset, you have its DR value.

[vVAnjilaVv]

Cripes!!!! Just buy a couple holy slashers, even if they are only +1's, as long as your to-hit is reasonable....YES!!!! it will outweigh using a bludgeoner on a zombie! LOL

Why must everything become rocket science here

And since u are mentioning Harbingers I believe those are in the Orchard, grab a couple Admantine or Metalline slashers while u are at it......Flesh Golem DR is Adamantine AND slash........you would preferably want the Metalline ones as there are a lot of Vamps out there as well and that will cut through their DR too.

[brian14]

Cripes!!!! Just buy a couple holy slashers, even if they are only +1's, as long as your to-hit is reasonable....YES!!!! it will outweigh using a bludgeoner on a zombie! LOL

Why must everything become rocket science here

Because holy anything tends to be expensive?

Still, I may do just that.

And since u are mentioning Harbingers I believe those are in the Orchard, grab a couple Admantine or Metalline slashers while u are at it......Flesh Golem DR is Adamantine AND slash........you would preferably want the Metalline ones as there are a lot of Vamps out there as well and that will cut through their DR too.

Holy Metalline slasher? Now you are talking REALLY expensive.

Against flesh golems I've been using +2 Adamantine vicious warhammer, because AFAIK vicious damage gets through any DR. And by the time you are doing Orchard, pinpricks you get from a vicious weapon are basically pinpricks. Especially as I use it ONLY against golems.

I'll never forget what must have been my first solo fight (ranger 10) against a flesh golem -- and a harbinger corpse at the same time. Golem was hitting me faster than I could heal myself, so I began kiting it. I was in that little valley north of Rat Hill, with shrine at its end, so there was no room to run around golem, but with Jump I could leap over it. Except I did not know about golem DR and immunities at the time -- so with +5 frost bow and acid arrows I am getting "You hit flesh golem for 3 points of damage." Leap over golem, run, turn, shoot. "You hit flesh golem for 2 points of damage." Leap over golem, run, turn, shoot. "You hit flesh golem for 4 points of damage." Leap over golem...

I think I actually had to cast Jump twice, it took so long. In any case, I found since then that Adamantine vicious weapon makes short work of flesh golems.

[Hafeal]

In any case, I found since then that Adamantine vicious weapon makes short work of flesh golems.

Any adamantine blunt weapon will do ... try a light a heavy mace, not only are they generally inexpensive, you can often find them at vendors.

[Zeruell]

Flesh Golem DR is Adamantine AND slash........

Any adamantine blunt weapon will do ...

Just adamantine.

[vVAnjilaVv]

Wow, I could have sworn at one point u needed both to bypass Flesh Golem DR.......awesome that means I only need bludgeoning addy's to take care of all golems then....

Actually what I meant about the slashers was to use holy or just anything with a nice splash effect on the zombies.....not getting holy silver, and since u don't need slash for the Flesh Golems what I was saying about that is irrelevant anyways.

To put it simply tho, unless u have a weapon with a high crit range and some mad splash damage effects, usually cutting through DR will outweigh splash damage.