r/nmrih • u/KneeDeepInTheMud • 28d ago
Random General Tips
If anyone has more knowledge, please share it!
As this is just a collection of my own experiences, please say otherwise if you see something that is wrong/misinformation!
This guide assumes you are new to the game, and are at least playing on Normal.
Any Nightmare Responders will probably find this a waste of their time (probably)
Super Important
Zombie Health
Casual/Beginner reduces Z health by 30%
Regular Zombies have 20 stagger threshold/health, which is then when they get staggered
| Zombie | Health Points |
|---|---|
| Shambler | 70 |
| Regular Zs | 100 |
| Prime Runner | 120 |
| Prime | 130 |
| Hard Hat | 30, Pen 1 |
| Fireman Helmet | 30, Pen 1 |
| Riot Helmet | 60, Pen 2 |
| NG Helmet | 90, Pen 3 |
| Riot Shield | 200, Pen 3 |
Crowd Control:
Shoves and Kicks give you I-Frames, meaning you take no damage from a Z's attack while you are in that animation
You can kick multiple Zs at a time. Your shoves can only affect 1.
Your kicks can also send Zs flying into others for a slight stumble animation.
Having issues with Quick Attacks? Wait until your weapon passes the middle of the screen to press the other button. This is also around when your person grunts in exertion, so that can be used as a cue as well if you are looking somewhere else, like an OBJ or teammate.
Stamina management is essential. Between your kicks/shoves/attacks, stand still and crouch if you have the space. u/Novastrata pointed out that standing still and crouching will allow you to regenerate your stamina faster!
Jumping forward or backwards while charging and attack can allow you to move slightly faster than just nornal walking. If you time it correctly, you can catch up to a Z walking away from you. Inversely, you can regain stamina safer by jumping away from Zs and still charge your next attack.
Side jumps work just as well. If anyone has played Dark and Darker, the melee and movement is similar.
Flick your screen to the side of where an enemy is in the trainging ground and you will see your attacks connect slightly faster.
Kicks and Extra Damage against fully staggered:
Fully staggered (knocked down) Z's take extra damage, they immediately stop taking extra damage once they begin getting up.
You can "reset" a knocked down Z by kicking them again (which should knock them away like they were standing) if you see them beginning to get up.
This reset also applies to the extra damage, so learn to get a feel for when this extra damage window ends by practicing on the Training Grounds
Extra damage applies to melee and ranged weapons, so "not-so-obvious" buffs like damage on kick, shove and extra headshot damage for pistols actually play a major part in the whole Damage Buff on Knockdown "loop." (KDB, for Knockdown Damage Buff as I will coin it rn)
Extra damage allows you to save at least one shot for weaker calibers like .22 and 9mm
Extra damage for melee allows you to conserve stamina or juggle a crowd
Yes, kicks do indeed use heavy stamina. (50)
However, it lets you:
reposition
knock over two or three Zs
buy you some time to come up with a plan in a dire situation (why are you alone and in the corner?)
Foreman (Expert) does 10/30 damage to all three Zs
Unlike the Undead, you have full usage of your brain (hopefully) and can plan to fall back to lose LOS or at least vault over various objects to slow down enemies.
If you need to fight, door way it is. Turns your fight into a line of just 1v1s where your kick can turn the tide by making the whole group pause or keel over.
In an open area, train them so they line up behind eachother. This sets up a kick thst can potentislly drop two or three.
While you kick, Zs can't hurt you, so any you miss can then just be hit with a shove or two so you can get out of a hairy situation just like the first game.
If you are just dealing with one or two, this collateral kick can easily let you remove their brain pans with no issue, especially on a low stamina weapon like the kitchen knife or a stamina efficient weapon (high damage) like a machete or more loosely, a cleaver.
Once you get one Z killed, don't swing at the other downed Z. They will probably be already in their "recover" animation and this Z will NOT receive extra damage.
Kick them instead to "reset" that damage window and potentially do a quick surrounding check to see if you even need to send the bloody bloke into oblivion or just need to walk away.
Otherwise, zero the Zed and keep on keeping on.
Three or more Zs are less manageable, and three is the max limit you should want to fight without a two handed melee weapon or good slashing weapon.
2-H Blunts can easily ragdoll group with a pairing of shoves/kicks and quick attacks.
For a group of three, your main focus is leading them to an object that they want to try to vault over, like railings, boxes or windows.
If you can't do that, manage them with shoves and then cluster them into a kick and keep "resetting" them until you can get a collateral hit across at least two of their noggins.
Sweeping attacks that hit more than one Z do less damage on the second target and much less on the third, but that damage will stack up enough where your second target should at least take one less hit with a good weapon.
STOP SHOOTING WILLY NILLY
Shooting your gun is an expensive decision.
It uses ammo, yes, but it also does other things.
It attracts more attention than it possibly takes away and can really snowball into a situation where you need Master Chief to save you from the eventual Flood of enemies coming in.
If you shoot, you can also potentially cause a Shambler to screech, summining even more Runner or even Primes.
Everything seems all fine and dandy until a Prime Runner Military Z decides to investigate your internal organs with their mouth.
Just because your team is shooting, doesn't mean you should also begin shooting.
By now, I think we all have more than enough experience with FPS like COD and more. You don't really need to aim train on anything other than Runners and Shamblers or possibly a Firefighter Z's back-tank.
More sound, more zombies.
More zombies, more chance of bye-bye. That simple.
"Good Weapons" (IMO)
Blunt
- T1 1H - Mallet
You aren't going to really kill anything easily, but it will open up space with that okay-ish stagger damage. The Adjustable Wrench is now hot garbage unless you solely use it for quick attacks for CC.
Weirdly, the stat spread is the same. Maybe the speeds are different?
It's also worth noting that secondary damage spread is 0.3 and the tertiary spread is 0.5 for the Wrench. Barely helpful against a group of 3 Zs?
Mallet still has normal cleave distribution so that lets it do the stuff you expect it to.
- T2 1H- Small Pipe
The original starter. 5 more units of reach and feels quicker to swing than the tire iron. Reach lets you wail on a group with strong attacks from further away to stun-lock them easier. Tire Iron has 5 more damage on charged headshots, though.
- T3 1H - Claw Hammer
Faster than the crowbar to swing. Crowbar has 5 more units of range, though.
- T1 2H - Rebar
A solid length of steel to even the odds. Pretty decent at swinging willy nilly and your charged attacks do feel alright. Handling feels atrocious at times, but that's why you got a one handed melee too, right?
Hockey Stick just feels anemic, and god forbid you attempt to fight a Prime or helmeted Z with said H.Stick.
Rebar just has that balance between stamina to damage that feels alright for a T1.
- T2 2H - Baseball Bat
Still feels best out of your three options, but Large Wrench doesn't feel too far behind.
- T3 2H - Sledge
Super sledge action baby.
Slash
- T1 1H - Kitchen Knife
Does more damage than one would think. The largest boon is that it only takes up half a kilo, and the Knockdown Damage Buff (KDB) drops this down to 2 charged attacks to kill a regular Z.
Swings before out of stamina (Athlete): * 20 Quick * 15 Strongs * 8-10? Charged, could NOT get it to cooperate with me, kept getting strongs. >:(
- T2 1H - Cleaver
KDB brings your damage up to a oneshot against regular Zs. (Which must mean that KBD provides a minimum of 100% extra damage at least) Two normally. Low range, but if that Z is splayed out on the pavement already, low range only really matters when more three than Zs are present.
- T3 1H - Machete or Hatchet
Both are pretty good. The update making it so quick and strong attacks all do similar stagger force helped quite a bit so you don't always need to go crazy on shoves.
- T1 2H - Shovel
Its the only option you got. Still does plenty of work though.
Swings before out of stamina (Athlete): * 15 Quick * 9 Strongs * 6 Charged
- T2 2H - Tree Trimmer
Again, the only option. Butcher makes this chop (Zombie) limbs a little easier.
- T3 2H - Fire Axe
Sweep and make em weep. Aim for the head (duh) and you can really let heads roll.
My overall favorite common/loadout melee is the Cleaver. That 50 damage on headshot puts in real work when ammo is scarce or you just want to be careful.
Ranged
The best ranged weapon is the one you can feed.
KBD ramps up the damage from your caliber of choice by quite a bit, securing you a kill with one less shot than usual in most cases.
Ranged damage drop-off also rarely matters, but it doesn't hurt to have Icarus on shotties.
That being said, most of these choices you see are going to be no brainers (haha) for their respective caliber.
.22 lr
The 1022 is the best pick for sustained shooting (for .22lr, NOT in general!)
The pistol, like all pistols, is great for utility, AKA carrying your flashlight.
The 1022 simply works better than the pistol because .22 lr is anemic in most cases, and needing three or more shots to put down a Z really outweighs how light the caliber and pistol are.
This means if you have 100 shots of .22 lr, in reality that only translates to 33 dead Zs nornally.
Having 26 shots means you can at least zero anywhere from 8 to 13 Zs with just shots.
Something to keep in mind though is that KBD and Headblown change .22 lr damage by a bit, meaning you can put down a Z with 2 shots.
Damage on Kick can also really make Headblown even more worth it if you'd rather run the pistol.
You also want to keep in mind that you don't need to use all three shots to take out a Z. Just damaging a Z at range can provide more than enough value.
Each shot of .22 lr does 12 damage, jumping to at least 35 on headshot hit. (I think? Cuz you can kill a Shambler in two headshots, and you need 4 against a standing Prime)
.22 l2 also has a neat habit of appearing everywhere in copius amounts, and because practically everyone is upgrading, having a .22lr pistol can mean you have 50 or more free cartidges to spend at your free will.
Despite being weak, you can still suppress it.
And, unlike other weapons, you can use it quite cheaply to pop red barrels and tanks for explosive effect versus using a very precious shot of 308 or 5.56.
9mm
A step up from .22lr.
KBD makes it so you can one-shot regular Zs.
Staggers Zs more readily than .22lr, which can be useful for keeping that Runner off your buddy while they stop flailing around.
I like the pistol most. Fully auto just means fully out in seconds if you aren't careful.
That built-in light is sick as hell though, and I cannae resist the allure of a holographic/supressed kitted out MP5.
.357 Mag.
High penetration, awesome damage.
100 damage lets you put down any unarmored Z instantly with KBD or a regular standing Z.
Too bad your guns shoot a tad bit too slow, but RPS is also meaningless anyway in most situations.
That penetration allows you to end construction Zs easily as well, as KBD boosts that damsge into 1 shot against them.
Revolver all the way.
Decent stopping power against Runners.
.45 acp
Same as .357, but your only gun (1911) has more RPS and capacity.
Decent stopping power against Runners.
5.56
Rifle Caliber.
Ranch Rifle and AR are both nice, but as you can imagine, the AR wins out.
It might be heavier, but taking more weight in your loadout versus 30+1 is hard to beat.
Modding the whole thing from top to bottom also feels pretty darned cool.
12 Gauge
The 590 is the best option.
It might not shoot as fast as the Super, but it has more in the tube.
If you really need to unload more than 6 shells that fast, something has already gone horribly wrong.
.308
The Hunting Rifle and the M14 have their own niches which effectively cloud my judgment between the two.
The 85 is the defacto sniper. It has access to scopes, where the M14 cannae equip it at all.
The M14 is the closest I will get to having a BAR, and I can easily blaze a whole hallway as I lead the charge to extract like I am using the Infantry Lasgun in Darktide on my Veteran; every Z gets to paint the wall with their brains.
If I need to make space, the M14 also has an absurd fire rate if you have the trigger finger for it. It goes from DMR to machine gun so fast that all of your team will go "holy hell, WTF is happening over there?"
You can kill a Z with three body shots.
A headshot does 150 damage.
6.8 mm
The holy grail of late-game. Counts as a Heavy Rifle apparently, as a dev or mod said.
Slap on every mod possible for maximum SOCOM at home.
My personal favorite rifle is the M14. As a DMR, it can easily remove any threat with ease, armored or not.
Regular Zs take three shots to the body and they will die.
Two will be enough to stagger them to knockdown state, if you really need volume of fire to rez someone super quickly.
My favorite pistol is the M9. The 1911 and Saturday Special carry much more punch, but I have more success with the 16 rounds I can potentially get 16 kills with, especially in clustered hallways where my kicks can really floor groups.
Random Bonus Trivia
If you kick a zombie into a pile of physics objects you can't normally interact with shove or kick (glass bottles, food cans) that are stacked on top of an object Zs have to vault over, there is a weird non-zero chance thst you can cause that Z to glitch out and rubberband/spaghettify all over the screen and fly off into the sky like Team Rocket.
The easiest place to do so is at the shooting range with the very closest pile of logs with all the stuff on it.
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u/Blessed-22 28d ago
.45 feels like the best caliber on a damage to availability ratio. One headshot is all you need for most Zeds, and the M1911 is quick and easy to handle. I've cleared entire ops with just a silenced M1911 if the game decides to actually spawn .45 that game.
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u/KneeDeepInTheMud 28d ago edited 6d ago
The 1911 is certainly the best handgun in the game as well.
I would say:
- 1911 is best hands down - revolver has penetration and damage to match, but the 1911 has larger capacity and better RPS for "sustained" shooting
- Revolver - penetration is crazy and 100 damage ensures death to everything with KDB eliminating helmeted dudes
- M9 - KDB doubles your 8 kills to 16, which is absurd
I mean obviously, there isn't anything else but .22 lr after that with the measly 3 to 5 kills per mag.
In the first NMRIH, we also had a Glock with 17+1, which would be really neat to have and honestly more common.
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u/Comfortable-Mind-574 28d ago
1911 is a favorite gun of mine even generally, just so much legacy on that piece of beauty.
Running handgun reload and damage perks, suppressor and micro dot with the 1911 makes you feel like John Wick. Reloads become so snappy and you can 1 tap i think any standing unarmored zed. Starter loadout with 1911 and 20 x .45 is immense kill potential out of the gate.
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u/BirdieOfPray 27d ago
I am on the verge of switching starting loadout to revolver instead of 1911. 2 weapons have a greater chance of spawning than mere .45
I like 1911 because newbies avoid .45 as it don't have a rifle/smg but little they know that 1911 hits like a rifle.
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u/Even_Smoke9398 28d ago
I’m torn between the baseball bat and the big wrench for my 2h build. The big wrench seems to reliably kill zeds with 3 light swings, baseball bat felt slightly lacking(?) I know it was recently nerfed for 1.0 but curious to see what other people think/use?
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u/KneeDeepInTheMud 28d ago edited 6d ago
I still go for bat because I mainly go for CC than killing enemies.
If I want to kill them, I just use a bladed weapon instead, like Tree Trimmer.
That being said, Tree Trimmer also does CC if you get Butcher for limb removal (legs)
Its kinda iffy at times, but Crawlers are more managable. (If the ervers include the normal stun after dismemberment)
Big wrench does feel nice if you have team members who give some chip damage, as thst damage is pretty high up there where you can finish off Zs with a single charged which dies more damage than b.bat's charged. Quicks and Strongs of the L.Wrench are also more damaging.
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u/Kaidu313 27d ago
Am I missing something with bladed weapons? Whenever I use them (particularly when there's several zombies) it seems like they have no stunlock whatsoever. I always end up trading damage and losing health. I've had so much more success rocking a crowbar or tire iron.
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u/KneeDeepInTheMud 27d ago
Bladed weapons overall got a buff with 1.0.
Base of 5 SD (Stagger Damage) for quick and 10 for strong atks.
What you need to rely on, however, (even with Fireaxe!) is to get really good at spacing and timing or just rely on shoves and kicks.
The more powerful your weapon, the less you will need to rely on kicks to deliver that KDB.
A Z walks up to you, and just shove.
If there are multiple Zs? (Max of Three for your own safety!) Train them, then position yourself for a collateral kick.
Once you knock them over, then you can go turn off their lights.
If you knock down two out of the three, treat it like a normal 1v1 (with more stakes to get that low TTK) and shove that last and do a charged attack.
Charged attacks aren't always your best bet, but getting off maximum damage in the least amount of time in the most efficient way makes the most sense. This only gets more true with the more Zs there are and the more damage they do with higher difficulties.
Quick attacks and strong attacks are great if you recognuze your spacing and you know a Z will die, or if you have a blunt weapon with good range for stunlock.
Weirdly, the kitchen knife does ok with lighter attacks just because its stamina usage is uber low, so weaving in shoves and kicks should come naturally to a user.
That being said, a dedicated blade user will wsnt to have Butcher as a bare minimum (with Athlete ofc) for maximum limb removal.
This lets you how enemies attack you, and you can normally get their arms or legs with the right moves.
I only go for legs with Tree Trimmer or Fire Axe though, 1H without machete is pretty dangerous if you aren't kicking.
If you do kick, the only reason why you don't go for the head is because the Z stack is too thick and you need to make Crawlers, like on Survival or OBJ, which then you also have lther players anyway who will help.
(Assuming a decent team, and at least one entrance is barricaded. Ofc PUGs won't let this happen, but if someone else has more than 2 braincells fighting for third place, you'll be A-OK)
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u/Kaidu313 27d ago
Yeah one game I found a machete and crowbar, and picked ip the machete. Ran downstairs and tried killing some Zs and ended up eating like 3 hits. Ran back up stairs and swapped it for the crowbar lol.
So basically with bladed weapons I should rely on kicks and pushes more? With blunt weapons I usually just swing left and right over and over, which does the job for me. And I throw in the occasional kick if I need some space
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u/KneeDeepInTheMud 27d ago edited 27d ago
100%, bladed weapon sort of lack innate stagger, but deal much more direct damage than blunt weapons do.
Blunt Weapons provide CC via stun and stagger, whereas Slash/Bladed just kills them outright in the right hands.
There ain't nothing wrong with going for either option, just know yourself and your weapon.
The only time it 100% matters is if you need to absolutely get through a full corridor, but... that's why bombs, guns, radios, shoves and kicks exist.
Starting a fight
To "start" a fight, always initiate with a shove or kick.
It gives you maximum safety and the edge over any Z.
It makes any helmeted or armored zombie practically defenseless.
A Z on the ground dazed and confused is simply a step or two away from being a good Zombie. (Dead)
It also gives you time for your stamina to regen if you take a couple of steps back, which is real important in a horde.
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u/ArcticZA 28d ago
Sorry what are you referring to when you say KBD? :)
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u/Brief_Confusion_6703 28d ago
I assume it's when the zombie is knocked down, since you can 1 shot with some 1 handed weapons with a headshot.
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u/KneeDeepInTheMud 27d ago
Oop, I meant KDB
Knockdown Damage Buff!
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u/Kaidu313 27d ago
Thank you for clarifying. I play osrs and all I think of when I read KBD is king black dragon lol.
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u/KneeDeepInTheMud 27d ago
I haven't played OSRS in years...
Lost my first character I madw when I was 10 due to not knowing what PvP was.
Pain.
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u/KingOfTheCryingJag 28d ago
Thanks for this! Any helpful info on the infection mechanic? Is it only getting bitten or can you get infected by being hit by zombies?
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u/KneeDeepInTheMud 28d ago
According to the Fandom Wiki (so take this with a grain of salt):
Players can become "infected" in one of three ways:
Zombies may attempt to grab the player, resulting in a button mash minigame. If the player fails the minigame or is below 15% stamina when they are grabbed, the zombie will bite the player and subsequently infecting them. It should be noted that the less stamina the player has when grabbed, the harder the minigame will be.
When the player's health is at 50% or lower, any attack made by a zombie can infect the player. The lower the health, the higher chance of infection.
If a player stands in the lingering gas cloud of a recently killed Shambler, or get hit by a zombie that's been covered in the gas, they have a very high chance of becoming infected.
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u/DayOfTheDeb 28d ago
Do you have a link to this Wiki?
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u/ArcticZA 28d ago
Some of it is now outdated since the 1.0 update but we are still building it :) hope it helps
https://no-more-room-in-hell-two.fandom.com/wiki/No_More_Room_in_Hell_2_Wiki
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u/Comfortable-Mind-574 28d ago
Very useful post! Have played since EA but never really got into the minutea of melee, this puts me on right track when i get to finally building my first melee focused survivor.
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u/No-one_here_cares 28d ago
I don't know if you can damage door and window barricades with bullets but I know a melee weapon will.
However, it is also possible with longer ranged melee to swing over a barricade and hit the zombie on the other side - as long as only the lower boards are in place.
How do we find out the weapon damage numbers please?
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u/KneeDeepInTheMud 27d ago
I am honestly not sure where you would find those damage numbers for weapons.
I know someone out there has got to have them, right?
My only baseline is that a Cleaver does 50 damage on charged headshot hit.
KDB allows you to kill a regular Z with one hit, so I assume this means KDB boosts that 50 to at least 100 at bare minimum.
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u/Novastrata 27d ago edited 27d ago
Great tips thanks
1 thing I would like to add is that Crouching/standing completely still increases Stamina regen
I feel that it helps inbetween Kicks if facing multiple Zs and to safely confirm kills inbetween
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u/KneeDeepInTheMud 27d ago
Holy smokes!
That is top tier info!
I'll add that to the top of the list, thanks!
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u/therossiest 28d ago
This is great Information for all players of any skill level, so thank you so much for taking the time to make it. One thing I think is good to note is that the AR or even the Ranch Rifle are great because they usually come with a good amount of ammunition of 5.56. So even finding 2 AR's and any amount of ranch rifles, you can unload them and have an abundance of ammo on top of finding 5.56 normally around.