I’ve come up with two guides: one for zombies and one for the party poopers non-zombies. What I’ve done is consolidate the information we know about how the infection and zombies work. As you’ll see the event is designed to be limited in scope and range. Zombies can’t travel far and are fairly easy to put down. Infection is even easier to stop if you catch it early. Still it is a lot of fun tearing up a questing town, or stopping someone from doing such, and I think we all know what something even worst will be upon us soon.
Zombies
To become a zombie you need to first become infected. You can do this two ways: open an infected crate in Booty Bay or get attacked by a zombie (either stand in their goo or actually take hits). If you go for the later might I suggest turning your back to them, it lets them hit you better.
Once infected you have 10 minutes until you turn into a zombie. To shorten this you need to take hits from one or more zombies. Every few hits will reduce your timer. Also if you die while infected you will instantly become a zombie.
While infected, but before you actually turn, you can be cured. Paladins, priests, and shaman can cure you and the Argent Crusade NPCs around the capital cities will definitely cure you if you get too close. Try to avoid all of the above until after you’ve turned.
Once a zombie you can attack any player of either faction and most NPCs (some special NPCs are immune to attack, such as A’dal and children). Any /say or /yell you do will be in zombie tongue, only other zombies will understand you. Likewise you can’t understand players in those channels. You can send whispers, but you have to type out the player’s name. You can also chat normally in channels such as party, raid, and guild.
Your stats are zombie default, your gear makes no impact on your zombie. You lose your class abilities and gain five zombie abilities when you turn.
Mangle is your basic melee attack. It removes armor and is what lowers the infection timer. Retch will infect anyone in it and heal any zombie in it. It does stack for heals. Beckoning Groan will only work on zombies out of combat. Lurch will speed you and your friends up to catch players on the run. Zombie Explosion is for the end, doing AoE damage and infection.
As a zombie you are constantly losing health. If you just stand around you will die, so will all other zombies. Every time you attack you gain health back, so you need to be constantly attacking to stay alive. This will limit your range.
You can’t use any items of services as a zombie. Items are useless and NPCs will fear or attack you. Get where you want to be before you turn.
If you die you come back as normal. To get infected again hit one of the zombies and turn your back and you’ll be back among the Scourge in no time.
Players
To avoid becoming a zombie you need to keep from becoming infecting. If you do become infected you need to be cured ASAP. Paladins, priests, and shaman can help you. There are also Argent Crusade NPCs throughout the capital cities that will cure you on sight.
A zombie is a zombie for the most part, but level counts so a level 5 zombie you can one shot while a level 70 player zombie will be more difficult. One on one a level 70 player can take on a level 70 zombie without much trouble. The problem is you’re likely get infected while doing so. You’ll need a way to get healed before it is too late. Avoid getting within melee range masses of zombies, the more hits you take the faster you’ll turn.
NPC zombies are dumb and will mostly just auto attack and Mangle you. Players will use Retch to infect you at range and help heal themselves. Basic rule of instances: don’t stand in stuff. Lurch will outrun you on foot for 10 seconds, but you can outrun even that on a mount.
Zombies depend on numbers to win. They also have the advantage of turning whatever they kill into a new zombie. You need to equal or beat the number of zombie players within your level range to be able to clear an area. If you are greatly outnumbered then either join in the zombie fun or run to fight another day. NPC zombies are easy to take down, you just need to do it before you yourself turn. Once all of the zombies are gone there will still be plenty of infected NPC guards around. If they turn one by one the other guards can handle them. If they turn in mass then the whole thing may start over again. If you are serious about zombie hunting then bring along someone who can cure players and NPCs.
Players & Zombies
This is a game. This event is for fun. If you don’t like it then avoid it. Stay in Outland or in capital cities and you’ll be fine (for now). If you are a first time low level player I’m sorry, this will disrupt your questing some, but hey now you can be a zombie and bite people. Enjoy it. If you are frustrated you can’t play your low level alt then just put it away or go somewhere else. Or better yet log on your level 70 and join in on the fun.
The situation is temporary and a lot of players are going to have fun playing on either side of the event. Let them have their fun. Don’t stress out or get upset. Things will be back to normal soon enough.
Comments are closed