Fat Zombie

Fat Zombie
Internal gasses cause this enemy to explode after death, dealing damage within a large area.
Main Stats
Health 7 Melee Damage 46
Special Attacks	10 (flesh chunk)
Explosive Damage	23 (outer explosion) 46 (middle explosion) 92 (inner explosion)
Crit. Chance	0%
Speed	2
Rage Drop	2
Behavior Stats
Agility	35
Aggression	18
Morale Stats
Charisma	-96
Charisma Radius	100
Resistances
Knockback	100%

Fat Zombie is a large infected dressed in a white tank top with a yellow face print and black pants. His stomach and arms are bloated and he has large sacks around his neck.

Overview

Fat Zombie is a special infected that explodes upon death, causing damage to all entities in its radius. The explosion it makes is made out of three separate blows, each having different radius and damage:

• The biggest explosion deals 23 damage, and has a radius of ~75;
• The middle explosion deals 46 damage, and has a radius of ~40;
• The smallest explosion deals 92 damage, and has a radius of ~20;

Aside from exploding, FZ also spawns a chunk of flesh after its death that will fly in a random direction before landing. If it hits someone, it will deal them 10 damage.

Fat Zombie can't directly attack units, although it has documented melee damage. Its also immune to knockback, despite having very low health. Currently, none of FZ's explosion-related attacks scale with its level.

Strategy

Though too fragile for his knockback immunity to matter, Fat Zombie may a very problematic enemy to fight against in part due to his extremely damaging on-death ability. Upon being killed, Fat Zombie explodes, dealing high Area of Effect damage to all units, stationary units, and zombies in a large radius around the spot where he was killed. Immediately after exploding, a chunk of flesh is sent flying in a random spot forward or backward, dealing 35 damage upon landing. However, this flesh chunk's random arc makes it easily irrelevant, as it cannot precisely damage player units, being more likely to harm zombies instead.

Although Fat Zombie can cause quite a bit of trouble, he can be used to players' advantage. Because his explosion can damage other zombies, it's a good idea to wait until a big wave of zombies runs by and drop Empty Barrel or Red Barrel on him, destroying, or at least severely damaging, the swarm. The same method also applies to missions where plenty of zombies are on the battlefield at the beginning, making it much easier to reach and destroy the barricade (provided if he moves close enough for his explosion to hurt them). If many of them spawn at once, it can cause a chain reaction where several Fat Zombies explode upon damaging each other, demolishing many zombies accompanying them. This is particularly useful against the likes of Witch and Runner since the explosion's much larger area of effect can catch them consistently.

If a mission mostly consists of waves containing Fat Zombies, it might be difficult to destroy the barricade as most ranged units might shoot Fat Zombie down while melee units are attacking the barricade, well inside the radius of its powerful explosion, unless a stray pellet goes off course and hits him before he gets close. Sheriff Charlotte and Sniper Polina might help with this thanks to their longer range, although both are not readily avaliable when Fat Zombie is relevant. Nevertheless, ranged units are still a safe option when fighting Fat Zombies.

In terms of melee units, Firefighter is the best counter to Fat Zombie as he has 50% resistance to explosions and the zombie can't attack. Additionally, his unique AI allows him to head directly to a nearby Fat Zombie when not currently fighting another enemy, then easily kill it. While some other units such as Light Soldier also possess this AI, they aren't usable at all because the explosions inflict too much damage for them to handle.

Trivia

• Fat Zombie's general appearance, description, and abilities were inspired by the Boomer zombie from the Left 4 Dead franchise.
  • Fat Zombie's version from the bike game acts as a more direct reference, since its explicitly referred to as the "Boomer" in it.

Gallery

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  Journal entry.