Zombie Army 4: Dead War – Brutal / Nightmare Mode Guide

This guide is a set of tips and suggestions for the main campaign and campaign DLCs for Zombie Army 4: Dead War, on the hardest difficulty in the game, Brutal. These tips are particularly relevant when you combine Brutal difficulty with the game’s Nightmare mode due to the significant increase in the amount of enemies, and in particular, the increase in more challenging enemy types such as snipers, heavies, and elites. These tips originate from my experience doing a deathless solo playthrough of the game on Brutal & Nightmare where I died/failed a lot in the process but also learned a lot.

Characters

Character selection can matter a lot in Brutal, depending on the chapter being played. So as a general rule you want to avoid characters that have what I’m calling a pronounced weakness. A pronounced weakness is a weakness that a character has that can be exploited by the game under normal circumstances.

For example, there are at least 7 enemy types that shoot at you (e.g., ammo zombies, officers, snipers, turret gunners, machine gunners, half tracks, and tanks); Shola is weaker to bullet damage than the other characters so when playing a chapter where you are being shot at a lot avoiding her is a good strategy. Another pronounced example is Marie.

She is weak to melee damage so any chapter with narrow spaces and a lot of enraged enemies or creepers are chapters to avoid with her. But! Marie has a flip side because she is resistant to bullet damage and her bullet resistance stacks with the BULLETPROOF perk, making her a good choice for chapters with lots of snipers. So despite her weakness, Marie is an excellent pick if you are good at avoiding the melee attacks of fast moving zombies.

Weapons

Primary

The sniper in the primary slot is really a personal choice. My personal favorite is the Lee NO.4 Bolt-Action.

Secondary

Shotgun Mortar

The Shotgun Mortar is hands down the best crowd control weapon in the gamet. As far as upgrades go there is one that I think is mandatory and one I think should be avoided. The electric mod is a must because a single shot, when charged, will kill every grunt in its AoE, even on Brutal and because their heads explode you don’t have to worry about them self resurrecting. The same can’t be said of the upgrade to avoid, which is the incendiary mod.

The issues I have with the incendiary mod is that 1) fire isn’t particularly effective in Brutal; because of the increased amount of health enemies have they can walk out of the fire AoE before it has a chance to kill them and 2) the fire can work against you by restricting your movement to areas that aren’t on fire. For example, let’s imagine you set an area safely ahead of you on fire then an elite spawns behind you. Suddenly, moving ahead is no longer a good option because it’s on fire.

Finally,  Weapon Focus with this weapon isn’t uber useful (because of its slow reload), with one exception. You can use it to avoid reloading a single shot. Basically, fire a shot then activate Weapon Focus before the reload animation starts or completes and you’ll be able to immediately fire another shot without reloading.

STEN MK. II

The STEN MK. II with the SHR upgrade is the one of the best if not the best weapon for killing elites but there is a downside. Normally SMGs are great tools for dealing with trash mobs and in particular fast moving enemies such as enraged zombies, Creepers, and suiciders but when you use the SHR upgrade that function is significantly reduced because body shots do almost no damage unless the shot fired registers as a critical hit (RNG). But if you have the skill to consistently land headshots then the STEN MK. II becomes doubly lethal in your capable hands.

M3 Grease Gun

Everything I said above about the STEN MK. II applies to the M3 Grease Gun as well with a couple caveats. The M3 Grease Gun is also an effective elite killer except that its accuracy/control is less than the STEN MK. II. The consequence of this is that at range (think mid to long mid range) even when the reticle is on the enemy’s head some of the shots fired will not connect. That said, where the M3 Grease Gun is better than the STEN MK. II is in the normal SMG role described above because it seems to have a higher critical hit chance than the STEN MK. II and it has a higher fire rate and larger magazine size.

Pistol

The Crossbow Pistol is simply the best pistol for Nightmare mode period. For any other mode on Brutal you can pick whatever you want, but for Nightmare solo, it should be the Crossbow Pistol and here are the reasons:

1. The divine shot heals you and at a relatively decent speed.
2. The divine shot weakens enemies (i.e., they take more damage while affected) which is particularly useful against heavies and elites.
3. It’s shock shot chains and kills and/or incapacitates multiple enemies making it the second best crowd control weapon in the game.
4. The divine shot calms enraged zombies.
5. Because of the shock shot behavior Brain Buster can charge faster granting you more frequent access to it.

Attachments

My number one rule for attachments is if you have a weapon with the SHR upgrade equipped then don’t use an attachment with that weapon when facing elites because, as of this writing, most ** attachment’s bullet behavior overrides the SHR behavior. For example, it takes significantly more bullets to kill a Machine Gunner with the attachment on than off.

If Rebellion ever changes the behavior so that attachment bullet behavior stacks with the SHR behavior I’ll change my recommendation and update the guide. My second and final rule for attachments is that the electric attachment is best paired with the Shotgun Mortar and the Crossbow Pistol because their shock behavior does AoE damage and can kill and/or incapacitate a lot of grunts with a single shot.

Note the ** by the word “most” in the previous paragraph. It’s there because there is an exception to my number one rule and that exception is the Divine attachment. The Divine attachment does not override SHR bullet behavior on sniper rifles, it enhances it. For example, on Brutal difficulty it takes 3 SHR headshots from the Lee to kill an electrified armored giant when the divine debuff is applied to the enemy (e.g., from a Divine grenade or arrow, etc).

When the Divine attachment is equipped it still takes 3 headshots but now you don’t need to first use a Divine grenade nor shoot it with a Divine arrow, etc. Here is yet another wrinkle/caveat about divine attachments. The enhancement effect of divine attachments described just a couple sentences ago does not apply to SHR SMGs! To simplify/summarize this whole section: Divine attachments are good for SHR sniper rifles but suck on SHR SMGs.

Heavy

• Buzzsaw – Useless unless you are in a narrow corridor where enemies can’t attack you from the side.
• Flamethrower – Good against most grunts and Iron Giants. The exceptions are Creepers, Suiciders, and enraged zombies because they move faster than the flames can kill them.
• Machine Gun – Unless you have plenty of them save it for elites and Creepers. For elites, aim for the head. Gently tap the trigger. It’s not an accurate weapon so holding the trigger down just wastes bullets.
• Preacher – Good for killing densely packed grunts (think narrow corridors with enemies lined up behind each other) and Iron Giants.

Special Melee

Divine Blast is the best special melee in the game for the following reasons:

1. It heals you.
2. It knocks enemies back and away (think ragdoll) in a 360 radius as opposed to just what’s in front of you.
3. It weakens enemies.
4. It calms enraged zombies.
5. It stumbles elites and Screamers

Grenades & Traps

Frag Grenade

Frag grenades are useful to attract/distract Screamers.

Electric Grenade

Electric grenades are a non lethal way to incapacitate grunt zombies. My use case for them is when there is some high priority target (e.g., officer, boss fight mechanic, etc) I want to shoot but there are a ton of grunts [especially enraged ones] that are getting in the way.

Incendiary Grenade

Equip the Lure mod (mod A) and use it to distract zombies because distracting zombies is the only thing it’s good for on Brutal.

Divine Grenade

Use it to self heal and to weaken incapacitated tanks and half-tracks.

Teller Mines

The only thing Teller Mines are good for on Brutal is incapacitating tanks and half-tracks.

Incendiary S-Mines

Equip the Lure mod (mod A) and use it to distract zombies because distracting zombies is the only thing it’s good at on Brutal.

Electric Trip Mine

The Electric Trip Mine is the only mine capable of killing enemies at full health on Brutal. Additionally, it pops heads so you don’t have to worry about enemies resurrecting.

Artillery Flare

Equip the Focused Strike mod (mod B). It’s particularly effective at killing half-tracks once they’ve been incapacitated. Stand near the half-track so that it can’t shoot you, point the flare at the ground beside it, weaken the half-track with a divine arrow or a divine grenade, then go about your business. You no longer have to think about it because it will be dead. This works because the half-track’s heart is on top instead of on the side, unlike tanks.

Perks

There are a lot of perks in this game but I’m only going to cover the ones that I think are particularly useful for Solo/Brutal/Nightmare.

Offensive

• Overkill Frequency – This perk is useful when you have to kill snipers while dealing with other zombies. Because sniper movements can be quite janky, combined with the constant encroachment of the mob, you don’t always have time to line up the perfect sniper shot (i.e., adjusting for wind & gravity) so having an Overkill shot available to take out snipers without having to also adjust for wind and gravity is useful. This perk is particularly effective when used with Karl/Bill because of their passives.
• Brain Buster Expert – Useful when there isn’t a lot of heavy weapons to use yet there are a ton of trash mob enemies that you must kill to make progress.
• Heavy – There are some chapters or sections of chapters where most of your killing is better handled by using heaving weapons dropped from elites or mounted heavy machine guns. 

Defensive

• Enhanced Stamina – This is probably the all around most useful perk for every build. Additionally, if you are using a SHR SMG it makes the Weapon Focus Expert perk moot because the duration between the two perks doesn’t stack and SHR isn’t significantly enhanced by the damage boost offered by Weapon Focus Expert.
• Hardened – There are some chapters/sections where you are in close quarters and/or the chances of being meeled a lot is really high.
• Bullet Proof – Given that this is a Zombie game it’s surprising how often you’ll get shot. I use this perk in almost all my builds for Brutal/Nightmare. Please note that this perk stacks with Marie’s/Rochelle’s passive.
•  Stamina Defense – Given that my playthrough is a deathless one I swear by this perk! On many occasions it’s kept me alive when I should have died. I get a great deal of satisfaction when I screw up and a Shadow Demon grabs me and he thinks he’ll have my soul! But! The perk kicks in and prevents him from harming me. Then I turn around and stab him in the heart with a Takedown! Please note that if you equip this perk then the Enhanced Stamina perk is a must.
• Enhanced Vigor – Meh. I use it when I’m doing a Marie bullet resistant tank build or some boss fights where there is a high degree of incoming damage that cannot be avoided.

Other

• Pistol/SMG/Shotgun Ammo Pouch – Which one [or more] gets selected depends on the chapter/situation. For example, if there are a lot of elites and/or Screamers and no ammo crates readily available then I’m equipping the SMG Ammo Pouch.
• Back Catalogue – This perk is niche but highly effective in the right context. There are some chapters where certain attachments are likely or guaranteed to exist, and in particular the shock and divine attachments. For sniper/divine the perk gives the gun 51 divine rounds! For pistols/shock it’s 25 rounds! Given the mob killing power of the shock Crossbow Pistol you can sometimes clear the mobs of most of a chapter with just one shock attachment.

Pay attention and listen for the special melee and takedown audio cues so that you’ll know when they are available to you. Finally, carry heavy weapons forward to the next chapter when possible.