Resident Evil 2 – Weapon Mechanics / Zombies and Bosses

Zombies

Note: Credit goes to talgaby

Zombies are the most common enemies you can find in the game (of the 128-178 enemies you can encounter in any scenario, at least 100 of them are zombies). They also have remarkably complex combat mechanics compared to all other enemy types, hence a separate chapter.

HP Values

• Most zombies have an HP value between 500–1190.
• In the A scenarios, the two civilian zombies that stand in your way after getting the notebook fro Elliot at the start have 200 HP.
• In Leon’s scenarios, three of the zombies in the prison cells (before solving the jail door electric puzzle) have only 1 HP.
• In Leon’s scenario, if you open the side route in the prison after getting the parking lot card, two additional zombies spawn. One of them has only 144 HP.
• In Leon’s scenarios, the zombies in the final group—the ones that burst through the last door after you killed the Super Tyrant—have 10 HP each.
• In Claire’s scenarios, the one burning zombie in front of the doorway leading to the train platform (after Sherry opened a door) has 50 HP.

Hitboxes

Almost all enemies have special hitboxes (I will often refer to these as sub-hitboxes). These sub-hitboxes have their own HP pool you can drain, although most of them transfer damage to the enemy’s generic HP pool. Zombies always do that.

A zombie’s body has twelve sub-hitboxes: head, torso, left/right arm, left/right hand, left/right thigh, left/right shin, left/right foot. They have unique damage resistance stats:

• Head: Very high chance of +10% damage as ranks go down.
  
• Torso: High chance of −10% damage as ranks go up.
  
• Upper arms: −39% damage, but low sub-hitbox HP. A zombie can still grab you with one arm, although the chances of you escaping the grab are much higher.
  
• Lower arms: −80% damage. It is weaker than the upper arm, and the same rules apply to it.
  
• Thighs: −10% damage. Breaking this sub-hitbox forces the zombie to crawl from then on.
  
• Shins: −39% damage. It is weaker than the thighs, and the same rules apply to it.
  
• Feet: −80% damage. They break easily, but you need to shoot off both for the zombie to collapse.
  
• The zombies wearing body armour in the campaign have an additional multiplicative −20% reduction on every covered body part.

Weapon Data

• Combat knives do around −45% slashing damage compared to the most common value (40 on Rank 5).
  
• All handguns but the Matilda are very prone to do −10% damage. Any critical shot from them on the head is instant death.
  
• If all 8 pellets from the shotgun connect with the head hitbox, it is instant death, regardless of remaining health.
  
• Any magnum round shot at the head results in instant death, even if it is an unaimed shot at maximum health.
  
• The SMGs can destroy any limb in 1–6 shots even on Rank 6. As a tradeoff, the base damage is −28.6% (50 on Rank 5).
  
• Flamethrower Burning DoT does +25% damage.
  
• Flame grenade DoT can reduce all limbs to 1 HP but never destroys them.
  
• Acid grenades do high limb damage; shooting low will destroy both legs, shooting high will destroy both arms.
  
• The sparkshot only does full damage if you hit the head; torso shots are always −10%.

Standard Enemies

Licker

HP: 1500
Weakness: Head (+20%)

• Handguns: −20%
  
• Shotgun: −12.5% pellet, −53.5% impact
  
• Flamethrower sustained: +60%, burning: +43.33%
  
• Flame grenade DoT +15%, lasts 25 ticks. If you shoot it down from the ceiling, then it only receives AoE damage for 9 ticks, but with +100% damage.
  
• Acid grenade DoT: +185%. The DoT fully applies even when shot from the ceiling.
  
• Sparkshot explosion: +185%

Dog

HP: 280–312

• Shotgun pellet: +100%
  
• Flamethrower burning: −50%
  
• Flame grenade DoT: −60%, lasts anywhere between 8 and 30 ticks, depending on how much it moves around.
  
• Acid grenade DoT: +100%

G-Adult

HP: 1885–2300
Strong spots: Head (while spawning larvae): −50%, neck area: −70–85%, rest of the body: −90%

The weapon data assumes you are shooting at the shoulder eye. On some of them, one or two outer shells protect it, which you must destroy before hurting the eye.

• Knives: +20%
  
• Shotgun impact: −58%, pellets: +40%
  
• Magnums: +7%
  
• SMGs: +11%
  
• Flamethrower burst: +50%, sustained: +150%, lasts 16 ticks
  
• Grenade launcher, impact: +20.5%
  
• Flame grenade DoT: −20%, lasts 20–30 ticks. It always takes 2–8 ticks for it to catch fire; until then, only AoE applies at 4× multiplier instead of 5×, but at +150% damage. Ignores body’s damage reduction.
  
• Acid grenade DoT: +233%, however each tick has a 4× multiplier instead of the usual 5×, and it lasts 4 ticks. Ignores damage reduction.
  
• Sparkshot explosion: +175%
  
• Hand grenade: −30%
  
• Rocket launcher: +100%

Ivy Zombie

HP: 1500
Weakness: Head (+20%)

Depleting their health only knocks them out for 30 seconds before they get back up.
Shooting off all 4 or 5 bulbs knocks them out for [120 + bulb × 30] seconds before they get back up. Shooting off regenerating bulbs adds 30 seconds/bulb.
Using a flamethrower or flame grenade on an unconscious Ivy will eventually start a new animation that burns it into a charred corpse. It is the only way to prevent it from getting back up.

• Knives: −3%
  
• Shotgun pellet: −100% (only impact damage)
  
• Flamethrower burst: −65%, sustained: +100%, burning: −100%. It gets knocked down after 10–12 ticks of sustained damage. Needs 50 ticks to die once knocked down, having three sustained DoT stacks on it helps.
  
• Grenade launcher impact: +195%
  
• Flame grenade DoT: -100% (immune). If you hit it with a flame grenade, the first AoE tick instantly knocks it down. If you shoot it while it is knocked down, then it dies on the first AoE tick. (For the record, it burns for 25 ticks at +100% AoE/tick damage.)
  
• Acid round DoT: +450%, guaranteed knockdown after the last tick
  
• Sparkshot explosion destroys all bulbs and downs it.
  
• Hand grenade blast is always instant knockdown.
  
• Rocket launcher direct hit: instant death; splash damage: instant knockdown.

Tyrant (while patrolling)

HP: 1500
Strong spots: anywhere besides the head (−80%)

Depleting its health will cause it to kneel and remain inactive for 30 seconds. After that, its HP replenishes and restarts its pursuit.
Picking up the jack handle will always reset it to full health unless it is in the same or an adjacent room.

• Pistols: +50%
  
• Flamethrower burning: −50%, ignores damage reduction
  
• Flame grenade DoT: −60%
  
• Acid grenade DoT: +100%, ignores damage reduction
  
• Hand grenades and rockets ignore damage reduction

Bosses

G1

HP: 5000
Weakness: Head and exposed shoulder eye (+25%)
Strong spots: Mutated arm (−40%)

• Knives: −32%
  
• Bullet-using weapons: −20%
  
• Shotgun: −70% pellet, −80% impact
  
• Flamethrower sustained: −40%, burning: −70%
  
• Flame grenade DoT: −76%, lasts 14–15 (lands on body) or 29–30 ticks (lands on head)
  
• Acid grenade DoT: +7%
  
• Hand grenade: −38.5%

G2

HP: 24,000
Weakness: shoulder eye (+50%), back eye (+95%)
Strong spots: all of his body except the human head (−15%)—the head is the damage baseline with no bonuses or reductions

You cannot kill him conventionally; you must use the crane to end the fight.

• Crane: 13,000 (assisted/standard), 6000 (hardcore)
  
• Flamethrower burst: +100%, sustained: +400%, burning: +108%, lasts 14 ticks
  
• Flame grenade DoT: +66%, lasts 12–30 ticks (no pattern in length). Shooting him in the head will only do AoE damage at +400% and lasting for 12–16 ticks.
  
• Acid grenade DoT: +100%
  
• Sparkshot: +90%
  
• Hand grenades ignore the body damage reduction
  
• Rocket launcher: fixed 20,400 impact + 2880 splash damage on every rank

G3

HP: 15,000
Strong spots: head (−60%), body (−50%)
The eyes take the standard 100% damage.

After destroying all three eyes, he will kneel, then eventually get up and roar. This roar will always drop him to under 10,000 HP. If you did more damage than that, then it does only 100–300 damage.
A similar thing happens in the second phase, only the eyes have double sub-hitpoints, and the roar drops him to 5500–6000 HP.

The values refer to the damage done to the eyes:

• DoT and AoE damage cannot hurt the eyes, only the body
  
• Shotgun: −45%
  
• Magnums: −23%
  
• SMGs: −14%
  
• Flamethrower burst: −50%, burning: −75%, lasts 11–14 ticks
  
• Grenade launcher impact: +125%
  
• Flame grenade DoT: −80%, lasts 15–30 ticks (no pattern in length). It always takes 2–8 ticks for it to catch fire; until then, only AoE applies at −50% damage.
  
• Acid grenade DoT can cause stunlock (as implied by the cut-scene before the fight)
  
• Sparkshot: +52%, its DoT can hurt the eyes
  
• Hand grenades and rockets ignore damage reduction

Super Tyrant

HP: 1,000,000,000
Strong spots: universal −60% on the upper body, −50% on the head, and invulnerable in the lower half

The fight is on a hidden timer (around 3:30). Every time it flinches, the timer speeds up by 50%, up to three flinches. The minimum time seems to be 1:30, upon which you receive the rocket launcher.
Most of the data here are only for reference. Note that you can technically kill it without the rocket launcher, but it is mathematically impossible to dish out one billion damage in 7 minutes without extreme cheating.

• Flamethrower burst and sustained damage ignore the damage reduction, burning does not
  
• Flame grenades do not ignore the damage reduction
  
• Acid grenade DoT: +100% (quadruple damage if you consider its natural damage reduction as the baseline, so 5×28 on rank 5)
  
• Hand grenade ignores damage reduction
  
• Both grenades are excellent to make it flinch as long as it is in the blast radius
  
• The unlockable rocket launcher is a guaranteed instakill right from the first moment of the fight, you do not have to wait for the cut-scene
  
• The rocket launcher you get from the cut-scene needs two rockets on hardcore

G4

HP: 3,000,000
Strong spots: anything but the eyes (−95%)

Damaging the body is pointless since you need to destroy the eyes. Each set of eyes has 10–30 (most likely 15) eyes in it, all with their individual sub-hitboxes. You have to destroy all of these six times to enter the second phase, where you need to kill only one set of 30 eyes, but they take ×4 damage.

The weapon info assumes you are targetting the eyes.

• Knife: +316.66%
  
• Handguns: +20%
  
• Shotgun: +50%
  
• Magnums: −30%
  
• SMGs: +7%
  
• Minigun: +50%
  
• Flamethrower: No DoT, does not hurt the eyes → useless
  
• Grenade launcher, impact: −25%, neither DoT can damage the eyes
  
• Sparkshot impact: −25%, surge: +475%, explosion: −28.5%
  
• Hand grenade destroys every eye in a set, even in the mid-range explosion. It also does fixed damage to the body on all ranks
  
• Rocket launcher and grenade explosions kill every eye in a set within proximity

G5

HP: 20,000

This fight is a direct copy of the first Eveline phase from RE7. The chart below represents the damage done to his body before the eye opens. Once the eye opens, you start with a roughly ×2 multiplier that gradually increases as he moves forward. When he is about to reach the end of the train car, the multiplier can climb over ×30.

The values here represent the expected damage before his eye opens. Depending on your remaining ammo, it is a good way to make the fight go a little bit faster.

• Knives: +292%, with increased multiplier once the eye opens (a single slash can do over 50,000 damage near the end)
  
• Handguns: −46%
  
• Magnums: −70%
  
• SMGs: −87%
  
• Minigun: −92%
  
• Flamethrower burst: −50%, no DoT
  
• Grenade launcher impact: −40%
  
• Flame grenade DoT: −80%, lasts 12–29 ticks
  
• Sparkshot impact: −70%, surge: −55%, explosion: −70%
  
• Rocket launcher, hand grenade: −50%