If you’re about to choose only one skill to keep during your harsh survival, then there are no other skills worth considering than strength.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to increase your strength in Project Zomboid.
Recommended Read: How to Get Thread in Project Zomboid
The five main ways to increase strength in Project Zomboid are by choosing the correct occupations and traits, exercising, carrying heavy loads, attacking with hands, and using melee weapons.
Table of Contents
How to Increase Strength in Project Zomboid
In Project Zomboid, strength skill is involved in many activities, and it means a lot in keeping you alive as long as possible.
Generally, here is what strength skill offers:
- Increase the amount of weight you can carry.
- Open locked doors more easily.
- Boost your melee damage.
- Give you the ability to push zombies back.
- Increase your chance of knocking zombies down.
- Give you the ability to climb tall fences.
Now, read on to learn how to level your strength skill!
1. Choosing Occupation and Traits
At the beginning of the game, you’re granted 5 levels of strength skills, no matter what occupation you pick. Besides, some professions add more strength levels. They are:
- Fire Officer: +1 Strength
- Lumberjack: +1 Strength
In addition, consider choosing the following traits to add extra strength to your character:
- Stout: +2 Strength
- Strong: +4 Strength
Remember that Stout and Strong are mutually exclusive, meaning you can’t pick both for your character.
That said, you can immediately get the maximum level of strength (level 10) by choosing the Fire Officer (or Lumberjack) occupation and Strong trait.
2. Exercising
You can gain lots of strength XP at any time and anywhere by exercising.
Each exercise has a different XP gain, and some exercises require equipment, such as a barbell or dumbbell, to be available.
Generally, the best exercise for strength skills is the push-up, which provides 6 XP per repetition.
To exercise, press “H” to open the “Health” tab, or you can click the heart icon on the left side of the screen and click on the “Exercise” tab. After that, adjust the time according to your liking and then click “Ok”.
3. Carrying More Than Your Capacity
As items are distributed throughout the map, your maximum carrying capacity will peak sooner or later. And this is one of the most effective ways to gain strength XP – carrying more than your capacity.
Strength XP will be added as long as you keep carrying more than 50% of your maximum capacity while running or sprinting.
For example, suppose that your maximum carrying capacity is 12, and you have a 125% XP boost. Then you need to carry at least 18 while running to gain 2 XP every 10 in-game minutes.
Although carrying more weight means a lot in terms of gaining XP, bear in mind that Very Heavy Load and Extremely Heavy Load (over 175% carrying capacity) moodles will reduce your health constantly.
4. Attacking Zombies With Hands
Since you can attack zombies with your hands, this is an excellent opportunity to gain XP while battling the undead unarmed.
Attacking zombies without weapons is basically a combination of shove and stomp moves. To shove, hold the right mouse button and left-click on the zombie to push it down. Next, stay near the zombie and left-click again to hit it with your foot while still holding the right mouse button.
Each movement offers a different XP gain. With a 125% XP boost by default, a shove action provides 3 XP, while each stomp grants 1 XP.
5. Using Melee Weapons
Finally, you can possess a high level of strength skill if you use your melee weapons frequently.
Regardless of its type, any melee weapon offers an amount of XP when used to cut down trees or attack.
When chopping trees, you’ll get 2 XP for each axe swing if it’s successful.
Not to mention that, as an effective tool to kill the undead, each melee weapon (for example, a katana) provides from 1 to 3 XP when hitting the zombie successfully as well.
That’s how to increase strength in Project Zomboid.
Have any suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comment section below.
