Yet Another Zombie Survivors Damage Types
Learn all seven damage types, tag scaling, status effects, multi-type rules, critical stats, attack speed, cooldowns, and Luck.
Quick answer
- An attack's damage type tells you which modifier and status family it uses.
- Tag points increase matching damage, improve status chance, and unlock extra effects.
- Multi-type attacks can keep multiple status effects even when one higher tag drives their direct damage.
- Attack speed, cooldown, critical stats, and Luck solve different parts of the damage cycle.
Watch damage tags shape a version 1.0 build
This current run shows Kinetic, elemental, and status tag choices alongside weapon evolutions and Research Pod rewards.
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These related Yet Another Zombie Survivors pages answer the next questions around this topic.
Damage type and damage tag are different labels
A damage type belongs to a weapon, ability, or evolved attack. A damage tag is a team-wide point total collected during the run. The type tells you which combat family an attack belongs to; the tag tells you how much support that family has accumulated.
Weapons, abilities, and upgrades with a listed type add points to that tag. Research Pod rewards and some items can add more. Every tag point improves matching damage and raises the chance of applying that type's status effect. Higher totals also unlock the extra effect described in the current in-game Survival Guide.
Build tags around attacks you actually own, then use status bonuses to reward repetition instead of collecting every color. A tag pickup with no matching attack can still help a mixed setup later, but it gives less immediate value than strengthening the damage already clearing the screen.
All seven damage types and status effects
| Damage type | Status or extra effect | Practical role |
|---|---|---|
| Kinetic | Injured | Makes affected enemies take more damage |
| Slashing | Bleeding | Deals percentage-based damage over time |
| Electric | Electrified | Adds damage and crowd control |
| Fire | Burning | Deals repeated damage over time |
| Ice | Frozen | Stops or controls affected enemies |
| Chemical | Toxified | Spreads damage over time through groups |
| Explosive | Implosion | Can refresh and reapply other active statuses |
Explosive started without the same direct status pairing as the other families. Its later Implosion effect gives a 1% chance per Explosive tag to refresh and reapply every other active status. It gains value when the team already applies several effects to durable targets.
Tag totals do two jobs at once. They improve their direct family and make the linked status more reliable. That is why a focused Fire build can scale both hit damage and Burning, while a rainbow build can use multiple statuses and let Explosive refresh them.
How multi-type weapons calculate damage
An evolution can retain its original tag and gain another type. For most multi-type weapons, the higher current tag drives direct damage scaling. Each type's status effect still uses its own calculation.
The effects can apply one after another even when only one color appears most visibly in the damage numbers. A target that dies during the sequence cannot receive the remaining effects, so weak enemies may make a mixed weapon look less complex than it is.
Use this decision order for a multi-type evolution:
- Compare the two relevant tag totals.
- Identify which status solves the current problem.
- Check whether items or Survivor nodes reward either type.
- Invest in the lower tag only when its status or synergy earns the cost.
A Huntress evolution that retains Kinetic and gains Ice can scale its hit from the higher tag while still benefiting from Injured and Frozen calculations. The visible hit color alone does not prove that the older type disappeared.
Focused tags or a rainbow build
A focused build is easier to assemble. Stack one or two damage families that cover most of the squad's weapons and abilities, then choose items that improve those same tags or statuses. This approach gives consistent value from every pickup.
A rainbow build needs a reason to spread. It becomes attractive when the squad can apply several statuses reliably, an item rewards multiple low tags, or Explosive Implosion can refresh the stack. Collecting unrelated tags without those connections dilutes the run.
Use the pause-menu statistics to audit the result. If one type contributes most of the total damage, reinforce it unless another type supplies essential control. Ice can earn a slot through Frozen even when it never leads the damage chart.
Attack speed, cooldown, critical stats, and Luck
These stats affect different steps of an attack:
| Stat | What it changes | Common mistake |
|---|---|---|
| Weapon attack speed | How quickly a weapon performs attacks during its firing behavior | Treating it as identical to reload or cooldown |
| Weapon cooldown reduction | The downtime before a weapon can begin its next cycle | Taking attack speed for a one-shot weapon that waits on cooldown |
| Ability cooldown reduction | The gap between automatic ability activations | Expecting it to change weapon timing |
| Weapon critical chance and damage | Critical rolls and multiplier for weapons | Assuming ability critical bonuses also apply |
| Ability critical chance and damage | Critical rolls and multiplier for abilities | Assuming weapon critical bonuses also apply |
| Ability area and duration | The size and active time of supported abilities | Reading them as direct damage modifiers |
Version 1.0 changed burst and multi-projectile attacks. The game now rolls critical chance once for the whole burst or projectile group, instead of rolling every hit separately. A large projectile count therefore does not create the same number of independent critical rolls shown in older footage.
Luck has several indirect effects. It raises Magnet and Healthpack spawn rates, adds smaller critical and dodge chances, improves the appearance of valuable XP gems and timed pickups, and slightly improves Military Training rarity. Its extra critical and dodge contribution may not appear in the normal Team or Survivor stat display, so the visible totals can understate it.
A reliable damage-planning checklist
Before accepting an upgrade, pause long enough to answer five questions:
- Does this weapon or ability use a tag the team already supports?
- Does its status add damage, control, or a trigger another item needs?
- For a multi-type evolution, which tag will drive the hit and which effect justifies the second type?
- Does the attack need speed, cooldown, area, duration, or critical support?
- Will this choice improve the boss plan as well as ordinary wave clearing?
Version 1.0 adjusted how active statuses transfer between targets and fixed item calculations involving damage tags. Use the live tooltip and Survival Guide for exact current thresholds when a future patch changes a number.