One thing you're overlooking about mechanic: you only need one level in electrical to hijack vehicles. Which makes you as powerful as a burglar plus a very nice bonus to mechanic leveling, which is a slow process.

They could buff farmer by giving you a point in strength, or even something unique like an “early riser” perk than gives you some buffs during the morning. Either would fit the theme while giving you more than one stat increase, and not even a very important one at that.

That is just stupid that a carpenter that has spent all their life to carpentry can barely make a wall or a chair.

One more good thing about the Night Owl trait is the increased awareness while sleeping. It means that your character is quicker to wake up to danger.

in my opinion, lumberjack should be higher because 25% attack speed with axes is massive and you can start with 10 strength.

The thing about Farmer is, you don't need to level farming to be efficient with it. You put seeds in the ground, water them, and wait. It's great! Sure you might get larger harvests when you have a higher level, but to that I say: simply plant more!

I play as unemployed most of the time in single player, but in multiplayer, I'm having a lot of fun roleplaying as a doctor/scientist/team medic. Took the Doctor class and all the perks I could to boost my first aid (we play with at least one traits mod, so there's a few solid ones) and I started with 8 in First Aid, lol. I take care of medical supplies for the team, I always carry my doctor's bag on supplies/exploration runs, and I'm always there when one of my friends has to play with fire for whatever reason. D tier, sure. But it's a fun D tier if you do it right, lol.

One small note: you CANNOT become desensitized naturally, you have to have a mod to do this, however it definitely should be a base game feature.

A repairman is at least A or even S, because it is thanks to this profession that an ordinary spear can become a formidable weapon in the fight against zombies and stands on a par with a machete.

Something interesting to consider, a single point in a skill in character creation will make it so that you gain that skill at a permanent 4x faster rate, from what I see in the wiki. Maintenance is such a ridiculously important but tedious skill that i think you really need to make sure grab at least one point either in profession or traits. Repairman is the spear build more or less since you want to get to carpentry 3 for max health spears and you want as much and as fast leveling maintenance as possible due to spears being pretty flimsy. Great list overall, the professions i typically choose most are repairman, lumberjack, and veteran, in no particular order. It really comes down to whether i feel like trying a spear, ax, or gun build respectively. That said, there is a certain magic in beinga burglar to hotwire a vehicle and doing reverse donuts to wipe out a whole horde

Repairman is amazing for spear builds, and the Burger Flipper is amazing for knives builds. Maintenance is a pain to level up and is mandatory for both, and the starting level boost all your future xp gains, and spear builds NEED Maintenance, period. Knives builds are really good if you manage to survive a bit so that hunting knives start to appear on zombies, then you have a renewable source of weapons that have decent damage, but more importantly, use next to no stamina. They also get a nice boost from Maintenance because of their low baseline durability, and renewable or not, you can't go around breaking all of your weapons before you found a replacement. As you said, the fitness instructor really shines with sprinter.

I actually put Construction Worker on A tier mainly because it's a good choice for combat focus as someone who loves short blunt weapons. I just find melee more fun than shooting, unless of course you're playing against players.

dunno, im an avid min-maxer and in my humble opinion fire officer should definetely be on s+ purely by it's spawn locations and the bonus to fitness, not to mention how broken fire fighter+brawler is (giving you proficiency in the two best weapon categories, making you a killing machine just by findind an fire axe or an crownbar, the latter being a fairly common spawn) It's also not as perk-point hungry as the other "combat" occupations. Other than that, great video!

one thing to keep in mind the list changes drastically in MP. With a group, focused occupations tend to be better than jack of all trades occupations since you will have teammates to cover things for you, and you cover things for them.

An occupation is good as long as you *focus on doing the specific work.* I like to *fix cars* after missions and *scavenge metal* for them. I'd play as a *mechanic or metalworker.* Or, for *primarily handgun use,* I'd play a *police officer.*

If you take handy with repairmen you can grind a single level of carpentry and instantly be able to craft max condition crafted spears with +3 maintenance, that way you can become a zombie killing machine day 1.

I often choose burger flipper occupation for role playing purposes. Imagine, everything went to sht when the Knox virus occur and you're just a freaking burger flipper. Then you survive and become a unstoppable killing machine.

Only one thing: Burger Flipper should be higher for sure because of really cheap cost for such bonuses. It's S tier for players who want to main Short Blades.

The thing about Engineer. You can easily craft bombs if you are in storage areas. And since bombs efficienty is not limited by aim you can escape/raid players with high aim in city areas.(When you throw pipe bomb everyone prefers to retreat to not get hit than to shot you down) Also you can combine pipebombs with zombies hordes against group of players.

I love these videos. Please keep them coming, really useful and interesting even to a player with a lot of hours.

Good work! The only occupation I significantly disagree about is burger flipper. I would put them in the A tier because it is so cheap, giving you +2 trait points which means you are paying only 6 points (compared to unemployed) and it gives you maintenance. Maintenance is one of the most important combat skills and the only other ways to get a starting level on it are to take handy for -8 points or be a repairman which is significantly more expensive.

I love how one of the best occupations in the game isn't even an occupation.

If you can tweak Fire Officer with Strength + Fitness you become a melee killing machine.

"Your Phd means nothing in the apocalypse" nice one 😂

Rosewood + lumberjack Axe man is all I do

"Unless you're a player that loves cooking, it isn't stri-" S tier.

Am i the only one in love with carpenter traits? I just LOVE building base, and not worring about shelter or water, because you can build them almost frome the start. Like kust watching TV can easily get you 8th level pf carpentery, that is more then enough for everything you want to build.

For me repairman should be A. Carpentry helps making full hp spears quicker, gets you to level 6 carp faster for water barrels. Maintenance allows your spears to ignore durability loss (spears break alot at rirst), plus maintenance helps with all weapons and having a starting point in it helps it level faster. Short blunt is not as bad as people make it sound, like ProjectTweak said, its a common weapon and having it level fast + its common rarity makes it ok. Pair repairman with gymnast for quick nimble leveling and you have a GREAT base for a spear build. Spears are SUPER easy to make, even if you cant find knives, just forage a flint (or whatever they are called in pz). Again great video my guy, keep up the great work.

the music just gave me serious nostalgia

Wasn't sure how this video would go but after that lettuce joke I knew things would work out fine.

Thank you KZfaq for recommending this channel crazy underrated

Repairman is the best class to main spears. Spears are great. So repairman is great :D

only criticism is to hold the tier list for a couple of moments for us to look at the completed list. great vid!

Imo, police is C tier, veteran is way better because it gives u desensetized trait

One thing is that the fitness instructors regularity of doing exercises starts at half (only real reason I would pick him)

Police officer gives bonuses to aiming, but the Veteran’s desensitized trait is just a better long term perk for when using guns. When you think about it, that perk is constant bonus to your aim. Constantly looking for beta blockers is annoying, so that trait is really good for leveling up firearms in the late early to mid game. Pistols are actually somewhat viable as a veteran in the late early game. The panicked state really does have a big impact on your aim, so without it, they’re more viable early on.

I feel like fisherman should come with +1 to spear. It seems logical that if you're able to spear a fish, you'd be more adept at hitting zeds, as well.

Police Officer, Burglar and Unemployed. The three pillars of real life society.

electrician should be B tier cus you can still use generators even when taking the illiterate trait, which would normally prevent you from using generators once power cuts out. especially when illiterate grants 10 points. and alot of players hate sitting around and reading, even though it speeds up the process of grinding skills.

Fitness instructer gains regularity with exercises faster which is kinda cool

I think Chef should be at the very least B tier, after reaching the 7th level, you can cook with any igredient, even if it is rotten, so if you survive long enough, you can reuse all those rotten foods you find in the houses, which may be really good if you want to save some of your canned food stored

Fitness is the more better trait because it has so much utility + is slow to level up. You can keep fighting even after you escape the horde, keep running to escape for areas like Louisville or high density areas, etc. The extra strength makes Fire officer arguably one of the best because of how cheap and good it is out the gate. Guns are very easy to level up. You just find a shotgun... that's it. You just herd them and stand still, you can hit a lot and level up super quick. Basically unless you really really want to use guns, it is really not as useful as people say it is to go for Police officer or Veteran Hotwiring cars is funny. Car keys are everywhere. The only issue is gas, but it is super easy to find keys in or around car parks in areas and you wouldn't have to hotwire at all. Stealth is nice, although it is not as good as people say it is as it is pretty inconsistent with sound, but it also is not the be all end all as often you will attract a horde or will be blocked in a lot of areas if you only stealth. At least bring up every single counter to every skill instead of just sprinting lmao. At least the extra sprinting cuts down on mindless grinding. Funny enough, you can just use a molotov cocktail instead of explosives. It has pushback and damage, just that if the objective is to kill a horde, you have a cheap solution that any occupation can do.

For all noobs: do not do what tweak did. Do not move when firing weapons (within reason ofc). You will be much more accurate.

Your so underrated! Keep up the great work, you'll definitely make it someday! ^^

Gotta argue, Veteran only S tier. The god damn panic reduction is king.

Great comments! I have decided for repairman paired with gymnast and handy as a long run build focused on spears and fishing with spears.

You cannot become desensitized. You have to pick veteran or you will not see it. Fisherman also has a foraging boost and it’s THE class for any indefinitely sustainable survivor

I tend to go with lumberjack, brawler, and fast learner for easy axe leveling. I can usually get to axe 10 in the first or 2nd month (because I play far too aggressive).

I think Carpenter has fallen off as a profession with the increased rate of garbage bag spawns. In early builds of the game you really didn't want to waste them on the smaller rain barrels since they were in such short supply. Also the stairs could be built to a couple of the completely impenetrable fenced in areas before those areas were updated and they added the ability to climb over them.

One of my favorite occupations is Mechanic. Being able to upgrade cars is very handy. Also you dont need to look for the stupid 3 magazines. Often you find 2/3 and the 3rd one is never to be found. You will find the ones you already have like 6 times more... Its not the best offensive. The 1 short blunt is nice but its not the best. But with some good traits it doesnt really matter. Also you need just 1 level to be able to hotwire. I usually achieve this in like week 1 or 2 and then I am set. Its very handy to work on cars. I often upgrade my cars. I make sure to look for performence parts. The muffler makes a huge difference. So its pretty good if you can find these and put them in your car. I really like working on cars and its a fun side quest for me. I also like to strip cars and gather parts to replace/repair my car. I dont like grabbing a new car. I rather replace it. Also the mechanic skill is stupidly grindy to level up. Since you can only get xp once every 24ingame hour. The extra xp multiplier makes hitting lvl 10 super easy. When you are high level mechanic its super nice to work on cars. I once repaired/restored a "wrecked sports car" the total condition was like 11%. I replaced every part with new parts and everything performence. It was a fun project. It took some time but it was so satisfying looking for parts and gathering everything. Also in multiplayer/co-op mechanic is nice. Having a good reliable car can really help. Getting loot and escaping sticky situations can really save your life. You dont want your car to break down in a horde. Also getting a new car is often harder in multiplayer... Its also different from other people so you have more of a unique role...

Early game to upgrade your reloading skill just take the magazine your using and keep unloading and reloading it, it gives you the points you need. It’s a bit tedious of course, but it’s better than dying because you reloaded too slow.

Another great video 😁

An occupation I pick 100% of the time is metalworker paired with Amateur mechanic trait. It is WILD the amount of metalworking experience you gain by salvaging burnt vehicles. Also, if you max metalwork and mechanics, you can repair vehicles very easy with less materials. Metalworker is awesome to fortify your base. If you like the metalworker and mechanic role, I highly reccommend the following mods: -Vehicle Repair Overhaul -Easy Lightbar Repair -Easy Heater Repair Good luck!

for me veteran should be S tier, I always play him, its very good cuz of the aiming and cold blood skill - you simply dont panic which is useful

Burger Flippers and Construction Workers are B Tier at least in my opinion As strong as Axes, Long Blades, and Long Blunt weapons are out of the box, short weapons are numerous and have less strain on stamina and for anyone that wants to go full loot goblin but still be lethal there's an open hand to hold a second bag with. Also if we're speaking strictly vanilla, they also have the advantage of being able to hold a flashlight if they're caught out at night or in a dark building.

Nothing beats the badassness of the burglar.

I have always gone burglar and barely anything else burglar is just so good to breeze through the start and be able to immediately Hotwire cars and also the sneaking and agility bonuses are amazing for supply runs

Just a tip for every new player, there are no skill books for combat skills, picking an occupation or trait that starts with skill points in a combat skill, will make that skill have a permanent exp multiplier. So consider what weapon you would like to use mainly and get at least 1 point in that combat skill during the character creation screen.

Such an underrated channel

To those who want it, the chart is at 10:37 You’re welcome

I personally think Carpenter is at least a B tier. The early game boost to your carpentry level/exp gain is crazy. I've been doing runs where I can build staircases by day 2 or 3, and the higher level rain catchers the day after. This let's you fortify locations to use as bases that no other occupations can in the early game. Suddenly, every building is a two-story, as far as you're concerned. See something with a nice, flat rooftop? Build some stairs, build a fence, hang a sheet rope, deconstruct stairs. Congrats, you now have a zombie-proof platform to build on. And with such a high carpentry level, you'll be able to move beds and any other furniture you want there quickly.

Depending on my chosen combat style and zombie settings (plus the horde night mod) I would go Policeman for range combat or put stout, fit and ball player on fireman for a melee build. Started to not opt for brave because if my survivor lives long enough (about 7 days or so) they gain resistance to panic make smaller zombie groups easier to deal with EDIT: Guns are really useful if you are trying to clear out certain areas such as the Muldraugh Police station which has a book store right across from it and the Muldraugh School which also has A LOT of books to grab so Police Officer REALLY helps with that kind of thing. Also Metalworker only get really useful with the Workshop mod along with it's 3 sub mods that does add scrap weapons, armor and guns along with the Scrap Warrior Trait which gives a plus one to metalworking and hands out early scrap weapon recipes (the scrap shivs can level that skill up FAST)

Liked for the battle block theater soundtrack, subbed for the video.

The thing about carpentry and cooking is you can learn that stuff quickly from the TV in just 2 days. Especially if you find them booster books. Just rush a school or library and you should get lucky finding a backpack along with all the basic skill books you could need.

I would consider the fact you can very fast gain the ability to hijack a car with the mechanic even on the first day.

cracking work mate, useful information and well written and detailed video! exactly what ya need when discussing professions in Zomboid! Keep it up!

You forgot to mention that you can also level up carpentry via vhs tapes

Fire Officer, Carpenter and Park Ranger are my FAVORITES

Construction worker in C tier is criminal, taking it with handy is ridiculous.

Lumberjack is easily the top S Tier, right under Officer. Lumberjack is even very good for vanilla, because after a month or two I think zombies will spawn with axes in them, and if you find a wood axe and make your maintenance lvl 4-5, breaking Axes will be less of a hassle. And after you get Axe skill to 7 at least you can literally 1 hit zombies and sometimes 2 hits.

One thing I recommend is playing with the game settings. Particularly the loot options. Personally I love immersive sim style games I want a game world that feels like an actual place people lived in. And this games default loot settings really want to tell me that of the 4 houses I just searched no one had a hammer kitchen knife or pen?!

"proper bear grylls style" Suddenly starts bottling their own pee for "later use" 😁

A tailor where they can make internal patches on clothes and the patches give more bite chance reduction and ripping chance reduction would be good. also being able to just make clothes from components.

i would only change the construction worker to S tier because i LOVE using hammers, they use less stamina,have a LOT of durability. you can have a second backpack or a flashlight if play with more darker nights and you find them EVERYWHERE.

Im played neraly 100 hours in SP and now playing with big group of friends, and i can say that its just different because you have more people and other foccuses. You do not think in long term while playing with friends (because we dont need it) so occupation like ranger is something like b or even c in MP while in SP its solid A/S (long term). For me honestly Lumberjack in MP is best choice, single player is depends on what i want from run, so burglar, ranger, policeman or firefighter (sometimes even fitness instructor).

construction worker is underrated. it’s so easy to get short blunt 10 and it rocks

I found the pitchfork to be one of the best weapons. I found one early on like my 7th or so go. And I'm still ALIVE!

Creator of this list is definitely huge combat lover and does not consider much survival and crafting elements. Regarding combat, for the most part it's melee anyway. police officer is B at best thanks to aiming only. You can unload and reload one 9mm magazine a few times and have reloading leveled up easily. Veteran may waste a bit more ammo on the start but in the end thrives in combat. Easiest for beginners are Firefighter, Carpenter, Construction worker and Unemployed. My personal faves are Engineer , Mechanic and Electrician since it's too easy to learn hotwiring to be a burglar and tune vehicles which is so in depth that it's almost like a separate minigame on its own. On the combat perspective creating bombs is definitely useful and even it is not usually recommended you can use cars as weapons too if you know what you're doing and it is easy for you to repair them.

Construction worker is A, because you can very easily get into high level in short blunt, your weapons are slow to break, and easily found. It is straightforward and works.

You should put the thief in a bigger category named "im incapable of choosing something else".

Where are the hot zombie moms ...

PT: "Unless you are a player who LOOOOVES cooking...." Me: "Oh yeah, I LOOOOVES cooking!!" Still have not and will not do a Chef start for practical purposes. Because, with the amount of cooking I do, I level it up super fast anyway. Could see an RP value for it though. Nurse is also one with a primarily RP purpose, in vanilla. One of my mains is a nurse and I am RPing that she was working as a nurse in the clinic just North of the gated community in Muldraugh when the quarantine began. I keep in game journal entries, developing her story. Nurse can actually have a practical purpose if you use the mod First Aid Overhaul by Braven, on the Steam workshop. By default, the mod makes it so that treating a wound (e.g. applying a bandage) has a chance to fail until you reach level 4 in first aid. Nurse in this case start with the Medical Practitioner perk which means they will never fail. By the way, I have come super close to dying due to multiple consecutive failed bandaging attempts with other characters. The mod totally makes first aid viable and the pressure to level it, well... more pressing.

6:20 ☝🏼🤓 actkchually the killing allot of zombies and gaining it are from a mod we all use.

Burger flipper is fantastic in runs like CDDA or 16 pop extremely rare loot runs. It's quite popular amongst the chadly players. Having that 4x XP for Maintenance AND short blade, the most plentiful weapon type is Goated. And it's so incredibly cheap. I'm pretty sure some of the best players would put it in A or S tier. Short blade weapons aren't 'okay at best' after spear they are by far the most useful tool for taking down big hordes while using essentially no stamina at all. (less stamina than spear, but also less DPS). There's a good reason they are quite popular amongst the more experienced players. Newer players find them scary though, which is fair.

Nice one man! Good video. Keep them coming. It's good stuff.

I love Park Ranger.-4 solved with smoker.

great vid thx!

I love and hate the professions that have unique traits. Pros being that you get those cool unique skills and cons being you cannot unlock them by any means other than modding. Having actual stats for surviving is cool but crafting your own p**e bombs as the Engineer is also really cool but I nearly always take Lumberjack cause I build a lot and getting all the wood is super annoying and slow otherwise.

Security guard can be higher if you are playing single player. The single fact on sleeping less. Allow you do more stuff that you couldn't in normal playthrough. Required a little to none sleep with some energy food like vitamin and coffee. Allow players you scavenge longer without worrying need to sleep too often.

I usually go for electrican with like some mechanics traits. Makes it easy to jack a car fast and also not having to drive all over the world for the RNG of a damn magazine

W background music

You're videos are so good!! Please keep releasing more

If scenario is not specific (like living in woods/no cars or sth like that...) ultimate choice is undeployed cause you have points to adjust your character how you like. You need some exp to get proper traits to change yourself to true powerhouse!

Liked and subscribed! Im new to this game, its a challenge but i love it! Thanks for making this vid im always looking at the pros and cons of each occupation.

Nice Video! This helped in the Start very much :D

t5he thing i love about this game is that there is no right or wrong way to play some people say guns suck others think theyre good some say strength and fitness are the most important traits some dont ect. thats why i love seeing peoples opinions

thanks bro

I always picker Fitness Instructor for the 3 extra fitness, I hate how slow exercising is in this game so I spend all of my points on extra strength and fitness. All of the skills I can be leveled up to level 10 quite easily. I do think the other occupations are easier at the start of the game though.

Repairman is s tier for me. Burger flipper high A tier. Burgler could be useful for nimble buts its fairly easy to grind to hotwiring and get gymnast perk. Any trade with uniques such as lumberjack, fitness instructor, security guard or park ranger make interesting builds. Firefighter/Rosewood is s tier for noobs. Almost guaranteed to start in the firestation with a bunch of axes. It really depends on game mode, experience and play style.

Lumberjack my beloved, instant S tier.