Didnt know that about trees but in mission 1 and 2 its best to just be full nude as the fat man just charges you if your not. Some zombies in mission 3 are just out of range for melee attacks but usually don't take a normal amount of hits to kill like the zombie around the start above by the water tower.
Yeah, I know about the fatties; I'm not necessarily saying they're hard, but it's frustrating because even if they're slow (when not charging), they never stop or lose interest in you (until you reach a point to where they physically cannot access). For example, in the forest area for Mission 2, if you accidentally aggro a fatty there, or allow the fatty in the courtyard to chase you in the forest, they'll continue to follow you since the forest is completely open. You can easily outrun them, but the problem is that the manhole access point is so frustratingly difficult because of the fatties. It's annoying to position yourself in the absolute PERFECT location to enable the button trigger, but it's even more annoying when you need to run away from a fatty and lure him around from the manhole.
lol, it's not that I have a problem killing the zombies that are accessible, but some of them just aren't in positions where you can actually HIT them. For example, the zombie you mentioned (on the roof at the start of Mission 3) sometimes moves AWAY from you on the roof, so it's impossible to find a vantage point to shoot him, and he's usually behind debris, making him difficult to see and attack initially anyway.