I did encountered problems with 6kV ESD damaging a 100 Ohm series resistor and not the 0.35um CMOS based chip (the chip was actually being the DUT; OK, it was specifically designed to withstand such discharge on that pin).
It was a regular SMD resistor, according to its manufacturer's representative it likely experienced a flash over which is killing for the thin layer construction, there was supposed to be used a special type (I don't remember which, because it was confirmed it is not the chip, so ours, problem, so nothing to fix for us...).