PC Knuckle Wraps - a little love tap?

[Vapid Actions]

I've been doing a number of world starts trying different setups with knuckle wraps / early fortitude build, and they just... really fall flat every time. I've tried with varying levels in brawler, iron gut, and flurry of blows.  I'm wondering if other people have tried it and how their experience has been. Statistically, knuckle wraps are *very* bad. They are slower, have less regular attack damage, lower durability, have less range, and higher stamina cost than a stone axe. Even with level 3 into brawler, a stone axe can still easily out perform knuckle wraps unless you happen to find some beer. And I don't consider a stone axe a benchmark to be reached by an offensive weapon.

I personally think they need some love. Low damage is fine (a couple points more would be nice), and low range makes sense for an "endurance" fighter style. However the biggest problem is since they require so many hits, they annihilate your hunger bar. Which it is not that easy to manage hunger in the first week (7 canned items didn't refill a quarter of my hunger, and it took more than that to clear the PoI to get those canned goods). I'm not sure I agree with so much of knuckles power requiring beer. Beer being a buff for it is fine, but for them to be useless without it isn't great either. It really feels like knuckles were balanced completely around always having beer to chug.

I'd myself like to see them get a little bit more damage per quality level (even just 2 points on average would be great - take some of the power from beer and put it into the base weapons would be my preferred route here). Alternatively make them faster (I'm not sure why it's faster to do an overhand chop with an axe than it is to jab something with your fist), and something to make them consume less hunger to make them a bit more viable vs. even the wooden club (the stone spear being the OP opening choice is fine, there should be an OP choice for those that want it).

 

[m84midnighter]

Modded Steel knuckles with Bar Brawler, Brawler 5 and S. TRex absolutely wrecks mid game zombies.  The problem is once you start getting arnored or irradiated zombies.

 

[Jugginator]

I've done a few horde nights with fists on warrior/survivalist. Beer, food buffs, meds like painkillers, and if you have em fortbites help a lot but not needed. You gotta perk into it but yeah, it's certainly viable. Just gotta balance your power and normal attacks (and don't just stand there lol)

 

[Liesel Weppen]

Statistically, knuckle wraps are *very* bad. They are slower, have less regular attack damage, lower durability, have less range, and higher stamina cost than a stone axe.

Obviously you are able to read the stats of weapons...

 (7 canned items didn't refill a quarter of my hunger, and it took more than that to clear the PoI to get those canned goods).

But not the stats of food... You know that not all canned food is the same and each can gives either ONLY 5, 10 or 15 food. So if you got 7 cans of the worst, you gained 35 food, assume you have already leveled a little and your food bar has a capacity of 120, this ist already WAY MORE than just a quarter of your food bar. Since i don't believe you that you got only 7 cans with just 5 food, those 7 cans must have filled your foodbar much much more than not even a quarter. Middled out it should have been more like half of your food bar.

And yes, a POI don't necessarility drop more food than you burnt by looting it. Would be something strange that every time you burn food, food falls from the sky.... And canned food basically is the lowest "quality" of food in the game, besides eating even raw food...

But back to your topic: I didn't study the stats of knuckels, but i didn't like them either. Just from the feel, to low damage, to short range. Not just in A19, but i actually haven't tried them in A19 again.

 

[Vapid Actions]

[...]

And yes, a POI don't necessarility drop more food than you burnt by looting it. Would be something strange that every time you burn food, food falls from the sky.... And canned food basically is the lowest "quality" of food in the game, besides eating even raw food...

To clarify, I went in with about 75% food bar, came out with about 70~, never hit 100%. So to be perfectly fair, yes, if I ate all the items at the same time they may have hit over 25%, but getting them all in one PoI and eating them as I went, I never got a total of 25% gain. This was also a food specific PoI (shamway foods store) to get as many as 7 canned food items from one PoI, and considering the limited number of food PoI's, looting that limited source PoI should net a gain in resources. Not every PoI should net a gain in any given aspect. Looting a shotgun messiah should gain you ammo/weapons, but cost you food/repair kits/etc. So a food specific PoI, that offers as many as 7 food items in one clear should be a positive for food, and lose out on ammo/repair kits/etc.

--end response

I think once you get to "endgame" knuckles they are.... ok with 5/5/5, a few brawler magazines, drugs and beer, at least as much as any melee weapon. However that's not really what I'm asking to be adjusted. It's mostly the early experience where they cost too much hunger before you have a farm / reliable foodsource, don't have a source or stockpile of beer, and don't have the armour rating or healing items yet to be in the close quarters they demand. Every other melee option is far superior to knuckles early because they do more damage per hit, more dps, and have safer ranges to engage at. knuckles 'immunize' targets (head hits with knuckles prevent zombie infection), but I don't think this is enough to offset just how weak they are in other regards. So I think they just need a little... nudge. Maybe that's in the form of a faster TTK to reduce their close quarters weakness, or maybe something else to address their early weaknesses.

I get it's not a large concern as the majority of the player base aren't hardcore players and tend to play the long game rather than have a lot of restarts, so the early stats don't matter near as much. But I think it's something that can be made better, and if so, why not?

 

[Novamourne]

The critical injury system makes melee completely nonviable no matter what you're using. I got enough mitigation that zombies tickle me when they hit me but they all end up causing injuries that slowly reduce your max HP down to dangerously low levels. The system punishes you for getting hit and you will absolutely get hit as a melee. It's @%$*#!s and I hope they work on it someway.

 

[ggoblin]

I went full-on brawler in my last world (latest unstable) and besides a few random moments where I needed several bullets to save my @%$*#!, I managed to clear apartment complex with just fists (I had 4 Brawlers, 3-4 Pain Tolerance and Healing Factor). It's really bad Fortitude lost Heavy Armor perk but even then I branched into Strength (for SexRex 1 and Armor 1) and did not have much problems. In fact, in my most recent multiplayer world, I go this way as well and I clear POIs alone, the other group is three people who often die during the loot.

 

[Ralathar44]

To clarify, I went in with about 75% food bar, came out with about 70~, never hit 100%. So to be perfectly fair, yes, if I ate all the items at the same time they may have hit over 25%, but getting them all in one PoI and eating them as I went, I never got a total of 25% gain. This was also a food specific PoI (shamway foods store) to get as many as 7 canned food items from one PoI, and considering the limited number of food PoI's, looting that limited source PoI should net a gain in resources. Not every PoI should net a gain in any given aspect. Looting a shotgun messiah should gain you ammo/weapons, but cost you food/repair kits/etc. So a food specific PoI, that offers as many as 7 food items in one clear should be a positive for food, and lose out on ammo/repair kits/etc.

--end response

Canned food is no longer the ambrosia of god like it was in some former updates.  It's T1 food, equivalent to Grilled meat.  BUT, almost all of the canned food is now used in a recipe and the recipes are amazing .  Nom whatever food you get a hold of starting out to survive and then once you start getting the recipes you'll love seeing cans because a can of pasta means 100 hunger restoring sphaghetti, a can of chili means 50 hunger storing chili dogs, etc.

 

[Ramethzer0]

The critical injury system makes melee completely nonviable no matter what you're using. I got enough mitigation that zombies tickle me when they hit me but they all end up causing injuries that slowly reduce your max HP down to dangerously low levels. The system punishes you for getting hit and you will absolutely get hit as a melee. It's @%$*#!s and I hope they work on it someway.

Sounds like a streak of bad luck while face tanking.  What difficulty do you play?

 

[Teacyn]

I've found that brawler is viable but it has an issue where it requires way more investment than most other builds. For example, an Agility build has the three weapon skills (which are all incredibly powerful) and no other required skills for offense (if Machetes didn't exist and we instead had a T3 knife I would say Flurry of Blows is needed, but Machetes act like other weapons and are balanced like other weapons soooooo), meanwhile for Brawler you have to spec into the Brawler perk, desperately hope you find the books you need, craft @%$*#!tons of beer because unless you're drunk zombies shrug off your attacks for most of the game, and having the needed meds/candies are massively important too.