Melee-only playthroughs

M

MiTHMoN

Refugee
I just wanted people to chime in and share their experiences with playing melee-only. (As in, you decide to restrict yourself to not using traps, explosives, archery, or guns)

I've been pretty vocal on the discord for the last few years about how I feel on melee category balance, and not much has changed over the years for melee. Currently, after the recent nerf to Stun Batons (and the introduction to Charged zombies that seem to gain temporary immunity to being shocked), I'm a little unsure how I'd rank the top-end of melee now. I used to rank them (for late-game) #1 Stun Baton, #2 Sledge (probably Stone Sledge), #3 Steel Club, #4 Steel Knuckles, #5 Steel Spear, #6 Machete, with a focus on survival rather than speed. But now that the Stun Baton is weaker, I'm not sure anymore.

I tend to favour the Bone Knife if I'm not investing skill points into melee (then later Hunting Knife and Machete as I loot them). If I am going full-melee, I lean towards the Sledge or Stun Baton. If I try doing a spear-only, knuckles-only, or club-only playthrough I only seem to only get about 7-9 hours in before getting bored of it.

My current playthrough is semi-modded and I'm playing Stun Baton. I haven't 100% only used melee this time in, but 99% of my kills have been with a Stun Baton. One thing I noticed is that, for the yellow radiation barrels, sometimes I bring a gun to shoot them. I also think Charged Mutated are a pain to deal with using a Stun Baton.

So, what melee weapons have y'all committed to? Do you always pick the same category, or do you rotate between a few?
 
Before the blue and orange zombies appeared, I hardly used ranged weapons, but with their appearance, I can no longer rely entirely on melee weapons.
 
I like the bone knife until I find a hunting knife.

But still like the bone knife better, because it has a
faster reload for power strokes.

When not surrounded, I quick switch between BK and Spear
to manage stamina, while simply walking backward.

But I reorganized my xml, because I wanted to use more
weapons. I like the pipe baton for the swipe with bees,
spear for my auto attack vultures, and knife for the Zeds.

One thing that I don't think was intentional, but I do now
is drop down doing a plunging power attack with knives.
 
I haven't done a pure melee run in a while; but I mostly agree with your assessment. Sledges are king, Batons are a decent alternative; and Machetes are probably the weakest due to lacking in "interrupt".. the bleed slow is useful, but only up to a point, and that point is somewhere below the rainbow colors.

In practice though, I play way more machete than any other. I like pistols, parkour and run&gun for the hard parts of early game; those come with a knife build, and I tend to stick to it just because I'm already there... Plus stabbing just feels better than the rest, quick, the sounds are least annoying etc - for as long as your targets aren't tanky enough to just eat it, ofc.
 
Since 2.0 I've been investing in Intellect early, no matter what I plan to do later. Intellect Mastery 2 is just too good to resist, for me. Gets me perk books quicker, as well as generally more magazines.

I always end up getting points in Fortitude in the late-game to get the damage reduction and such.

Level 3 in Physician works for me since I'm already in Intellect. Makes it easy to invest into Stun Baton as well.

So yeah I end up using Bone Knife -> Hunting Knife -> Machete, because it works well without skill investment, and is good for collecting Rotting Flesh along the way. I always end up making a farm, even if I tell myself I'm not going to.
 
I'm always spear. I only use a gun if I'm in trouble, which isn't often, or on horde night since I enjoy sniping them on horde night. But otherwise I'm spear all the time, even in tier 5 POI, including tier 6 infested quests. With all spear books and steel spear and points in my spear perks, it's easy. I use only power attacks and one hit to the head on almost any enemy is a knockdown, leaving me time to hit others and knock them down or finish them without trouble. With penetrating hits, I can knock more than one down with one hit. This works just fine with blue and orange zombies as well. If I'm fighting a lot at once, I'll use the POI to my advantage, such as hallways or doors to funnel them and allow multiple hits per attack. Because I get full stamina with every kill once I have the books, I'm rarely out of stamina unless I'm having trouble getting a kill, but that's rare. With the reach of the spear, I can often fight off large groups without taking more than a couple of hits. If it gets really crazy, such as POI where they come from all directions and there's not a good place to funnel them, I do a lot of running around to avoid being hit... run up to one in the distance to kill it so others can't hit me where I was, dodge behind others to avoid getting hit, run around in a way to kite them into a group so I can focus on the group in front of me instead of all around me, etc. There are usually options to stay melee and not use weapons. But it of course depends on the melee weapon and how you play. I wouldn't try this with knuckles, for example. But others do and they do fine. It just doesn't work for me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top