It's not common, but i occasionally behead zombies, currently having 2 points in each bow, gun and knives. Happened to me when i had 1 point in and not during sneak attacks even. Having 3 AGI surely helps, as someone somewhere stated that dismember chance is based off attribute points for certain weapons (AGI conforming to guns, bows and knives).
My solution would be to simply invest in specific tree or use weapons assigned under trees you've already invested in and compare that to those without investment. I'm currently 2 STR (for mining perks) and 3 AGI (for weapons and stealth), so i can dabble either one really.
Yeah my current build I have 3 str (2 base+ a cigar that bumps it to 3), 3 fortitude, and 6 agility. Base stats up headshot damage and dismember chance with all weapons under that stat. Getting a stat to 5 only costs 4 skill points, and thats 250% headshot dmg and 25% dismember chance with any weapon that stat governs.
The weapons got serious balance issues though imo for the melee ones. Clubs are still all around the best for melee, due to the chain knockdowns. Knives are pretty crappy other than the machete, and the bleed mechanic seems buggy as its not doing as much damage as it should be. a single bleed for me does 1 hp/sec dmg, but a power attack should stack 4 of those instantly, so that should be 4 hps/s, but it ends up only being 2/s. This coupled with knives no knockdown and the fact bleeds chain trigger rage mechanics makes knives really useless later on..
The Int weapons are to be frank, complete garbage damage wise. The Junk turret is only good for the stunlock it can do with 0 perk investment, its OP as ♥♥♥♥ to the point I will not actually use it due to it removing most of the challenge of the game when placed as it can shoot thru the player, ammo is easly made, and you can drop that thing anywhere and have a extra dps/stunlock source. The stun baton is just god aweful, extremly low damage, you could say the stun is nice, but there is clubs, that can knockdown pretty much every swing which basically does the same thing, puts a zombie out of combat, and they do 3x the damage of stun batons.
Knives: The lack of knockdowns+Bleed not doing the damage it should be+the chain trigger of rage mechanics makes these less and less viable the farther you get. Not to mention the hunting knife has garbage for base damage.
Fist weapons: I haven't used these myself yet, but having to get that close to zombies to hit them can't be good. Yes I know if you headshot them it disables their infection ability, but that doesn't help you when your basically exchanging blow for blow due to the short range, and the rage mechanic means they WILL be hitting you almost everytime you go in. Unsure if they knockdown, if they do simmlar to clubs they might be decent.
Spears: I don't care for these one bit, the range is nice, but unless you throw the spear its not very effective as a weapon due to its really low base damage. Takes far to many hits to kill anything and it cannot knockdown unless you power attack and throw your spear.
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between the bow needing parts, the enrage mechanics, the infection, and the ton of guns you find everywhere, it really seems they are trying for us to use guns right from the start.
Its actually much safer to use guns in a18 than ever, due to lack of outside spawns, you don't usually need to worry about pulling 5+ zombies from outside after you fire 2 shots, and most poi's have sleepers decently spread out so you don't usually aggro entire floors. Good luck meleeing in the shotgun messiah factory, some rooms in that poi have 7-10 zombies that will rush you all at once if you make any noise. Took quite a bit of ammo when I cleared that poi and tbh the loot sucks ass in there for how big it is. I'd expect a gun factory to have way more gun safes/gun boxes than it actually does. Once I get a head lamp or a gun light mod, I usually start raiding poi's at night with guns, melee is kinda too dangerious when they always run.
