melee weapons for A18-whats everyone using?

[p0wd3rp1l0t]

so i have played since A16 and have always been a ranged attacker with good success. i am the builder/farmer of our clan but occasionally get out and loot but tend to deal with quite a few screamers and wandering hordes at the base with the raised heat level. it seems like i cant find enough nests to supply my arrow making and the arrows seem to not to as much damage as before. well i ended up acquiring a level 5 sledgehammer and man that thing is a beast and i am not even perked in melee. is the sledge the best melee weapon or is there another one or two that you all prefer? i tried the spear, wasn't a fan. had a level 1 or 2 iron reinforced club, wasn't impressed. stun baton seemed worthless. like i said, not perked in any attacking as i am perking for resource gathering and farming. but with the bow not being a huge success i am thinking about sticking with that sledehammer. thing is the best i have found so far. any suggestions on what i can perk up in just a small amount of points to help me out? i cant dedicate every point i earn to it but if i can upgrade a few things to make me better suited for the sledge(or other melee) then i will go that route. thanks in advance

[Monkeyfarts]

I've tried most of the weapons in A18, and my favorite is probably the baseball bat. The main things you want in melee are safety and efficiency. Clubs have good stun and knockdown, along with fast speed and reasonable damage. All of the other weapons can do the job, but are often riskier if you miss the head. Weapons like the machete will kill with a headshot, but won't flinch or knock down on a body shot, meaning you get hit.

 

As for the sledge, it is definitely an old A17 favorite of mine. It still does a lot of damage in A18, but its newly nerfed range means you can't easily outspace zombies with it now. The slow swing speed means you have fewer chances at a decap. It does still knock enemies down like a champion, but now I feel like it isn't worth it over clubs.

[Synvastian]

spec into sledgehammer if you like it, it has the highest DPA of melee weapons, but slowest DPS.

 

The primitive bow (beginning bow now) is a tiny bit weaker on average than our old wooden bow (pre A18) but just getting the Wooden bow (the tier 2 bow now) will change how good it feels to use archery, the trajectory is a bit flatter now and seems to have a better hitbox collision setting since A17.4

 

Do what you like, if its sledgehammers, go big, if its bows, string em up and let em fly!

 

I personally love my fists and AK build (fists for everyday, AK for oh **** moments and horde night pileups my fists can't handle)

[Jihh]

I'm using spears only. I tried other weapons, but it feels like hitboxes are completely off. I can't reliably hit zombies with melee weapons, so I'll use my bow most of the time, switch to my spear when I feel like it and take out my AK-47 as an oh ♥♥♥♥ button. With most melee weapons I was out of stamina very fast without having hit zombies once.

[Hydr0]

Im using sledgehammer, its different from previous alphas and it takes some time to get used to but pretty effective

[12pack]

clubs/bats... hunting rifle for ranged

[myrkana]

Knife. I love the bleed effect, it lets me hit multiple zombies and run away for a breather, half the zombies will bleed to death with the perked 3 or more bleeds per target xD

[ApocNizmith]

Iron Reinforced club or the baseball bat with barbed wire mod. Got staggers, bleed, flinches for days, solid DPS and good damage with my mellebuild hitting for about 75 a swing with it.

[p0wd3rp1l0t]

did they nerf the axe melee damage?

[Sawth77]

I've really been loving fist weapons such as the iron/steel knuckles, as well as the knife for bleed damage. I have found myself audibly laughing when i punch a zombie so hard that his head explodes.

[Scyris]

Sledge/clubs they are honestly the only melee weapons that are viable later game. The rest just don't have the damage or the secondary effcts (like knockdown etc) that club/sledge does. They might work on adventurer difficulty, or maybe nomad, but on warrior+ the other melee weapons just fall way short. I tried knives one build but, meh damage, and the bleed from deep cuts is bugged and does not seem to stack properly. A single bleed is 1 hp/s, my lv 3 deep cuts stacks 4 instantly on a power attack, however those 4 stacks only equaled 2 hp/s, insted of the 4 hp/s it should have been. Plus if I miss, or mistime a single swing with a knife, I get hit, every single time. I gotta time it properly to keep them staggered, too fast and they'll get to hit you, to slow, they hit you.

 

Spear has the same issues, and it doesn't even get a bleed. It has range yes, but it doesn't really flinch or knockdown or anything unless you throw your spear at them, and imo throwing your weapon away is a really stupid idea.

 

Stun Baton: this thing is just garbage period, actually both the int weapons are just severly lacking compared to pretty much anything else.

 

Brawling/fists: No just no, the range is way to short, if you don't stagger or knockdown your getting wrecked on higher difficulties.

 

Anything probally works in adventurer mode, as in that mode iirc the player actually gets a damage bonus (think players do 125% on adventurer? might be 150%) and zombies only do 75% of their normal damage. Nomad its even at 100/100, Warrior Zombies deal 150% dmg, players deal 87 or 83% of their damage.

 

On warrior, my steel sledge is 1 shoting male zombies with headshots with normal swings, and if it doesn't 1 shot, its almost guarnteed knockdown/stun, so they usually do not get back up off the floor. I got a feral running at me? I don't aim for the head, I time a power attack to the body which most of the time knocks them on the floor, which I can then walk up and bash their head in before they get back up. Clubs can do something simmlar to this, though not as reliable.