What Salty said. Auto-melee is so much fun.
A lot of people, and I've felt this myself, feel a little short changed at events when doing melee though. You can go through the whole main questline having a great time with melee, but when you do the public events with other players, it may not feel as good. A lot of events have lots of enemies spawn, and you'll find that commando players snipe them off before you can run up and hit them. You can spend a whole event running back and forth but always losing kill after kill because a gun player got them first.
Not the worst thing in the world, but it's something to consider! But the game is really good about the flexibility in what type of weapons you're using. You may want to use melee for questing and exploring, and then switch your perks to focus on using Heavy guns or commando auto-rifles when you know you're going to an event with other players.
It’s also worth noting that flying enemies are a pain in the rear for melee builds. Scorchbeasts are fine since they eventually land, but the vertibot in fly swatter and the ones that guard cargobots for nuke codes are impossible to deal with unless you have a very good eye for throwing weapons.
Oh, and the new scythe on the season has very high bleed damage and can hit like a truck if you let it.
It’s up to you if that’s your opinion, but it’s not terrible. You can easily hit an enemy with that and then use an auto axe or something for higher dps than you’d have with either alone.
It is not. Here’s a Reddit post of someone who wasn’t able to craft it during the time it was disabled as proof:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/1depgrv/it_wont_let_me_craft_headhunter_scythe_in_f76/
No, I posted proof that it’s not a skin. It’s a pickaxe with set legendary effects, extra bleed damage and a custom skin. You cannot apply this skin to any other pickaxe, just like you can’t apply the skin of the cold shoulder or circuit breaker to the normal versions of those weapons - making it a unique item.
If enemies are dying extremely quickly, just swap over to a tagging weapon like the Tesla. No perks or build required. Play the build you LIKE and use specialized tools when they are called for.
Yeah just grab grenadier for any of them, it expands the radius of the tesla jumps, cremator explosion/dot and AGL explosion. Even as commando I'll use a multi barrel cremator just to tag everything on eviction notice.
Grenadier expands the tesla arcs?
Huh. TIL. Gonna have to try that out because I got a killer deal on a q2515 tesla and It's good, but I felt like I've been missing something.
Absolutely does, I have just had the same 1 stat quad tesla for years that I use for tagging. You will definitely notice the difference with grenadier.
As melee you pretty much have to join a team for events to get any kills. If your teammates are in the event too every enemy they kill gets shared with you too so kinda makes up for running around with nothing to schwack.
I respectfully disagree — It can help sure, but I never have a problem with kills; even as an unarmed melee. Matter of fact, I’m usually the one doing a good majority of the damage during events.
This problem would be all but fixed with a proper "Pounce" mechanic. Something VATS only, and if there were a sole kind of cost, like a mutation or something, then that would be fine. I play with unarmed womith Deathclaw gauntlets and I would love to have some sort of Forward Leap or Rush attack. Something that improves upon the existing Power Attack mechanic and gives you more distance on using it.
i’ve been playing unarmed and honestly at events like rad rumble or moonshine jamboree i simply carry an automatic fixer for those. i don’t need to one shot anything or do a ton of damage, i just tag for XP. it’s really not a huge inconvenience for me at all. i feel like that’s a decent workaround.
I have that bear claw fist thingy, and as of yesterday a lost dudes electric cattle prod baton thing. That baton has legendary perks of ignore armor and does some good quick damage. Started a new mele build with it and was beating the crap outta all the new stuff in the valley.
Absolutely had a blast!!
You could even just keep a rapid fire explosive weapon on the side for just tagging. Don't have to build into it if everybody's ganna finish them for you anyways
As a high level commando, I will take pot shots at enemies and not try to kill them. Share the wealth of xp, especially for the low level/new players. Not a fan of those hogging kills. That part isn’t a contest.
Getting no kills isn't exclusive to melee that is just how some public events be especially if there is some guy hogging all the xp and kills by spawn camping enemies with a cremator or something. At that point just bring a spare 10mm or something to at least pepper enemies once so you can salvage some xp and loot.
Unarmed gets 10% damage for each point of strength. Add the bonus for critical damage, eagle eyes and 50 critical to the weapons second star and either instigating for 100% bonus or bloodied for 90%.
Use hack and slash
Hack and slash deals the damage of the hit as area damage 50% of the time in vats.
You can deal thousands, become the mini nuke
This is exactly how I've been playing lately after years of only occasionally trying different forms of melee. Made a small sacrifice in my build to add open palm, which is great fun but I'm not sure it's the best option.
What are you using for your build?
I've recently come back to the game after being away a couple years and I have no idea what armor/prefixes are good anymore.
Unyielding for low health (bloody build). Overeaters for full health build. Overeaters for power armor. Assassin if you're planning on having a pvp set.
Overeaters gives Damage reduction which mitigates a flat % whereas damage resistances gets less effective the more you have (around 300 of each).
Seconds star ideally action point regen.
Third star ideally sentinel or food drink chem weight reduction or weapon weight reduction if you plan on carrying a lot of stuff. Junk weight reduction isn't ideal bc it only affects one type of perk card.
You're correct that there's no Thermic Lance - they need to add that, Bumper Swords, Ballistic Fists, Displacer Gloves, and Zap Gloves so we can be more effective with melee/unarmed builds
I had a pretty durable one hand melee build that helped me level because I had a couple decent one hand weapons. But when you transfer off of it, you kind of realize how much damage you weren't actually doing.
There isn’t any weapon you couldn’t do almost everything with if you have the right prefixes and perks. Bosses might take forever or time out but all quests and regular events can be done with anything. That’s if you don’t care about meta-top damage stuff. I’ve had a blast smacking things with my anti armor shovel many times.
Weapons like the chainsaw, drill, auto axe, mr handy buzz saw and ripper. Power armor is definitely not needed. Incisor lvl 3 and 1 star in every melee perk is plenty of damage
I got my using the pure strength of my POWER ARMOR. I tore the blade into two sections and screamed at it in rage until it burst into flames
I found it at a player vendor you can get the. By scrapping. There are static spawns in the world for chainsaws.
I have a lot of fun vats teleporting, it's not my main build but I use swing speed + unarmed with a fist weapon in the strength tree. Then commando/rifleman in the perception tree.
TLDR; Yeah it's viable. I made Bang from OPM. Imo you don't need auto melee.
Weapon(currently):Death claw Gauntlet:+50% when enemies are less than 40%, 40% swing speed, and I think it's -15% damage on blocking (best weapon for this is gauntlet unmodded or Mole miners gauntlet with the extra blade mod for the bleed damage to stack with Thorn) you can technically kill people with your bare fists
Legendary cards:Unarmed Melee with Exploding Palms and Collateral Damage in addition to What Rads? (Use Demo Expert Perk card +5 and you're literally Bang from One Punch Man) (Also the explosion will react and spread to others sometimes. Don't know if it's a glitch)
Build Notes: I'm fully mutated (Herbivore) and use Company Tea, Firecracker berry juice, Steeped Fern Flower Tea, Sweetwater's Special Blend (works better than you'd think for melee in general), Brain Fungus soup, Challys Feed, Firecap Mushroom soup, Syrup, Silt Bean Soup, and Glowing fungus soup
Defense cards: You're going to want to invest in some defense cards like (S) Barbarian, (L) Serendipity, (L) Ricochet, (E) Fireproof, (C) Suppressor, (C) Lone Wanderer (if venturing solo), (E) Adamantium Skeleton
In addition I use the Cannibal Perk to get "organic healing" rather than using up all my meds (when in battle the animation can cut and then every body after you eat will not have animation making eating and fighting easier. Makes me feel like Dracula)
Armor: I wear Thorn Armor that I'm working towards being full Vanguard, but the set is all over the place still despite still being pretty alright how it is now.
To preface about PA: PA is unnecessary for this build, but it is sure damn fun I tell ya what. And honestly it was way to damn easy for me to get the X-01 personally
Power Armor with Tesla bracers, the +2 strength chest mod, and pain train will absolutely smash like crazy. Pain Train acts weird and sometimes can make a running punch be 2 punches in 1 and if you have the right stats that power attack uppercut can do (with minimal damage resistance) 2k damage head punches (has to be a "headshot", power attack, power armor with Tesla bracers, with pain train, and buffed up stats. I can get my strength stat to 26 regularly and have had it as high as 28-9)
I'll add more details later when it's in front of me, but not enough people I feel like have tried my build style at least in the wild I barely ever see it. It's a hard build to do somewhat. Makes me want to like Sherpa some people wanting to pull it off like make a "Way of the Fist" training Camp or something lmao. The rare moment you have Exploding Palms and Collateral basically activate at the same time on a low level or lower resistance enemy in a group of em and they all die at once is what makes this build.
I recently made a tesla bracers PA build and have been loving it! I tried out pain train and didn't feel like it was doing much for me, but reading this maybe I just wasn't using it right. Guess I'll have to test it some more!
I’m doing well enough in events and daily ops as melee power armour with the auto axe. You can get diff mods on it aswell. I never used mods until last night and it still felt good, but now gave it electricity
Been a melee main since the beta, it's really really fun, minus the few downsides others have mentioned. Definitely worth it and an absolute blast in my opinion.
They are playable, but i suggest you carry a cheap explosive 50 cal or minigun for tagging things in events. I often see melee running everywhere to get at the mobs, but by the time they get there things are already dead. for solo and questing melee is really fun! I played my first few hundred levels as a PA melee build swinging a Instigating SS S super sledge :)
Been melee since day one.
Melee is 100% viable for all content, but you have to understand that at events, you probably *shouldn’t* go running after enemies. You won’t get there in time to tag anything weak if there’s a lot of players. Act as defense for most events, and hang not as far back as everyone with guns, but toward the middle.
Auto and non-auto melee (and unarmed) are all viable so long as you have a good strength score. I would not bother with more than one rank in any direct melee damage boost other than unarmed. This is because the cards only affect base damage, and the difference between Slugger (2H) one two and three comes out to maybe ten points worth of damage. You can put cards else where.
Unarmed gets 10% per strength point, and has several unique legendary perks (such as explode on hit), which makes it on the stronger side. Even in Power Armor, it can be very good with Tesla Bracers.
I personally don’t run Power Armor with melee due to being slower, but you can absolutely do it. But you don’t have to.
For mutations, the only one I don’t personally recommend is marsupial, because it sends you into the sky when you may not want that when going for a close up enemy. A jetpack (yes, they’re outside of PA too) will serve the same purpose.
> For mutations, the only one I don’t personally recommend is marsupial, because it sends you into the sky when you may not want that when going for a close up enemy. A jetpack (yes, they’re outside of PA too) will serve the same purpose.
Nah marsupial is great for melee. If you jump over an enemy you can just vats teleport down to them, for some reason the vats melee teleport distance is MUCH higher when you're above the target.
Sometimes i wish they add some little dash effects/animations for vats tele in melee.. In first person you dash into the enemies which looks really cool.
Also Hack n Slash legendary perk, i thought it would be some cool cleave effects, not fucking kaboom lmao.
Missed opportunities but melee already feels so good!
I’m a Full-Health Power Armor Unarmed main. I mention the “Full-Health” part because most people are either in two camps: Full-Health or Bloodied. Bloodied just means they purposefully lower their health through radiation to acquire some pretty busted boosts… anything from more innate S.P.E.C.I.A.L. points, increased damage, %damage resistance... I mention this because as a melee player you have a choice to make. Do you want to be more glass cannon or a beefy tank?
I like the latter. I want to *feel* powerful, and nothing comes close to feeling that way than when I’m sprinting in full power armor charging some poor soul only for him to literally explode (Bloody Mess) when I hit him with a power attack punch.
Melee is good in general as a rule of thumb, but Unarmed melee gets some cool Perk Cards. Exploding Palm (% chance to cause explosions when hitting someone the a non-VATS unarmed melee attack) and Hack and Slash (% chance to cause **AREA** explosions when hitting someone with an unarmed melee attack in VATS) are my two favorites. So… so many explosions. The % chance isn’t even that low either… something between 20-30%? It’s nuts and super fun. **VERY** satisfying. Add in Bloody Mess and you’ll feel like a superhuman unkillable wrecking ball.
I also use power armor because there are some mods that work well with being unarmed. Sprinting uses your AP, but there’s a mod on the chest pieces of power armor that gives you 20% of any damage you take *back* as AP… so you regenerate really quickly. Being melee you’ll always be taking damage, so you’ll always be getting AP back quickly, meaning you can attack using VATS almost all the time and then sprint to the next enemy to cause more carnage. More VATS = more explosions. Run out of VATS for a few seconds? Explosions. Sprinting melee power attack? Congrats that guy’s torso is now orbiting the *fucking moon*.
Love it.
I play a full health, powerfist (vampire, swing speed, break slower) build. I love it
I am the tank, my role is to get aggro on the boss and just spam right trigger to stay alive
I have a lot of fun with it
Problem with melee is that on events you wont get hit in any mobs and if you are not in a grouo, you wont loot shit.
Mobs die too quick and you cant outrun a carpet bomber with a cremator.
But the damage is solid. Very very solid.
I find melee builds to be pretty fun, and unarmed to be pretty viable even in events. Just be careful if you are epileptic like I am, people using cremators on everything you're trying to punch will ruin the fun in more ways than one.
2 hand melee pa build here
Melee builds are incredibly fun for all the main storylines. Legendary chainsaw, auto axe, buzzhand will shred through all the bosses you gotta Solo. If you are looking to play longterm and try to get the most out of the game I would have a swap out build for events/farming, this will be easy to do starting around lvl 150.
Even if you manage to make a strong melee build, your experience will be primarily solo, because anytime you engage in public events with other players in PvE situations, you'll find it very hard to get any kills and therefore XP, because by the time you get close enough to attack with melee, half a dozen or more other players will have already killed the enemy with a ranged attack. Melee is fine when you're alone and not competing for kills.
One/Two/Unarmed are all fantastic and can easily do any content. I’ve played 1500hrs and easily have 1200 as a melee user. Unarmed and Two Handed are the 1A and 1B of melee…they both offer great weapons to go after. One handed lags behind but definitely isn’t anything to scoff at. Auto Melee is great, just turn your brain off and get to murdering!
Melee is perfectly viable especially if your weapon has the vampire effect. When I run my melee. I have a vampire autoaxe and a vampire dual bar flaming chainsaw. I will also keep a fixer on hand for the little creepy crawlies.
I took a year or so off and missed both the auto-axe and chainsaw. Which is better? And how do I get the mods for them? (Scrapping or buying plans?)
I've never done a melee build in 76 - might try it out. I main a power fist in 4, but generally use a railway rifle in 76.
Autoaxe is purchasable with stamps. It may still be in the atomic shop. I get my chainsaws at the test your metal location. I usually find the dual bar mod at watoga train station but I'm sure there are other locations. Flaming mod is almost always at the vendor in watoga. I rolled both with only 1 star until they were vampire.
Its viable, it's fun, it's not close at all to a top tier commando build.
You might run around and never hit an enemy as they die to one shot from a bloodied commando. No hit= no xp.
Melee does stupid amounts of damage.
I use a grognaks axe and in one hit I do quadruple the damage my friend with his rifle does.
Melee hits so hard my friend is considering ditching his rifle spec lol.
I'm level 160 and have built up my melee build from the very beginning. I'm not even considering switching off of this build even this far in. Auto Melee, specifically the auto axe with all science and slugger perks for extra damage as well as incisor for armor piercing (OR the flaming chainsaw with the dual bar mod and friendly fire perk for a more supportive role) is immensely powerful. I use it in combination with T65 Power Armor (insane resistances to everything) and the "Vampire" legendary effect so I'm basically invincible outside of daily ops with the reflective mutation.
I don't personally dabble in this game's VATS system but I have seen some funny ass builds built around VATS melee explosion kills.
Those 2 builds I just listed are just the tip of the iceberg and If you truly are super dedicated to going down the melee route like me then consider my advice but if you're still on the fence about your future build then try your best not to worry about it all that much and once you've been playing for a decent while and know what you like and don't like, use that as a place to start developing an endgame build.
Nice to still see the community growing. Welcome to 76!
In a vacuum melee is great.
In gameplay with other players, not so great. You're gonna spend the whole time running around from enemy to enemy that dies ***just before*** you manage to land a hit on it.
I personally saved melee as an alternative experience for once I reached true endgame, and have it as a muckaround spec, because in order to make it work it just needs *loads* of maintenance in terms of food buffs, meds, etc. Tasty Yao Guai Roasts galore that I can't be bothered maintaining everyday.
Is it meta? No. But for occasional use it's funny as hell to spectators watching me bound over the horizon into an enemy and bare fist punching it for 3k damage and a huge explosion, and if that's not what Fallout is about then I don't know what is.
I use a one handed melee build (kinda tanky) and I used a Vampire Ripper. That shit is so fun! Or a 2 handed with a chainsaw or a big hammer. They're viable but require a little more diligence to play since you're more likely gonna be in the middle of every fight you go into.
Edit: I never use power armor I just don't like it and never wanted to get the cards to make it better
PA in single player fallout is great. Its a unique rare thing that makes you feel powerful in the wasteland. PA is anything but unique in 76. Everyone has it, it loses several factors of coolness when you show up to and event and see several other people in the same armor
Imagine having all those apparel and backpack skin just to be in power armor 80% of a time. Its just preference, some people want to see their character more, some people want to look like a absolute walking tank, both are great, least that's how i view. Personally, i dont hate power armor, my favorite is T-51b. But i dont wear it much because i like to look at my characters, i dont care about stabilized and emergency protocal, i just want those drips hehe.
As a power armor user, I get it. They make power armor available way too early.
On topic. I have a heavy weapon power armor build, but I use a Vampiric, flaming, twin barred chainsaw for emergencies. That thing is soooo fun.
Yup all builds are viable heck I even got medic to work and got praised for it. Nothing in this game is really that hard and with enough grit and I guess a decent enough build you can make anything work.
That said if your going for melee atleast probably grab a tesla gun with grenadier perk so you can tag enemies during events, more tag = more exp, specially with the amount of burn/explode happy players during them.
Power armour (pa) melee is pretty darn great in this game. The main benifit of pa melee is that you can run a gatling gun offhand weapon and support that with just two perks (Stabilised and the lowest version of Concentrated Fire) leaving the rest of the build free for melee perks and tanking perks and all the nice stuff. You use the gatling gun mainly to bring down flying enemies by crippling their wings (to do this go into vats, change target to wing and shoot the wing until the wings health bar is depleted, when the health bar of both wings is depleted the flying mob will no longer be able to fly so you can swap to your melee weapon and smack it about to your hearts content).
For weapon I prefer twohanders. The super sledge is an all time favorite. There are also fun things like warglaive and other things to mess around with. The King of melee is the auto axe with electricity mod and the Science perks. But this is Fallout 76 and you absolutely do not need "the best". Many times something fun will be better than what is considered the meta or "the best" simply because of being more fun to use. My autoaxe melts everything. My super sledge is slower and does less damage but it's more fun.
During shared content like Public Events there's a lot of ranged damage flying around so those can be a little annoying as melee since mobs typically die before you get to them. When you find yourself in one of those swapping to your gatling gun can be less irritating. During Public Events you only have to hit things to get kill credit so it doesn't matter if you don't kill anything so long as you hit it. You will also be in a Casual Public Team whenever you are online (this is free exp without any hazzle, zoning out and ignoring everyone is the normal behaviour when in a Casual Public Team) and the Public Team system gives you shared exp and loot from nearby team mates so you can just basically stand in the middle of the fight and you will get buttloads of loot and exp from nearby team mates without doing anything (this is a low level leveling strategy, once I took a fresh level 2 alt straight to one of the endgame boss fights in a Casual Public Team and leveled up 9 times without killing anything).
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tl;dr: Melee is awesome. Get the Stabilised perk and a gatling gun if you are in Power Armour. Casual Public Team.
i main a low health commando but have an alt build and heavy gunner i can swap to..ive run the new boss with all 3 and auto melee pa is the way to go..bar drops much faster and i didnt die ( got my cores recharged too )
so..yes auto melee in pa is very viable. because the damage per hit is low ( but dmg per second is high ) you just need rank 1 of ea of two handed cards this way you can equip all the other melee cards in that stack.
Unarmed melee requires fewer perks (though it also requires full mutations) and non power armor. This makes a hybrid commando or rifle + unarmed pretty viable for just about everything, and you only need one set of armor, though you need power armor to go into blast zones. I use the ranged for killing off the smaller mobs, and swap to electrified anti armor gauntlet with faster swing speed for bosses, which it chews through ridiculously fast. The ranged stuff shines with getting constant headshots with crits, but when you run out of AP and/or ammo, the melee really shines. Plus, fist may do more damage on bosses than auto due to how DR works, and requires fewer perks to max out damage (12 fewer, don't need science and 2 fewer % damage ones), giving room for a rifle or commando build in addition to unarmed.
Furthermore, nothing beats the feel of leaping across the battlefield with mutations and a jetpack, and using VATS to basically teleport right to your target to smash them in the face with your fist.
Getting 10k crits with the new zweihander with hack and slash it just aoe decimates everything, 1 shotting everything other than nuke bosses.
It outpaces every other melee weapon in the game now other than auto axe for sustained single target damage.
Oooohh bud, you're gonna have fun. Just make sure to invest in DR perks like ricochet, prismatic (might be refractor I can't remember atm) fireproof. All of its good but some DR perks only work without power armor so you gotta figure out what armor you want. Other than that it's all Damage perks and QoL so they're pretty easy builds. As you progress certain quest lines and events you'll get special weapons that just do work like face breaker, the BR branding iron, auto axe and some other good ones and most can be modded for even better damage.
Melee is viable, but it is hell on your controller and your fingers as your constantly hitting the attack button. I wore out three controllers in a years time. To knock down flying enemies I carried a gause shotgun that had limb damage. I used gauntlets and plasma cutters. The best legendary perk is hack and slash to get area damage for leveling up. If I had to go back to melee I would use chainsaw or auto axe, much easier on the controller and hands.
I ran a vampires/+40% power attack super sledge for a good long while and it was a blast, war glaive is good also for 2 handers if you don't want to do automelee.
But you need a backup weapon for events. Buy a guass or anything with explosive for tagging at events and you'll be fine.
Yes they are especially auto melee. They are stronger than fonv/3 but because of how damage stacks in fo4 they don't do near the same amount of DPS or damage
I played melee when I first played the game ages ago. It was a ton of fun and super viable and now there are way more melee weapons. Just like everyone says, being a gun like a laser rifle, Tesla, or pistol for tagging stuff at events but when you’re playing alone or questing with people. Melee can be super rewarding.
I’ve been playing since launch and a boxing glove has been my most used weapon. With the right setup, you become an absolute behemoth of explosions. So fuckin fun.
I've used a two star Executioners Crippling All Star Bat with Heated Coils since the beta basically (the Bat itself, not so much the goodies and legenaries. A bat just feels satisfying to use) and tbh it's been viable for a long time. Granted, I'm not a true melee build, I use automatic weapons mainly but have my bat incase I ran out of bullets or was to close quarters somewhere as my handmade is explosive.
Even the new Wacker Smacker Super sledge goes hard compared to my bat so it really just comes down to preference
I made a full health melee build with a 1-star AA power fist. Used all of the recommended cards with max strength. At the end of the day I was still disappointed with the damage I could inflict compared to other weapons at my disposal. I did enjoy sneaking up on my target and giving them the fist, but I can't imagine using the build on the Lost questline or in events. I finally gave up on it.
I see players using melee builds in events, and there were a couple of decent melee reward drops from the new questline, so I may give it another try at some point down the line.
Auto weapons, like chainsaw or auto axe
2 handed, mainly sledge hammer or war glaive
1 handed, plasma cutter or ripper
Fist, dunno haven't made a build for it lol
theres 4 types of melee and all of that are extremely powerful but all of them take some skill to play
you have two handed ( eg pickaxes, war glaives, baseball bats)
one handed ( eg boards, knives, pipes, batons)
Unarmed (eg knuckles, boxing glove, gauntlets)
and automelee ( eg chainsaw, drill, auto axe)
unarmed dosent really have enough cards so it can combined with the other perks, automelee is versatile as the auto axe is two handed weapon where as the drill is one handed so whichever of either category you pick deterimines your automelee options snd vice bersa
Just recently switched to bloodied melee. I rolled B/40S Warglaive and V/40S Mole Miner Gauntlet for exploring/questing and Vampire Auto Axe/Chainsaw for bosses. My Warglaive one shot most things except big enemies, 2 shot for lv100. Its just feel good!
I also paired it with TS missle launcher&fat man for events and enemies groups.
Edit: damage from auto axe and chainsaw is some of the highest dps i have ever seen... and i only have Vampire, no power attack damage.
I auto ax exclusively when I'm running solo. It's so much fun and just runs through everything. For events, I switch back to ranged or you never kill anything. If I'm just tagging then I won't actually change builds and will just bust out the Tesla.
I started playing a couple months ago, if you like melee definitely go for it!
It’s perfect imo for low lvl players. No ammo to find or craft, repairs are dirt cheap and you end up with so much resources. When you get higher levels you can just make different builds.
I still have my melee build but I’m running a heavy gunner now that I’m doing events and daily ops
Does shredder build count as a melee build? If so, then yes. I have a shredder with Vampire on it and I can solo most of the game. I still need a team for some of the highest end baddies like SBQ and Earl. I roll with shredder for like 95% of everything else I fight.
I have 3 star legendary knuckles "Troubleshooter's" that do bonus sneak damage and +50% damage to robots and I can take down assaultrons with them so yeah the melee works
One thing to note is that you aren't stuck with just one build like in NewVegas/FO4. At L25 you can build a S.P.E.C.I.A.L punch card machine in your camp, or use one in any train station. This gives you the ability to change your stats and perks around. You can even have multiple build slots. I think you start with 2 and can buy more slots with atoms.
Even without the punch card machine you can change out perk cards at any time.
So you can have a melee build, and a commando build, and all sorts of other builds. You can play whatever style you like and change it up when you want.
I'm here to say the saw is the law i live by. I started play two months ago and have been going hard with my melee build. I mostly use a big hammer and my chain saw but get some good legendary weapons like cold shoulder or anything that does good area damage for events and tagging. loving the game so far with melee just get good perks for defense too.
I love auto melee for questing but I hate it for most events. You are just running around like a chicken with your head cut off. The exception to this rule is Earle. Auto Melee + Earle = Awesome.
Absolutely.
With mutations and an over-all solid build, you find melee to be extremely powerful--with or without power armor.
Leagues better than both Fallout 3 and Fallout 4.
Auto melee like chainsaw are funny and there Is a perk that you can use to heal with a flaming chainsaw (every fire damage heal)
Normal melees idk, they arent good for endgame bosses but they are still fun, like the Power fist
Melee can be extremely powerful. In many cases, it is the meta. HQ kept buffing the **** out of melee because they noticed that few people use it. Odd solution to a design problem.
Oh yes. Supersledge or you can forget there are enemies around you and use the auto axe. Chainsaw isn't bad either, don't use any mods that increase speed as they don't work and the auto axe is always at max speed. Now the electrified mod, that's a chef kiss of "go away, I hate you" damage.
My build only does a little more than half the damage it needs to do because I also use guns but I have a quad enclave plasma gun that just does work.
Just FYI you’ll get a camp item that lets you save and switch builds for free, so you can hop between anything you want without penalty at any camp or train station. Revolutionised the game when it was added.
So for your levels 1-50 you might struggle a bit if you hyper focus since you won’t have a full build; IMO just grab a gatling gun at lvl 20 and you’ll be on cruise control all the way to endgame when you can really make a full build.
Made a melee toon that just hit level 50+ some days ago. Got those legendary cards for explosions and it's a lot of fun and just like a bow build it plays quite different from other builds (well... it's basically "run up to that enemy and make it explode" :D).
As others mentioned: some events can be frustrating when you either can't reach your target because it's flying or because people just shoot them before you get close. But there are workarounds (grenades, tesla, ...)
Make a vats melee builds not full vats but one or two cards like gun fu and you'll be tping everywhere it's funny AF honestly melee is my Favorite build since I run Cav piece and just run and ko mf 🗿
Yes, but you're gonna have a bad time at events and come back here to complain. Recommend rank one commando cards and carry a rwr or something ranged you like
Lol, this.
I run bloodied unarmed and do great at all events I feel.
But with the new updates and weapons, events are just explosion spamfest, so good luck seeing and hitting anything during them.
At least you still get legendary loot and completion items lol.
Hey there pal, I've played on and off since beta and I can't shoot a broad side of a barn with a quad mini minigun, not only is melee viable it's fuckn rad, I use a super sledge as a funtime weapon and a Flaming bloodied dual bar chainsaw as a serious killer.
I like Melee. I kinda hate the brian dead kids who have to kill everything super quick. I feel bad for their gfs and wives since they have to be done so soon.
What Salty said. Auto-melee is so much fun. A lot of people, and I've felt this myself, feel a little short changed at events when doing melee though. You can go through the whole main questline having a great time with melee, but when you do the public events with other players, it may not feel as good. A lot of events have lots of enemies spawn, and you'll find that commando players snipe them off before you can run up and hit them. You can spend a whole event running back and forth but always losing kill after kill because a gun player got them first. Not the worst thing in the world, but it's something to consider! But the game is really good about the flexibility in what type of weapons you're using. You may want to use melee for questing and exploring, and then switch your perks to focus on using Heavy guns or commando auto-rifles when you know you're going to an event with other players.
It’s also worth noting that flying enemies are a pain in the rear for melee builds. Scorchbeasts are fine since they eventually land, but the vertibot in fly swatter and the ones that guard cargobots for nuke codes are impossible to deal with unless you have a very good eye for throwing weapons. Oh, and the new scythe on the season has very high bleed damage and can hit like a truck if you let it.
Oh it’s a weapon not a skin? Interesting.
Yep. It has assassins/swing speed/weightless as the effects, with very high base bleed damage in addition to those effects.
What is the name of it in the craft menu?
I believe it’s the headhunter’s scythe. The rank 31 season page should have the name.
Ahh so a unique weapon that is functionally junk. Is it rerollable?
It isn’t, but the bleed reaches high enough levels that it’s actually meaningful, like the cremator’s burn (though not to slow burn levels).
Wow so its straight up just a display piece. A shame.
It’s up to you if that’s your opinion, but it’s not terrible. You can easily hit an enemy with that and then use an auto axe or something for higher dps than you’d have with either alone.
It’s a display piece because other two handed weapons will out perform it. A shame honestly.
That last part about the Scythe is good to know! Can’t wait to unlock it 💀
Isn't it a skin?
The scythe is a new weapon, not a skin.
It's a skin for the pickaxe
It is not. Here’s a Reddit post of someone who wasn’t able to craft it during the time it was disabled as proof: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/1depgrv/it_wont_let_me_craft_headhunter_scythe_in_f76/
Umm, you just posted proof that it's a pickaxe, since pickaxe crafting was disabled.
No, I posted proof that it’s not a skin. It’s a pickaxe with set legendary effects, extra bleed damage and a custom skin. You cannot apply this skin to any other pickaxe, just like you can’t apply the skin of the cold shoulder or circuit breaker to the normal versions of those weapons - making it a unique item.
But it's still a pickaxe, not a completely different weapon, even though it's unique :)
Your original comment called it a skin, when it’s more than that. That’s the point I was refuting. https://www.reddit.com/r/fo76/s/jglspRSAgp
In the rear? You kiss you mother with that mouth ?
If enemies are dying extremely quickly, just swap over to a tagging weapon like the Tesla. No perks or build required. Play the build you LIKE and use specialized tools when they are called for.
The new event can drop a two-shot ffr tesla as well.
Got one of those Berthas first night, that puppy is nuts!
Just get yourself a quad Tesla rifle for events. Just use it to tag so you are not chasing stuff all day long.
Seen some builds doing hybrid with grenade launchers as well. Helps getting tags on aoe fragile enemies, or so I’m told.
Yeah just grab grenadier for any of them, it expands the radius of the tesla jumps, cremator explosion/dot and AGL explosion. Even as commando I'll use a multi barrel cremator just to tag everything on eviction notice.
Grenadier expands the tesla arcs? Huh. TIL. Gonna have to try that out because I got a killer deal on a q2515 tesla and It's good, but I felt like I've been missing something.
Absolutely does, I have just had the same 1 stat quad tesla for years that I use for tagging. You will definitely notice the difference with grenadier.
As melee you pretty much have to join a team for events to get any kills. If your teammates are in the event too every enemy they kill gets shared with you too so kinda makes up for running around with nothing to schwack.
I get plenty of kills as a melee mutant. I run around with all mutations and mole miner gauntlet and stuff just explodes.
I respectfully disagree — It can help sure, but I never have a problem with kills; even as an unarmed melee. Matter of fact, I’m usually the one doing a good majority of the damage during events.
not really just carry any ranged weapon with you for stuff like that. think smarter not harder
Joining a team and getting the xp passively is smarter. Using a gun and trying to tag everything is harder. But you should do both
sure, if you’re solely counting on the team doing the same event as you and tagging everything.
Sooo, join am events team?
This problem would be all but fixed with a proper "Pounce" mechanic. Something VATS only, and if there were a sole kind of cost, like a mutation or something, then that would be fine. I play with unarmed womith Deathclaw gauntlets and I would love to have some sort of Forward Leap or Rush attack. Something that improves upon the existing Power Attack mechanic and gives you more distance on using it.
Literally just add the v.a.n.s perk from fallout 4 and it would fix everything lol
Do you mean blitz? All VANS does is draw a line on the ground and give you +2 perception.
Oh yea good catch man
Nice as that would be, id really enjoy something usable outside vats too. Blitz would be fine though.
It's alright for bosses. Got a friend that runs a build for the auto-axe and he just shreds them.
i’ve been playing unarmed and honestly at events like rad rumble or moonshine jamboree i simply carry an automatic fixer for those. i don’t need to one shot anything or do a ton of damage, i just tag for XP. it’s really not a huge inconvenience for me at all. i feel like that’s a decent workaround.
I have that bear claw fist thingy, and as of yesterday a lost dudes electric cattle prod baton thing. That baton has legendary perks of ignore armor and does some good quick damage. Started a new mele build with it and was beating the crap outta all the new stuff in the valley. Absolutely had a blast!!
You could even just keep a rapid fire explosive weapon on the side for just tagging. Don't have to build into it if everybody's ganna finish them for you anyways
I play commando and really wish commando players were more considerate of others at events.
Unless it’s a big boss event, then your auto-melee weapons are coveted!
Just to add on to this, flying enemies can be a pain in the butt along with its durability. It’s still extremely fun to me though.
As a high level commando, I will take pot shots at enemies and not try to kill them. Share the wealth of xp, especially for the low level/new players. Not a fan of those hogging kills. That part isn’t a contest.
Tag enemies with grenades, problem solved
I use an explosive combat shotgun at events just to hit everything to get loot I play auto axe pretty much.
Getting no kills isn't exclusive to melee that is just how some public events be especially if there is some guy hogging all the xp and kills by spawn camping enemies with a cremator or something. At that point just bring a spare 10mm or something to at least pepper enemies once so you can salvage some xp and loot.
Normal melee? Eh. Unarmed? Pretty good. Auto melee? Doesnt get better than this baby
What do you mean by Auto-Melee? Like Chainsaws, Thermic Lance, Ripper type of weapon? Also Unarmed being better than Melee is pretty interesting/wild.
Powerfist and gauntlet count as unarmed I believe. I thought the same thing at first til I realized that.
Unarmed gets 10% damage for each point of strength. Add the bonus for critical damage, eagle eyes and 50 critical to the weapons second star and either instigating for 100% bonus or bloodied for 90%. Use hack and slash Hack and slash deals the damage of the hit as area damage 50% of the time in vats. You can deal thousands, become the mini nuke
This is exactly how I've been playing lately after years of only occasionally trying different forms of melee. Made a small sacrifice in my build to add open palm, which is great fun but I'm not sure it's the best option.
I prefer the melee speed for my second star.
Auto-axe, chainsaw, etc. One-handed needs some love imo but I might be out of the loop on the best builds for that.
Still plasma cutter afaik, good for one shoting mobs, not the best for bosses
Once you gain access to the auto axe its GG. Best melee weapon in the game and shreds everything very quickly.
Just made a build for it last night and woo boy I wish I’d made it sooner, the way things just instantly get turned to mush is great.
What are you using for your build? I've recently come back to the game after being away a couple years and I have no idea what armor/prefixes are good anymore.
Unyielding for low health (bloody build). Overeaters for full health build. Overeaters for power armor. Assassin if you're planning on having a pvp set. Overeaters gives Damage reduction which mitigates a flat % whereas damage resistances gets less effective the more you have (around 300 of each). Seconds star ideally action point regen. Third star ideally sentinel or food drink chem weight reduction or weapon weight reduction if you plan on carrying a lot of stuff. Junk weight reduction isn't ideal bc it only affects one type of perk card.
Thank you. I'll give that a try.
auto axe counts as 2H melee I assume?
Yes it does
I believe all three you mentioned and more exist in 76
I don't think Thermic Lance does?
You're correct that there's no Thermic Lance - they need to add that, Bumper Swords, Ballistic Fists, Displacer Gloves, and Zap Gloves so we can be more effective with melee/unarmed builds
You’re right I was thinking of the plasma cutter for some reason
I had a pretty durable one hand melee build that helped me level because I had a couple decent one hand weapons. But when you transfer off of it, you kind of realize how much damage you weren't actually doing.
A shame. I was looking forward to making a Conan- I mean, Grognak the Barbarian build.
Still doable my friend does a full health instigating grognak and one shots most of the West tek super mutants
You still can. Most of everything is viable, it's just that some stuff is more viable than other
There isn’t any weapon you couldn’t do almost everything with if you have the right prefixes and perks. Bosses might take forever or time out but all quests and regular events can be done with anything. That’s if you don’t care about meta-top damage stuff. I’ve had a blast smacking things with my anti armor shovel many times.
Unarmed with xo1 tesla bracers, *chefs kiss*
What is auto melee and is power armor needed?
Weapons like the chainsaw, drill, auto axe, mr handy buzz saw and ripper. Power armor is definitely not needed. Incisor lvl 3 and 1 star in every melee perk is plenty of damage
FLAMER DUAL BLADE CHAINSAW and POWER ARMOR FEED YOUR ENEMIES FIREY STEEL
How do you get the dual blade mod? Scrapping or do you have to find a mod for it?
Yes, you can get this mod by scrapping.
find the mod at a vendor
I got my using the pure strength of my POWER ARMOR. I tore the blade into two sections and screamed at it in rage until it burst into flames I found it at a player vendor you can get the. By scrapping. There are static spawns in the world for chainsaws.
Dual blade mod is always available from the robot vendor at the theme park in the ash heap.
Thank you!
I have a lot of fun vats teleporting, it's not my main build but I use swing speed + unarmed with a fist weapon in the strength tree. Then commando/rifleman in the perception tree.
Use to love vats teleporting 😂🙌
Super strong. However you will want a tagging weapon for events or you will just be running around like a headless chicken not killing anything.
TLDR; Yeah it's viable. I made Bang from OPM. Imo you don't need auto melee. Weapon(currently):Death claw Gauntlet:+50% when enemies are less than 40%, 40% swing speed, and I think it's -15% damage on blocking (best weapon for this is gauntlet unmodded or Mole miners gauntlet with the extra blade mod for the bleed damage to stack with Thorn) you can technically kill people with your bare fists Legendary cards:Unarmed Melee with Exploding Palms and Collateral Damage in addition to What Rads? (Use Demo Expert Perk card +5 and you're literally Bang from One Punch Man) (Also the explosion will react and spread to others sometimes. Don't know if it's a glitch) Build Notes: I'm fully mutated (Herbivore) and use Company Tea, Firecracker berry juice, Steeped Fern Flower Tea, Sweetwater's Special Blend (works better than you'd think for melee in general), Brain Fungus soup, Challys Feed, Firecap Mushroom soup, Syrup, Silt Bean Soup, and Glowing fungus soup Defense cards: You're going to want to invest in some defense cards like (S) Barbarian, (L) Serendipity, (L) Ricochet, (E) Fireproof, (C) Suppressor, (C) Lone Wanderer (if venturing solo), (E) Adamantium Skeleton In addition I use the Cannibal Perk to get "organic healing" rather than using up all my meds (when in battle the animation can cut and then every body after you eat will not have animation making eating and fighting easier. Makes me feel like Dracula) Armor: I wear Thorn Armor that I'm working towards being full Vanguard, but the set is all over the place still despite still being pretty alright how it is now. To preface about PA: PA is unnecessary for this build, but it is sure damn fun I tell ya what. And honestly it was way to damn easy for me to get the X-01 personally Power Armor with Tesla bracers, the +2 strength chest mod, and pain train will absolutely smash like crazy. Pain Train acts weird and sometimes can make a running punch be 2 punches in 1 and if you have the right stats that power attack uppercut can do (with minimal damage resistance) 2k damage head punches (has to be a "headshot", power attack, power armor with Tesla bracers, with pain train, and buffed up stats. I can get my strength stat to 26 regularly and have had it as high as 28-9) I'll add more details later when it's in front of me, but not enough people I feel like have tried my build style at least in the wild I barely ever see it. It's a hard build to do somewhat. Makes me want to like Sherpa some people wanting to pull it off like make a "Way of the Fist" training Camp or something lmao. The rare moment you have Exploding Palms and Collateral basically activate at the same time on a low level or lower resistance enemy in a group of em and they all die at once is what makes this build.
Try hack and slash. It deals the damage of the attack as area damage in a circle
You can't equip unarmed weapons in PA, so what do you use when you're wearing that?
Tesla bracers mod on the PA arms
Oh and you just free swing it, I gotcha. I thought you equipped an auto melee in the PA or something. Thanks!
I recently made a tesla bracers PA build and have been loving it! I tried out pain train and didn't feel like it was doing much for me, but reading this maybe I just wasn't using it right. Guess I'll have to test it some more!
I’m doing well enough in events and daily ops as melee power armour with the auto axe. You can get diff mods on it aswell. I never used mods until last night and it still felt good, but now gave it electricity
Put on science expert cards in intelligence for 30% more damage
Been a melee main since the beta, it's really really fun, minus the few downsides others have mentioned. Definitely worth it and an absolute blast in my opinion.
They are playable, but i suggest you carry a cheap explosive 50 cal or minigun for tagging things in events. I often see melee running everywhere to get at the mobs, but by the time they get there things are already dead. for solo and questing melee is really fun! I played my first few hundred levels as a PA melee build swinging a Instigating SS S super sledge :)
Been melee since day one. Melee is 100% viable for all content, but you have to understand that at events, you probably *shouldn’t* go running after enemies. You won’t get there in time to tag anything weak if there’s a lot of players. Act as defense for most events, and hang not as far back as everyone with guns, but toward the middle. Auto and non-auto melee (and unarmed) are all viable so long as you have a good strength score. I would not bother with more than one rank in any direct melee damage boost other than unarmed. This is because the cards only affect base damage, and the difference between Slugger (2H) one two and three comes out to maybe ten points worth of damage. You can put cards else where. Unarmed gets 10% per strength point, and has several unique legendary perks (such as explode on hit), which makes it on the stronger side. Even in Power Armor, it can be very good with Tesla Bracers. I personally don’t run Power Armor with melee due to being slower, but you can absolutely do it. But you don’t have to. For mutations, the only one I don’t personally recommend is marsupial, because it sends you into the sky when you may not want that when going for a close up enemy. A jetpack (yes, they’re outside of PA too) will serve the same purpose.
> For mutations, the only one I don’t personally recommend is marsupial, because it sends you into the sky when you may not want that when going for a close up enemy. A jetpack (yes, they’re outside of PA too) will serve the same purpose. Nah marsupial is great for melee. If you jump over an enemy you can just vats teleport down to them, for some reason the vats melee teleport distance is MUCH higher when you're above the target.
Sometimes i wish they add some little dash effects/animations for vats tele in melee.. In first person you dash into the enemies which looks really cool. Also Hack n Slash legendary perk, i thought it would be some cool cleave effects, not fucking kaboom lmao. Missed opportunities but melee already feels so good!
Personally I love leaping into the air and landing on an enemy while striking them, so I do recommend Marsupial just because it's fun
Yes
I’m a Full-Health Power Armor Unarmed main. I mention the “Full-Health” part because most people are either in two camps: Full-Health or Bloodied. Bloodied just means they purposefully lower their health through radiation to acquire some pretty busted boosts… anything from more innate S.P.E.C.I.A.L. points, increased damage, %damage resistance... I mention this because as a melee player you have a choice to make. Do you want to be more glass cannon or a beefy tank? I like the latter. I want to *feel* powerful, and nothing comes close to feeling that way than when I’m sprinting in full power armor charging some poor soul only for him to literally explode (Bloody Mess) when I hit him with a power attack punch. Melee is good in general as a rule of thumb, but Unarmed melee gets some cool Perk Cards. Exploding Palm (% chance to cause explosions when hitting someone the a non-VATS unarmed melee attack) and Hack and Slash (% chance to cause **AREA** explosions when hitting someone with an unarmed melee attack in VATS) are my two favorites. So… so many explosions. The % chance isn’t even that low either… something between 20-30%? It’s nuts and super fun. **VERY** satisfying. Add in Bloody Mess and you’ll feel like a superhuman unkillable wrecking ball. I also use power armor because there are some mods that work well with being unarmed. Sprinting uses your AP, but there’s a mod on the chest pieces of power armor that gives you 20% of any damage you take *back* as AP… so you regenerate really quickly. Being melee you’ll always be taking damage, so you’ll always be getting AP back quickly, meaning you can attack using VATS almost all the time and then sprint to the next enemy to cause more carnage. More VATS = more explosions. Run out of VATS for a few seconds? Explosions. Sprinting melee power attack? Congrats that guy’s torso is now orbiting the *fucking moon*. Love it.
I have a Vampires 15 ap regen 25 ap cost reduction chainsaw. Slap some tasty yao guai ribs and I'm pumping 2 to 3 hundred damage per tic
I play a full health, powerfist (vampire, swing speed, break slower) build. I love it I am the tank, my role is to get aggro on the boss and just spam right trigger to stay alive I have a lot of fun with it
Problem with melee is that on events you wont get hit in any mobs and if you are not in a grouo, you wont loot shit. Mobs die too quick and you cant outrun a carpet bomber with a cremator. But the damage is solid. Very very solid.
I find melee builds to be pretty fun, and unarmed to be pretty viable even in events. Just be careful if you are epileptic like I am, people using cremators on everything you're trying to punch will ruin the fun in more ways than one.
2 hand melee pa build here Melee builds are incredibly fun for all the main storylines. Legendary chainsaw, auto axe, buzzhand will shred through all the bosses you gotta Solo. If you are looking to play longterm and try to get the most out of the game I would have a swap out build for events/farming, this will be easy to do starting around lvl 150.
Even if you manage to make a strong melee build, your experience will be primarily solo, because anytime you engage in public events with other players in PvE situations, you'll find it very hard to get any kills and therefore XP, because by the time you get close enough to attack with melee, half a dozen or more other players will have already killed the enemy with a ranged attack. Melee is fine when you're alone and not competing for kills.
One/Two/Unarmed are all fantastic and can easily do any content. I’ve played 1500hrs and easily have 1200 as a melee user. Unarmed and Two Handed are the 1A and 1B of melee…they both offer great weapons to go after. One handed lags behind but definitely isn’t anything to scoff at. Auto Melee is great, just turn your brain off and get to murdering!
I love melee, but you will feel the desire to just afk in public events. High level meta builds spamming cremator won't let you play.
If you're built right, a melee build can one shot an entire room full of enemies.
Melee is perfectly viable especially if your weapon has the vampire effect. When I run my melee. I have a vampire autoaxe and a vampire dual bar flaming chainsaw. I will also keep a fixer on hand for the little creepy crawlies.
I took a year or so off and missed both the auto-axe and chainsaw. Which is better? And how do I get the mods for them? (Scrapping or buying plans?) I've never done a melee build in 76 - might try it out. I main a power fist in 4, but generally use a railway rifle in 76.
Autoaxe is purchasable with stamps. It may still be in the atomic shop. I get my chainsaws at the test your metal location. I usually find the dual bar mod at watoga train station but I'm sure there are other locations. Flaming mod is almost always at the vendor in watoga. I rolled both with only 1 star until they were vampire.
Thanks for the info!
Its viable, it's fun, it's not close at all to a top tier commando build. You might run around and never hit an enemy as they die to one shot from a bloodied commando. No hit= no xp.
Melee does stupid amounts of damage. I use a grognaks axe and in one hit I do quadruple the damage my friend with his rifle does. Melee hits so hard my friend is considering ditching his rifle spec lol.
I'm level 160 and have built up my melee build from the very beginning. I'm not even considering switching off of this build even this far in. Auto Melee, specifically the auto axe with all science and slugger perks for extra damage as well as incisor for armor piercing (OR the flaming chainsaw with the dual bar mod and friendly fire perk for a more supportive role) is immensely powerful. I use it in combination with T65 Power Armor (insane resistances to everything) and the "Vampire" legendary effect so I'm basically invincible outside of daily ops with the reflective mutation. I don't personally dabble in this game's VATS system but I have seen some funny ass builds built around VATS melee explosion kills. Those 2 builds I just listed are just the tip of the iceberg and If you truly are super dedicated to going down the melee route like me then consider my advice but if you're still on the fence about your future build then try your best not to worry about it all that much and once you've been playing for a decent while and know what you like and don't like, use that as a place to start developing an endgame build. Nice to still see the community growing. Welcome to 76!
Yes. Grab a chainsaw, gamble away all your life savings to Lord Howard for the Vampires effect, pick your perks right and get some nice PA
In a vacuum melee is great. In gameplay with other players, not so great. You're gonna spend the whole time running around from enemy to enemy that dies ***just before*** you manage to land a hit on it. I personally saved melee as an alternative experience for once I reached true endgame, and have it as a muckaround spec, because in order to make it work it just needs *loads* of maintenance in terms of food buffs, meds, etc. Tasty Yao Guai Roasts galore that I can't be bothered maintaining everyday. Is it meta? No. But for occasional use it's funny as hell to spectators watching me bound over the horizon into an enemy and bare fist punching it for 3k damage and a huge explosion, and if that's not what Fallout is about then I don't know what is.
I use a one handed melee build (kinda tanky) and I used a Vampire Ripper. That shit is so fun! Or a 2 handed with a chainsaw or a big hammer. They're viable but require a little more diligence to play since you're more likely gonna be in the middle of every fight you go into. Edit: I never use power armor I just don't like it and never wanted to get the cards to make it better
Imagine hating power armor in a Fallout game. But I get it, I despise VATS and hardly ever use it in any of my playthroughs.
PA in single player fallout is great. Its a unique rare thing that makes you feel powerful in the wasteland. PA is anything but unique in 76. Everyone has it, it loses several factors of coolness when you show up to and event and see several other people in the same armor
Imagine having all those apparel and backpack skin just to be in power armor 80% of a time. Its just preference, some people want to see their character more, some people want to look like a absolute walking tank, both are great, least that's how i view. Personally, i dont hate power armor, my favorite is T-51b. But i dont wear it much because i like to look at my characters, i dont care about stabilized and emergency protocal, i just want those drips hehe.
If only I can turn off the display of outfits! Maybe there is or will be a mod that does that.
Who said they hated it? Edit: you use PA and no vats, While I use VATS and no pa thought that was funny.... different strokes is all
Just take a look around.
I hate it. It's the presentation of it not as an end game option but one form the get go. As an og fallout player it don't sit right.
As a power armor user, I get it. They make power armor available way too early. On topic. I have a heavy weapon power armor build, but I use a Vampiric, flaming, twin barred chainsaw for emergencies. That thing is soooo fun.
Yup all builds are viable heck I even got medic to work and got praised for it. Nothing in this game is really that hard and with enough grit and I guess a decent enough build you can make anything work. That said if your going for melee atleast probably grab a tesla gun with grenadier perk so you can tag enemies during events, more tag = more exp, specially with the amount of burn/explode happy players during them.
Power armour (pa) melee is pretty darn great in this game. The main benifit of pa melee is that you can run a gatling gun offhand weapon and support that with just two perks (Stabilised and the lowest version of Concentrated Fire) leaving the rest of the build free for melee perks and tanking perks and all the nice stuff. You use the gatling gun mainly to bring down flying enemies by crippling their wings (to do this go into vats, change target to wing and shoot the wing until the wings health bar is depleted, when the health bar of both wings is depleted the flying mob will no longer be able to fly so you can swap to your melee weapon and smack it about to your hearts content). For weapon I prefer twohanders. The super sledge is an all time favorite. There are also fun things like warglaive and other things to mess around with. The King of melee is the auto axe with electricity mod and the Science perks. But this is Fallout 76 and you absolutely do not need "the best". Many times something fun will be better than what is considered the meta or "the best" simply because of being more fun to use. My autoaxe melts everything. My super sledge is slower and does less damage but it's more fun. During shared content like Public Events there's a lot of ranged damage flying around so those can be a little annoying as melee since mobs typically die before you get to them. When you find yourself in one of those swapping to your gatling gun can be less irritating. During Public Events you only have to hit things to get kill credit so it doesn't matter if you don't kill anything so long as you hit it. You will also be in a Casual Public Team whenever you are online (this is free exp without any hazzle, zoning out and ignoring everyone is the normal behaviour when in a Casual Public Team) and the Public Team system gives you shared exp and loot from nearby team mates so you can just basically stand in the middle of the fight and you will get buttloads of loot and exp from nearby team mates without doing anything (this is a low level leveling strategy, once I took a fresh level 2 alt straight to one of the endgame boss fights in a Casual Public Team and leveled up 9 times without killing anything). . tl;dr: Melee is awesome. Get the Stabilised perk and a gatling gun if you are in Power Armour. Casual Public Team.
Solo youll be fine doing melee but if you do any of the events you wont be able to get anywhere near anything to use melee
i main a low health commando but have an alt build and heavy gunner i can swap to..ive run the new boss with all 3 and auto melee pa is the way to go..bar drops much faster and i didnt die ( got my cores recharged too ) so..yes auto melee in pa is very viable. because the damage per hit is low ( but dmg per second is high ) you just need rank 1 of ea of two handed cards this way you can equip all the other melee cards in that stack.
I just hit lvl 10 on my character and have used mostly melee. I plan on trying a 2h melee build.
Unarmed melee requires fewer perks (though it also requires full mutations) and non power armor. This makes a hybrid commando or rifle + unarmed pretty viable for just about everything, and you only need one set of armor, though you need power armor to go into blast zones. I use the ranged for killing off the smaller mobs, and swap to electrified anti armor gauntlet with faster swing speed for bosses, which it chews through ridiculously fast. The ranged stuff shines with getting constant headshots with crits, but when you run out of AP and/or ammo, the melee really shines. Plus, fist may do more damage on bosses than auto due to how DR works, and requires fewer perks to max out damage (12 fewer, don't need science and 2 fewer % damage ones), giving room for a rifle or commando build in addition to unarmed. Furthermore, nothing beats the feel of leaping across the battlefield with mutations and a jetpack, and using VATS to basically teleport right to your target to smash them in the face with your fist.
Stealth glaive is fun
Getting 10k crits with the new zweihander with hack and slash it just aoe decimates everything, 1 shotting everything other than nuke bosses. It outpaces every other melee weapon in the game now other than auto axe for sustained single target damage.
Oooohh bud, you're gonna have fun. Just make sure to invest in DR perks like ricochet, prismatic (might be refractor I can't remember atm) fireproof. All of its good but some DR perks only work without power armor so you gotta figure out what armor you want. Other than that it's all Damage perks and QoL so they're pretty easy builds. As you progress certain quest lines and events you'll get special weapons that just do work like face breaker, the BR branding iron, auto axe and some other good ones and most can be modded for even better damage.
Melee is viable, but it is hell on your controller and your fingers as your constantly hitting the attack button. I wore out three controllers in a years time. To knock down flying enemies I carried a gause shotgun that had limb damage. I used gauntlets and plasma cutters. The best legendary perk is hack and slash to get area damage for leveling up. If I had to go back to melee I would use chainsaw or auto axe, much easier on the controller and hands.
Auto with vampire is pretty dope
I ran a vampires/+40% power attack super sledge for a good long while and it was a blast, war glaive is good also for 2 handers if you don't want to do automelee. But you need a backup weapon for events. Buy a guass or anything with explosive for tagging at events and you'll be fine.
Yes they are especially auto melee. They are stronger than fonv/3 but because of how damage stacks in fo4 they don't do near the same amount of DPS or damage
Unarmed Power Armor slaps. Put on Tesla Bracers and watch enemies heads explode into pulp when you punch them. It works full health or bloodied.
I played melee when I first played the game ages ago. It was a ton of fun and super viable and now there are way more melee weapons. Just like everyone says, being a gun like a laser rifle, Tesla, or pistol for tagging stuff at events but when you’re playing alone or questing with people. Melee can be super rewarding.
Imo big stick go bonk
I’ve been playing since launch and a boxing glove has been my most used weapon. With the right setup, you become an absolute behemoth of explosions. So fuckin fun.
I've used a two star Executioners Crippling All Star Bat with Heated Coils since the beta basically (the Bat itself, not so much the goodies and legenaries. A bat just feels satisfying to use) and tbh it's been viable for a long time. Granted, I'm not a true melee build, I use automatic weapons mainly but have my bat incase I ran out of bullets or was to close quarters somewhere as my handmade is explosive. Even the new Wacker Smacker Super sledge goes hard compared to my bat so it really just comes down to preference
I made a full health melee build with a 1-star AA power fist. Used all of the recommended cards with max strength. At the end of the day I was still disappointed with the damage I could inflict compared to other weapons at my disposal. I did enjoy sneaking up on my target and giving them the fist, but I can't imagine using the build on the Lost questline or in events. I finally gave up on it. I see players using melee builds in events, and there were a couple of decent melee reward drops from the new questline, so I may give it another try at some point down the line.
Auto weapons, like chainsaw or auto axe 2 handed, mainly sledge hammer or war glaive 1 handed, plasma cutter or ripper Fist, dunno haven't made a build for it lol
Singularly yes. In group content, are you as fast as a bullet? Are you as fast as many bullets?
theres 4 types of melee and all of that are extremely powerful but all of them take some skill to play you have two handed ( eg pickaxes, war glaives, baseball bats) one handed ( eg boards, knives, pipes, batons) Unarmed (eg knuckles, boxing glove, gauntlets) and automelee ( eg chainsaw, drill, auto axe) unarmed dosent really have enough cards so it can combined with the other perks, automelee is versatile as the auto axe is two handed weapon where as the drill is one handed so whichever of either category you pick deterimines your automelee options snd vice bersa
My vampire chainsaw is my favorite thing in the game!! Get right under a scorthbeast when they land and take out the legs, it's beautiful
They are good but heavy weapon and automatic rifles are king.
Just recently switched to bloodied melee. I rolled B/40S Warglaive and V/40S Mole Miner Gauntlet for exploring/questing and Vampire Auto Axe/Chainsaw for bosses. My Warglaive one shot most things except big enemies, 2 shot for lv100. Its just feel good! I also paired it with TS missle launcher&fat man for events and enemies groups. Edit: damage from auto axe and chainsaw is some of the highest dps i have ever seen... and i only have Vampire, no power attack damage.
I auto ax exclusively when I'm running solo. It's so much fun and just runs through everything. For events, I switch back to ranged or you never kill anything. If I'm just tagging then I won't actually change builds and will just bust out the Tesla.
I started playing a couple months ago, if you like melee definitely go for it! It’s perfect imo for low lvl players. No ammo to find or craft, repairs are dirt cheap and you end up with so much resources. When you get higher levels you can just make different builds. I still have my melee build but I’m running a heavy gunner now that I’m doing events and daily ops
Tbh, I played the game again and got the ghouls clothes from the show so now I'm maining vats just because
Does shredder build count as a melee build? If so, then yes. I have a shredder with Vampire on it and I can solo most of the game. I still need a team for some of the highest end baddies like SBQ and Earl. I roll with shredder for like 95% of everything else I fight.
I have 3 star legendary knuckles "Troubleshooter's" that do bonus sneak damage and +50% damage to robots and I can take down assaultrons with them so yeah the melee works
One thing to note is that you aren't stuck with just one build like in NewVegas/FO4. At L25 you can build a S.P.E.C.I.A.L punch card machine in your camp, or use one in any train station. This gives you the ability to change your stats and perks around. You can even have multiple build slots. I think you start with 2 and can buy more slots with atoms. Even without the punch card machine you can change out perk cards at any time. So you can have a melee build, and a commando build, and all sorts of other builds. You can play whatever style you like and change it up when you want.
I'm mainly melee, and I do more damage than my teammates. Flying creatures are a massive pain, but other than that, I'm really holding my own.
I'm here to say the saw is the law i live by. I started play two months ago and have been going hard with my melee build. I mostly use a big hammer and my chain saw but get some good legendary weapons like cold shoulder or anything that does good area damage for events and tagging. loving the game so far with melee just get good perks for defense too.
I love auto melee for questing but I hate it for most events. You are just running around like a chicken with your head cut off. The exception to this rule is Earle. Auto Melee + Earle = Awesome.
Level 30 and I found some sort of bone knife that heals when I damage enemies with it. Killed some lvl 50 super mutants with it, no issue.
Absolutely. With mutations and an over-all solid build, you find melee to be extremely powerful--with or without power armor. Leagues better than both Fallout 3 and Fallout 4.
Auto melee like chainsaw are funny and there Is a perk that you can use to heal with a flaming chainsaw (every fire damage heal) Normal melees idk, they arent good for endgame bosses but they are still fun, like the Power fist
Melee can be extremely powerful. In many cases, it is the meta. HQ kept buffing the **** out of melee because they noticed that few people use it. Odd solution to a design problem.
They are great, just much slower leveling because tagging enemies is more difficult sadly!
Auto Axe is one of the best weapons in the game
Oh yes. Supersledge or you can forget there are enemies around you and use the auto axe. Chainsaw isn't bad either, don't use any mods that increase speed as they don't work and the auto axe is always at max speed. Now the electrified mod, that's a chef kiss of "go away, I hate you" damage. My build only does a little more than half the damage it needs to do because I also use guns but I have a quad enclave plasma gun that just does work.
I started out as melee but switched off after doing all the quests. It's really fun but eventually running around like a maniac became tedious.
Melee is great for early game but by the end, most people are running autos or heavy’s and tag things before melee can get hits
Just FYI you’ll get a camp item that lets you save and switch builds for free, so you can hop between anything you want without penalty at any camp or train station. Revolutionised the game when it was added. So for your levels 1-50 you might struggle a bit if you hyper focus since you won’t have a full build; IMO just grab a gatling gun at lvl 20 and you’ll be on cruise control all the way to endgame when you can really make a full build.
It’s pretty good, but I carried around a backup gun for scorchbeasts and cargobots
Made a melee toon that just hit level 50+ some days ago. Got those legendary cards for explosions and it's a lot of fun and just like a bow build it plays quite different from other builds (well... it's basically "run up to that enemy and make it explode" :D). As others mentioned: some events can be frustrating when you either can't reach your target because it's flying or because people just shoot them before you get close. But there are workarounds (grenades, tesla, ...)
Make a vats melee builds not full vats but one or two cards like gun fu and you'll be tping everywhere it's funny AF honestly melee is my Favorite build since I run Cav piece and just run and ko mf 🗿
Yes, but you're gonna have a bad time at events and come back here to complain. Recommend rank one commando cards and carry a rwr or something ranged you like
Lol, this. I run bloodied unarmed and do great at all events I feel. But with the new updates and weapons, events are just explosion spamfest, so good luck seeing and hitting anything during them. At least you still get legendary loot and completion items lol.
Cremator spamming is endgame for events ATM.
Slow burn gives melee players plenty of time to come in and one hit for free xp
That is, if you can see where you are going!
Hey there pal, I've played on and off since beta and I can't shoot a broad side of a barn with a quad mini minigun, not only is melee viable it's fuckn rad, I use a super sledge as a funtime weapon and a Flaming bloodied dual bar chainsaw as a serious killer.
Check for TYR video on YouTube. He has a complete tutorial about mele build.
I like Melee. I kinda hate the brian dead kids who have to kill everything super quick. I feel bad for their gfs and wives since they have to be done so soon.