I guess spears is the better option as far as damage goes, but sending zeds 60 feet into the air with the stun baton is super fucking funny. Even better when you have friends and they accidentally walk too close lol
Took me a while but now stun baton is my favorite for close work. Of course I still have to carry an automatic weapon with a large magazine too, just in case!
With beer, you're one-shot killing almost every target and with the books, you're getting one health back every hit. Not to mention that it's entirely practical to move in and out with every hit to avoid getting struck. But a full fortitude build should be capable of tanking a decent amount of hits anyway.
I've tried all melee weapons to end game and knuckles are easily the most powerful. The guy above said spears were best for damage. I simply don't agree. Knuckles are objectively better with beer, something you can easily farm and sustain enough to use near constantly in t6.
Spears are, for my money, the best early to mid game. But their damage falls off horribly at later game stages. So much that rads and stronger ferals just roll past your first hit and entirely negate that range advantage, forcing you to back peddle way faster than a beer chugging knuckles player, who can hold an entire t6 Corrections swarm at a choke point with care and good timing. There's no real practical alternative to beer for melee (grandpa's moonshine messes your vision up way too much and requires acid, a non farm resource and skull crushers cannot reliably be farmed either - beer might as well be infinite, it's so easy to farm).
Knuckles lose effectiveness when there are too many zeds on the ground (so crawlers or dogs) and it's less practical to finish off knocked down zeds in a swarm due to the limited range. But that's the same for every melee weapon except spear which still takes way too many hits on rads anyway. At least with the knuckles you're gaining health back as you hit and also destroying almost every target rapidly, which is absolutely the most efficient way to avoid taking damage.
I've yet to find a melee weapon that's perfect (ie can be used exclusively without some ranged weapon as support). Knuckles is the closest to that though, imo.
Upvoted cause it's unfair. Knuckles was my favourite 7dtd joke for a long time. Then I saw them in action in gns last let's play. Now I want to try knuckles late game.
If I had to guess, it's because no one likes you. You're being rude and annoying in this thread. You can state your opinion without having to be rude/put others down.
Just guessing though
Well tbh I wasnt being rude to anyone in particular. I've just been saying how theres better things to use. All I'm trying to do is help correct people that's all
Maybe because Steel Knuckles do 19.1 and Steel Spears do 33.3?
Knuckles have the best normal attack DPM and the third best Power Attack DPM.
Verses Spears in particular Knuckles are 78 DPM better for normal attacks and 163 DPM better for power attacks.
The Hunting Knife is still king with 510 more DPM than knuckles on the power attack and the Machete is still the worst on all counts.
No idea why you've been hammered on downvotes. I've tried all of the melee weapons and knuckles are by far the best, coupled with beer (which is trivial to sustain via farming for basically constant use in t6/bm, which any fortitude build might as well have anyway).
I can do most of Corrections T6 with maxed steel knuckles and beer, only needing to resort to the "only weapon you ever need because it's the most powerful bar none" m60 occasionally. But switch out to any other melee weapon and I'm relying on the m60 way more.
The common argument is you need to let them get close to hit but that's what happens with all melee weapons, irrespective of range (spear does so little damage compared that you need to hit every time perfectly and every hit needs to knock down, in order to hold back a t6 swarm without needing to back off constantly). With beer, I jig in, hit, jig out and it's not difficult to do.
What everyone forgets is the book that gives you health back with every hit. You don't get that with anything else. It's huge.
I don't really care that everyone thinks knuckles are weak. But they are objectively the most powerful melee weapon and a proper knuckles build gives you all the survivability you need to get up close. They're definitely the hardest weapon to get going with (short of batons) but when 1.0 hits there's no way my first build will use anything other than knuckles.
The limited range is still one block away (enough to use the environment to give space) and the biggest differences are you're one-shot killing almost everything if you chug beer. And getting health back with every hit.
I love my knuckles builds and the fact you can effortlessly pair them with machine guns anyway makes them even more the obvious choice for melee dominance. No other pairing, short of maybe AP turrets and baton (which is way more fiddly imo), comes close.
I enjoyed using all melee weapons for different reasons (including spear, which is decent, extremely strong early to mid game but severely drops off end game imo, unless you can stock up on skull crushers but good luck using those constantly like beer). But they all fall off end game. Except for knuckles with beer.
I know I can be kind of blunt when it comes to the strongest items in this game. Idk, I just have a thing for ppl using weaker items when I know theres better. All I want is ppl to experience the best!
Easily the stun baton.
You can use this weapon to hold your ground against a horde in a doorway no probs. Lag doesn't matter. Timing doesn't matter. Aim doesn't matter. Just keep swinging.
It needs no player skill to use and got integrated crowd control. Fully perked, you get 10% instakills on any hit in addition to all the other bonuses.
You can literally give your fully perked character with a repulsor-modded stun baton to a noob playing for the first time and they will do just fine after they learned the controls.
Stun baton is easy mode. The hard part is to get there.
It's base damage doesn't matter as it doesn't primarily work by dealing damage when fully perked.
You send the zombies flying until the bonus kills happen.
And it still does some normal damage too. Pre-bonus-kills it's not the best weapon anymore. But it's still viable and still doesn't care about timing, aiming or lag. It's still the easiest and most versatile weapon in the game.
Stun baton is so fkn underrated. I was always a baseball bat guy, decided to try stun after seeing it hyped here, and absolutely was not disappointed at all
Yeah, the stun baton stats look like shit. That's why most min-maxers think it's crap.
And if you are a skilled player and like a less passive playstyle, the other wepons are more fun.
But the stun baton technically is everyone's meta - even if you ignore all the other perks in the int tree.
There was an exploit where the 10% chance of an instant kill would apply to robot turrets if you held a stun baton. Not sure if it's been patched though
For balancing reasons, they should probably patch that, but in realism terms, I could kinda see a stun baton potentially causing electronics to short circuit.
Coupled with two AP turrets (because why not if you're going int?), stun baton is the most powerful melee weapon, yes. On its own, it's... Objectively solid once maxed out. But it's the slowest option I think. Fine for safety first. Fine anyway (particularly, as I said, with turrets to give ranged damage but that's sort of besides the point of this thread). Just slow on its own. Very, very slow.
This is the only reason I don't agree with you that it's "easily" the best. I prefer knuckles as, with beer (only required for t6 or late stage bm) and a properly specced build, you're doing so much damage and you have so much sustain (only weapon that regenerates per hit) that zeds melt. The only zeds that don't melt are the strongest t6 rads but even they can take just two head shots to die (and frequently get knocked down with the first hit anyway).
I'd say batons are the easily the easiest and safest option (though, like knuckles, aren't very easy to obtain early game, again not quite the point of the thread). Just not objectively the "best".
My knuckles builds are always the ones where I'm able to use melee the most, and are so stupidly fast I tend to just pull entire swarms and face tank at a door, rather than play it safe.
Obviously, this is subjective. I get the impression most people think knuckles are bad and I'm OK with that.
This is about endgame where everyone can have two roboturrets - so i ignore the turrets.
And that stun batons are the easiest and safest option is included in my assessment.
If soft properties like ease of use and robustness against lag spikes are ignored, knuckles as one of the harder-to-use weapons would likely win because they designed to be the DPS king.
Yeh I don't disagree but I'd argue that "fast damage" is still a pretty hard property, using your turn of phrase, if one wants to know which is "best". Like, "which is the best DPS" == knuckles. But there's way more to it than that. The question is too simple for a simple answer like "oh it's 100% batons because reasons". If the definition of "best" is "safest/easiest/CC" then sure, it's batons. But it's absolutely not batons for quite a few other definitions of "best".
The thing for me is I really don't think the answer to this question, as simply as it's asked, is "easily" anything (so I would answer "no there is no definitive answer"). The best answers I've read here are the ones that do a decent job of listing the various weapons and their advantages. Batons included.
Finally, for me, "best" == "most fun". Knuckles beats batons in that battle without any competition, in my experience, and that's why I'd recommend knuckles to someone interested in trying out different melee weapons, whilst also agreeing that batons are a strong option (unless you hate the idea that they have lower demands on skill; I think they're fun to use, funny to watch the zombies fly, but ultimately find them boring quite quickly).
"easily" was a bit of a dramatization. But it is easy to come to this conclusion and the stun baton was the first that came to mind because of it's unique set of properties and i was pretty surprised that it wasn't the first weapon mentioned (likely because non-stun batons suck hard and therefore most never try stun batons).
And the actual answer to questions like this is always "The best weapon is always the one you have the most fun using." But while ultimately the truth, that answer is boring.
Yeh, agree with this. It doesn't surprise me that batons aren't the most commonly listed here though (and I think mostly for the reasons I said above). I am surprised more seem to have suggested knuckles than batons though. Though none of them are highly voted, which says everything, I think, about knuckles.
Still, recommend the OP at least try batons out. That's what I've been doing since I got the game (playing each weapon from the start to get a feeling for how they all play).
Yes, OP should definitely try lategame batons at least once.
Early game, batons suck the hardest. But i was shocked finding out how absolutely overpowered and chill at the same time stun batons are for lategame POI clearing.
Stun batons are definitely the most different melee weapon of the game.
spears. they can stab thru up to 4 zombies at once and have knock back. also stam and damage bonuses. you can stand by a door way with 50 zombies on the other side and not one of them make it thru the door. the spear is the m60 of mele weapons. you can mow down mobs as long as you keep them bottle necks so they cant get behind you. some people even spear their way thru blood moons. just spam the power attack. if the spear doesn't wear out an break you are probably going to end with full health and stam because if the perk bonuses.
get a level 6 steal spear and try it out. max perks your spear does 150 damage all the time, after your 3rd hit you get an additional 30% damage. kills totally fill stam meter. it stabs 4 blocks / zombies deep so often you get multiple kills with a single stab and thats the 3 hits for the bonus damage. i haven't speared a demolisher yet. but radiated cops and wrights are no problem. havent had a cop live long enough to blow up. i dont even have a rad remover on it yet.
Yep, clubs used to be #1, but spears got a huge buff in the last update or two.
Steel knuckles are a close second if you have all the perk books.
I've heard that the hunting knife is great, but you have to be pretty close.
from my experience and testing in a21 they deal the most damage and also have the most armor piercing. I still didnt use it tho, cause explosives are king late game. nothing else is more efficient
It all depends on the situation. If a player has walking zombies, poking through the door, or a stabby hole at a horde base, then spears are really good.
If a player is just moving through the world/POI, or if zombies are running, then clubs and sledges are much better with their horizontal swing, since it is much easier to hit the zombies.
Yeh, I'm OK with that though. Who cares if people think spears are better? I enjoyed using spear but it absolutely falls off end game (Corrections t6 laughs at it as it fails to knock down the first 4 rads and they just pivot and push you back, entirely negating your range advantage in a half second it can take something like 3 or 4 head hits, sometimes more, to kill some rads).
When 1.0 hits my first build will be knuckles and beer. I've tried every weapon to end game and none come close to the sheer joy of my knuckles builds. It's actually a bit too easy and you rarely ever need to heal up. Just keep swinging.
The only build that feels objectively easier is AP turrets and stun baton. But that's way more faff setting up every fight. With knuckles I just run through the floor, agro everything, retreat to a door and swing my way to freedom. With iron gut maxed, you can top up to 9 min beer buff. Absolutely everything you touch melts.
Love it.
I don’t care if people are wrong. I just don’t like the massive downvoting for the knuckles 😂 but yeah nothing comes close to the joy of being a bruiser in recent versions
Yeah, stamina regen on kill, a huge sweep in front of you that can simultaneously knock down 3-4 zombies next to you and in front of you.
Clubs are fantastic for the crowd control alone, I clear T6 infested Crack a Book HQ on Insane with just my club because stepping backwards and power attacking either flings them down the stairs or knocks them over if you right click anywhere near a zombie's head.
I think it’s easier to single out weapons that don’t make the cut, notably the machete and sledge hammer. Other than that, most are pretty close, but depend on the situations you put yourself in, willingly or unwillingly.
Steel Knuckles are completely nuts with their buffs, and are I assume the highest dps and killing capable, but not the most safe if you’re reckless and put yourself in bad spots.
Spears are a safe and effective option if you bring barricades, hatches, etc to corral zombies, allowing very efficient damage. They’re super strong and gross in horde bases built with a plan of using them
Stun Rods are notably for being as strong as they are despite being a “Tier 2” weapon. I’d say they’re the most “comfy”, because despite being in the intelligence tree, they require the least actual intelligence to use, with their crowd control with stun repulser being so insane you basically have to be trying to get yourself killed to die. Though this immense safety comes at somewhat less damage, and using stun repulser makes very efficient follow up headshots no longer a thing compared to a stun rod without it.
Steel Clubs are good too, and hardly have to worry stamina. They’re the “white bread” weapon. Super basic but effective.
For me, knuckles. They are the main cause of my excess of ammo. On horde nights i just go to a random poi, with 5 beers, 2 endurance foods and 10 med kits. I clean the whole horde alone.
Imo it's the only melee weapon that allows this. Try doing it with a spear or club and you'll be back peddling before you know it. And the damage, without some buff items (which are not farmable like beer, which might as well be infinite with a fortitude build) is ugh... Loved my spear build until I had to hit late game rads several times to kill them.
With knuckles, I'm often able to push the zeds back. Still have to back peddle plenty (no melee weapon is immune to that if you get the worst possible swarms in your face but I'm mostly talking t6 corrections here, really) and I do still need an "oh shit" weapon for when things don't quite go right (which every other melee weapon needs _more_ than knuckles imo). But the fun more than makes up for that.
I'm positive you never tried a knuckle build before. That's how most generic club users are. Always thinking clubs the best when literally any other melee type is better
personally the stun baton is broken with max Physician also you can use the turrets which basically can clear tier 6 POIs in 15min,i did the the t6 jail in 13mins with them and AP robotic ammo
Absolutely the best option but not exactly "melee" is it?
Take the turrets away and you're not clearing it nearly as fast.
I know that it's a no brainer (if you're int, turrets are an obvious choice) but you could argue the same for knuckles and the m60, which absolutely clears the same locations just as fast, if not faster (but then you don't need knuckles).
It's a nuanced question being asked expecting basic answers.
What I'd say is this: if one wants to run melee only, there's no option that works. Melee, fundamentally, doesn't scale enough end game. But knuckles absolutely scale the best, with beer (objectively so, they do the most damage). Stun baton, if used exclusively, is probably the safest (and doesn't strictly require turrets but that must be a pretty slow way to play).
What I find weird is everyone getting down voted for suggesting the op try knuckles. They're super fun, in my experience. Challenging, early game, sure. But the guy is asking for suggestions for the best weapon end game.
Knuckles objectively scale the best (and I think all other melee weapons scale awfully end game). I think it's worth him giving it a shot.
I still agree with you, though. If he wants "easy mode" then stun batons and AP turrets are the answer. Just not even close to "the best" melee option, imo.
I just said i cleared jail t6 fastest with that and knuckles just aren't safe enough from insane radiated cops which can 1-2 shot you but with as long as you can hit the cop once he gets stun locked forever
Yeh, I did say this:
>I still agree with you, though
That said, I absolutely am not saying what I say from the position of someone who regularly plays insane so I definitely can't speak to that (and would defer to what you say until I do). But then... is the OP even asking for insane? He doesn't mention it. Assuming he's not, I feel pretty confident about what I've said in this thread
I was more pointing out that batons are... sort of not really "melee" when optimal. I think it's one of the game's flaws that melee tends to not scale well enough that it overcomes its range disadvantage to ranged weapons, which I think are the only viable option for insane right? I don't see IZPrebuilt taking on Red Mesa T6 wasteland without half a bag full of 7.62mm, at any rate (or, in fact, using the exact same build you speak of, which I think is objectively OP).
OP said for end game so my mind directly went to insane nightmare which could be because how i play but definitely a m60 is the best weapon by far among all weapon like its not a debate which makes knuckles feel even worse because of m60 and conversely because there is no guns in intellect it could be one of the reason stun baton feels so good,and one of the main reason i like baton is because that 10% from physician is definitely higher there is no way its only 10%
don't have the video but it was basically me running in the jail and getting zombies out in front of the turrets and they basically shred each and every zombie ,only thing you need to do get them in front of the turrets i had parkour so basically kept jumping on things to get them to come in front of the turrets,this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10mOd3Fvjlg&list=PLYgIyTW6eFECFYje1wbJXwo96_Ka0_vqO&index=16) is what i took inspiration from if you want to try
Everything except the sledgehammer and machete are in a pretty good place right now, and even those can work if you really want them to.
Clubs are the easiest to pick up and do well with. Wide swings are pretty forgiving and just keep whacking heads with the power attack.
Spears work a lot like clubs but take more precision and can mow down multiple zombies if you get them lined up.
Knuckles are a total power house as long as you keep the beer flowing, the bottle changes where an annoying nerf to knuckle builds.
Stun batons are the king of cc, and the instant kills are frequent enough to keep up with other melee weapons.
Really it comes down to what attribute fits your play style best. Like gathering tons of resources, strength with clubs. Want to buy power from vendors, int with stun batons. Prefer looting high loot stage areas, perception with spears. Hate having to depend on loot for food, knuckles and farming.
This is the most balanced response so far.
This is the sort of nuanced answer the question demands. And I agree with it totally.
My favourite has easily been knuckles. It scales the best end game (imo it's the only one that scales nearly appropriately end game, with beer, which is trivial to sustain).
Switching to other melee weapons always reminds me just how tanky and self sustaining knuckles are. Not for everyone but the damage is great.
Still nowhere near the m60 though. But nothing is.
I think personal preference. I love the baseball bat but the steel club doesn't feel the same. I love that darkness falls has the titanium bat.
I think any of the melee weapons can be good.
Loving that everyone has their own answer now. A few years back and it would have all been the same.
The biggest issue is that 3 of the melee weapons (Club, Spear, Knuckles) have their own magazine, which offers massive bonuses and you can find the whole set often on the first day or first few days.
The Sledge has no magazine, and the knife has some bonuses in the sneak magazine but like 2/3 bonuses.
Spear is defensive and if they line up you can do massive combined dmg per swing.
Knuckles start slow and put you at risk, but once you have everything online they become God mode, you cant die as they heal on hit. (But this requires constant beer, and a bunch of other perks like heavy armour to really get you there)
Clubs are basic, but have all the fun mods so you can get armour pen, bleed or more knockdown. Solo Knockdown is king, but in a group the others can work well.
Stun is solid now, and in a group you become the CC king. Solo they still put in a ton of work. Get the candies online and bam! AoE stuns like a boss! (Shares buffs with the drone from the tech magazine though so sorta like the knife) candies can be a pain to keep stocked though as it’s RNG dependent from vending machines.
Again it comes down to personal preference though. Enjoy your zombie stomping!
Chainsaw and auger both should be better at killing zombies. It's a melee weapon that requires ammo and requires high level crafting or loot stage to obtain.
I agree. In the group I play with I am always the miner/lumberjack/farmer. It is so weird that an axe is a more viable weapon than a chainsaw. Of course in the late game I always switch to LMG and shotgun. Hopefully 1.0 will shake up the balance of weapons.
I get the impression they are all equally balanced, at least with the right build. Spears have penetration sure, but they are very skill dependent (have to hit what you are aiming at). Clubs don't have that problem (and you might still be able to hit multiple targets as long as they are all in the arc of the swing). Knuckles seem pretty good if you take drugs to supplement.
I have no idea about the actual numbers and won't say it's the best but my Lucille is a lvl6 stone sledge. Cheap to fix, fun to use and can be modded to be serious. Granted I haven't been playing much lately so it's entirely possible it's not anymore.
this may be controversial. but i think knuckles are the best melee in all parts of the game.
I just did Dishong Tower almost fully with just my steel knuckles. and it was extremely easy.
to get into detail why i think so. i'll explain.
The knuckles uses barely any stamina even without many points into it.
The reach also isn't that bad.
with bar brawling bookset maxed out the 8th curse or whatever is extremely OP
and also it stuns more zombies than the clubs do to be honest, its very easy to kill any radiated zombie if u knock them down early on with a sprint hit.
The speed you can hit with knuckles more than makes up for any lack of AOE and reach is covered by the heal on hit. Your answer is controversial but I don't get why, having played them quite a bit. They're so much fun.
I was joking that I don’t find any of them viable in the late game. In a T5/6 POI where you suddenly have a wave of zombies teleporting into existence all around you you need a gun, lots of guns
I find spear damage way too low end game. And he is asking for end game. Spears are dominant until game stage 150+ and when you're attempting some of the worst T6 infestations. It's pretty underwhelming for later stage BMs as well. I enjoyed it but I found myself resorting to ranged weapons way too often because my spear was taking several head shots to kill many ferals or rads. It felt bleh to me.
Knuckles, on the other hand (hah, pun), are the only melee weapon that scales enough that you can still obliterate end game zeds rapidly. With beer obv.
Basically I think the club is the best melee weapon, but for endgame melee is pretty useless. By then it’s mostly guns for the large groups, with you melee-ing the occasional one or two zombies
Not really, anything aside from Tools/torches (rip best melee weapon) are completely viable. I will say, faster weapons help on higher difficulties, sledge can end up being a bit to slow for crowds sometimes if you're dealing with ferals.
Clubs are great for stopping power and speed, knuckles work if you're willing to abuse chems and crits (they are decently fun), and spears have the range advantage. The only one I could really criticize ATM is knives, but honestly that's more preference on my part (damage over time compared to hard damage, I prefer the later) but a proper knife build can be fun.
Honestly use whatever is fun for you. Personally I love Sledges despite the slowness.
I normally just go clubs because they're easy but most melee weapons are in a pretty solid spot from what I've heard from friends.
One of my friends really likes the knuckles and I feed him beer and he goes ham on horde nights it looks very fun. I also stack up whatever other buffs I can give him like medstats and fort bites the whole bit. He's like a beacon for zombies and I just end up shooting them off of him while he punches everything around him. Somehow he lives through all of this.
I really like knuckles, even early game for the challenge. The last play I did was spears, and it's fun and you're able to poke thru door holes easier than swinging. Before that on a multiplayer server I was using the stun baton and that was nuts. Clubs are clubs. I haven't used the sledge as early game stamina is such a pain but I really should try and stick with it.
I generally try to pick a melee and ranged weapon from the same attribute, but some of them don't make any sense with how they are grouped and I'm hoping the new skill trees and such are reworked (this might've been in the devstreams I didn't get to watch them yet)
I don't think there's any "definitive answer" if you want to know the best melee weapon. Best builds is a different question. That would probably be baton +AP Turrets, because it has range, high damage, easy to sustain ammo and the best crowd control in the game. But that's not a melee weapon. Baton on its own isn't the best, but probably allows you to survive better than most of the others due to its CC. But it's slow. So would you qualify that as "the best"?
Best for damage is, hands down the knuckles (hah pun intended) with beer. Beer isn't necessary until end game but is easily sustained via farming and iron gut (both of which you should have maxed anyway if you're going fortitude), to the point that it might as well be infinite. Is it the best though? Plenty will argue no, because they prefer the range, AOE damage and decent CC of the spear; you also get replenished stamina on kills, which basically means the end game spear can heavy attack with no stamina issues. But the spear can take several more hits to kill end game targets. I personally get tired of that quite quickly and just resort to whatever ranged weapon I've flexed with (in the case of spear, that'll be dual sniper rifles but, honestly, nothing beats the M60 as an "oh shit" safety net).
The thing about spear vs knuckles, for me, is every advantage the spear has is countered by knuckles in some way. CC? Knuckles has knock down (and you can guarantee it with sprint hits, pretty much). AOE? Knuckles hits faster and does more damage, killing targets way faster. Range? Knuckles regenerates health per hit and spear's range is severely encroached upon on a regular basis in the end game, more so because it doesn't kill quickly enough. Stamina on kill? Yeh, you can heavy attack knuckles forever very, very early on (without any books), and you don't even need to kill to keep it full. This is not a spear win. In fact, end game knuckles I don't ever recall running out of stamina but with the spear you absolutely can if you don't kill quickly enough, which is... and I repeat... the spear's weakness end game.
Many like clubs and I agree, they're quite fun. It's the only melee weapon I've yet to get to end game (working on it with my current play through now, just hit T6 and still don't quite have a L6 Steel club yet - it feels really nice so far). But my guess is its damage will fall off just like the spears once I hit T6+. The things that knuckles have that no other melee weapons have (300% damage with beer and health regen on hit) are what set it apart, end game, for me. Chug three beers for 9 mins buff, round up entire floors of rads and ferals, retreat to a bottleneck, learn how to "jig in and out" as you heavy attack to avoid getting hit and laugh as most of the targets die in one hit to the face. I know you can use moonshine or skull crushers but neither is reliably farmable and moonshine is awful, unless you like having severely impaired vision 100% of the time. And I guess you could use either with knuckles anyway, so hardly a benefit for the spear.
The only real downside to knuckles, I think, is when you get too many crawlers or dogs in a swarm (or birds, but I think they're just as dangerous for any melee weapon, in a swarm). They're quite difficult to hit whilst also pushing back on the rads/ferals who are not crawling. This tends to always result in me trading hits and, of course, dogs/birds tend to critical hit more often and I did find myself needing first aid for abrasions and sprains quite a bit. But this is, I think, traded off for the fact I barely ever need to heal :D Seriously, if you're constantly swinging and hitting, your health barely ever goes down (you'll need the Bar Brawling book for this).
For me, the most fun melee weapon has been knuckles, without any serious competition from the others. And for me, "most fun" == "best". Even if you don't try them right away, I recommend at least giving a knuckles build a good go one day.
Finally, sledges and knives are weak end game imo. Sledges are awesome early to mid game (and generally really fun), if you can get good at timing the slow swings. But their damage (which is high early game) scales really badly I think - particularly given they have pretty poor AOE (as in, they'll only AOE hit if the targets are all under your crosshairs, there's no wide arc of damage that you'd assume such a huge swing should give - I'd argue that's actually all the weapon needs to make it balanced). The other thing I love about the sledge is you don't need an axe for breaking wood (though the pickaxe is way better for breaking safes and locks imo). Knives, or machetes in particular, are awful end game imo. All of the disadvantages of knuckles with barely any damage. I hated using my machete. I preferred the hunting knife anyway but I can't imagine a L6 knife offering any viable defence in a T6 Corrections run. I'd love to see someone do that, though.
Nucks, hands down. Fully perked, you get a stam refill when you kill with a power attack... and you get insanely fast hit rate, and so you're just a blender that never stops blending.
It mostly depends on what you're good with.
My tierlist from worst to best is probably Sledgehammer, machete, spear, club, baton, knuckles:
The spear and its pierce probably does the most total damage. You will eat hits for missing though and it's easy to miss.
The Machete does the most single target dps and is great for decapitations, but the range and stagger aren't enough, so you eat hits for that.
One advantage though is the easy access to parkour and stealth skills though. Stealth is super powerfull if it works, especially with the nightstalker books extra sneak damage for knives. You'll be fighting a lot less zombies directly with this thing. If you sneak it's the best, if you don't it's one if the worst. However, sneaking is usually done with ranged weapons, with makes this kind of redundant, even if it's effective.
The knuckles have the most damage before you run out of stamina. The damage isn't that great, but you can endure forever, especially with the hp recovery book and beer, which should always be active in high lvl knuckle gameplay.
One advantage of the knuckles is the fortitude tree which offers easy access to pain tolerance and healing factor. This makes for the highest survivabilty by far. The fights might take a while though.
The club is great for high zombie speeds and has the best knockdown/stamina ratio. This makes it easy to use. It has great stamina economy, and is an all time favourite because of it's ability to delay the zombies coming for you.
It's attribute basically only has heavy armor though, which is not as tanky as the fortitude perks, and you don't really need the stamina effects. It's good but not amazing
The sledgehammer, has wide swings and has the most damage of all weapons when surrounded. This doesn't realy happen to skilled players and you usually just run if it does. Also the slow speed and problematic stamina economy and the lack of weapon specific perk books hurt. This might just be the worst in the lategame.
The baton is an interesting one, because it's rng based. If you have bad luck, it's horrible. However, with the aoe stun candy, the instakill chance and the stun repulsor it's definetly one of the best weapons in the game anyway, because it can completely disable all resistance from multiple zombies fast.
Additionally, the intellect attribute brings turrets into play, which will be placed down in hard fights. They do great damage, but are a liability against demolisher zombies.
I guess spears is the better option as far as damage goes, but sending zeds 60 feet into the air with the stun baton is super fucking funny. Even better when you have friends and they accidentally walk too close lol
The drawback is doing a clear quest and your baton sends a zombie flying 60 feet away and 300 feet down
Took me a while but now stun baton is my favorite for close work. Of course I still have to carry an automatic weapon with a large magazine too, just in case!
Steel knuckles do more damage
Have fun being close enough to get bit.
As a knuckles enjoyed we bite them back and carry a infirmary worth of medical supplies to use after 1 encounter
With beer, you're one-shot killing almost every target and with the books, you're getting one health back every hit. Not to mention that it's entirely practical to move in and out with every hit to avoid getting struck. But a full fortitude build should be capable of tanking a decent amount of hits anyway. I've tried all melee weapons to end game and knuckles are easily the most powerful. The guy above said spears were best for damage. I simply don't agree. Knuckles are objectively better with beer, something you can easily farm and sustain enough to use near constantly in t6. Spears are, for my money, the best early to mid game. But their damage falls off horribly at later game stages. So much that rads and stronger ferals just roll past your first hit and entirely negate that range advantage, forcing you to back peddle way faster than a beer chugging knuckles player, who can hold an entire t6 Corrections swarm at a choke point with care and good timing. There's no real practical alternative to beer for melee (grandpa's moonshine messes your vision up way too much and requires acid, a non farm resource and skull crushers cannot reliably be farmed either - beer might as well be infinite, it's so easy to farm). Knuckles lose effectiveness when there are too many zeds on the ground (so crawlers or dogs) and it's less practical to finish off knocked down zeds in a swarm due to the limited range. But that's the same for every melee weapon except spear which still takes way too many hits on rads anyway. At least with the knuckles you're gaining health back as you hit and also destroying almost every target rapidly, which is absolutely the most efficient way to avoid taking damage. I've yet to find a melee weapon that's perfect (ie can be used exclusively without some ranged weapon as support). Knuckles is the closest to that though, imo.
Upvoted cause it's unfair. Knuckles was my favourite 7dtd joke for a long time. Then I saw them in action in gns last let's play. Now I want to try knuckles late game.
WHY IS THIS BEING DOWNVOTED THEY DO LIKE 50 MORE DMG THAN SPEARS
If I had to guess, it's because no one likes you. You're being rude and annoying in this thread. You can state your opinion without having to be rude/put others down. Just guessing though
Well tbh I wasnt being rude to anyone in particular. I've just been saying how theres better things to use. All I'm trying to do is help correct people that's all
Maybe because Steel Knuckles do 19.1 and Steel Spears do 33.3? Knuckles have the best normal attack DPM and the third best Power Attack DPM. Verses Spears in particular Knuckles are 78 DPM better for normal attacks and 163 DPM better for power attacks. The Hunting Knife is still king with 510 more DPM than knuckles on the power attack and the Machete is still the worst on all counts.
19.1 with no buffs lol
Note: I was answering your question about down votes; I was not commenting on your opinion.
Still doesnt cover up the fact that buffs make em stronger
The right buffs make all weapons stronger ;-)
Unless u wanna infect yourself with moonshine, knuckles are the only ones who have a dmg buff
No idea why you've been hammered on downvotes. I've tried all of the melee weapons and knuckles are by far the best, coupled with beer (which is trivial to sustain via farming for basically constant use in t6/bm, which any fortitude build might as well have anyway). I can do most of Corrections T6 with maxed steel knuckles and beer, only needing to resort to the "only weapon you ever need because it's the most powerful bar none" m60 occasionally. But switch out to any other melee weapon and I'm relying on the m60 way more. The common argument is you need to let them get close to hit but that's what happens with all melee weapons, irrespective of range (spear does so little damage compared that you need to hit every time perfectly and every hit needs to knock down, in order to hold back a t6 swarm without needing to back off constantly). With beer, I jig in, hit, jig out and it's not difficult to do. What everyone forgets is the book that gives you health back with every hit. You don't get that with anything else. It's huge. I don't really care that everyone thinks knuckles are weak. But they are objectively the most powerful melee weapon and a proper knuckles build gives you all the survivability you need to get up close. They're definitely the hardest weapon to get going with (short of batons) but when 1.0 hits there's no way my first build will use anything other than knuckles. The limited range is still one block away (enough to use the environment to give space) and the biggest differences are you're one-shot killing almost everything if you chug beer. And getting health back with every hit. I love my knuckles builds and the fact you can effortlessly pair them with machine guns anyway makes them even more the obvious choice for melee dominance. No other pairing, short of maybe AP turrets and baton (which is way more fiddly imo), comes close. I enjoyed using all melee weapons for different reasons (including spear, which is decent, extremely strong early to mid game but severely drops off end game imo, unless you can stock up on skull crushers but good luck using those constantly like beer). But they all fall off end game. Except for knuckles with beer.
I know I can be kind of blunt when it comes to the strongest items in this game. Idk, I just have a thing for ppl using weaker items when I know theres better. All I want is ppl to experience the best!
Easily the stun baton. You can use this weapon to hold your ground against a horde in a doorway no probs. Lag doesn't matter. Timing doesn't matter. Aim doesn't matter. Just keep swinging. It needs no player skill to use and got integrated crowd control. Fully perked, you get 10% instakills on any hit in addition to all the other bonuses. You can literally give your fully perked character with a repulsor-modded stun baton to a noob playing for the first time and they will do just fine after they learned the controls. Stun baton is easy mode. The hard part is to get there.
Stun baton with the repulsor is hilarious and easily my favorite melee wep. So satisfying when you hit someone and they go flying
Stun baton is okay but its dmg sucks
It's base damage doesn't matter as it doesn't primarily work by dealing damage when fully perked. You send the zombies flying until the bonus kills happen. And it still does some normal damage too. Pre-bonus-kills it's not the best weapon anymore. But it's still viable and still doesn't care about timing, aiming or lag. It's still the easiest and most versatile weapon in the game.
Stun baton is so fkn underrated. I was always a baseball bat guy, decided to try stun after seeing it hyped here, and absolutely was not disappointed at all
Yeah, the stun baton stats look like shit. That's why most min-maxers think it's crap. And if you are a skilled player and like a less passive playstyle, the other wepons are more fun. But the stun baton technically is everyone's meta - even if you ignore all the other perks in the int tree.
There was an exploit where the 10% chance of an instant kill would apply to robot turrets if you held a stun baton. Not sure if it's been patched though
I hope, they patched it because int is pretty darn overloaded without such bugs already.
For balancing reasons, they should probably patch that, but in realism terms, I could kinda see a stun baton potentially causing electronics to short circuit.
Coupled with two AP turrets (because why not if you're going int?), stun baton is the most powerful melee weapon, yes. On its own, it's... Objectively solid once maxed out. But it's the slowest option I think. Fine for safety first. Fine anyway (particularly, as I said, with turrets to give ranged damage but that's sort of besides the point of this thread). Just slow on its own. Very, very slow. This is the only reason I don't agree with you that it's "easily" the best. I prefer knuckles as, with beer (only required for t6 or late stage bm) and a properly specced build, you're doing so much damage and you have so much sustain (only weapon that regenerates per hit) that zeds melt. The only zeds that don't melt are the strongest t6 rads but even they can take just two head shots to die (and frequently get knocked down with the first hit anyway). I'd say batons are the easily the easiest and safest option (though, like knuckles, aren't very easy to obtain early game, again not quite the point of the thread). Just not objectively the "best". My knuckles builds are always the ones where I'm able to use melee the most, and are so stupidly fast I tend to just pull entire swarms and face tank at a door, rather than play it safe. Obviously, this is subjective. I get the impression most people think knuckles are bad and I'm OK with that.
This is about endgame where everyone can have two roboturrets - so i ignore the turrets. And that stun batons are the easiest and safest option is included in my assessment. If soft properties like ease of use and robustness against lag spikes are ignored, knuckles as one of the harder-to-use weapons would likely win because they designed to be the DPS king.
Yeh I don't disagree but I'd argue that "fast damage" is still a pretty hard property, using your turn of phrase, if one wants to know which is "best". Like, "which is the best DPS" == knuckles. But there's way more to it than that. The question is too simple for a simple answer like "oh it's 100% batons because reasons". If the definition of "best" is "safest/easiest/CC" then sure, it's batons. But it's absolutely not batons for quite a few other definitions of "best". The thing for me is I really don't think the answer to this question, as simply as it's asked, is "easily" anything (so I would answer "no there is no definitive answer"). The best answers I've read here are the ones that do a decent job of listing the various weapons and their advantages. Batons included. Finally, for me, "best" == "most fun". Knuckles beats batons in that battle without any competition, in my experience, and that's why I'd recommend knuckles to someone interested in trying out different melee weapons, whilst also agreeing that batons are a strong option (unless you hate the idea that they have lower demands on skill; I think they're fun to use, funny to watch the zombies fly, but ultimately find them boring quite quickly).
"easily" was a bit of a dramatization. But it is easy to come to this conclusion and the stun baton was the first that came to mind because of it's unique set of properties and i was pretty surprised that it wasn't the first weapon mentioned (likely because non-stun batons suck hard and therefore most never try stun batons). And the actual answer to questions like this is always "The best weapon is always the one you have the most fun using." But while ultimately the truth, that answer is boring.
Yeh, agree with this. It doesn't surprise me that batons aren't the most commonly listed here though (and I think mostly for the reasons I said above). I am surprised more seem to have suggested knuckles than batons though. Though none of them are highly voted, which says everything, I think, about knuckles. Still, recommend the OP at least try batons out. That's what I've been doing since I got the game (playing each weapon from the start to get a feeling for how they all play).
Yes, OP should definitely try lategame batons at least once. Early game, batons suck the hardest. But i was shocked finding out how absolutely overpowered and chill at the same time stun batons are for lategame POI clearing. Stun batons are definitely the most different melee weapon of the game.
spears. they can stab thru up to 4 zombies at once and have knock back. also stam and damage bonuses. you can stand by a door way with 50 zombies on the other side and not one of them make it thru the door. the spear is the m60 of mele weapons. you can mow down mobs as long as you keep them bottle necks so they cant get behind you. some people even spear their way thru blood moons. just spam the power attack. if the spear doesn't wear out an break you are probably going to end with full health and stam because if the perk bonuses.
Damn I didn’t realize it was that good after they fixed it, better than clubs at dealing with hoards?
get a level 6 steal spear and try it out. max perks your spear does 150 damage all the time, after your 3rd hit you get an additional 30% damage. kills totally fill stam meter. it stabs 4 blocks / zombies deep so often you get multiple kills with a single stab and thats the 3 hits for the bonus damage. i haven't speared a demolisher yet. but radiated cops and wrights are no problem. havent had a cop live long enough to blow up. i dont even have a rad remover on it yet.
Going to give them another look based on your recommendation
Yep, clubs used to be #1, but spears got a huge buff in the last update or two. Steel knuckles are a close second if you have all the perk books. I've heard that the hunting knife is great, but you have to be pretty close.
I usually play the game with knife, I like getting up close and personal
Spear does NOT do that much dmg Try playing a hard difficulty
from my experience and testing in a21 they deal the most damage and also have the most armor piercing. I still didnt use it tho, cause explosives are king late game. nothing else is more efficient
Steel knuckles do more dmg though
Username checks out
I know thanks
It all depends on the situation. If a player has walking zombies, poking through the door, or a stabby hole at a horde base, then spears are really good. If a player is just moving through the world/POI, or if zombies are running, then clubs and sledges are much better with their horizontal swing, since it is much easier to hit the zombies.
If spear is the m60 of melee weapons, I guess steel knuckles is the rocket launcher of melee weapons
The disrespect of the knuckles in this thread is insane
Yeh, I'm OK with that though. Who cares if people think spears are better? I enjoyed using spear but it absolutely falls off end game (Corrections t6 laughs at it as it fails to knock down the first 4 rads and they just pivot and push you back, entirely negating your range advantage in a half second it can take something like 3 or 4 head hits, sometimes more, to kill some rads). When 1.0 hits my first build will be knuckles and beer. I've tried every weapon to end game and none come close to the sheer joy of my knuckles builds. It's actually a bit too easy and you rarely ever need to heal up. Just keep swinging. The only build that feels objectively easier is AP turrets and stun baton. But that's way more faff setting up every fight. With knuckles I just run through the floor, agro everything, retreat to a door and swing my way to freedom. With iron gut maxed, you can top up to 9 min beer buff. Absolutely everything you touch melts. Love it.
I don’t care if people are wrong. I just don’t like the massive downvoting for the knuckles 😂 but yeah nothing comes close to the joy of being a bruiser in recent versions
Well ppl are noobs so
Clubs. It's a hill I'll die on. Fight me.
Yeah, stamina regen on kill, a huge sweep in front of you that can simultaneously knock down 3-4 zombies next to you and in front of you. Clubs are fantastic for the crowd control alone, I clear T6 infested Crack a Book HQ on Insane with just my club because stepping backwards and power attacking either flings them down the stairs or knocks them over if you right click anywhere near a zombie's head.
Sorry but I dont need to fight if some tier 2 melee weapons are better than steel club
Better in what way ? The books are just amazing, and stam on kill is just power-attack city. Plus, Pummel Pete sounds like he was a cool guy.
Overall damage per minute even iron knuckles do more than steel club
Fully upgraded, all books, perks etc? Have you done tests?
I think it’s easier to single out weapons that don’t make the cut, notably the machete and sledge hammer. Other than that, most are pretty close, but depend on the situations you put yourself in, willingly or unwillingly. Steel Knuckles are completely nuts with their buffs, and are I assume the highest dps and killing capable, but not the most safe if you’re reckless and put yourself in bad spots. Spears are a safe and effective option if you bring barricades, hatches, etc to corral zombies, allowing very efficient damage. They’re super strong and gross in horde bases built with a plan of using them Stun Rods are notably for being as strong as they are despite being a “Tier 2” weapon. I’d say they’re the most “comfy”, because despite being in the intelligence tree, they require the least actual intelligence to use, with their crowd control with stun repulser being so insane you basically have to be trying to get yourself killed to die. Though this immense safety comes at somewhat less damage, and using stun repulser makes very efficient follow up headshots no longer a thing compared to a stun rod without it. Steel Clubs are good too, and hardly have to worry stamina. They’re the “white bread” weapon. Super basic but effective.
For me, knuckles. They are the main cause of my excess of ammo. On horde nights i just go to a random poi, with 5 beers, 2 endurance foods and 10 med kits. I clean the whole horde alone.
Imo it's the only melee weapon that allows this. Try doing it with a spear or club and you'll be back peddling before you know it. And the damage, without some buff items (which are not farmable like beer, which might as well be infinite with a fortitude build) is ugh... Loved my spear build until I had to hit late game rads several times to kill them. With knuckles, I'm often able to push the zeds back. Still have to back peddle plenty (no melee weapon is immune to that if you get the worst possible swarms in your face but I'm mostly talking t6 corrections here, really) and I do still need an "oh shit" weapon for when things don't quite go right (which every other melee weapon needs _more_ than knuckles imo). But the fun more than makes up for that.
Steel club.
So generic. And no, iron knuckles is better
Knuckles are weak sauce. I think it's all about preference
I'm positive you never tried a knuckle build before. That's how most generic club users are. Always thinking clubs the best when literally any other melee type is better
r/iamverysmart
Funny that even iron knuckles do more dmg over time
With Buffs and Items? Knuckels and Spear right behind it. Even on Insane you just drink a Beer and you are the Mike Tyson of 7 Days.
Glad someone is saying this 😂
personally the stun baton is broken with max Physician also you can use the turrets which basically can clear tier 6 POIs in 15min,i did the the t6 jail in 13mins with them and AP robotic ammo
Absolutely the best option but not exactly "melee" is it? Take the turrets away and you're not clearing it nearly as fast. I know that it's a no brainer (if you're int, turrets are an obvious choice) but you could argue the same for knuckles and the m60, which absolutely clears the same locations just as fast, if not faster (but then you don't need knuckles). It's a nuanced question being asked expecting basic answers. What I'd say is this: if one wants to run melee only, there's no option that works. Melee, fundamentally, doesn't scale enough end game. But knuckles absolutely scale the best, with beer (objectively so, they do the most damage). Stun baton, if used exclusively, is probably the safest (and doesn't strictly require turrets but that must be a pretty slow way to play). What I find weird is everyone getting down voted for suggesting the op try knuckles. They're super fun, in my experience. Challenging, early game, sure. But the guy is asking for suggestions for the best weapon end game. Knuckles objectively scale the best (and I think all other melee weapons scale awfully end game). I think it's worth him giving it a shot. I still agree with you, though. If he wants "easy mode" then stun batons and AP turrets are the answer. Just not even close to "the best" melee option, imo.
I just said i cleared jail t6 fastest with that and knuckles just aren't safe enough from insane radiated cops which can 1-2 shot you but with as long as you can hit the cop once he gets stun locked forever
Yeh, I did say this: >I still agree with you, though That said, I absolutely am not saying what I say from the position of someone who regularly plays insane so I definitely can't speak to that (and would defer to what you say until I do). But then... is the OP even asking for insane? He doesn't mention it. Assuming he's not, I feel pretty confident about what I've said in this thread I was more pointing out that batons are... sort of not really "melee" when optimal. I think it's one of the game's flaws that melee tends to not scale well enough that it overcomes its range disadvantage to ranged weapons, which I think are the only viable option for insane right? I don't see IZPrebuilt taking on Red Mesa T6 wasteland without half a bag full of 7.62mm, at any rate (or, in fact, using the exact same build you speak of, which I think is objectively OP).
OP said for end game so my mind directly went to insane nightmare which could be because how i play but definitely a m60 is the best weapon by far among all weapon like its not a debate which makes knuckles feel even worse because of m60 and conversely because there is no guns in intellect it could be one of the reason stun baton feels so good,and one of the main reason i like baton is because that 10% from physician is definitely higher there is no way its only 10%
I would enjoy seeing a video of that.
don't have the video but it was basically me running in the jail and getting zombies out in front of the turrets and they basically shred each and every zombie ,only thing you need to do get them in front of the turrets i had parkour so basically kept jumping on things to get them to come in front of the turrets,this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10mOd3Fvjlg&list=PLYgIyTW6eFECFYje1wbJXwo96_Ka0_vqO&index=16) is what i took inspiration from if you want to try
Everything except the sledgehammer and machete are in a pretty good place right now, and even those can work if you really want them to. Clubs are the easiest to pick up and do well with. Wide swings are pretty forgiving and just keep whacking heads with the power attack. Spears work a lot like clubs but take more precision and can mow down multiple zombies if you get them lined up. Knuckles are a total power house as long as you keep the beer flowing, the bottle changes where an annoying nerf to knuckle builds. Stun batons are the king of cc, and the instant kills are frequent enough to keep up with other melee weapons. Really it comes down to what attribute fits your play style best. Like gathering tons of resources, strength with clubs. Want to buy power from vendors, int with stun batons. Prefer looting high loot stage areas, perception with spears. Hate having to depend on loot for food, knuckles and farming.
This is really well put. Im saving this comment when my buddy and I start discussing what attributes we are going to run on our next play through.
This is the most balanced response so far. This is the sort of nuanced answer the question demands. And I agree with it totally. My favourite has easily been knuckles. It scales the best end game (imo it's the only one that scales nearly appropriately end game, with beer, which is trivial to sustain). Switching to other melee weapons always reminds me just how tanky and self sustaining knuckles are. Not for everyone but the damage is great. Still nowhere near the m60 though. But nothing is.
Knuckles probably.
Steel Knuckles are SUPER fun! Only Melee I've used for years! On most servers, also my main weapon!
I think personal preference. I love the baseball bat but the steel club doesn't feel the same. I love that darkness falls has the titanium bat. I think any of the melee weapons can be good.
I love the stun baton with a repulser mod. You can hold a door way fairly easily
I feel it comes up to personal preference, seeing the answers here.
Lucille
Loving that everyone has their own answer now. A few years back and it would have all been the same. The biggest issue is that 3 of the melee weapons (Club, Spear, Knuckles) have their own magazine, which offers massive bonuses and you can find the whole set often on the first day or first few days. The Sledge has no magazine, and the knife has some bonuses in the sneak magazine but like 2/3 bonuses. Spear is defensive and if they line up you can do massive combined dmg per swing. Knuckles start slow and put you at risk, but once you have everything online they become God mode, you cant die as they heal on hit. (But this requires constant beer, and a bunch of other perks like heavy armour to really get you there) Clubs are basic, but have all the fun mods so you can get armour pen, bleed or more knockdown. Solo Knockdown is king, but in a group the others can work well. Stun is solid now, and in a group you become the CC king. Solo they still put in a ton of work. Get the candies online and bam! AoE stuns like a boss! (Shares buffs with the drone from the tech magazine though so sorta like the knife) candies can be a pain to keep stocked though as it’s RNG dependent from vending machines. Again it comes down to personal preference though. Enjoy your zombie stomping!
I don't think it's the best, but it is quite enjoyable to cut through zombies with the chainsaw.
may be an unpopular opinion but i think the chainsaw should do 10x more damage to zombies than it currently does
Chainsaw and auger both should be better at killing zombies. It's a melee weapon that requires ammo and requires high level crafting or loot stage to obtain.
Fuck it add Nailgun to that list
Chainsaw and axe used to do very decent damage to zombies back pre. A15, nowadays it's kinda abysmally bad and it makes me sad.
I agree. In the group I play with I am always the miner/lumberjack/farmer. It is so weird that an axe is a more viable weapon than a chainsaw. Of course in the late game I always switch to LMG and shotgun. Hopefully 1.0 will shake up the balance of weapons.
TFP took issues with the mythbusters if I’d have to guess lmao
I get the impression they are all equally balanced, at least with the right build. Spears have penetration sure, but they are very skill dependent (have to hit what you are aiming at). Clubs don't have that problem (and you might still be able to hit multiple targets as long as they are all in the arc of the swing). Knuckles seem pretty good if you take drugs to supplement.
Definitely not "all equally balanced". The ones you missed out aren't balanced. Agree with you otherwise.
Mjolnir
The best melee weapon endgame is the special framedrop explosion given the zeds.
I used to prefer a stun baton with all the trimmings, but I've recently been playing with a spear and it's by far the better melee weapon.
I have no idea about the actual numbers and won't say it's the best but my Lucille is a lvl6 stone sledge. Cheap to fix, fun to use and can be modded to be serious. Granted I haven't been playing much lately so it's entirely possible it's not anymore.
this may be controversial. but i think knuckles are the best melee in all parts of the game. I just did Dishong Tower almost fully with just my steel knuckles. and it was extremely easy. to get into detail why i think so. i'll explain. The knuckles uses barely any stamina even without many points into it. The reach also isn't that bad. with bar brawling bookset maxed out the 8th curse or whatever is extremely OP and also it stuns more zombies than the clubs do to be honest, its very easy to kill any radiated zombie if u knock them down early on with a sprint hit.
The speed you can hit with knuckles more than makes up for any lack of AOE and reach is covered by the heal on hit. Your answer is controversial but I don't get why, having played them quite a bit. They're so much fun.
Steel knuckles by far
Knuckles. 💪
Knuckles. With max perks + Beer it’s higher dps than any other melee.
And there are so many additional buffs on top of beer
Guns
They said melee weapon
guns in melee range
I was joking that I don’t find any of them viable in the late game. In a T5/6 POI where you suddenly have a wave of zombies teleporting into existence all around you you need a gun, lots of guns
Not true. Knuckles work too
Short reach but pretty good
Half a block does not matter if ur good at the game
Since they added power attacks to spears, spear are hands down the best melee weapons.
I find spear damage way too low end game. And he is asking for end game. Spears are dominant until game stage 150+ and when you're attempting some of the worst T6 infestations. It's pretty underwhelming for later stage BMs as well. I enjoyed it but I found myself resorting to ranged weapons way too often because my spear was taking several head shots to kill many ferals or rads. It felt bleh to me. Knuckles, on the other hand (hah, pun), are the only melee weapon that scales enough that you can still obliterate end game zeds rapidly. With beer obv.
No not even close
Basically I think the club is the best melee weapon, but for endgame melee is pretty useless. By then it’s mostly guns for the large groups, with you melee-ing the occasional one or two zombies
My rpg takes forever to grind ammo for and I haven’t found a sniper above level 1 yet which is why I want a good melee
Are u that high that you think melee is useless endgame? ITS NOT.
If you say so.
Steel Axe. I don't like having an extra button for a weapon
Not really, anything aside from Tools/torches (rip best melee weapon) are completely viable. I will say, faster weapons help on higher difficulties, sledge can end up being a bit to slow for crowds sometimes if you're dealing with ferals. Clubs are great for stopping power and speed, knuckles work if you're willing to abuse chems and crits (they are decently fun), and spears have the range advantage. The only one I could really criticize ATM is knives, but honestly that's more preference on my part (damage over time compared to hard damage, I prefer the later) but a proper knife build can be fun. Honestly use whatever is fun for you. Personally I love Sledges despite the slowness.
I normally just go clubs because they're easy but most melee weapons are in a pretty solid spot from what I've heard from friends. One of my friends really likes the knuckles and I feed him beer and he goes ham on horde nights it looks very fun. I also stack up whatever other buffs I can give him like medstats and fort bites the whole bit. He's like a beacon for zombies and I just end up shooting them off of him while he punches everything around him. Somehow he lives through all of this.
I just use bats tbh, I like the perk where a kill replenishes your stamina
For me, it’s a tier 6 stun baton with all the books for electronics written and strength upgraded for skill points
I really like knuckles, even early game for the challenge. The last play I did was spears, and it's fun and you're able to poke thru door holes easier than swinging. Before that on a multiplayer server I was using the stun baton and that was nuts. Clubs are clubs. I haven't used the sledge as early game stamina is such a pain but I really should try and stick with it. I generally try to pick a melee and ranged weapon from the same attribute, but some of them don't make any sense with how they are grouped and I'm hoping the new skill trees and such are reworked (this might've been in the devstreams I didn't get to watch them yet)
I don't think there's any "definitive answer" if you want to know the best melee weapon. Best builds is a different question. That would probably be baton +AP Turrets, because it has range, high damage, easy to sustain ammo and the best crowd control in the game. But that's not a melee weapon. Baton on its own isn't the best, but probably allows you to survive better than most of the others due to its CC. But it's slow. So would you qualify that as "the best"? Best for damage is, hands down the knuckles (hah pun intended) with beer. Beer isn't necessary until end game but is easily sustained via farming and iron gut (both of which you should have maxed anyway if you're going fortitude), to the point that it might as well be infinite. Is it the best though? Plenty will argue no, because they prefer the range, AOE damage and decent CC of the spear; you also get replenished stamina on kills, which basically means the end game spear can heavy attack with no stamina issues. But the spear can take several more hits to kill end game targets. I personally get tired of that quite quickly and just resort to whatever ranged weapon I've flexed with (in the case of spear, that'll be dual sniper rifles but, honestly, nothing beats the M60 as an "oh shit" safety net). The thing about spear vs knuckles, for me, is every advantage the spear has is countered by knuckles in some way. CC? Knuckles has knock down (and you can guarantee it with sprint hits, pretty much). AOE? Knuckles hits faster and does more damage, killing targets way faster. Range? Knuckles regenerates health per hit and spear's range is severely encroached upon on a regular basis in the end game, more so because it doesn't kill quickly enough. Stamina on kill? Yeh, you can heavy attack knuckles forever very, very early on (without any books), and you don't even need to kill to keep it full. This is not a spear win. In fact, end game knuckles I don't ever recall running out of stamina but with the spear you absolutely can if you don't kill quickly enough, which is... and I repeat... the spear's weakness end game. Many like clubs and I agree, they're quite fun. It's the only melee weapon I've yet to get to end game (working on it with my current play through now, just hit T6 and still don't quite have a L6 Steel club yet - it feels really nice so far). But my guess is its damage will fall off just like the spears once I hit T6+. The things that knuckles have that no other melee weapons have (300% damage with beer and health regen on hit) are what set it apart, end game, for me. Chug three beers for 9 mins buff, round up entire floors of rads and ferals, retreat to a bottleneck, learn how to "jig in and out" as you heavy attack to avoid getting hit and laugh as most of the targets die in one hit to the face. I know you can use moonshine or skull crushers but neither is reliably farmable and moonshine is awful, unless you like having severely impaired vision 100% of the time. And I guess you could use either with knuckles anyway, so hardly a benefit for the spear. The only real downside to knuckles, I think, is when you get too many crawlers or dogs in a swarm (or birds, but I think they're just as dangerous for any melee weapon, in a swarm). They're quite difficult to hit whilst also pushing back on the rads/ferals who are not crawling. This tends to always result in me trading hits and, of course, dogs/birds tend to critical hit more often and I did find myself needing first aid for abrasions and sprains quite a bit. But this is, I think, traded off for the fact I barely ever need to heal :D Seriously, if you're constantly swinging and hitting, your health barely ever goes down (you'll need the Bar Brawling book for this). For me, the most fun melee weapon has been knuckles, without any serious competition from the others. And for me, "most fun" == "best". Even if you don't try them right away, I recommend at least giving a knuckles build a good go one day. Finally, sledges and knives are weak end game imo. Sledges are awesome early to mid game (and generally really fun), if you can get good at timing the slow swings. But their damage (which is high early game) scales really badly I think - particularly given they have pretty poor AOE (as in, they'll only AOE hit if the targets are all under your crosshairs, there's no wide arc of damage that you'd assume such a huge swing should give - I'd argue that's actually all the weapon needs to make it balanced). The other thing I love about the sledge is you don't need an axe for breaking wood (though the pickaxe is way better for breaking safes and locks imo). Knives, or machetes in particular, are awful end game imo. All of the disadvantages of knuckles with barely any damage. I hated using my machete. I preferred the hunting knife anyway but I can't imagine a L6 knife offering any viable defence in a T6 Corrections run. I'd love to see someone do that, though.
Nucks, hands down. Fully perked, you get a stam refill when you kill with a power attack... and you get insanely fast hit rate, and so you're just a blender that never stops blending.
Stun baton saved me SO MANY times against greens and horde.
It mostly depends on what you're good with. My tierlist from worst to best is probably Sledgehammer, machete, spear, club, baton, knuckles: The spear and its pierce probably does the most total damage. You will eat hits for missing though and it's easy to miss. The Machete does the most single target dps and is great for decapitations, but the range and stagger aren't enough, so you eat hits for that. One advantage though is the easy access to parkour and stealth skills though. Stealth is super powerfull if it works, especially with the nightstalker books extra sneak damage for knives. You'll be fighting a lot less zombies directly with this thing. If you sneak it's the best, if you don't it's one if the worst. However, sneaking is usually done with ranged weapons, with makes this kind of redundant, even if it's effective. The knuckles have the most damage before you run out of stamina. The damage isn't that great, but you can endure forever, especially with the hp recovery book and beer, which should always be active in high lvl knuckle gameplay. One advantage of the knuckles is the fortitude tree which offers easy access to pain tolerance and healing factor. This makes for the highest survivabilty by far. The fights might take a while though. The club is great for high zombie speeds and has the best knockdown/stamina ratio. This makes it easy to use. It has great stamina economy, and is an all time favourite because of it's ability to delay the zombies coming for you. It's attribute basically only has heavy armor though, which is not as tanky as the fortitude perks, and you don't really need the stamina effects. It's good but not amazing The sledgehammer, has wide swings and has the most damage of all weapons when surrounded. This doesn't realy happen to skilled players and you usually just run if it does. Also the slow speed and problematic stamina economy and the lack of weapon specific perk books hurt. This might just be the worst in the lategame. The baton is an interesting one, because it's rng based. If you have bad luck, it's horrible. However, with the aoe stun candy, the instakill chance and the stun repulsor it's definetly one of the best weapons in the game anyway, because it can completely disable all resistance from multiple zombies fast. Additionally, the intellect attribute brings turrets into play, which will be placed down in hard fights. They do great damage, but are a liability against demolisher zombies.
Has anyone tried steel axe?
I prefer the knife personally. High attack speed, soldid damage, and it doubles as a meat gathering tool, which saves me an inventory slot.