Best melee weapon and XP gain question

[[G.W.] Sunbro Greg]

Hello, mercs! Thanks for taking time to answer my questions! I’ll get right to it:

1) What is the best melee weapon in the game? So far, I’ve heard different points:

A) Knife. You can fully buff it with items (and it won’t lose sharpness (from sharpening stones) and can be balanced with items), has the lowest AP cost and can be thrown in those cases when you are a bit out of range.

B) Machete. Can cut the grass, can one-shot enemies with low chance % insta-kill. Has a gap-closer. Sharpness fades away though. Balancing doesn’t give anything, afaik.

C) The Thing. Not acquired it yet, but I read it has the best STR scaling. No idea if you can cut the grass with it or have an insta-kill chance. Dunno if it keeps sharpness and / or can be balanced.


Aaaand my other question is:

2) I am trying the Mission Inpossible difficulty now, and I read somewhere that harder difficulties reduce the XP gain. When I read the tooltip it only mentioned reducing the money flow and increaing the toughness of the opponents. Can anyone confirm this?

[jerome_lee]

The Thing can cut grass. With mobility perks, I favored knives to hit as many enemies as possible

[LArc7thHeaven]

The thing is classified in game the same as machete so it's special variant of machete.

[Yuri Kossori]

1)
- if you have true strike perk or if you rely on marking effects then its sharpened machete or The Thing if your strength is beyond 91 strength i think. also true strike works with throwing knives
- if you stack crit chances & not grabbing true strike then its composite machete

2) very little on exp toughness and money flow.
for mines there is a difference when its depleted. around 50% on 1st blood, 20% on commando & 0% on Mission impossible but cant confirm this. my 1st run was on commando before the patch & 2nd run on MI after the patch. both 0% when mines are depleted

other stuff:
-Machete types has a charge ability. can be used if the target is on a straight line.
-composite machete can cut grass. im gonna assume the thing can too.
-i believe they fixed the lose sharpness on machetes. so it stays sharp forever now.

[suejak]

Sharpened knife (or even just basic knife) is all you need due to how broken melee and AGI are in this game.

The STR scaling of machete/Thing are total overkill and result in absurd damage numbers that completely exceed enemy HP levels even on the highest difficulty. As a result, STR is mostly pointless even for melee.

[jerome_lee]

Originally posted by suejak:

Sharpened knife (or even just basic knife) is all you need due to how broken melee and AGI are in this game.

The STR scaling of machete/Thing are total overkill and result in absurd damage numbers that completely exceed enemy HP levels even on the highest difficulty. As a result, STR is mostly pointless even for melee.

Other than to qualify for the perks of course.

[[G.W.] Sunbro Greg]

So, if I got it right, since most of my stats are 90+, it just makes sense to use the perk for marking and go for knife, right?

[sandman25dcsss]

Originally posted by G.W. Sunbro Greg:

So, if I got it right, since most of my stats are 90+, it just makes sense to use the perk for marking and go for knife, right?

No. The thing oneshots everyone with some builds (even Mayor was killed by starting his turn adjacent to my IMP), knife attack costs just 1AP less, but often cannot kill no matter the build.

[[G.W.] Sunbro Greg]

Uh-huh, so still the Thing. Alright! What about the armor? Does it make sense to wear the Deathsomething armor? I think it has some pretty amazing defenses for high difficulty, and it also doesn't slow you down, right?

[sandman25dcsss]

Originally posted by G.W. Sunbro Greg:

Uh-huh, so still the Thing. Alright! What about the armor? Does it make sense to wear the Deathsomething armor? I think it has some pretty amazing defenses for high difficulty, and it also doesn't slow you down, right?

Yes, it is the best armor set in the game.

[[G.W.] Sunbro Greg]

Okay, so from what I got, it’s best to use the Thing and run light armor / deathstalker armor, am I following right?

[SirHawk]

With Full Body Contact perk the only thing you need is just light armor, sharpened machete is better, especially with True Strike perk.

[gigastar]

Pierre also has his unique Legions Pride machete, i havent tried it yet but it seems to be the same as a sharpened machete and a 3AP attack cost

[SirHawk]

Originally posted by gigastar:

Pierre also has his unique Legions Pride machete, i havent tried it yet but it seems to be the same as a sharpened machete and a 3AP attack cost

You can't give his machete to anyone and he himself is pretty bad with it either way, doesn't have hand to hand traits either. Can't sharpen it too.

[[G.W.] Sunbro Greg]

Still haven’t gotten the Thing. Is it worse than a sharpened machete?

Originally posted by SirHawk:

With Full Body Contact perk the only thing you need is just light armor, sharpened machete is better, especially with True Strike perk.

[SirHawk]

Originally posted by G.W. Sunbro Greg:

Still haven’t gotten the Thing. Is it worse than a sharpened machete?

I've seen calculations, according to them the sharpened machete ends up with delivering higher flat damage and once you have the True Strike perk the crit chance doesn't matter, since all your melee strikes are critical strikes. If you manage to strike the neck, then both simply one kill, but if you swing at the crotch, then The Thing doesn't one shot everyone.