Melee weapons?

[Your Neighbour]

Had a shovel, supposely very high damage but took like 12 shots to killed a downed zombie compared to unarmed footstomp which is like 1-3 shots.

What melee weapons are jank and best avoided?

[Malthar]

The shovel's damage is 0.8-1.9 damage per hit, what made you think it had high damage?
Are you sure you werent looking at the condition or something?

[Greb]

Originally posted by Your Neighbour:

What melee weapons are jank and best avoided?

All of them - if your character is tired, high extertion, overheated, panicking or wounded on the arms, anyway. These things lower your accuracy (thus your damage) as well as slowing down your swing speed and increasing your recovery time between swings.

None of them - if you're in good condition though even a griddle pan or a humble plank of wood is a deadly weapon capable of taking out zombies in remarkable speed by knocking them down and then critical hitting them in the head.

[martindirt]

Originally posted by Your Neighbour:

Had a shovel, supposely very high damage but took like 12 shots to killed a downed zombie compared to unarmed footstomp which is like 1-3 shots.

What melee weapons are jank and best avoided?

If you aim on their chest when they knocked down, it takes several hits to kill them. Aim their head. (This is not an option while they are on feet)

[Synizer]

Originally posted by Your Neighbour:

Had a shovel, supposely very high damage but took like 12 shots to killed a downed zombie compared to unarmed footstomp which is like 1-3 shots.

What melee weapons are jank and best avoided?

well.. junk are basicly all improvised wepons such as fork, knifes, billard ques, scissors or rolling pins. also screwdrivers should be avoided or any "tool" with relatively low durability and damage and should be used as last resort weapon or if you dont find anything better. even the worst melee weapon is better than nothing but best look for something that use swings instead of stabs. swings of things like rolling pins can knock zombies on the ground if youre lucky

some things that are always good: any axe (esp the firefighter axe. it has the best range to dps destribution of all axes. if you have lumberjack the splitting axe is better), crowbars, Meatcleavers and pipes/metalbars due to their high availability and relative effectiveness in relation to them being more common loot.

and the thing that most people forget: spears. seriously. they have the best range of ALL melees, can be crafted more than easily and are the only melees that have a true oneshot. im not kidding. look it up. their crit is literally a oneshot of top of not being bound of a special animation like knifes are

[NotReallyMyName]

Spears are the best, easy to make, decent damage and range, but break easily. That's why you should have one on your back and one in your hands, and, optionally, a few in your inventory.

Though the 'best' weapon is crowbar. High durability and low durability decay rate.

[The early worm deserves the bird]

Crowbar is life

[Lefurtif126]

Crowbars and Fireaxes are bae

[Your Neighbour]

Originally posted by NotReallyMyName:

Spears are the best, easy to make, decent damage and range, but break easily. That's why you should have one on your back and one in your hands, and, optionally, a few in your inventory.

Though the 'best' weapon is crowbar. High durability and low durability decay rate.

Ty interesting

Originally posted by The early worm deserves the bird:

Crowbar is life

Just need vents to complete the cycle

[Glamorpuss]

Shovels are pretty decent. Snow shovels are similar damage but slow. Kayak paddles are even slower, but still useful in a pinch. (Crowbar is OK damage, and amazing durability as others have noted. Plus it lets you pick up floor tiles or un-barricade planks.)

[BDZ1972]

Originally posted by The early worm deserves the bird:

Crowbar is life

The ultimate melee/survival companion.

Opens doors, barricaded windows, storage bins and beats zombies to a pulp without damaging their clothes if you need them.

Also lasts forever, you can kill 100s upon 100's of Z's without seeing any kind of high wear on it. I got one down to about 30% after 6 months of extreme heavy use before moving to a new fresh one.

[Jday]

I used to be a crowbar guy but that all changed when I met Ms. Pickaxe

[Synizer]

Originally posted by Jday:

I used to be a crowbar guy but that all changed when I met Ms. Pickaxe

pickaxe is a sleeper. i loveit too but too rare. the HP on it w/o maintanence is also pretty low.

[NotReallyMyName]

Originally posted by Glamorpuss:

Shovels are pretty decent. Snow shovels are similar damage but slow. Kayak paddles are even slower, but still useful in a pinch. (Crowbar is OK damage, and amazing durability as others have noted. Plus it lets you pick up floor tiles or un-barricade planks.)

You can also pick up windows with crowbar and make a house in the woods with the brand new windows instead of open spaces. Or replace the broken ones in your house that suffered from zombie attack.
Also, with some mods ('lockpicking just lockpicking' for one), crowbars can be used to break locks.

[dubsmith]

I live by shovels in early game. The key is to manage your moodlets. Hunger, tiredness and exhaustion all reduce melee damage severely. From 50-95%. Stay healthy, fed, rested build up your strength. I can knockdown or one shot kill often enough with a shovel.

[Mamluk's Honor]

Your character was likely either very tired or very weak from your traits.