Knives vs. Spears

[Wanderlust]

My wife and I started new characters and are debating whether to choose knives or spears for melee. She likes the extended range of spears and likes to stand on rocks and poke wolves, for example. I counter that spears make it harder to get headshots and point out that she keeps hitting that wolf in the butt instead of the face, and that a knife will hit the closest part of the wolf, which is typically the head.

More importantly, progressing knives means higher and higher skinning yields without any corresponding benefit for spears.

For those of you who have dug deep into the talent trees for both, and gone deep into the workshop progression for both, are there other considerations to consider in determining which (if either) weapon has more advantages vs. the other?

[Rekal]

Melee spear is less than half a talent tree ~16 talents. The other half is spear crafting or throwing talents. Knife is ~19 talents without the crafting, gathering, and throwing talents.

Spears have a 20% physical resistance talent so they can make you super tanky with the composite armor. Like 90%+ passive damage reduction (solo), so toe to toe with the boss scorpion or sand worm is just a tickle. Without the solo 15% it's still ~80% reduction and you can still get the 15% back with a strength enhancement tonic.

Spears are much easier to joust bears with because you can get your head shot poke in and then start dodging. If you use the knife you have to stab during your dodge to make it out unscathed.

Spears are also easier to back pedal kill scorpions, dogs, and cats. Moa and Terranus heads are taller than the character so you really have to tilt up with a knife while a spear can still pop them at a semi-normal angle as they come in.

As far as the weapons themselves. Knives have a skinning yield modifier while spears have a critical hit modifier. Spear talents also have higher critical hit bonuses so spear will do more damage on critical hits.

Knives are faster which gives more DPS when just spamming attacks. You've got to carry a knife anyway to skin animals. Plus you can get a movement speed boost with them. Bow gives the same movement speed boost so if you do bow/spear you don't lose out for travel speed but the spear just moves a bit slower in melee.

Both are valid options.

If you want to delve into workshop gear, there is a the Inaris "GRIS" Spear. It has a 50% chance to slow a target on hit, and a 10% chance to pin the target on hit. Always pretty bad-ass in multiplayer when your tank can grab the enemy and say, "You ain't touching anyone else."

The only special workshop knives give you higher skinning yield or prevent you from getting wound debuff from dogs and cats. Not especially pressing.

[Spaceminnow]

Many ways to play this game...
Some like to get up close and fight while others like to damage at a safer distance...

I personally believe the biome may dictate which weapon you may choose...
In forest boimes; knife of spear may be used to hunt or defend.

In the desert or winter biomes; the spear may be better...
I have not used a "knife" to defend my character against scorpion attacks.
I know my character can back pedal and strike with spear successfully landing hits.
The scorpion could not get close enough... @@' (phew)

I am not sure, defending with the knife, versus a scorpion, can yield the same results...
Meaning, can the defending with a knife safely keep the character out of range of scorpion attacks?

I will not experiment with my character to defend against a scorpion with a knife.
Common sense tells me the character cannot avoid scorpion attacks defending with a knife.

Try it! :D
Be the brave pioneer!
Let us know! :)

At least your wife's character can revive your character if it goes wrong... :P ... xx

[Furio]

Could be a personal preference thing. I chose knife/bow as preferred weapons. I simply didn't like the way the spear handled. I didn't feel like I had control with it, and it also felt really slow.

[william_es]

I use a knife. When the game first launched, spears were really wonky. The hit box was just off. I've never revisited them since.

And actually now with the HS2 bow (first red exotic bow), archer's backpack, and talents... my bow is my main melee weapon. The fire rate is just insane. I have a goofy number of talent points in bow, so I'm always going to do more damage with a bow.

[LS-33 "Wraith"]

I use axe and shield, under tools there are some great axe buffs and its a good tool to have...plus VIKING!

but if you do use knife think about if a shield is right for you, cant use it with a shield unfortunately. and knife skills help with throwing knives which can be kinda useful vs the javelins that plop at your feet.

hit me up if you want to chat or have a little help.

[Wanderlust]

As I expected, there are pros and cons for either approach and both are viable. I like the points about defending against scorpions and bears, but I've typically just shot my bow and dodged the bears, but it doesn't work as well with scorpions, I may have to rethink my position on spears.

Thanks for the great info, guys, one of the best things about this game is the community, I always feel like I'm getting responsive, non-toxic responses compared to some other places I've been.