Melee Tips & Build (level 45)

[Regular_Mud]

I noticed a few discussions mentioning having problems with melee and figured I'd share my experience so far in case it helps anyone.

I've made it fairly far into chapter 4 (grinding to get past platinum rank in the arena currently) without the need to use spells or jars (other than tonic/elixir).
I use guns occasionally for enemies on the ceiling, but that's been about it for ranged.

Looking at my "All Nights" stats, I'm currently at 24 deaths and 847 Kills.

I wouldn't say my stats are optimized or anything, but they seem to be working fine with my current equipment.

Stats:
Level 45
Vigor - 5
Warding - 5
Fortitude - 5
Agility - 15
Violence - 15

From what I can remember, I started with adding 5 to Warding then 5 to Vigor. Once I could add stats to Agility I did 5 there, 5 in Violence, 5 in Fortitude and then went back to alternating 5 in Violence and Agility.

Equipment (Early/Mid Game):
Right - Knife
Left - Bible/Oil Lamp/Spirit Dust Bag
Artifacts - None
Amulet - Pentagram of Blood
Rings - Frog's Eye Ring + Ruffian Ring + Any Rings Adding to Health
Head - French Pins
Outfit - Floral Dress

Current Equipment:
Right - Knife+3
Left - Thurible
Artifacts - None
Amulet - Night Mother Amulet
Rings - Frog's Eye Ring
- Old Hearty Ring+3 (+38 Max Health, +3 Poise Impact for Melee, -12% Paralysis Resist)
- Old Powerful Ring+3 (+23% Melee Damage, +3 Poise Impact for Melee, -5% Base Projectile Damage)
- Rare Hearty Ring+3 (+40 Max Health, +10 Poison Tolerance, +4 Fire Damage to Melee, +23% Melee Damage, -12% Paralysis Resist, -5% Base Spell Damage)
Head - Merry Band Mask+3
Outfit - Bloody Apron+3

Additional Tips:
- The Knife seems to be one of the best weapons due to how quickly it attacks, combine that with additional poise impact and poison/bleed and it can shred most enemies by spamming light attacks.
- A handful of enemies cause problems for the Knife (Legless Zombies and Bodybags for example), I'll sometimes switch to the Whip for some additional range
- Set run to "Toggle" in the options and always run. It helps to close the distance between you and the enemy faster (as well as escaping when necessary) and I've yet to notice any problems with being "too loud".
- Getting right on top of some enemies sometimes causes their attacks to miss because they start "behind" you.
- Buy any charms you can find and "remember" them if they aren't already permanent
- The Mossy Pentagram Amulet can help with healing if you're tight on cash and have a safe space to sit for a while
- When you get to the Labyrinth in ch. 2, try a few "sacrificial" runs while ignoring/tanking enemies to find the NPCs and hopefully find a decent ring or two that you can upgrade
- You can also try cheesing the first few rooms of the Labyrinth at that point using the protected entrance door to get some early Ancient Blood for leveling up
- For the Labyrinth rings, I try to look for anything that's going to add to Health or bonuses to melee attacks while avoiding anything that will remove from those stats or Speed.

Hopefully there's at least some useful info in there... I'll try to update if I run into any issues later in the game or if I find anything else that might help.

Edit: I just finished the game a couple hours after writing this (Night Mother Ending). After upgrading the Knife to +5 everything became extremely easy and I finished off the last few bosses without even needing to heal.