Unarmed vs melee?

[Дегтярьов]

What do you guys think? Pros and cons of unarmed and melee?

[psychotron666]

Melee has range and more selection but generally weigh more and harder to repair.
Unarmed has low weight so you can carry more weapons, some for robots or power armour, power fists for high armoured units and spiked knuckles for speed and low armoured enemies. You also have a few different unarmed moves that can be learned by various npcs.

They're both good, but I find unarmed to be more op in this game.

[CeSium]

They both go hand in hand. A lot of melee perks that are essential for a melee build often require unarmed skills alongside it.

Other than that, you'll be abusing chems to become super OP in both builds. Using unarmed seems to be more useful though if you're looking to start trouble in casinos, due to the piss poor damage of holdout weapons and the fact that White Glove society doesn't allow holdout weapons unless stealth is at a high 50.

[Twinkletoes]

I think melee weapons have special moves that have more effect to them.

Unarmed has a selection of strikes(straight, hook, uppercut etc) but I don't know what effects those have other than being just a cool strike.

[My LiL Friend]

Originally posted by Hays:

What do you guys think? Pros and cons of unarmed and melee?

Both are viable, but IMO, melee is more fun

[talgaby]

Unarmed has the special moves which can almost insta-win any encounter with a human. It also has lover VATS cost on average.
Melee has a wider variety in weapon options and you can have longer reach with it.

[Twinkletoes]

Originally posted by talgaby:

Unarmed has the special moves which can almost insta-win any encounter with a human. It also has lover VATS cost on average.
Melee has a wider variety in weapon options and you can have longer reach with it.

Melee also has the ignore armor weapons and rapid hit weapons like ripper, chainsaw and thermal drill.

[Дегтярьов]

I love katana, chainsaw and gehenna on my melee builds. I think i did unarmed only once and i had the mantis king thing. I always cant decide which armor to wear tho. I think the game lacks good armors. I would prefer something light but with good dt aswell.

[Johnny Casey]

Originally posted by Twinkletoes:

Melee also has the ignore armor weapons and rapid hit weapons like ripper, chainsaw and thermal drill.

Sadly, that is not the case due to an engine bug. DT and DR will apply to those weapons unless you install third party modification to fix it.

With that being said, though. Those continuious attack weapons are fantastic even without the benefits of ignoring armors.

[MannsOverMeta]

If you complete Dead Money, talk to Veronica, and decide to be greedy, you can get a perk that gives you a x1.5 critical damage multiplier for melee weapon’s only. If you are utilizing crits this makes them superior tounarmed weapons IMO.

[Vassago Rain]

Unarmed is orders of magnitude more powerful than all the other combat skills. Not only do you inflict huge amounts of damage, you're doing it without needing ammo, and everything except the most basic punch has attributes like winded, stun, crippling effects, 4x limb damage, knock down, and other OP nonsense.

[CeSium]

Originally posted by Vassago Rain:

Unarmed is orders of magnitude more powerful than all the other combat skills. Not only do you inflict huge amounts of damage, you're doing it without needing ammo, and everything except the most basic punch has attributes like winded, stun, crippling effects, 4x limb damage, knock down, and other OP nonsense.

Same for melee lol

[talgaby]

Not exactly, since melee weapons degrade, your fists do not. Strictly speaking, unarmed will always be the most broken build, but you can do crazy enough things in the melee category as well to not really worry about the gap.

[Gestalt]

You can't find many games with a viable and unarmed build. And this game, for me, actually is the best (with a lot of choices in unarmed weapons). Go for unarmed build. start your luck and endurance relatively high; I'd start Luck with 8 or 9 ( depending on you want to use lucky shades) and Endurance 8 or 9 (depending on you want regeneration impland from medical clinic).

I am just doing a walkthrough with all the companions who can go in melee or unarmed(using Jip companion). It's hell of a fun :).

[Twinkletoes]

Originally posted by talgaby:

Not exactly, since melee weapons degrade, your fists do not. Strictly speaking, unarmed will always be the most broken build, but you can do crazy enough things in the melee category as well to not really worry about the gap.

Wait, so you can raise your fist damage enough to handle enemies without a weapon(brass knuckles or power fists)?

I never did an unarmed playthrough, I always preffered melee.

[Mister Holdout]

They're both very good if you spec'd your character right.

For me personally, I prefer melee weapons more. With the right perks, the Blade of the West pretty much rag-dolls most of the enemies in the game (while at the same time doing good damage).

Weapons that rag doll effectively are basically over-powered.

On the other hand, the Industrial hand has some insane dps. So if you really like unarmed weapons, the IH is not a bad option.

Of course, the Thermic lance (which is a melee weapon) beats the Industrial hand in terms of dps. So there's that as well.

All in all, I say choose whichever is the most fun for you. Both unarmed and melee are very powerful later in the game. The weapon type that fits your character is the best choice imo.