Fire Axe is currently the best weapon in the game

[tindelljk]

Prove me wrong

[Remnar]

The axe, whether it be stone, fire, iron or steel is very good as a weapon. It does way better than the spear and doesn't use as much stamina. You can basically fight with hard attacks instead of soft ones, but you will use up more stamina. Frankly I think it shouldn't be like this. The axe is meant as a tool, not a weapon; yet it is better than the other melee weapons.

[Reeva!]

Idk man, rockets are pretty damn nice. So are breadcrumb trails of dynamite. Explosives are dope.

[westrud]

I hit a fox with a charged stun baton and it flew off into the sunset, that was pretty satisfying. I would have to vote for the stun baton currently.

[Pizzarugi]

You're gonna have a hard time finding a melee weapon that can compete with a Stun Baton after you get the Stun Repulsor mod. The repulsor's ragdoll is an AoE, so you're batting away whole groups after a couple heavy attacks. You bottleneck the zombies in a single doorway and you're almost never going to die.

It's also considered a harvesting tool for meat too, so you can (slowly) get the full value out of animal corpses.

[Serious]

I would say it's the best tool you can use as melee weapon.

But both club and stun batton are better melee weapons. have to test spear further before writing about it.
Early game the best melee weapon is stun batton by far. In singleplayer its awesome, in multiplayer its a early gamechanger. It's usable till the very end game and never actually decrease in effectivnes.
club is getting better over time(expecting you add points in its skill/tree) and def. the best melee weapon for endgame together with stun button.

stone axe is the stamina king, but fails as soon as the zombies get faster or during night.
Fire axe is good general tool/weapon for early game.
Steel axe is fully usable for mid and endgame but the difference to club rises with the difficulty of the quest/poi.

-Edit-

thinking about it i like the axe is better as pick,shovel or impactdrive for melee.
Because axe is for wood, and for wood only. It's good for some polymer stuff too, but that's very situational.
Pick is awesome for ore, stone, metal and therfore much more important for resource gathering. Almost same for impactdriver, esp as the skill for it is awesome. Shovel is not as flexible as pick or impactdriver, but still much more in use as the axe for resources (as you need much more clay as you need wood).
Knifes are a bit out of competition as the resource you harvest with it have very low health.
So while axe is a dedicated resource gaterhing tool, it's the least important of the resource tools.

[Chronusaur]

Nah. Tools are only comparable to weapons when you haven't gotten the relevant perk books. Harvesting tools are just bad. Once you get access to the absolutely cracked combat perk books there's no reason to ever try to use tools in combat again unless you're just really fond of em.

[Niuq]

If you have not tried spear with all the books, it is almost as strong as the Sledge was in A17.

The axe is a solid choice for a player wants to do harvesting / mining, doesnt want to spend the points on a melee weapon. Something i tried in A19 and A20.
The tools have the same damage perks and headshot perks.
They have lower base damage than most pure melee weapons.
Weapons with a book series will do large amounts more damage in an extended fight.

Tools rank 5 at seven in strength, this + the 5-10 points you might spend on a melee weapon perks can make it a bit more appealing.

[Remnar]

Blunt weapons like the baton are pretty good, but you'll be dead because you don't got the stamina to run lol That is what makes the axe kind of OP, because it hardly uses up any stamina; unless you're doing hard attacks, and even then you can take several swings before you're low. Sure if you put points into your weapon of choice, eventually stamina uses starts being manageable, even with a spear. But the thing with the axe, you don't need any points for it to be good.

I maybe talkin out my ass here; because I am using Darkness Falls mod, and that has been my experience with using the axe. Though I doubt there has been any tweaks in that regard. There is a point, though where the axe ceases to be useful on the strong monsters, and you are going to need a skilled up gun.

[Nimbull]

Flaming steel axe lets you bring out your dwarven battle rager A game.

[8_Hussars]

Originally posted by Remnar:

That is what makes the axe kind of OP, because it hardly uses up any stamina; unless you're doing hard attacks, and even then you can take several swings before you're low.

If a player is not perked into strength the axe is not OP. The axe only appears OP as a melee weapon because tools now get the benefits of the strength perk. Either strength melee weapon (club or sledge) with the book series massively outperforms the axe. Sure it looks good for a one swing headshot in a random single encounter but it will not handle a larger group of zombies better than a club or sledge.

[6teaNEIN?]

club:

laughs in power hit kill restores stamina

[Nebgama]

I always just use Axe as a melee weapon because its a multi tool in one slot.
Progression: Torch + Stone Axe >> Fire Axe or Steel Axe which ever comes first.

All the other Melee weapons lose for this reason. I will only use something else until i get an Axe or if i find a better drop than what i am using currently at that point in time, if i have an Axe that is decent already then i continue to use that regardless.

[Nimbull]

Stone mauls make a great starting weapon out of the gate since they can be crafted day 1 and provide nice head shots till you get a steel flaming dwarven battleaxe.