Can Knuckle perform as good as other melee weapon ?

[Samseng Yik]

I am playing with my cousin, so far both spear and sledge hammer feel good to 1 hit KO zed before they can hit us (provided they don't swarm us at once)
I notice the knuckle weapon deal very very low damage (include power attack)
Just want to ask anyone can advice the pros of knuckle that can play as good as other weapon ? (aside from faster attack speed)

[Sir_Kartoffel Hoffnungsvoll]

Well depends, for crowd fighting with the right perk, skill, drugs and beer you can be a force of nature popping zombs head off like there's no tomorrow, in pvp same reason above plus you can run around your opponent punching there face off dazing them before they can fight back. its always on playstyle, patience and taste. And base in experience in 1.0 steel knuckle still can deal bleed ( not 100% sure about this but it looks like it). Overall its a satisfying weapon punching head off at end game.

[Jaskier]

They are very good if not best, but on late game. Leather wraps are weak, very weak. If you play on higher difficulty they will make you angry not even once. You want to get/craft iron knuckles as fast as you can. You will feel difference. Reason why they are good is beer. It triples damage and give you crazy stamina regen. You can just run into POI drink beer and swing left and right.

[Samseng Yik]

So it is a conditionally good weapon only if you got beer ?
How about snow zone house looting and quest those ambush by multiple rad zombie, I can't always drink beer in every fight right ?

[Pain Weasel]

In my opinion it is less about the weapon's stats and more about the perks, perk books and buffs you can use with it. Perk books in particular can totally change how a weapon behaves.

Fist weapons can be very good, but most of that is due to the head exploding bonus from Brawler 5, the Bar Brawler perk books and candy/food/drink buffs. A fist weapon without those additional buffs and bonuses just isn't that great. They aren't bad but they don't really shine until you max out Brawler, find all the Bar Brawler perk books and buy a bunch of candy/food/drink for buffs.

Similarly you mentioned spears which are very good, but that is less due to the actual item and due more to the incredible buffs from Spear Hunter perk books. With all the Spear Hunter perk books you do additional damage, penetrate enemies, cause bleeding, get bonus damage to downed enemies, get a hit streak damage bonus on top of the flat damage bonus and totally refill stamina on kills. That takes a weapon from decent to amazing pretty quickly.

Another example would be stun batons, which can be pretty good without any skills or perk books, but when they get those additional bonuses they are OP. Stunning enemies is nice, but with perk books you can craft a repulsor mod for an AOE knockback and faster recharging so you can permanently stun lock enemies. That is a game changer for the weapon. With Physician 5 stun batons gain the chance to instantly kill anything they hit, even with quick attacks. All that combined takes a weapon from a good option to a weapon that can kill any enemy in the game without taking a single hit. Stun lock then wait for the insta kill to trigger.

Sledgehammers on the other hand don't have any perk books that work with them so while they are very high DPS and work well they will always be mediocre at best in my opinion. The same is true with knives.

[Maddermax]

In the early game, Knuckles are a tough sell, as they do low damage, but the advantage is they use very little stamina, so you usually can attack a bunch more. That said, you'll still feel weaker than a club, sledge or knife build in the early game, and have to get closer than a spear build, so they're not great at that. That said, by the time you get access to iron, and then steel knuckles, they start to feel really good, and get lots of head pops.

The big factor though is a regular supply of beer. If you can make beer, especially if you have the book that allows you to ignore blurry vision, you are godlike in anything but insane difficulty. Drinking a beer takes you from an OK but fairly average feeling melee build that is just fine, to charging into end loot rooms with battle lust, drunk and hopped up on fort bites.

Or just declaring a small park Fort Kickass, and making a horde night stand:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9S-9mEWPIQ

This was only on nomad or warrior difficulty, so your mileage may vary. I usually play survivalist solo, and on that or Insane, melee weapons are just far more easy to get yourself killed, so you generally have to go more ranged.

[Brevan]

My current playthrough is with brawling. It sucks that their range (Steel Knuckle) is the same as Hunting Knife, since when you're on a 2-block column and attacking down at a Z, you can barely reach (i.e. if they lean into the column, you can hit, but that will cause their animation to lean back out of your range).

It's a good thing a single point in the perk allows you to disable Zombie infection applications, because the attack animations in v1.0 won't always coincide with when you get hit.

I'm hoping that when I max out the perk, the bonus head-popping will apply to stuff like Radiated Wights and other very durable or heavily armored targets. But there's a good chance I'll get bored of the playthrough before that happens.

[Jaskier]

Originally posted by Samseng Yik:

So it is a conditionally good weapon only if you got beer ?
How about snow zone house looting and quest those ambush by multiple rad zombie, I can't always drink beer in every fight right ?

You can drink it during fight but it make open for hits during drinking animation. Its better to drink when entering POI. If its bigger one, then you need more beers but of course always back up yourself with firearm. Machineguns are to be fair best weapons for gruop of zombies in open field. Beer duration can be extended with book to almost 2 minutes + perk "Iron Guts" which sums up to estimated 2,5 minutes. When i play with friend i usually drink beer and rush-clear POI all by myself in the meantime my friend loot the place. You can use doors inside POI to close yourself for example in bathroom to drink beer. Radiated zombie will blow up those door but it will give you time to drink it.

[Maddermax]

Originally posted by Samseng Yik:

So it is a conditionally good weapon only if you got beer ?
How about snow zone house looting and quest those ambush by multiple rad zombie, I can't always drink beer in every fight right ?

You can, with a proper hops farm, which you'll want if you really want to go late game brawler. It takes a bit of setup, but very worth it.

Because you get perks making your consumable buffs last longer, Fortitude builds run far better on buffs than any other build. Have a couple of recog for horde night and a stack of beers for questing in POIs, and you'll be an absolute wrecking ball.

Also, you want a few levels of the Parkour skill, so you can jump double height. Mobility is the key to keeping yourself alive, so being able to jump over a fence, or jump a gap when you get yourself into trouble is very useful.

[Cthulhuisalone]

Knuckles, beer, pain tolerance and a full raiders set is all you need

[thestile]

The knuckles are absolutely awesome. They end up being the best melee weapon imo. They start off lower damage but they end up being amazing, especially because they get a huge buff from beer.

Also, they get great buffs from the books that add knuckle perks.

They don't feel powerful at first, it takes time.

[Daynen Drakeson]

A knuckles build can make you feel like Wolverine...but only when it's complete. You can heal yourself, get free stamina and do plenty of damage but you gotta get all the equipment and perks first and rushing to it can be a pain.

[Elvi]

Probably the best meele weapon in game, if you build for it, one of the few that actually seem viable endgame and feel great.
But mind you, you do need all the right perks, skills and armor, otherwise it just doesn't work at all.

[Samseng Yik]

So it is only a "weapon to play when skill point and all gears all ready"
So is worse than spear club who immediately superb at start

[Elvi]

Originally posted by Samseng Yik:

So it is only a "weapon to play when skill point and all gears all ready"
So is worse than spear club who immediately superb at start

Not worse or better at all - Difference is that spear and club are good at the start, but are so-so or even nearly useless once the game stage advances too far, while knuckles are the exact opposite, so-so at the start, but if you build around them, you can be a bit of an immortal terminator-wolverine hybrid as the the stage and your levels advances.

[johnw4733]

Originally posted by Sir_Kartoffel Hoffnungsvoll:

Well depends, for crowd fighting with the right perk, skill, drugs and beer you can be a force of nature popping zombs head off like there's no tomorrow, in pvp same reason above plus you can run around your opponent punching there face off dazing them before they can fight back. its always on playstyle, patience and taste. And base in experience in 1.0 steel knuckle still can deal bleed ( not 100% sure about this but it looks like it). Overall its a satisfying weapon punching head off at end game.

You get bleed damage if you add the diamond tip mod to it.