Machettes need a buff

[Illyahr]

Either more damage or higher dismember chance. They offer no protections against multiple foes. Clubs can knock down, sledges can knock back, fists can stagger, but machetes will kill after they zombie has hit you a few times, just wait a moment.

They aren't even very good in their own tree. Hunting knives will knock down with a power attack, for only a few less damage but twice the speed. What's worse, machete power attacks make noise and will alert zombies before sneak attack can trigger, where the knives don't

[Sylvaa]

Not really. AGI is far and away the most powerful line. The SMG is utterly insane, add to that extra bow damage, sneak, parkour. It doesn't need a melee weapon as good as other lines.

If anything needs some loving, it's the INT tree.

[Brevan]

It's not a great fight-style to slash with the machete/knife and then wait for them to bleed out. Since that perk tree also has Parkour, you should get them bleeding and then jump to safety or at least close a door between you.

That aside, I've heard that the Machete already has a 100% dismember chance, but in 7DtD you only dismember when you do some % of a Z's remaining HP in damage (so you won't dismember an Irradiated Wight on the first hit, but eventually you might). If you just want to dismember stuff, maybe increase your damage via Skullcrushers candy (+50%), points in Blade perk (50%), r5 gloves (60%), fully modded r6 machete (100%?), headshots (up to 300%), Moonshine (+400%?), and sneak damage (700%?). It's base damage isn't awesome, but when you factor in a couple bleeding enemies, I think it's the highest melee-DPS in the game.

[Demios]

Originally posted by Sylvaa:

Not really. AGI is far and away the most powerful line. The SMG is utterly insane, add to that extra bow damage, sneak, parkour. It doesn't need a melee weapon as good as other lines.

If anything needs some loving, it's the INT tree.

Int stun baton is stupid scary even without physician maxed! You can keep a charge and aoe stun a buncha zombies while the bot turrets mow them down (Give your bot turrets some Ap ammo and make sure you have the best preacher gloves equipped! You'll be quite surprised how efficient it can be!) (then you can even switch to another gun to put more damage in! So you end up having : Your electrocution Dot, the turrets that can both hit 2 enemies per bullets and your other gun putting even more holes in everything!

Agi machette if you know how to power attack at the right time, it can Bleed up to 4 zombies in one hit! (Bleed SLOW up to 20% + Dots for 1 minute Irl and it work 100% of the time if you specced in it properly!) Allowing the player to just juke forever provided you have light armor and Athletic boots! =)

(Then you can drink a mega crush for even MO speed!)

You can literally do horde night on foot with agi this way! It is quite silly!

[Tahnval]

Machete was already buffed last alpha. Prior to that, it was arguably worse than the hunting knife. Certainly not significantly better. Now it is.

I've done a full playthrough centred on machete. I prefer a club, but I think machete is viable. More for the decapitation chance than the bleeding, although that may be a result of my playstyle.

[Sylvaa]

Originally posted by Demios:

Originally posted by Sylvaa:

Not really. AGI is far and away the most powerful line. The SMG is utterly insane, add to that extra bow damage, sneak, parkour. It doesn't need a melee weapon as good as other lines.

If anything needs some loving, it's the INT tree.

Int stun baton is stupid scary even without physician maxed! You can keep a charge and aoe stun a buncha zombies while the bot turrets mow them down (Give your bot turrets some Ap ammo and make sure you have the best preacher gloves equipped! You'll be quite surprised how efficient it can be!) (then you can even switch to another gun to put more damage in! So you end up having : Your electrocution Dot, the turrets that can both hit 2 enemies per bullets and your other gun putting even more holes in everything!

Agi machette if you know how to power attack at the right time, it can Bleed up to 4 zombies in one hit! (Bleed SLOW up to 20% + Dots for 1 minute Irl and it work 100% of the time if you specced in it properly!) Allowing the player to just juke forever provided you have light armor and Athletic boots! =)

(Then you can drink a mega crush for even MO speed!)

You can literally do horde night on foot with agi this way! It is quite silly!

INT is OK early game but falls off fast. Once you have recipes unlocks (vehicles and engineering) it becomes a largely pointless spec line. You can just buy a crucible (usually!) Quest rewards are so bad that there is no point maxing it out to get 2 rewards and money soon piles up, so no real need for better bartering. Robotics is "not bad" but not worth sinking so many points into.

It really needs a 3rd weapon, after the stun baton, and perhaps some more robots/inventions...but again, due to the book system, once learned, you no longer need to spec into it to craft them.

It also still seems to be 1 point behind everything else, so 4 INT for level 2 on skills (perhaps a hangup from the old Nerdy glasses)

It's a decentish secondary line, but not really a viable main spec line.

I tend to find I just get to 4 for vehicles/engineering to get the books flowing, then a couple of points into physician, then forget about it for more useful stuff from other trees, until I get the motorbike and chem station, then respec. By then you are either more tanky or more agile, so don't necessarily need extra healing.

Edit, this is from a solo POV.

Edit2, perhaps even move gunslinger to the INT tree, archery is extremely useful in itself.

[Demios]

Originally posted by Sylvaa:

Originally posted by Demios:

Int stun baton is stupid scary even without physician maxed! You can keep a charge and aoe stun a buncha zombies while the bot turrets mow them down (Give your bot turrets some Ap ammo and make sure you have the best preacher gloves equipped! You'll be quite surprised how efficient it can be!) (then you can even switch to another gun to put more damage in! So you end up having : Your electrocution Dot, the turrets that can both hit 2 enemies per bullets and your other gun putting even more holes in everything!

Agi machette if you know how to power attack at the right time, it can Bleed up to 4 zombies in one hit! (Bleed SLOW up to 20% + Dots for 1 minute Irl and it work 100% of the time if you specced in it properly!) Allowing the player to just juke forever provided you have light armor and Athletic boots! =)

(Then you can drink a mega crush for even MO speed!)

You can literally do horde night on foot with agi this way! It is quite silly!

INT is OK early game but falls off fast. Once you have recipes unlocks (vehicles and engineering) it becomes a largely pointless spec line. You can just buy a crucible (usually!) Quest rewards are so bad that there is no point maxing it out to get 2 rewards and money soon piles up, so no real need for better bartering. Robotics is "not bad" but not worth sinking so many points into.

It really needs a 3rd weapon, after the stun baton, and perhaps some more robots/inventions...but again, due to the book system, once learned, you no longer need to spec into it to craft them.

It also still seems to be 1 point behind everything else, so 4 INT for level 2 on skills (perhaps a hangup from the old Nerdy glasses)

It's a decentish secondary line, but not really a viable main spec line.

I tend to find I just get to 4 for vehicles/engineering to get the books flowing, then a couple of points into physician, then forget about it for more useful stuff from other trees, until I get the motorbike and chem station, then respec. By then you are either more tanky or more agile, so don't necessarily need extra healing.

Edit, this is from a solo POV.

Edit2, perhaps even move gunslinger to the INT tree, archery is extremely useful in itself.

Thing is , stun baton is not mean't for damage at it's core it's mean't for CC while you and your turret pets fill the enemies full of lead ^^ , also spamming light attacks to charge super fast and CC again is extremely easy! You should really try again and use it for CC instead of damage! =)

anyway any decent player will have 2 specs in this game so you will defacto have a firearm you are good at ^^ And getting surprised by 2-3 radiated in a small room is a breeze with a pre charged stun baton! Also if you need more CC sledge turret + stun baton! Even more silly!

[pApA^LeGBa]

The dismember chance is what makes the machete great imo. Heads popping left, right and center.

People who think INT is useless late game, never played INT properly. A T6 melee/turrets only with a INT build and i barely ever get hit by a Z. Survivalist.

Try that with any other melee build without running circles around the POI.

[Shockwave]

Originally posted by Sylvaa:

INT is OK early game but falls off fast.

Int's abiltiy for two turrets can't be overlooked. It also has better barter and Dukes = XP if you max out your selling opportunities( save extra mods to put on armor and weapons you sell, grow super corn stacks to sell once your food is good, etc and save them all up for one big sell) and drink awesome sauce, pumpkin pie and swig a learning elixir you can get several levels early game from one batch of sold items. In that way the int tree can actually help pay for itself. Also lowers the recipe costs for forge and workbench items and gets XP from horde night on all traps which is a huge boost if you use any electric, blade or turret placements. I feel like the INT tree generates enough XP to almost pay for the points you put into it.

[Slainpessimist]

I just go pure ranged when going Agility build once machete is learnable, screamers are a problem, but you just have to brush your hair the wrong way and there's one screaming in your ear anyway.

[Pain Weasel]

Originally posted by Sylvaa:

INT is OK early game but falls off fast. Once you have recipes unlocks (vehicles and engineering) it becomes a largely pointless spec line. You can just buy a crucible (usually!) Quest rewards are so bad that there is no point maxing it out to get 2 rewards and money soon piles up, so no real need for better bartering. Robotics is "not bad" but not worth sinking so many points into.

It really needs a 3rd weapon, after the stun baton, and perhaps some more robots/inventions...but again, due to the book system, once learned, you no longer need to spec into it to craft them.

It also still seems to be 1 point behind everything else, so 4 INT for level 2 on skills (perhaps a hangup from the old Nerdy glasses)

It's a decentish secondary line, but not really a viable main spec line.

As far as a 3rd weapon: there is a Plasma Baton in the XML but it isn't actually used. The whole section is commented out but it is there. Right now though the stun baton is so stupidly OP it isn't needed.


That said: Stun baton + Nerd Tats candy = permanent AOE stun lock on all enemies.

With the candy buff you can literally clear entire hordes of zombies without taking a single hit because it stuns everything close enough to touch you with a single hit and recharges faster than they can recover. Nerd Tats also disable the repulsor knockback since it stuns them all instead which makes it easier to keep them stunned since they aren't sent flying across the room. Then you just keep spamming basic attacks until the Physician 5 instant kill triggers or you get a dismemberment hit. It makes you pretty much invincible in melee.

The insta kill ability alone makes stun batons one of the best options for higher difficulties since it isn't based on damage dealt.

[RNG_Wizard]

I've been trying to use the machete recently, it definitely needs some improvements.

Stat wise, it's middle of the pack - stronger than utility weapons like the knuckle and baton, weaker than heavy hitters like the spear, sledge and club. That starts to fall apart though when you look at the other factors.

With the Perks and Skill Books, it falls short. Deep Cuts is probably one of the weakest melee skill lines, even maxed out the bleed barely competes with a stun baton or burning shaft's DoT. Most people ignore the bleed entirely despite the whole weapon tree being focused on it, plus bladed weapons don't have a dedicated perk book set which hurts even more.

It also has just about zero synergy with any consumables, and knife mods suck too, Serrated Blade is probably the worst mod in the game.

The Machete's only unique and major strength is stealth attacks, but a weapon that only excels against stationary unalerted targets isn't a good weapon. Plus the bows and spears do about as well as stealth weapons while being more functional when stealth isn't an option.

Knives are strong day 1 where they have high dps and low stamina costs, but once you get any tier 2 or stronger melee or any perk points or skill books knives become the worst choice in the game. All the machete has going for it is the sick sounds and decaps.

[pApA^LeGBa]

Well tbh, i stopped reading the post above me, seeing knuckles called utility weapons. Lol.

[Pain Weasel]

Originally posted by RNG_Wizard:

With the Perks and Skill Books, it falls short. Deep Cuts is probably one of the weakest melee skill lines, even maxed out the bleed barely competes with a stun baton or burning shaft's DoT. Most people ignore the bleed entirely despite the whole weapon tree being focused on it, plus bladed weapons don't have a dedicated perk book set which hurts even more.

The lack of a dedicated perk book is really the biggest issue.

Of all the melee weapons only knives, sledgehammers and batons don't get a dedicated perk book. Knives get one buff from Night Stalker but Spears, Clubs and Fists have 7 books plus a final set buff.

When you compare a machete to a weapon like a spear (with all 7 perk books) of the same tier it is really no contest:

The spear gets +10% damage, 20% slower degrade, 25% chance for bleed, +50% damage to downed enemies, +10% attack speed, the ability to penetrate enemies, up to +30% damage from rapid hits, and all kills completely refill stamina. That is on top of the actual skill bonuses.

The knife gets +200% stealth damage at night from night stalker.

Knives get a single highly situational bonus, spears, clubs and fists get 8 very useful bonuses from perk books.

That said, in my opinion knives are more useful on higher difficulties since bleed damage isn't reduced like normal player damage and with Deep Cuts bleeding slows down enemies which makes kiting enemies easier.

Reducing enemy run speed by 20%, and doing full bleed damage can't be ignored when playing on Insane. If someone is playing on Nomad or lower it probably doesn't matter since they'll be killing zombies with regular damage before the bleed or slow becomes useful, but when you are doing -50% damage on Insane bleeds that do 100% damage are much more useful.

[Zairev]

I dont like machette either... idk if its attack animation or something, but i always play with hunting knife as i like its power attack. Feels more stabby thus better.

Wish there was some better actual knife on max tier like some military knife or something.

[dopugsnotdrugs]

silly rabbit, machetes are for kids! hehheh child guerillas in tanzania ;)

the machete is mostly a meat carving weapon, its not used for combat really.. that's like saying you should be allowed to dual wield hammers like doc from z nation.. hammers in this game are for repairing bases not smashing faces all over the places with nancy graces stealing bases while you chases in no laces uwu