Are melee weapons useless ?

[Lhetre]

At the beginning of the game double knives were good, a critical was enoug to kill a zombie, and they do not drain you from stamina, so you can fight your way out of a tight place. After around level 15 melee weapons have become useless.

They do not allow to kill a zombie in one hit.
They drain stamina too fast. (I discovered that without stamina you cannot climb, double pain here)
They are extremely slow.
They do not do area damage.

Do you use melee weapons? If so, what is yoru strategy?

[Captain of the 4th Company]

I use melee weapons. So far have not had a problem with them. Leveling the skills for melee helps. Also I go into higher lvl camps than me and craft weapons I couldn't in my own camp. If I long press the left mouse button i can kill several zombies in front of me (2, 3 or more). If there are a lot of fast zombies coming for me. I kill one, retreat a bit and kill another. Usually have one melee and one ranged equipped and switch as needed.

[Xas]

Been using bow all the way, a pistol as backup, and when at the end of the road.
The daggers are useful to 'kill' the aliens, the only time I found the need to melee.
Still find the daggers good, light and quick efficient.

I am a heavy 6 potion drinker at all times, so the melee with dagger seems fine for me, not sure if its applicable for non-drinkers.

[Lhetre]

I'm level 25 and have 40% in melee weapons, but don't use them as they don't do enough damage. Leveling them is extremely expensive - meaning I find it too grindy to level the skill.
I mostly use a bow and a repeating rifle as a reserve.
I died often when surrounded though.

Do you mean you use potions to increase your stats ? White flowers have become suddenly a rare commodity since I tried to brew some potions.

[Xas]

This game is so catered to range, anyway due to too many fat bombers lurking around.

The six coloured potions, boost basically every stats, damage, defence, carrying weight and reload for 5 mins.
Feels alot of difference, especially taking damage and speed.

You should use the opportunity to seek an empty lvl51 camp, favorite it, bring some repair resources and check out the recipes for potions and equipments, return when you able to upgrade items.
Farm on Aliens, a quick way to progress fast exps, since you looking at melee.

[Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper]

Bows are OP. Levels 1-10 and you never have to worry about CQC.

[Ripp]

I had the same thought and lvl my char to lvl 51 using only bows. It's the best weapon to fight zombies, and you can recover your arrows after being used so the loss of them is minimal.

Nevertheless ... i recommend you that you take care of leveling your melee skills as well. You'll need melee weapons later in the game.

[PhoenicianSon]

If your melee weapons are useless than you may be increasing your camp level too quickly and not keeping up with your skill level. While increasing character level may help to a small degree, and I say that loosely, the skills are what keep you relevant. So make sure that you up all of your skills at each level threshold for skill development before increasing your camp level any further. It takes some amount of grinding at the higher levels, but collecting resources is your bloodline to better equipment anyway, so the more grinding the merrier when it comes to collecting resources as you benefit from experience points to raise skill levels. A perfect allignment to the analogy of "killing two birds with one stone".

I did find the melee weapons kind of bland after the dual blades became obsolete in gameplay. However, the guitar found in one of the quests was effective, and actually the crow bar served as a great wepaon through to 30 when you can pick up the "Darkblade". The latter weapon has been very effective leveling through the 30's so long as you keep your skills up with the camp level with each increment of levels that unlock various skills.

[Lhetre]

I don't agree with bows being OP, you need to spend time to aim for a critical shot, choose to shoot runners first, know when you must run away yourself. They are powerful, but then the game is grindy, so underpowered weapons and repeating levels 10 times to find enough stuff to build your camp or level up would be a disastrous combination. I like walking through a level knowing that I must be careful around some places, but I can run through others. The mostly harmless roads and the crowded crossroads full of runners give the game a subtle tension I appreciate a lot.

Leveling melee weapons costs a wopping 1,000,000 (4x252,000), which means around 10 missions only for melee. Later missions do not give any interesting loot - no steel sheets to improve your camp for example, and very little loot around the map. Indeed it is more profitable to know how to end rapidly the mission as the houses are most of the time empty. BTW I'm level 30 now and trying to finish the game.

Devs have done a great job adding the need to increase your camp level every five levels. Keeping a balanced camp difficulty - that depends on the camp - and mission difficulty - that depends on your level - is quite a good idea. But the need to repeat 30 missions you've already done to level up, and doing it each 5 levels, makes the game grindy.

I'm struggling to keep up the motivation to go on. I'm repeating missions to gather points until the next *new* mission is available, sort of a present for all the effort, but I quit the game after each mission.

[guru]

Lv35 bow + assault rifle. I believe bows are powerful enough to offset the aiming time: with mastery maxed out + best weapon at your level with add-ons, you can always one shot normal zombies (at certain levels you have to take -5 level quests). Later in the game you will even have arrows that penetrate walls of zombies, killing 1~5 with each shot. And, when defending your bases, portion + food buffs gives you nearly instant aiming, like firing assault rifles with 100% critical.

[Uberipoo]

I found melee weapons absolutly useless from start to finish, theres no reason to use them at all!

[Geekman]

this game is never designed with melee weapons in mind. It's mechanics leans more toward shooting right from the beginning.