Optimal Survival Melee Setup?

[Foxhound]

I’m tempted to create another character and put the most emphasis on vats, melee, and stealth, along with rifles to compensate for longer ranges, but the practicality (according to others people’s opinions) is quite mixed. There is not a middle ground it seems, rather it’s either “super op” or “pretty weak”.

What do y’all think?

The stealth and blitz melee perk combination has peaked my interest but are there better ways to go? Like a tank melee? I know it’s rather subjective, but what have y’alls experience been like for those who used melee. Is melee’s longevity petty long in terms of fun?

[Darth Triggerus ☯]

Since I've played survival I haven't gone back. I'm genuinely curious to know how a melee setup would work in survival. You'd have to definitely rely on Vatz.. That perk that allows you to jump close to enemies that are far away would be a must. This is my second play through on survival this time I'm not rocking power armor but with melee you might consider wearing power armor.

As for play style I'd try to spec the power armor in the stealth field. Although once you get the ability for jet pack that's pretty tempting, maybe by then you could offset your sneaking ability with actual perks if you wanted to go the jet pack route.

I haven't used them much on survival but you probably want to be a druggie. Pyschobuff Jet is your friend. I've done a play through on very hard using just melee, and usually not using vats. It was insanely OP, two shot a legendary super-duper death claw.

I'd probably recommend getting the knife that is sold at the market in the Nuka World DLC and using that for a small sneak weapon. And consider getting the super sledge called Atom's Judgement (i think it's called) from the Farharbor DLC given during children of atom quest line. Besides doing high amounts of damage you can increase the radiation damage by the perk on the end of the intelligence tree that increase rad damage and extends to life of fusion cores, which would sync well with using power armor.

[EolSunder]

yea ive done melee runs, not that bad with your rooted/blitz perks and a couple different melee weapons. I use the Rockville slugger from moe in diamond city, good with vats and building criticals fast and easy. For harder foes that have lots of health i whittle them down with the picksmans blade.

If your going the sneak route, its also good to have a very high damage weapon for that initial sneak attack hit to cause maximum damage on the first blow, but really i never found it that useful because after a while i just go in swinging with my bat in vats and mow stuff down. Running into a tough supermutant overlord or something with lots of health, my picksmans blade or similiar wounding/bleeding weapon chews through their health nicely.

[Tavman (4)]

So long as you have Nuka World, melee is very op and especially easy (and perhaps at times a bit boring) with Blitz perk. Minimising the use of VATS does increase the challenge considerably.

That said though, because the chances of contracting disease is much higher so you might want a ranged weapon from time to time to deal with the times where numerous enemies are too close to each other. My preference would be explosives as you cannot just simply switch weapons and throw grenades or Molotov cocktails wherever you like but use whatever you feel is best.

That's the general theme of what I would go for.

[EolSunder]

also dont forget, some effects on weapons are super powerful even if you dont have a gunner build, get a kneecapper or wounding automatic weapon etc and you can mow down anything in the game. Double shot fatman from diamond city always a must. Never a bad idea to up your explosives skill and/or heavy weapons there is just some good group or tough targets that a missile or fatman will easily wipe out in seconds. Dlc there is always groups of worthless bots running around with rust devils, a rocket or such in the middle of them clears them out fast.

Also great to nuke a foe carrying around a fatman, get them first your guaranteed to pick up their nuke ammo from their dead bodies before they can shoot it at you.

Also of course need a way to fiddle with diseases, either chemist to make your own or settlement perks to get medics/healers in your settlements.

[Foxhound]

Originally posted by EolSunder:

also dont forget, some effects on weapons are super powerful even if you dont have a gunner build, get a kneecapper or wounding automatic weapon etc and you can mow down anything in the game. Double shot fatman from diamond city always a must. Never a bad idea to up your explosives skill and/or heavy weapons there is just some good group or tough targets that a missile or fatman will easily wipe out in seconds. Dlc there is always groups of worthless bots running around with rust devils, a rocket or such in the middle of them clears them out fast.

Also great to nuke a foe carrying around a fatman, get them first your guaranteed to pick up their nuke ammo from their dead bodies before they can shoot it at you.

Also of course need a way to fiddle with diseases, either chemist to make your own or settlement perks to get medics/healers in your settlements.

I'm not doing a character that uses fatmans. They weigh (30 lbs + 12 lbs per nuke) too much on survival and are pretty overkill. The only heavy weapon I would be likely to use is a minigun with an explosive perk, being that I'm lucky enough to get the drop which has happened only once on my +20 playthroughs. Thanks for the advice anyway.

[danconnors]

I personally would never use a melee build in survival mode. Reasons is the lack of protection by even !00/100 armor means you will usually be killed by two or three small caliber bullets, making it hard to cross any ground to attack bare handed. I'm basically lazy, and have gotten fairly decent at one shotting from cover at long range. My preferred range of +100 meters means most of my enemies are dead before they get off a shot in my direction.

I am now able to put together a 200/200 suit at a fairly low level, which still has absolutely no positive effect on going the melee route. I understand some people have a hard time keeping adequate ammunition, but I don't, because I use no full automatic weapons. I did make a full auto .38 this game, but it's on a short leash (it runs out of bullets, I throw it away). Ammo for a .38 weapon is extremely easy to find.

[Darth Triggerus ☯]

Originally posted by danconnors:

I personally would never use a melee build in survival mode. Reasons is the lack of protection by even !00/100 armor means you will usually be killed by two or three small caliber bullets, making it hard to cross any ground to attack bare handed. I'm basically lazy, and have gotten fairly decent at one shotting from cover at long range. My preferred range of +100 meters means most of my enemies are dead before they get off a shot in my direction.

I am now able to put together a 200/200 suit at a fairly low level, which still has absolutely no positive effect on going the melee route. I understand some people have a hard time keeping adequate ammunition, but I don't, because I use no full automatic weapons. I did make a full auto .38 this game, but it's on a short leash (it runs out of bullets, I throw it away). Ammo for a .38 weapon is extremely easy to find.

I've never had problems with ammo either and tend to use semi-automatic weapons only. That being said the ammo finder perk is immensely useful. I find it better then the one that gives you caps. Not only will you have an abundance of all ammo types but many ammo types sell for several caps for a single bullet.

[SeriousCCIE]

Yeah I was going to say it if you didn't -- the ammo sells well, and can get you more caps in the long run than with cap finding perk.

Especially when you end up with settlements and investments--you end up with money you might have a hard time spending all in one place. Usually I end up blowing my caps when setting up a new settlement, once a caravan vendor arrives and I want to buy their junk for parts.

and at that point I'll probably have more .38 rounds than I know what to do with besides spray them ineffectively at something big.

[danconnors]

That's my hose gun this trip. I figure if it doesn't kill them it may drown them.

[Jamesworkshop]

Melee has strong advantages, the inculsion of ammo weight doesn't effect the build in the slightest, the lack of fast travel doesn't matter since you don't need to dart around the map to buy ammo, you'll always have enough for any mission.
All you really carry as equipment is your armor and whatever your best melee weapon at the time is, so you have plenty of space for the junk.

Melee only real negative going into survival is the disease and hydration issues from extensive drug use, in regular difficulties drugs were invaluable to the build.

Sneak 3
Action Boy/Action Girl 5
Moving Target 6
Ninja 7
Blitz 9

A perk of melee is that some of your best skills are found on one stat (agility)
You are going to need to close in on the enemy so Sneak is the best way to set up those Ninja boosted blitz, Action Boy/Action Girl & Moving Target are more for your protection since 100% perfect playstyle isn't realistic, sometimes you will need to dart for cover and the increased Action Point generation lets you jump back into the safety of VATS blitzing.

Deacons companion perk gets you a x12 sneak attack bonus, you'd want this by level 33.

[milo29]

I stopped survival at level 192 (no mod) + all dlc. Now I restarted another one on high difficult, because on survival the ennemy respawn is time too long. For you question and my advice is to not start with a melee build on survival, after my experience, the important thing is to start endurance + intelligence and learn to craft drugs like psychojet.

A melee build at start in survival is very difficult and are done for die and retry.
Instead start with the the rifleman build and ninja to up sneak attack.

After that, I recommand go on chance to get idiot savant and alcohool resistant, because in survival (unlucky that exist just in survival mode) you can be dehydrated. The dehydration lower your intelligence of -8 points. While alcohool lower it also with -2 and increase your luck from 3. This is the best config to level up your massively and easy your xp gain in survival. You can frequently gain near 2 level in one big fight when you encounter hl mob.

From this starting point you can now easily do a melee build in survival. But I recommand to do other more essential perks before going on a melee build.

[Darth Triggerus ☯]

Instead of the explosive mini-gun i'd recommend the explosive radiation gun from the Far Harbor DLC (can't remember it's name). It weighs less then the minigun and with the added radiation damage it does WAY WAY WAY more damage.

[Foxhound]

Originally posted by Han Brolo ☯:

Instead of the explosive mini-gun i'd recommend the explosive radiation gun from the Far Harbor DLC (can't remember it's name). It weighs less then the minigun and with the added radiation damage it does WAY WAY WAY more damage.

You're talking about the kiloton, was using it not that long ago. It's really good, for sure, but it doesn't quite match the minigun in dps. Because the explosive perk is a fixed number (15 by default), the higher the fire rate, the more effective it is and ultimately damage you'll be doing. I will say it is a more desirable option because ammo keepup is cheaper and like you said, it is lighter.

[Darth Triggerus ☯]

Originally posted by Foxhound:

Originally posted by Han Brolo ☯:

Instead of the explosive mini-gun i'd recommend the explosive radiation gun from the Far Harbor DLC (can't remember it's name). It weighs less then the minigun and with the added radiation damage it does WAY WAY WAY more damage.

You're talking about the kiloton, was using it not that long ago. It's really good, for sure, but it doesn't quite match the minigun in dps. Because the explosive perk is a fixed number (15 by default), the higher the fire rate, the more effective it is and ultimately damage you'll be doing. I will say it is a more desirable option because ammo keepup is cheaper and like you said, it is lighter.

Do you have the Nuclear Physicist perk? Double the radiation damage?

[Foxhound]

Originally posted by Han Brolo ☯:

Originally posted by Foxhound:

You're talking about the kiloton, was using it not that long ago. It's really good, for sure, but it doesn't quite match the minigun in dps. Because the explosive perk is a fixed number (15 by default), the higher the fire rate, the more effective it is and ultimately damage you'll be doing. I will say it is a more desirable option because ammo keepup is cheaper and like you said, it is lighter.

Do you have the Nuclear Physicist perk? Double the radiation damage?

I don't remember. Does radiation work on death claws and super mutants? That's what I tried both on.