Non-stealth melee builds, max damage

[kingbobbito]

I know a lot of people are jokingly making saitama characters (one punch man), but I decided to actually look into the maximum damage a melee build could accomplish (without console). Any tips or corrections would be welcome, here's what I've come up with so far. Keep in mind this character is only at level 22.

First off, max strength. Best base strength you can aquire is 12. 10, plus 1 for the special book (take day tripper or whatever drug it is that reduces strength to do this) and get the bobblehead. Then get 6 pieces of armor and army fatigues for a total of 19. Drugs: psychobuff, bufftats, fury, and whiskey. As far as I understand similar drugs don't stack (buffout and bufftats will only give you one bonus to strength). So +8 strength, and +75% melee damage between psychobuff and fury. Serum for an addition +6, for a grand total of 33 max strength. I'm lacking serum at the moment

5 melee perks for double damage (as I said, I currently only have 3).

Weapon is supersledge I assume. Can't think of anything with a higher base damage once it's upgraded. Mine is only heated since I don't have a high enough intelligence yet. Instigating means I'm doing double damage.

So at the moment I think I'm hitting 23 strength (11 base, 3 pieces of armor and fatigues, and 8 from drugs (need to do cabot). I have 3 perks, an instigating heated sledge.

If I recall correctly, I'm doing 300-350 damage a hit, so 6 or 7 hundred with the instigating.

Overall, once I have the whole build completed, I should hit over a thousand on the first hit. I also need to do some work with the perk that lets you charge into melee, as I believe that increases damage as well. Again, this is without sneak, which would let me hit well above that, but sneaking around with a sledge is for cowards.

Does the math sound correct? Is there anything I'm missing? I'm having a lot more fun with this build than my first build, although this class doesn't hold up on survival like my first character did just because closing the gap is sometimes difficult (so having a great time on hard).


EDIT: Wow, I forgot a lot. With all the possible bonuses it's looking like over ~2000 is possible with a standard super supersledge. Will need further testing of course, especially because I'm unsure if instigating is a multiplier that applies to the standard strength based damage or if it applies to the total damage after all other multipliers.

[kingbobbito]

Messaggio originale di Atma:

It's interesting to see how much one-shot damage one can stack on a melee build, which I still believe is the highest damage you can get in the game.

The only other things I can think of in terms of damage potential are a two shot MIRV, I forget the number but it's pretty obscene, although it is worthless in close quarters and ammo is limited. I forget what the numbers are too but gauss rifle is a close runner up if you have all the bells and whistles.

Then you have the just plain broken explosive minigun, which using only perk upgrades can hit 80 something a shot. But again, all of these are kind of boring (and suicidal for the mirv and minigun which always blows my arms off).

[kingbobbito]

Messaggio originale di Bankstercide:

I picked STR 6 for Strong Back, another underrated ability.

I will agree it is most certainly underrated. While the early bonuses are nice, nothing beats late game fast traveling home with 1000 pounds of gear (I occasionally loot everything a location has)

Messaggio originale di Bankstercide:

As for weapon choice, anything that attacks quickly and causes Bleeding is ideal. A Wounding Ripper with Extended blade is pretty much going to murder everything. Otherwise, Pickman's Blade is a good option, as is Kremvh's Tooth.

Why? Because enemies in FO4 depend on Damage Resistance, not HP. Bleed effects ignore all DR and stack, which means the faster you hit, the more stacks you're applying. And the fastest melee weapon is the Ripper, in and out of VATS (you get 5 hits per tick in VATS). And yes, it works on Robots.

While I will agree that this is an effective combo, and bleed is definitely a good option, you rely entirely on finding a weapon with wounding. The extended ripper is rare, and to build one you need to have blacksmith 3 I believe. The ripper might be nice against some opponents, but you need to get close and stand there... a super sledge can be used for kiting, and instantly kills weaker opponents. Then as you do hit higher levels, the sledge can easily take out 4 or 5 ghouls per swing, as well as taking out big, heavy hitting opponents in a couple (or one) blows long before they can return the damage. At level 22 I just 3 hit a sentry bot. Ripper just can't keep up with something that quite easily breaks 500 damage a swing without chems (and as above breaks 2000 a hit with everything).

Messaggio originale di Bankstercide:

Then why not damage-reducing (Piercing/Penetrating) effect weapons? Because those depend on the DR of the target, whereas Bleed completely ignores it. Their performance is reliable, but inconsistent. What about Irradiated or Poisoned? Pretty much any non-human enemy has a high resistance to those types of damage, which makes them unreliable. As for armor, get the Weighted mod for the arms and Grognak's costume. That costume pretty much is the reason why I never bother with Power Armor.

This is all very accurate. Even against "heavily armored" opponents, piercing is rarely worth it. Just testing around, tried a heavy sledge vs a puncturing sledge against amored opponents, the heavy always matched it plus had the benefit of crippling, and is better against unarmored ones.