Ripper, Super Cattle Prod, or Super Sledge

[dwaynegand]

According to the wikia page for this game's weapons, these are the top three weapons in the game for the Melee Weapon category in terms of damage. The Super Sledge is the most powerful and uses no ammo, but has knockback. The Ripper has a Weapon Penetrate perk that allows it to ignore a portion of the target's defence. And the Super Cattle Prod has the highest minimum damage and also has a perk that increases accuracy, and dealing electrical damage, could possible deal more damage to Frank Horrigan due to his armor being weak against electrical attacks.

But which is the best overall for a melee character?

[Mennan]

Defiantly not the super sledge, that knock back becomes one of the most irritating things ever. The only time its useful is when your opponents are also melee fighters or else you've essentially just made it harder on yourself because now you have to chase them down and Waste AP to hit them again.

If you have the Slayer perk then Rippers Penetrate perk doesn't matter. Because critical hits also Pierce armor and does not stack with with the weapon perk.
Now for the Accuracy Bonus. All it really does is put +20% hit chance on. So you could place less points into the skill and receive the same accuracy. But since the accuracy modifier for melee is so small it really doesn't effect much and the penetrate perk increases its damage by a ton.

Enclave soldiers are actually slightly weaker to normal attacks compared to electrical attacks. Frank on the other hand is far Weaker to electrical attacks. It should be noted however people have reported a bug with Frank where he is only taking damage from the Turrets/Granite squadron. Or somtimes only from ranged attacks. So melee Vs Frank might not even work unless you find a patch for it.

Long story short if you have the Slayer perk you take the Super Cattleprod. If you don't you take the Ripper.

[dwaynegand]

I'm using the Restoration mod. I have been known to inflict damage on Frank with my weapons, but I've never tried fighting him in melee range.

What if your opponent is up against a wall? You could the Super Sledge then without knockback.

[The Chosen Chad]

Super Sledge/Louisville Slugger is actually very good in tight corridors and if you want to block critters from joining in narrow entrance while you focus on other people.
The Ripper is pretty much the best melee weapon with Slayer, especially with the Weapon Penetrate.
The Super Cattle Prod is actually the best one if you dont have Slayer, since this weapon can do eletric damage, and most enemies have this weakness. Not even Enclave Heavy Trooper are free from that.

[Mennan]

Originally posted by dwaynegand:

What if your opponent is up against a wall? You could the Super Sledge then without knockback.

If your against the wall, the Ripper will be better without Slayer(not factoring in random critical strikes) and the Super sledge will be better with Slayer (and better criticals for guaranteed armor penetration). This is because the Supersledge cannot beat the armor Reduction of the Ripper.
The super-sledge deals 18-36 damage (not counting your melee damage bonus). A Enclave soldier in MK2 power Armor has 18DT/60DR to normal attacks. So the DT would reduce the base damage of the Super sledge to 0-18 (add in your melee damage bonus to the min/max). You then need to reduce that by the DR% which should math out to roughly 10.8 damage reduction round this down. So the final damage a Super-sledge could do is 0-8 damage not counting any critical strikes or extra damage added from other perks. as perks such as living anatomy add damage to the final calculated damage. So living anatomy would change the damage to 5-13

Originally posted by John Cassidy Joestar:

The Ripper is pretty much the best melee weapon with Slayer, especially with the Weapon Penetrate.
The Super Cattle Prod is actually the best one if you dont have Slayer, since this weapon can do eletric damage, and most enemies have this weakness. Not even Enclave Heavy Trooper are free from that.

Weapon Penetrate perk from the Ripper and the Armor pierce from the Critical strike are exactly the same and do not stack. So unless you roll a 1-20 on the critical strike table (which is impossible if you take better criticals perk) you will always penetrate armor with Slayer.

Enclave soldiers in MK2 Power armor have a 18DT/60DR to normal with 15/65DR to electric. Frank has a 20DT/70DR to Normal and 15DT/20DR Electric.
Which means against Enclave soldiers in MK2 Power armor you will do significantly more damage with the Ripper until you have the Slayer perk because The ripper will reduce the DT and DR by 80%. So the Enclaves soldier DT/DR becomes 3DT/12DR vs Ripper (as DT/DR is always rounded down) while the Cattleprod still has to deal with full damage reduction.

Once you grab the Slayer perk (and have better criticals to ensure armor penetration) the Ripper will remain 3/12 while the Cattleprod will become 3/13. So now the Cattleprod matches in DT reduction and only suffers 1% more damage reduction.
Cattleprod has a higher min damage than the Ripper but matches in max damage. So the Cattleprod has a higher average critical damage while the Ripper remains the top for max critical damage.

For Frank however its completely the Opposite as long as you have Slayer and Better criticals.
Ripper will be 4DT/13DR while the Cattleprod will be 3DT/4DR. Meaning in no scenario will the Ripper ever beat the Super Cattle-Prod in a fight against Frank.

[The Chosen Chad]

Pretty much marginal tbh, you might be right (Im sure you are) but I prefer the Ripper over the Super Sledge, I dont like playing football all over the map and it can be available pretty early since you can steal it from Steven in Broken Hills.
My prefered playstyle is to knock someone down with a brass knuckle/power fist in the head then finish him off with a Super Sledge when he his uncounsious. But its quite tedious to minmax everything and get 150% Unarmed for free.

[dwaynegand]

how do you get 150% Unarmed for free? All of the bonuses I got during the game don't add up to that!

[The Chosen Chad]

Start with 6 Agility, 3 or 4 (I dont quite remember) Strength, dont take Gifted and take Good Natured. Dont tag any weapon skill (not even Throwing) make sure you are between 40% and 55% in unarmed.

Get Lucas training (this will make you up your unarmed to 55%) in unarmed, then get Cameron's training (+10% in unarmed), after that do not get Sullivan's training at Klamath but instead try to get positive karma. Something like 250, then go to SF and get the Dragon's Training (there is five training in total for 5% each so you get 20%). Now get -250 karma and get Lo Pan's training (+20%). Now get Sullivan's training (+10%), 2 punching bags in Sierra Army Depot (+5% each) and be a Prize Fighter (+5%).

So if we add everything up you get 120% but behold, remember you had low Strength and okayish Agility. If you use drugs and Power Armor bonus you get easily to 10 in both stats and in the process you will have 150% in Unarmed, completely free.

You see the problem here, its really tedious to get to that point and its just more of a chore than its fun.

[mythril_bladed_k]

Ball gag. Don't ask.

[Anderson]

I'd skip melee weapons and go for Mega Power Fist.