What are your best melee weapons?

[ItsOver9000]

Hi guys,

since its not discussed yet, i want to know what your favourites melee weapons are.

Personally after playing 1h and 2h i tend to one handers. The reasons are:
1. Their block without shield work as intended
2. I can use them in mid air
3. The backstab dmg is just fun, you need positioning skills.

So for the Weapons i chose:

Beserker Sword against Skyands?!?
Skyands Sword against the rest

The thing is that the Beserker Sword has the Fire dot(as good as blood dot). I havent figured out what ice and electro does, but in regard that there are so much monsters where you cant bring down their endurance bar i think the damage is the way to go.

The skyand sword has by far the best dot(reality). If you get the cycle full it nearly instand kills a troll, despite his low base attack dmg. The base dmg is enough for the other monsters. The lack here is that nearly all skyands are immune to reality dmg. In addition it has three sockets ;)

So what favourite Weapons you have?

[JackBaldy]

Skyands are immune to reality damage? That's interesting information. It does kind of make reality damage weapons a bit less valuable given that Skyands are the highest tier of enemies.

How does the Skyand sword compare to something like The Cutter though? The difference in damage is quite big, and it would be surprising if reality damage makes up for it against non-Skyand enemies.

I haven't gotten around to testing Skyand weaponry just yet (Been holding off on doing so because I'm not sure if it's a worthy investment, and the weaponry I have currently is good enough).

Thus far though I do agree with you. One-handed weapons are just far more versatile than two-handed weapons. My issue with two-handed weaponry is that they rely on stagger, and because Elex 2 naturally has jank, stagger isn't always super reliable.

Not to mention that while two-handed weapons have stagger combos, it requires large, large investments into stamina (Using top tier two-handed weapons and the stamina investment is lots, and lots of attribute points).

However, once you invest into stamina, one-handed stagger combos also begin to shine more. Stamina investments also make the shield a lot more valuable as well. The shield is naturally just better at dealing with enemies that use ranged weaponry.

Two-handed weapons lack of parry functionality may possibly not be a bug. It may be intended, which is a shame.

Being able to parry allows one-handed weapons to deal big damage to enemies, exceeding the damage of far more damaging two-handed weapons on some enemies (Wetlurkers/Rock Dragons/etc. for example).

Any time one has to do aerial combat, they have to switch to a one-handed weapon anyways. Two-handed weapons (Among other weapon types) cannot be used in aerial combat for some reason. Against flying enemies, best bet is to use a one-handed weapon, which only speaks to the versatility and use of one-handed weapons.

Top tier one-handed weapons seem to be a bit more difficult to obtain though. One can get the Enhanced Sphere Edge which is among the top tier two-handed weapons quite feasibly, and one can also get an Enhanced Headman's Axe as well without ever joining a faction.

I wasn't able to get the top tier one-handed weapons like the Enhanced Warlord Sword or Enhanced Bloodsplatterer. Not enough people had them when I was going around being a pickpocket.

The Cutter though is a good top tier weapon though, even if those other weapons might be notch above it.

Side note: I forgot to mention that the two-handed hammer moveset is really bad when compared to two-handed axes for some reason, so despite having higher base damage than two-handed axes, they're not worth using in my opinion.

[Harris]

I am currently doing a Cleric tank build. The weapon is The Cutter without shield. And I absolutely love it.

One handed is great for being able to strike as rapidly as possibly - combined with Large Blue Gemstone this provides incredible sustain to the point you can facetank the toughest enemies by endgame, with little care for dodging anymore.

Being able to use jetpack to strike is a great boon - attacking from the air gives you free hits and kite ability, and generally makes fighting flying enemies trivial. This btw is the reason I am not using a shield - attack from the air tends to be much slower, with shield deploying animation. Also you don't really need a shield with this mobile build.

While Cleric armor is not the best, the ability to resist fatal damage is super good to have as a tank, while resistance to reality is super useful given how the toughest enemies are Skyands and how you'll be mostly fighting them late game anyway.

And The Cutter because:
- it has very high damage, which makes it all-round useful. I currently got 400 on it with all ranks of Lone Wolf. Even though Enhanced Bloodsplatterer has marginally better damage, you are not guaranteed to get it even as a Morkon (they sell 1 normal version and 1 damaged version to you as Destroyer, so you must loot or pickpocket 2 more damaged one somewhere)
- 3 sockets as opposed to 2 gives you better flexibility, for example I am running a Large Blue and two normal Greens right now.
- Lightning DoT is pretty good, it is a bit slow to apply, but then it deals sizeable damage over a short period of time, allowing you to apply a new one soon. Much more useful than poison.
- It looks pretty cool aesthetically.

Observations on reality damage in this thread are interesting, but it's useless against Skyands and other enemies generally don't pose a challenge anyway.

[JackBaldy]

Originally posted by Harris:

And The Cutter because:
- it has very high damage, which makes it all-rough useful. I currently got 400 on it with all ranks of Lone Wolf. Even though Enhanced Bloodsplatterer has marginally better damage, you are not guaranteed to get it even as a Morkon (they sell 1 normal version and 1 damaged version to you as Destroyer, so you must loot or pickpocket 2 more damaged one somewhere)

I was able to pickpocket 2 Damaged Bloodsplatterers. Do vendors not restock damaged or normal Bloodsplatterers when you're a Morkon?

[Harris]

Originally posted by JackBaldy:

I was able to pickpocket 2 Damaged Bloodsplatterers. Do vendors not restock damaged or normal Bloodsplatterers when you're a Morkon?

I think they don't.

[JackBaldy]

Originally posted by Harris:

I think they don't.

I do sometimes wonder what Piranha Bytes is thinking when they make decisions like these. Do they not play their own games without heavy use of developer commands?

[Roderik]

Best melee weapon is maxed Firefist + maxed Lone Wolf. Imho.

[JackBaldy]

Originally posted by Roderik:

Best melee weapon is maxed Firefist + maxed Lone Wolf. Imho.

I don't know if I'd call any of the fist magics (Alb or Berserker) "melee".

[huber69]

for me, its 2 handed by far. The staggering is much much better, and a staggered enemy doesn't attack. also in higher levels, 2 handed weapons do much more damage the any 1 handed. I've got the most upgraded skyned scythe and this thing does tons of damage (over 400 if I remember correctly).

[JackBaldy]

Originally posted by huber69:

for me, its 2 handed by far. The staggering is much much better, and a staggered enemy doesn't attack. also in higher levels, 2 handed weapons do much more damage the any 1 handed. I've got the most upgraded skyned scythe and this thing does tons of damage (over 400 if I remember correctly).

The stagger really isn't that much better, and the issue is that because this game is super janky, enemies get super armor (Meaning they ignore your stagger) rather inconsistently. Sometimes the jank will cause enemies to cancel the stagger animation straight into an attack animation (I.e. Giant enemies).

[Zaris]

After midgame i ran around with the unique 300dmg shotgun, outperformed every melee weapon and other ranged weapon by far with the exception of the 600 dmg unique grenade launcher.

Near the end i found out that i can "cheese" enemies with yellow stamina bar by kicking them 4 times -> knockdown -> hard attack with 2h 400dmg axe, chopped off ~50-100% of their hp depending on the enemy.

[Harris]

Originally posted by Zaris:

After midgame i ran around with the unique 300dmg shotgun, outperformed every melee weapon and other ranged weapon by far with the exception of the 600 dmg unique grenade launcher.

Yeah. They really messed this up. Even if my one-handed melee Cleric tank is fun, cheeses flying enemies and is basically unkillable, I could achieve the same results way, way earlier in the bow build, kiting trolls from large distances, not to mention shotguns.

Early in the Morkon questline you are suggested to kill a troll and then a cyclops - that's even before joining. That's hardly doable for a melee build in the early game, unless you're super tryhard.

But then, after pickpocketing 9 Damaged Leadspreaders in the Crater I realized that I don't even need any faction nor to level jetpack to get ahold of the best weapon possible.

[🎮 PalkoVvodets 🔑]

Originally posted by JackBaldy:

and one can also get an Enhanced Headman's Axe as well without ever joining a faction.

Depends on RNG. I've pickpocketed every single NPC on entire map (except 1 or may be 2, which yet scripted to run dialogue when I'm sneaking to their back) and cleared spots, opened chests/safes over 95% of the map. And still have only 5 damaged Headman's Axes.

[Halcyform]

Troll Reaper. One handed legendary sword. Almost looks like a huge, less refined chinese war sword. Handle and blade are colored red. It's one of several legendary items you can find by exploring high places.

I prefer one handed melee weapons - without the shield. Shield mobility sucks.

The major problem with two handed weapons is that there are very few worth using early on and if you do find one, it's a pita to find more to upgrade it.

If you stick to melee, two handed weapons will eventually be worth it, but one handed weapons will be superior if you mix guns and melee.

[Azgardis]

Maybe a bit offtop - but if u are also talking about mix with shields and guns - someone tried mix sword with magic? Some sort of melee battlemage?
Berserk i think better for full mage, but for alb, that dont have drinks to restore his resources?

[Harris]

Originally posted by Azgardis:

but for alb, that dont have drinks to restore his resources?

Way I see it, there are only three hybrids Albs could have, and one of them was defeated by Jax in the first game, so that leaves us with two:

1) a standard sword (and board) or two-handed build, complemented by the fact Albs happen to have a healing spell. That one doesn't scale, making any investing into magic pointless. So you are basically a melee fighter with some utility, which you can increase even further by going for Clerics for your T3 and getting Last Chance.

2) a magic build that falls back on laser rifle when out of elex energy - this is something pretty pointless for the most part, just do a ranged build instead. You could argue that raising attributes is pointless and even at 100 say Intelligence you are looking at only 20 bonus damage, which is entirely negligible - and I would agree. However, there is still the matter of 6 (or more) skill points investment.

So if you wanna be pure mage, you either go berserker or play Alb on Story or something.

Otherwise, seeing how magic is designed to replace a weapon in this game, not complement it... I mean this is not Skyrim where you can play with sword in one hand and a spell in the other.