Melee weapon VS Knife Bash card. GO

[HammerHand]

I have found that using the knife for bash card is very useful. It allows to carry two guns and still keep that instant kill melee against trash mobs.

Having tried with a melee build and dedicated melee weapon I've been doing less well.

Are there any advantages to using a dedicated melee weapon over the knife bash card?

[Myta]

Dedicated Melee is currently the most powerful build in the game once you get the cards, using something like Face your Fears, Battle Lust, and Adrenaline Fueled and Vanguard makes you basically unkillable, as you'll be healing more then the zombie can do in damage in any mode but nightmare, and even then with Poultice you can easily counter that gap

[RNG_Wizard]

Machetes & Bats have wide swing arcs, easily hitting far more enemies. Better for clearing hordes. Axes & Fireaxes have absurdly high damage and can kill even the tankier specials in a few swings. These are both things the combat knife just can't do, it's only really useful for picking off low density, low health ridden.

[Maltsi]

i don't like the knife at all no matter what build im playing, its mostly single target (it can kill multiple enemies if they are stacked close enough). bash will push enemies in small area giving you more room to shoot and in return you get hit less. dedicated melee builds are OP, possibly even strongest builds in the game, because of the HP per kill cards and insane attack speed.

[Eudicots]

I can see the appeal to the knife on Recruit or Veteran, but on nightmare getting Blighted Ridden will be a death sentence. The standard bash attack helps push enemies back which is a must have with certain mutations.

Melee builds on the other hand are incredibly strong mid-to late Act. You can focus on stumbling specials (bat), killing mobs (bat/matchete), or killing tallboys/bosses (axe/hatchet). Good melee builds need increase dmg, swing speed, stamina regen, health regen, and dmg resistance.

Note cards that increase melee damage will also increase your weakspot dmg with melee. This is why you can one shot tallboys with an axe.

[HammerHand]

wow excellent details. thank you everyone

[YMD]

Originally posted by HammerHand:

I have found that using the knife for bash card is very useful. It allows to carry two guns and still keep that instant kill melee against trash mobs.

Having tried with a melee build and dedicated melee weapon I've been doing less well.

Are there any advantages to using a dedicated melee weapon over the knife bash card?

Melee builds have a card for cleave and very stronk damage. It will allow you to 1v1 an ogre and win.

[Trip]

I tried out a smg/tank hybrid deck. It worked well enough on recruit. It would probably work on veteran with a proper build. I doubt it could work on nightmare.

I stacked damage/trauma res, accuracy, ammo, use speed. Disabled ADS. It's ment for Angelo for the free 30 second breakfree.

It does OK. SMG is good for thinning hordes, then pick off the stragglers with knife to heal. specials. Able to heal and kill while reloading during an intense fight is nice. I spend most of the combat time crouched, pulling out short sprints as needed with speciala.

A full melee build is going to be better all around, except ogres, but I think it's fun.

[Yippo the Clown]

Long story short - melee is incredibly powerful, but requires a lot of cards to maintain and is useless if you can't get the cards together.

The combat knife card is arguably a crutch - something which you can lean on if you're struggling, but which realistically shouldn't be necessary if you're playing well and may in fact just be delaying you reaching your power spikes.

[Terotrous]

Melee weapons have much more range, swing faster, and can hit multiple targets. The bash is still good, but it's more of an emergency weapon, you wouldn't use it as your primary means of attack.

[Frost Spectre]

Base melee bash is same as shove in L4D, so I haven't used the knife much as it seems to remove the shove and do damage to only 1 target.

[Shadow]

Originally posted by Myta:

Dedicated Melee is currently the most powerful build in the game once you get the cards, using something like Face your Fears, Battle Lust, and Adrenaline Fueled and Vanguard makes you basically unkillable, as you'll be healing more then the zombie can do in damage in any mode but nightmare, and even then with Poultice you can easily counter that gap

Going melee means the rest of your team will push you to the front to tank and become a meat shield.

[Yagyu]

knife card is garbanzo against hordes it just hits 1 infected, with fist it knocks away all of them by that time you have reload and can continue shooting without losing hp and melee build is broken full hp regen all the time with shield and dmg resistance as long as you have teammates to kill special zombies

[identity]

I would only use knife in a non-melee build, usually with the +2 heal on kill card as well. It's just too useful not to use. Some people will argue in favor of the shove, but it's just personal preference. All the melee weapons are better than the knife, which has a very small point of contact and not quite as useful as a sweep. That being said, people have talked about melee speed/stumble builds with the knife that can be amusing to play if you're in the mood.

Just my thoughts.

[identity]

Originally posted by Yagyu JoinUsInVR:

knife card is garbanzo against hordes it just hits 1 infected, with fist it knocks away all of them by that time you have reload and can continue shooting without losing hp and melee build is broken full hp regen all the time with shield and dmg resistance as long as you have teammates to kill special zombies

It will hit more than 1 ridden, but they have to be stacked in just the right way.

[identity]

Originally posted by Yippo the Clown:

The combat knife card is arguably a crutch - something which you can lean on if you're struggling, but which realistically shouldn't be necessary if you're playing well and may in fact just be delaying you reaching your power spikes.

I would only drop the card if I was absolutely positive the team I'm playing with is capable enough. In a perfect world, sure, you won't get hit and everything will be nice a smooth, but I doubt I've played a game where that was the case (that I can remember), at least with quickplay. More often than not, you will get hit, and having that bit of stealth without relying on a suppressor, and coupled with the heal card, is very useful for topping yourself off between fights... assuming your team lets you do that and doesn't spray down range and kill everything or hit you while you try to do it.