Melee Build : Fallout: New Vegas

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 11:34 am

Okay, so, since I used energy weapons and decided they don't give me enjoyment, I moved on to explosives... when I found out they didn't give crit damages, and that I like the crit perks, they had to go too... then I moved to guns and loved it. Now i'm considering Melee because well, Super Sledge is sixy and I don't have to worry about ammo issues....

I just want to see if what i'm thinking for a build is doable, what you guys would do instead, or if i'm on the right track as well as what perks I should take...

So, SPECIAL...

S = 8
p = 6
E = 6 (Raise with implant)
C = 1
I = 7 (Raise with implant)
A = 5 (raise with implant)
L = 6 (Raise with implant)

And for skills...

Barter = base
Energy Weapons = base
Guns = base
Melee = Max
unarmed = Max (maybe not, maybe just 90 if I run out of points)
Speech = 80 (for most quest related options)
Repair = 90 (for repairing things to sell for caps, and to get Jury Rigging to repair things like balistic fist, super sledge, etc...)
Science = 65 (boost with magazine for quest related stuff and terminals... to get to 75)
Lockpick = 75 (to open most locks, only a handful of VH locks if i'm not mistaken, most of whitch can be open with a key found)
Sneak = 60 (maybe, maybe not... might want silent running yet, but we'll see if I have room for perks)
Survival = base
Explosives = base
Medicine = 75 (for quest stuff, and just to get better healing from stim/radx/radaway)

I think that's all the skills... the important ones anyways, might use some advice as to what to raise first (I always raise lockpick to 75 first then decide on what ever else needs to be raised)

Perks

Finesse (more crits)
Better Criticals (obvious)
Strong Back (carry more crap)
Super Slam (obvious)
Peircing Strike (obvious)
Jury Rigging
Adamantium Skeleton
Slayer
Paralyzing Palm
Unstoppable Force

There are a couple others... I forget, I counted off like 13 of the 15 you can get before and I only have 9 here so I might be missing some melee/UA perks, I included some unarmed ones because well, to get some great melee perks you need UA so meh, might as well utilize perks for both.

Any suggestions/Shoulds/Should not's ?

Dumb build? Great Build?

DISCUSS

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 4:08 pm

Perception 1.
You don't need it as a melee build.
And luck should be fairly low as well. 4 IMO.
Take Comprehension perk and drop Science to 55.

Most likely you're going to max 5 skills, I'd choose:
Unarmed
Melee
Medicine
Speech
Lockpick.

Why not the others?
Science, why? Only necessary for an EW character, most "necessary" computers you can find a pass-code for and there aren't enough for it to be useful anyway.
Sneak, not worth it.

Repair, I don't really see why you need 90.
Jury Rigging isn't very useful for it.
I mean, for guns and EW and explosives you need to buy ammo and have several weapons at your disposal.
But when playing Melee or Unarmed you only need one.
You'll have more than enough money to repair it at Mojave Outpost.
So repair is a really useless skill for close-combat characters IMO.

Paralyzing Palm isn't for Melee you know, only for unarmed, and only if you're COMPLETELY unarmed. (No powerfists.)

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:36 pm

More strength the better so go for 9 then upgrade to 10. And yea no need for crits really. You will be dishing out a ton of damage as it is. Hell drop it to 1.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:00 pm

STR- 9
PER- 1
END- 9
CHR- 1
INT- 10
AGL- 9
LCK- 1

That ^ is what you want to go for with the special. You don't need Perception, Charisma (looks like you already know this is useless anyway) or luck with this build. IF you were going for a critical hit build then I'd advise putting 6 points into PER and LCK for the Better Criticals perk, but you honestly will not need critical hits with a melee build.

Use implants to upgrade all of the 9s and you're pretty much set.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 4:24 pm

Hmm interesting, So if i'm going to drop P to 1, should I just throw one point into S and then the rest into E? and maybe some more INT for a few extra skill points?

and is it really advantageous to drop luck all the way down like that? I guess I'll have some extra spots for perks if i'm not going to need those crit based perks then.

Any ideas on what weapons I should utilize frequently?

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 8:52 am

Luck really isn't necessary.
Melee and unarmed has such ridiculous damage so you wont have to worry about critical hits really.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 8:28 am

Repair, I don't really see why you need 90.
Jury Rigging isn't very useful for it.
I mean, for guns and EW and explosives you need to buy ammo and have several weapons at your disposal.

Repairing Ballistic Fist with Boxing Tape is more enough to get JR.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 8:56 pm

Thanks guys, appreciate the help, I have a better idea as to what to do for SPECIAL and Skills, just need some ideas as to what to do for perks, your favorite ones for a melee build and maybe why... then maybe a weapon slot set up

.

Also, why the high agility? VATS usage or for perks? Hmm I didn't know melee was so useful for VATS if that's the case...

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 10:18 am

Repairing Ballistic Fist with Boxing Tape is more enough to get JR.

Still not necessary.
You only need one weapon with Unarmed and Melee and that's the best one you have found with your character.
You don't need to worry about ammo or fixing a ton of equipment or looking for mods or anything.
You will also have a lot of extra room in your backpack.
So you can basically loot a crapload of stuff, sell it, and be set for a very long time.
It's much more profitable to not raise repair with a close-combat character.

oldspice2625.
"Also, why the high agility? VATS usage or for perks? Hmm I didn't know melee was so useful for VATS if that's the case..."
For perks.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 3:40 pm

Well I guess you're right Gabriel, the mantis gauntlet pretty much nullifies any armor, at least as I see on the wiki and i'll be getting a -15 DT for all my weapons with peircing strike so I guess i'll be overkilling a bit LOL maybe I should get bloody mess xD.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:45 pm

Are there any vendors that repair items to 100%? The only ones I've found are Old Lady Gibson and the guy at the Mojave Outpost and they don't repair it 100%.

You might want to keep INT at 5 and maybe raise your LUCK more. INT really doesn't do anything in this game, the difference between having 1 int and 10 int is 5 skill points (IIRC) which is only 150 in the long run. Then you factor in that you don't really need to use every skill and you have a much more balanced character. Maybe it's just me but I prefer having characters with balanced SPECIAL stats in the fallout series. Perception is okay to drop to 1 on a melee build because you can easily get ED-E and you don't really need to see far away if you're gonna be punching people in the face.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 10:15 pm

Ohh, probably another important thing to consider... Armor...what kind should I get? I'm a fan of each kind of armor, I like combat and ranger combat, I like the bounty hunter duster and other clothing items, and I don't mind power armor either so I guess it's which type of armor would work best for a "get in your face" kind of character...

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:57 am

Are there any vendors that repair items to 100%? The only ones I've found are Old Lady Gibson and the guy at the Mojave Outpost and they don't repair it 100%.

You might want to keep INT at 5 and maybe raise your LUCK more. INT really doesn't do anything in this game, the difference between having 1 int and 10 int is 5 skill points (IIRC) which is only 150 in the long run. Then you factor in that you don't really need to use every skill and you have a much more balanced character. Maybe it's just me but I prefer having characters with balanced SPECIAL stats in the fallout series. Perception is okay to drop to 1 on a melee build because you can easily get ED-E and you don't really need to see far away if you're gonna be punching people in the face.

Those 5 extra skill points per level is needed to make up for the fact that one needs two skills to get all perks.

oldspice2625 Light Armor, you need that extra speed to get up to enemies, but it could be good to have a Combat Armor MKII as well for when facing deathclaws.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 7:52 pm

Ohh, probably another important thing to consider... Armor...what kind should I get? I'm a fan of each kind of armor, I like combat and ranger combat, I like the bounty hunter duster and other clothing items, and I don't mind power armor either so I guess it's which type of armor would work best for a "get in your face" kind of character...

It doesn't really matter. Your choice of weapon is far more important. But personally I always stick to light armour with melee builds, that way you can close the distance faster when you go to attack.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 4:04 pm

Yeah but you should have an extra armor packed with you for heavier enemies.
It doesn't matter how fast you are if they can kill you in a couple of seconds.
And are you playing on hardcoe mode?
If yes, then go with full medicine.
If no, then screw that skill.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 8:59 pm

Melee does not do ridiculous damage. If you're playing on Very Hard you'll notice melee being significantly worse than guns. But that is due in large part to the stupid 100% crit JSP sniper rifle pumping out 400+ dps (melee struggles to pump out 200+ and will not consistently 1 shot stuff on Vhard, especially not tough enemies).

So I would contend that your damage, and your crits, do matter a lot.

Luckily you have the amaing Ninja perk to give you an absurd 15% melee and unarmed crit chance.

My recommended max damage build (ignore for Normal difficulty since you'll just one shot everything).

Bloody Mess
Finesse
Better Crits
Ninja
Stonewall (bugged to give +5 DT vs all attack if you are using melee or unarmed weapon, so basically a amazing perk)
Slayer
Piercing Strike
Super Slam
Purifier
Paralyzing Palm (this does work with Unarmed class weapons, at least on the PC)
Education
Intense Training x2
Toughness x2

I put intense training x2 because you will be stretched thin on SPECIAL stats to meet all the perk requirements, and you still need high int to get the skills to meet the requirements ><

Anyways, this is pretty much your max damage melee build, and it still underperformed in damage output vs a sniper build, but hey, it got the job done.

Armor: you'll notice yourself taking a lot more punishment than you did as a gun user. You only need enough armor to negate what your opponents are shooting at you with, so usually with Stonewall and Toughness you can get by with Medium or Light vs small arms. And vs Deathclaws that 2-3 shot you even at 50 DT, well, it doesn't matter since your companions should be tanking them!

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 3:18 pm

I recommend the following SPECIAL

STR- 8
PER- 1 (you may want to add some to PER via intense training)
END- 7
CHR- 1
INT- 8
AGL- 5
LCK- 10

For traits select Built to Destroy and (optional) either wild wasteland or no other traits. the other traits either reduce critical hits or slow your attack time.

melee build is very doable - super slam is a must and you will be relatively vulnerable until you get super slam and obtain a rebar club or super sledge somewhere. luck 10 will result in every other hit or so being critical. I went with a similar build, but split skill points evenly between guns and melee.

unfortunately, some of the special perks for melee are only available if you put a lot of points into unarmed.

also recommend sub dermal implant, stonewall, rad child and 2 ranks of toughness

the monocyte breeder is useless, compared to rad child. if you stay at critical or deadly RAD poisoning, you will regen +6 HP/sec or +8HP/sec with rad child, which is 60-80 times more effective than the monocyte breeder implant (only +1HP every 10 seconds)

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:27 pm

Hmm interesting, a lot of conflicting ideas here... and they all seem very well thought out and doable... I suppose I should say, mostly, I stay on normal mode, but on very hard

I only did hardcoe once and that was with guns but I might just give H.C. another whirl...

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 8:08 pm

I don't want to come across as Mr. Macho or anything, but discussions like this, especially if we're talking about a normal (non hardcoe) playthrough, just seem a bit unnecessary. If you're playing on normal, then it's almost impossible to die. Just pause (go into your PipBoy) and use as many stimpaks as you need, unpause and go back to fighting that Deathclaw. The only way to die is if something kills you in one hit (which is rare) or you run out of stims, which is probably not gonna happen. That would be like running out of Nuka Cola. The [censored] is everywhere. You could play a melee character with brass knuckles, a vault suit and 2 strength and bash your way through most of the game without too much difficulty. Now hardcoe Mode, okay, that's a different discussion.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:06 pm

Hmm interesting, a lot of conflicting ideas here... and they all seem very well thought out and doable... I suppose I should say, mostly, I stay on normal mode, but on very hard

I only did hardcoe once and that was with guns but I might just give H.C. another whirl...

Really your main choice is whether you want a crit build or not. If you want crits, you can't get any more optimal than what I laid out, frankly. If you don't want to deal with the rigorous SPECIAL and skill reqs for the crit maximization, make sure to get Heavy Handed as a trait.

I don't want to come across as Mr. Macho or anything, but discussions like this, especially if we're talking about a normal (non hardcoe) playthrough, just seem a bit unnecessary. If you're playing on normal, then it's almost impossible to die. Just pause (go into your PipBoy) and use as many stimpaks as you need, unpause and go back to fighting that Deathclaw. The only way to die is if something kills you in one hit (which is rare) or you run out of stims, which is probably not gonna happen. That would be like running out of Nuka Cola. The [censored] is everywhere. You could play a melee character with brass knuckles, a vault suit and 2 strength and bash your way through most of the game without too much difficulty. Now hardcoe Mode, okay, that's a different discussion.

It's true. I don't like the water/food requirements of hardcoe though, so my workaround is simply not using stimpacks in normal mode.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:44 am

It is very viable, I made a melee-only character for the legion and I found it to be easier than being an atypical gun-wielding character.

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 8:26 pm

I don't want to come across as Mr. Macho or anything, but discussions like this, especially if we're talking about a normal (non hardcoe) playthrough, just seem a bit unnecessary. If you're playing on normal, then it's almost impossible to die. Just pause (go into your PipBoy) and use as many stimpaks as you need, unpause and go back to fighting that Deathclaw. The only way to die is if something kills you in one hit (which is rare) or you run out of stims, which is probably not gonna happen. That would be like running out of Nuka Cola. The [censored] is everywhere. You could play a melee character with brass knuckles, a vault suit and 2 strength and bash your way through most of the game without too much difficulty. Now hardcoe Mode, okay, that's a different discussion.

Listen to this guy if you are playin on normal. Character structure hardly matters, your weapons will pretty much KO anything once your skills up

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 1:16 pm

Melee does not do ridiculous damage. If you're playing on Very Hard you'll notice melee being significantly worse than guns. But that is due in large part to the stupid 100% crit JSP sniper rifle pumping out 400+ dps (melee struggles to pump out 200+ and will not consistently 1 shot stuff on Vhard, especially not tough enemies).

So I would contend that your damage, and your crits, do matter a lot.

Luckily you have the amaing Ninja perk to give you an absurd 15% melee and unarmed crit chance.

My recommended max damage build (ignore for Normal difficulty since you'll just one shot everything).

Bloody Mess
Finesse
Better Crits
Ninja
Stonewall (bugged to give +5 DT vs all attack if you are using melee or unarmed weapon, so basically a amazing perk)
Slayer
Piercing Strike
Super Slam
Purifier
Paralyzing Palm (this does work with Unarmed class weapons, at least on the PC)
Education
Intense Training x2
Toughness x2

I put intense training x2 because you will be stretched thin on SPECIAL stats to meet all the perk requirements, and you still need high int to get the skills to meet the requirements ><

Anyways, this is pretty much your max damage melee build, and it still underperformed in damage output vs a sniper build, but hey, it got the job done.

Armor: you'll notice yourself taking a lot more punishment than you did as a gun user. You only need enough armor to negate what your opponents are shooting at you with, so usually with Stonewall and Toughness you can get by with Medium or Light vs small arms. And vs Deathclaws that 2-3 shot you even at 50 DT, well, it doesn't matter since your companions should be tanking them!

Hmm so what would the beginning special look like for this kind of build then? I'm intrigued now... and just raising skills to meet perk requirements or?

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 10:37 am

Hmm so what would the beginning special look like for this kind of build then? I'm intrigued now... and just raising skills to meet perk requirements or?

It depends on the weapons you want to use for the skills part, it's just that the requirements are pretty steep so you'll end up with very high melee and unarmed and sneak (for ninja). I actually ended up maxing out both melee and unarmed to fiddle around with weapons.

Special you need:

Stonewall 6 STR 6 END
Better Crits 6 LUCK 6 PER
Slayer 7 AGI
Super Slam 6 STR
Then STR depending on what weapon you wish to use, but 8-9 is probably what you'll want to end up with to use the weapons properly. But for example a weapon like Pushy is very good and requires little strength.

I used: start(final)

STR 6(9 after Implant, Intense Training, Power Armor)
PER: 4(6 implant, Intense Training)
END: 6
CHA: 1
INT: 8 (9 implant) AGI: 6(7 implant) LUCK: 9(10 implant)
The 6th implant goes to +4 DT. You could easily shift points from Int to Endurance, or ditch Better Crits and put PER to 1.

With the Built to Destroy trait, Finesse, Ninja and 10 LUCK, you'll have 33% crit base, or 38% with First Recon Beret. Unfortunately none of the top end weapons multiply your crit chance: there are some with a 2x mod that are decent, and the Mantis Gauntlet is solid since it gives you a 3x multiplier and thus 100% crit (well 99% I guess, you wouldn't wear the Beret just for 1% crit).

» Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:53 am

I went high charisma just to get the ferocious loyalty perk. I don't miss perception.. the only useful skill you get from it is better criticals... honestly, the boost ferocious loyalty gives to companions defense is better. Don't need to see enemies from miles away, and I doubt perception or any other skill actually effects non VATS combat.. I can raise the individual skills manually.. I started out unarmed and got super slam, I'll get piercing strike when I get the skill up to 70 which won't be long.. this build should be taking out deathclaws in short order... with rex, boone, veronica, and staying below 50% health, and the effectiveness of the super slam perk, it's a powerful build.

Rex takes the damage while I move in and knock em over... actually I noticed that after I got the super slam perk, rex began to knock enemies over too.. double bonus. And Boone.. well I left him with his default weapon and it's what other people have said.. you're his follower, he does that much damage. I don't want to worry about babysitting my companion's ammo stockpile. Not even wasting my time getting sneak up.. focused on lockpick, speech, then unarmed and melee, along with repair a little and some medicine. Gave my vault canteen to my companion so I'd stop slowing gaining HP and getting above 50%.

what I did

S 6
P 1
E 7
C 7
I 6
A 5
L 7

The INT just doesn't provide enough skill points in this game to waste putting it really high. 7 is plenty after injection. Still have to use another intense training at some point to get my agility to 7 by level 24 to get the slayer perk (didn't get the small frame trait after I got annoyed at the ease in which I got crippled)
these are pretty close.. they are all boosted by one as the first thing I did was go to vegas, gamble a bit, get a luck implant, buy luck raising clothing, then go back and gamble on the slots and got 3 oranges... 30k+ caps, enough to upgrade everything.. then went and got veronica, then went to get ED-E, used veronica to get me into brotherhood base and upgraded ED-E armor, got boone next, ditched veronica for now, went to get Rex, use rex and Boone for now and now I'm doing the brotherhood stuff to get the power armor training. The companions are just so powerful compared to the player when it comes to armor.. even with reinforced mach 2 armor most crap tears the player apart fairly quick. By the time I get high level, I'll be able to raise my guns skill up pretty high perhaps to 100 as well, so I'll have 90+ unarmed, hopefully 90+ guns, and all the ammo and weapons I've collected and tossed into the hotel in Novac will finally get some use.