extremely viable.

you can go with a max crit build or just a regular build with heavy handed. both work.

I think a melee build is workable, but there will be parts where it will be a liability....chucking throwing knives at deathclaws might not work, but a screenie to show that you attempted it would be some sort of badge of honour, I'd suggest.

Hmm... now I just need to decide whether i'm going to stay on VH for normal or go to hardcoe .

Thanks, this is all great info that'll help me for even my non melee builds because of all the great elaboration. I'd really like to get Jury Rigging but it looks like i'll be stretched thin for perks and therefore where I can shove skill points, I guess in the end I won't really need it but still LOL i guess I just like being super uber rich but I guess you don't really use those extra caps anyways.

Now, if I go with Siboleth's suggestion, since i'll have 80 sneak, should I get silent running as well? Or just remain a one man army great wall of china hulk smashing everything?

Looking at my Perk list I listed 15, but in my playthrough I actually did get Silent Running...I must have ditched one rank of Toughness or something.

Anyways, with 100 sneak and Silent Running, it is possible to walk right up to stuff. But it's rather difficult, and if you're sneaking up on multiple deathclaws, potentially disastrous But one of my favorite moments from that playthrough was sneaking up on a Deathclaw Mother and exploding it with a single hit of my Ballistic Fist.

Another nice thing about melee is the added throwing weapons that fall under the melee skill. Unfortunately, throwing spears are curiously unable to be crafted and can only be found on dead Legion. I've found 1 throwing knife and never a throwing hatchet, and since all thrown weapons disappear for some reason after use, they end up being pretty much a novelty.

Also, if you use VATS with your sledge, you'll find that it places you in kissing distance of your target (no matter where you activate it) making you swing the handle through the enemy's body. Also due probably to another oversight ... there is a complete lack of weapon impact -i.e., they just collapse straight to the ground no matter how hard you strike them with your pneumatically powered block of death. Kind of peaceful, the way they just seem to fall asleep, but incredibly boring and anti-climactic if you use VATS. I quit my melee build after 60 hours of this stuff because of the above, I just didn't find it fun.

Also, there's a bug with super slam. I was using a supersledge and if I went into VATS and used the special melee attack (mauler) it knocked the target down 100% of the time, although usually by making them fly literally 20 feet straight up in the air (like they were standing still, not being thrown) before they fell down. Bear in mind you may not want to be invincible with this combination. I was able to kill deathclaws in melee with no outside help this way and it took the fun out of it.

Those are my findings with the drawbacks of melee. Damage, as others have said, does not seem to be a problem.

As has already been said, the most ridiculous build in the game is the JSP ammo (Hand Loader perk) Sniper Rifle 100% crit build. Everything pales to that. HOWEVER...

I was messing around with Melee/Unarmed, and I was able on Very Hard/hardcoe to handle 3 Giant Radscorpions solo with my Ballistic Fist (in the Thorn arena) without using any stims/chems.
It's very viable.
I'd recommend going Melee to 50 early game and get Chance's Knife. 50 Melee will allow you to nab Super Slam! also, an amazing perk. I wouldn't go higher than 50 Melee though....I'd max Unarmed instead since in all my testing Ballistic Fist > anything Melee brought to the table. You also can live without Unstoppable Force...not that many enemies block from my experience.
Ballistic Fist looks at a glance to be weaker than say Oh Baby! or Thermic Lance from Melee, but it isn't. The knockback the Fist has really helps vs. multiple melee enemies, and it's a far better VATS weapon (Paralyzing Palm works with it). Oh Baby! is bugged in VATS.....it's a knockdown when it hits (which is awesome) but it misses a high % of the time just like ranged weapons do at point blank range in VATS. Thermic Lance is just too costly in VATS...Scrap Heap takes like 70 AP I believe. Fist is less than 30, and a Cross with it hits HARD.

50 Melee early though for Chance's Knife/Super Slam! is smart. Chance's Knife >>> any unarmed weapons you are going to see pre-Pushy/Ballistic Fist, and you can get it VERY early in the game.

Two different melee builds, a heavy handed one and a crit based one.

Heavy handed requires survival to at least 50 to show off it's good. Poisons + Chainsaw/ Thermic Lance is pretty nasty, not to mention the Shishkebab with poison and pyromaniac. As much as i find this build interesting Crits really do put your damage way over the top.

Its not any different in hardcoe to be honest considering you can stack many healing over times at the same time. Bringing up your PipBoy on 10 health in hardcoe and using a Stimpack, Super Stimpack, Water, etc makes you immortal long enough to kill whatever you need. Healing over time doesnt make hardcoe any more difficult.

Ive gone on a melee spree in hardcoe against Deathclaws and Cazadors with no problem. My Melee skill is only around 30 also.

Really? I found Crit build is more hit or miss......

Hmm so, I was thinking, would it be possible to get a skill allocation for the crit based build (one reason, is that I want Perception not to be totally abysmall because lockpick is the first skill I raise) although I could probably work around that because the b;uild that was proposed had max INT so it might balance out to be the same as say 5 P and 7 INT but anyways,

what should my final skill values be for the crit build? And would I have any leeway with skillpoints or not? And when to raise what skill when because I know from experience if you don't plan your build wisely and your skill point allocation you run into the problem of wanting 15 perks but screwing up your level ups and not being able to get the 15 you want lol

sorry, it's basically like i'm asking what to do with everything but i'm a hardcoe min/maxing ho' when it comes to RPG's... 98pct efficiency doesn't fly with my HAHA . Ohh dear I probably have OCD or something with this.

Oh one more thing... any opinions on TAG skills? And for the crit build laid out by Sibboleth, would I need to take TAG as a perk to get everything where I want it to be, or would I be fine without it?