Help with understanding melee

Chemmy

Chemmy

First time out of the vault
Hello there just looking for a bit of help.

I'm playing through fallout for the first time and I've chosen to go for a melee build for my playthrough, I understand the basics of how to make a build (Just how to structure S.P.E.C.I.A.L and what traits are good) and my melee build is feeling weak and undercooked

was just wondering if anyone would give me some advice on how melee works in fallout 1/2, especially any info on how the game calculates melee accuracy, and how to make a good build.
 
What's your stats, skills, traits, perks?
Which weapons are you using?
Where are you having trouble exactly? Beginning, middle, end?

Melee and unarmed suffer a bit from low variety of weapons and perks, alongside some horrible noob traps like Heavy Handed trait.

But it isn't so bad, and you should be able to get to a high skill level and accuracy fairly fast. Hence all my questions at the start.
 
Current build:
S-7 P-4 EN-5 CH-3 IN-4 LK-7,
Bloody mess and skilled as traits,
Lockpick, Repair and Melee Weapons as tag skills
Faster healing as my only perk I got on level up as I'm only level 5 on this build attempt
Using Sledgehammer and spear currently


If what I've built so far is wank I dont mind restarting my playthrough and trying again with a better understanding of the game.

and thanks for the reply!
 
You need more AP for melee/unarmed, any kind of AP. AP never go wrong with any build, but these type require more, to the level of necessity instead of "nice to have" like with guns/energy.

I dont remember F1 has Bonus Move perk but it's terribly good for melee because you have extra AP for moving alone.

I think aimed shot to get crit is an absolute for melee because you depend on that more than Guns/Energy builds. You just cant spray shots in enemies' general direction, so take your move and calculate AP for a crit hit is , like, essential~ SO never Fast Shot~

Perl Fallout2 guide recommend Perk progression: Level 3 Awareness, level 6 Bonus Move, level 9 Better Criticals, level 12 Living Anatomy, level 15 Bonus HtH Attacks, level 18 Gain Agility, level 21 Action Boy, level 24 Slayer. Which all are good for melee. So if you play pure Fallout1, choose which perks you can.

For Ian, since you are going to get ahead to get into melee range, his insane shooting need to be curtailed right away. So 223 pistol is a must and never any burst weapon.
 
laclongquan said:
You need more AP for melee/unarmed, any kind of AP. AP never go wrong with any build, but these type require more, to the level of necessity instead of "nice to have" like with guns/energy.

I dont remember F1 has Bonus Move perk but it's terribly good for melee because you have extra AP for moving alone.

I think aimed shot to get crit is an absolute for melee because you depend on that more than Guns/Energy builds. You just cant spray shots in enemies' general direction, so take your move and calculate AP for a crit hit is , like, essential~ SO never Fast Shot~

Perl Fallout2 guide recommend Perk progression: Level 3 Awareness, level 6 Bonus Move, level 9 Better Criticals, level 12 Living Anatomy, level 15 Bonus HtH Attacks, level 18 Gain Agility, level 21 Action Boy, level 24 Slayer. Which all are good for melee. So if you play pure Fallout1, choose which perks you can.

For Ian, since you are going to get ahead to get into melee range, his insane shooting need to be curtailed right away. So 223 pistol is a must and never any burst weapon.
Click to expand...
Thank you very much for the advice
 
Chemmy said:
Current build:
S-7 P-4 EN-5 CH-3 IN-4 LK-7,
Bloody mess and skilled as traits,
Lockpick, Repair and Melee Weapons as tag skills
Faster healing as my only perk I got on level up as I'm only level 5 on this build attempt
Using Sledgehammer and spear currently


If what I've built so far is wank I dont mind restarting my playthrough and trying again with a better understanding of the game.

and thanks for the reply!
Click to expand...
Hmm, you skipped AG. My brain can't calculate what it is right now. Is it at 5? Or 10? 5 is very low.
Get at least 6, I'd prefer 8.

You can probably use 6 ST instead of 7 if you need the points elsewhere. But probably not lower, not sure.

Also with 6 EN and 6 LK you can get toughness as your first perk, which helps with survivability.
Otherwise you can get Awareness with 5 PE, which is great for first time through.

Skilled is also pretty bad for the long term, you should take something else.
Gifted is OP, perhaps even too OP, some people call it cheating.

Also you can put your CH as low as it goes with basically no penalties in Fallout 1, but make sure it is an even number in Fallout 2. Also EN should be an even number too, as should AG (unless you're doing some late game min max build, which is overkill).

If you have trouble hitting things, just focus all skillpoints to melee in the beginning.

Sledge and spear have the same AP cost of 4, so I'd recommend using a knife as secondary due to 3 AP where you can squeeze out another attack in some rounds.

Finally, don't tag repair, it doesn't have many uses. Tag speech or sneak or something.
 
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PlanHex said:
Hmm, you skipped AG. My brain can't calculate what it is right now. Is it at 5? Or 10? 5 is very low.
Get at least 6, I'd prefer 8.

You can probably use 6 ST instead of 7 if you need the points elsewhere. But probably not lower, not sure.

Also with 6 EN and 6 LK you can get toughness as your first perk, which helps with survivability.
Otherwise you can get Awareness with 5 PE, which is great for first time through.

Skilled is also pretty bad for the long term, you should take something else.
Gifted is OP, perhaps even too OP, some people call it cheating.

Also you can put your CH as low as it goes with basically no penalties in Fallout 1, but make sure it is an even number in Fallout 2. Also EN should be an even number too, as should AG (unless your doing some late game min max build, which is overkill).

If you have trouble hitting things, just focus all skillpoints to melee in the beginning.

Sledge and spear have the same AP cost of 4, so I'd recommend using a knife as secondary due to 3 AP where you can squeeze out another attack in some rounds.

Finally, don't tag repair, it doesn't have many uses. Tag speech or sneak or something.
Click to expand...
Haha my bad my agility is 10, (got told 9/10 agility should be the base AG stat for most builds), and thanks for the tips again!
 
Also apologies for an extra question, but would it be viable to spec into two combat skills as the game goes on, or would it be better to just focus on melee
 
Both melee and unarmed have good end game weapon options, so either is fine I think.
Unarmed makes you less item and more skill level dependent is probably the only big difference. There's only 3 unarmed weapons total, but your basic attacks are upgraded based on skill level.

It is not necessary to add another weapon skill. But yeah, at some point you will probably just have 95% accuracy all the time, and can put the skill points elsewhere for fun.
You can go for big guns or energy weapons late game if you want to, but those skills are pretty useless for like the first half of the game, so it's not great to start with a tag in them. You can use Tag! perk to use them later too.

But it kinda defeats the point of having a melee char.
 
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Fair enough I was just thinking of putting points into big guns later on in the game so I can carry a rocket launcher for some reliable damage to mutants, but maybe I'm thinking too far ahead and melee will be fine enough,

Again thank you so much for the advice just restarted my playthrough with a build made with the recommendations, hoping its better than whateverr I tried to make.
 
I forgot to add that if you take gifted, you will need more IN or you will have too few skill points.
I once tried a 2 IN gifted playthrough and had to give up because 4 skill points per level was horrible...
 
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Explosive is a good secondary/alternative for melee build. Sometimes your AP is not enough to approach and hit, so stay at middle distance and throw a grenade onto their pack is a nice idea: you stay out of accurate blast at close range, and ruined their position with a lucky explosion.
(Guns, Big Guns, Energy, is not good idea because it ruin the purity of Melee build)
 
Ah yes, throwing is an appropriate secondary! Forgot about that. I don't think I have ever put a single point in it in any playthrough.
 
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