Fallout 4 Melee Build: Let's Go Whack Some Enemies With Clubs!

So, players are almost tired of running and gunning in Fallout 4 that's why they are trying different build for their characters to make the game more fun. One fan named Paul Tassi had shared his own build and guess what, this build doesn't involved a gun!

Yes! You've heard me right, no guns... Just melee weapons! In fact, he called this build...The Melee Build (duh, so obvious). This melee-only build will have you clubbing, beating, hacking and slashing your way through every problem you come across. Well, that sounds fun! Let's check it out!

The Build

In general, this build needs at least 9 points in both Strength and Agility, with a few sunk into Endurance, and the rest wherever you like them (Luck is always a good bet).

The reason you have to get up to 9 in Strength and Agility is because the perks at those levels for each stat are essential to the build. For Strength, you’ll want the first two levels of Rooted, a perk which dramatically reduces damage taken and increases melee damage dished out when you’re standing still. For Agility, you will absolutely need Blitz, an ability which uses VATS to instantly warp you to your target to melee them, even if they’re relatively far away.

If you try the stealth route early on, low level stealth perks are pretty much garbage. 20-30% stealth means almost nothing, and between that and low armor and melee damage.

Early on you will want to conserve what few Stimpacks you have by healing through sleep as much as possible. Halfway through a level and at 20% health with 2 Stimpacks? Think about leaving, sleeping, and coming back instead of burning through all your supplies.

This advice may tempt you to sink a ton of points into Endurance perks, but do try to minimize that as much as possible. You can manage to get away with only putting one point in damage reduction, as it was founded that between Strength’s Rooted perk and Agility’s Moving Target perk (damage reduction while sprinting) that’s really all the bonus armor stuff you need outside of the literal armor you’re wearing. Three points in Life Giver is recommended, however, which triggers a hugely useful health regen perk later on.

Note: Fallout 4 has decided to separate out “unarmed weapons” and “melee weapons” into two separate categories. The problem there is that to max out both, you’d have to flush away ten points, and it really doesn’t seem worth it given how few unarmed weapons there are. By my count, there’s only knuckles, boxing gloves, Deathclaw gauntlets and Power Fists. As awesome as those may be, it seems there are a lot more melee options in the “melee” category, so it is recommended going that route, at least for a while.

Even though you ditched stealth at the beginning of the game, it’s essential for later on. Blitz will allow you to teleport all over the map, and if you do so while crouched and hidden, you can rack up 3x, 5x even 10x damage stealth kills left and right. If you really want to go crazy, you can upgrade not just the Ninja perk (higher stealth multipliers) but also Mister Sandman, which can give your silenced weapons (knives, for one) 50% more damage during stealth kills. Those YouTube videos that show people one-shotting Alpha Deathclaws? This is how you do that.

The rest of the build is kind of whatever you want it to be.You can go with Action Boy (or Girl) to make sure your VATS is recharging quickly. You may think you want to play Fallout 4 like Skyrim, swinging randomly outside of VATS at enemies, but trust me, once you get Blitz, you will want to VATS all the time in melee, as it will produce much more consistent results (and gnarly executions).

You can invest points in armor and weapon upgrades, although there are far less for each than gun mods. Luck is recommended in any build, especially higher crit damage, and Idiot Savant, which will rain XP on you if you have a presumably low Intelligence score, as tends to happen with this build. Overall, this build uses less essential perks than most, so sink the rest into whatever you want.

The Tools

You can start this build with just a tire iron and a switchblade, but the game has a few specific melee tools that you’ll want to seek out to help you with your build. You can probably craft some approximation of many of these, depending on the types of legendaries you get to drop, but here’s where to find some of the weapons that have been the “core” of my build.

Rockville Slugger – This was my first real legendary, and it’s something you can buy straight from the store. The baseball guy in Diamond City has it for sale for 1200 caps, and it’s worth every penny. The bat has 40% less AP cost, and combined with high agility, that means swings for days in VATS. Bats are super-upgradable too, and with only one point in melee mods, you can change it from oak to aluminum, and wrap it in razor blades. It’s one of my essentials to this day.

Shem Downe’s Sword – After you meet Nick in the main questline, this is one of his two case files that he asks you to help solve. You find a note on top of a Faneuil Hall, which will lead you to a grave where a guy is buried with a sword. It has great base damage, and does bonus radiation damage as well.

Grognak’s Axe – Found in Hubris Comics in a locked display case, this unique axe staggers and does bleed damage. One of the better melee weapons you can easily get early on in the game, and you’ll never see anything else quite like it

Grognak Costume – This is the only piece of armor on this list. It’s found in the top level of Hubris, and gives you bonus Strength and melee damage. It’s a weird bit of armor, as it replaces both your chestplate and undersuit. Some may not like the way it looks (my female character now has chunky arm and leg armor with an exposed midriff), or they may not like the lack of damage reduction from a lack of undersuit and chestplate, but I have no regrets using it for most of the game.

Furious Power Fist – You get this at Swan’s Pond by killing Swan himself, a giant Behemoth who will almost certainly be a skull icon when you meet him. With a lot of luck and chemical assistance, you can take him down, and his unique Power Fist is one of the best melee weapons in the game. Technically it’s an “unarmed” weapon, but the damage is so high and the perks is so good (increased damaged on repeat hits) even with zero points sunk into unarmed weapons, I can still two-shot just about everything with it.

The Shishkebab – The classic Fallout fire sword is in Saugus Ironworks and you retrieve it as part of the Out of the Fire quest started at Finch Farm. Did I mention it’s a fire sword?

Pickman’s Blade – By FAR the best melee weapon in the game. You get it in Pickman’s Gallery after completing a creepy quest about a serial killer who only kills raiders. Post-apocalyptic Dexter, if you will. If you spare him, he’ll thank you and give you access to a safe in his house, where the blade will be. The thing does tons of bleed damage (which stacks on each hit) and bonus stealth damage. It’s just an absolute monster when combined with all the other perks we’ve been talking about, and you should get it as soon as possible.

And that’s pretty much it. If you want to “cheat,” you can go add a sniper rifle to your arsenal for those pesky, high up turrets. But with enough sprint and blitzing, nearly anything is reachable, if you really want to stick with the whole “no gunshots ever” philosophy.

By level 15 even, this melee build makes the game almost too easy. Warping from enemy to enemy with Blitz, one shotting them with Ninja and taking no damage from Rooted means that you haven’t died or been seriously hurt in eons, outside of a few random unlucky Fat Man shots.

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Credits: Special thanks to Paul Tassi for sharing his build.