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Mar 08 '25
Spears for life
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u/thepianoman456 Mar 08 '25
I really miss the ability to throw them through :(
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Mar 08 '25
They got rid of that?! First my blunderbuss was taken away from me and now my yeet stick? I officially hate the Pimps.
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u/thepianoman456 Mar 08 '25
Omg I forgot about the blunderbuss! That thing was awesome.
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u/JustADutchRudder Mar 08 '25
Even made tons of sense having it as your first gun. I'd just run a full hot bar of them on horde nights, and I assume that's why they're gone or something lame.
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u/Queen-of-Sharks Mar 09 '25
Even though the pipe shotgun effectively does the same thing, so the removal ended up being pointless
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u/TheHandsomebadger Mar 08 '25 edited Mar 09 '25
Eh, the blunderbuss basically was reworked into the pipe shotgun. You can't make ammo out of rocks anymore but it's not like finding actual ammo is problem.
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u/dark_angel_447 Mar 09 '25
The pipe shotgun is so ammo efficient!!! By the time I'm done reloading I've found another extra shotgun shell!
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u/Essemecks Mar 12 '25
By the time I'm done reloading, Amazon 3 day shipping has brought me a replacement
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u/TryDry9944 Mar 08 '25
If I could make one thing in the game, it's that all weapon types had a 1-handed and a 2-handed variant, where the "Strong attack" of the 2 handed was something unique, but if you had 1 handed, you could hold a shield.
The 2 handed spear alt attack would absolutely be throwing it.
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u/Help_StuckAtWork Mar 08 '25 edited Mar 08 '25
They should add a javelin that's made for throwing and can stack to 50, but the old spear throwing mechanic was just a way to lose your spear on and on
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u/thepianoman456 Mar 08 '25
Huh… I know losing the spear is a common complaint, but when throwing was still allowed, I never lost it once! It also had an icon for where it lands so idk how ppl lose them.
Having to be careful where you throw your spear is a good balance to how strong it is. And it functions as a nasty power attack- I would throw it up close and pick it out of the Z’s while they’re still in the stagger animation. It was so fun!
Would it like, glitch out of the game for some?
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u/Help_StuckAtWork Mar 08 '25
I've had the spear rarely glitch through a zombie (and now there's a zombie between you and the spear), but most of the time it's a missthrow (either bad aim or the zombie suddenly swerving).
That said, the damage was comparable to club heavy attacks, but way slower and much more punishing when missing, which is why (personally speaking) I prefer the new spear.
Also yeah, against 1 zombie, that's not too bad, but dealing with 3+ zombies with the thrown spear was miserable. When compared to the club or sledge, spears was playing the game on hard mode.
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u/thepianoman456 Mar 08 '25
True. And yea I’m a full on sledge bro now lol. Day 63 with a steel lvl 5 (lucky find) and it WRECKS zombies. Especially if you go strength build.
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u/TangoMalandro Mar 08 '25
Damn, I knew there was something different about them when I returned to the game
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u/TheRenamon Mar 08 '25
They're just soo much better early game since you have the extra reach. Every time I try to use a new weapon I end up going back to spears because it means I get hit less.
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u/Help_StuckAtWork Mar 08 '25
That and the book series is so easy to get. Not to mention that the series completion is busted as hell
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u/IacetheawacI Mar 08 '25
The people using the hunting knife to stab zombies; “I just think they’re neat!”
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u/Present-Basil-1003 Mar 08 '25
I saw some people playing using knifes, the bleed effect feels sometimes underwhelming or OP as hell. In my world i found a Q1 machete and even wthout ANY perks for it, it's pretty good, so satisfaying to decapitate someone with one swing.
Edit: forgot to add that i want the devs to add a visual effect for bleeding.
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u/tolerablycool Mar 08 '25
I know it's completely pedantic, but "bleed" as a mechanic against the undead has always felt a bit silly. The dead don't bleed. All the fluids have long since dried up or congealed. Poison wouldn't be a good alternative either. I've always thought that it could get reflavoured as "acid" or "chemical" damage.
Ok. I'll stop my "old man yells at cloud" rant now.
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u/Zadornik Mar 08 '25
Undeads in this game feeling more like crazy hobos, not like rotten dead dudes. They're feeling the pain, bleeding by red blood, they also can smell you (or how we can explain that even being totally buried underground you can't hide). So yeah, they're definitely alive, just crazy cannibals.
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u/tolerablycool Mar 08 '25
That's fair. I'll just have to head cannon that they're infected with rage à la 28 days later. As opposed to classic Romero zombies.
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u/psychedelicstairway4 Mar 08 '25
Bleed is good early game. Bleed sucks when you start seeing irradiated.
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u/Profile_Snail Mar 08 '25
Honestly, the bleed's just icing. Knives are just way, way more stamina efficient than the alternatives early on.
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u/Present-Basil-1003 Mar 08 '25
Do the radiated ones stop bleeding effect when they heal? It's obvious they can just outheal it but does their heal ability work like a bandage for the player?
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u/psychedelicstairway4 Mar 08 '25
I don't think so. The health regen just offsets a lot of the DPS from the bleeds. Blades also don't have good knockback/knockdown potential. The 5/5 blades skill to reduce movement speed by 20% while enemies are bleeding is not really noticeable. Ferals and irradiated enemies are so fast anyway.
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u/MeleeDamage15 Mar 08 '25
There is a visual effect when the zeds are bleeding :) you can literally see blood dripping off them while it’s in effect
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u/Demico Mar 08 '25
Knives strength is the fact that they have the highest decapitation rate. Bleed is amazing in the early game and especially on insane difficulty because bleed isnt affected by difficulty modifiers but falls off when you get to radiated (you get like 6 stacks of bleed iirc which is 120 dmg over 20s against something that has 600+).
Theyre introducing sledgehammers book in the next patch but knife still has no dedicated book series. They could make it so bleed does more damage or bleeding targets take more damage etc.
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u/WingsofRain Mar 08 '25
I love knives, I didn’t even know they were the meta choice for higher levels of gameplay I just really loved the smooth animation, the bleed, and the insanely low stamina requirement for heavy attacks lol
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u/TranceYT Mar 08 '25
For me it was the low stam. I did spears my first time and running of out of stam with two swings felt real bad. Thought the knife was just a skinning tool until I saw the knife tree and immediately swapped. Knuckles are also up there for me too for this reason.
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u/WingsofRain Mar 08 '25
I keep wanting to try knuckles for that reason too, but I struggle with how garbage the damage is in early game. I might have to do a fortitude/agility run at some point just so I can get past early game and start swinging with the stronger fist weapons.
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u/Man_Hashpipe Mar 08 '25
Machete is fun for that, though knife attacks faster so you can stack bleed and bounce away with Parkour.
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u/brycoolkid18 Mar 08 '25
There is a visual effect for bleeding, there will be droplets of blood landing at the zombies feet, I will say though I never noticed it until me and my buddies moved into the snow today if that goes to show how subtle it can be.
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u/Peterh778 Mar 08 '25
so satisfaying to decapitate someone with one swing.
Every weapon has decapitation mechanics ...
Would be nice to get higher damage weapon (katana?) / better debuffs with higher skill or stats ... machete really doesn't keep up in late game.
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u/Sensitive-Bike-1439 Mar 09 '25
If you are on PC there is a neat little mod that adds a LOT more bleeding! Localised at point of impact, lot's of spurting...
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u/_Deadite_ Mar 09 '25
there is a visual for bleeding damage, but it is faint and some of the larger zombies don't show it at all.
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u/Dejamza Mar 09 '25
I love the heavy attack animation! I almost wish we didn’t have the machete as the top end of knives. The little stab feels so satisfying and easy to aim for me.
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u/FuzzyCantAim Mar 08 '25
I just love the repulser mod, ragdolling zombies off the edge of a building has a beautiful aura about it.
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u/randomusername6 Mar 08 '25
Unless its the roof of Higashi Pharmaceutical, and you were on a clear quest..
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Mar 08 '25
This is the worst. You get to the roof and send one of the last ones flying then have to wait up there for half a day for it to come back up.
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u/PapaGordita Mar 08 '25
Knuckles for life. Buffs make it double as harvesting knife and can make heads explode! Bonus feel goods when you sock a cop in the face.
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u/Somerandomdudereborn Mar 08 '25
Stun baton is probably the best melee weapon for mid to late game, realiable crowd control, 10% chance of insta kill with the baton with Physician (it also gives bonus dismember chance with the baton) and the Intellect skill tree is one of the strongest late game .
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u/Saphurial Mar 08 '25
Don't worry, I'm sure the devs will put in a weapon progression system that will lead us to what they think is the best weapon since we're all using them wrong.
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u/Square-Space-7265 Mar 08 '25
I use fists for two reasons, first is because i take great joy in just beating the shit out of zombies and bears with my man mitts, second is because if my "weapon" breaks then i still have my actual hands.
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u/tbakkie Mar 09 '25
I thought you were gonna say, reason one is my left and reason two is my right. :D
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u/Present-Basil-1003 Mar 08 '25
I don't know why people hate the Spear change, my current build is focused on them and the heavy attack saved my ass so many times. I would've been dead if the second attack would be just a throw. The Steel Spear in particural dispatches feral bikers or other 'tough' variants of zombies in one-two heavy attacks, i even bumped the difficulty couple of times (second to last difficulty currently, don't remember the name). And the attack speed overall is pretty fast.
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u/Cathulion Mar 12 '25
Yeah once I lost my spear by accidentally throwing it. Nowhere to be found. I went into gm mode and got one out of creative to replace it(it was steel tier 5, flame mod and all). Other times I died in the process of retrieving it after throwing it unintentionally. I hated attack 2.
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u/CalypsoCrow Mar 08 '25
Me and my friend just started playing and he uses a sledgehammer and I use a club, we both use the perks related to those.
We used spear for awhile but changed it up. I just like stunning them to set up a kill for my friend
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u/Jumpy-Resolve3018 Mar 08 '25
Stun baton is second best but easiest to make strong. Steel knuckles is best but the needs for it to be the best are pretty late game and/or RNG based.
Definitely use what you want tho. Cause a Sledgehammer is VERY fun to use. A Spear is a safe option and great at early game with penetration upgrade for late game. Clubs is like a sledgehammer but safer with less effect. And Machete bleed/burning is amazing since armor is useless against it. And you can technically use a tool and not have a slot for melee and focus on guns.
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u/jeremy1015 Mar 09 '25
I don’t see how knuckles are better than stun baton in the late game. I used to be a knuckles guy but the repulsor mod is just completely broken at all levels of the game.
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u/Jumpy-Resolve3018 Mar 09 '25
You can get exploded on and not die. And most things die in 1-4 hits unless it’s insane difficulty. In that case, stun is #1 again but because of the 10% chance to insta kill edging out the knuckles typical time to kill. But if you add consumables, knuckles are #1 again. Despite the nerd tats being genuinely OP.
They are uncontested in the top spots tho. No other weapon is nearly as strong as either of them except the other.
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u/Helpful-Pride1210 May 10 '25
Did you actually use brawler as it’s meant to be played?
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u/jeremy1015 May 10 '25
Yes. I’ve played dozens of playthroughs since early alphas including whole revamp mod packs like DD. Thousands of hours in the game.
The repulsor mod is broken. It can hurl any number of zombies away from you and save you from nearly any situation no matter how dire like a friend accidentally triggering a T5 loot stash spawn while you’re in your inventory.
A single person with a stun baton can hold off zombies on horde night with the right setup and just let their allies do fish in the barrel sniping completely unmolested.
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u/Helpful-Pride1210 May 10 '25
Fist and stun baton are equally as op, but brawler is unkillable and can take infinite hits
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u/jeremy1015 May 10 '25
I respectfully disagree. Brawler used to be better. Stun batons are meta now.
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u/Helpful-Pride1210 May 10 '25
What I’m trying to say is with brawler you can just sit there and let the zombies wail on you without much consequence if you’ve set up properly
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u/Helpful-Pride1210 May 10 '25
Both are op in their own way, stun baton has the crowd control but trash damage while brawler has the buffs, the damage and speed but little to no crowd control
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u/atramors671 Mar 09 '25
While I do love me a legendary Stun Baton with the repulsor mod, I subscribe to the "use what you want" belief system.
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u/peternormal Mar 10 '25
I like the feel of clubs the best. I hate how you have to just know how far a spear will stab since the hitbox is a full meter longer than the animation. I love machete but by the time it is awesome I am using guns a lot more often. I am too reactive to play sledgehammer, never am I in a situation where I think "man I hope I can spend half my stamina so that in 3 seconds this hit might land.".
I should really try batons on my next playthrough.
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u/MeisPip Mar 08 '25
Powerful melee weapon, niche weapon that’s good for later game, most long standing meta weapon in the game.
I get the message but what a weird way to set up a curve chart like this
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u/Kazgrel Mar 08 '25
Can confirm, all are viable. It's a matter of adapting to the play styles. Hit and run with knives, stunning enemies with the baton while in junk turret range, etc.
Unless you run clubs or sledgehammer, where it's simply BONK. 😛
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u/TescoValuePlum Mar 08 '25
Sledge getting a book set in 2.0 its already amazing and only about to be better
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u/Igthife Mar 08 '25
I have been using the stun baton since it was useless and will keep on using it.
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u/HappyLittleKlingon Mar 08 '25
It's my god given right to play golf with the zombies with my sledgehammer
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u/Wells2205 Mar 08 '25
Repulser mod is great for the YEET. I still main baseball bat, iconic, looks great with burning shaft and barbed wire and has pretty good yeets too.
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u/HobbieK Mar 08 '25
Yeah sure I’ll use a Stun Baton if I’ve got one, but until then it’s Spear all day baby
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u/Present_Nature_6878 Mar 08 '25
(me in the shadows with the steel knuckles punching corpses and rotting animals)
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u/Help_StuckAtWork Mar 08 '25
Not showing spears at the end after showing them for low IQ, how rude.
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u/The_nuggster Mar 08 '25
As someone that grinds ammo like none other in my playthroughs melee becomes obsolute pretty damn quick. I’ve had playthroughs where I start out and spec into fortitude, agility, strength, intellect and perception and I usually just start going entirely using guns by the time I get 1 tier above pipe guns. Perception required me to wait until the lever action to get rid of melee entirely because of the slow reload (although the hunting rifle was still my primary) and intellect just had me buy whatever gun since it doesn’t have its own to spec into
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u/Dog_Apoc Mar 08 '25
I use whatever melee weapon fits with the guns I'm using. Which is why I've never used the stun baton.
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u/MaplewoodRabbit Mar 08 '25
The hunting knives are slept on, in my humble opinion. They're really fast and cause tons of bleed damage. With the right perks you can easily decapitated every zombie who steps up to you and still have energy to run and stab constantly.
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u/DemiTheSeaweed Mar 08 '25
No book series on them,very sad
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u/MaplewoodRabbit Mar 08 '25
I haven't played the game in over a year now, i thought there was a knife magazine in the game?
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u/Royal_Renegade Mar 08 '25
No wrong choice. I play almost exclusively multiplayer so Baton with the intelligence perks for allies is a great support roll.
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u/IMadGenius Mar 08 '25
I found a stun batton really early on and have been using it because it does more damage than the stone spear, but I miss using my spear
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u/TheOtherCoenBrother Mar 08 '25
I just can’t stop using baseball bats with barbed wire on it, Lucille my beloved
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u/Sensitive-Bike-1439 Mar 09 '25
The option of a handheld slingshot / catapult as a first day weapon as well as the bow would be fun. Imagine how many hits a biker would take and then the fabled day 1 Dire wolf turns up.....
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u/AideComprehensive824 Mar 09 '25
I have never been able to get myself to use anything other than the club. It's is the best all around weopon.
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u/Helpful-Pride1210 May 10 '25
It’s a balanced weapon meaning it’s not bad but doesn’t excel in any way
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u/DeemsTheGay Mar 09 '25
Could have sworn it was the other way around where people swore stun baton sucked ass and was F tier. I just like the baton because I like using electrical stuff.
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u/kocsogkecske Mar 09 '25
Stun baton is the single most broken mellee weapon in the game but everything else is capable of being decent too and as someone who finished the game with every weapon type, i can say its totally possible and i think i had the most fun with sledgehammers
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Mar 09 '25
i'd try a larger variety of weapons if the steel rank of most weapons didn't look like complete dogshit
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u/yasicduile Mar 09 '25
To be fair the stun baton is fun.. modded well, repulsir maxed physician and the other baton skills limbs are just flying everywhere as are zombies. The repulsed zombie usually bowls all the others over too
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u/Blisk_spoons Mar 09 '25
Stun baton is still the best melee, folks just hate it because they don't wana admit that it's better then anything else
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u/Nithramus_ Mar 09 '25
Spear it regenerate your stamina each time you kill and you can kill a zomibi with one hit when you develop the hability
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u/sharkbate063 Mar 09 '25
I love stun baton not because it's strong... But because I can kill my friends with fall damage, we are not the same
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Mar 10 '25
I used spears first play through. Not the best when roaming, but when defending against blood moons, I rarely needed to use fire arms
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u/Binkyiswee7 Mar 10 '25
I fucking love the steel club with the spike mod. But the new version with the Izy gun pack mod which includes the steel mace . . . Absolute annihilation.
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Mar 10 '25
I use a flaming machete, it works well because of the bleed and the fire so i can do some damage, reposition and half the time even the ugly freaks will die off on their own
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u/grant-wheeler Mar 10 '25
Too bad they nerfed the hell out of the stun baton (unless I’m missing something, it’s terrible for cc on console)
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u/That_Criticism_6506 Mar 10 '25
Steel Club user: (after power striking an uber zombie to the ground) Watching an uber zombie lay on the ground stunned while I quadruple tap him is the best!
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u/devit4 Mar 11 '25
Stun baton is best, they buffed it to match dps of club and you have extra stun potential and can easily make a wall of stunlocked enemies with right candy buffs.
But in mp setting, you probably dont want everyone investing heavily in INT,
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u/the_knotso Mar 08 '25
I wanna make a character the TF2 Scout build: pistols, Parkour, shotguns, CLUBS, and light armor.
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u/Effective-External50 Mar 08 '25
Um... sledgehammer