If you’re concerned with the amount of ammo you’re wasting in Fallout 76, why not try a melee build and start busting mutants open with two-handed attacks. There are a few simple tricks you can use to make melee a lot more viable in combat — and you might even want to add some mutations to your character. The kind that don’t turn you into a fetid, shambolic corpse.
Here, I’m going to share a few tips and tricks that might just come in handy for you adventurers out there. There’s a lot of new in Fallout 76, and it isn’t always clear how everything works. For instance, if you’ve picked up the Marsupial Mutation, you can pause combat in VATs mid-jump, and instantly leap into melee range! It’s incredibly useful, and gives you way more range when you’re busy thwacking everything in site with a baseball bat.
More Fallout 76 guides on Gameranx:
- Fallout 76: 10 Things You Should Do First | Power Armor Location & More | Beginner’s Guide
- Fallout 76: How To PVP Without Becoming Wanted | Bonus PVP Modes Guide
- Fallout 76: Power Armor Frames, Core Farming & Unique Set Locations Guide
- Fallout 76: How To Join The Enclave & Get The Laser Minigun | Faction Guide
- Fallout 76: Where To Find The ‘Rose’s Syringer’ Gun | Unique Weapon Guide
- Fallout 76: Where To Find The ‘Perfect Storm’ SMG | Unique Weapon Guide
- Fallout 76: How To Find A Hazmat Suit For Perfect Radiation Protection | Location Guide
- Fallout 76: Nuke Everything With The CAMP Artillery Schematic | Best Weapons Guide
- Fallout 76: How To Never Run Out Of Healing | Aid Items Tips & Tricks
Save Ammo With These Melee Build Tips | Best Builds Guide
For a successful melee build, you’ll want to drop points into three major areas: Strength, Endurance, Agility, and Luck.
The goal of this build is to boost damage from melee weapons (replace melee weapons with hand-to-hand if that’s what you want), take less damage, do more damage to armored enemies, and improve your criticals.
- Extra Tips:
- Marsupial: Gain this high-leaping mutation, and you can leap directly into enemy range. Jump into the air, then enter VATS. While in VATS, target an enemy and you’ll zip straight to them.
- Cannibalism: This is a must-have perk. Buy it and eat all the corpses you want. Just stash some RADAWAY to fight radiation poisoning. There are no other negative effects for eating corpses.
Before diving into my recommendations, checkout these sample melee builds: 2H Melee Build, Martial Arts Melee Build.
- Strength: As you level up, aim for Slugger, Expert Slugger, and Master Slugger.
- Blocker lowers enemy melee attacks by 45%.
- Incisor causes your melee attacks to ignore 75% of enemy armor. (You absolutely need this one.)
- Perception: Expert Picklock (You only need to put enough points in to keep picklock. Swap in different cards here when necessary.)
- Endurance: Any picks here are good. More HP is always a solid choice.
- Solar Powered gives you +3 STR and END during the day.
- Charisma: If you’re solo, you absolutely want to take Lone Wanderer.
- Lone Wanderer takes 20% less damage and gain 30% AP regen when travelling alone.
- Intelligence: Keep this one low. Nerd Rage! is all you really need.
- Nerd Rage! gives you 40 Damage Resist and boosts damage / AP regen by 20% and 30% when you’re below 20% health.
- Agility: Give yourself faster AP regen with Action Boy / Girl, and consider grabbing Dodgy.
- Dodgy lets you avoid 30% of incoming damage at the cost of 30 AP.
- Luck: Lucky is one of the most important stats purely for criticals.
- Better Criticals: An obvious pick. VATS criticals do 40% more damage.
- Four Leaf Clover: Hits in VATS have a higher chance of filling your critical meter.
- Critical Savvy: Critical Hits only consume 55% of your critical meter.