#AND THEYRE FASTER THAN MY MELEE ASS

[howaboutababyseagull]

i hate phighting and i hate playing phighting

[patches-of-thistle]

AN EXTREMELY UNCOMPREHENSIVE DW MELEE GUIDE (by me, with visuals)

this is mostly focused on REDUCING/NEGATING damage taken. the use you find in my info will vary; these are just my notes

CURRENTLY INCOMPLETE, WILL BE EDITED TO COMPLETION IN THE NEAR FUTURE

PREFACE SECTION

light combos! they exist; use them. hold down left click to swing up to 3 times and deal around the same amount of damage as a heavy swings; you should be doing them with most melees (exceptions are: decimator, rapier)

oh yeah, and understand the importance of range. most melees have a very small range where you can attack enemies but they cant attack you; certain weapons have it even larger, like the one im using in the gif. the list is, for those weapons that have the most reach (and as far as i know/can recall), are: - Tactical Spear - Yori - Billhook/Artisan's Hook - Decommissioned Musket depending on who you ask, the billhook will be the best on this list since it stuns on any type of hit, heavy or not

DONT STRIKE FIRST

parry first!! striking first is an easy way to instantly trade hits with the enemy which, more often than not, is a LOSING GAME for you. plus, certain enemies punish you for this kind of behavior:

enemies with cleavers and baseball bats will often approach you like this. theyre a huge pain in the ass because they can and will stun you often to receive more damage than you should; be wary of them

PARRY, DONT SHOVE

when first engaging in a fight against an enemy, parry their first hit; shoves have too much recovery and cost too much stamina to warrant safely attacking them while theyre stunned.

certain dangerous enemies will recover faster from stuns quick enough to prevent you from getting a single hit in without taking a hit back.

just parry; its extremely safe and has no recovery at all

PARRY EARLY

or, in other words, parrying before the enemy recovers. this is an extremely safe way to stunlock an enemy and whittle them down with hits inbetween

parrying early also means you have time to parry again in case you have an incoming heavy attack, as shown above. depending on how fast the enemy recovers from stun, you usually are able to land a full light combo (heavy hits take too much time to do this safely)

BACKSTABS

if you are ever hit from behind, you take increased damage and have to hear that very painful CRUNCH from their hit. unfortunately, you are not able to backstab enemies at all, so....

dont turn your back to an enemy that is ready to hit you. stun them first, either by shoving or parrying, then make a run for it

MISSED HEAVY ATTACKS

if youre ever running away from a group of enemies and one of them readies up a heavy attack, STUN THEM AND RUN FOR IT. when they use a heavy attack, they will be pushed closer to you, whether it hit you or not, and you will have the fight in your hands again if you do not do that

if youre already fast enough to dodge, just run and dont look back until youre ABSOLUTELY SURE they cant catch up, e.g. when you have 10 dogtag stacks on vagabond

HUNGER AND THIRST

you dont need to keep them topped up, but it would be BEST to, as it provides a defense and melee damage buff. if youre willing to get the rations via kills while looting, then yes, i would suggest keeping them topped up

WHEN TO SWAP TO GUNPLAY

dont solely focus on using melee for an entire playthrough! there will come a time (many times, in fact) where you cannot brute force a crowd in close range without being put in immediate danger

the answer to this is subjective, but my pick?

always have a gun at hand during waves. only use melee if its ABSOLUTELY SAFE to pick off enemies without wasting bullets. once again, every bullet counts - just dont cry over when you waste one

...

with all of that out of the way, ill move onto:

ENEMY SPECIFICS

*this will also include info for my main, vagabond sometimes. beware

GUNNERS

will be written soon

GRAPPLERS

includes the following enemies: - Rakes - Sledgehammers - Tomahawks - Construction Hammers - Skinners

enemies that can grapple will sometimes replace their attack with their signature grapple move. while they are preparing to grapple, they cannot be shoved. you will need to parry it or you will EAT it

grapples also have deceptively more range than it should, so dont try and run away from it unless youre fast enough (such as having 10 dogtags on vagabond, as i mentioned earlier)

also, you should be aware that you shouldnt shove sledgehammer enemies (and skinners) AT ALL. they recover too quick for you to hit them safely and move just fast enough to make losing them hard enough

DODGERS

includes the following enemies: - Police Batons - Brawlers/Brass Knuckle - Scissors (the one with a smiley mask)

theres two types, for some reason; luckily, one of the types has only one enemy in it: - Before/After Attack (Brawlers, Scissors) - When Hit/On Miss (Batons)

GENERALLY, you should stay calm. let them do their thing; just because they dodged doesnt mean you should chase after them. let them come back to you

however, the first one is what you should be most worried about; those enemies are extremely slippery and extremely unpredictable (especially the scissors, since they attack and move quicker). if worse comes to worst, JUST SHOVE THEM to get a reset on the timings.

batons, however, arent much of a threat; they will not dodge when they should be, instead only doing it under the conditions listed (see below)

just because they will dodge when they are hit does NOT mean you should be hitting them first still. notice how i take a hit; even though im unarmed, that is still a risk that you should NOT be taking unless you have one of the spears listed earlier on

POST-WRITING NOTE: there might actually not be two diff types of dodging enemies. just assume the first one is the only times theyll dodge

PARRIERS

includes the following enemies: - Cleavers - Baseball Bats

much like the other enemies, they will sometimes go for a parry instead of attacking. this, of course, can mean you can end up in a parry deadlock - KEEP YOUR COOL. if this happens, just shove - its faster than getting another parry out

HOWEVER. do you remember that tip i brought up earlier, of parrying early? this applies here! being able to recover before the enemy does means you can still continue your parrying flow uninterrupted

COMBOERS

includes the following enemies: - Wakizashis/Katanas - Shovels

these enemies are unique in that they can wind up for an attack that is UNPARRYABLE after two successful hits. despite appearing very similarly to enemies that can grapple, you should NOT treat them the same

do not attempt to parry them if you let them get hits, as seen below

instead, focus on SHOVING them; this is the only way to stop them from using it in the first place or even landing it

be wary of shovel enemies btw. their attacks are relentlessly fast; if you ever fail to parry their first hit, JUST SHOVE. dont attempt to stunlock them until you get it right the first time because they will land more of this glow-followup than the wakizashi enemy will

im so stupid (positive) that i want to make a guide for decaying winter on a whim because ive been having so much fun on it for enough time that i feel confident enough to share my wisdom with the void