Melee builds- whats good now? (mainly for PVE)

Now that stats have perks with every 10 points of advancement what are the best known PVE builds for a melee character?

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I played for a 1000 hours and never used it. It is now my number one goto weapon. The pike with light or medium armor for dodging.

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Greatsword in medium armor. Stunlock and cleave everything.

The light finisher is a trip against humanoids. Knock them down, roll out of the way to avoid their up-attack as they recover, then repeat until dead.

For animals, keep them locked down and watch for them to posture for their uninterruptible lunge, roll to dodge that, repeat until dead.

You can easily take on multiple targets and take minimal damage, if any, as long as you are aware of your surroundings and mind your stamina bar.

For stats, I like to get 40 Str, 30+ vit, 20-25 Encumbrance, and the rest grit. If I can get to 40 Vit as well with epic armors and warpaints, then even better.

i havent tested much strength but 30 grit is a MUST for passive damage reduction. We did some test with a 2h legendary weapons and I took half the dmg as the other guys with 30 grit.

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30 Str 10 Agility 0 accuracy 30 Vitality 30 Grit 20 Encumberance and the rest in survival. For gear, Epic Cimmerian Chest, Head, Legs, and Bootsā€¦ Gloves should be Silent Legion. Use a legendary shield and whatever legendary 1 handed weapon you like. You will have over 780 armor, dragons will have a hard time knocking you down when your shield is raised. Use Feasts of Yog and Herbal Teas, they both regen stamina and health, and they stack. Go with this build, and you will solo dragons with ease.

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Iā€™d be interested to hear the specifics of the testing you did; Iā€™ve also done some testing with Iron-Hard Muscles(30 grit perk) and the damage reduction was much less then that.

Infact, when you obtain the perk you can see that your character will suddenly have 15 armor, even while naked. If you go to the stats page youā€™ll see that you now have 5% damage reduction up from 0%. So it seems to me the perk is implemented as additional armor; which is not great because of the diminishing returns of the armor stat. You may be getting 5% damage reduction while naked, but I was only receiving 1% damage reduction when in a full set of Silent Legion.

I recommend a high agility build so you can roll in heavy armor. Get to 40 agility by any means without wasting too many points. Elixirs, food and warpaints plus the legendary agility shield can give you almost 20 agi by itself. Then grit and strength up till at least 20, vit isnā€™t as important because of how ludicrous your armor will be (almost 1k in silent legion) and despite the diminishing returns on armor this gives you huge damage reduction. Finally, sink the rest into encumbrance and use weight reduction kits on all your armor, tools and weapons.

Im not sure, some testing still needs done. I know I was naked and the other player was full geared and soem reason he died with a combo and I was only half health.

ive tried them all

my fav atm is greatsword

tho im a big fan of two handed hammer and axes

i like things with cleave for pve

would love to see a two handed axe tho (>ā€™.ā€™)>

The cleave of greatsword plus BLEED? The Geneva people would be on us faster than if we walked around wearing ā€œIā€™m carrying sarin gas and land mindsā€ t-shirts!.

But by Crom would that be amazingā€¦

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It appears that there are many avenues to go about now, and minds differ along with the way they like to play. There are counters for everything, as well as enhancements for each style. I have killed a frost dragon in light armor using an ancient pike (took almost all of the weapons durability) by dodging and using the heavy combo to put a bleed on it.

Pikes/spears are great for pinpointing a certain thrall in a crowd you want to avoid, while the 2h sword can cause mass damage to groups. Shield and battleaxe are great for reflecting arrows and blocking light attacks, then hopping in with sweeping aoe strikes.

You can build to be a tank, build to be a ranged spearman, build to be a dodging dagger bearing assassin, or build to be an all out damage dealing cannon (in medium dodging or heavy tanky forms) and all will work well in the right hands.

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