Melee combat takes practice, but it’s worth it. Throwing weapons, in particular, can eliminate threats like the Huntsman without putting yourself at risk. If you try to melee a Huntsman and miss, you’ll likely die, but throwing a bat at it keeps you safe. This guide breaks down all five melee weapons available, ranking them based on effectiveness, cost, and strategic value.
Best Melee Weapons in R.E.P.O.
Currently, there are five melee weapons in the game. There are obvious contenders, like the sledgehammer, which is useful in some cases despite its high battery drain. But its hit cost is decent, and it stuns enemies with 150 damage. Its stun is the most precious feature because it will stun any enemy, whereas the frying pan will stun only small enemies. The small enemies are animals like the Frog and the UPC Scream.
1. The Frying Pan
The smaller enemies are easy to kill. If you have three strength in your lobby, you can simply grab and throw them into a pit. This makes the frying pan unnecessary because, by the time you have enough strength to use it effectively, you no longer need it. The frying pan isn’t cheap, either.
It has an upfront cost, requires recharging, and the recharge cost increases over time. I’d rather spend that money on upgrades. Plus, the frying pan only does 15 damage. Considering that tougher enemies have 250 health (Trudge has 500), that’s an absurd number of hits needed. Since tumbling into an enemy does the same 15 damage, the frying pan is just useless, definitely in the garbage tier.
2. The Baseball Bat
The baseball bat is the best of the cheap melee weapons. It stuns almost anything and sends enemies flying, causing them to take heavy impact damage (25 per hit). I’ve noticed that enemies hit with the bat tend to take multiple impact hits, meaning you can deal a good amount of damage indirectly. If an enemy bounces around, you can kill them in one or two hits. Since the bat is relatively cheap, it’s a great purchase.
3. The Sledgehammer
The sledgehammer is also effective. It has a damage of 150, sufficient to two-kill most baddies. Trudge however will not fall in two strikes, it’ll take four of them. Its battery drain is quite high so you need to be mindful when conserving power.
4. The Sword
The sword is somewhat superior to the frying pan but shares the same problems: initial cost, charge cost, and efficacy. Nine times out of ten, it’s on par with smashing something with a prop, but you can store it in your pocket.
But in order to engage its impact, you must swing it a specific speed. In single-player, this may be okay, but in a multiplayer game with network lag, it won’t work. I wish they’d adjust it so that melee attacks are calculated more predictably. The sword deals 50 damage, which is higher than the frying pan but still not good.
If you wanted to kill a clown, for example, it has 250 health, meaning it would take five sword hits. Clowns are predictable, you duck their beam, stab, back up, bait the kick, stab again, and repeat until they die. But using a sword costs money, not just for the purchase but also for recharges.
Because energy is scarce, wasting it on sword recharges does not justify itself. The sword, as with the frying pan, is in the garbage category, worse, but marginally so.
5. The Inflatable Hammer
One fun discovery I made while playing is the inflatable hammer combined with the roll drone. The inflatable hammer is very light, and the roll drone pulls items toward you. Normally, this function is useless, but in this case, it turns the hammer into an autonomous defense weapon.
If you let go of it, it will flail around and potentially hit enemies near you. The hammer has a chance to explode for 250 damage, killing everything but a Trudge. Since it doesn’t use much battery, this combo is surprisingly effective.
How to Counter Hidden Enemies
Hidden enemies are particularly annoying because they can chain-grab you, but this combo counters them. If a Hidden grabs you, the hammer will automatically start attacking it. There’s a decent chance it will explode and kill the Hidden while leaving you unharmed. So, the hammer and roll drone combo is goofy but practical.
Mastering Overhead & Whip Throws
For close-range combat, overhead throws are also possible, but practice is needed. The bat, for instance, does not become inactive when throwing, so you will still be able to hit an enemy while airborne. You might also have to perform whip throws in close spaces. The trick is getting just enough speed before letting go of the weapon
Throwing Weapons: The Best Strategy
Throwing melee weapons is the best technique overall because it’s safe. Even if you miss, you don’t permanently lose the weapon, it respawns on the truck. This makes throwing an amazing strategy, even though it takes skill.
Other Melee Techniques
There are also basic melee techniques like un-sheathing (quickly taking the weapon out of your inventory to attack), sprinting attacks, and the walk-forward poke. You need to choose the right method depending on the situation.
How to Practice Melee Combat
If you want to practice, you can use Thunderstore to get the item spawner and god mode mods. There’s no monster spawner mod yet, but you can manually spawn enemies by ending an extraction. Practicing in a controlled environment will help you improve without high risk.
The Best Melee Techniques
The optimal melee methods are un-sheathing for fast attacks, which enables rapid and accurate attacks, and overhead and whip throws, which are safer attack options through maintaining distance from the enemy. The bat is great at stunning enemies and delivering extra impact damage, thus it is a trustworthy and inexpensive option.
As for brute force, the sledgehammer takes the crown, doing tremendous damage and taking out the majority of foes in a mere three hits. Finally, the inflatable hammer and roll drone combo brings a very unconventional method to crowd control that does wonders against Hidden, especially, since the automated hammer is constantly hitting and likely killing off foes with its blast effect.
