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One of the best things about Fallout 76 is how it allows players to mix up their builds at will by equipping different decks of perk cards and changing up their loadout. This serves many great purposes, such as allowing players to experiment with various aspects of the game or letting players adjust their builds on the fly to play with friends.
This is also helped by the sheer variety of builds the game offers players. Whether you want to focus on striking from a distance with a sniper rifle or throwing explosives to your heart’s content, Fallout 76 has build options for you, and some of the very best are the melee builds.
Key Info Up Front
S.P.E.C.I.A.L.:
Every melee build will want high Strength to deal as much damage with their weapons as possible. The other aspects of your build will determine where to spend the rest of your points.
Perks:
Every melee build also should use a few perk cards. These are:
- Incisor: Ignores 75% of target’s armor with melee attacks
- Blocker: Take 45% less damage from enemy melee attacks
- Martial Artist: Melee weapons weigh 60% less, and you attack 30% faster
Legendary Prefixes:
From there, the specifics of your melee build will depend on how you want to approach it and if you wish to use a one-handed or two-handed melee weapon. Regardless, there are some legendary prefixes you’ll want to keep on hand regardless:
- Bloodied
- Instigating
- Anti Armor
- Aristocrats
- Vampire
Melee Build Playstyle
Before you commit to a melee build, you’ll want to make sure that its playstyle sounds like something up your alley. Each melee build has a different way of approaching things, but they all build around two main pillars: closing the gap between you and the enemies and killing the enemies once you get there.
Closing the gap can be done by relying on buffs from items or teammates, sneaking up on enemies for stealth attacks, or being able to take the hits as you approach an enemy. Once you get up close and personal, each build will also have its tools that allow you to survive in combat and kill enemies even if they are in a large group.
This could be taking advantage of legendary prefixes like Vampire or Bloodied, killing enemies with a single swing of a two-handed weapon, or sneaking through the map to take enemies down one at a time from the shadows.
Regardless of how you’d prefer to approach melee combat, there is a build for you. Still, either way, you’ll have to make sure to come encounters carefully, account for closing the distance between each enemy, and take advantage of a specific stable of perk cards. Here’s some of my favorite Fallout 76 Melee Build Ideas.
Bloodied Two-Handed Build
Bloodied is one of the rarest legendary weapon modifiers, so to get the right weapon with the effect, you’ll likely have to grind for it by farming one to three-star legendary enemies. However, the modifier is so rare because of how powerful it is.
This enables a weapon to deal up to twice its normal damage as you lose health. With some intelligent balancing, this allows players to keep their health low to reach incredible levels of damage output, making it a perfect perk for a robust melee build.
S.P.E.C.I.A.L.
- Strength: 15
- Perception: 3
- Endurance: 4
- Charisma: 10
- Intelligence: 5
- Agility: 8
- Luck: 11
Perk Cards
Strength Perks
Your strength perks in this build focus primarily on increasing your damage by making two-handed weapons more effective and allowing you to ignore a whopping 75% of enemy armor.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Expert Slugger | 24 | 3 | Increases two-handed weapon damage by 20% |
| Incisor | 34 | 3 | Makes melee attacks ignore 75% of enemy armor |
| Martial Artist | 16 | 3 | It makes melee weapons weigh 60% less and allows you to attack with them 30% faster |
| Master Slugger | 48 | 3 | Increases two-handed weapon damage by 20% |
| Slugger | 6 | 3 | Increases two-handed weapon damage by 20% |
Perception Perks
This build can only hold one Perception perk, and the skill isn’t handy for most melee builds. So, we’ll use it to increase your damage further, even if it is only against Glowing Enemies.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Glow Sight | 33 | 3 | Deal 60% extra damage to Glowing Enemies |
Endurance Perks
Since the bloodied modifier requires you to stay around 20% healthy, you won’t want to invest in Endurance very heavily. Instead, we’ll use it to negate some of the adverse effects you would otherwise come across.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Adamantium Skeleton | 21 | 3 | You no longer take limb damage |
| Radicool | 38 | 1 | Increases your Strength up to +5 depending on your Rads |
Charisma
You may be surprised by just how high Charisma is for this build, but doing so allows us to equip perks that will buff us and debuff our enemies to help keep us on our feet and get through encounters more quickly.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Lone Wanderer | 4 | 4 | Your AP regen is increased by 30% when playing alone, and you take 20% less damage. |
| Party Boy | 24 | 3 | Triples the effects of alcohol |
| Suppressor | 40 | 1 | When you attack an enemy, their damage output decreases by 10% for 2 seconds. |
| Tenderizer | 46 | 2 | When you hit an enemy, they take 7% more damage for 7 seconds |
Intelligence
Since your Intelligence is pretty low, we’ll only use two perk cards, but we’ll put them to good use by doubling down on our Bloodied approach and keeping our weapons in good shape.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Makeshift Warrior | 9 | 2 | It makes melee weapons break 20% slower and lets you craft Tier 2 melee weapons |
| Nerd Rage! | 46 | 3 | While you are below 20% health, you deal 20% more damage, regen AP 15% faster, and gain 40 Damage Resistance. |
Agility
You could use the agility of this build to get a few different perk cards, but we’ll be using them to get action points faster as well as buffing our damage even more.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Action Boy | 2 | 3 | It makes you regenerate Action Points 45% faster |
| Adrenaline | 49 | 5 | For each kill, you get a stackable 10% increase to your damage up to 60% for 30 seconds that refreshes with each kill. |
Luck
For Luck, you’ll want to equip a variety of perks that buff your damage, help you maintain the build’s mutations, and give you a healthy chance to avoid damage.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Bloody Mess | 42 | 3 | Increases your damage by 15% and gives enemies a chance to explode upon death |
| Class Freak | 46 | 3 | Reduces the negative effects of your mutations by 75% |
| Serendipity | 5 | 3 | While you are below 30% health, you have a 45% chance to avoid damage |
| Starched Genes | 30 | 2 | It prevents you from mutating from Rads and stops RadAway from curing mutations |
Legendary Perks
Once you level up past level 50 and start unlocking Legendary Perk slots, this build will benefit primarily from three of them.
| Perk Name | Description |
| Legendary Endurance | It gives you up to +5 Endurance, and 5 Endurance Perk Points to use for Rank 5 Ironclad. |
| Collateral Damage | Enemies killed with melee damage have up to a 20% chance to explode |
| Hack and Slash | It gives your melee attacks in VATS up to a 50% chance to do area damage |
Mutations
This build also requires you to accumulate nine total mutations that help round it out, so ensure that you get all of them before you equip the Starched Genes, Perk Card.
- Adrenal Reaction: Increases your weapon damage when you have low health and decreases your maximum hit points by 50
- Bird Bones: Increases your Agility by four and slows your fall speed but lowers your Strength by four
- Carnivore: Doubles the benefits of eating meat while eliminating the chance to get a disease, but gets rid of benefits from eating plants
- Electrically Charged: Gives you a chance to shock enemies that hit you with melee but also damages you a small amount when activated.
- Marsupial: Increases carry weight by 20 and makes you jump higher, but lowers your intelligence by 4
- Scaly Skin: Increases your Damage and Energy Resistances by 50 but decrease your AP by 50
- Speed Demon: Makes you move and reload 20% faster but increases your hunger and thirst drain by 50% while moving
- Twisted Muscles: Increases melee damage by 25% and gives you a better chance to cripple limbs but decreases your gun accuracy by 50%
- Unstable Isotope: Gives you a chance to explode in radiation when hit with a melee attack but damages you as well on the activation
Equipment
The equipment for this build is relatively simple. You’ll want to get your hands on any two-handed weapon with the bloodied modifier as well as the Faster Swing Speed or Power Attack Damage or +1 Strength effects if you can manage it. For armor, you’ll want to hunt down any preferred armor set with the Unyielding Legendary modifier.
Stealth Two-Handed Build
This build is focused entirely on approaching encounters from the shadows to clear entire groups of enemies with sneak attacks and extra damage before they even get a single hit on you.
S.P.E.C.I.A.L.
- Strength: 15
- Perception: 1
- Endurance: 7
- Charisma: 6
- Intelligence: 3
- Agility: 15
- Luck: 10
Perk Cards
Strength Perks
Your Strength Perk Cards will focus primarily on increasing the damage you deal with two-handed weapons to ensure you’re taking enemies out with a single hit, as well as a bit of damage reduction just in case things don’t always go well.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Barbarian | 14 | 3 | Increases Damage Resist by four for every point of Strength |
| Blocker | 21 | 3 | Reduces the damage you take from enemy melee attacks by 45% |
| Expert Slugger | 24 | 3 | Increases your two-handed damage by 20% |
| Master Slugger | 48 | 3 | Increases your two-handed damage by 20% |
| Slugger | 6 | 3 | Increases your two-handed damage by 20% |
Perception Perks
With your perception being so low, we’ll use our one Perception Perk Card to give us a moderate boost to damage.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Glow Sight | 33 | 1 | Deal 20% extra damage to Glowing Enemies |
Endurance Perks
Your Endurance Perk Cards should be focused on keeping you safe when you do fall out of stealth since this build will have you being at lower health than others.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Adamantium Skeleton | 21 | 3 | You no longer receive limb damage |
| Fireproof | 27 | 3 | You receive 45% less damage from flame attacks and explosions |
| Radicool | 38 | 1 | Increases your strength by up to 5 depending on how much Rads you have |
Charisma Perks
You’ll only be taking two Charisma Perk Cards that we’ll use to help round out your survivability.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Field Surgeon | 15 | 2 | It makes RadAway and Stimpaks work more quickly |
| Lone Wanderer | 4 | 4 | When you play alone, you take 20% less damage and regen AP 30% faster |
Intelligence Perks
There aren’t too many Intelligence Perk Cards that fit in very well with this build, so we’ll use our one just to help us get out of sticky situations.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Nerd Rage! | 46 | 3 | When you fall below 20% health, you get 40 additional Damage Resistance and increase your AP Regen by 15% and your damage by 20% |
Agility Perks
For our Agility Perk Cards, we’ll want to make ourselves more effective at sneaking and give us some tools to recollect ourselves and get things back on our side.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Adrenaline | 49 | 5 | After each kill, you get a 10% extra damage that stacks up to 60% for a 30-second duration that resets with each kill. |
| Dodgy | 45 | 2 | Allows you to avoid 20% of the damage you take but consumes 30 AP for each hit |
| Escape Artist | 35 | 1 | Allows you to sneak to lose alerted enemies and stops running from affecting your stealth |
| Ninja | 15 | 3 | It makes your melee sneak attacks deal triple damage |
| Sneak | 20 | 3 | It makes you 75% harder to detect while sneaking |
Luck Perks
This build has decently high Luck, so we’ll use its Perk Cards to put chance on your side as much as possible.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Class Freak | 46 | 2 | Reduces the negative effects of your mutations by 50% |
| Ricochet | 38 | 3 | It gives you an 18% chance to deflect partial damage from ranged enemies back to them. |
| Serendipity | 5 | 3 | When you fall below 30% health, you get a 45% chance to avoid damage |
| Starched Genes | 30 | 2 | It prevents you from mutating from rads and stops RadAway from removing your current mutations. |
Legendary Perks
Once you get your hands on some Legendary Perk slots, you can go with just about any available, but you may want to consider the following significantly:
| Perk Name | Description |
| Master Infiltrator | Allows you to hack terminals and lockpick locks automatically |
| Collateral Damage | Enemies killed with melee damage have up to a 20% chance to explode |
| Hack and Slash | It gives your melee attacks in VATS up to a 50% chance to do area damage |
Mutations
You’ll also want to get your hands on some mutations for this build, so make sure you don’t take the Starched Genes Perk Card until you have them all.
- Adrenal Reaction: Increases your weapon damage when you have low health and decreases your maximum hit points by 50
- Carnivore: Doubles the benefits of eating meat while eliminating the chance to get a disease, but gets rid of benefits from eating plants
- Electrically Charged: Gives you a chance to shock enemies that hit you with melee but also damages you a small amount when activated
- Grounded: Increases Energy Resistance by 100 and decreases the damage from energy guns by 10%.
- Marsupial: Increases carry weight by 20 and makes you jump higher, but lowers your intelligence by 4
- Scaly Skin: Increases your Damage and Energy Resistances by 50 but decrease your AP by 50
- Speed Demon: Makes you move and reload 20% faster but increases your hunger and thirst drain by 50% while moving
- Twisted Muscles: Increases melee damage by 25% and gives you a better chance to cripple limbs but decreases your gun accuracy by 50%
- Unstable Isotope: Gives you a chance to explode in radiation when hit with a melee attack but damages you as well on the activation
Equipment
For weapons, you’ll want to take anything two-handed, but the strongest options for this build are going to be the Super Sledge, Grognak Axe, Fire Axe, or the Sledge. Any of these can be kitted out to your preferences, but you’ll want to consider buffing their Power Attack, your Strength, or getting the Bloodied modifier on them to help out when you start getting hit.
For armor, you’ll want to get your hands on the Chinese Stealth Armor when you can.
Vampire One-Handed Build
This build is one of the most powerful melees builds in Fallout 76, but it also requires concrete equipment, Legendary Perk usage, and mutations to make it reach its full potential.
If you’re looking for a great one-handed melee build or a build that gets you as close as you can to immortality, this is the one you’ve been waiting for.
S.P.E.C.I.A.L.
- Strength: 15
- Perception: 1
- Endurance: 14
- Charisma: 4
- Intelligence: 5
- Agility: 11
- Luck: 6
Perk Cards
Strength Perks
This build is all about keeping you on your feet, so these Perk Cards will focus on reducing the damage you take with some damage buffs sprinkled in.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Barbarian | 14 | 3 | It makes every point of Strength give you +4 Damage Resistance |
| Blocker | 21 | 3 | Reduces the damage you take from melee attacks by 45% |
| Gladiator | 2 | 3 | It makes your one-handed weapons deal 20% more damage |
| Incisor | 34 | 3 | It makes your melee attacks ignore 75% of enemy armor |
| Martial Artist | 16 | 3 | Decreases melee weapon weight by 60% and lets you swing them 30% faster |
Perception Perks
Your Perception Perk Card will start rank one, but once you get to your Legendary Perks, you’ll put some points into Perception to increase it up to rank 3, which is explained below.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Glow Sight | 33 | 1/3 | Deal 20%/60% extra damage to Glowing Enemies |
Endurance Perks
Endurance also plays a significant role in this build to help keep you on your feet and is one of the most critical sections of your Perk Cards.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Adamantium Skeleton | 21 | 3 | It prevents you from taking any limb damage |
| Fireproof | 27 | 3 | Reduces the damage you take from fire attacks and explosions by 45% |
| Ghoulish | 36 | 3 | Makes Radiation restore more of your lost Health |
| Lifegiver | 50 | 4 | Increases your maximum health by 45 |
| Radicool | 38 | 1 | Increases your Strength by up to 5 depending on your Rads |
Charisma Perks
Since this build has pretty low Charisma, we’ll only be grabbing two Perk Cards that we’ll use to make it work a bit better when playing with friends and to increase your damage output.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Strange in Numbers | 42 | 1 | Increases the benefits of your mutations by 25% if you have mutated teammates |
| Tenderizer | 46 | 3 | Increases the damage enemies take by 10% for 10 seconds after you hit them |
Intelligence Perks
Like the other builds here, we’ll be using your Intelligence to keep your weapons in good shape as well as buffing you up when your health drops low.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Makeshift Warrior | 9 | 2 | It makes melee weapons break 20% slower and lets you craft Tier 2 melee weapons |
| Nerd Rage! | 46 | 3 | When you fall below 20% health, you get 40 more Damage Resistance, deal 20% more damage, and regenerate AP 15% faster. |
Agility
With the moderate Agility of this build, we’ll be able to take five Perk Cards that buff you overall and give you the option to use sneaking to reach targets before they see you.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Adrenaline | 49 | 1 | Increase your damage by 6% for 30 seconds after each kill that can stack up to 36%. The duration refreshes with each kill. |
| Escape Artist | 35 | 1 | Allows you to sneak to lose enemies and stops running from affecting your stealth |
| Ninja | 15 | 3 | Makes melee sneak attacks deal triple damage |
| Sneak | 20 | 3 | It makes it 75% harder for enemies to detect you while you’re sneaking |
| White Knight | 39 | 3 | It makes your armor lose durability 60% slower and makes it cheaper to repair |
Luck
The other two builds we’ve looked at so far took advantage of Luck Perk Cards very well, and this build utilizes some of the same cards.
| Perk Name | Level Required | Rank | Description |
| Bloody Mess | 42 | 3 | Increases damage by 15% and gives enemies the chance to explode in viscera upon death |
| Class Freak | 46 | 3 | Reduces the impact of your negative mutation effects by 75% |
| Ricochet | 38 | 3 | It gives you an 18% chance to reflect some damage from ranged attacks at enemies. |
| Serendipity | 5 | 3 | When you fall below 30% health, you get a 45% chance to ignore damage |
| Starched Genes | 30 | 2 | It stops you from mutating and keeps RadAway from removing mutations |
Legendary perks
This build relies a bit more heavily on Legendary Perks to completely round it out, so you’ll have to get to a high enough level to unlock six Legendary Perk slots to finish it.
| Perk Name | Description |
| Legendary Luck | Get this perk to invest five extra points into your Luck |
| Legendary Agility | Get this perk to get five extra points. Move three of them to Luck and the other two to boost Glow Sight to rank 3 |
| Legendary Strength | Keep all five points in Strength to maximize your melee damage |
| Funky Duds | Get to rank two to negate poison damage |
| Exploding Palm | Get this to make enemies have a chance to explorde and deal damage when killed with melee attacks |
| Hack and Slash | It gives you a chance for melee attacks in VATS to deal area of effect damage |
Mutations
This build also requires the intelligent use of mutations to buff your build. You’ll need 11 in total, so make sure you don’t equip Starched Genes until you’ve got them all set up.
- Adrenal Reaction: Increases your weapon damage when you have low health and decreases your maximum hit points by 50
- Carnivore: Doubles the benefits of eating meat while eliminating the chance to get a disease, but gets rid of benefits from eating plants
- EggHead: Increases your Intelligence by six and decreases your Strength and Endurance by 3
- Grounded: Increases Energy Resistance by 100 and decreases the damage from energy guns by 10%
- Healing Factor: Regenerates your health three times as fast when you aren’t in combat but decreases the effect of chems by 55%
- Marsupial: Increases carry weight by 20 and makes you jump higher, but lowers your intelligence by 4
- Scaly Skin: Increases your Damage and Energy Resistances by 50 but decrease your AP by 50
- Speed Demon: Makes you move and reload 20% faster but increases your hunger and thirst drain by 50% while moving
- Twisted Muscles: Increases melee damage by 25% and gives you a better chance to cripple limbs but decreases your gun accuracy by 50%
- Unstable Isotope: Gives you a chance to explode in radiation when hit with a melee attack but damages you as well on the activation
Equipment
For your equipment, you’ll want to make sure you use a one-handed weapon with Vampire and Swing Speed modifiers. Since one-handed melee weapons don’t deal as much damage as most guns or two-handed weapons, this will allow you to attack quickly and keep healing yourself with each hit.
You’ll likely have to grind for it, but the Plasma Cutter is the best weapon you should set your sights on getting. For armor, you’ll want to use anything with Unyielding during your playthrough, but for endgame, you’ll need to find yourself a complete set of Unyielding Secret Service Armor.
FAQs
Question: Which of this melee builds is the best?
Answer: All three of these builds are entirely viable for play, so it is essentially a decision based on your preferences and playstyle. However, the stealth build is extremely strong, especially since it keeps you out of harm’s way.
Question: What is the best power armor for melee in Fallout 76?
Answer: Both the Bloodied and Vampire build above can easily be adapted with power armor. If you wish to do so, you’ll want to get yourself a set of T-51 Power Armor to make sure you are as deadly as possible.
Question: Do any of these builds work as unarmed builds?
Answer: The Vampire build can be easily converted into an unarmed build by swapping out the Gladiator perk for Iron Fist. However, if you are looking for an unarmed build, I recommend seeking out a specific one rather than adapting a one-handed or two-handed build.
Conclusion
Melee can be a lot of fun in Fallout 76, as getting up close and personal to slice through mutants is always a good time. However, running a successful build with melee takes a deep understanding of enemies and the game’s mechanics as they naturally put you in a challenging position.
Of course, you can always modify these builds however you wish, or you can always use them as inspiration to build your own, but if you want to tackle endgame content, you’ll want to do plenty of research to prepare yourself.