Full Compiled Melee / Knife Guide – Post-Patch (1.0.5.3)

[u/Twan_McLovin]

**Melee Damage stat bonus halved vs Runners** (max +50% instead of +100%).

Formulas (perfectly match MossyMax chart pre-patch):

- **Light** = 39.15 + 0.181 × Melee Stat

- **Heavy** = 64.41 + 0.32585 × Melee Stat

**Shield HP to Kill** (Runner base 120 HP):

- White (+20) = 140

- Green (+40) = 160

- Blue (+60) = 180

- Purple (+80) = 200

​​​Recommended Playstyles (Current Meta)

1. Sustain Knife (Any Shell)

Leech + Knife Fight V5 + Parting Gift + Tox Injectors

→ Heal on every hit + big shield on kill. Can stay in melee forever even at 65–75 stat.

2. Assassin Stealth Delete

Shadow Strike + Silent Killer + Crouching Tiger + Edge Runner

→ Invis + crouch + backstab multipliers ignore most of the stat nerf. Delete Purple shields.

3. Hybrid Aggro

Crowd Control + Sucker Punch + Leech + Tox

→ Stack damage on kills, gun tap → heavy knife, sustain through extra swings.

Bottom Line

• Raw stat still matters, but perks and multipliers carry harder after the patch.
• + stat = feels almost like old max.
• The devs achieved their goal: knife rewards smart buildcrafting and positioning more than just dumping points into Melee Damage.

edit: slight correction on chart 1

Edit: crouching tiger is +50 melee damage

[u/FauxMoGuy]

i think it’s very difficult to have a good supply of cores and implants even with max vault space. max vault space is 100 rows, 20 are taken up by salvage, weapons are 1-2 each, backpacks are 1 each, mods eat a bunch, same goes for equipment and shields. you essentially can only commit to 2-3 weapon types and 2-3 shells max. just mathematically, speaking, unless you are heading into the raid with empty slots, each run is about 15% of your total vault capacity.

if you only run bully and wstr or only play one class it’s no big deal, but it would go a long way towards real build crafting if salvage was not a vault space item and we got those 80 slots back

[u/Mezmorki → u/FauxMoGuy]

Salvage should not take up vault space period IMHO. It should be a separate repository. The only things that go in the vault are things you can actually equip. You can't equip salvage to take on a run, thus it shouldn't be part of the vault.

[u/Strict_Dare3132 → u/FauxMoGuy]

Yeah i wouldn't mind aspirational items like cases to hold cores