RimWorld Melee Explained

This video explains some of the intricacies of the melee combat system and provides a few examples of what melee weapons you might choose for your pawns.

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00:16 Melee verbs
01:36 Blunt and sharp damage
04:02 Longsword
05:43 Spear
07:09 Mace
08:12 Warhammer
09:20 Monosword
10:09 Plasmasword
10:52 Zeushammer
12:00 Melee implants

[Sierrabravo]

I love these in-depth game mechanic explanations, this channel seems to expand on them to the degree no other channel does

[oknaa]

Simple, Straight to the point, timestamps ! Perfect sir !! i love it

[olly]

Glad this video is back up! I was half way through when it went down, and I was refitting some of my pawns at the time!

[DSlyde]

Its worth noting that Legendary bioferrite longswords and masterwork and legendary persona monoswords don't have any mid verbs and ONLY use the blade and edge attacks. This significantly improves DPS and consistency.

Theres a few other things that others have covered, like Melee Damage Factor, but otherwise excellent video.

[DapiroStanislav]

Where is breach axe? Uranium one wielded by ytakkin or neanderthal can oneshot any mechanoid structure without triggering explosion. Useful for harvesting infinite power nodes (400w)

[hideshisface]

While discussing melee, I believe it is important to touch on two more things.
Dodge chance and biotech dlc genes (or juggernaut serum from Anomaly, which provides the same damage bonus).

Dodge chance relies on specific bonuses from traits and roles, move %, sight % and melee skill.
Dodge is basically soft-capped at 30%, once you reach 20 in melee - and has diminishing returns after that. And it is hard capped at 50%
Nimble trait and bionics, you should be able to push it to effective ~40%.
This is one more reason why Melee Specialists are bad - melee hit chance is incredibly reliable to begin with - 80% at level 10 and 90% at level 20, and dodge chance is hard-capped - this means that most of the Melee Specialist bonuses are basically wasted for just couple % chance to hit and dodge.

So... How to make melee beastly?
Genes. And Zeushammers.
Strong Melee Damage gene - 150% melee modifier.
Zeushammer already does the most single hit damage of any melee weapon - 51 with Legendary, 45 with Masterwork.
Now, this alone is enough to one-shot any pawn, so you might think this is overkill.
It would be, if not for a blunt weapon "splash" damage. When amplified further by Strong Melee Damage gene, a Zeushammer reliably massacres most pawns in single hit.
This beats monosword because the "cleave" damage is not reliable - it is 59% chance to hit a single body part - so a monosword cutting off the arm will JUST cut off the arm and do nothing else 59% of the time.
Blunt damage on the other hand always "spills" from destroyed body part to its parent.
This makes Dirtmoles, Neanderthals and Sanguophages utter monsters in melee. I have omitted Yttakin, due to their slow healing, which I consider to be a deal-breaker for a melee pawn.

There is also one more "weapon" that is worth mentioning - Clawer Dryads. These little fellas are easy to overlook - but they deal good damage per attack, their main attacks have inherent stun built into it AND they have... 80% armour penetration - this is the highest pen except higher quality monoswords.

[ShadowKueken]

Wait, so fitting a pawn with every melee implant imaginable is useless? Now that is sad

[dalf_souls]

3:10 I don't think you're emphasising how significant this is. I've had a probably outlying instance where a pawn with strong melee wielding a legendary steel longsword has cleaved from leg, torso stomach and shoulder in 1 attack, dealing 19.7 points of damage to each body part

[jaysonp]

Thank you, I wish as the end you ranked them based on your opinion. Great video though!

[gameroxi]

3000 hours and I still learned something

[jacksonholder]

Reposting this because reupload deleted my comment: If you're on a low tech start or lack good crafters and get lucky with a jade vein on your map, try the jade club. Statwise it's somewhere between a normal - good quality steel mace (and is guaranteed to be due to clubs having no quality), is quick to craft, requires no crafting skill or tech, and can be crafted at only a crafting spot. Bonus points for style.

[patrickle]

Smooth voice! Awesome writing / explanation!

[haterhating]

Can you do a video on the specialty limbs from royalty i don't understand those at all

[Pablitto]

You forgot jade for blunt weapons aslo having 150% dmg

[zaglezigawa]

i do wish it covered what happens if a is forced to melee, what happens in that scenario? can a pawn equip both range and melee and what effects does it have?

[greentmlightedition]

Uranium mace my beloved ❤


Honorable mention: melee weapons extended baseball bat

[oknaa]

isnt there more melee weapons ? i feel like you're missing a few

[knight_lautrec_of_carim]

how long does the stun last again?

just kidding. Great vid mate!