Fallout New Vegas has a wide variety of perks and items to help you complete the game without earning a kill, and the best part is that all of them are perfectly suited to support a more aggressive play-style in a pacifist run. You don't do very much damage at all with this build, but you can restrain enemies for what feels like forever with melee knockouts, which is really good for controlling your enemies, essentially turning them into punching bags for your companions. And while YOU may believe that engaging in combat with your companions will count as a kill, this is entirely false; enemies that are killed by your companions don't seem to count as a kill (which some players will definitely find it hard to swallow).

The only thing that counts, is killing someone with your own hands. If you didn't know how you've got a particular kill is maybe you have stepped on some creepy crawlies or you're playing the buggy Dead Money DLC (everything that dies in that DLC will be counted as a kill, even if you didn't do anything). Now that I have rambled enough, let us begin.

So I basically thought I'd just write a guide detailing one of my recent build for a pacifist run in the hopes that this info might help you if you ever play the game passively (as its name states, meaning you don't go into fights) but end up with violence. What? Don't tell me that you've NEVER go guns blazing just because that one enemy won't stop shooting at you. *sigh* Well, yeah, having a low-conflict environment seems doable, but it seems impossible to avoid it completely. If you can’t avoid unnecessary fights, then bashing their brains in can knock them out of commission. Swinging your melee weapon can win an awful lot of engagements. No matter what some people say about it, there’s nothing wrong with taking a violent approach in a pacifist run.

ST - 6 + 1 (Implant)
PE - 4 + 1 (Implant)
EN - 9 + 1 (Implant)
CH - 8 + 1 (Implant)
IN - 4 + 1 (Implant)
AG - 7 + 1 (Implant)
LU - 2 + 1 (Implant) + 1 (The bear slayer, Scourge of the east, Dead man's burden, Divide survivor)

Repair/ Survival/ Unarmed

Good Natured: Grants +5 to non-combat skills.

Skilled: Grants +5 to all skill but reduce xp gained.

Once you hit Big MT you can change the selected traits above with these ones:
Built to Destroy: The 3% chance might not seem like a very reliable chance to crit, but you’ll be surprised how many crits will be going around throughout the game. The downside: it'll burn your weapon's durability, which seems not so good of a trade.

Claustrophobia: Claustrophobia is... I mean look at it. +1 to all S.P.E.C.I.A.L attributes. It's an all around great Trait that addresses a lot of your needs. The benefits of having each stat is listed below.

• Strength - STR is necessary for carrying more items.
  
  
• Perception - For speech checks.
  
  
• Endurance - No it doesn't add HP only modifies unarmed and survival skills.
  
  
• Charisma - CHA is a vastly underestimated attribute. Each point of this attribute increases the amount of damage your companions can output, which is good for the sake of killing faster (50% companion damage is nothing to scoff at).
  
  
• Intelligence - For speech checks.
  
  
• Agility - AGI dictates the amount of AP you can use in VATS, so having a high AGI will mean more attack in VATS. On a side note, attacking in VATS has a massive risk, especially when engaging in a prolonged fight - more enemies hitting you while in VATS mode will almost surely wipe you out. Also the more agility you have, the more it speed up your weapon draw animation. A weapon draw animation is the amount of time that it takes your character to throw an attack.
  
  
• Luck - Extra luck translate into extra crit chance. I know what you're thinking. The amount of points I put on this attribute is actually not good enough, but when combined with Claustrophobia, Luck Implant, Lucky Shades, Meat of Champions and the +1 SPECIAL bonus from The bear slayer/ Scourge of the east/ Dead man's burden/ Divide survivor. Your Luck can reach up to 7 points. That is 7% crit chance!

Level 2 - Light Touch
It's vital here as it increases your critical hit chance by 5% while wearing light armor. Also, taking advantage of Dr. Mobius glove's x2 crit chance multiplier makes it easy for you to achieve a high crit rate. It can constantly knockdown targets easily, so you won't have any problems dealing with them. Light Touch can also help you endure the worst of the enemy's arsenal. The second effect decreases the enemies' crit chance by -25%, and that can really help you out against enemies that have weapons with a high crit chance multiplier. To put it simply, Light Touch lets you avoid getting critically hit while allowing you to proc crits to your enemies.


Level 4 - Cannibal, Old World Gourmet, or Educated?
First though: Cannibal. It's almost self-explanatory, but I might as well justify it nonetheless. It's one of the most effective perk in the early game, not only allowing you to eat human corpses to heal, but also letting you have the option to obtain human remains from them. Human remains provide the health regen necessary for your survivability while being cheap to obtain. This really does save you on resources! Cannibal will also diminish the need for healing items, as you wouldn't need to pop them as often after a tough fight, you can simply head over to a fresh human corpse to heal.

Note that this perk has a cannibalizing animation, which is an eternity if you're trying to eat human corpses one by one. The animation lock also makes you completely defenseless while eating. Make sure your companions are present at all times—they serve as a useful diversion so that you can cannibalize in order to restore some of the health you've lost without the enemy intervening in your delicious meal.

This perk falls the later the game goes. If the game goes late, the healing from it will become less and less significant since you will have more HP due to your high level. For the late game, Cannibal will be less effective, but you'll be eating corpses to gain benefits with Meat of Champions. The idea here is that this special perk provides many of the same benefits as Claustrophobia, and then some! Through Meat of Champions, you gain +1 Strength (more inventory space), +1 Charisma (companion damage), +1 Intelligence (for speech checks) and +1 Luck (crit chance) for a duration. The earlier you acquire Meat of Champions, the better.

Secondly: Old World Gourmet. A nice cheap efficient way to help heal up. Old World Gourmet has an added benefit of snack foods healing more points. There are more than enough of those if you don't want to waste your stimpaks a lot. Cheap snack foods works like a charm and lets you keep your stims for when you really need it.

And lastly, your best friend that you will become well acquainted with as you play is the Educated perk. Each time you level up, you'll be given 2 additional skill points to invest in various skills. This can make your character more powerful and versatile, unlocking new perks and passive bonuses. So make sure you're maxing out one skill to make full use of its potential as early as possible.


Level 6 - Toughness
You need as much survival as you can because the main drawback this build has is that you actually need to be close to your target—that means you don't have the advantage of safety in close combat. This forces you to get more tankier stats so you won't explode right after going in. The Toughness perk allows you to at least get a minor DT boost, so you'll be able to deal with some of the problems early on, allowing you to survive better.


Level 8 - Toughness
If you are not tanky enough for your current situation, then Toughness should be taken with great consideration, especially if you have to be in front and act as a meat shield for your companions. In the early levels, I always tend to focus on having a strong defense that allows for a strong offense. In some fights, higher DT actually lets you be more aggressive or allows you to do something and live when you'd normally die.


Level 10 - Super Slam
The Super Slam is by far the best perk in your repertoire. So long as you're using melee or unarmed weapons, it gives you a chance to knock your target down. This can often swing a fight that was going against your favor. However, the proc chance is... uh... maybe not satisfying. Grab some attack speed perks or items and the problem is more or less solved. It greatly improves your sticking power and makes it harder for enemies to fight back, since they'll be repeatedly knocked down, allowing you to focus on the rest while your companions finish them off. Then you can go back and knock them out again just as they are about to get up.

Level 12 - Fast Metabolism
Since you'll be meleeing a lot, Fast Metabolism helps heal you and keep your health up when using stimpaks.


Level 14 - Adamantium Skeleton
For almost every build that goes into meleeing you'll want to get Adamantium Skeleton. This perk is necessary for not having to stop and fix your limbs so often.


Level 16 - Tribal Wisdom
The sister perk to Adamantium Skeleton and Cannibal. You get good limb damage reduction against insects and animals, of which there are loads of them in the wasteland. Also, it allows you to eat insects after they're defeated. And, if you are about to eat a big poison soup, the other effect works really well because you're getting like 25% poison resistance—having poison resistance is very valuable. Due to your meleeing, you will be a prime target for cazadors and radscorpions (since this build is all about face-tanking and all). Ignoring one quarter of poison damage lets you able to wade into the middle of a group of poisonous enemies. With Cardiac Arrest, it offers more poison resistance to help you stay alive and shake off poison damage.

Heave Ho! (Alternative)
If you feel you don't or won't really need the considerable increase in poison resistance you can go straight to giving that nice boost to your throwing weapons. Heave ho! lets you chuck your throwing weapons from a much safer distance, allowing you to contribute to fights while staying more firmly in the backline.


Level 18 - Paralyzing Palm
Your unarmed attacks in VATS has a chance to place an enemy in a state of paralysis for an insanely long 30 seconds, which makes it extremely effective for helping pin down enemies so your companions can rip them to shreds, though, you'll need to be conservative with your AP and get some solid AP regen items or perks to fully utilize this. However, it is not as reliable as Super Slam so treat this perk as it doesn't exist in fights. If it procs, then count yourself lucky and just put the paralysis into good use. Never rely on this perk to help you in a long fight due to its uncertainty of triggering.


Level 20 - Fight the Power!
Whenever you're fighting the NCR, Legion or BoS. You get a good critical chance boost and some much needed DT, which can serve a multitude of purposes. The +2 DT bonus means you can keep this up for a long time since there are a whole bunch of NCR troopers and Legionaries roaming around the wasteland. The 5% crit chance bonus is simply worth it against these factions.

• This synergizes well with Dr. Mobius' glove to facilitate knockdowns consecutively. Of course, if you fancy some extra crowd control, Dr. Mobius glove gives you a nice edge in this regard as pursuing NCR hit-squad or Legion assassins are instantly knocked out (crit rate is a top priority for Dr. Mobius' glove because it ends up doing insane crowd control when critting).

Level 22 - Silent Running
The perk is essential to a stealth player, it's worth picking up because it allows enemies to not detect you as easily when you stealthily run up behind them; its a bit of an advantage if you want a successful sneak attack.


Level 24 - Slayer
The more attacks we’re getting in, the higher our chances of proccing Super Slam and Paralyzing Palm. And I think this is pretty apparent, but the fatigue-inflicting weapons combined with the attack speed increase allow you to deplete the enemies' fatigue faster and turn them unconscious for a duration. This will allow you to control the pace of the fight. The amount of fatigue damage you inflict from continuous swings in melee is totally worth it. It really makes a fight a cakewalk.


Level 26 - Stonewall OR Nerd Rage!
Stonewall: This perk isn't exactly the best for damage mitigation against melee. I've come to prefer it for one simple reason: your attacks are what keep you and your buddies alive, and you can't attack when you're lying on the ground. Stonewall enables us to ignore things that would knock us down. Knockdown is a very dangerous threat to those without the Stonewall perk, and it can effectively leave you helpless as you watch your mailman beaten to death.

Nerd Rage!: Nerd Rage! is a good perk to consider in this build because, being a skinny melee frontliner, you will often take the brunt of any damage dealt in a fight. If you aren't careful, enemies can bring you down when you are at low health, which is where Nerd Rage's buff comes in handy to keep you alive. The perk activates when your health is critically low and it grants you 15 DT and 10 STR, which is quite a big buff, also boosting your tankiness, if you survive long enough to make proper use of it.

This perk can come in really handy, if you face heavy-damaging enemies and do not have a boatload of armor. The damage threshold is quite a needed boost, so any damage dealt to you while at low health is likely to be much less impactful and prevent you from dying, allowing you to run away from danger or at least recoup your health via aid items. Note: If you have enough caps to spare, you should, of course, never forget about the Intelligence implant. Purchase it early to make the Nerd Rage! available later on.


Both are good perks. It just depends on whether you want to ignore knockdowns or be tankier every time you are close to death. I usually take the Stonewall perk, but I feel like the Nerd Rage! is better most of the time.


Level 28 - Finesse
This will grant you a 5% critical hit chance, and you really need it, especially considering focusing on improving your crit rate will make Dr. Mobius glove more powerful (and that thing is powerful enough to deserve to be used regardless). The main point isn’t the damage, but the disruption from knockdown and frenzy on critical hits.

You’re still going to rely on your buddies to kill targets, so the knockdown is very welcome to help companions attack them and prevent them from doing anything. Frenzy gives you additional resources for damage and is always useful, especially when you are alone. It can buy you some precious time by making your enemies turn on each other rather than chasing you. The Dr. Mobius' glove helps make sure you and your companions are alive long enough to take out whatever comes, provided you have enough crit chance to use it.


Level 30 - Chemist
The Chemist perk will increase the duration of item effects by 100%, and it synergizes well with certain perks like Day Tripper, Fast Times, Fast Metabolism and Better Healing to achieve a ridiculous amount of item duration and allow you to stay in fights longer.


Level 32 - Anything you want
If you don’t know what you really want to pick at this level, you can choose the perks I listed below to find out exactly what perk you want best that suits your playstyle and decide which one is worth it. (Not flashy, but they deserve a mention just for making your game easier.)

Hit the Deck: Will pretty much guarantee you will receive less explosive damage, except maybe by a few of the very strongest explosive weapons.

Hand Loader: The Hand Loader perk unlocks recipes for crafting Hand Load rounds. Hand Load variants have always been more viable than standard rounds for most gun-focused players, as they are always crafted for the increased damage, which proves to be useful. If your gun-focused companions lacks in damage then Hand load rounds are the perfect fit in their inventory. Boone, Raul, Cass, and Lily are all companions that would happily benefit from the damage. Hand load rounds can work wonders against heavily armored and squishy enemies alike, and the DPS increase should not be underestimated.

Vigilant Recycler: Same as the Hand Loader perk, but for energy weapons. The perk unlocks recipes for crafting optimized variants. The additional damage from the optimized variants is very welcome. Furthermore, it is way more efficient compared to standard cells, and only gets better as the game goes on. The armor piercing also makes it easier for your EW-focused companions to remove great swathes of health of larger enemies and makes it impossible for them to get close to your companions.

This is great to use in combination with Dr. Klein's glove, which also reduces their DT, meaning the damage from optimized cells will really hurt. Optimized variants are extremely great right off the bat. No matter when you crafted them, they will always be effective. They are suited more for companions, such as Arcade and Veronica, though Lily can also find use for some of these cells. Even if her energy weapon skill isn't high enough, it is still a very powerful addition to her inventory.

Quick Draw: It speeds up the weapon drawing animation and it can be comboed with agility. Agility represents how long it takes for a weapon drawing animation to play out. The weapon will only be used when the animation is done. So maxing out your agility will make your draw/holster animation much much quicker. Draw speed generally doesn't matter unless you are playing with two-handed melee weapons or unarmed weapons; they have notably slow draw and holster speed. Quick Draw is much better to save you from sticky situations because, without it, you just sit around and get hit by everything before you begin poking your target.

Robotics Expert: This can come in handy for a stealth approach. This perk allows you to pacify robots and turrets permanently, making them non-responsive. By using this perk, you can navigate through areas without triggering the robots to attack you. If you are playing the Old World Blues DLC, the ability to permanently disable robots and turrets is invaluable. Since fighting against OWB robots is incredibly, annoyingly difficult without it.


Level 34 - Math Wrath
If you feel like your swings in VATS have been impactful throughout the game and that using it more often will be beneficial, then grab this perk. This will help cut the AP cost in VATS down to around 10% - which will then help you land some extra hits in VATS. On a side note, attacking in VATS has a massive risk especially when engaging in a prolonged fight and it has a high probability of wiping you out.

• We are going to be skipping Action Boy/Girl perk in favour of Math Wrath, because with the two ranks of Action Boy/Girl perk it'll give you a good chunk of action points and THEN using all of your AP and attacking in VATS for so long will push you further towards certain death. You are way too squishy to survive using VATS to a pack of enemies, especially at higher levels.

Level 36 - Travel Light
Makes you run faster when wearing light armor. This extra move speed is nearly crucial for close combatants, as it lets you run away from all the nasties who want to nibble you, but if you're into the whole unga bunga mentality and simply DGAF. Just walk in there like the madman you are.


Level 38 - Nerves of Steel
Low on action points? Keep yourself topped up with the Nerves of Steel to minimize downtime and maximize efficiency in combat. You'll likely notice that the frequent use of VATS in fights causes issues with your action points. You'll be using unarmed attack in VATS constantly to proc the long knock-outs of Paralyzing Palm to keep enemies under control. Nerves of Steel will keep you fueled enough to always be able to attack more in VATS when needed. As long as you are not spamming VATS at every moment possible your AP should hold out long enough for you to use it on a regular basis. Also, there would be no real need for the Action Boy/Girl perk, as you would always regen automatically to your maximum.


Level 40 - Nuka Chemist
You may want to collect Nuka-Colas from the very beginning. Why? Because you can craft them into something called Nuka-Cola Quartz, Nuka-Cola Victory, and Ice Cold Nuka-Cola. These items give you boosted stats. With only three nuka-colas needed for crafting, it's possible to make special nuka-colas that'll provide you with extra DT, AP, and health regen. Keep your eye on Nuka-cola vending machines and merchant stock to make as many as possible.


Level 42 - Ninja
One of the best perk to strengthen your melee combat, thanks to the critical chance % it provides—you'll proc critical hits more frequently. As you can probably tell, this build is all about boosting your crit rate to the absolute max. That is because we'll be using Dr. Mobius' glove. And Dr. Mobius' glove is known as the best weapon for crowd control. You know why? because of the high percentage of critical hit chance, Dr. Mobius' glove does critical hits in almost all of its hits. Since Dr. Mobius' glove has a high percentage of crit chance, it may constantly knock down and frenzy enemies, making them completely helpless to fight back, which can make a terrifying foe actually sort of cuddly.


Level 44 - Tunnel Runner
Our next choice is generally easy. You have a faster crouching speed from Travel Light and Implant M5 and the benefits of staying unnoticed and alive from Silent Running perk, adding an extra crouching speed to it is an obvious choice. It makes sneaking around a breeze.


Level 46 - Chem Resistant
Gives you a high resistance against addiction. This isn’t a must-pick option by any means, but if you ever find yourself wondering about what perk to choose, Chem Resistant will always be a solid choice.


Level 48 - Life Giver
Your biggest challenge in FONV is staying alive, so additional health is always a good thing. As is usual for all melee builds, getting close to enemies is a big risk. If enemies are more damaging this perk will do a lot, which should grant you enough survivability to not easily be killed.


Level 50 - Thought You Died
Thought you Died is your last perk. It eliminates your biggest issue, that is your lack of health points. You can swap Ain't Like That Now if you want more attack speed, but I find the extra health is helpful if you find yourself consistently in the thick of enemies or when you're making your way through heavy fire to get into melee and beat them with Dr. Mobius' glove. And IMHO, the Dr. Mobius' glove has enough attack rate to be able to proc crits without the boost from Ain't Like That Now.

Aint Like That Now (Optional)
If you are able to keep yourself alive without the health boost, then take Ain't Like That Now. It's a great perk, and it's going to synergize well with this build. You're going to be attacking a lot more than you normally would, and some perks and items are adding attack speed, so fatigue-inflicting weapons are going to be draining a lot of fatigue from your targets. Not only this perk gives you extra attack speed to frequently proc crits and knockdowns, but also effectively solves your AP issues for the rest of the game. You’re going to be able to spam VATS to your heart's content without nary a thought of AP management thanks to Nerves of Steel, Math Wrath and Ain't Like That Now.

Big Brained: Gives addiction resistance and bulk. Simple but effective.

Cardiac Arrest: Since you have the Fast Metabolism perk, the effect Cardiac Arrest gives you, increases your stims health regen. Now you have even more heal! You are all pretty much un-killable. Besides, Cardiac Arrest has an improvement that gives you poison resistance, so you're defensive AF! You can tank a swarm of Cazadores! Note that it does not negate damage from attacks, so don’t just stand in the middle of a swarm like a beekeeper.

Reinforced Spine: Gives +2 strength to your character as well as +2 damage threshold.

Coin Operator: Allows you to craft Sierra Madre chips. Why'd you want to have these chips? Because super stimpaks are easier to acquire in the sierra madre vending machine using these chips and they have many other uses as well. It can be spent on foods, ammunition or drugs for the player. Crafting one isn't easy, tho: scrap metal is fairly easy to get but fission batteries will likely be your most difficult crafting material to find, which is why you should always loot those whenever you find them.

Sierra Madre Martini: Sierra Madre Martini is a great item to have on you. It only takes 3 components and it will give you decent stats. Cloud residue is easily acquired in Dead Money DLC or in the abandoned BoS bunker. Junk foods and Tin cans are found everywhere.

Ranger Takedown: The ability to make the majority of enemies incapacitated is very important in combat. While letting your companions do the killing is a big deal and offers a huge advantage, doing so is difficult without knockdowns. This unarmed perk you learn from Ranger Andy is the best, you can instantly knockdown any NPC and they can't do anything and they will not bother you until they get up, and you can perform the technique as many times as you want.

Weapons
Don't you just hate those pesky enemies that make your life a living hell? If a particularly tough enemy manages to kick your ass, don't be shy to draw your weapons and deal with it up close and personal. You may be giving up the pretense of role-playing as a pacifist and switch into a more aggressive playstyle.

There are so many useful weapons you can pick up throughout the game that revolves around their utility rather than damage, and with a myriad of effects like unconscious and knockdowns, can give your companions more than enough time to damage enemies or you will be able to flee against them to survive. All in all, having the proper weapon is essential to survive on the battlefield.


These weapons are favored because they inflict fatigue damage, which is perfect for a pacifist playthrough. However, their attack rates are really bad since they expose you to damage. You can be easily wrecked when trying to get up close to deplete the enemy's fatigue—but if you do, the payoff is huge.

What is "Fatigue Damage"? Well, basically, Fatigue damage is how much damage you do to your target's fatigue threshold. When it's depleted, the unconscious state effect will occur. So if you are dealing 50 fatigue damage per hit and your target has a Fatigue of 450. You will need to deal fatigue damage 9 times. Upon reaching zero, your target will likely stay down on the ground for longer periods of time and gain some fatigue back. Their fatigue will recover gradually. That way you can get out of sticky situations even if you don't have much of a chance of surviving the fight itself. It can buy you a little more time to run away.

• So, what I've noticed with my testings is that each enemy has a particular level of fatigue. Feral ghouls and super mutants proportionally have substantially higher thresholds for proccing unconscious state. However, animals and insects seems to get unconscious almost immediately.

BOXING TAPE

A handy weapon that renders your enemies helpless on the ground once their fatigue has been fully depleted. However, its effect is miniscule, and it can take more than 20 hits before you deal enough fatigue damage to put enemies into an unconscious state. That's not nearly as good as Boxing gloves for depleting fatigue, but it's better than nothing, and it works just fine if you're playing through the game without killing anyone. You have this option when dealing with enemies early on.

You can literally deplete their fatigue to disable them, and they can't do anything but die. As long as your companions do their job of the killing part, AND it's arguably more fun to do because it's more of a challenge than just killing them with your own hands. You'll be able to keep a no-kill count.

BOXING GLOVES

Same as above, except much much better. The Boxing gloves for a fact works faster and inflict more fatigue damage than the boxing tape. The good thing is that you can have it from the start; the not-so-good thing is that it will take a few levels until you can use it to its full effect.

GOLDEN GLOVES

It is an excellent weapon for close-quarter engagements that will greatly reduce the enemy's fatigue to zero. Putting enemies into an unconscious state is an obvious advantage in a fight since you and your companions have a lot more chances to whack them without retaliation for a set amount of time. Since the Golden Gloves already has a high fatigue damage but a slow-hitting weapon, it's not too difficult to add in a few things like attack speed perks or items to increase it even further to put enemies into an unconscious state very quickly!

CATTLE PROD

The Cattle prod can also serve as a weapon in a close encounter situation where guns and other weapons might fail. If anything, the Cattle prod is arguably the most useful fatigue-inflicting weapon outside the Golden Gloves because it makes the fights extremely easy and it boast faster swings that is almost guaranteed to instantly proc unconsciousness on any foe! In fact, it's more useful than the Golden Gloves.



DR. MOBIUS' GLOVE

The Dr. Mobius glove is seriously great because you can just take fools down if they get too close. You can't go wrong with that. Add those crit rate-boosting perks, and you can very effectively handle crowds of enemies. The higher your critical hit chance, the more effective it is. The knockdown on critical hits is good at immobilizing the enemy and holding them in place while your companions attack them (your biggest weakness comes in the form of things that are hard to knock out, e.g. high ground range enemies). On top of that, it comes with Frenzy on critical hits. What does that mean? I'm glad you asked.

Frenzy is a great crowd control that causes the target to treat everything as an enemy, not just you or your companions, but everyone. Use this to keep enemies from attacking you. If you can't beat them, consider using their strength against them.

Getting your hands on this weapon will make surviving a little easier, especially when you get surrounded by enemies and you want to avoid their attacks when you don't have very good defenses, and it actually makes your buddies last longer on the battlefield thanks to the crit effects. You'll eventually want to increase your crit chance so that your attack is a crowd control. Overpowered? Possibly. It effectively converts your biggest weakness into a massive strength. It's definitely a powerful and a really cool support weapon worth adding to your arsenal.

DR. KLEIN'S GLOVE

While doing slightly less damage than the Dr. Mobius' glove, the Dr. Klein's glove more than makes up for it by reducing your target's STR attribute (-1 STR when you attack and -2 STR on critical hits), which is extremely helpful against melee enemies since it'll reduce their damage. Even more useful is the damage threshold reduction on critical hits: 60 seconds' worth combines very nicely with your high charisma to really help your buddies inflict as much damage as possible. And it has a x3 crit multiplier, which pretty much makes any mooks you hit are debuffed. Try to hit as many enemies as possible with it at the start of a fight.

WAR CLUB

I've been playing a zero-kill count run in the entire game, and I've found that the Cattle Prod and the Dr. Mobius glove are obviously best for non-lethal gameplay. But, the War Club is still a good "I need to knock this guy faster" emergency weapon to have around. Upgrade it with the War Club honors, so you can knockdown most enemies you've come across and quickly get out of harm’s way instead of waiting around to get hit. The War Club is not meant for massive DPS. Sure, you can upgrade it to pack a punch with the War Club casings, but its primary function is to give you the occasional breather when you get surrounded by a group of enemies.

GREASED LIGHTNING

I've never had much of a preference for this thing, but I know just how powerful it can be. The main advantage of Greased Lightning is its high attack rate. And in that regard, it's vastly superior to the War Club (even if it's fully upgraded). The Greased Lightning is surprisingly efficient for those moments when you find yourself mobbed by several enemies at once and need to punch your way out of a sticky situation.

Damage isn't that great compared to other unarmed weapons you can get, but it attacks super freaking fast, which seems to trigger Super Slam and Paralyzing Palm more often. It's virtually unrivalled in crowd control. If you choose to not use this weapon, or it is simply out of your budget, then don't buy it.

9 IRON, NEPHI'S GOLF DRIVER, SHOVEL

These are the best weapons in the hands of lower-leveled characters. They're cheap and comes with an automatic knockdown in VATS special attacks, making them a viable option if you’re looking to lock down enemies fast. But sadly, this method is hardly useful in a fight because you are not going to hit it every time in VATS mode. You should treat this more as a possibility than a guaranteed thing.

KATANA

It doesn't do as much damage to beefy enemies, but it has an incredibly high attack rate and is great at breaking limbs and faces. This addition to your inventory will make the game a breeze. The Katana is good at proccing knockdowns because of how ridiculously fast the swings are. Modifying the Katana with a balanced grip mod accelerates its attack rate. This means that every third of your attacks should be able to proc a Super Slam knockdown, and make it nearly impossible for enemies to fight back or get up—leaving them wide open for a ton of free hits!

Although the Katana does not deal a large amount of damage, it can still break enemies' limbs very quickly and interrupt their attacks! This will allow you to continue flailing like crazy and use the brief window of opportunity to attack them while they're not doing anything!

You could also modify the Katana with a protective sheath mod to increase its durability (especially good in combination with full maintenance to mitigate durability loss). Note: Do NOT modify it with the authentic blade mod. Avoid it 100%.

THROWING HATCHET / TOMAHAWK

From close-range to long-range, the throwing hatchet/tomahawk is the go-to weapon for when you need to inflict poison on your target.


Dress For Success
1st Recond Beret - This headgear is a great choice to boost your crit chance by 5%, the +1 Perception is good for speech checks.
Lucky Shades - Another popular pick up which you could use to increase your Luck.
Ulysses Duster - A good choice to add up crit chance (5%). It'll also boost your Charisma by +1.

Alternative Choices:
Elite Riot Gear - is another fine choice, providing much better protection, though less mobility. This armor also grants you 5% crit chance, which boosts your sticking power.
Courier Duster (Legion) - the AP cost can be a bit stingy, but no worries, we have an armor to fix that inconvenience.


Aid
Rushing Water
It synergizes super well with Super Slam as tons of attack speed means almost guaranteed knockdowns.

Rebound
As you’ll be using VATS in nearly every situation imaginable, the first problem you're going to run into is action points. Rebound can help you to regenerate action points between fights, keeping your downtime to a minimum.

AP Boosting Items (Jet, Rocket, Sugar Bombs etc)
You don't really need the Action Boy/Girl perk, since any situation that calls for quick boost of action points can be remedied by using chems that does just that.

Battle Brew/ Med-X/ Slasher
You will rely largely on sticking on top of a target in order to incapacitate them. This means melee enemies can be a real problem for you. The solution to this is to simply use these items. Piling the damage resistance of Med-X, Battle Brew and Slasher will make you practically unkillable.

Buffout/ Sierra Madre Martini
Using these items while at full health temporarily extends your health past your current maximum until you sustain damage. They're abundant and can be bought so you can run with extra health for most of the game.

Auto-Inject Stimpaks
Auto-inject stimpaks will keep you alive in very low HP. With auto-inject stimpaks you can keep your HP in a bad condition and keep fighting.

Silver Sting
Only against heavy hittng melee enemies. Otherwise, this item will be of little use to you. With a name like "melee enemies", one would assume this poison effect is at its best when dealing with enemies like radscorpion, feral ghouls, deathclaws etc. Those are the enemies who come to mind when one hears the term "melee enemies". While the strength reduction effect is certainly decent against them, the effect won't do anything against them. Humans, ghouls, marked men, and super mutants are usually the ones who suffer the most from the strength reduction. 

Mother Darkness
This is a great tool because it reduces the reload speed of enemies affected and it can be a life-saver if you find yourself pinned down by heavy gunfire! Sounds great, right?

Tremble
Using this poison will offer protection from attacks. Just tagging adversaries with it once can easily reduce your opponent's weapon skills for 20 seconds. This means that the damage you receive is reduced, making this an amazing tool for tanking enemies

Turbo
The brief slowed time is a key to survive in tough situations.

Raw meat (Coyote meat, Gecko meat, Radroach meat etc)
Do you ever think, "Wow, I'm killing my enemies faster. I wish my melee damage would be lowered. " Well, wait no more – just consume raw meat! These items would be great, especially for melee-pacifist builds that deal more damage because of the higher strength attribute. With your strength reduced, enemies would take less damage when you hit them with melee weapons. If you have another consumable that provides strength reduction, then the numbers will stack and you will reduce your strength even more. It cuts down almost half the damage of your melee weapons, so enemies would not die very fast if they didn't have any damage threshold.

In this build, you are focusing on disabling multiple enemies in a fight as quickly as possible. However, you have next to no ability to deal enough damage and so are dependent on a companion. If you’re not in the business of killing anything with your own hands, then the old dependable companion will do the killing for you.

Boone is an absolute monster that is capable of slicing through his targets like a hot knife through butter and he's always spot on for accuracy. Boone is the only companion that can fully utilize sniper rifles, which is a massive advantage because his attack range is nuts, and this makes him a great companion at the early levels. Boone is also extremely effective when it comes to melee. Two-handed melee weapons (Oh Baby, Old Glory, Knock Knock) are just the right tool for the job. He does have little HP at the beginning though thus you might not want to hide behind his back all the time. His Spotter perk wont do much in this build since we're meleeing. Still, if you need a long-range buddy, or if you’re trying to build a long-range party, Boone could be useful.

Highly recommended for better healing. Truly, there is no better perk for a defensive melee player. Yes, the 20% healing amplification turns you into a super regen tank and allows you to become extremely aggressive in a fight. Plus, the extra health regen from Cardiac Arrest and Fast metabolism is a pretty sweet combination with Better Healing, and nearly doubles the health regen of your stimpaks. Pretty cool, huh? For Arcade's equipment, I personally favor GRA Tri-beam laser rifles as they are just so powerful, and since Aracade's highest skill is energy weapons, a GRA Tri-beam laser rifle just suits him a bit better.

Your gears are akin to wet tissue paper. They break easily because you're participating in combat more frequently—Raul's Regular Maintenance perk can rectify this. Regular maintenance means your gear will last longer and repairing isn't necessary. Maybe when you have the Built to Destroy trait and are using a faster-hitting weapon. As you progress enough into Raul's story, you may want to choose the mechanic path, which grants you the Full Maintenance perk. It supplies you with an insane amount of item durability, which drastically increases the amount of times your armor gets hit until it breaks and keeps your weapons more effective for even longer.

Raul is a fun companion to bring to your party. He's really not the most powerful I recruited in the game, but with his high guns and repair skill, he's quite a capable guy and is good with cowboy guns, which are cool to use if you choose the gun-toting path instead of the mechanic path.

Because she kicks ass... and Guns seem much better off in her hand than Boone's or Raul's. If you lack a heavy-hitting companion, then Cass could become one. Cass is a decent companion, but mostly you will recruit her for the Whiskey Rose perk to fill your tanking needs. Every player who likes to tank in a fight usually takes a lot of damage. That’s why it is always a good idea to bring an item, such as whiskey, wasteland tequila, or large wasteland tequila. It provides some damage threshold, so you can effortlessly survive in the center of the fight without taking so much damage.

Veronica can do a good amount of damage with unarmed and energy weapons. Only the strongest enemies can survive a single hit from her. With weapons like Elijah's Advanced LAER and Ballistic Fist, she'll be able to make short work of even the toughest enemies in the game. But to truly get the most out of her, you need to upgrade her.

Causeless Rebel: While not my personal favorite, I understand the importance this perk has to Veronica. It effectively increases the attack rate of her already fearsome unarmed weapons, which is part of why Veronica is so powerful. If you give her unarmed weapons like the Ballistic Fist, Paladin Toaster, or Pushy, then she will be able to obliterate anything in a matter of seconds.

Bonds of Steel: While the Causeless Rebel is a popular choice and possibly the best option for Veronica. I find swapping out Causeless Rebel for the Bonds of Steel is my preferred way of upgrading her. With this upgrade, Veronica tends to be around much longer, but it won't make her a powerful close combatant. Sometimes, having Veronica as a ranged companion is definitely better because her high energy weapons skill means the enemy will be eliminated very rapidly in a fight. Those who want to utilize Veronica's ranged potential need to focus on things, such as Elijah's Advanced LAER, GRA Tri-beam Laser Rifle, Multiplas Rifle, and Flamer.

If you’re into a tanky companion, Lily is a must have. Lily starts out as a close combat companion with decent weapon skills. She is equipped with a default melee weapon, which is lacking in damage compared to huge sized weapons that Super Mutants typically uses. But she does insane amount of damage with the Oh Baby! tho, and has a lot of HP typical of a Super Mutant. However, her swings are the same attack style of Super Mutants thus same attack animation. This animation delay the attack, causing her swings to miss the target when they move a few feet away from her.

Lily is susceptible to push-back when fighting close-combat baddies, and it can be a big killer for her. That alone make Lily unable to be considered as a handy close-combat companion. Ranged combat will suit her better but will require slightly more work because her ew/explosives/gun skills isn’t as high as her melee weapon skill. Players looking to build her more as a ranged companion can elect for more damage with a fully modded Gatling Laser or Cz57 Avenger.

Lily's Stealth girl perk increases the duration of your stealth boys, allowing you to stay invisible indefinitely, so is almost always useful for sneak attack (the most efficient thing to be doing most of the time, and really what you spend the most time doing in this game) rather than escaping unless it's a last resort scenario.

• Since Lily's melee combat get in the way more than being helpful, and her attack animation means she won’t do much damage with them. Both Super Slam and Paralyzing Palm lets Lily stick to her target and kill it with ease.

Despite being squishy, Rex can pack a punch when it comes to dealing damage. He is highly mobile and can charge towards his target with hasted speed and can knock them to death. Rex is the best frontliner and diversion by FAR imo. All he needs is an upgrade.

Rey's Brain: Most players lean toward going for Rey's brain simply because this upgrade does exactly one thing, and Rex wants it: damage. This damage is further amplified by charisma, so Rey's brain serves as a natural extension to it, allowing for upwards of 75 damage to be dealt in each hit.

Violetta's Brain: Rex tends to have issues with melee knockbacks, and it can still be a hindrance when Rex wants to stick to the enemy as quickly as possible. The added movement speed from Violetta's brain allows him to catch up with the people he wants to kill and allows him to stick to his target quickly after being knocked back.

Lupa's Brain: This further increases Rex’s tankiness by providing him with even more damage threshold. This upgrade is great against the crowd of enemies with huge damage, negating a huge portion of it on Rex.

All of Rex's brain upgrades integrate wonderfully to make him literally the perfect frontliner.

Don't put yourself in unnecessary danger. If you are up against a group of enemies, recruit Ed-E. He'll grant you the Enhanced Sensor perk. This perk provides your compass a good amount of information about where the enemies are moving about and how many enemies are there in the area. This can be vital if you want to start to fight or avoid fights and run away from the enemies.

Ed-E's the best choice for people who want to have a strong companion to damage enemies from the start of the game. The significant disadvantage of Ed-E is that he is useless without the upgrades. During Ed-E's quest, we have to pick between the Followers and BoS upgrade. Both are very strong options and it's up to you what you prefer. I would go with the Followers upgrade for the extra attack rate and DPS paired with the fourth rank of Camarader-E to increase Ed-E's damage and make him a stronger killing machine. Ed-E with the BoS upgrade becomes a thick barrel that can soak up a lot of damage. Combined with the fifth rank of Camarader-E will make Ed-E more resistant to damage.

Camarader-E is key to increase his damage and damage threshold, the second rank of the perk allows him to produce ammo for your humanoid companions, (and obviously ammo doesnt really benefit you because, you're a melee character) and he can repair your weapons for free. If you pay attention, your weapons degrade in a faster rate. Ed-E's daily repair just ensures that durability is 100%.

• If you feel companions are lacking in damage, then you have to max out Charisma. This attribute is your bread and butter for fights. Charisma is useful if you want your companions to have huge killing potential. Maxed charisma will result in incredibly high numbers in terms of damage, this only becomes more and more powerful as the game goes on. While effective, YOU as a player have little impact on the Charisma's effect. As such, it may appear you're not doing much of anything, but you're actually powering up your companions.
  
  
• Without the presence of an ol'reliable companion, you're pretty vulnerable to enemies and earn no experience at all. Almost everything in the game gives experience when you kill it. The only thing that don’t give experience is when you don't kill your target, but enemies give experience to you when a companion kills them. Companions offers a way for players to increase their levels quickly (without the players killing their targets directly). And when you level up, your companion's health and damage increases. To put it simply, leveling up makes your companions more powerful. Note that the game uses your level to adapt the enemies strength, so your current level mostly is used against you.

Thank you for reading and please feel free to make any suggestions or criticize my build in any way and point out any mistakes I may have made.

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