Melee

The revised melee system was introduced in Rundown 6, for the melee system from Rundown 1-5, see Legacy Melee.

Available Melee Weapons

• 
  Sledgehammer
• 
  Knife
• 
  Bat
• 
  Spear

Attacks

Light Attack

Left-clicking and immediately releasing will perform a light attack. Light attacks generally deal much less damage than a charged attack, but can be used much more quickly.

Charged Attack

Holding down left-click will charge up the weapon, filling the circle in the middle of the screen. Releasing the left-click any time after the weapon has begun charging will perform a charged attack. A few seconds after being fully charged, the weapon will automatically attack. A charged attack can be cancelled by pressing right-click. A charged attack does significantly more damage than a basic attack.

Shove

Right-clicking will perform a shove. Shoving does not deal damage, but will stagger most enemies and stop their attack for a short period of time. Shoving an enemy that is capable of being staggered by the shove will immediately wake it up, but other enemies will not be affected.

Players can also "Quick-Shove" by pressing whatever is bound as their "Melee", defaulted to "C". It will switch from whatever you have currently equipped outside of melee and perform a shove. When a melee weapon is equipped, it will just perform a normal shove.

Mechanics

Every melee weapon has a:

• Light/charged damage value
• Light/charged Precision Multiplier
• Light/charged Stagger Multiplier
• Light/charged Environmental Multiplier
• Light/charged Backstab Multiplier
• Light/charged Sleeping Multiplier
• Light/charged/shove Stamina Cost

A light attack will always simply use the light multipliers (and the light damage value), however, a charged attack will use a multiplier (and damage value) that varies smoothly between its light and charged values, scaling with the cube of the charge time. That is, for a given charge amount $x$ (between 0 and 1), the damage value of the hit is given by:

${\text{Damage}}=\left({\text{Charged Damage}}-{\text{Light Damage}}\right)\cdot x^{3}+{\text{Light Damage}}$

And similarly for all the other multipliers given above. E.g.:

$\text{Precision Multiplier} = \left(\text{Charged Precision Multiplier} - \text{Light Precision Multiplier}\right) \cdot x^3 + \text{Light Precision Multiplier}$

The Precision Multiplier is used when hitting an enemy's weakspot. The Stagger Multiplier is used when determining if an enemy should be staggered by the hit. The Environmental Multiplier is only used for calculating the damage done to Locks (and to Doors, though the usage there is obfuscated).

Currently, only the Knife has Backstab and Sleeping Multipliers that differ from 1. The Sleeping Multiplier is applied when hitting an enemy that is dormant (i.e. it has not been alerted, though it may be glowing or pulsing). The Backstab Multiplier is applied when hitting an enemy from behind (stacking multiplicatively with the normal Back Multiplier).

In addition, every melee weapon has a light/charged Stamina cost. Unlike damage and the multipliers above, the stamina cost of a charged attack is linearly interpolated between its light and charged value. That is:

${\text{Stamina Cost}}=\left({\text{Charged Stamina Cost}}-{\text{Light Stamina Cost}}\right)\cdot x+{\text{Light Stamina Cost}}$

However, currently every melee weapon has a light stamina cost of zero, so this simplifies to:

${\text{Stamina Cost}}={\text{Charged Stamina Cost}}\cdot x$

Additionally, each weapon has a stamina cost for shoving.

While it does not depend at all on the melee weapon used, melee weapons can also deal additional damage when used to attack an enemy from behind through the Back Multiplier.

Example Calculations

Charge required to kill a Striker with a headshot from the Sledgehammer

Since the Precision Multiplier for the Sledgehammer is always 1, we may safely ignore it, thus the damage done from a headshot with a charge of $x$ is:
${\begin{aligned}{\text{Damage to the Striker}}&={\text{Damage(Sledgehammer, x)}}\cdot {\text{Headshot Multiplier(Striker)}}\\&=\left[\left({\text{Charged Damage(Sledgehammer)}}-{\text{Light Damage(Sledgehammer)}}\right)x^{3}+{\text{Light Damage(Sledgehammer)}}\right]\cdot 3\\&=\left[\left(20-3\right)x^{3}+3\right]\cdot 3\\&=\left(17x^{3}+3\right)\cdot 3\end{aligned}}$

For the hit to exactly kill, we would need to deal 20 damage (the HP of the Striker). So:
$20=\left(17x^{3}+3\right)\cdot 3$

Solving for $x$ gives $x\approx 0.59971$. The Sledgehammer needs a charge of ~60% to kill a Striker with a headshot.

Charge required to kill a Striker with a headshot from the Spear

The damage done from a headshot with a charge of $x$ is:
${\begin{aligned}{\text{Damage to the Striker}}&={\text{Damage(Spear, x)}}\cdot {\text{Precision Multiplier(Spear, x)}}\cdot {\text{Headshot Multiplier(Striker)}}\\&=\left[\left({\text{Charged Damage(Spear)}}-{\text{Light Damage(Spear)}}\right)x^{3}+{\text{Light Damage(Spear)}}\right]\\&{\phantom {=}}\cdot \left[\left({\text{Charged Precision Multiplier(Spear)}}-{\text{Light Precision Multiplier(Spear)}}\right)x^{3}+{\text{Light Precision Multiplier(Spear)}}\right]\\&{\phantom {=}}\cdot 3\\&=\left[\left(17.5-2\right)x^{3}+2\right]\cdot \left[\left(1.5-1.3\right)x^{3}+1.3\right]\cdot 3\\&=\left(15.5x^{3}+2\right)\cdot \left(0.2x^{3}+1.3\right)\cdot 3\end{aligned}}$

For the hit to exactly kill, we would need to deal 20 damage (the HP of the Striker). So:
$20=\left(15.5x^{3}+2\right)\cdot \left(0.2x^{3}+1.3\right)\cdot 3$

Solving for $x$ gives $x\approx 0.57721$. The Spear needs a charge of ~58% to kill a Striker with a headshot.

Charge required to stagger a Giant with the Bat

The stagger damage done from a hit with a charge of $x$ is:
${\begin{aligned}{\text{Stagger Damage to the Giant}}&={\text{Damage(Bat, x)}}\cdot {\text{Stagger Multiplier(Bat, x)}}\\&=\left[\left({\text{Charged Damage(Bat)}}-{\text{Light Damage(Bat)}}\right)x^{3}+{\text{Light Damage(Bat)}}\right]\\&{\phantom {=}}\cdot \left[\left({\text{Charged Stagger Multiplier(Bat)}}-{\text{Light Stagger Multiplier(Bat)}}\right)x^{3}+{\text{Light Stagger Multiplier(Bat)}}\right]\\&=\left[\left(12-3\right)x^{3}+3\right]\cdot \left[\left(7-5\right)x^{3}+5\right]\\&=\left(9x^{3}+3\right)\cdot \left(2x^{3}+5\right)\end{aligned}}$

For the hit to exactly stagger, we would need to deal 40 stagger damage (the stagger HP of the Giant). So:
$40=\left(9x^{3}+3\right)\cdot \left(2x^{3}+5\right)$

Solving for $x$ gives $x\approx 0.75250$. The Bat needs a charge of ~75% to stagger a Giant.

Trivia

• Performing an attack and then repeatedly shoving (either by pressing right-click or the "Melee" button) will allow the player to shove twice in a row much more rapidly then if they did so without the attack first.
  • Previously this allowed the player to quick-shove indefinitely, but now it is limited to just two fast shoves.
• The Knife is the only melee weapon that has its Backstab Multiplier or Sleeping Multiplier vary from 1 (its charged Backstab Multiplier being 1.7 and its charged Sleeping Multiplier being 1.5).