Melee Combat - Not as Random as it Seems!

[kurokitten 5]

Important: Melee hits register when the weapon physically contacts an entity. The crosshairs are misleading, and have no direct impact on whether a hit will register or not.

 

This means that it's important to pay attention to a weapons attack animation, and then remember roughly where the weapon will hit on the screen. This location appears to change based on the weapon, but more testing is required. I find it much easier to determine where to swing when in first person view, but your mileage may vary. If anyone has any additional advice or information, please post it here. I will do my best to aggregate additional tips in this main post.

Edited December 19, 2013 by KuroKitten

[TIC 1050]

This is something that Rocket has said in the stream. I prefer this way better than relying on crosshairs ;)

[hogscraper 328]

Had some guy rush me with a hammer, pulled out my own hammer and after five seconds of us both swinging and missing like idiots I switched to my fists. The animation showed the hammer going through him but no hits so I wasn't sure if it worked or not. Fists definitely seem to knock out zombies better when I'm not relying on thw crosshairs.

[Lycake 33]

Yeah i know that it's supposed to work with the visual/physical model and not the crosshair, but it seems totally unrealistic and random for all melee weapons except for maybe the axes. The baseball bat for example swings quite through the middle of the screen with a good range, but hitting with in the first try seems really random...

[weparo 613]

Had some guy rush me with a hammer, pulled out my own hammer and after five seconds of us both swinging and missing like idiots I switched to my fists. The animation showed the hammer going through him but no hits so I wasn't sure if it worked or not. Fists definitely seem to knock out zombies better when I'm not relying on thw crosshairs.

 

Hammers seemed buggy to me too today, so they might actually be bugged :/