Last Updated on by Samuel Franklin
This Fallout New Vegas (FNV) best melee weapon guide details the strongest options to take players across the Mojave Wasteland. Including weapon availability, location and strength requirements this is your roadmap to melee build playthroughs.
Table of Contents:
– Best Melee Weapon Factors
– Best Melee Weapon Summary Table
Specific Melee Weapons:
Chance’s Knife – Blood Nap – Knock Knock – Oh, Baby! – Chainsaw (GRA) – Protonic Inversal Axe – Gehenna – Thermic Lance
Fallout New Vegas Best Melee Weapon Factors
While damage is an obvious factor when selecting a melee weapon there are other factors for the FNV best melee weapons.
- Damage: Damage is a factor of attack speed, critical chance multiplier and the available perks for specific melee weapon types. Combined these determine your overall potential damage per attack which will change your playstyle from hard hitting single strikes to rapid lower damage attacks.
- Ease of Acquisition: Weapons that are easy to acquire relative to the power level are valuable to your story progression and a major factor in the melee weapon recommendations below.
- Utility: Includes bonus damage against a particular enemy type, the ability to conceal the weapon for quests or roleplaying, special attack types and overall V.A.T.S. cost. Special attacks for weapons are unlocked in V.A.T.S at a melee skill of 50 although can be used outside of V.A.T.S. prior to this.
Fallout New Vegas Best Melee Weapon Summary Table
| Weapon | Location | Weapon Requirements | Weapon Statistics |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chance’s Knife | North of Goodsprings (starting tutorial location) | 50 melee weapons skill and 3 strength | 22 damage and bonus critical chance effect |
| Blood Nap | Following The Launch quest in the Lonesome Road DLC | 50 melee weapons skill and 4 strength | 30 damage, bonus critical chance/damage and +10 sneak |
| Knock Knock | Camp Searchlight Fire Station | 75 melee weapons skill and 5 strength | 66 damage |
| Oh, Baby! | Charleston Cave | 100 melee weapons skill and 8 strength | 80 damage |
| Chainsaw (GRA) | Gun Runner’s Arsenal merchants (multiple) | 75 melee weapons skill and 7 strength | 80 damage (no mods), 95 damage (all mods) and ignores damage resistance/threshold |
| Protonic Inversal Axe | Old World Blues DLC (various locations) | 55 melee weapons skill and 5 strength | 58 damage, +50 damage to robots and +20 damage against power armour |
| Gehenna | Gun Runner’s Arsenal merchant (Vendortron) | 75 melee weapons skill and 6 strength | 42 damage |
| Thermic Lance | Various locations (refer below) | 100 melee weapons skill and 7 strength | 100 damage and ignores damage resistance/threshold |
Chance’s Knife
Location: North of Goodsprings (starting tutorial location)
Weapon Requirements: 50 melee weapons skill and 3 strength
Weapon Statistics: 22 damage and bonus critical chance effect
Located north of your starting tutorial location (Goodsprings) visit the tribal village where you can find the grave of Chance who was a powerful Great Khans member to obtain this weapon.
Chance’s Knife is one of the best melee weapons available as it is easy to obtain at the start of your adventure for the significant power it provides. With the right perk choice as you level up Chance’s Knife can even be your main weapon until your choice of Fallout New Vegas ending. Designed as an improved variant of the combat knife it can maintain its power through the Cowboy (+25% damage) and Grunt (+25% damage, Honest Hearts only) perks. Chance’s Knife also has a bonus critical chance effect and can be concealed for opportunities in storyline quests or for pure roleplaying reasons.
Blood Nap
Location: Following The Launch quest in the Lonesome Road DLC
Weapon Requirements: 50 melee weapons skill and 4 strength
Weapon Statistics: 30 damage, bonus critical chance/damage and +10 sneak
Available after players complete The Launch quest in The Lonesome Road DLC you will find this in a street lamp to the left of where you leave this quest area (Courier’s Mile).
The Blood Nap is only acquired after you have completed a significant part of your story which makes it an endgame melee weapon. With Lonesome Road intended as a pinnacle piece of content you unfortunately won’t have many adventures left to use this unique melee weapon which is based on the Bowie Knife. This weapon has a high base damage value and boosts to critical chance/damage on the weapon which allow it to reach the highest DPS values of the melee weapon archetype.
Knock Knock
Location: Camp Searchlight Fire Station
Weapon Requirements: 75 melee weapons skill and 5 strength
Weapon Statistics: 66 damage
Located in the Camp Searchlight Fire Station players can use the key from Logan to visit the upstairs bathroom stalls where this unique fire axe sits next to a skeleton in one of the cubicles.
While not the strongest in terms of raw damage it is one of the few two handed weapons available during your adventure with this unique variant adding an additional 20% damage compared to the normal fire axe weapon. The large nature of this weapon also means that it has the Mauler special attack for the potential knock down chance that is a useful melee attack utility against all enemy types. As a large weapon the Knock Knock has low attack speed and critical modifier so your focus will be on powerful single hits rather than rapid attacks.
Oh, Baby!
Location: Charleston Cave
Weapon Requirements: 100 melee weapons skill and 8 strength
Weapon Statistics: 80 damage
Available from Charleston Cave this is another melee weapon players can obtain at any time for your Fallout New Vegas adventure. It’s significantly easier to locate by starting the Guess Who I Saw Today quest as this will load a Nightkin NPC next to the item although the weapon appears in the open section of the cave regardless.
This two handed weapon is focused on large single hit values with a high strength requirement to use it effectively. Based on the super sledge weapon variant that Super Mutants use players can now serve them a taste of their own medicine with this slow but deliberate melee weapon. The lack of speed on this weapon stops it from being a meta late game weapon option and it also degrades quickly which can be annoying to constantly repair.
Chainsaw (GRA)
Location: Gun Runner’s Arsenal merchants (multiple)
Weapon Requirements: 75 melee weapons skill and 7 strength
Weapon Statistics: 80 damage (no mods), 95 damage (all mods) and ignores damage resistance/threshold
Available from several merchants with the Gun Runner’s Arsenal (GRA) addon installed this New Vegas weapon is surprisingly powerful for a NPC purchased weapon. This availability includes Vendortron at Gun Runners, the arms merchant at the 188 Trading Post and Cliff Briscoe at the Dino Bite Gift Shop.
While this weapon does exist in the base Fallout New Vegas game and is still effective it recieves a significant boost from the GRA DLC due to the addition of 3 mods that players can install. These modifications decrease the weight, boost the damage and improve the maximum durability for the weapon. The Chainsaw also has the ability to avoid damage resistance and damage threshold that ensure it remains deadly against heavily armoured enemies and a potential backup to your main weapon for particular enemy encounters.
Protonic Inversal Axe
Location: Old World Blues DLC (various locations)
Weapon Requirements: 55 melee weapons skill and 5 strength
Weapon Statistics: 58 damage, +50 damage to robots and +20 damage against power armour
Added in Old World Blues there are multiple locations where you can find this weapon including The Cuckoo’s Nest, Big MT and the X-13 research facility.
While the Protonic Inversal Axe lacks the raw damage of other large two handed weapons it has the benefit of bonus damage against robots and power armour which are common encounters in certain areas of New Vegas. Like the GRA Chainsaw above this makes it an ideal backup weapon for these locations alongside your primary melee weapon. The large durability is also particularly useful if you forget to repair it and the unique purple aesthetic is unlike anything else in Fallout New Vegas.
Gehenna
Location: Gun Runner’s Arsenal merchant (Vendortron)
Weapon Requirements: 75 melee weapons skill and 6 strength
Weapon Statistics: 42 damage
Another Gun Runner’s Arsenal (GRA) weapon this is acquired from the Vendortron which makes it easy to acquire.
This flame based weapon is an upgraded version of the unique Shishkebab that can be further buffed with the Pyromaniac perk from level 12. With this perk in hand players can create a niche fire weapon based character by using the Shishkebab initially and then upgrading to the Gehenna when available.
Thermic Lance
Location: Various locations (refer below)
Weapon Requirements: 100 melee weapons skill and 7 strength
Weapon Statistics: 100 damage and ignores damage resistance/threshold
A difficult to acquire weapon players will have to hunt for from various merchants or enemies. A full list is available on the New Vegas wiki with none being a guaranteed location.
The Thermic Lance is a melee weapon that has massive base damage in return for this hunt though and has ignore damage resistance/threshold similar to the Chainsaw. The Thermic Lance also has an insane amount of durability so repairs are rare even when using this weapon constantly to progress the story. If you can get your hands on one or don’t mind the hunting challenge this is a worthy addition to your core equipment for a melee build.
