and how is it?
i went from the power sword to the devil claw but i’m looking for a change now. does the shovel do anything better than either of them? i want a more horde-focused melee weapon but still something that can be good/decent against specials and elites in a pinch.
It’s good, probably my favorite melee weapon on Vet. I use it in multiple auric damnation ready builds, it’s a great weapon to pair up with Plasma Gun and Bolter. My shovel has the dodge limit of 6 and the best dodge distance among all of my weapons i use on auric, it’s best melee weapon for survivability. Since Vet goes down in two hits on auric nowadays, it’s important to have more defense in your build.
Shovel is similar to Catachan sword in a sense that it’s not the biggest damage dealer, but it has good defensive stats. It controls the horde really well even without cleave blessings which other melee weapons need for crowd control. Unlike Power Sword where enemies might hit you through its swings if there are a lot of them (unless you have brutal momentum), Shovel seems to have innate stats that staggers normal enemies a lot even without additional blessings for it. I’m not a stat nerd so I don’t know how true it is, though.
Decimator and Uncanny Strike are best blessings for it in my experience, you use Uncanny Strike to kill melee scabs with flak armor which got mixed in a horde. I tried stacking more damage putting Take a Swing and other blessings, but Uncanny Strike just feels the best in the field. Honestly, don’t bother with other blessings, I think Decimator and Uncanny Strike are best in slot by a mile. Other blessings need rework terribly.
Also don’t bother using heavy strikes, just spam light attacks and push enemies if there a lot of them. If I remember correctly, the special attack is good against Ragers, it staggers them and pushes them back. Though I personally try to stay away from Ragers in melee and shoot/grenade them. You can also try to melee weakspot of Crusher with a shovel that has Uncanny Strike, since it does rending to them, but fighting crushers in melee is stupid and pointless for Vet.
yeah shovel is one of my favorites. it has 6 dodges, the most in the game now, and even into fatigued -4/-5 dodges it is still able to zip away from most attacks. it has that poke stagger attack like the antax, working on all elites in all situations and the mutant. the blessings it has carry it harder than most, despite the boring expected uncanny/decimator loadout. I tried all combinations of things incorporating Take a Swing but it just isn’t very impressive. even the push attacks aren’t that great anymore vs just spamming with rending/melee tree boost and decimator. but it does work pretty well.
the stagger blessings would be a lot better if they didn’t need to be applied first, like everywhere else. this would probably make the shovel easier to use at the cost of its potentially middling damage output on an optimal setup. it is pretty annoying how you need stagger accumulation to thwart ragers with the heavies despite hitting a couple.
Underwhelming in terms of damage output, but it has good survivability and a nice heavy swing combo.
If you want something more horde focused then shovel is your best bet though it won’t outperform Catachan. It’s just easier. Feels really bad vs Crushers (at least can chain stagger them with special attack even on bodyshots) especially if you aren’t melee specced though completely passable at the very least against everything else.
I’m assuming you are a ranger veteran? If so I’d recommend a bleed stack dagger. It’s surprisingly ok horde clear, but mainly it’s incredibly safe. Tears up all the specials quickly without being melee specced. Does good damage vs anything really. Also lets you stay behind to kill the special waves that try to back**** everyone and catch up very easily.
I am very biased towards any weapon that let’s me move faster though. Anything that isn’t a MK IV Duelling Sword, or a dagger is low tier in my mind so take my opinion with a huge grain of salt.
I keep trying different melee weapons, albeit on regular t5. Keep going back to the Antax 5 though 
I’d like to like the old ‘Jackie Chan’, but I like the tempo you get from the basic light attacks on the Antax, it is quite satisfying.
Knife all the way on a zealot though. The speed is incredible. Might try it on Vet again…
Shovel is amazing. Extremely versatile, very fast heavies, good blessings and easy to use. Just dont expect to be dealing crazy damage numbers. It does tend to deal pretty poor damage towards bosses especially so i recommend pairing it with a pretty powerful ranged weapon. It also has great impact and can interrupt most enemies (even ragers) with it’s special
so, i tried the knife bleed vet build a little while back and it was the first time anyone actually told me how bad i was… and i didn’t disagree lol
i’m just looking for something to fall back on when my bolter is out of ammo. i know the bolter isn’t the best right now but i still like it the most and i just want a melee weapon to clear hordes and get me out of tight situation alive.
Getting you out of tight situations is literally what a dagger is for. Longest distance dodge, low stam cost pushes, the best sprint speed + cost modifier, and the heavy spam + sprint movetech for zooming around the map.
You’ve probably gotten better at the game since that mean comment anyways.
If you change your mind here’s a screenie + info below otherwise I agree that shovel is a nice and safe option and that’s probably your go to:
Swing at head level despite what it says on Lacerate. You’ll get plenty of bodyshots because of arms blocking the head or staggers moving them out of the headshots.
2-3 swipes tops on any trash mob, and they’re dead.
Heavy attack one shots any special to the head other than mutant (which takes 2-3 depending on crits), and trapper for some reason, but trappers are safer to kill at ranged anyways.
Still does good damage to crushers at around 630 ish headshot damage without being melee spec at all. Some argue for uncanny strike, but I find the bleed stack is actually still better for ranger veteran.
If you are an actual melee build then the dagger is different. You will need uncanny strike, mercy killer, and the Serrated blade passive on the talent tree.
Perks are w/e. I get crit if possible for better rng on the flesh tearer, and if I could I’d pick up carapace instead of unyielding, but if I was specializing in horde killing then flak armour.
Unyielding is not bad though. If I don’t feel like wasting ammo on a boss that seems to be under control I can pitch in decent damage still.
idk, i just find the range of the knife to be garbage lol i like strafing around a lot and it constantly put me out of range for heavy attacks which makes it useless for me lol i like the idea of it but not being able to land consistently makes it both not effective and not fun…
Shovel is a very strong defensive tool with good stamina and (for some reason) very high dodge counts. The damage is middling but it is able to halt the advance of almost all enemies in game, including crushers.
The light attacks are fast and has respectable impact. Regular enemies can all be interrupted by it.
Heavies have decent cleave and can be used to effectively lock down enemies such as ragers, but only when alone and when theyve already been staggered. The timing is very janky though so i still dont recommend doing this in an unsafe situation.
The special is the why the shovel is the best melee for elite disruption for the vet. By default it will interrupt all enemies, including an attack rager and crushers. You dont even have to hit weak points, just point and click. The damage is mediocre, but since it is so fast you will be able to weave in certain high damaging attacks, such as the push attack, to chip away at a crusher with ease.
The damage/power blessings are all nice to have. Personally i use a shovel with all or nothing on any builds with deadshot. The impact blessings use to be extremely strong when even crushers can be thrown to the ground, but that no longer works, and im not sure if there are any important stagger breakpoints they achieve on enemies such as ragers.
it’s very good and if you have uncanny and decimator it borders on OP
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