Intended for facerolling Recruit and Veteran difficulties. This is the build that I primarily used to complete 250 missions on all characters in public games on Veteran difficulty. It shines in Act 1 where bosses don't show up as frequently and hordes are plentiful. Bar Room Blitz and The Diner become completely trivialized with the build. Your role in Acts 2-4 becomes vital as you provide the team with much of the early stability it needs, making difficult missions like The Handy Man and T5 much more manageable.
STRENGTHS
This melee build essentially makes you immortal as long as you are killing enemies allowing you to tank entire waves effortlessly with over 130 health at times. You can get up close to Tallboys and kill them in a few swings of your melee weapon. Your teammates will also gain health if they are near you when you are clearing hordes of regular enemies, allowing you to turn mistaken horde activations into AOE healing. The early cards enable your survivability while you pick up damage towards the middle. The final cards round out the build by improving your survivability and damage. Surplus Pouches helps you immensely on later missions with no noticeable downside. At the beginning of every round, you can drop all your non-shotgun ammo and any copper left over after buying stun guns and grenades. While using a melee weapon, you will be far less likely to accidentally shoot alarmed cars and doors or set off crows with stray bullets.
WEAKNESSES
The Ogre is the only thing you won't be meleeing, but always watch out for Sleepers at tricky angles. You should still be generating more health than you lose against hordes of Volatile, Blighted, and Charred Ridden but you should play carefully around them.
NOTES
The November patch killed Heavy Hitter, so it has been removed in favor of Weapon Scavenger to help you find and upgrade that fire axe or hatchet sooner while also providing your teammates the weapons they're after too.
SUGGESTED ALTERNATE CARDS to use until you unlock the ones you are missing
Brazen, Berserker, Breakout, Box O' Bags, Batter Up, Pyro, Killer's Instinct, Cross Trainers, Superior Cardio, Slugger, Sunder, Offensive Scavenger, Natural Sprinter, Cold Brew Coffee, Money Grubbers, Motorcycle Jacket, Grenade Pouch, Fanny Pack, Wounded Animal
CHARACTER
Evangelo and Holly are obvious but Karlee, Walker, Mom, Hoffman all feel great playing melee too. It feels a little inefficient playing as Jim or Doc but it's still passable.
If you're playing Holly exclusively, there are cards you can definitely remove like Spiky Bits, Scar Tissue, or Motorcycle Helmet, in exchange for something like Breakout, Brazen, or Berserker. I use this particular deck list because I play on all 8 characters with this build.
PRIMARY WEAPON
Any shotgun. AA-12 or the Super runs great, but there's nothing wrong with using a Tac or 870 Express instead. Get HP Ammo to stumble specials with and learn how to kill crow packs by yourself. The shotgun will be used to kill anything you don't feel comfortable meleeing, which may include the Ogre and Reeker variants.
SECONDARY WEAPON
Hatchet or Fire Axe is the best choice to be able to kill Breakers, Hags, and Tallboys quickly. You can still use a Bat or a Machete to handle hordes a bit better.
OFFENSIVE ITEM
Flashbang or Frag Grenade. Stun Breakers and Hags and then go to town on them. Kill Tallboys before you find a hatchet.
SUPPORT ITEM
Pain Meds
QUICK ITEM
Stun Gun
Team effects
