In Back 4 Blood, nothing limits how you fight your way through the hordes of Ridden. However, using cards that buff your playstyle is never a bad idea. Even more so if you want to stand a chance on the harder difficulties. Having a strong melee build will allow you to swing your way to the saferoom as the frontline of your party. This guide will provide you with a set of cards that will let you hack, slash and stab your way through any obstacles.
Best Back 4 Blood Melee Build
Reflex:
- Slugger – +5 health, +10% melee stamina efficiency, +20% melee attack speed.
- Meth Head – +40% melee attack speed, +40% melee stamina efficiency, melee attacks no longer stick in tough enemies, disables aim down sights.
- Adrenaline Fueled – +100% stamina, -75% stamina regeneration, when you kill an enemy gain 10 stamina instantly and 10 additional stamina over 5 seconds.
Discipline:
- Down In Front – +10 health, while crouching you neither take nor deal friendly fire damage
- Hunker Down – while crouching, gain 10% damage resistance and 40% accuracy
- Vanguard – Melee kills grant 1 temporary health to you and nearby teammates
Brawn:
- Berserker – gain 10% melee damage, 10% melee speed and 5% move speed for each melee kill in the last 4 seconds.
- Ignore the Pain – +20% melee damage against mutations, when you deal melee damage to a mutation gain 1 temporary health and recover 3 stamina.
- Battle Lust – Melee kills heal 2 health.
- Sunder – Melee hits cause the target to take 20% increased damage for 5 seconds.
- Face Your Fears – gain 3 temporary health whenever you kill a Ridden within 2 meters.
- Durable – +15% trauma resistance, +5 health.
- Body Armor – +25% trauma resistance, -15% ammo capacity.
- Spiky Bits – +25% melee damage, +10% damage resistance while using a melee weapon, -15% ammo capacity.
Fortune
- Wounded Animal – kills while at critical health recover 1 health.
Once you have the deck set up, you need to run the right Cleaner for the job. Holly is the best Cleaner for a melee build. Not only does she provide an extra 25 stamina to the whole team but her personal perks work well with melee. Holly recovers 10 stamina every time she kills a Ridden. She also has an extra 10% damage resistance on top of whatever other cards provide.
Some cards in this build can be changed out to fit your playstyle a little better. Body Armor and Hunker Down are both optional cards that could be traded out to add in more damage resistance if needed. Ignore the Pain is a situational card that will really be used on harder difficulties where the Ridden get mutated more often.
Make sure to check out our other guides for Back 4 Blood. We have also covered how to fix common issues on PC, so check that out if you are running into any issues.
Back 4 Blood is available for PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4 and PS5.
