- Melee Attack (Fists / Weapon Smash)

Learn how to effectively use Duke Nukem Forever's melee attacks, both fists and weapon smashes. Get tips for campaign and multiplayer, and understand enemy weaknesses.

Alright, let's talk about getting up close and personal in Duke Nukem Forever. We're diving into the Melee Attack, which covers both your trusty fists and those sweet weapon smashes. This is your bread-and-butter attack early on, especially in levels like 'The Duke Cave', and it gets a serious power-up when you pop some Steroids.

Campaign Melee Breakdown:

• Damage: On Easy, you're looking at 50 damage per hit. Normal drops it to 40, Hard to 30, and on the toughest 'Damn I'm Good' (DiG) difficulty, it's only 20. But if you're juiced up on Steroids? That jumps to a massive 160 on Easy, down to 64 on DiG.
• Cooldown: Your fists have a quick average cooldown of about 0.84 seconds, so you can string hits together pretty fast.
• Advantages: The best part? It never needs ammo!
• Drawbacks: On higher difficulties, the raw damage isn't huge, and you've gotta watch out because a lot of enemies have their own nasty melee attacks.

Campaign Combat Tips:

• Watch out for grapplers: Try to steer clear of enemies like Pregnators and Berserk Pigcops that can grab you. Getting caught means you're in for a bad time.
• RPG Pigcops: These guys are surprisingly weak to melee. If you can dodge their rockets and get in close, you can bash them down pretty easily.
• Enforcers: They hit hard with their own melee, but they're slow. The trick here is to circle-strafe around them while you're pounding away. If you see one winding up, don't be afraid to back off and reset.
• Duke Bots: These slowpokes are easy targets. Just get behind them and wail on them with melee attacks.
• Expander Enemies: Melee is super effective against anything hit by the Expander. Get right up in their face; they won't be able to counter-attack effectively.

Multiplayer Melee Mayhem:

• A solid melee hit is usually a one-hit kill in multiplayer, *unless* your opponent has chugged Beer or popped Steroids.
• If you've got Steroids active, your melee hit is guaranteed to be a kill, no matter what. That extra damage is no joke!

First Appearance:

• You'll first get access to melee in the Campaign mission 'The Duke Cave'.
• It also shows up in the 'Rude Awakening' DLC.