Welcome to the Brawler Melee Build for Starfield. This is the perfect build if you want to engage in a melee playstyle in Starfield prefering to charge into close range and hit enemies with melee weapons rather than engaging at long range.
As such we will be looking out for build features that increase melee damage and our ability to get to melee range quickly and safely.
Melee Build Table of Contents:
Melee Build Background
When creating your character at the start of your Starfield playthrough, you’ll need to select a Background for your character. There are 20 Backgrounds in the game, and each one has three starting skills associated with it, allowing you to get a head start with a particular build idea. Backgrounds may also affect some dialogue options as they change how NPCs see your character.
For the Melee Build, we recommend choosing the Chef background. This will give you a head start with the following skills:
- Gastronomy – Allows your character to craft better foodstuffs, granting stronger buffs for consuming them.
- Dueling – Increases your skill and damage with melee weapons.
- Scavenging – Your character is more skilled at looting, and more likely to find rare or valuable items.
Melee Build Traits
You can choose traits to further customise the abilities of your character at the start of the game.
Most of the Traits are not especially powerful and are more for roleplaying purposes. However one that is strong is the Wanted trait, which will give you a bonus to damage output when you are at low health. However, this trait also causes mercenaries to occasionally come after you (probably works in a similar way to the mercenary encounters in Skyrim).
Please note that traits are completely optional in Starfield – you can choose to have between one and three Traits, or none at all. Some traits can turn out to be detrimental depending on your playstyle and choices in the game. For example choosing Introvert will actually make you weaker if you later choose to adventure with a companion. So if you’re unsure, it is better not to pick any traits at all.
Melee Build Skills
Every time you level up in Starfield, you will gain one skill point to spend. These can be spent to improve various skills in the game. Starfield Combat Knife or a skill to be eligible for improvement, you’ll need to have completed a challenge that makes use of that skill. For example unlocking the next rank of the Security skill requires you to have picked a certain number of locks.
It’s difficult to give a step-by-step guide for what order to upgrade your skills in due to each upgrade having a prerequisite challenge, however we recommend progressing through the following skills for the Sniper Build:
- Physical Skills
- Wellness – Increases your maximum Health.
- Weightlifting – Increases your carrying capacity
- Martial Arts – Increases your damage with melee attacks
- Social Skills
- Scavenging OR Gastronomy – Scavenging is a good combo with the Weightlifting skill mentioned above, as you will be able to fill up improved your carrying capacity with higher quality loot to sell off later on. Alternatively, you can opt to finish off the Gastronomy skill, since we start with a point in that with the Chef background.
- Combat Skills
- Dueling – Deal more damage and take less damage when using a melee weapon.
- Shotgun Certification – While this is primarily a melee build, it’s a great idea to open with a powerful shotgun blast while you are closing the distance to your enemy. You can then use your melee weapon to finish them off. If you’d rather have greater versatility for longer range combat, replace this with Ballistics or Lasers.
- Science Skills
- Medicine – Your health kits will heal you for more. This is a good idea for a melee build, as you are vulnerable to taking more damage than usual with a playstyle like this.
- Spacesuit Design – You can research and craft more advanced mods for your spacesuit.
- Technology Skills
- Security – You are more skilled at bypassing advanced security systems (lockpicking)
Melee Build Weapons
The primary weapon of your Melee Build will generally be the most powerful melee weapon that you’re able to get your hands on. Later in the game you will be able to find or craft stronger melee weapons, so keep switching it up when you find a weapon that’s better than the one you are currently using. It’s also good to experiment with different types of melee weapons, such as knives, axes, cutlasses, etc. See if there is a particular melee weapon that you enjoy using more than the others.
Note that it is also viable to use no melee weapons and be completely unarmed, using only your fists in combat. However if you do this then you will definitely want to invest in the Boxing skill, to increase your damage with this playstyle.
While this build is mainly melee-focused, it’s still a good idea to keep around at least one or two ranged weapons for when the situation demands it. A Shotgun is a great choice for heavily damaging enemies as you are moving towards them, as mentioned earlier in the guide. You can also choose to use other guns, such as Rifles, if you prefer.
Melee Build Armour
Armour in Starfield is expected to fall into four categories, of which you can equip one of each at a time. These are:
- Spacesuits
- Packs
- Helmets
- Apparel
Armour is important for not only protecting your character from enemy attacks, but also shielding you from various environmental effects as you explore different planets in Starfield. High quality armour (especially Legendary armour) will also come with various modifiers that improve your character’s abilities in a specific way (for example a % damage buff when using a particular type of weapon).
The loot is mostly random, so it is difficult to create a precise guide for which items you should be using. However look out for high quality armour that gives you good resistances, along with modifiers that increase your offensive or defensive capabilities.
