You probably want a way to deal good melee damage, primarily for PvE but possibly for PvP as well. Throwing knives & axes, dedicated melees in weapon slots, and melee attachments for weapons can potentially replace the tool melee, but likely come with drawbacks of their own such as a higher stamina cost.

Stamina: 7 / 18
Damage: 58 / 92

The most well-rounded melee weapon. It can kill most enemies with one heavy attack, can kill an armored for 50 stamina with 2 lights & 2 heavies, and kills Immolators in the same time as Dusters for marginally less stamina (28 vs 30). It can kill enemy hunters with one heavy headshot, and it's piercing damage so it can headshot them through their arms.

Its only weaknesses are its inability to oneshot hounds and its lack of the heavy knife's strengths. Definitely a contender for the best tool melee alongside the heavy knife.

Stamina: 9 / 25
Damage: 72 / 120

Its light attacks cost half the stamina of the knuckle knife's heavies, and can oneshot the same things the knuckle knife can. This allows it to be much better while exhausted, if you somehow run out of stamina while oneshotting things for only 9 stamina. The heavy attacks can oneshot hounds, and are a wide sweeping attack that can kill several AI at once for better time & stamina efficiency. It can kill an armored slightly faster than the knuckle knife with only 2 heavies and 1 light, and while that's slightly more stamina at 59 the light could be done last while exhausted so it only requires 26 stamina. It's also pretty good at clearing concertina.

Its only weaknesses are its inability to deal with Immolators, and it not having piercing damage so it might lose in a tool melee fight where you both have full health. But in my experience Immolators are almost never enough of a problem where buttstock bashes are insufficient, and I don't remember the last time I got into a tool melee fight where nobody was injured. Definitely a contender for the best tool melee alongside the knuckle knife.

1.15, for some reason, drastically buffed the heavy knife while making every other melee much more expensive. It's now the cheapest melee by far in both cost and stamina usage, making the gap between it and the dusters & regular knife far greater.

Stamina: 5 / 10
Damage: 31 / 72

It has low damage and requires precise aim, but has a ton of stamina. It's not useless like the knife, but it is a bit worse than the knuckle knife & heavy knife. If it could kill Immolators in 2 heavies or even 2 heavies & 1 light I could see it being useful as an anti-Immolator tool, but currently the knuckle knife is just as good if not better at killing Immolators.

With the heavy knife's lights being reduced from 15 to 9 stamina I'm not sure what the point of the dusters are. You can't even pretend like they're the low stamina melee any more.

Stamina: 20 / 25
Damage: 52 / 105

I'm not aware of any situation in which the knife is actually better than the other options. Every other option uses much less stamina and either kills things in exactly the same time or faster. The closest comparison is the heavy knife, which is just a direct upgrade with more damage for less cost. The only advantage the knife has over the heavy knife is being able to headshot through arms, but the knuckle knife can do that too in addition to having much cheaper stamina costs & being able to TKO Immolators.

Offensive tools are great for PvE, and potentially PvP as well. They range from nearly silent to more quiet than guns, allowing you to more efficiently kill and break things without letting the entire server know exactly where you are. Even if you have an aggressive playstyle that doesn't favor hiding, avoiding unnecessary gunshots is very helpful in preventing ambushes by those who do favor hiding.

It's like throwing axes but super overpowered and there's no reason to bring axes any more and knives are also looking a bit less attractive.

A thrown axe can oneshot grunts, hives, hounds, and armored with a bodyshot, and take a concertina armored out in 1 headshot or 2 bodyshots. You can throw your axes into a boss, then run up and start pulling them out while attacking him with a melee weapon. It'll do pretty good damage while staggering him, allowing you to get out 2 or 3 heavy attacks with most weapons before needing to retreat. It can also oneshot horses, twoshot water devils (retrieving the axes may prove difficult), oneshot hunters (not as easily as guns can), kill meatheads, and explode lanterns above kennels (which still makes a loud noise that can be heard from a compound or two away, but is much quieter than a gunshot).

The melee attack is similar to the heavy knife, with its lights able to oneshot grunts, hives, and hounds (requires headshot), and heavies oneshotting hounds (bodyshot) & with Assailant cleave groups of enemies. It has a very high stamina cost, however, so while you can freely swap to it while exhausted with a more efficient melee, if you're bringing it in lieu of a melee weapon you'll exhaust very easily, and need to make a decision of whether you want to throw your only melee weapon away when you're down to your last axe.

Similar to the throwing axes, but with a bit of a learning curve. Hives & hounds require a headshot to be oneshot, bodyshots will either need two hits or one hit then the pull-out damage. Armored can be killed with two bodyshots + pullout (which staggers), while concertina armored take 2 headshots or 3 bodyshots. Against bosses it can do the same pull-out while meleeing that the axes can do, but due to the higher capacity of them ignoring stamina and only throwing is typically more effective than trying to swap to a melee like with axes.

It can also oneshot horses, twoshot water devils (retrieving the knives may prove difficult), oneshot hunters (but only with a headshot, bodyshots deal 120), kill meatheads, and explode lanterns above kennels (which still makes a loud noise that can be heard from a compound or two away, but is much quieter than a gunshot). If you throw six into a barred door it'll make the bashing noise every time, and if someone is retaliating against you attacking the door they'll probably do it during those six bashes where you're safely far away. Then you can run up and quickly pull all 6 out, with your gun in your hand, and the last pullout will destroy the door. A non-barred door can be swung open from a distance by throwing a knife into it.

The melee attack is almost useless without Assailant, but with Assailant it becomes about as good as the knife. It can be useful as an emergency melee for when you need to quickly kill grunts, but is very stamina intensive.

Throwing axes require less knowledge to use and are a good melee weapon baseline without perks, but you only have 2 or 3 of them and resupplies give 1. Throwing knives have a capacity of 6 or 7 and resupplies give all of them, allowing you to be more liberal with them such as not caring so much about losing 1 to a kennel or 2 to a water devil. Against bosses the throwing knives are much more effective on their own, however properly fighting the Spider with them may be difficult. Throwing axes can be used as a much more effective improvised melee weapon, allowing an easier time against the Spider and maybe Assassin.

I don't think either of them are better, they're both very powerful.

It's a gun in the tool slot. If it was a gun in the gun slot it would be terrible, but it's in the tool slot so it's amazing and a contender for the best non-medkit tool in the game. Its shots are quieter than other firearms, being heard at similar distances to lanterns exploding, so it can take out AI or lanterns a little less loudly than guns would.

The main use of the derringer is PvP, unlike the other offensive tools which are mainly PvE. It has decent damage with the second fastest firerate behind only the Bornheim, but it also has the half the velocity of the second slowest gun and comically high damage falloff making it essentially unusable at range. It'll kill people in one headshot, or 3 or 4 bodyshots, but in most situations where you're pulling the derringer out they'll already be injured so it's more likely to be 1 or 2 bodyshots. It has a pretty good hipfire spread, and due to its fast firerate it's also pretty good at detonating barrels. Can be very useful on builds that might run out of loaded shots quickly (e.g. bomb lance + revolver) or have very slow rates of fire (e.g. double long ammo).

Due to the change where ammo boxes now restore all of your derringer ammo instead of toolboxes, you essentially have infinite ammo for it and can use it as liberally as you want. For example, exploding lanterns above kennels is about as loud as the derringer, so it's a free and easy way to do that at any range with basically no drawbacks. Grunts, Hives, and Hellhounds can be killed with a single headshot, although there are quieter ways of disposing them so it's not always the best option.

It has very high damage at a very, very short range with a pretty fast fire rate. Both loaded and reserve ammo are extremely small, with it refilling from special crates and reloading quite slowly. It can tear through bosses extremely quickly without making much noise, and oneshot hunters who are right next to you, twoshotting them from a little bit further. Great if you want the power of a shotgun without requiring bringing one, but you have to keep its range in mind and play around with it properly, since it's almost a melee weapon.

It can easily oneshot any AI regardless of where you hit them (other than Immolators, Meatheads, and Water Devils) as well as instantly detonating yellow or red barrels, but it's consumed on use and requires resupply unlike throwing knives & axes which can (usually) be picked up where they landed.

Game updates have made the flare gun & fusees able to burn downed hunters, which is a very nice perk to have. Fusees have a short windup before being thrown and refill from toolboxes/hunters, while flares have a longer reload after firing and refill from special ammo crates.

If you're playing solo I'd recommend taking a flare gun or fusees to counter other solos, since you might not be able to safely burn them otherwise. It will give you nearly limitless burning potential, so it's great in solo vs solo situations. But in a team game it's far less important, and they remain about as good as they were before.

Many players underutilize choke bombs, only using them to extinguish a burning teammate. In addition to that, they're great area denial tools. Anyone entering their 2 minute long field will suffer constant aimpunch making aiming nearly impossible, as well as coughing a lot revealing their position. These effects linger after they leave the cloud, lasting a very long time even if they only briefly went in it.

You can use it to block off entrances/exits, use it to block peeks like windows, use it to stifle revives (it's a lot harder to revive someone if you start coughing, and even if they do get up now they're both coughing for a long time), use it to extinguish Butcher's hook if you still struggle with fighting him (don't forget to turn the lanterns off, he can re-ignite the hook), anything you can think of. It can even oneshot Immolators that enter the field or get exploded on, which could potentially save you from a risky situation.

Upon initial detonation it will extinguish fires in a larger area than the lingering field, so with proper placement you can put a teammate out without needing either of you to cough when you go to revive.

It looks and sounds like a bomb, but isn't one. You can safely run where it lands because it isn't dangerous, and you get 3 or 4 of them for a single tool slot which gets resupplied at toolboxes. You can use it both offensively to get people to start running for you to push/shoot them, or defensively to try to discourage people from pushing you such as when you need to heal. If they're still alive after you've thrown a decoy fuse, you could try throwing a real bomb and seeing if they die to it thinking it's another decoy. You could even have a loadout full of bombs and decoy fuses with Frontiersman if you want to be silly, but that would be more funny than practical.

Decoy fuses are also relatively quiet, not being able to be heard from too far away, so you can throw them in many situations outlined in the decoy section below such as as kennel lanterns. They can ignite oil puddles and immediately detonate yellow and red barrels.

1.15 made decoy fuses have a little explosion when they expire. It deals 40 damage in a very small radius, you basically have to be right on top of them, but it can blow open doors, destroy concertina, and even kill birds if you time it right. Two fuses will destroy a door, so if you throw a pair at a barricaded door they'll explode simultaneously and immediately breach it with little to no risk to yourself and no real throwable used.

Throwing a decoy makes no noise, and they deal 20 damage on impact. They can destroy lanterns above kennels/barrels/oil, break open green barrels, activate bear traps and wire traps, break windows, break lights, open barred doors if you hit the bar with it (such as throwing a decoy through a hole in a building to open the door from the outside), close lifted red gates, and turn off instruments.

When a decoy lands it makes the sound of a footstep. If you throw it at a wall it will make the footstep sound both when it hits the wall and when it lands. This noise will alert everything that noise normally does. You can use it to activate sound traps like horses or dogs, send birds flying off in any direction you choose (they'll fly away from the decoy), or rile the AI up. If a decoy lands near an AI they'll become alert and walk to where the decoy landed. If you directly hit an AI they'll become agitated, moving faster and searching for hunters longer. This can be especially useful with causing hives, hounds, and immolators to search for hidden enemies, or having water devils swim over to the decoy to allow safe crossing.

If a decoy hits a door it'll make the sound of a hunter meleeing it, so enemies are very likely to think that someone with Silent Killer is meleeing the door. They will likely become distracted, wasting ammo trying to wallbang you while revealing their position and what guns they have (if you recognize their sounds). All of this commotion could have them not notice the quieter sounds of a teammate trying to do something in a different area away from the door.

Blankfire decoys are like decoys, but instead of making the sound of footsteps they make the sound of a gunshot. They can do everything that decoys can, but unless they land in the water (such as with misleading water devils) the loud gun shot will still occur, which may make some things such as breaking kennel lanterns somewhat pointless.

In addition to misleading people with gunshots, causing them to either think you're where you're not or there's more enemies than they realized, they can ignite oil puddles, and immediately detonate yellow or red barrels.

Not much to say about them, they're pretty self-explanatory. I don't like them, but they can get some good mileage. The only things worth noting are that you might want to try placing them in unexpected spots like the middle of the road (as they're less likely to be seen than expected spots like doorways), the alert mines can instantly detonate barrels if placed next to them, and the concertina & poison mines will probably oneshot someone who steps into them if placed together.

Unless you really know what you're doing and have a really specific and esoteric plan, you want a medkit.

Can help you spot people from far away, but I find other tools to be generally more useful.

It is the single best tool at being removed from the game.

[/strike]It's really good at letting everyone see you easily. If you're in close range and shine it at someone it might make it harder for them to see, but it's really unreliable and I don't think it's worth bringing.[/strike]

An easy and reliable loadout is a heavy or knuckle knife, a medkit, an offensive tool, and choke bombs. It has everything covered and doesn't require any playstyle changes. You can replace the melee with throwing knives or axes, but if you don't have melee covered in your gun slots it would require some changes to your gameplay. Choke bombs can be replaced with something else if you feel like the extinguishing & area denial of them would be less helpful. Traps can replace anything, but I find them to be boring and unreliable.

Example loadouts:

Easy: Heavy Knife, Medkit, Throwing Knives, Choke Bombs
Easy: Knuckle Knife, Medkit, Throwing Axes, Choke Bombs
Melee In Guns: Decoy Fuses/Derringer, Medkit, Throwing Knives, Choke Bombs
CQC Lacking: Knuckle/Heavy Knife, Medkit, Derringer, Choke Bombs
Difficult: Throwing Knives/Axes, Medkit, Derringer/Decoy Fuses, Choke Bombs
Risky & Difficult: Throwing Knives/Axes, Medkit, Derringer, Decoy Fuses