Introduction
Melee weapons in PUBG come in a variety of forms, from the prolific pan to the less commonly used machete. We already know why the pan is considered to be the best melee weapon in the game, but why aren’t the other weapons used as much? They’re not terrible by any means but they’re not that great either, which brings us to this article. We use the term less commonly used by means of its use by players on a whole when compared to that of say the pan. Is there a reason for why we don't see as many players opt for these tools, or is it just a personal preference to reach for the deadly frying pan since it can be used in multiple ways? As a disclaimer, this is merely just our thoughts on these weapons and shouldn't discourage you from trying them out for yourself, so with that being said let's jump right in.
Sickle
The good ol’ Sickle, how can we forget this weapon? It’s the farmer’s choice for lopping corn off the branches and it works superbly for them, but why not in PUBG? Well for one it does less base damage than the pan, which sits at 80 while the Sickle only does 60. The other issue is the time it takes for the weapon to come out and hit the opponent, which seems a little slower than the pan or even just using your fists. According to the stats via pubg.me, the pickup delay and ready delay are even throughout but doesn’t seem to work that way once you’re in game. While the Sickle does provide some range to swing from it just doesn’t seem to scare opponents as much as the pan, and so most players generally just try to superman punch you to death. We’ve tried using the Sickle in the early game to try and score some kills but often end up in the lobby very quickly, so we’ve come to the conclusion that this weapon isn’t something to really fight over unless it's very last resort. If some type of short term effect was implemented where say the Sickle would create a physical detriment to the enemy, like shooting accuracy for example, then maybe more players would run after the Sickle to put players at a disadvantage.
To elaborate more on this, we'll use the early game rush to generate an imagination. If a handful of players were in a bunker and one was able to find the Sickle in this current state, that player would probably have a slight advantage but not one which would allow for a more clean kill. Adding in some sort of buff where, if the Sickle were to slash the limb(s) of a player that said player would be unable to let's say pick up a weapon, or run away in a swift manner. The player with the Sickle would then have more confidence to score a kill instead of desperately running around just to find another weapon to substitute it. Throwing in some buffs would surely encourage more players to chase after the Sickle instead of ignoring it and to be honest, defeating its overall purpose of being in PUBG as a melee weapon.
Machete
Maybe it’s just from our experience but for some reason the Machete doesn’t seem to generate much fear from players either, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. If one were to see a manic individual swinging this thing around in real life you’d probably want to start running away from them, but in PUBG players don’t seem to fear the Machete all that much and would rather opt to dodge and weave your swings in hopes to punch you out. Maybe if there were some extra buff to the Machete that created some sort of “injury” to the player like the Sickle, that would render a certain limb useless or impair vision until you found some sort of first aid to heal.
Let’s say your head was slashed, that would make your vision blur and turn red, kind of similar to Call of Duty when you're about to die and if you can't find first aid then your entire screen will blur completely. PUBG tries to maintain a great deal of realism with their weapons in game, so perhaps adding some of that realism to these melee weapons would encourage players to use them more frequently early game and not just rely on guns and fist fights. Don't just make all the lesser used melee weapons equal in base damage, make them unique so that there's more incentive to be creative with loadouts.
Honey's Final Verdict:
There are plenty of improvements that definitely need to be made in order for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds to run a lot more smoothly, certainly in the area of melee weapons. Players shouldn’t always need to depend solely on finding powerful weapons in order to secure kills, using melee tools should also be a useful method to rack up points. Placing more attention on the more destructive ARs and SRs overshadows the melee options, and defeats their purpose as early game tools so hopefully things will change down the road via patches. Maybe adding said damage buffs would be enticing along with adding body damage as exemplified earlier would be great. Be sure to look out for our next article which will take a closer look at other weapons and their usage within PUBG.
