Why the Knife is the Worst Melee in Left 4 Dead 2 [Outdated]

[@casualcrusader1547]

it has a slow attack interval. it deals damage horizontally left and right.

[@brightlight1152]

HOOPLAH

[@AVI-lh6rm]

Sounds like a lot of- "SLOW ATTACK INTERVAL. IT DEALS DAMAGE HORIZONTALLY LEFT AND RIGHT!" .. Sounds like a lot of-

[@MrRockstarnailbomb]

it has a slow attack interval. it deals damage horizontally left and right.

[@dechmusic]

Don't forget. It has a slow attack interval. it deals damage horizontally left and right.

[@dechmusic]

- Honey, are you going to the shop? - Yes. - Please buy a frying pan - Why? - Our old one is completely dead. Besides... IT HAS A SLOW ATTACK INTERVAL. IT DEALS DAMAGE HORIZONTALLY LEFT AND RIGHT

[@bigbadseed7665]

With the exception of the chainsaw, which is in a category of its own, I would argue that the best melee weapon in the game is the machete.

[@train_go_boom2065]

No, the golf club

[@Ikhsanratdith]

i would go for katana as a sharp weapon, and guitars for bludgeoning weapon (also for the comedic relief weapon)

[@jarate5922]

machete, katana, axe

[@emilyraven2990]

*ANGRY CLANG NOISES*

[@guitartruong3981]

I can use machete on rush sections and win, but never with a katana. So I'm in the machete camp as well

[@drharnsaft1005]

A cruel joke for map makers would be to place a lot of knives with one or a few adrenaline shots hidden among them.

[@OGuiBlindao]

Dude youre gonna overthrow satan one day

[@CryoTheKaiju]

Calm down satan

[@sud1881]

Satan is now homeless

[@TweekLudwig]

"Hello, Tom. I'd like to play a game. A game of Left 4 Dead 2. You are on 1 health, and in front you is a room. This room contains millions of knives and two adrenalines; you are to make it through the incoming horde by saving yourself with the adrenaline, and killing them with knives. There are no Specials, but they will not stop spawning until you find an adrenaline. They will spawn 30 seconds from now. Time is ticking..."

[@ratgoggles]

ik this is one year later... but... ur saying players would be looking for a needle in a knife-stack?

[@JAiZYouTube]

Oh man, the knife, we didn't enjoy nerfing it but it was hard to justify it's original state. The sole reason the knife was so badly nerfed was due to the possibility that we'd not receive another opportunity to create an update for the game, even just a small bugfix, so we figured it would be better to make it underpowered and unused rather than overpowered and detrimental to the game's balance for the rest of eternity. We do want to modify it if we get the chance though, Valve is just currently busy with other projects, so everything's still up in the air. There's also another difference between sharp and blunt melees: Sharp melee kills will immediately make commons ragdoll, removing collision the moment the hit connects. Blunt weapons on the other hand make them play a brief "dying" animation, during which they retain collision. So, if you want to push through a horde, a sharp melee will let you push through them faster.

[@Mrnoobestreturns]

So Far The Knifes spawns are so god dam common where I don’t even have a problem with the knife I think it’s an OP melee weapon it’s not the best but thanks to this video it’s not even nerfed it’s just in a unique angle cuz the knife is still sharp and it’s fast so it gets me through commons pretty quickly but the knife is not good against trying to one shot chargers or cutting smoker Tongues but that’s about it like I rather take the knife than trash garbage useless pistols

[@subsidiary7397]

No offense, but why did you guys feel the need to nerf it, or include it at all considering it wasn't even in the non-German copy of the game? If balance was that serious a concern, destroying the weapon's viability entirely, and then having it pollute the melee spawn pools seems like a poor solution.

[@thunderpuppy9500]

I was so sad when I realized the knife was nerfed, I was wondering why it felt so bad to use now lol In any case TLS really breathed a lot of life into the game and I appreciate the hard work of you and the rest of the team! Knowing that you and the rest of the team would like a chance to do more work, there is one thing I’m still dying to see in the game: Are the l4d1 style models for the l4d2 infected still being worked on?

[@Sesshoumaru888]

Well thanks a lot for ruining the knife :) amateur. Your update is bad, just like you :D

[@Mrnoobestreturns]

@@Sesshoumaru888 really like the last stand update fixed Most things Like 1 more infected spawns like it improved swamp fever a lot 2 bug fixes like no more shortcuts where people skip 25% or 50% of the game on versus 3 no more BS common jumps giving you tons of height like common jumps Legit gives you the Most OP spots possible and can send you out of bounds like this makes the softlock points a 1 shot kill once the survivor is down and not just common jump and boom he’s back 4 Fixed the bug spots where commons or witch or AI special infected just stop attacking you for no reason and automatically die in 1 minute 5 given more weapons and melees like most of them are not good and terrible like aside from knife or shovel no one uses these new weapons but at least there not stuck in the german version and everyone can know about these weapons only riot shield is left to be added 6 added more stuff or achievements to do like the secret golden crow bars in every map like that rewards people watching YT vids on it or exploring everywhere in the maps Don’t get me wrong like left 4 dead 2 survivor AI is still terrible and I don’t know how it’s fixed yet tier 2 shotguns are still broken and are the best guns in the game the witches AI is still the worst AI in the game and is easy to kill or easy to ignore And Parish Dead Center and 1 map on dark carnival like chapter 2 have way to many pills or adrenaline in versus And Hard Rain Corn Field Does Not Have What Last Stand Has Which Is Infected Can Spawn in bushes while survivors can see you But That is fixed with mods so it’s not a big deal it’s just minor issues

[@WowSuchGaming]

Yeah the knife is always just something to meme with as you yell "COUNTERSTRIIIIKE!" Good vid bro

[@darthyvardyreal]

Holding it makes you run faster.

[@captianhook2288]

@@darthyvardyreal really?

[@lizardgaming6597]

Cs:go moment

[@lo154lo3]

I LOVE YOU

[@Ciara_Foxx]

It's weird seeing you outside of the Roanoke comment section. Like seeing your teacher outside of school

[@philipgodsworth4764]

It has a slow attack interval, it deals damage horizontally left and right.

[@wentoneisendon6502]

Burned into my brain

[@totpocket6050]

wait, can you repeat that again?

[@apotato-]

It has a slow attack interval, it deals damage horizontally left and right.

[@TKsh1]

The melee mechanics in L4D2 are actually genius. I wonder why Valve didn't use it in their other franchises, and if other games do something similar.

[@seamuskills]

tf2 backstabs would probably feel more fair... although I don't see it fixing facestabs if your laggy enough.

[@lynxovski]

The games that do something similar are: "Mordhau" and "Chivalry", except those games use a more complex system with "collision detection", compared to L4D2 system wich creates multiple "hitscan" lasers in sync with the animation (like its multiple gun shots).

[@snarkycommenthere9027]

Well they aren't exactly the same, but what's explained in this video is what happens when you melee in any of the other valve games (and a lot of games in general) - when you click, it sends out a small projectile in front of you, and if that hits something, then it's registered as a melee hit. It tricks our brains into thinking that the swing itself was what caused the hit.

[@ReapFreak4]

check out killing floor 2 melee combat mechanic.

[@FatCatCooper]

Hi me again Bea is bae

[@AndreNg]

I like how the melee weapons added in TLS update are a "Fork", "Spoon" and Knife (Pitchfork and Shovel)

[@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413]

Comically large spoon

[@Joshbots]

@@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413 great now all I can think about is a comically large spoon mod

[@AForceGaming]

The knife wasn't added in the TLS Update , it was already in the game but it wasn't usable and it can't be spawned naturally. You can only spawn it using console commands and it doesn't deal damage. The only way to use the knife is through plugin wich are in almost every Left 4 Dead 2 custom server. The knife is a ported weapon from Counter-Strike : Source along with Krieg,Scout and the AWP. They were in the German version of Left 4 Dead 2 but were later added after the TLS Update. Hope this helps.

[@deixos2224]

The last supper update

[@revivemefellas9637]

@@AForceGaming it deals damage tho and it's one of the most broken melee in the game. TLS nerfed it to hell. perhaps you were talking about the riotshield.

[@s4videos]

Author's notes: Maybe I was a bit too harsh. The knife is the worst melee but is still usable. It just sucks to have to look upwards a bit to get the most range and coverage with it. Originally this project started off as my reviewing every weapon in the game. I still have to finish that video's script. It may become a video in the future. Next now I want to work on a video about sound in the game. There's a lot to talk about. Left 4 Dead 2 is basically a music-game. If you aren't using headphones every time to launch Left 4 Dead 2, you're doing it wrong. Do you know how unbelievably powerful it is to use sound to know where all the special infected are? It's like a wall-hack but with your ears. Anyways look forward to that video. I've made 0% of it so far so don't expect it any time soon. Every time I make a L4D2 video I start with finding something interesting and saying “hey everybody, Dom here” I'm running out of things. I found that flamingo but next time I don't know what to pick. I think I'll be one of the stuffed animals found in Dark Carnival and the plantation house at the end of Swam Fever. You guys are smart, I'm sure you got the joke at the end that the Knives belong alongside the trash bags. You got that, right? I was debating if I should have used some text on screen or not. Nah, you're smart. I too just learned that you deal reduced damage to the legs of the Smokers, Boomers and Hunters. It's a weird hold-over from the first game. It explains why melee might not always 1-shot them. It's reduced damage from bullets too. Before starting this project I didn't even know melee worked like this. I just assumed it was done with one small invisible bullet in front of the camera like it is in Team Fortress 2. In TF2 the first-person melee animations are completely unrelated to the way the damage is dealt. When I say “all difficulty modes” I'm talking about Easy/Normal/Advanced/Expert and not the game modifiers found in Realism. Realism is it's own thing and not a difficulty per se. Lately people have started recognizing me in-game. This tells me that people who watch my videos on this game also play it and that my videos have an effect on people. What I'm getting at is: I wonder if fewer people will be using the knife as a result of my video. It's a possibility. I love Valve games. Making videos like this is only possible because random people like me have the ability to use the developer console. If I couldn't disable the AI, visually show damage or fly around this video would have been way more difficult to make. I hope it was useful to see the first-person view alongside the top and side view. It was very time-consuming to get all that footage. I may be wrong about Melee damage being percentage-based. I don't know, it all just lines up to working like that. That's all my thoughts. I hope you enjoyed. EDIT: it turns out there's another difference between sharp and blunt weapons I didn't know about so it wasn't included in this video. Sharp weapons cause common infected to lose their collision faster. Basically, after you kill a common infected you can walk through the space they occupied faster if they died to sharp weapon versus a blunt weapon. Sharp melees takes about 0.083 seconds from when you hit infected to when you can walk over them. Blunt melees take about 0.35 seconds.

[@SpyYoshi]

3 weeks ago

[@s4videos]

yeah, that's when I uploaded the video. I have to stagger the release of videos, otherwise there would be massive gaps in time where no videos would release. If I released videos as soon as they were finished you'd get gaps like 3 months long. If I didn't publish a video in 3 months everyone would just assume I died or quit KZbin or something.

[@seamuskills]

I really like the way the knife looks, but the points you bring up here make me not want to pick it up anymore... either way excellent explanation and reasoning for why it is the worst melee.

[@Source4pott]

Maybe you should have covered the fact that TLS changed the arcs. But still very good video dude. Keep up the great work.

[@solitude4me]

@@s4videos What about meat cleaver or riot shield as meele wepeons ?

[@rsho3472]

Something I don't see mentioned very often is how the sharp melees make the hitbox of the common infected dissapear much faster, like 0.3 seconds faster wich let's you advance faster in an horde, blunt weapons are slower to kill commons wich make them sometimes block and those little seconds make the difference on a horde

[@s4videos]

Wow, that sounds very interesting, I have to test this. ... I tested it with the nightstick and the machete. You're correct. At 60fps it takes 4 frames to start walking through the infected with the sharp weapon and 18 frames to start walking through the infected with the blunt weapon. I wish I new this information before making this video. It would have been useful to add. I'll just add it to the "author's notes." EDIT: actually I did more testing and it seems like the time is based on the melee itself and not the sharpness. I'm getting a lot of variance. More testing is required.

[@iceman78772]

@@s4videos On a similar note, SurvivorBots can't cancel a common's death animation by colliding into them like humans can, but they also don't slow down when hit by infected on c5m5.

[@ChoomOfDoom]

I remember hearing the crowbar being categorized as a "Shred" weapon since it tears out chunks of flesh instead of slashing infected

[@SirPembertonS.Crevalius]

Nightstick is odd to use at first but when you become familiar with it, that thing can plow through hordes like they're nothing.

[@Mrnoobestreturns]

I think the nightstick is overrated as hell Like It’s Insanely common to get it in parish and is an insanely OP melee weapon but any other map or campaign the baton is insanely rare so unless if it’s just the parish map I just try to find other OP melee weapons that are close enough to the baton like the commonly spawned golf club or the machete

[@markfungus]

It's not very satisfying to use unlike the other melee weapons

[@greengarnish1711]

It's one of the best melee's indeed and functions just like the machete in that regard only that it's a short blunt weapon.

[@TheEmeraldSword04]

Knew it wasn't the Doppler effect making that thing so fluid.

[@UnknownOps]

The nightstick is a good weapon to yell "WE CALL THIS A DIFFICULTY TWEAK!"

[@wojtekpolska1013]

My favorite meele is the Fireaxe - has a wide arc allowing to cut multiple infected at once, it has slower firerate, but its still decent. the wide cutting arc is very useful when you are swarmed with infected. cause it will kill most of them who are in front of you, allowing u to escape.

[@Gyzarath]

the axe is the only good slow melee imo

[@redacted2086]

u can quickly press q twice to attack faster

[@redacted2086]

@@Gyzarath don't forget about the katana although the range is just a tad bit shorter its still one of the best

[@Mrnoobestreturns]

Well so far my favourite melee is the machete or golf club yes they are tied they are common to spawn in every map they are fast as hell it can destroy or knockback all commons in a 360 degree angle by just turning the camera a 180 degrees they are the most easy melee weapons for me to cut smoker tounges and 1 shot kill chargers

[@redacted2086]

@@Mrnoobestreturns suprisingly as much as i hate the knife for me its the easiest to leverl chargers with but i wont trade one ability over the others

[@revivemefellas9637]

yeah they nerfed it to hell on tls update, on pre tls, it's "bad arch" is negated with incredibly fast swing edit: I think they also slow down the equip anim, I remember it being much faster and since it's fast you can do the quick melee swap and almost be invulnerable in the corner against CI

[@CxRise]

btw they also slowed down the swing

[@T110E4_Wanderer]

if i can recall the knife used to be a machete with alot more hitboxes before TLS

[@CxRise]

@@T110E4_Wanderer before tls it swung faster and it only swung from left to right in a straight line

[@TheRealShyShadow]

@@CxRise yea and it was moders/console abuser and censored version only well yea i abuse the shit out of it but now its gone

[@handleneeds3charactersormore]

I still do the corner thing with whatever i have but I don't remember what was the knife like before the update tho

[@Aghross]

there is one important difference between sharp and blunt weapons that make me always pick sharp over blunt. if cutting smoker toungs isn´t good enough sharp melee weapons make common zombies go ragdoll instantly. blunt ones make them have a short stumble anymation. During that stumble animation they can still body block you. so if you want to push throu a horde or circle around it sharp is always better

[@redacted2086]

yep I agree, the only real reason I hate the knife is the range is too short but I'd pick it over a guitar all day cuz it can cut a smoker's tongue which is helpful if you are in the process of reloading or under pressure. Sharp weapons like the Katana,axe, and machete are all on the top for best melee I would argue the worst melee are the pitchfork, due to its inconsistency in attack pattern, and the tonfa for the same reason. I don't have a problem with the speed of a melee weapon as I just quickly press 4key or 5 then 2 again to reset the animation. But I can see why some players put the tonfa in a higher spot as they don't have the coordination to do this consistently.

[@JAiZYouTube]

@@redacted2086 The tonfa used to have a diagonal attack (like the baseball and cricket bat), but I believe it was changed to be a horizontal attack in TLS, though it still has very few hitrays.

[@redacted2086]

@@JAiZKZbin if they didnt change the attack pattern i'd like it more but as of now im not changing my mind

[@princesscadance197]

I at least enjoy that there’s variety. Sure, the frying pan may not be the best, meta-wise to us sweaty tryhards, but to someone who plays it once every few days and just likes to rampage through a city with a frying pan, at least they have the option.

[@AfraidMonsters]

The knife is better than the pitchfork. Literally broken and bizarre. The knife at least kills the commons in front of you. The pitchfork doesn’t and makes no sense

[@xUndead]

It has a weird timing, I have faith it might be useful in some situation but i have yet to find it, easily the least interesting TLS weapon along with mp5

[@Gyzarath]

also better than the shovel, guitar, frying pan and crowbar it's not even bad you just can't stand in hordes with it

[@jakedoesyoutube]

​@@xUndead awww, I like the mp5. I respect your opinion though.

[@xUndead]

@@jakedoesyoutube it has very good range but the firerate compared to the other two smgs is sad. good for headshots tho

[@jakedoesyoutube]

@@xUndead I think the slow firerate can be helpful for ammo conservation, but I am no pro player so idk.

[@dontfrythis2458]

It deals damage horizontally left to right

[@MulekeTrairao]

Man, you are the decino of L4D2. Keep up the good work!

[@djraph6011]

i like decino and s4 so its a win win

[@KeksimusMaximus]

Despacito shadowbanned me on his channel because I said mean words about his music writing abilities on a completely different channel

[@mothweb8088]

@@KeksimusMaximus Wait, you’re telling me you were mean and he blocked you? Wow, that’s fucking crazy. Can’t believe it. You insulted the dude and he blocked you? who would ever do that! Have you ever tried not being like that?

[@KeksimusMaximus]

@@mothweb8088 What made you assume I "insulted" him? And what's even more interesting, why did you get offended and try to white knight now? Despacito makes subpar midi music, and I, as a seasoned midi enjoyer, said just that. Don't answer to me anymore.

[@flameconvoy7424]

@@KeksimusMaximus “don’t answer to me anymore” lol what

[@luckyducky7819]

Wow, I didn't know the Melee weapons basically had different stats. I thought the changes were purely cosmetic; that the bat was basically as good as the machete.

[@Banshee523]

The differences aren't too significant, but generally sharp weapons are better (there is no advantage whatsoever to weapons being blunt), horizontal swinging weapons are better (you're clearing out a mob in front of you, not painting a wall), and fast swinging weapons are better (naturally). The machete is the best of all worlds and is widely considered the best melee weapon, however it is worth noting that it can't spawn on all campaigns. Each campaign in the game has a set list of melee weapons that can appear there, which is why some of them feel rarer than others. Also, the range is the same on all of them. The people who prefer the katana over the machete for the "range" are experiencing a placebo effect, to the best of my knowledge. Still, the katana is really good too, same with the fire axe.

[@nood1le]

I could tell by playing the game...

[@olivercharles2930]

@@nood1le Cringe. No need to act snarky like some redditor.

[@00TOYZ]

Fun fact, Valve just released an update today that fixes the knife damage arc

[@Wolf-ez3x]

They just fixed the knife, so this is now outdated. Edit: They didn't just fix the knife to be better. It is legit now better than the axe. S-tier weapon from the F-tier weapon; a phoenix rising from its ashes.

[@warheroned6207]

Yes the this video title has been update to include outdated.

[@Wolf-ez3x]

@@warheroned6207 Yes, I saw that he updated the title when I talked about it.

[@kabeam5643]

it is now literally the strongest melee, statistically speaking its a katana with a much better hitbox being only slightly less than the axe, and since it's extremely common it is now the most viable melee in the game, the machete is now outclassed by it with the only upside being speed.

[@Neotrec]

The Axe is actually kinda mid now, I prefer a machete or yours truly, the knife.

[@kabeam5643]

@@Neotrec its better than the blunt weapons and its great at clearing out hordes because of its large hitbox and hitrays, meaning it will almost always hit every swing you take. its outclassed by the knife and machete solely by how over powered they are, the machete makes you practically untouchable by commons along with the knife

[@novaket1264]

Honestly to me. It was either the Knife or the Nightstick because of how jank the hit box is for it.

[@royfablooo2810]

Using a Katana or a Chainsaw in the Crescendo on The Passing Chapter 2 is one of the best things you could see on Left 4 Dead. Just make sure you have Meds lying around.

[@MA_690]

GUYS! GUYS! THEY DID IT! THEY FIXES THE KNIFE TRACJECTORY!

[@biggydolly7379]

turn from the wordt to the best meleee

[@taguwura]

nothing warms my heart more than the fact that this video is now technically [outdated]. i can now use the cool copy+pasted css knife in the zombie horde shooter game and not gimp myself. this video is still great and it's still shaped like an adrenaline shot lol.

[@DinnerForkTongue]

Oh yeah. Now whenever I see the knife I'm as happy as when I find a machete.

[@infamoushacker4chan883]

I usually go for the Katana, machete or axe. While exploding heads are fine, I like leaving a trail of dismembered limbs behind as my team watches me go absolutely unhinged with it.

[@PaperTowelRoll]

personally i like it more from a novelty standpoint rather than a viability one. with the knife i always end up killing one zombie at a time rather than multiple with a swing, so in a way it feels realistic to how a knife would be in l4d2 if that makes sense

[@bfgfanatic1747]

Learning that melee arcs are affected by gimbal lock fills me with equal parts hope and horror.

[@CptJack-ws8nz]

Nice to see more L4D related videos Im still annoyed that the Last Stand Developers decided to Nerf the Knife into Oblivion before adding it to the Last Stand Update

[@itsame9647]

Last Stand becomes First Sit

[@DinnerForkTongue]

They walked it back. Now it's equivalent to the machete.

[@boxylemons7961]

I think realistically speaking a knife would be a really terrible weapon in an actual zombie outbreak anyways. It would be good for killing other humans but I figure with actual zombies it would be horrible because of how close you'd have to get to actually harm any of them, plus with the close proximity it would be a good opportunity for the zombies to straight up just bite and infect you

[@greengarnish1711]

True but since these survivors are carriers, they dont mind getting up close and personal having all those guts and blood sprayed across their faces.

[@handleneeds3charactersormore]

Also these zombies don't bite, (I mean canonically, also the animations) "sometimes it's airborne, sometimes it's not, we don't really know what this is", they are enreged and supposedly see the uninfected as these repulsive monsters and that's why they attacc the survivors

[@greengarnish1711]

@@handleneeds3charactersormore They do bite lol. Comics show ya and even infected have bite wounds on their bodies.

[@MotoMoto-fg3lr]

​@@greengarnish1711yeah but it's not The most common way of being infected, most common way is bye food le by The air

[@DinnerForkTongue]

That's not untrue, but L4D focuses way more on fun than realism.

[@darkaidenalex3551]

EVERYONE: A recent update has made the knife swing now normal and not stupid

[@aketsuuu]

The start of this video made me realize the attention to detail that went into how different weapons interact with certain enemies. Had no clue sharps could cut the smoker's tongue, cool stuff.

[@Luka2000_]

Glad to know that people still talk about this masterpiece

[@snakefoolery2177]

The knife actually used to have a normal swing but TLS fucked it up the ass.

[@mentosvagabond]

Yeah, I remember it was a really good melee. Used to install addons to unlock it and clutch every map. Before, it's honestly feel like a better guitar.

[@Mrnoobestreturns]

TLS did not fucked it up for me I use the knife a lot in versus like Knife has the most common melee spawn I ever seen in this game like I don’t think it’s the worst melee weapon but pitchfork I think is the worst the pitchfork is a insanely rare melee and I can’t do the OP bug like most other melee weapons to knockback or kill all commons in a 360 angle and it’s slow as hell Like knife is bad against one shot killing chargers and cutting smoker tongues that’s about it from what I experienced because I can stop a hunter with right click or stop a jockey spitter or boomer with right click and not use knife

[@xzeuii]

from JAiZ (one of the community members that worked on TLS) "The sole reason the knife was so badly nerfed was due to the possibility that we'd not receive another opportunity to create an update for the game, even just a small bugfix, so we figured it would be better to make it underpowered and unused rather than overpowered and detrimental to the game's balance for the rest of eternity. We do want to modify it if we get the chance though, Valve is just currently busy with other projects, so everything's still up in the air."

[@gabrielandy9272]

and why you think a knife must be better than the other meele weapons? lmao they fixed the game its common sense, it makes sense its the worse its a small simple KNIFE it can't be better than a katana or others, its great its worse, omg do u guys know game balance?

[@DinnerForkTongue]

@@xzeuii Sounds like a load of horseapples.

[@Skyheart42]

you forgot a very important detail that is underestimated of how sharp melee weps make common ragdoll so you can walk through them faster, in high level play this makes more of a difference than most people realize

[@wilson-bw1mb]

krakatoa *wet fart noises*

[@DangOldRegularOld]

Damn bro you hit the algorithm jackpot! It's a great video so you deserve it!

[@ernofj9563]

Fun fact : You can actually stop Charger charge at you by using blunt type melee weapons push at the right timing similiar to leveling. If you successfully doing so, you and the Charger will stagger away from each other to opposite direction. My favorite weapon to do this is Tonfa since the shove animation is very close to shove with both hand. Yeah I still recommeded to leveling if you can, coz I'm not confident enough to one-shot it

[@cyka_blyat1233]

It's actually kinda hard because you need timing to stop his charging

[@CapnForever604]

'The knife is bad" "the awp has super low dps" So what you're saying is they have a really high skill ceiling. Excellent.

[@ileryon4019]

bruh

[@VanessaMagick]

The AWP literally just fucking sucks though. It kills basically everything MUCH slower - the one single target the AWP is better at than the semi-autos is the Spitter, which dies in one bodyshot rather than two; but even then most people would prefer the consistent two-tap

[@CapnForever604]

@@VanessaMagick I agree with you. My comment was meant to be a joke. Clearly not a very good one though.

[@MittensTea]

The Castlevania curse coming back to bite us of the worst pickup knife is hilarious. Honestly great video that delves into L4D2s mechanics and technical details on melees. I wish there were more videos like this.

[@s4videos]

Lol.

[@Fezezen]

I have never seen a knife in the distance and thought it was an adrenaline shot. Idk how you'd think that, their shapes are very different. Also the model doesn't look good, it's from CS:S, so it sticks out like a sore thumb along with the other CS:S weapons that were enabled in the TLS update for no reason.

[@terriblyterrified8742]

also, the knife is black, and the adrenaline injector is white

[@leandrogoslean889]

I think they enabled those weapons since they were able to lower the rating of the german version. The weapons were originally specific for them, because they got a censored game with decreased blood and dismemberment back when the game first launched. But since a lot of people liked them and enabled those weapons through plugins they tought it would be a good idea to add them to the base game, so now that the germans can play it uncensored, there is no need for those weapons to be available only to one country. A model upgrade and polish wouldn't be bad tho.

[@JAiZYouTube]

@@leandrogoslean889 It's definitely on our list for things we want to revisit and overhaul if given the opportunity. Unfortunately time crunch and deadlines are omnipresent in any form of game development and those weapons fell victim to that, but we're well aware of everyone's feedback and have a plan to work on as soon as we're able to.

[@rolandsodakin2354]

How about you make a good game Fezezen

[@rolandsodakin2354]

@Аьзоно I know Fezezen I was messing with him I just wasn't funny or clever about it at all

[@yerk55]

After watching this, when I go back and play the game, now I have a hard time *not* mentally visualizing the damage rectangles when I swing a melee weapon.

[@ravensnflies8167]

nightstick has always been my favorite for some reason. for a blunt weapon, they ragdoll almost as fast as sharps because it has the fastest interval. cant wait till some nerd makes a b4b mod for l4d2 so we can forget that nonsense ever existed. cool to see so many ppl still playing after so many years.

[@bench-xpre55]

Dude I swear, they marketed it as L4D3, but it looked like one of those bad Indie games.

[@tgnm9615]

I really love how you explains the melee weapons. Keep up the good content! :)

[@Mrnoobestreturns]

Yep Like The knife is still good in my eyes like it spawns everywhere and it’s common to see it’s just not insanely broken like the other melees Like in my experiences in versus most melee weapons make commons near useless like Baton and machete are good examples you can just speedrun through them and thanks to right click being OP by killing special infected in 5 right clicks or just knock backing the commons giving you free melee or free I Frames or if there skilled enough B hop frame perfectly to the safe room I seen them beat a map in 2 to 3 minutes that quickly thanks to melee

[@dedicategrinder88]

I remember seeing this in 2023, before it got updated to “outdated” because of updates from summer 2023 I think 17.3.24

[@yucksta]

I have an video idea for Left 4 Dead 2, and that’s the difference of no laser sights and laser sights. With or without crouching, I wanna see the affect it has on the weapon. Thanks Dom!

[@la912]

Pretty good guide dude. I was expecting to see a video just about the knife but instead you made a useful guide for all melee weapons

[@TraceyIsTired]

Honestly the whole arc idea could actually make TF2 melee weapons useful for once

[@Snow-dv7hx]

I've been watching your videos ever since the TF2 Mod Gamemodes series. I remember being so fascinated by how much people could mess with Valve games, and games in general. Fast forward to now, I come back to your channel every now and then, and it never disappoints. Your videos are always so interesting, and you don't stretch things out for too long. You might just be the reason I love Valve so much today. It's honestly a surprise you aren't as popular as other KZbinrs who do similar content breaking down Valve games and the Source Engine. Keep it up!

[@s4videos]

Thank you for your kind words. I really appreciate it.

[@Officially_Slayed]

Can you make a new one the knife got fix now it has a normal swing arc from side to side :)

[@Jm-ki4su]

fun fact: if you enable 'easy mode' in the add ons, you'll realise that for all the melee weapon's attack range, the knife really is crap

[@walternelson2687]

I can't remember ever being fooled by the knife into thinking it was a syringe. Probably because almost all of my play hours are from *before* that update.

[@CrunchyFinn]

I've used the knife so much at this point that I've mastered the hitbox and swing speed calculations. Pairing that with cosmetic mods to turn it from the Counter Strike knife into a nice military bowie, Left 4 Dead's knife has slowly become my favorite melee weapon. I am currently working on mastering the pitchfork. Did an entire Expert mode Hard Rain with nothing but the pitchfork but there is still work to be done. The swing hitbox is almost too much of a coinflip, but I think this can be done.

[@nhatlongvu8896]

⭐ The strongest melee: Chainsaw (but it will run out of gas) ✅ ⭐ Best Ones: Machete, Katana/Golf Club, Axe (The Machete is so damn fast and versatille. The Axe is slower but it can be found in almost every map and has greater, larger arc swing. The Katana/Golf Club is the mix of the two) ✅ ⭐ Shovel and Tonfa are great if you can use it right. They have their own pros and cons ✅ They're worse than the Knife in some criterias And for me the Knife is still far better than the Crowbar, Pitchfork, Pan, Guitar, Baseball/Cricket Bat 👍

[@TheDemonChara]

The bat and pan are a bit underrated imo

[@nhatlongvu8896]

@@TheDemonChara I agree with you on that: they're surely underrated👍 Baseball/Cricket Bat and Pan are easy to be found between maps, and have been overlooked by a lot of players even though they're useful in some ways 🔥 The Guitar is just a slower, weaker and blunt version of the Axe. The Pitchfork is freaking annoying to use. And the Crowbar is slow af ⭐

[@nhatlongvu8896]

@David TPHK The Crowbar is the slowest melee (the golden version is just a bit faster)...Despite its freaking low-speed attack, at least Crowbar is a sharp weapon, so it can cut Smoker's tongue (the thing that Pan, Baseball/Cricket Bat, Guitar,...cannot do) 👍

[@Gyzarath]

@@TheDemonChara the bat isn't horrible but the pan is small and slow, worst of both worlds

[@yassir-5605]

Shovel is incredibly overrated. best melee by far aside from chainsaw.

[@harry1178]

Nice video boyo ! I approve :D Learned quite a lot of things about L4D2's melee weapons !

[@HOTD108_]

Have to disagree about the sound effect for the knife. It's way to stock, royalty free sound, in my opinion. Makes me cringe everytime I hear it.

[@ZitrusCS]

I was actually looking for a video just like this! Thanks

[@KifuruHeriko]

Let's be honest, in a real life zombie apocalypse would you be using this small knife. It'll be the last choice for a weapon 😂

[@rezchimp]

"They're classified as backup melee's" Me who just becomes a samurai when I pick up the katana and use it the whole campaign and only switch to primary with tanks

[@DemonFox90]

Clearly the best melee weapon is the frying pan, if you say otherwise you are lying to yourself.

[@ghastlygibus2121]

"Random crits are fair and balanced"

[@Lulu_Gaming1025]

IT HITS HORIZONTALLY LEFT AND RIGHT.

[@SixT6_Official]

LETS GO, IT'S GOOD AGAIN

[@tkellaway]

The golf club actually has some varied swinging animations which allowed me to make a playable golf course on the workshop.

[@keeganchick2171]

I'm surprised that Valve actually updated the game to make the knife actually useable. Still a bad melee though. But useable now.

[@zorgapb4691]

Excuse me? Still bad?? More like one of the best melee weapons in the entire game

[@SleepyKi]

You explain everything so well and thoroughly, this vid is great!

[@mastermind4499]

But what about melee weapons shoving zombies away? It feels like this also differs from weapon to weapon

[@dogsys]

I’m just now realizing how incredibly strong melee weapons are.

[@newturtle3]

Reworks now make it the BEST melee

[@DinnerForkTongue]

Katana is still better

[@Shoxic666]

Makes sense, a knife would naturally suck at saying mobs if zombies. Especially if you aren't stabbing but instead slashing.

[@707vn]

IT GOT FIXED :D

[@abrahamalviarez5870]

beautiful technical previews!

[@girandpiggy95]

an interesting thing about the chainsaw is that it allows you to take less damage when it's in use

[@yerk55]

This was very informative. Thank you

[@dinkleberg7145]

it's good now ( update fixed it)

[@hueyfreeman9094]

Coach is a sharp melee weapon, he has a slow attack interval, horizontally left and right

[@kissaninja9700]

Its so great they added this and removed laugh and taunt. Removed content is really the best. TLS-update was the best update for L4D2. Finding A Bread knife instead of something useful really makes my day.

[@doggoadexx2680]

I can’t tell if this is satire or not.

[@kissaninja9700]

@@doggoadexx2680 i guess you're just that dumb.

[@s10055072]

@@doggoadexx2680 it is, this guy also does the same on steam forum😂

[@lima993b]

I love this channel soo much jesus, could listen to this voice and way of explaining for days.

[@coth5250]

They did it... crazy bastars made knife viable

[@Super-Shafs]

This comment is a blunt weapon, it has a slow attack interval, it deals damage horizontally left and right

[@YEG38]

6:06 Two Words: Steam Workshop

[@n3wb1shness]

This video was packed full of information.

[@iwascrazyonce22]

Alot of these weapons arent on xbox

[@RoboWasTaken]

It has a slow attack interval. It deals damage horizontally left and right!

[@frank8273]

Hey, the knife maybe bad, but atleast is better than the pistol.

[@TheDemonChara]

True

[@acake6654]

True and also false...

[@Leo.de99]

Akimbo is boss

[@DinnerForkTongue]

Better than the Scout, you mean. Not that it matters, now it's machete-tier again.

[@gabegrohl9437]

Best melees: Fireaxe, Shovel, Knife Worst melees: Baton, Pitchfork Despite the Knife having a crooked hitbox, it has a consistent swing animation making it better than melees such as the Bat or the crowbar. Sometimes the blunt melees have bad hit registration, so for me even when the other melees are better on paper they don't correlate exactly in practice. And yes i do aim the camera up for the Knife.

[@cassie_VHS]

So i was just playing death center with some friends and tried to get the pole position achivement One of our friends who recently got the game started using the knife because he had a cool csgo skin and we tried to tell him that it was awful So we get to the finale and we ran out of time to get the achivement because he would try to melee everything with the knife He is no longer our friend

[@DinnerForkTongue]

If only this friendship had waited until last August, when the knife was made good again...

[@drucy.]

What I get from this video is that the best melee weapon is the Machete, since it's the fastest-swinging sharp weapon with a regular back-and-forth between left and right without some weird X shape adding in.

[@cursedbusta3774]

He just explained everything I wanna know. Here's a sub :D

[@Ctrekoz]

This is a very useful video, thank you!

[@Gullington]

What an interesting video! I haven't played left for dead 2 in many years but watched the entire thing. I think it was presented very well!

[@kenrudd6362]

i never thought i could learn so much about Left 4 Dead 13 years later

[@kappaisrad]

The knife also has another use you forgot to mention! Holding the knife will give you the b i g and s t a t i c flashlight beam (only really useful if you're like me and like the melee flashlight and you can't find anything else)

[@BigJ_404]

Very nice video! It was really interesting to see all the angles of the hitbox arcs. You can really see how poorly the knife covers the area in front of the survivor. Additionally, if a special infected is on a table or ledge in front of you, the knife becomes very unwieldy.

[@dante_02]

Very nice video I wanted to ask Did you think about adding the Riot Shield while in production? Considering it's a fairly common melee for players that stay in Co-Op mode

[@BallTap]

I don't think they'll ever add that

[@murmursixtyfour]

Hey, thanks for the insight. This video helps me improve my skill with the knife and makes me want to use it more.

[@TheNecroticGamer]

Just a tip for everyone The melee weapons are All categorized into 3 groups Bludgeoning: Baseball Bat, Nightstick, Cricket Bat, Skillet, Gold Club and Shovel. Slashing: Fireaxe, Katana, Pitchfork, Knife and Machete Shredding: Crowbar and Chainsaw. ALL Melee weapons (excluding the Chainsaw) do the same amount of damage. Some swing faster than others but those faster swinging weapons can have bad hit registration. Especially weapons that swing in a fixed pattern (i.e. The Pitchfork's FIRST 2 swings are ALWAYS Frontal swings). But this can be some-what nullified with practice. (It's worth mentioning the Pitchfork and Shovel are both exclusive to the PC version) Most Melee weapons also have what's called a Lingering Hitbox. Meaning if you turn the camera in unison with the swing animation, you can hit off-screen enemies (even ones BEHIND your survivor) with the very end of the animation. In the end though, it all just boils down to player preference.

[@Imirui]

As of about a month ago, this video is outdated. (It has been stated in the title.) The knife’s damage arc has gone from the left of the screen to the bottom, to swinging left to right in a straight line every time, like the Fire Axe’s second swing. Now it is on par with the other sharp melee weapons.

[@VanessaMagick]

I've seen dissertations on the knife before - props to actually doing your research instead of coming into this video with comments like "The knife has the worst damage" or "the knife has bad range". I admit, I love the knife from a purely aesthetic point of view. The best way to use it is to curve your crosshair to the right and up during the swing animation, which gives it a more horizontal curve. On paper the knife is actually really good - its fast, sharp, consistent and it has a non-obtrusive viewmodel. You just have to know how to compensate for its absolutely ridiculous arc. That said, the community update team has already put in a fix for the knife to revert it to its old ray pattern (but keeping the swing speed nerf from TLS) so this will HOPEFULLY be an outdated video at some point.

[@JacobVonRoker]

1:30 looks strikingly like the death knights projectile attack in quake

[@dauntlessnicholas1672]

Note: Crowbar and Chainsaw are counted as "Shredding" types instead of Slashing type like the rest of the sharp weapon. Both of the weapons shreds body parts off instead of cutting them entirely, evidently by the crowbar's inability to decapitate common infected and instead taking off chunks of the head

[@MrSuperstargamer]

I did a little bit of testing myself on the map "The Unofficial Left 4 Dead tutorial" and activated "melee_show_swing 1" and oh man there's a lot to go about this, far more than just saying: "it has a slow attack interval, it deals damage blah blah blah". The "rectangular prisms" (which I'll call "hitrays" from now on) differ drastically on each weapon, and not only that, in each swing animation of the weapon as well. These hitrays seem to be separated by segments "on fours", meaning that there are points where 4 hitrays disperse from specific points during the attack animation, I tested this by basically strafing left and right depending on the direction of the swing to follow. I wanna go through all of the melee weapons in this aspect (going from worse to best imo): The pitchfork: it has 3 attack animations (or otherwise "swings"): 1st swing is vertical w/ 3 hitray segments "on fours" (12 hitrays), 2nd is diagonal w/ 3 "on fours" (12 hitrays) as well, and 3rd is horizontal w/ 5 "on fours" (20 hitrays). Frankly, the arc of the first two swings is enough to make me just not want to pick it up. I'd rather prefer the knife. The knife: only 1 swing on a downward curve w/ 4-5 "on fours" (16-20 hitrays). I do think you can find more of a use in this weapon but other alternatives (except the pitchfork) are better for a more horizontal arc. Baseball bat and cricket bat: they both have 3 swings; 1st swing is horizontal with 6-7 "on fours" (24-28 hitrays), 2nd and 3rd swings are diagonal with 5 "on fours" (20 hitrays) both. Yeah it's "better" I guess but the arc of the last two swings makes me want to find another better alternative with more horizontal and consistent swings. Only real difference between the two is the cricket bat is safer to use. From what I've read, baseball bat does 7 dmg to survivors while cricket bat does 5, essentially a 2 dmg points of difference. Crowbar: This is not what I meant when I said "horizontal and consistent"... even if it technically is... it has 2 horizontal swings, both having 3 "on fours" (12 hitrays)... that's it. It's arguably the most consistent melee in the game yet it still sucks compared to others because it basically has less hitrays than others like the axe, the frying pan, the guitar and even the shovel, considering they all have almost the same swinging speed. Now you may know why it feels like the crowbar just sucks. Police Baton: fastest swinging speed/interval, 2 horizontal swings; 1st swing has 2 "on fours" (8 hitrays), 2nd has 4-5 "on fours" (16-20 hitrays). That's a big fucking jump from the 1st swing, which makes it have short width at first but the 2nd swing somehow is twice the better of it? That's just extremely inconsistent for my taste. Machete: 3 horizontal swings; 1st has 3-4 "on fours" (12-16 hitrays), 2nd has 5-6 "on fours" with one loose hitray at the start of the swing (21-25 hitrays), 3rd has 2-3 "on fours" (8-12 hitrays). First two swings I think they're alright, but the third swing for some reason puts me off, even if the machete has the fastest swing out of all sharp melees. Edit: I forgot the factor of the direction of the swings which is also important to consider, in other weapons is more obvious due to the arc they create but the Machete is always horizontal with its swings. Thing is, since most melees always start from right to left and the subsequent 2nd swing does the opposite, the 3rd swing goes back to swinging right to left; however, it resets back to the 1st which is the same exact direction. This I think is a disadvantage since it makes it harder and confusing for players who want to follow the swing with the camera. Shovel: Slowest swinging speed of all melees, barely falling behind the axe by a small margin, 2 horizontal swings; 1st has 6-7 "on fours" (24-28 hitrays) while 2nd has always 8 "on fours" (32 hitrays). Could easily be one of the best melees if not for the fact that it's slightly slower than either the guitar or axe and also a blunt weapon as well. Still needs a lot of testing for effectiveness. Frying Pan: 2 horizontal swings; 1st is always 5 "on fours" (20 hitrays) while 2nd varies between 5-6 "on fours" (20-24 hitrays). Similar swing speed to the axe, slightly faster, but only barely. Guitar & Axe: Slow speed with 2 swings, each of which have either 5-6 "on fours" (20-24 hitrays). More consistent than most other melees despite slow swinging speed. Very good. Golf Club & Katana: 2 fast swings, 1st has 3-4 "on fours" (12-16 hitrays) while 2nd has 5-6 "on fours" with a loose hitray at the start of the swing (21-25). Arguably better than the machete due to the fact that it doesn't have a 3rd swing that brings its overall quality down, the two swings are more tolerable as they are. I still need more "on the field" testing to prove which one is better or worse, but I'm sure that I hit the nail with the quantity of "on four" hitray segments. I also hope that I gave more of a proper insight on melee weapons as a whole. I barely see people actually talk about these important details. Also, maybe the speed of each swing can also affect the overall effectiveness of the weapons but I'm not too sure of how to either identify their speed or if they are all the same speed, or if there are weapons which only delay the hitrays appearing or etc. "What about the chainsaw?" uuuuuuh I'd rather avoid talking about the chainsaw but I'll say this: as much as it seems that it's the most powerful of all, it has limited use, which makes you go back to one measly pistol so I'd rather go for another melee, it has a 2-second startup delay which is a huge disadvantage when changing weapons on hordes, and also from what I've heard, the noise that the attack makes causes every nearby zombie attracted to you, which could be both an advantage and disadvantage at the same time. In conclusion? Just go with the Deagle lmao. In all seriousness, I'd say either the katana or axe could give you a better chance overall, if not available, at least remember to stay away from the bottom of the barrel (Pitchfork & Knife). But I encourage everybody to test the weapons as well and have your piece on the matter as well.