Enshrouded Melee Guide: Best Weapons, Shields & Skills

With a wide range of playstyles on offer in Enshrouded, you’re free to take many paths — but sometimes the simplest solution is to hit hard! We’ve already covered mages (Enshrouded Mage Guide: Best Weapons, Skills & Spells) and rangers (Enshrouded Ranger Guide: Best bows, arrows, skills and build tips) and are now taking a closer look at melee. Even here you can approach combat in different ways and decide exactly how you want to attack. Whether fast with lower damage or slow with heavy hitting power, Enshrouded gives you plenty of melee options. In this guide, we’ll show you just how flexible you can be!

Enshrouded melee guide: overview and key tips

Melee in Enshrouded is quite straightforward at first glance, but there are many factors that can make your fights easier or harder. It’s a class you can play comfortably from the start, but you must ensure you’re still dealing enough damage later on. There are certainly plenty of weapons, but you should still weigh up what suits your combat style.

Basics and general tips for melee players:

• Find your preferred weapon type as early as possible and stick with it.
• Pay attention to the type of damage your weapon deals and improve your skills accordingly.
• Focus on keeping your health topped up or high at all times.
• Stamina and mana are secondary, but can still matter.
• If you’re using a one-hander, always carry a shield.
• Make use of gems and enchantments that further enhance your weapons.

Enshrouded melee weapons: best daggers, swords, hammers and axes

Melee often means you simply need to hit very hard. But Enshrouded’s system is much more complex, with many different weapon types and damage patterns that let you specialise in specific areas.

There are several weapon types:

• Daggers (partially fitting into a ranged-build)
• Swords & greatsword
• Axes
• Clubs & hammers

These are further divided into one-handed and two-handed weapons, each with dozens of variants per type. This mainly affects the attack pattern. One-handers are lighter and more flexible; you can also carry a shield and actively use it in combat. However, they’re a bit weaker. Two-handers, on the other hand, have massive stopping power and deal a lot of damage, but they occupy both hands so you can’t use a shield. They’re also slower and more cumbersome.

Every melee weapon has a fixed attack damage value, which gives you a general idea of its power. However, each weapon also has additional properties you need to consider, including attack types and elemental damage.

The different melee attack types in Enshrouded:

• Blunt
• Slashing
• Piercing

A weapon can specialise in one, two or even all three types. This matters when you upgrade your skills, as they scale with the corresponding damage type. Further upgrades include gems and any preset enchantments.

Enshrouded melee skills: builds for damage, tanking and speed

You can level up your character with the right abilities to increase your damage. As a melee fighter, you should primarily focus on the red branches of the skill tree, though there’s still plenty of choice.

• Athlete: Grants various improvements, including greater mobility, stamina and strength. Whatever your approach, the Athlete branch is worthwhile for virtually every playstyle.
• Warrior: The Warrior section is key to your damage. Pay attention to the damage type your weapon deals. You can then improve Blunt, Piercing and Slashing, or invest points across all three.
• Tank: Invest here for your defence, even if you’re not playing a pure tank. More health and defence never hurt anyone.
• Barbarian: If you play with two-handers, this is the right place. Invest in area damage and improve the handling of all two-handed weapons.

You can build your melee character however you like. We also recommend allocating some points from the Survivor, Assassin and Battlemage branches. These provide greater mobility and additionally regenerate stamina and mana.

Best skills for melee fighters:

• Leap Attack
• Relentless Attack
• Constitution
• Strength
• Heavy Specialisation
• Bloodlust
• Dodge Attack
• Combat Healing

Enshrouded gear for melee: best armour and shields

Alongside your weapon, your additional gear is crucial for a solid fighting style. Depending on the biome, you’ll find suitable armour pieces that offer increasing benefits as you progress.

As a melee attacker you’re up close, so you need to withstand heavy damage. Melee armour pieces — found or crafted at the blacksmith — therefore offer strong resistances. Sets also tend to boost your health, increase damage and sometimes improve stamina regeneration.

If you’re using a greatsword with Update 7 in Enshrouded, make sure you equip the Greatsword Gauntlets! These can be found at the Goldrock Saddle Inn.

Finally, if you’re using a one-handed weapon, carry an appropriate shield. There’s plenty of choice, and most shields can be crafted at the blacksmith. You can also use magical shields, but these must be crafted by the Alchemist.

Enshrouded shields have the following values:

• Level requirement
• Damage on parry
• Durability
• Additional effect (e.g., elemental resistances)

Shields can partially or fully block damage. You can also parry with them and perform a counter-attack with perfect timing. It’s worth replacing shields with better variants when you enter new areas.

Conclusion: mastering melee in Enshrouded

As a melee fighter you’ll constantly prove yourself in duels against various monsters and foes. Thankfully, Enshrouded gives you many ways to tailor your combat style to your own skills. With a wide selection of melee weapons and matching skills, you’ll be well prepared. Add a good shield and learn to parry perfectly, and you’ll be hard to beat.

If you want to try melee, then why not rent your own Enshrouded server with us right away? Rent your own Enshrouded server! Test different weapons, from quick daggers to gigantic hammers, to find your preferred attack style.