True Melee

True melee, the actual punching of enemies, is both the most rewarding playstyle and the most frustrating playstyle, in my opinion. There are several builds on this site focused on true melee. You must be aware of its limitations, so that you can expect them and do your best to work around them.
 

PROTIPS

Before diving into all the ways true melee challenges you, a few practical tips:

If you're using keyboard and mouse, rebind your melee key to something on your mouse hand. I have mine set to middle mouse button (pushing the scroll wheel down, which only really works with a scroll wheel that has stops - not a free-scrolling one). The default keybind of 'V' requires you to take your index finger off of WASD, your movement keys. (I don't know how melee works on a controller.) Movement and mobility are absolutely crucial to suriving the hardest content with a true melee build. For example, greatly increased movement speed is a key point of survivability in my Urad true melee build.

True melee is "brain-on gameplay". Don't just hold forward and start trying to punch enemies. Unless you have a rare high-survivability true melee build, you should only be engaging enemies you know you're going to kill quickly. Or if you can't, you must have a backup plan or plan for retreat. You must, in general, learn how enemies move and attack. You must often dodge attacks (again, increased movement speed helps a ton). You must simultaneously pay attention to the minimap and the enemies within your field of view. You must know what kind of attack you can use to likely stagger an enemy. You must use cover often and wisely. You must know when to give in and swap to your Face Puncher or throw a Fish. All of these things you learn through playing and paying attention.

Take a true melee build into the True Maliwan Takedown Bridge, while trying to kill as many enemies with punching as possible. You'll quickly learn how high the skill ceiling in this game can get.

One specific tip I've learned is circling an enemy. Let's say you have a dangerous enemy to deal with, like a Badass Maliwan Trooper. If you punch, then rotate around them a bit to punch their side, then keep rotating and punching, each move you make forces the Trooper to spend time turning toward you. He will attempt to melee, but by then you've rotated out of the way. (Again, movement speed.) This is one way to take no damage from an otherwise very dangerous enemy. This of course assumes no other enemies are attacking you and forcing you to break away.

Ok, now time for the despair...

​​

ZERO RANGE

True melee has basically zero range, which presents many problems. The obvious one is flying enemies, such as Death Spheres or Seras. many of which actively avoid your approach, even if you could reach them with Find Your Center or Blitz. Even something simple as an enemy jumping on a box can mean they are unreachable, and while you are trying to get to them you get downed. It's for these reasons that grenades and guns like the Face Puncher and Blade Fury exist.

​

KNOCKBACK

There are certain enemies that will relentlessly knock you back while you are attempting to punch them. This is most common in the Guardian Takedown. Additionally, most of those enemies in the takedown are not stunned by your melee attacks. So they remain grounded and attacking you, while also knocking you away, making you have to wait to land on your feet and close the gap again.

​

DEATH SKULLS

True melee builds massively benefit from the Speed Demon modifier on Mayhem 10. However, being a true melee build removes the ability to use one of the very hard modifiers, Post Mortem. The death skulls that spawn from a killed enemy have hitboxes instantly, and a punch that kills an enemy will also send you directly into that spawning skull, downing you every time.

​

BODY & MIND

Body & Mind is a useful damage increase for punching, but its area-of-effect nature will also detonate barrels nearby, or add elemental damage to the water you are standing in, damaging you.

​

WOTAN

The most loved boss of Borderlands 3, Wotan, cannot be true melee'd, at least not without huge risk. His deterrence field healthgates you when you get close.

​

TELEPORTATION

There is a risk of teleportation when you attempt punching an enemy. This is especially risky in the Guardian Takedown. See below: