For a game that seems to be simply about over-the-top demon-killing action, Evil Dead: The Game has many moving parts. The Survivors and the Kandarian Demon have several unique mechanics, stats, abilities, perks, and items at their disposal, all of which interact with a vast sandbox of a map that changes over the course of each match. The game’s combat revolves around fun and relatively complex system of melee mechanics, not all of which are immediately apparent. In this advanced combat guide, we’ll go over all melee mechanics in Evil Dead: The Game, and give you some useful tips and tricks for coming out on top in every brawl.
Dismember and Balance
When you find a weapon, you will immediately notice some standard stats like damage and rarity, and a couple of less common ones like Dismember and Balance damage. Dismember damage is relatively uninvolved: the more Dismember a melee weapon has, the more likely it will remove a part of your target’s body, reducing their overall abilities. Dismembering can be reverted: if the Kandarian Demon possesses one of their minions, all of their body parts regrow, and their health is restored. That’s about all there is to the Dismember stat in Evil Dead: The Game.
Balance damage is much more important, as it shows how effective each melee weapon is at breaking your target’s Balance bar. When that happens, they stumble, and you can perform a Finisher on them — more on that later. Stumbling has other uses, as it triggers certain Survivor abilities, and it can make the Necromancer’s Skeletons drop their shields. Note that Bosses cannot be Dismembered or stumbled. When a Boss’ Balance bar breaks, they are temporarily stunned, which is usually a good time to focus on them with your whole team.
Weapon differences
Most Survivor characters have abilities that guide what melee weapons they want to use. For example, Leader Ash prefers high Dismemberment weapons because of his El Jefe Grande passive, which buffs his aura when Dismembering enemies and performing Finishers. Similarly, Kelly gets increased stats with Meat Hammers, so she should keep an eye out for those. As you unlock all characters in Evil Dead: The Game, make sure to check your character’s abilities in the Collection menu to know what your preferred melee weapons are.
Other than that, attack speed is the characteristic you want to pick your tools around, and you will become familiar with it after you use each melee weapon in Evil Dead: The Game a few times. Small, fast-attacking weapons are good for killing basic enemies and triggering on-hit effects, such as Support Ash’s Alternative Healing ability. Heavier weapons have a longer reach and are better for dealing burst damage with Warriors, who can upgrade their melee damage and their swing speed.
Finishers
When you stumble an opponent, you get a prompt to perform a Finisher move. When that happens, watch for a red skull icon hovering over the prompt. This icon indicates that the Finisher will kill your target; when you kill minions with Finishers, there is an increased chance they will drop an item or ammo. If there is no red icon, you can still perform a Finisher, and it will inflict heavy damage, after which your opponent’s Balance bar will be refilled.
Either way, performing a Finisher interrupts the animation of whatever you were doing and puts you into an extended state of invincibility as you gratuitously pummel your helpless prey. Getting this type of invincibility state in games is usually called I-frames, although in this case, it’s entire I-seconds, and getting it in the middle of a fight is tremendously useful. Nothing else about your character is suspended during the Finisher animation: they continue to regenerate Stamina, their passive aura abilities remain active, and so on. Use Finishers whenever you can to catch a breather, though you should naturally aim for red skull Finishers for the most impact.
Dodging
Dodging in Evil Dead: The Game is useful for a couple of reasons, and you shouldn’t sleep on it. For starters, it doesn’t just get your body out of the way of incoming attacks, but it also gives you I-frames, which means that you can dodge directly into an Exploding Berserker without taking damage. Some characters also have dodge-specific abilities that trigger when successfully avoiding attacks.
Dodging can also be used for animation canceling in the middle of a flurry of melee attacks. Typically, each swing with a melee weapon completes before the next one begins; however, if you dodge immediately after connecting with a melee attack, your character resets on the move and can immediately swing again from their new position. This allows you to put out more effective damage than should be possible. If you like to use tricky moves like that, make sure to upgrade your Stamina early on in the match.
Aiming down sights
Our last combat tip for Evil Dead: The Game may not seem to concern melee, but it does. As you will quickly realize when playing, it takes slightly longer to fully aim down the sights of your ranged weapon if you do it while holding a melee weapon, because your character has to away their chainsaw or pickaxe and draw their gun. For that reason, Survivor players, and especially Hunters, are advised to pre-aim their ranged weapons once after finishing a fight so they can shoot sooner when the next one breaks out. Melee weapons are drawn instantly when you press the button or key, so there is no downside to running around with your gun out.
Aiming has another use in melee combat in Evil Dead: The Game, and it is nearly game-breaking. Like dodging, aiming can animation-cancel, allowing you to quickly chain melee attacks by simply tapping the aim-down-sights button or key between each melee swing. Unlike dodging, this form of animation-canceling can be done without moving or spending Stamina, and it makes for an even faster swing speed.
Whether you should use this melee trick in Evil Dead: The Game is debatable. It is objectively powerful, but it may also make things harder for you in the long run. Evil Dead: The Game has an MMR system, and exploiting advanced tricks like animation-canceling is bound to land you in more difficult lobbies. If you haven’t mastered the fundamental strategies and game flow by then, you will have a pretty miserable time.
