Yes, weapon damage makes your melee hit harder. The game describes Weapon Damage as a bonus to "your Gun and Melee attacks", so the weapon items and weapon shop bonus that raise your gun damage raise your melee too. On top of that, base melee damage grows with every boon, and a handful of items add more.
Light and heavy melee
Tap melee for a quick light attack. Hold it and you charge a heavy melee instead, which hits much harder but is slower and easier to parry. Meleeing pauses your reload, and a stun or sleep interrupts it.
Most heroes start with 50 light and 116 heavy melee damage, and their base melee goes up by 1.58 with every boon. A few heroes differ:
| Hero | Light | Heavy | Per boon |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bebop, Apollo, Calico, Viscous | 63 | 116 | 1.58 |
| 60 | 116 | 1.58 | |
| Rem | 58 | 116 | 1.58 |
| Yamato | 55 | 128 | 1.58 |
| Drifter | 51.5 | 120 | 1.58 |
| Venator | 50 | 125 | 1.7 |
| Abrams | 50 | 116 | 1.738 |
| Violet | 50 | 116 | 1.2 |
| Baba | 50 | 116 | 0.7 |
| Paige | 42 | 120 | 1.2 |
Paige is the only hero whose melee scales with spirit power: her heavy melee gains 0.45 damage per point of spirit power.
What reduces melee damage
Bullet resist reduces melee damage as well as gun damage. There's also a separate Melee Resist stat that only works against melee, from items like Rebuttal, Close Quarters, Point Blank and Juggernaut. The two stack, so a tank with both takes much less from melee builds.
Items that boost melee
- Melee Charge: your next heavy melee against an enemy deals extra damage and travels further.
- Crushing Fists: melee hits restore ammo and stack a bullet resist debuff on the target; heavy melee adds two stacks, and full stacks stun.
- Lifestrike and Melee Lifesteal: your next melee heals you (Lifestrike also slows the target).
- Colossus: bonus melee damage while its active is up.
- Spirit Strike and Spirit Snatch: melee hits on heroes add spirit damage and lower their spirit resist.
- Shadow Weave: bonus melee damage when you attack out of stealth.
Your boons and the weapon shop bonus both feed into melee, so a weapon build is already a decent melee build.
Quick answers
Does weapon damage affect melee in Deadlock?
Yes. Weapon Damage boosts both your gun and your melee, so weapon items and the weapon shop bonus make melee hit harder.
How much damage does melee do in Deadlock?
Most heroes start at 50 for a light melee and 116 for a heavy melee, plus 1.58 per boon. Bebop, Apollo, Calico and Viscous hit harder with light melee (63), and Yamato has the strongest heavy melee (128).
Does bullet resist reduce melee damage?
Yes. Bullet resist lowers melee damage too, and Melee Resist is a separate stat that lowers only melee.
Does Paige's melee scale with spirit power?
Her heavy melee does: it gains 0.45 damage per point of spirit power. Her light melee doesn't.