Imo, whip + shield is the strongest combo in melee build. Not only does it hit decently fast, but its hitbox is 2x3 blocks in front of you, and it mostly deals stamina damage so you can get aggro without killing the victims. Very effective against abominations and undead, and good against groups of anything, tbh.
And it's one of the easiest high-quality weapons to get since it can be bought from a shop in fishman island. Just get a sword, go to the plain field, and start killing rabbits for meat, then go back to town and hire the whip dude from the guild for 1 meat soup(you'd have 20+ meat by now, dude's basically free labor) and start grinding for repeatable quests(mainly cemetery and cleaning the mine ones, which whip is good against to boost). Buy a shield and a bow when you have the weapon expert perk, since the prior boosts your defense and the latter has the highest damage per charged shot in a melee build. And do the crazy doctor questline so that he will bring you to fishman island, free of charge. The shop to the right sells you the entire hunter set(the best melee armor in the current game imo) and the whip for only 8000+ points, I think. You'd basically have the ideal melee equipment by now, no RNG chest involved.
The wizard build requires some insane grinding in comparison, a piece of equipment alone is worth 8000 points, which is almost as much as the entire melee set. I'm still experimenting it, but I can say that the fire staff deals decent damage at long range, the fire book serves a similar purpose as the whip but at a long range and the stamina damage isn't nearly as good, and you can set your enemy on fire like a lantern from afar, and the water book deals AOE damage and stun around you, but a little slow.
And it's one of the easiest high-quality weapons to get since it can be bought from a shop in fishman island. Just get a sword, go to the plain field, and start killing rabbits for meat, then go back to town and hire the whip dude from the guild for 1 meat soup(you'd have 20+ meat by now, dude's basically free labor) and start grinding for repeatable quests(mainly cemetery and cleaning the mine ones, which whip is good against to boost). Buy a shield and a bow when you have the weapon expert perk, since the prior boosts your defense and the latter has the highest damage per charged shot in a melee build. And do the crazy doctor questline so that he will bring you to fishman island, free of charge. The shop to the right sells you the entire hunter set(the best melee armor in the current game imo) and the whip for only 8000+ points, I think. You'd basically have the ideal melee equipment by now, no RNG chest involved.
The wizard build requires some insane grinding in comparison, a piece of equipment alone is worth 8000 points, which is almost as much as the entire melee set. I'm still experimenting it, but I can say that the fire staff deals decent damage at long range, the fire book serves a similar purpose as the whip but at a long range and the stamina damage isn't nearly as good, and you can set your enemy on fire like a lantern from afar, and the water book deals AOE damage and stun around you, but a little slow.