Left 4 Dead 2's Melee Weapons Are the Way to Go

Left 4 Dead proved to be one of the most successful and most popular Half Life 2 mods, so it didn't take long before Valve got Left 4 Dead 2 all wrapped up and ready for shipping. In fact, Valve did it so quickly that a lot of die-hard fans of the zombie shooter thought this would make the game rushed and severely lacking in the quality department. The result was that the L4D community started a boycott, but in the end, everything turned out OK.

Valve flew in the community leaders and gave them a hands-on experience with the game in its mid-level stage of development, and the two were very pleased with what they saw. The game saw other difficulties, as its excessive violence and gore caused the Australian Rating Board to ban the game, and offered L4D2 a rating only for its censored version.

One of the big new things L4D2 has over its previous installment are the melee weapons, and it looks like these are indeed the way to go in case of a zombie apocalypse.

A list has been put together by user Urik, and by the looks of it, if we ever ran into an L4D2 zombie Tank on Expert Difficultly, the best weapon against it would be non other than the police nightstick, while the Molotov Cocktail would be the least effective one.
 
In fact, melee weapons are a far better idea in approaching the Tank than any other weapons. All melee weapons will bring down the tank in less than 10 seconds, while the closest range any weapon gets to is M-16 Assault Rifle, with 24 seconds and the Combat Shotgun with 26 seconds.

Aside from the nightstick being more effective than the Assault Rifle or the Chainsaw, the biggest surprise as damage output is the grenade launcher, which takes anything from 30 to 60 seconds to bring down a tank, and that's only if every grenade is a direct hit, and doesn't do just splash damage.

With these stats in mind, tactics could really change in L4D2. When coming up against Valve's Tank, running backwards from it and shooting like mad seems to be the worst strategy possible. If everyone equips a nightstick and charges at it, the big lummox will be down in just over a second. Of course, that's how the numbers tell it on paper.