edit.

stealth meelee please

I think a question to answer is whether you want the sneaking melee type, almost like a ninja if youre into that or if you would prefer the wade-into-the-middle-of-a-fight-swinging maniac type

I cannot be of much help for the second but as for the first I just finished a playthrough with that kind of Courier with the added twist of Energy Weapons for sniping. My SPECIAL was nothing special looking something like 666566X with my Luck being whatever left plus 1 from Intense Training perk. I'm not a min/maxer so those scores were more for flavor and for roleplaying purposes I do not get the implants to raise your SPECIAL scores by 1.

My traits were Built To Destroy and Heavy Handed and my tags were Melee, Speech and Repair. For combat I relied on a combat knife early on and Knock Knock (or Liberator) in the endgame for melee combat. If I spotted enemies that were especially tough or too many I would pull out my modded Laser Rifle (complete with scope) and snipe a few before moving in and chopping up the rest. That being said if I were to do it again (and I will) I would only change the sniping with Energy Weapons skill to sniping with regular Guns

All told it was extremely fun and flexible being able to resort to sniping if my enemies were say, deathclaws or a pack of high level feral ghouls. Notable perks were Super Slam, Stonewall, Toughness, Purifier and Ninja

Again, I am not a min/maxer and the skill, perk, trait, and tag choices were heavily influenced by my roleplaying. YMMV

I did a stealth-melee character on my last playthrough.. Very Sam Fisheresque. Loads of fun. Best playthrough on NV. Being completely invisible, and taking out enemies with a combat knife in one swing, yes please.

in the process of a sneak melee build myself, anyone know if ninja is fixed for xbox? wiki says not but don't know if the latest patch changed it

I agree, very fun. Could you share with us some of the particulars of the build?

i was going to do a brawler but now stealth is sounding good, so advice the stealth away

Put points into Sneak and Melee.

Get either Knock Knock or Oh Baby!, both of them are just insanely good melee weapons.

consider getting energy or guns skill to 100 after melee or sneak because deathclaws and cazadors are gonna tear u to shreads

Get Strength 10, and a Fire Axe (Knock Knock) and Super Sledge (Oh, Baby!).

Also if you're doing a sneak melee character, get some throwing knifes, hatchets and spears. You can get a lot of Throwing Knife Spears in Dead Money.

Not really, dude. Don't underestimate the power of melee weapons.

also may want some unarmed for some of the very useful perks like slayer and piercing strike to hit quicker and ignore DT

Melee weps have had a huge buff since F3 the Oh Baby and knock knock will make short work of almost anything

My Legion character is a walking tank. He's fast, does loads of damage, and is built like a truck ( atleast I like to think so). It's honestly a great character type, you feel so powerful it's just plain awesome. Also, pick up Oh Baby! when you get the chance, that thing is well...a baby :tongue:

Oh Baby for Heavy Handed.

Chainsaw or Ripper for Crit builds.

Don't even bother sneaking, just run at things and murder them.

Super Slam makes deathclaws and cazadoras almost a non-issue, as most two-handed melee weapons will perform a guaranteed knockdown with the VATS special attack and Super Slam.

hmmmm....well i don't really play fallout for the challange so i primarily play on moderate difficulty, if that helps.

also i really love the look of the machete gladius.....but i'm not legion, so don't worry.
and uh...yeah

Im a Chem Head on my Melee /survival character

nothing can beat me when im Hopped up on Med-x, Psycho, Buffout, Rocket, Slasher, and TTTTUUUURRRBBBBOOOO!!!!!

what kind of message does this teach kids? Drugs make you a badass? Whenever a prosttute can't handle the Med-X addiction, we call them pussies for not handling addiction like we do, or get the caps and see a doc. 1-2-gone! Cured. That's not true! You need rehabilitation!

WINNING!

Oh crap. I need to re-name my character!

No, having done a character like this it is entirely and very possible to tear up Cazadors and Deathclaws. People are so scared of them when in reality they are not that strong./

true...well for me, half true. i have primarily played guns games, and i do not even falter at the entrance to deathclaw promonotory or even the legendary death claw....but when i see those fast moving little buggers on my compass i run like hell....i hate cazadores...they were my fisrt ever death

I couldn't give you the particulars, just the basics of what I remember.

Essentially, and some of this has been said, make sure your Sneak and Melee are your top two priorities. You'll also want to put a decent amount of points in Unarmed.
You want a smart character as well, but not so smart that it takes away from other essential characteristics. Things like Lockpick and Hacking are important, but Agility is important as well. You don't need a whole lot of strength. A 6 should be fine, along with the Strong Back perk. Speaking of Perks, that will be easy. You'll be able to tell which perks are best for your stealth character. Things like Silent Running are obvious, but you might even want to try the perk that allows you to see at night more clearly, although truthfully, I just found that to be annoying, and kind of useless considering the amount of Cateye and now Ghost Sight that lies around.
As for weapons, your Guns skill needs to be higher than your EW skill, for the sole purpose of being effective with silenced weapons. A night scope, silenced varmint rifle is a monster when your Guns skill gets high enough, but obviously your melee/unarmed should be top dawg. Don't completely forsake EW, however, as things like Holorifles and Pulse Guns can fill very specific roles if they aren't totally forgotten.

One more thing, Perception allows enemies to appear on your compass from greater distances, and can be very handy.

Nah, only seems strong because the PC can be extremely overpowered. In the end Guns/EW > All.

If it is easy with a melee/unarmed build then it is really easy with a guns/ew build.

That said, unarmed/melee can be fun and a nice change of pace.

I also would recommend a stealth approach. Or a high DT approach. Toughness 1 & 2, Metal Armor, Metal Helemt in the low levels. Gives a solid DT of 22.

Latter on, I think Solar Powered rocks for a melee/unarmred guy. +2 Strength and +1 HP per second regen. Very nice!

I am actually going to start dropping Weapon Handling and go Solar Powered for now on.