I got Pickman's blade which deals (for me) currently 36 damage + extra 25 damage and leads to bleeding. I found a legendary Chinese sword which deals allegedly 10 kryo damage (and freezes with crits which is of no meaning for me because I never use VATS). I could mod the sword with a serrated blade (bleeding) and electric-pack to 67 damage and 34 additional damage. The 34 additional damage is listed as electric damage, I'm not sure wether the +10 kryo damage is included or not (it shows + 16 extra damage unmodded, so all is a bit weird)

Lets say it is Pickman's with 61 damage and bleeding compared to the sword with 101 damage and bleeding. What would you prefer?

The knife is faster, does that compensate the smaller damage? Usually a sword is fast enough to disrupt enemy attacks (a slow weapon is not). Do knives have disadvantages, f.e. worse blocking abilities? Does the bonus damage of Pickman's knife increase with strength or is it always + 25 damage?

2076 world series baseball bat, its amazing in both my hands and in the hands of followers and does not need perks to be extremely useful.

What type of melee character are you playing? If you are focused around V.A.T.S i would say that a combat knife like Pickman's blade is just brilliant, same goes for Stealth characters. If you are up in the face of the enemy i would go with a Baseball Bat, or Super Sledge. Kremvh's tooth is also a very nice weapon that has good midrange like a sword and can be used well in both playstyles. That is my take on it atleast, i mostly only play melee characters.

It's more a "save ammunition against non-firearm enemies and fight guys near you in melee" type of play. I'm not the always sneak type. I just carry a hunting rifle or laser musket and that's too slow for tough guys who are close to me. I never use VATS.

With a slow melee weapon like a bat or the supersledge I just am not able to disrupt the enemy attacks fast enough. It's worse when there are more than one enemy, so most of the time. Blocking alone cannot win the fight. Till now I'm best off with a medium melee. In my last play I used Kremvh's or the Shishkebab (the latter with doubled damage however).

When you use a heavy slow melee weapon, how do you avoid getting bashed by three or more ghouls f.e.? What do you do against mirelurks which seem to block 75% of all swings?

super sledge!

Ripper as it is by far the easiest to use with the least amount of frustration.