The RUST Machete is an early-game harvesting tool that remains relevant in end-game RUST. This persistence is due to its effectiveness and ready availability for those hitting barrels and opening crates, as well as those interested in raiding Wooden Door bases.
As a tool, you can use a machete to harvest animal carcasses for Cloth, Leather, Meat, Bone Fragments, and Animal Fat. Rocks and stone tools harvest creatures and corpses slower and also yield less material per cut.
As a weapon, the machete does a decent amount of damage to both animals and players alike. The significant drawback of using the machete as a melee weapon outside of skinning, or for breaking barrels comes in the form of low durability – it breaks fairly fast compared to other melee tools.
One additional utility, as alluded to prior, is the capacity to craft the machete with recycled materials and destroy standard wooden doors. It takes roughly 15 machetes to break one from full health. This is a popular form of economy raiding.
