What's the difference between a brick and a bottle?

Question

I've played The Last of Us a few times through, and as my "distraction" weapon I've always preferred bricks over bottles. I think that's mostly because in my first playthrough I saw Joel smash someone's skull in with one, but that's neither here nor there.

Is there any actual advantage to either one? Are there any differences at all? Or am I just deluded by the amazing cinematics/graphics into thinking my brick is superior?

Answer 1

Bricks are more effective as a melee weapon because they don't break on first hit. You can hit an enemy twice which will bring them to a vulnerable state so you can:

1. Bash their head again with the brick, which will kill them and break the brick :(
2. Shoot them in the head, but if you were gonna shoot someone why use the brick in the first place :|
3. Switch to a melee weapon and kill them in 1 hit to conserve weapon endurance. Now you have a half broken brick and somewhat broken melee weapon :)
4. Other creative strategies. Which is not possible with a bottle because it breaks on the first hit.

There's speculation that the bottle has a larger distract range than the brick. But I haven't been able to prove this conclusively.

Answer 2

Bottles are a better distraction weapon. From my experience, Bottles make a louder sound when smashed, providing greater distraction to enemies.

Bricks are definitely a stronger melee weapon. As far as I remember, a Brick gives you a 3-hit melee, which should take out an enemy.

So, I would recommend:

Stealth:- Bottles

Attack:- Bricks

Bearing in mind, a lot of the game is based on stealth.