There's a bug that prevents the damage bonus of master armsmaster from working with staff and unarmed. I wasted a whole game building up a Master after figuring out the massive damage possible with staff GM, unarmed GM and armsmaster M. That beats out unarmed alone by several damage points. Since the bug prevents the armsmaster damage bonus, just stick with unarmed. I'm still annoyed by this discovery and haven't bothered to finish out the game, despite the fact that it's still probably my best mele party ever.I never bother with blasters, BTW. If you have a sorcerer, you can Lloyd's out of the Lincoln and re-equip all your stuff. With a dark magic party, shrapmetal crushes the bots in the Lincoln. With a mele party, you can beat them up pretty easily.
