The Thunderbolt melee is a close/mid ranged melee like Energy Drain or Scorch. It's nothing like Throwing Knife or Blink Strike unless you add the Javelin perk which is basically a Throwing knife with zero downfall which you cannot long range snipe people with. A percision hit with Javelin active would probably do the same much as a throwing knife or maybe less. I'll try to clarify that.