Fallout 4 - Legendary Weapon Effect Tier List

Wounding also has the benefit that the timing of the ticks isn't impacted by being in VATS, it'll still apply in real time even during the slowdown. So you can apply however many stacks and just watch them bleed to death before they can even react

Why didn't they add medic for the syringer? Or have syringes that buffed your companions? Hell, you could even do something like +100 carry weight for two hours or something.

Deadeye is the best overall effect. The kind of movement and Parkour tricks it lets you do make it incredibly useful. A game changer for melee; use it to quickly close the gap safely. Plus much more. If I could only have one effect, it’s Deadeye 💯

Hey ReapeeRon. I reinstalled Fallout 4 because of you. lol Plus its always a good move to have at least one offline game to play for when the net goes down. That happens a lot where I live. :P

deadeye effect is S tier, it is very very useful for long range kills and even is close quarters you can ads quickly then hip fire while still having the slow down affect

Ngl I would move trouble shooter down to c tier because robots really aren’t that common in the base game

My top rankings:
S Tier mods:
Never Ending - put this on weapons with a high rate of fire or powerful weapons with a low ammo capacity
Explosive - best on shotguns as the range is extended since the pelets will continue to travel until they hit something and explode, just don't use it up close. Also makes it much more of an area effect weapon
Instigating - best used on high power long range weapons
Powerful and Penetrating - both good for weapons that could use just a bit more punch to them
A Tire mods:
Two Shot - Good for higher power single shot weapons that are midto short range
Relentless - Good for low / mid damage weapons (ranged or melee) that have a high ROF / attack speed
VATS Enhanced - second choice for sniper weapons that have lower accuracy
Rapid - Good for high ROF weapons with a high ammo capacity
Troubleshooter - I typically use this on a high power sniper rifle or automatic rifle if I don't have Penetrating or Instigating mods yet
B Tier mods:
Violent - only good on powerful but slow firing weapons due to recoil
Any other mod that increases damage by a % vs specific enemy types or adds additional elemental type damage

Most everything else I ignore for the most part.

Assassin is good, Mutant slayer is good too. Great for melting behemoths.

I argue berserker should be at A tier because a 300% damage increase is huge, one of the biggest damage bonuses given by the legendary effects, and having little to no armor in the early stages of the game is very common, and having high DR is meaningless in survival since you're still getting 1-2 shot by every enemy.
And as you said, in a stealth melee build this is very strong, so I'd say it's S tier in those cases (and those cases alone)

Staggering on the minigun is insane on a basher build

One time I got a Freezing Flamer from a Legendary Forged raider. Because it's fire burns so hot that it made people ice cold.

Wounding is actually super broken. It applies to all projectiles and you can apply infinite stacks of bleeding. Also bleed isn't affected by time dilation from VATS. If you shoot them and then hold down VATS they take the damage in 5 seconds of VATS time which means the damage gets applied in about 2 seconds of real time. The difference in time means that legendary enemies will bleed to death in VATS instead of regenerating.

Sentinel is also an armor effect so if you have a full set you are basically immortal.

Also the game considers you as stationary during VATS even if VATS causes you to move (i.e. blitz)

Two Shot is just the worst, it sounds cool but, really:

Point:
1) it adds a second shot, adding base damage, then split it over the 2 bullets.
2) How do you most effectively kill an enemy? With a headshot usually (it being double or more damage), okay: you aim for a headshot, one bullet hits despite the less accuracy, second bullet flies over the head, congrabulations, you did less damage than a non-legendary weapon.
2a) You accept that you can not do headshots, you aim for a torso shot, if the enemy is close, you hit with both bullets, both bullets must defeat the enemy's damage reduction or energy resistance, and you do less damage than a headshot with a non-legendary weapon, unless it is a Deathclaw, where the belly is the more vulnerable area.

3) on automatic weapons it does the same (see point 1), more than doubling the damage, however it also increases recoil to the point that you will miss with more than half the bullets usually. No matter how much recoil reduction you put on the weapon, unless maybe it is a pipe weapon, in which case it has no value after level 20 or so anyway.

Two shot is only useful if you do not do VATS and always aim for torso shots, and do not mod the weapon to be automatic.
I mean I guess you can do automatic if you want to shoot Deathclaws at 5 paces, or you just want to Spray and Pray Really Hard.

In conclusion: Two Shot is just the worst!
It is only Internet inertia making people think Two Shot is good.

Kneecapper is S tier. I use to not think much of it but after getting a gun with it on my last game, Kneecapper is OP.

Thing with kneecapper is it takes out ALL of an enemies legs. You have a auto gun with Kneecapper, you pump a few shots into any animal or creature and that's it, they're done. Radscorpians, Fog Crawler's, etc are a whole lot less scary when they can't move. Humans can still fire guns back though. Still all in all, Kneecapper is OP as hell.

Plus you don't need to shoot a enemy in the knees, just shoot them anywhere and it'll cripple all legs.

I can't believe I overlooked Kneecapper for so many years, next time I do a run I'm 100% keeping these guys.

I pulled an Instigating Missile Launcher. I used it in the recently added Enclave quest, taking down Hellfire soldiers in 1 hit feels so good.

Wounding unironically makes pipe weapons one of the best categories because of how easy it is to get a ridiculous rate of fire. The low base damage means nothing because you're only using the bullets as a bleed delivery mechanism. It's hilarious how fast a late game enemy can bleed out from an early game weapon.

Nimble can let you move much quicker while still sneaking.

I really wish the Never Ending Laser Musket could have been a thing. Imagine shoving an absurd amount of cells into one shot and then you just fire an entire orbital strike from your gun. Impractical? Probably. Expensive? Maybe, though synths carry plenty of cells. Fun? Definitely.

Found an Instigating Laser Musket at a low level and then put on the Six Crank from the Castle armory and it basically one shots everything even at higher levels

Any melee weapon that gets the ability to add bleed dmg kinda already has a legendary effect

Laser weapons can also just get the incendiary effect without legendary effect

I had a wounding 10mm. It quickly became my panic weapon. Basically big scary thing pops up, swap to the 10mm and ammo dump until it’s no longer scary

Make one for Fallout 76

Deadeye is S tier for scoped weapons even on a VATS build as at range it allows perfect headshots when VATS chance is abysmal

Sentinal can stack with Warding on your armor. Combining both is 90% damage reduction which is insane. Want to make it even more insane? If you get ultra lucky and get a warding helmet, you are IMMUNE TO DAMAGE WHILE STANDING STILL. which is just broken.

Two game changer combos: wounding combat shotgun, each shot bleeds for another 25 damage over a few seconds. This will drain vertibirds, mirelurk queens, anything

The other is a kneecappers auto 10mm or sub machine gun. Getting those shots out faster = more hits that carry the chance to cripple

So basically nocturnal is D tier due to your personal preferences because otherwise the only downside is the weapon's weight. I mean, for a quarter of each day, it's twice as strong as all those situational slayer perks, some of which may see no use all day.

Ghoul slayers gamma gun can work if you have Lorenzo's artifact

Well maybe it's time for a Gunslinger VATS build ;) Solid list

My first legendary weapon was an explosive hunting rifle. While statistically, the effect was unimpressive, watching heads LITERALLY explode from sneaky snipes more than made up for it. New Vegas explosive anti-materiel rifle vibes.

I would love a never-ending laser musket where it treated literally ALL of your ammo as loaded and just blasted it in the one shot. Like euclid's C finder, you can only use it once in a while but oh boy does it deal damage.

A medic's fat man would just be free healthcare for everyone

"Never Ending" on a fat man or nuka launcher is TOP TIER!!!!

What happened to the prefix that has you never have to reload I believe it's endless is definitely a steer it's overly busted on the double barrel shotgun and some of the weapons that have low magazine size is also ridiculous.

Ive gotten a ghoul slaying gamma gun....it heals the ghouls lmao

Not using VATS in FO4 is wild. There are so many perk and weapon combos that make VATS extremely OP. You can wipe out entire rooms of enemies without taking any damage using VATS

Kneecapper is better than crippling IMO for the simple reason that it doesn't require you to actually hit the target's leg or do any meaningful damage. I have crippled the mirelurk queen that attacks the Castle by shooting her in the torso with a kneecapper 10mm. It's S tier as a utility, something to kneecap a deathclaw so you can back off and hit it with your real damage-dealer.

Berserker is my favorite character and works great with my fixer and handmade. It's not only for melee.

I've had two separate instances where I've gotten the automatic laser musket as a low level legendary drop from the nuka world legendary radroach in the gauntlet

The only way to make a ghoul slayer gamma gun useful is to give it Lorenzo's artifact so it doesn't do radiation damage anymore

the never ending laser musket is at the end for a reason that thing is like having a potable SSJ4 Goku Kamehameha. Its insane you just rack up cranks until you are satisfied with the damage going up by 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 20, etc

On what planet is the world series bat S tier?

Wounding on my minigun SHREDS enemies

This is a great video! I use it all the time. I never realized you can get the same effect multiple times, though. I just picked up another two shot assault rifle... kinda crazy, lol

I started a survival playthrough the other day and put points into gunslinger and immediately found an explosive double barrel shotgun. An I Win weapon

I think your insight as a non-VATS player is really interesting. I've always viewed some of these effects as useless, but I definetly need to revise these views. My playstyle is quite the opposite. I rely heavily on VATS. Hopefully, I can provide some insight based on my experience regarding some of these effects. But first, let me just underline what you already stated about the Wounding effect. You pointed out some of the weapon types where it really shines. Here are two more: Shotguns and Rippers. Fantastic! Here's one more: Rapid effect on a Gatling laser with Charging barrels upgrade... Yummy!

So, on to one of my absolute favourite effects: Enraging
While it doesn't do any extra damage by itself, the de-aggro you get from it is amazing. It works best on a 10mm pistol with advanced receiver and suppressor, and it also so happens that you can farm for one from the radroaches, in the tunnels under Concord as soon as you reach level 6. Combine it with Concentrated Fire, Critical Banker and Four Leaf Clover, and watch the mayhem from a safe distance. Once the effect wears off, the enemies are a bit more "tenderized", and are easier to kill. Or, just enrage them again! Very good effect, imo! And funny!

I picked up a Freezing ten mil, and my god is it good for a tiny little gun. Especially if it goes rapid fire, it does crazy damage.

i have a two shot gauss rifle