The legendary weapon effects are special modifications used in primary weapons with special prefix modifiers. These effects give you additional benefits besides just regular DPS from your gun. They are powerful enough to turn the tide of combat in seconds.
Key Takeaways
- Explosive mod is effective with low base damage, high fire rate weapons, and those firing numerous projectiles.
- Vats Enhanced is best used with melee weapons, reducing VATS AP cost by 40%, and works well with the Rockville Slugger.
- Furious raises a weapon’s damage by 15% after each hit.
- Wounding causes bleeding damage to opponents due to their lack of bleeding resistance and accumulative effect.
- Staggering makes opponents tremble helplessly, with a 30% stagger chance for non-automatic and 5% for automatic weapons.
- Instigating doubles damage against full HP enemies, rewarding quick eliminations.
- Two Shot is beneficial for most ranged weapons.
- The Rapid legendary effect is less potent with other weapon types
Legendary Effects Comparison
Here is a comparison table for the best Legendary Effects:
No. Effect Weapon Damage/ Bonus Damage Stagger % AP Reduction %
1 Explosive Mini-Gun/ Shotgun 15/32.2 0 0
2 Vats Enhanced Melee 0 0 25
3 Furious Melee 15/150 0 0
4 Wounding Assault-Rifle/ Mini-Gun 25 0 0
5 Stagger Automatic/Melee 0 30/50 0
6 Rapid Automatic/Semi-Auto 27 0 0
7 Two-Shots Any Ranged 101 0 0
8 Instigating Melee 2x 0 0
Legendary Effects Comparison Table.
Explosive
Best For Dealing Ballistic Damage.
The explosive mod significantly boosts low-damage, rapid-fire weapons and those firing multiple projectiles. It initially inflicts 15 points of explosive damage, but combined with the Demolition Expert Perk and Explosive Bobblehead, it can reach 32.2 points, delivering amplified damage and area-of-effect damage.
Use mini-guns or shotguns with the heavy gunner perk to shred through your enemies.
V.A.T.S Enhanced
Best For V.A.T.S Focused Build.
This legendary effect significantly enhances both ranged and melee weapons. For ranged arms, it cuts AP usage by 25% and increases hit chance by 33%. It is particularly beneficial for pistols like “The Deliverer,” ensuring more accurate shots.
In my opinion, its prime effectiveness lies with melee weapons. It slashes VATS AP consumption by 40%, ideal for the legendary melee bat, Rockville Slugger. This enables teleporting around the map and hitting adversaries, offering an incredible combat experience.
Furious
Best For Maximizing Damage Output.
The more you hit, the harder your punches will land. With each hit, the legendary Furious status boosts a weapon’s damage by 15%.
One of the primary reasons I have this as my top choice is because it combines well with high fire rates or swift attack speed weapons and building damage with consecutive hits. Stackable up to 10 times, it becomes formidable against tough adversaries.
The Furious Powerfist, a melee weapon with this legendary effect, suits melee-focused builds—the damage bonus resets if there’s a 10-second gap between hits or if you strike another target.
Wounding
Bleed Damage Effect.
Fallout 4 features a powerful status effect, causing enemies to suffer bleed damage. Notably, enemies lack bleeding resistance and this effect stacks.
Automatic weapons such as assault rifles or mini-guns significantly amplify this status. Bleed, often underestimated, bypasses enemy resistances, enabling consistent DPS and overcoming their toughness.
So next time you ask an enemy if they bleed, the answer is yes- yes, they will!
Staggering
Best For Damage Exposure.
Staggering leaves enemies helpless and vulnerable to damage, affecting all enemy types in the game, from minions to more formidable adversaries.
High-fire rate weapons like the Ripper, Flamer, or shotguns are most effective for Staggering. Pairing with other effects like Commando or Sniper enhances the impact.
Automatic weapons hold a 5% stagger chance, while non-automatic possess a 30% chance. Melee weapons, notably the Harvester, have the highest at 50%.
Rapid
Best For Commando & Hunter Builds.
The Rapid legendary status effect boosts the fire rate of your auto and semi-auto weapons. Although it isn’t as strong with other weapons as other statuses in this list, it’s pretty strong when used with a Gatling laser.
You shoot even faster when Rapid is used with Gatling lasers with the charging barrel attachment. Not just fast RPM, but I have tested the Charging Barrel attachment, which quadruples the Gatling laser base damage. It makes variants like The Final Judgement even deadlier.
Two Shot
Best Early-Game Legendary Effect.
The Two-Shot weapon effect fires an extra projectile while counting as a single bullet. Damage-wise, the game combines base and modded damage, then divides it.
For instance, with a base rifle at 37 damage and a modded one at 64, each Shot inflicts 101 damage. You’re getting double shots for a single expenditure, making it effective with almost any ranged weapon.
Also Check: Fallout 4 Best Perks
Instigating
Best For Dealing With Bosses.
This somewhat situational legendary status effect should go well with Stealth Builds. Instigating lets you do double damage to an enemy at full health. The buff won’t proc if the enemy has lost even the tiniest bit of health.
The best way to take advantage of this status is to catch enemies off guard and quickly dispatch them.
What Would I Recommend?
Unlike the most situational legendary effects in the game, the above are my playthrough tested and dish out the best performance for all types of builds. If I have to narrow down the must-haves, these would be Two Shot and V.A.T.S Enhanced, as they focus more on maximizing the damage performance of your character.
Using these statuses right can instantly turn your underpowered build into a killing machine, so conquer the wastelands survivor.
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Ayyoun loves to write about games as much he likes playing them. Been investing lots and lots of time into gaming since the glory days of playstation 1. He especially loves horror genre and likes to play the classics like resident evil and silent hill. Engages in casual PvP games like Division 2, Destiny 2 and Rainbow Six Siege, and always in search of new and unique games to play and write about. Here’s the link to his Steam.
