Fallout 4 is full of powerful and unique weaponry to annihilate the dangers of the Commonwealth. There are basic models of every gun and melee weapon under the sun, as well as special one-of-a-kind named weapons with their own effects. But the game also has a middle ground between the two that drop from higher-level enemies and show up at the end of dungeons, those being the legendary variants of basic weapons.

Any weapon can become legendary if given one of these additional legendary effects, of which there are about 30 across the main game and Fallout 4's DLC expansions. These range from basic effects that improve damage against certain enemies, to improvements in the weapon's recoil and accuracy, to mechanical changes that alter the weapon at its core. But, like all weaponry, these legendary effects vary in their usefulness. These are the five best and five worst legendary weapon effects in Fallout 4.

10 Worst: Nocturnal Will Make Your Weapons Less Effective Most Of The Time

Don't Rely On Gear That Only Works Sometimes

Nocturnal is somewhat rare among the Fallout 4 legendary effects, as it has different impacts on the weapons it is attached to depending on the time of day. As its name would suggest, the Nocturnal effect works best at night, as it gradually provides a larger and larger damage buff as it gets closer to midnight. Affected guns get to deal double their normal damage at the buff's peak.

But this effect is a double-edged sword. Not only does the damage buff go away during daylight hours, but the power of the gun actually decreases below the normal amount. This means that, roughly half the time, a Nocturnal weapon will be worse than one without a legendary effect. Players could choose to only switch to these weapons once the sun goes down, or to only adventure at night, but a weapon that is so time-dependent is hard to rely on.

9 Best: Furious Weapons Work Best If They Have A High Fire Rate

Making The Most Of Your Automatic Guns

One of the first Furious weapons players will likely come across is the Furious Power Fist, a weapon that is technically not unique but will always drop after killing one of Fallout 4's secret bosses, Swan, the Super Mutant Behemoth. The Furious effect sounds good, increasing the weapon's base damage upon each consecutive hit against the same target, but it is wasted on the Power Fist due to its relatively slow attack speed.

The Problem Solver is a unique weapon from Nuka-World with the Furious effect, and its effectiveness as an automatic rifle showcases the true power of this effect.

Where this effect excels is on automatic weaponry. Since each successful hit on the same target increases the base damage by 15%, hitting the same enemy dozens of times will result in truly massive amounts of damage. The counter resets every ten seconds, plenty of time for fast auto rifles to land a ton of shots, and doesn't reset if the misses. The Furious effect is a damage powerhouse that can plow through nearly anything in its path, when on the right weapon.

8 Worst: Berserker's Offensive Power Isn't Worth The Cost

Hitting Hard Won't Matter If You Never Reach The Target

Some legendary effects are exclusive to certain categories of weapons. For instance, the Berserker effect is only ever applied to melee and unarmed-type weaponry, which is exactly what makes it so bad. It's an effect that enhances a weapon's damage as the wielder's damage resistance gets lower, and decreases the damage when the wielder's defense is higher.

The idea here of trading defense for more offense isn't bad on its own, and could lead to some neat character builds. But it would be much more useful if the wielder didn't need to be directly next to the threat in order to take advantage of it. A sniper could more readily sacrifice their armor to get in some extra damage, but a front-line melee fighter needs damage resistance to stay alive for more than a few seconds on higher difficulties. This effect is simply not viable for use in a melee setting.

7 Best: Never-Ending Guns Achieve Incredible Levels Of Damage

Taking Advantage Of This Effect's Broken Implementation

The Never-Ending legendary effect is one of the most coveted in Fallout 4, for specific types of weapons. It can be applied to any gun, and takes away the limit on the amount of ammo it can hold, removing the need to ever reload. This is good on any weapon, since it makes the wielder faster in combat, and is especially good for guns that have long reload animations. But it is straight-up broken on a few select guns that have unique reloading properties.

For instance, the Laser Musket does not start loaded, but rather can be wound over and over again to use additional ammo and get extra damage out of a single shot. The typical limit for a modded Laser Musket is six rounds at once, but a Never-Ending variant can be wound as much as the wants to reach absurd damage levels. Similarly, the Laser Gatling uses a Fallout 4 fusion core to power it for a certain number of shots, but a Never-Ending Laser Gatling will never run out of ammo off of a single core.

6 Worst: Charged Has No Redeeming Qualities

A Small Chance For A Small Damage Boost

The Charged effect was introduced for melee weapons in Fallout 4's Far Harbor DLC, and provides a chance to deal some energy damage while blocking. Essentially, the effect creates a 10% percent chance on every successful block of an enemy attack that the attacker will take 100 points of energy damage as lightning discharges from the weapon.

Blocking in Fallout 4 with a melee or unarmed weapon can reduce or fully negate the damage of another melee weapon, as well as slightly stagger the attacker, but is useless against ranged attacks and certain powerful enemies.

Putting aside how borderline useless blocking already is as a mechanic in the gun-heavy Fallout 4, relying on a measly 10% chance for anything to happen makes this effect basically non-legendary most of the time. On top of that, while the 100 energy damage may sound high, it has no scaling and can't be increased with any perks. It's a flat damage output, meaning it drops off immensely at higher levels and becomes negligible against the strongest of opponents.

5 Best: Lucky Works Wonders For Certain Builds

Getting More Out Of Your Critical Hits

Lucky is one of the more complicated legendary effects, not providing a flat damage boost or change to mechanics. Instead, it impacts the critical hit meter and critical shot effects of weapons. Essentially, each successful shot in VATS in the game will raise the crit meter, which can then be used in VATs to ensure a 100% accurate and highly damaging shot when the player needs it.

Certain builds utilizing luck-based perks can get a lot out of these criticals, banking extra shots and doing more damage. Lucky weapons can take those builds to the next level, making the crit meter fill at a faster rate and vastly increasing critical damage. Using these sorts of weapons can make VATs and luck-based builds unstoppable, and show just how powerful the crit mechanic can be in Fallout 4.

4 Worst: Exterminator's Is The Worst Of The Worst

Don't Put All Your Bullets In One Basket

Several of the legendary effects provide bonus damage against specific enemy types, such as ghouls, robots, and humans. None of these are very good, since these weapons become highly situational, and the 50% damage increase can easily be outperformed by other legendary effects.

But out of all of them, Exterminator's is the worst. It adds that extra damage against insect and mirelurk enemies, which are probably the least commonly seen of the categories, since they are so specific. Plus, insect enemies tend to already be fairly low on health, so a damage boost against them hardly seems necessary.

3 Best: Two-Shot Provides Remarkable Damage Potential

A Chance To Hit Twice With Every Pull Of The Trigger

Two-Shot is just as good as it sounds, as any gun with the effect shoots two projectiles for the price of one with each pull of the trigger. This doesn't use extra ammo, effectively doubles a gun's damage output, and can even cause shots that would miss in VATS to hit instead as the second bullet follows a slightly different trajectory.

Sometimes, unfortunately, this change in trajectory can also cause a shot in VATS to miss when it should hit; luckily, the inverse is far more common.

This effect is great on automatic weapons, superb on single-shot snipers, and absolutely fantastic on big guns like the Fat Man launcher. It is practically unbeatable as far as legendary effects go, and is the best of the best when it comes to raw damage output increases.

2 Worst: Bloodied Actively Encourages Players To Come Close To Death

A Legendary Effect That Is Dangerous To Use

While some of the bad legendary effects do practically nothing, at least they don't usually make a weapon actively worse. But the Bloodied effect arguably does just that, as it encourages a playstyle that is needlessly dangerous and will cause the player's death more often than not. The effect makes melee and unarmed weapons more damaging as the loses health, gaining a 5% damage increase per each 5% amount of health missing.

At its best, when the player is at 5% of their total health, this effect won't even double the damage of the weapon it affects. That's underwhelming and not nearly worth playing the game one hit away from death. And again, this effect can only apply to close-quarters melee weaponry, so it's not like stealth snipers or ambushers can prep by lowering their health and finding a safe perch. Trying to use this effect will lead you to death and failure.

1 Best: Explosive Is Good On Almost Anything

A Universally Helpful Legendary Effect

While it may be outperformed damage-wise by other weaponry, the Explosive effect still reigns supreme as the best legendary effect in the game. It can be applied to any kind of ballistic weapon and causes the ammunition to explode on impact, dealing an extra 15 points of ballistic damage. It's a flat damage increase, which has its issues, but it applies in a small radius rather than just to the target hit by the attack, and goes wild when applied to weapons with a high firing rate.

Not only that, but the explosion can stagger enemies, a phenomenally useful effect, especially when it can be applied to multiple enemies at once. Explosive weapons can fully shut down encounters against Fallout 4's most dangerous enemies by staggering enemies to their death and keeping them from attacking back. Hold on to anything you get with this effect, because it's indisputably the best in Fallout 4.