Weapons

Two players can own the same gun in Fallout 76 and have completely different weapons, because the frame and the effects on it are decided separately. Our best weapons guide says it plainly: legendary mod setups on dropped weapons are randomised.

That makes the useful question about any gun in this bucket how much of it was settled before it reached you. At one end are twenty weapons where every part of the answer is fixed in advance. At the other are guns where nothing is.

Nothing left to chance: the exceptional weapons

Exceptional weapons are the most predictable loot in the game and the least discussed. There are twenty of them, each is a named quest or event reward, each is based on a weapon that already exists, and each carries one fixed bonus that sets it apart. No rolls, no farming, no duplicates.

The rest of the twenty follow the same rule: Ancient Blade from Breach and Clear, Black Diamond and Rose's Syringer from Flavors of Mayhem, Daisy Cutter from An Organic Panic, Dross and Vox Syringer from their own minigames, Grant's Saber from Forging a Legend, Paddle Ball from One Violent Night, Pumpkin Grenade from Trick or Treat, and Somerset Special from Black on the Beat.

If you want a specific gun with a specific property and no uncertainty about getting it, this is the only page in the bucket that offers that.

Fixed, but it costs you fifteen quests

The Final Word is the extreme version of the same idea. It is a unique .50 calibre heavy gun that arrives with three legendary effects already attached, and our page calls it the best heavy weapon in the game.

The price is the entire Beckett ally chain, which our quests guide traces from rescuing him at Blood Eagle Prison through to Thicker Than Water. You need to be level 20 to start, you have to build him a bar at your camp to unlock his missions, and the last one asks you to talk him out of killing his own brother. Three legendary effects for that much work is still a good deal, because nothing about it is random.

Fixed frame, rolled effects

This is where most of the game lives, and it is what our ten best weapons page is really about. Five of its ten are crafted from plans, which means the base weapon is guaranteed and the legendary effects are not. So the page does the sensible thing and tells you which three effects to aim for on each.

• Gauss Rifle, craftable, 2mm EC: Anti-armor, then Crippling, then Durability.
• Handmade Rifle, craftable, 5.56: Bloodied, Rapid, Agility. The page calls it the most sought-after gun in the game.
• Lever Action Rifle, craftable, .45: Instigating for double damage on a full-health target, plus Explosive and Agility.
• Flaming Chainsaw, craftable plus the Flamer mod: Bloodied or Anti-armor, Crippling, Durability.
• Gatling Plasma, craftable, Plasma Cores: Furious or Bloodied, Rapid, Nimble.
• Holy Fire, from the Beasts of Burden event: Vampires, Bashers, Lightweight.
• The Fixer, from Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: a stealth rifle that already carries bonuses to sneaking and sneak damage.
• Mole Miner Gauntlet, from plans or looted Mole Miners: Furious, Inertial, Durability.

Two of the ten are bought outright rather than found, which is worth knowing if you have finished Wastelanders: the Minigun costs 750 Gold Bullion from Mortimer, and the Gauss Shotgun costs 500 from Samuel or Minerva. Those are the only entries in the bucket you can simply purchase.

The effect names repeat enough to be worth learning as a vocabulary. Anti-armor ignores half of an enemy's armor. Bloodied raises damage as your health falls. Furious adds five percent each time you land another shot on the thing you just hit, to a ceiling of forty-five. Rapid is fifty percent faster fire. Nimble doubles your movement speed and exists to make heavy guns bearable. Since Steel Reign these can be crafted and re-rolled rather than waited for, which our legendary crafting guide covers.

Bought with reputation, not luck

The Compound Bow is its own category because acquiring it is a social problem rather than a combat one. The plans cost 300 caps and are sold by AE-RI at the Raider stronghold of Crater and by Sunny's General Goods at the Settler town of Foundation, but neither will trade until you have built enough reputation to get past their lowest caution level. Work the Wayward questline instead and the plans arrive free.

Once crafted at a weapons bench, with arrows made at a tinker's bench, it upgrades through Perception rather than through drops: Archer, Expert Archer and Master Archer stack to roughly thirty percent more bow damage, and Bow Before Me ignores enemy armor. Pair it with the Chinese Stealth Armor and most things die without ever seeing you.

Everything left to chance

Exotic weapons are the bottom of the ladder and cheerfully so. They are the guns that fit no category: the Black Powder Blunderbuss, Pistol and Rifle, the Broadsider, a Crossbow, the Harpoon Gun, the Gauss Rifle and The Dragon among them.

They share one trait, which our page keeps returning to with visible amusement: almost all of them hit extremely hard and reload extremely slowly, so every one of them is a bet on your own accuracy. The Dragon fires four barrels at once. The Harpoon Gun lets you pick your harpoons back up. The Broadsider is a ship's cannon. None of it is efficient and most of it is funny, which is the point.

That page is also openly unfinished and says so, so treat it as a survey of what exists rather than a complete list of where to find it.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best weapon in the game?

For heavy builds, the Final Word, since it arrives with three legendary effects already on it. For everything else our best weapons page ranks the Mole Miner Gauntlet and Gatling Plasma at the top, with the Gauss Rifle the most reliable craftable pick.

Why does my legendary gun have different effects from someone else's?

Because dropped legendary effects are rolled per item. The base weapon is the same; the one, two or three star modifiers on it are not. Since Steel Reign you can re-roll them deliberately instead of farming for the combination.

Can I buy good weapons rather than farm them?

Two of the ten best can be bought with Gold Bullion after Wastelanders, at 750 for the Minigun and 500 for the Gauss Shotgun. The compound bow's plans cost 300 caps once a faction will trade with you.

Are exceptional weapons worth going out of my way for?

For the specific ones, yes. The Anti-Scorched Training Pistol during Into the Fire and the Voice of Set against robots both solve a problem no rolled legendary reliably solves, and neither costs you anything but the quest.

Is the compound bow actually good?

With the Perception perks and stealth armor, yes. Without them it is a slow weapon with no legendary effects, which is why our page treats the perk investment as part of the weapon rather than an optional extra.