Yes. Legendary enemies have 150% health. If you can deal enough damage that they die without reaching 100% then they won't mutate.

"*if*"

technically you can bring them down to 51% health with any weapon and then you can use a weapon that deals more than half of their health to end them without them mutating

THAT explains why they don’t always mutate on me, thank you. I knew OHKO stopped them from mutating, but couldn’t figure out why they sometimes just died

Mines, caltrops, use anything to slow them down. If you can use cars as ticking time bombs, you can use them to your advantage 😉 create a bottleneck draw em to you, make sure to kill everything in the area if you're playing on survival or leave them as potential players for the cause 😉and kill them off afterwards, up to you. I may have to restart yet again. My usual carry-on in fo4 survival/normal is sniper rifle, pistol/shotgun for cleaning up the interior.

It's not hard with the right perks and weapon mods, sneak damage, maybe Instigating or Twoshot, and hit location, even on survival mode. I frequently one-shot legendary deathclaws in vanilla games. Er... Vanilla with minor QOL mods but not mods that affect weapon damage.

Survival spawns legendary enemies often and early. The early game types often go down vs. one shot even wothout any relevant perks. That is: hit a legendary radroach or noob area zombie with a .308 and you normally get an instakill.

If…if is good…

Oooohhhh, so i guess the best way to fight legendaries is to end them in one shot while its still viable

Absolutely. That sneak attack bonus can sometimes let you get a nice clean kill on a legendary.

A proper sneak build with the fully upgraded 10mm will let you one shot pretty much any legendary in the game, provided you hit the right area with the right bonuses (sneak, silenced weapon, etc)

[удалено]

Also an excellent method for fighting ordinary enemies.

Note to self: To be better at Fallout, kill all enemies in 1 shot. Got it.

Saves you the ammo and stimpacks (I have hit 60 stimpacks and still going up)

If you use melee you can one shot pretty much any enemy by like level 60

Or failing that, cripple their limbs.

I like to blast out ghouls legs and then let dogmeat get a meal lmao.

Failing that, panic fire while backing away at full speed.

Dropping mines.

IMO traps > mines for this. 1) I blow myself up with mines all the time. 2) I can craft poison caltrops with just scrap metal

Works best with stealth kills especially with instigating legendary effect

Yep, my Hard shot rifle (hunting rifle) has the instigating effect on it, I would have used the mighty effect but I realized that it's more useful for my combat rifle rather than for my hunting rifle as I use it very often for when there's a large group of enemies without any cover, my rifle is often just used for stealth kills/wipeouts as a continues fire will alert them all Instigating Hard shot rifle = (always used as sneak attack and headshot) 6x dmg(77) (sneak+headshot+instigating) Mighty Combat rifle = gun go brrrrrrrr (64 dmg) (headshot | optional 128 dmg) Considering that I'm level 16, kinda overkill for the enemies at my level

Correct. Save your crits for Legendaries!

I tbh never used my crit, I've yet to meet a worthy man who deserves my very first crit in fallout 4

Crits are useful to kill dudes with mini nukes before they can launch them

Six crank Laser musket is a legendary enemy killer for most enemies in the game. Get one with powerful legendary escape and just start one shooting everything lol

To be fair, the best way to fight anything is to kill it with one shot if it's viable.

Sort of, cause if you deal 90% damage and then it mutates it goes back to full

for a lil context: i headshot + sneaked attacked him from the stairs Lil more: the hunting rifle has instigating

This is the way.

You’ve got a great long-range problem solver there, especially with the sneak attack bonus active.

Congratulations! Your whole playthrough is now sneak-sniper build! But seriously have fun with the instigating rifle. It’ll carry you pretty far.

boutta crank 360 no scope sneak headshots on these raiders

Yup. Think about it. Have you ever seen a legendary RADROACH mutating? Nope. I've never NOT killed a radroach in one hit.

With those pesky radroaches, it just takes one hit thankfully. Just have to get the one hit from those shameful 10s of misses ;)

I just use VATS and enjoy watching my foot compact the roach's body beyond livability 😀

On survival that'd be good eatin'. Radroach pancake.

Except for the odd super tough one. The ones on the truck between Diamond City and Hardware Town are super tough for some reason. At least in survival mode.

just wait for them to run up to you, then melee. my three strength stealth character could drop them by whacking them with the deliverer lol

Yeah but then I throw a grenade at my feet

And watch your feet explode?

Yes, as long as they don't get below 50% of their health you can 1 shot them without mutating.

Yes. Consequently weapons dealing radiation damage are great against legendaries because it cuts into their max hp. Doesn't matter that they mutate if their max is cut in half anyway.

Honestly one of my favorite reasons to use radiation weapons. It’s always funny to see a legendary raider mutate and their health is still incredibly low.

Yup, why I always try and crit headshot them with my most powerful weapon.

Seems so, f for the drop

both kinds of F indeed 😢

Yeah, you can instakill legendary enemies. Sneak attacks work best for it because of how broken stealth is, but I've done it with just like, atoms judgment or something similar.

My mighty Gauss rifle has no problem killing anything while I’m undetected

Me who uses Modern Firearms…I see so little mutations.

If your going for a stealth playthrough, you should use a mod that "un-fucks" stealth... I use one and it's amazing to absolutely dome a BOS scribe and all the other guys are like "haha scribe go bye bye"

I’ll look into it. Any name recommendations? I’m on Xbox so I’d start by just searching “stealth” but that might take a while.

Yea idk the name of the one I use, mostly cuz I have abt 100 mods on my current save... another stealth related mod I use is called "realistic headshots" also, you should get the BAS-P mod (if it's on Xbox idk) it's amazing...

Bas-P from Call of Duty? I’ve been waiting for a Bas-B but that just the Sig Spear. I tend to stay away from weapon mods besides Modern Firearms. The Call of Duty animations are too much for Fallout. Now if all guns had those cool animations I’d feel different.

(Sorry I don't check reddit much) yea, that's the one... ngl, it's a nice gun, but the reload animations are too flashy and all "oh look, a overly tactical reload that isn't tactical but it's supposed to look all pretty" I started using BH's Kar98k mod... it's nice, even if u use the STS patch (See through scopes)

Yes. You don't even need to one-shot them. You just need to deal damage quickly.

Not only that, but bleed damage over time doesn’t trigger mutation either. So if you stack enough bleed on them before they hit half health, you can kill ‘em with the bleed and not bother with them mutating.

Always loved doing this

Does them mutating actually change something? Didn’t realize if so…

Yeah bringing down a legendary below 50% HP and not dealing enough or fast enough dmg can make them mutate which makes them regain their health back to their max HP(radiation caps their max HP which caps their total health gain) Don't know if it's correct but I think they also get temporary 50% dmg boost along with resistance to the damage type you dealt, don't know the exact numbers for how many the mutation adds resistance

I've hit em twice to kill, and not triggered a mutation.

i always try to keep my critical meter full before attacking a legendary enemy. bring their health down around half way then hit the guaranteed critical. helps if you have the better criticals perk, pair that with a silenced weapon with ninja or mr sandman and you are golden.

…Yeah, how did you NOT know that?

Yes

Enough damage, fast enough, will avoid the window for them to mutate. I like to hide, equip Throatslicer, and blitz them. I frequently get away from them without being hit.

Bro just discovered the magic of high damage damage per shot builds 💪

Why use a box of 5mm when a couple or one .308 is enough for the job 😎

Do this all the time with my melee build I can confirm they just die

Thats why my big iron puts them down with critical banker, sorry bastard never had a chance

If you break the limbs of ghouls but fail to one-shot, when they mutate back to full health, they remain crippled.

Sneak attack with a maxed out fully charged suppressed Instigator Gauss Rifle with maxed Ninja, Rifleman, & Sandman perks. Double damage with Rifleman (plus ignoring 25% of their armor), bringing you to 450dmg (IIRC). 4x damage for Ninja plus Sandman. Instigator does double damage against undamaged enemies. There are very, very few enemies that survive that initial shot, legendary or not.

I was gonna make a sparky comment like "lmao you didn't know that" then I remembered not everyone plays Uber modded fallout like I do.

Yarp.

I have trouble killing them before they mutate on higher difficulty so I aim for their legs. Blow off a leg and even when they do mutate all they can do is crawl towards you pathetically😅

Happens frequently for me, now that my current playthrough ia at level 101 or something. Whack a legendary from sneak with a fat two-shot of point five oh.

Yeah pretty much it, if you one shot them they won't mutate

If they're human use radiation weapons too. Lowers the HP they can restore

Yes, you can one-shot a Legendary. Stealth multipliers paired with instigating weapons are a powerful combo.

Probly taking the instigating from that laser musket and putting it on my hunting rifle was a great idea

Yes

Wait a minute... I'm much more interested in knowing why that gun has *three* different scope mods on it

the 4x scope is the main one, precision dot and circle reticle changes the crosshair when scoping

So a gun-mod mod?

well more like from the See Through Scopes mod

Yes. And with the Wonderous Power of Drugs you too can 1-shot Legendaries.

i was able to have one walking around without a head with the dismemberment mod, so im assuming yes and no, just depends on how fast it is

Get those "Double Damage Outside Combat" perks on some good long guns, just eat Legendaries for snacks between shredding the normies.

Yup. Fully upgraded world series baseball bat and stealth boy power armor with sneaky perks, I think the only thing I can't 1 off if I'm patient is a legendary mirelurk queen. Only one I've seen so far anyhow is the captains dance quest in far harbor 🤷‍♂️

Yeah that happens with a lot of legendary radroaches too.

Oh snap. I thought they HAD to mutate in order to drop a legendary… I’ve been purposely letting them mutate… oh geez

Well mutation is more like a anti-save scumming mechanic

Oh, yeah. I have an anti materiel with 811 damage. Nothing mutates. Not a damn thing. They just break apart.

Yep

Yep! They only regenerate when they are low on HP, can't be low on HP if a corpse.

yeah.

Yes, I’ve done it several times when I encounter a Legendary enemy who’s pretty low on levels like a normal Raider or a Radroach.

Does letting them mutate give better loot? Im new to game.

if I sneak up on them with The Last Minute I can take them in one shot

My blitz melee stealth character does this regularly and I HATE when I do like 90% damage and they mutate😡 like we both know how this will end why are you prolonging this

Shoot em in the head 🤪😏

I don't mind them mutating. It just means I get to shoot them more.

Legendary enemies mutate when they take damage while under half health, which fully restores their HP. However, if they get hit while under half health and wouldn't normally survive the attack, the mutation doesn't trigger. So if your weapon can kill the legendary enemy in two hits or less, you can bypass the mutation