Not all legendary items in Fallout 4 were created equal. Some are completely wrong for your build, some might come with detrimental effects for your playstyle, and some just might be plain ugly.
With a little patience and just a bit of help from good luck/the heart of the cards/believing in yourself/RNGesus, you can now farm and fine tune exactly what you’ll receive from legendary enemies. Before you get started, though, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with a couple of different concepts.
Firstly, you’ll need to be patient, and…
Since this method of farming relies on the loading of saves to gain an advantage (known as “save scumming” by some), it’s going to be slow going, with little chance of you getting precisely what you want unless you are extremely patient.
Secondly, remember your quicksaves and autosaves
Becoming familiar with both of these is vital. You should be saving frequently as it is, because Bethesda is known for producing ridiculously, gloriously buggy games.
Quicksaves and autosaves both register different save slots. Quicksaves must be made manually, while autosaves can be set to timed intervals or in response to certain actions — opening your Pip Boy, for example.
Thirdly: be a survivor, keep on surviving
Like Destiny’s Child circa their 2001 hit single “Survivor,” pictured above, your goal is to be a survivor of game’s highest difficulty setting, Survival. Survival rewards a more conservative style of play, due to your character taking increased damage and enemies receiving huge buffs to their HP. In exchange, the spawn rate of legendary creatures is increased.
With the above in mind, here’s how to farm legendary equipment in Fallout 4:
1. Find a location where legendary enemies are likely to spawn.
This is possible to do while outdoors, but much easier to do with buildings. Outdoors, you’ll need to save far enough from a legendary enemy so that a different one is able to spawn on re-loading. This is finicky to do, so, for the purposes of this guide (and your sanity), we’ll concentrate on indoor legendaries.
2. Quicksave outside the building, then enter and kill the legendary
Entering the building should trigger an autosave. It’s important not to access your Pip Boy inside the building, as doing so will override your autosave.
If you get an enemy to drop your desired piece of equipment the very first time, then get outta here, you lucky bastard. This guide isn’t for you. For the rest of us…
3. Reload and reroll, reroll, reroll!
Loading your quicksave will reroll the legendary enemy and the piece of equipment it carries. If you are satisfied with these, but want to further fine-tune the effects, load your autosave instead. Loading your autosave should reroll only the effect of the equipment — though not always, so consider that possibility.
The best places to farm legendary equipment
Now that we know how to farm, let’s examine where to do so. As mentioned above, buildings are generally preferred over outdoor spawns, as they are much more straightforward in nature. The locations listed below all offer quick ways to yield results, and are repeatable every 20 in-game days.
National Guard Training Yard
The main building represents perhaps the best bet for farming in the early to mid game, as it features numerous sleeping enemies (usually ghouls) who are relatively easy to deal with. Legendary enemies have a level cap of 28 here, making it best suited to early to mid game farming.
Found: combat, metal, and leather armor pieces, melee weapons, rifle, pistols, shotguns, laser weapons.
Croup Manor Basement
Your goal, here, is the basement and its feral ghouls. A key to the basement is found by first obtaining a bedroom key on the second floor, then using this to unlock a bedroom on the third floor containing a Glowing One and the basement key.
Here you’ll find a handful of sleeping feral ghouls, one of whom should be legendary, and all of whom can be quickly dispatched.
Found: armor pieces, laser weapons, missile launchers, melee weapons, shotguns, assault rifles
West Roxbury Station
A night at the (west) Roxbury station can be extremely lucrative. Upon entering the subway, you’ll be confronted more or less immediately by a pair of super mutants, expediting your legendary equipment farming session considerably.
Found: armor pieces, heavy armor pieces, gatling lasers, plasma weapons, miniguns, gauss rifles
Conclusion
Speculation is still running rampant on the relationship between enemies, weapons, and effects. As we know more, we’ll modify this guide to reflect the updated information. If you’re interested in seeing what people have discovered so far, take a look at this comprehensive Reddit thread on the subject.
For now, though, happy hunting, Vault Dwellers! Share your farming success stories in the comments.
