The Five Worst Weapons in Fallout 4

This is a short list of the five worst weapons in Fallout 4. Each entry will include a brief description of the weapon, what you can do with it, and why it deserves to be called one of the worst (if not THE worst) in the game. Let us begin...



5- The Pool Cue.

Though far from the first melee weapon you find in the game, it IS one of the earliest you can get. You can find a pool cue as early as level 2, if you're lucky. The pool cue is a melee weapon, meaning you have to get up close and personal to the enemy to use it. The pool cue has three advantages. First, it's light, so that leaves you more room to carry the junk you find. Second, it's easy to completely build up, meaning you need neither the Blacksmith perk or many materials to build this weapon to its fulled potential. Thirdly, once built up, it can either pierce armor or cause bleeding damage.

     

So what's the problem? Simply put, everything the Pool Cue can do, can be done better by other weapons. Bleeding damage? You can get a serrated Combat Knife or Switchblade, for the same amount of damage per hit, but because they have more swings per second, their damage will outperform the Pool Cue's. To add insult to injury, you can get a Switchblade AND a Combat Knife BEFORE you get a Pool Cue! 

Of course the Pool Cue is not without potential. By building it up you can gain affection from Codsworth and Preston Garvey, inching you closer to their max approval, and by extension, their companion perks. Likewise, the Pool Cue is perfect for the early levels, up to level 7, because of its bleeding damage. And, as I said before, it's very light, so it won't over burden you as you travel the Commonwealth.

But again, the main problem with the Pool Cue is that it's simply overshadowed by most of everything in the game, even at the earliest levels! After level 8, when you should have access to Baseball Bats and Machetes, there is simply no reason to even carry a Pool Cue at all. That's what earns it the Number 5 spot.

4- The Walking Cane.

Like the Pool Cue, the Walking Cane is light, easy to build up, and easy to wield. Unlike the Pool Cue, the Walking Cane is obtained a bit later in the game, at around level 7 to 8, or when you first reach Lexington. Also unlike the Pool Cue, the Walking Cane can only pierce armor, not cause bleeding.

There are some advantages to the Cane, however. The Cane requires less energy to use its attacks, around 20 Action Points, to be precise. At minimum agility, you can score three strikes with this weapon, while the Pool Cue can only score two. The Cane has a minimum damage value of 10, whereas the Pool Cue's is 13. Fully upgraded, a Walking Cane deals 14 damage, whereas the Pool Cue deals 17.

Potentially, that means that the Cane, with three strikes, dealt 42 damage to the Pool Cue's 34. But here's the thing: the Pool Cue is also dealing bleeding damage, meaning that there is extra damage that is not being calculated because it varies. THAT variance is what gives the Pool Cue its small edge over the Walking Cane.

Well, and besides the fact that, by the time you can get a Cane, you'll already have found other, better weapons anyway.

3- The Junk Jet

The Junk Jet is a fun weapon with a cool idea: take all the junk you find laying around and use it as ammo. Bowling balls, beer bottles, tin cans, teddy bears, it's all ammo. Potentially, the Junk Jet becomes that one weapon that never runs out of ammo.

But in practice, the Junk Jet is heavy (30 pounds!) unwieldy, and it needs to be charged to deal full damage, It takes a whole second to fully charge the Junk Jet for one shot. In that one second:

1- An automatic rifle has filled you with about twenty bullets.

2- An enemy combatant has reached you and is now primed to hit you with a melee weapon.

3- Another enemy has an opening for a head shot.

And once it's fully charged, it might not be powerful enough to kill the enemy! This weapon weighs too much and offers too little in return. There are better weapons out there, but only two that are so, so much worse...

2. The Pipe Gun

The single weakest long range weapon in the game. This is a gun that gets out classed the second you pick it up. It's not even the first gun you find, as even the 10MM Pistol you find in Vault 11 is stronger!

There are two good things going for this weapon, First, with some easy modifications you can get your very first sniper rifle, allowing you to sneak up on enemies and deal double damage to them. Problem is, that's one shot you're getting, so better make it count!

Second of all, since nearly half of all human and Super Mutant enemies use Pipe weapons as their long range weaponry, that means that ammunition for this gun will be easy to come by, allowing you to spare your caps on other things, like ammo for better weapons.

But that's literally it. This gun is outclassed by literally everything else, even the first gun found in the game. So, why bother with it?

And now, before I go to the number 1 worst weapon in the game, here are some honorable mentions.

The Pipe Wrench. Not the best melee weapon in the game, but it's not nearly as bad as the Pool Cue or the Walking Cane. Its mods are pretty decent, and in the right hands it can be deadly. Plus it's a good weapon for joke builds.

The Lead Pipe. Same reasons as the Pipe Wrench.

The Hunting Rifle. Though it's heavy, it's a bit weak, and it's simply outclassed on all fields by the Combat Rifle, this gun likewise outclasses the Pipe Gun. Likewise, with a few mods, it becomes a rather decent sniper gun.

The Broadsider. Not the best heavy gun in the game. It's inaccurate, slow, heavy, and has limited ammo capacity. But its AoE damage potential, the fact that it's a "point and shoot" type of gun, and the fact that it's a core part of the Pirate build, edges it away from this list, unlike the Junk Jet.

1- The Flamer.

Slow. Heavy. Weak. Close Range. These are the deadly words that describe the Flamer, the absolute worst weapon in Fallout 4.

The Flamer is a weapon that demands you get up at your enemy's face and slowly burn him to death. Every second it eats away at your enemy's health, eventually burning him alive. On paper, this is a great idea. In practice, this is the worst idea ever.

See, here's the thing: your enemy might still move. At the time you're taking to burn him away, he's hitting you back with his own weapons. If he's using a melee weapon, he will interrupt your attack. Hell, if he bashes you with the brunt of his gun, it will interrupt you! And that's if you're going one on one. Guess what: more often than not, you'll be outnumbered. Whiele you're burning one guy away, two more guys are shooting at you with their guns. And they are not likely to miss.

My personal philosophy regarding close ranger weaponry is this: if the enemy isn't dead in three seconds, the weapon is useless. In close range combat every millisecond counts; the one second it takes to swing a sword can be the one second the enemy needs to stick a knife in your gut. Honestly, that's part of what makes the flamer so risky: it takes too long to kill the enemy while leaving you open to an ambush. A sword can do the same job at half the time, without requiring ammo.

The flamer is heavy, slow to fire, slower to kill, and the ammo for it is rare and expensive. For these reasons it is the worst weapon in Fallout 4.