I know the basic process of how to farm for Legendary items, but what has me scratching my head is how to guarantee that the Legendary enemy shows up. I'm sure that on Survival, Legendary enemies are so common that you can pick any location and farm for your preferred Legendary items with no problems, but on Normal, Legendary enemies aren't as common. In fact, the one time I tried to farm a Legendary on Normal, it killed me (Legendary Mirelurk in Weston Water Treatment Plant), so I reloaded manually instead of letting the game do it for me; unfortunately, on the second run, there was no Legendary enemy to be found. Does farming Legendary enemies on Normal require you to reload until you get both a Legendary enemy and the base item you want? Because that's two variables that have to match up right off the bat, before we can even get to farming the effect you want. Is there anything short of increasing the difficulty that can be done to ensure that a Legendary enemy shows up? Even a single location that's guaranteed to have a Legendary enemy would be great; kill it without clearing the area, and you can farm it for an item you want, leave for a few days to let it respawn, then come back and repeat for the next item on your list.

GNN building (Gunner's Plaza) seems like a good spot to look for Legendary enemy.

Also, those combat armors for you to loot and sell. Damn.

Hopefully You can reload a Save made when entering an Area containing a Legendary Enemy, the Item will always be the same type of Item but the Effect will often change. This can be a very time intensive process if looking for a specific Effect.

Like I said, I know the process for farming Legendary gear. My problem is that there's no guarantee that any given area will spawn a Legendary, especially with Normal having lower chances for Legendary enemies. I'd love to have even one location where a Legendary enemy is guaranteed to spawn, regardless of difficulty. Or some method to ensure that if a Legendary enemy spawns, it will always spawn. As it is, the standard farming method requires you to reload the Quicksave outside if the base item isn't what you want, but wouldn't that also give the game a chance to not spawn a Legendary enemy? If that's the case, I have to get two variables (is there a Legendary Enemy? Do they drop the base item I want?) to line up before I can even start trying to get a specific Legendary effect. That drastically extends the amount of time I have to spend farming, and the process alone is tedious enough without extending it.

Go south. There are many areas where you are likely to encounter legendaries. Also level up, you will definitely encounter more and more of them as you get to higher levels even on Normal (though still not enough of them to compensate or how easy the game gets after about level 30). I have a toon at level 74 that has played almost exclusively on Normal and I easily found 50 legendary weapons with her, and even more armor than that. Every single one of her weapons were legendary as was every armor piece and most pieces were about the fifth or sixth version I had 'upgraded to.' I even found three different legendary gauss rifles, maybe four, the best one being a freezing. Plasma infused .45, incendiary shotgun, instigating .50 sniper rifles, etc., etc. So many that I was selling the ones that were more useless. I found an incendiary shotgun, accidentally sold it, then found another one . . . Go south, level like a mad man, clear many locations. Go home and rest (not sure how long for cells to reset could be as long as 30 days) repeat.

collecting armor you don't plan to wear is pretty inefficient, it tends to weigh more than certain weapons and sells for less. Better off gathering the weapons and selling them.

Guys, I appreciate all the advice, but no one has answered the question. Is there some way on Normal to ensure that once a Legendary enemy has spawned, it will always spawn? That's it. That's what I want to know. Because as far as I'm aware, the game doesn't actually load an area until you're in it. Exact loot in containers and on enemies is determined when you walk in the door. Reloading the save before you walk in the door resets the loot. The problem is that it also makes the game reroll to determine whether or not the Legendary enemy shows up. If you want a Relentless 10mm Pistol, and the Legendary enemy drops an Exterminator's Pipe Pistol, you would reload the save outside the doors. The problem is that the next time you go through the area, there may not be a Legendary enemy at all.


As for why I care, for the most part, I don't. The only build I have that requires specific gear is my Laser Commander, and she only needs Laser weapons. I don't need to farm Legendary enemies for that. The issue is that I see people who talk about farming, and I'm just like "That shouldn't work". But obviously it does, so there must be something I'm missing. My current assumption is that the people doing this are on Hard or Survival, where the higher spawn rate of Legendary enemies makes this work. However, if that is indeed the case, then the method won't work on lower difficulties. That's what lead to the creation of this thread.

My companion carries them all, not me. Why leave something behind if I could take everything away and sell them?

Nice to gear up followers and settlers, especially the provisioners has need for armor and good weapons as they might run into fights if they happens to be in the same cell as you.

Has seen them walk into ares who has been packed with supermutants. If I was in the other street he would have problems.

There is always a legendary ghoul in the National Guard Armory.

Bump the difficulty up one notch to Hard. Plenty of Legendary enemies will spawn. No need to farm.

As far as I know, all settlers and provisioners have the "Protected" tag so, ultimately it doesn't matter how you equip them. They cannot die except by the hands of the player character.