Dedicated to my AHS guys and gals. You will always be my second home <3
Why cripple an enemy when you can just kill it? While we all prefer to run around the wasteland, one shooting things, sometimes crippling an enemy first can benefit a situation.
You can cripple a Scorchbeast's wings to make it land. This includes the Scorchbeast Queen.
You can cripple a Mirelurk Queen's spout to stop her poison attacks. You can also cripple her so she can't move.
Earl's legs can be crippled so he doesn't run around the arena or glitch into the roof.
You can cripple creatures' legs to slow them down. This is particularly useful for new or low-level players who are struggling with the game and don't have much ammo to spare.
There are atom challenges requiring you to cripple certain parts of an enemy.
You want to solo or duo an event usually requiring multiple players to complete.
Score Challenge - Cripple an enemy tips
A laser or energy weapon with the beam splitter mod counts for 8 critical hits
If you need to cripple ghouls legs or robots arms, remember that they have 2 of each.
If you run a combat-ready build, you might kill the enemies before you can cripple them. As long as you are using Concentrated Fire to target the limb in question then it will still count towards the cripple challenge. However, it might still be worth looking into carrying a low-powered weapon like a Pipe Rifle.
How to cripple an enemy
Equip the weapon of your choice. You are better off picking an underpowered weapon as we just want to cripple them, not kill them.
Melee and Bow builds will need to carry a ranged (gun) weapon as no crippling perk cards are available for those builds.
Step 1) Drop into VATS and Use Concentrated Fire to move to your limb of choice
Step 2) Fire your weapon and keep firing until the health bar for that limb is completely empty.
Step 3) Congratulations you have just crippled an enemy.
What perk cards and weapon stats do you need to cripple an enemy?
As with everything in this game, it depends entirely on what build you are running.
Concentrated Fire
You will need this perk card equipped regardless of your build unless you plan on using an Explosive Shotgun to cripple.
Rank 1 is all that you need. The only time you should be running rank 3 is if you are running a rifleman build.
Enforcer
Use for: Shotgun builds including the Pepper Shaker when it has been modded to use shotgun ammo.
Rank 1 will work fine but rank 3 will cripple them faster.
Shotguns are more suited for crippling ground-based enemies. You can use an Explosive Shotgun and aim at the enemy's feet to cripple their legs.
Tormentor
Use for: All commando and rifle builds.
Rank 1 will work fine but rank 3 will cripple them faster.
One Gun Army
Use for: Heavy Guns and the Minigun Shredder.
Rank 1 will work fine but rank 3 will cripple them faster.
Modern Renegade
Use for: Pistols
Rank 1 will work fine but rank 3 will cripple them faster.
Limb Damage
If you run a Bow or Melee build OR if you can not fit a crippling perk card into your perk load out (you will still need to equip rank 1 Concentrated Fire perk card), then you can use a weapon with the limb damage stat to cripple.
How to cripple certain enemies
Scorchbeasts and the Scorchbeast Queen.
You will need to cripple both of their wings to get them to land.
Note that when the Queen or a Legendary Scorchbeast regens their health/moves to their second phase, their wings will heal so you will need to re-cripple them.
Mirelurk Queen
Cripple the Queen's Spouts to stop her poison attack.
You can also crippler her legs to stop her from moving. She will regen the health in her legs after a few minutes so be quick to finish her off.
Deathclaws
You can cripple a Deathclaws legs to stop them from moving. If you cripple their head then they hold their head in their hands.
Super Mutants
Fun fact, Super Mutants have a unique dialogue response depending on what part of them you cripple.
Earl
Cripple Earl's legs to stop him from moving around and glitching into the roof. Note that he will not drop to the ground like other crippled creatures but he will stop moving around.
Assaultrons
VATS their legs and once they are on the ground, you can destroy them before they can use their face canon.
Protectrons
If you VATS and cripple their arms then they will blow themselves up.
Cargobot (Nuke Cards)
Cripple the Boosters and the Cargobot will stop flying around like it's on chems.
Hi, I'm Kat or Duchess
​
I'm an Australian data miner who writes farming, event, and food buff guides for Fallout 76.
​
I believe that all knowledge and information should be free which is why my guides will never be locked behind a paywall. However, running a website and photo and video editing software does not come cheaply.
​​
So, If you found my guides useful, please consider buy me a ko-fi (coffee) using the link below.
​​
All monies go towards the tools for writing my guides and maybe for an actual cup of coffee or 3 ;)
​
Alternatively, share my guides with your fellow vault dwellers and help them to survive the wasteland.