How Fallout 76’s Tesla Cannon Compares to Other Heavy Weapons

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home December 7, 2024 18 Views 7 Min Read
How Fallout 76’s Tesla Cannon Compares to Other Heavy Weapons



Among several Enclave-themed rewards, players can earn the new Tesla Cannon from Fallout 76’s Season 19 Scoreboard. The Tesla Cannon and its weapon mods are currently only available from the Seasonal Scoreboard, though they will likely be added to an NPC vendor’s inventory after Fallout 76’s Season 19 ends in March 2025, similar to past Scoreboard weapons.




This new weapon in Fallout 76 is a returning tool that has previously appeared in Fallout 3’s Broken Steel DLC, Fallout: New Vegas, and Fallout 4’s Creation Club. On its own, the Tesla Cannon is a powerful and highly versatile weapon, though it also works well as a support weapon for players to buff their primary weapon or their teammates’ damage, potentially outperforming other heavy weapons.

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Fallout 76’s Tesla Cannon Is a Versatile Support Weapon

One of the biggest advantages of the Tesla Cannon is that it has a wide variety of weapon mods that allow players to fine-tune its performance to pair well with any endgame builds in Fallout 76. Overall, there are two main configurations for the Tesla Cannon, depending on the muzzle mod equipped to the weapon.


With the Direct Current Muzzle or Stock Assembly mod, the Tesla Cannon fires large explosions that deal massive damage on direct hits, while dealing partial damage to any nearby enemies. This mod configuration also has the ability to apply a debuff to enemies that temporarily reduces their resistance to Ballistic damage by 20%. The other configuration for the Tesla Cannon utilizes the Alternate Current Muzzle mod, which makes shots fired from the Tesla Cannon arc between nearby enemies, equally spreading the damage to all enemies hit. In general, the Tesla Cannon’s configuration has a higher damage output against single targets, while the Alternate Current Muzzle configuration is more efficient for crowd control.

It’s worth noting that this weapon’s damage is almost entirely Energy damage, with only a small portion of its explosions from the Direct Current Muzzle/Stock Assembly mod configuration being Ballistic damage. This is an important distinction since the debuff applied by this weapon only reduces an enemy’s Ballistic resistance. Consequently, players will need to frequently swap weapons, or rely on teammates to get the most use out of the Tesla Cannon’s debuff. However, the Tesla Cannon’s damage is still relatively high compared to other, meta heavy weapons in Fallout 76 despite not being able to take advantage of its own debuff.


Not only can the explosion VFX from the Tesla Cannon’s Direct Current Muzzle/Stock Assembly

configuration be highly disorienting when firing near teammates, but inflicting friendly fire with this weapon will also cause players to apply the reduced Ballistic damage resistance debuff to themselves.

Fallout 76’s New Tesla Cannon Weapon is Overpowered in the Right Hands

Tesla Cannon’s Strengths

  • Similar damage to other meta heavy weapons
  • Can apply a debuff that reduces enemies’ damage resistance
  • Weapon mods provide diverse utility and weapon performance
  • Efficient for both single targets and crowd control

Tesla Cannon’s Weaknesses

  • Explosive VFX in close range can be disorienting
  • Taking friendly fire damage can apply debuff to self
  • Debuff only applies to Ballistic damage


Heavy weapons are often considered some of the best weapons in Fallout 76, so the new Tesla Cannon admittedly has a lot of competition to live up to, and as a single-firing weapon with crowd control utility, the Tesla Cannon’s primary competition is the Cremator. Ultimately though, Fallout 76’s New Tesla Cannon is an extremely powerful weapon that can arguably outperform other heavy weapons when used efficiently, or it can also be used to support a primary weapon or a teammate’s damage.

Between the Tesla Cannon’s overall high damage output, its unique debuff, and its crowd control utility, this weapon is highly recommended for players looking to expand their arsenal with an additional weapon. Especially for players who have the extra inventory space in Fallout 76 to carry around another heavy weapon, the Tesla Cannon makes for a great support tool.

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