Weapons I Will Miss

I cannot fully explain just how damned hard it is going to be to make it through today.  What I mean by that is I did not take the day off for the launch of Destiny 2 on PC, and I know that it will be launching halfway through the day and I will start wishing I was home and able to be playing.  While I have played the hell out of Destiny 2 on the PS4, the PC beta just felt better to me than the console interface.  Destiny 1 was the game that essentially taught me how to play shooters on a console, and in spite of how much progress I have made in my ability to get the controller to do what I want it to do…  it still feels like a foreign territory.  When I sat down to play the PC beta, it was like coming home…  everything that had been slightly off with Destiny was set right just by being able to use a keyboard and mouse.  I realize that after the hundreds of hours that I have poured into the console version there is going to be an adjustment period, but also one I am more than willing to deal with.  When trying to decide what to blog this morning I thought about what I would actually miss in the transition.  It wasn’t the sets of gear from Iron Banner or the Faction Rally that I farmed up, or the fact that I had three almost power capped characters.  Ultimately the part I am going to miss the most is my arsenal of favorite weapons.  As a result this morning I thought I would talk a little about each of them.

Kinetic Weapons

Destiny 2_20171023205617

In order for me to love a Hand Cannon it needs a handful of attributes, the primary being an extremely high impact rating and the secondary being a decent magazine size.  With extended mag I am able to take the magazine to 13 rounds, and the 84 out of 100 impact definitely fits the bill as well.  The fact that the weapon has another of my favorite perks…  explosive payload which causes an AOE damage burst on impact is just icing on the cake.  The last few nights I have been farming tokens on Io and running around with this weapon equipped and having a blast shredding mobs.  This comes from the crucible so I am absolutely hoping I get an early lucky drop.  While there are a bunch of other hand cannons that are vying for my attention… Better Devils keeps winding up my favorite.

Destiny 2_20171023205627

I feel like Origin Story is likely the best kinetic auto rifle in the game, though I am sure I would hear some logical arguments on that point.  Ultimately why I love it is that it feels rock solid and stable in the slightly slower/harder hitting 450 rpm category.  It has fairly good range and can take down targets at a distance so long as you are firing controlled bursts.  The rampage perk is amazing especially if you are dealing with waves of enemies, and you can even leverage this extra damage if you are fast enough to get in additional burn time on bosses.  The good thing about this weapon is that it will probably be the easiest to get because you get the choice of it and two other weapons from finishing a strike milestone after you hit level 20.  As a result I take comfort that I won’t be going without this one for too terribly long.

Destiny 2_20171023205810

Among the most fickle weapon choices in my line up is Antiope-D…  one of the weapons the Gunsmith offers but is on a significantly rarer drop table.  I’ve turned in over a hundred gunsmith packages and I’ve only gotten one of these in total among all of my characters.  What makes this weapon so special is that while a submachine gun it lives in the slower 600 rpm bracket and as a result has significantly better stability and recoil pattern than its cousins.  The end product means if feels like firing a Destiny 1 Hakke auto rifle like the Zarinaea-D, which was among my favorite weapons in year one.  This is part of my base crucible loadout and does a great job of shutting down enemy players when they get too close for comfort, but also has enough range that you can chase them a little with it.  I am hoping the luck is with me and I am able to find this fairly early on.  If not there are some reasonable replacements…  but nothing will ever tarnish the memory of this weapon.

Energy Weapons

Destiny 2_20171023205644

Uriel’s Gift is a beast and there is really no other way to describe it.  This is the other half of my stock crucible loadout and the weapon that does most of the work as far as getting kills from range.  Much like Origin Story it lives in the more stable 450 rpm bracket for auto rifles and features quite possibly the single best perk right now in the game…  high-caliber rounds.  For those unfamiliar this causes your target to flinch making it much harder for them to keep the targeting reticle trained on you.  Now this works for NPCs and causes them to sort of stun lock while you are fighting them… but for enemy players it is extremely frustrating because it makes it insanely hard to actually fight back.  Additionally the weapon has Tap the Trigger which gives you extra stability and aim assist when you first engage a target.  I fully expect this weapon to be nerfed in the near future, but for the time being I am loving using it.  This one can come from Nessus, Gunsmith or an Engram because I have seen it drop from all three, so I am hoping that ups my chances of actually getting one quickly.

Destiny 2_20171023205634

Generally speaking I am not a big fan of Scout Rifles and will talk at length about this fact if anyone gives me half a chance.  There is an entire cult of the MIDA Multi Tool that I just do not understand because the weapon feels horrible to me.  The irony is… my favorite scout rifle the Manannan SR4 is in that exact same archetype bracket.  I am not exactly sure what it is about this weapon… the look, the feel, the sound and visual effects…  but whatever the case I like using it.  It does not hurt that it also has explosive payload that I talked a bit about earlier.  Lately I have been pairing this with my Better Devils in grinding planetary content because the combo gives me nice reliable ranged kill options and up close and personal stopping power.  This is primarily a gunsmith package drop as far as I am aware and I am hoping I get it pretty early.  Truth be told I will likely infuse my MIDA into it when I finish that quest.

Power Weapons

Destiny 2_20171023205720

While I have flirted with other shotgun options, much like its name… this is the most reliable and battle ready.  I’ve gotten it from a few sources but it still remains my go to shotgun for melting bosses that I can actually get up close and personal with.  Thanks to Destiny 1 spoiling me… a shotgun has to have the full auto perk in order for me to really care about it.  This actually seems to be pretty damned rare as far as weapons go in Destiny 2.  While I have found a few options with it, this gun seems to be the most reasonable to use and capable of dishing out the sort of damage I am wanting.  Hawthorne is one of my favorite characters, so it is only fitting that her signature gun goes down on this list as well.

Destiny 2_20171023205652

I’ve talked about this weapon at length the few times I have mentioned it in this blog.  There are those who call this the Destiny 2 Gjallarhorn and it is maybe not that incorrect of a statement.  The amount of sustained damage this thing can pump out is significant, especially when you combine it with a rapid reload ability like the titan rally shield or hunter dodge.  The exotic perk Conserve Momentum causes non-lethal hits with the weapon to lower your charge time.  This is significant and after a few shots it feels like an almost instant fire fusion rifle.  I regularly use this to single-handedly melt the cabal gunships during public events to push it to heroic in a single round.  It will oneshot most yellow bars and help you shred anything else.  Its biggest negative is the relatively small magazine size at 8 and the sluggish reload speed… which is ultimately why you want to pair this with some sort of a speed reload mechanic.  Regardless if you get your hands on this weapon I highly suggest checking it out.  It was the very first exotic I got in Destiny 2 on PS4 so hoping I find it again quickly on the PC side.

So these are my favorite weapons so far and the ones I use in the most regular rotation.  What are some of your favorites that I missed?  Drop me a line in the comments and let me know what weapon you are looking forward to getting again.

 

Destiny 2: Favorite Weapons So Far

Destiny 2_20170917103343

This weekend was a weird mix of leveling characters and slowly incrementing that light level up there.  Saturday I spent most of my time working on the Warlock and I managed to get the light level up to 282, then I turned around Sunday and caught my titan main up and can now hit 283 if I swap a bunch of gear around.  I potentially should have taken a new screenshot this morning, but largely I took this one to show off the gear that I finally stabilized with, or at least enough to feel like I could use some shaders to blend everything together.  I’ve been using the Doom Fang Pauldrons as my exotic armor piece because of the benefits it gives to Sentinel.  The shield throw is rather potent and giving me an ability to do more than one per super is something I can seriously get behind.  The rest is a blend of Wild Wood armor and Kerak Type 2, which gives me the sort of heavily armored but also a bit piecemeal look that I was going for that the Doom Fang Pauldrons already had.  Another thing that I spent a significant amount of time was sitting on Io and testing weapons out trying to determine what I want to keep and what I absolutely hate to use and can shard.  As far as the “why Io” part it just happened to be where I was when I decided to start down this rabbit hole.  The end result is that my vault is greatly less cluttered, and that I have settled on a number of what I consider my favorite weapons.  I thought this morning I would talk about some of them.

Destiny 2_20170917163321

Scathelock is the weapon that I keep going back to and for all intents and purposes can be called my primary gun.  I loved this weapon in the beta and one of my happiest moments was when I got my first copy from Devrim Kay, and quite honestly from that point on its been in pretty heavy rotation.  It is really hard to compare weapons from Destiny 2 to Destiny 1 but as far as feel goes this is somewhere in the range of my beloved God Roll Haakon’s Hatchet and Zhalo Supercell.  It is extremely fast and relatively accurate… and if you land precision shots you can melt four or five oncoming minion type mobs without reloading.  The only negative is that there is sometimes this weird pull to one side…  which can sometimes make it a bit hard to track mobs that are moving.  However I have learned to adjust and completely love this weapon, especially with the cool copper and black shader setup that I am rocking right now.

Destiny 2_20170917163331

The other weapon that has become my default energy slot item is the MIDA Mini Tool.  You get this weapon as part of the new quest chain that ultimately leads to the MIDA Multi Tool, and I absolutely love the look of it.  My default crucible loadout tends to be auto rifle and submachinegun, and for the most part I tend to treat subs as the new shotgun.  They offer you a way to completely melt a target at close range in a very short period of time.  As far as for PVE purposes, this also melts enemy shields and tends to be a bit more accurate than the average submachinegun is.  You are going to use this in close to medium range engagements however, because there is no way you are accurately hitting something across the room from you.  This thing is awesome for melting Vex Minotaurs and Cabal Centurions specifically.

Destiny 2_20170917163720

Yesterday I heard this weapon referred to as the new Gjallarhorn, and while in some ways I agree with that…  I am afraid no weapon in Destiny 2 is ever going to be nearly as powerful as the Gjallarhorn was.  Merciless however comes really close and if you absolutely need to destroy a boss target, then this thing is going to be your go to.  It has a really tight cluster of shots as far as Fusion rifles go and this means that more than like a single shot is going to take down any non-boss yellow bar.  When it comes to bosses however that’s where the perks of this weapon really shine.  I talked about this a little Friday when I did my Xur post, but Conserve Momentum is the exotic perk and it causes non-lethal hits to speed up the weapons charge rate.  This is EXTREMELY noticeable and after a few hits the weapon starts to feel more like a pulse rifle than a fusion rifle.  It is going to be extremely useful for fights where you have a limited burn window to take down as much ammo off the boss as possible, and if you use hunter dodge or titan shield reload you can keep up the damage without breaking the effect.  I’ve managed to get a couple of these so far from Exotics and I have a feeling as we go deeper into the game this is going to be that weapon everyone wished they had gotten when Xur sold it.

Destiny 2_20170917163343

I am really not much of a fan of scout rifles in general.  They are great for using as a psuedo sniper rifle, but I would just much rather have a harder hitting hand cannon or a more buzzsaw like auto rifle to whittle down mobs.  The Manannan sorta plants itself in a territory that I actually really enjoy using.  Once again it is super hard to compare a weapon stat for stat to Destiny 1, but this feels like a much harder hitting Year 2 Hung Jury SR4.  Explosive payload makes this weapon help quite a bit on add duty which is where I feel scouts tend to fall down a bit next to the weapons I am used to using.  It’s weird, that during Destiny 1 I was not really a big fan of most of the Omolon weapons… and WAS a huge fake of Hakke.  This time around it is pretty much the exact opposite… where I am finding myself sharding very few Omolon weapons and sharding almost every single Hakke item I get my hands on.

Destiny 2_20170917163707

Speaking of Hakke weapons…  here is one that has absolutely earned its slot in my inventory.  Hawthorne’s Field-Forged Shotgun…  is a mouthful but so far it is hands down the best shotgun I have come across.  The primary reason being that just like Destiny 1…  Full Auto is where it is at and this thing is super useful for pouring a bunch of hits into a boss in quick succession.  It has shockingly decent range and a decent magazine size for a shotgun.  I’ve sharded a bunch of shotguns because they never really gave me much reason to use them…  and I was completely spoiled by Destiny 1 weapons like the Invective or Party Crasher +1.  This shotgun however absolutely sits nicely on the same level as those weapons, and if you get it…  you might think twice before tossing it aside as you are probably not going to find a better shotty.

Destiny 2_20170917163549

I’m going to close things out with something that I happened to find while cleaning out my vault, that I apparently hurriedly tossed in there without really trying it out.  This is another one of the few Hakke weapons that I have kept and I did so largely because this hand cannon has damned near maxed out impact at 92 out of 100.  The only weapon I have with that same stat is the exotic Sturm… that I just picked up and have yet to really use much.  Basically think of this weapon as a Legendary Sturm much the same way as Eyasluna from Destiny 1 was a Legendary version of Hawkmoon.  If I had to choose between using Sturm and using Merciless…  then I am absolutely going to be equipping Pribina-D and having that exotic in the heavy slot.  More than anything though this weapon proves that you should in theory at least give some test time  to every single legendary weapon that comes across your path.  You are going to find some gems that at first glance you thought nothing about.