S22 - Season of the Witch
Season of the trial run of weapon reviews, please send any feedback our way!
Last Updated: September 21, 2023
Sandbox Recap
Open the section if interested in a sandbox overview or continue reading to go straight to the guns!
With this season, the weapons sandbox got a pretty huge shake-up with the decoupling of Zoom from damage falloff as well as some more focused balance changes to lift up underused weapon archetypes. A month in, the highlights of this change turned out to be Hand Cannons on the PvE side and Auto Rifles in the Crucible.
Alongside this change, Bungie also rebalanced the ammo economy when running 2 special weapons in your loadout to be more in line with the baseline 1 primary, 1 special, and 1 heavy loadout. This change pushed many to put a larger emphasis on running primary weapons which also contributed to the sudden rise of Hand Cannons which was caused by the sizeable damage buff they received. Namely, a 20% bump against Minors (square icon next to health bar) and a whopping 75% increase against Elites (shield icon next to health bar).
So with the backstory out of the way, let's take a look at how each of the primary weapon archetypes stack up for DPS in the current sandbox. Here are two graphs courtesy of Mossy showing their performance against Minor and Elite enemies respectively:
As you can see, Hand Cannons have one of the highest damage outputs among primary weapons currently and are only slightly behind Sidearms which have only half their range at best. Most notably, the new Heavy Burst frame (Double Fire in the charts) represented by the newly reprised Warden's Law seems to go neck and neck with even the best Sidearm frames and even beat them in some cases.
But back to the changes made to double special, recent testing done by Prelapse shows that Bungie didn't necessarily kick it to the curb but instead heavily cut back on the heavy ammo drop rate when running it. The numbers work out to be roughly an ~18% decrease in special ammo and a ~63% decrease in heavy ammo drops. So you should still be fine as long as you're paying attention to your ammo economy.
Special weapons with great ammo economy like Trace Rifles and (especially Wave Frame) Grenade Launchers should also help alleviate much of the burden. Naturally, ability-heavy builds were the least affected since they don't rely as heavily on weapon kills for ammo drops. So if you're running one such build, you should be more than fine as long as you're familiar with the basics of manipulating ammo drops. Otherwise, you will probably want to run a Heavy Ammo Finder helmet mod and a Scavenger mod on your boots to give yourself more leeway.
And now for some rapid-fire patch highlights:
While Bungie mentioned that Adept Masterworks and Enhanced Intrinsics would no longer decrease damage on Fusion Rifles, they actually removed all damage penalties from perks and mods that directly affect the charge time stat of Fusions. (Liquid Coils and Accelerated Coils are the only exceptions as they scale damage directly by 2% in either direction)
Swords got a pretty major rework for how Sword Energy recharges as well as some changes to Sword Guard that I won't really be covering here. In short, you are now able to use heavy attacks more frequently and Sword Guard got a bit better. In terms of DPS, there haven't been any big changes but the optimal combos have been simplified a bit.
Bows finally had their Projectile Velocity dialed up which allows them to stay hitscan at longer distances even at higher framerates. This translates to a better feel and is an especially nice (albeit still minor) glow-up for Lightweight Bows which have long felt very odd to use.
Bipod is finally a solid perk to run on Rocket Launchers and is essentially a direct replacement for Clown Cartridge for single-weapon DPS without rotations.
Envious Assassin got buffed so it now feels intuitive to use but it looks like Bungie forgot to set a limit for how far you can overflow the mag so certain weapons can now reach a comfortable 4x their regular magazine size with this perk.
Shoot to Loot now finally picks up Orbs of Power even with AoE damage from the weapon.
Seasonal Weapons
Acquired from Season of the Witch activities, ritual activity completion rewards, and the Ritual TableA link to the weapon's page on D2Foundry is available at the start of every section by clicking on the weapon's name/image. If you have a second monitor or enough screen space, consider opening it up to follow along!
Origin Trait: Head Rush
Crouching for 2+ seconds before standing up boosts Reload Speed and Handling by a small amount (10?) for 5 seconds.
Wish it didn't require standing up and such a long crouch time. Currently, it's a decent passive effect but not something to actively consider taking advantage of.The first Adaptive Frame (140 RPM) Strand Hand Cannon
30-35 meters of range, 2.31-3.15 second Reload Time
PvP Base Damage: 46.5 body, 69.75 crit
PvP Neutral TTK: 0.87s with 3 crits (2 crits and 1 body under T2 Resil)
Kept Confidence appears to have lived up to its name by being a good first impression of how a Strand 140 Hand Cannon can perform. Stats-wise, it's firmly middle of the pack in its subfamily with a few where it falls spectacularly short. The Enhanced Intrinsic will help remedy this once fully crafted, though, so it'll definitely be able to hang.
In terms of Range and Stability, it's about as average as it gets but what the stats don't tell you is that it's also missing Ricochet Rounds so that's another 10 stability you will be losing out on. For Handling and Reload Speed, it's near the bottom of the charts with many of its popular siblings having 10-16 more points in these stats... ouch.
The 76 Aim Assistance also isn't going to win any awards but, keeping with the theme, that's also just average so it'll do fine. The one highlight is the decently high 19 Airborne Effectiveness which is quite high for the archetype.
So then it's just pretty average, right? Well yea... mostly. But drawing a conclusion from just that would be doing a disservice to this weapon. The thing I've been hearing the most recently is how good it feels which comes down to a couple of key points: a smaller, slimmer gun model with a good recoil animation to target visibility as well as the sound. For me personally, the firing sound is a bit too sharp to the point where it slightly bothers me but that's a very subjective metric so make of that what you will. But if there's one thing that most people agree on, it's that it's a bit underwhelming for PvE so let's dig into things a bit more, shall we?
Those perks huh? Even from a glance, that 3rd column leaves much to be desired but let's take things one step at a time.
For barrels, the old reliable Smallbore is present and is pretty much a no-brainer pick here. Hammer-Forged Rifling is also solid for 3 more Range in exchange for 7 Stability. In most cases, however, Hammer-Forged is just not worth losing 7 Stability for - especially when you don't have Ricochet Rounds to pull up the slack.
But if raw performance isn't what you're looking for and just your gun to feel really snappy, Fluted Barrel is going to be your go-to option.
For magazines, I can really only recommend Accurized Rounds for PvP here to push out the range by another 1.3 meters. On the PvE side, I'd personally go for Tactical Mag for the Reload Speed and the 1 extra round in the magazine. But if you're not running a reload-boosting perk in the 3rd column or a loader mod on your gauntlets, I'd say just go all-in on Reload Speed with Flared Magwell.
Moving on to the 3rd column, we have to do a bit of cleaning first before we get to the interesting parts:
Invisible Hand continues to be objectively terrible, requiring you to miss 4 shots in a row for a measly ~25 Stability that only stays for 1 second after you finally hit something. If you're already firing off almost half of your mag for this, you might as well just invest in Reload Speed instead.
Shot Swap is a perk that I cannot make sense of on this gun. The only reason I can see for using it is needing to quickly swap to your special weapon in PvP after getting a kill but the thing is, Killing Wind already puts you at 85 Handling (87 with an Enhanced Intrinsic) after a kill even if you don't invest in Handling at all. And going from 87 handling to the 100 you'd get with Shot Swap only results in a whopping 0.04-second decrease in your Stow duration so I personally don't see the appeal. In PvE, the only use case I can think of is having quick swaps for activating Bait and Switch but you can achieve the exact same thing with Quickdraw without even needing to get kills to store up the buff. It's a pass for me.
With those out of the way, you really only have 2 or 3 choices for PvP. But the top two here are definitely going to be Killing Wind and Quickdraw.
Killing Wind is an excellent choice if you're already comfortable snagging the first kill as it will provide some generous buffs to help keep the chain going. The 50 Mobility it gives will help you outstrafe your opponent and that's not even mentioning the 20 Range and 40 Handling it gives alongside a 5% Damage Falloff Distance increase. That Range bump translates to 4.5 meters of extra range and the Handling bump will translate to around a 30% decrease in how long your Ready/ADS/Stow Animations take to finish. All around, it'll make the gun feel really snappy and will also give it enough range to be comparable with an Aggressive Frame (120 RPM) Hand Cannon.
On the other hand, Quickdraw is the ideal choice if you just want a solid gun from the get-go without all the fuss of getting a kill first. 100 Handling and a 5% faster Ready Animation for 1 second when pulling out the gun is nothing to scoff at. Not to mention that if you're quick with it and swap back within the 1-second window, that 100 Handling will even apply to your Stow Animation. However, the buff will instantly go away as soon as you press your ADS input so there will be a pretty drastic difference between how fast you can pull out the gun and how fast you can ADS. This can certainly be slightly jarring until you get used to it.
Air Assault also gets an honorable mention here for our friends who can't seem to leave the skybox of maps. If you're already a good player and enjoy aerial playstyles, Air Assault gets a seal of approval from me because it makes the gun feel genuinely great in the air. Even without a kill, the 10 (12 when Enhanced) AE it gives for free already brings you to 44 (46) on the stat if you're running Icarus Grip - which you should. Then just snag an airborne kill and you're instantly maxed out on the stat, give it a shot if you're confident you have the skills to put the perk to work.
Worth noting here that Heat Rises gives you 20 AE just passively for having the Aspect equipped. This brings you to 64 (66) AE which means that you don't have any accuracy penalties in the air and the Aim Assist penalties are also much lower. Meanwhile, Thread of Ascent on Strand gives you 30 AE just for using your grenade ability so if you're a strand Hunter, this will pair really nicely with your grapple spam.
For PvE, the only 2 options worth considering in this column are Stats For All and Loose Change.
For most players, the clear winner will be Stats For All. The huge stat bumps for just hitting 3 targets are unbeatable here. 10 Range, 10 Stability, 30 Handling, 35 Reload Speed, a 5% faster reload animation, and even a 5% damage falloff distance increase. Just listing it all out takes an entire sentence so you kinda get the idea why it's so good. And if that wasn't enough, it even lasts for 10 seconds. The only downside is not being able to refresh its duration by hitting 3 more targets while it's active. Well... that, and needing to actively swap between targets to activate it in the first place, though this shouldn't be a major issue as most minor enemies will die in just a couple of shots anyway so it'll be active by the time you need to reload.
Loose Change is essentially the dollar store version of this that instead ties into your subclass effects. Applying an elemental debuff to a target will give you around 50 Reload Speed for 4.5 seconds which means it will essentially be always active if you're playing on Solar or Strand with how easy it is to apply Scorch or Sever/Unravel. More ability spam-focused loadouts on other subclasses will also help with keeping Loose Change active but a strand primary weapon is unlikely to be a great choice for those situations. You'll likely want to use this with a Strand subclass to take advantage of harmonic armor mods alongside the easy debuff cycling/propagation (Unravel is great for this!) and elemental synergies.
And finally, we have the 4th column with... not a whole lot honestly.
For PvP, there's really only one option here and you're objectively throwing if you don't go with Eye of the Storm. It's an excellent dueling perk which really seems to be the strong suit of this weapon. Drastically increased accuracy and up to 30 Handling as your health gets lower in the fight is always a welcome bonus because you're already dealing with lowered accuracy due to bloom and this essentially counters that. And if you decide to enhance it, you even get a free 5 Stability on top for a bit of added Flinch Resistance and decreased recoil (alongside a slightly slower rate of Aim Assist Degradation).
You can also make a somewhat convincing argument for Gutshot Straight allowing you to kill up to T7 Resilience in 2 crits and 1 body due to the 20% body-shot damage bump but you'll definitely need to enhance the perk if you want to use it. Even then, that ~15% decreased Auto Aim Cone (called "bullet bending" AKA how far off you can be off-target to still get a hit, it has no effect on reticle stickiness) size is most likely going to be a tough sell for the vast majority of people. Especially considering the relative strength of many titan builds in the current meta that are all going to be over T7 Resilience.
For PvE, you can also go with Gutshot for a passive option if you don't mind having to aim a bit better. A 20% body-shot damage increase is honestly respectable so go for it if you want to and don't mind the downside much.
My main go-to, however, would be Multikill Clip here since the 3rd column is already reload-focused. 13|33|50% increased damage for 5 (5.5) seconds depending on the number of kills you snag before reloading is tough to pass up in my opinion - especially since it pairs excellently with Stats For All.
And finally, while Pugilist isn't anything fancy, it would pair nicely with Loose Change on strand subclasses as each of those melee abilities applies an elemental debuff like sever or unravel. 10% (11%) Melee Energy on kills should help with keeping the loop going. Plus, melee hits also give you 35 Handling for 3 seconds which is a nice bonus, especially for getting the weapon ready faster after melees.
Conclusion - Recommended Rolls
Kept Confidence isn't very versatile but it has a specialized job of being an excellent dueling weapon which it fulfills really well in PvP with its sleek look and overall good perk selection. For PvE, the lack of Hatchling is a bit disappointing from a Strand power fantasy standpoint and it doesn't stand out in any particular way. If you need a strand hand cannon, it'll do a job but you'll likely have better luck with Round Robin if you don't mind it being a 120 RPM alternative.
So, here are my personal recommendations:
PvP: Smallbore, Accurized Rounds, Killing Wind/Quickdraw, Eye of the Storm, Range Masterwork, Icarus Grip
Links: Killing Wind, Quickdraw
PvE: Smallbore/Fluted Barrel, Tactical Mag, Stats For All/Loose Change, Multikill Clip/Gutshot Straight/Pugilist, Range Masterwork, Minor Spec (Major Spec is also nice in low-tier content)
Precision Frame (180 RPM) Void Scout Rifle
75.5-86.5 meters of range, 1.75-2.61 second Reload Time
PvP Base Damage: 38 body, 60.73 crit
PvP Neutral TTK: 1s with 2 crit 2 body (3 crit 1 body at T9-T10 Resil)
Brya's Love is the first Void Scout Rifle since Doom of Chelchis came out last year with the King's Fall raid reprisal and it just so happens to share the same subfamily with it as well. And honestly, Brya's comfortably dropkicks Chelchis into the grave and takes a dump on top of it for good measure with its perk pool. Clickbait introduction aside, Chelchis is still very capable and is usually the better option for the use cases it's meant for. Brya's Love's advantage lies in its more versatile selection of perks that will let you spec it into almost anything you'd want.
In terms of stats, the two guns are essentially equal with Brya's having a modest advantage of 8 more Handling in exchange for 1 less Range and 4 less Reload Speed.
Outside the vacuum of these two guns, Brya's has one of the highest Range and Handling values with only Hung Jury beating it out among 180s. (Which isn't anything new as Hung Jury handily outclasses every single weapon in the frame in pretty much every stat so Brya's is essentially a "first among seconds" for Range and Handling.) Stability and Reload Speed take a backseat here with near-bottom-ranker results while Aim Assist is just average. Though, pretty much all the guns with this frame are within 3-5 points of each other for Aim Assist so chances are you won't feel much of a difference here.
It also comes with the standard 20 Zoom of the frame so you can expect the weapon to perform like most of its siblings: "like Hung Jury but worse".
So when it comes to the stats, it fits in nicely within the family with strong points in Range and Handling and being a bit sub-par with Stability and Reload Speed. But what really sets this gun apart from the rest is undoubtedly the excellent and wide selection of perks it comes with.
The one problem with it for some will be the sight. It's a bit bulky and much more enclosed than its sibling from the King's Fall raid. But if you can deal with that, it'll be an excellent choice.
But let's not get too ahead of ourselves and start with the barrel and magazine perks.
For barrels, Fluted Barrel is an excellent option, boosting Handling by 15 and Stability by 5 points. Since we're dealing with a scout rifle, Range is usually not a matter of concern outside of the longest of lanes in PvP so making the gun feel snappier by boosting Handling is always a solid choice. If you really want to boost the range regardless, Smallbore is still available for you with its 7 Range and Stability.
As a last recommendation, Arrowhead Brake provides a respectable 10 Handling while also maxing out your Recoild Direction which should lend itself to a more pleasant shooting experience - this would probably be my recommendation for all things PvE.
For mags, Accurized Rounds is there if you are committed to pushing your range to the limits but I'd personally recommend Steady Rounds or Extended Mag instead for PvP due to the Airborne Effectiveness bonuses they provide. (In my opinion, Steady Rounds would be the clear winner for PvP due to the Stability bump that also translates to 3.75% more Flinch Resistance)
For PvE, I'd go for Tactical Mag if I'm not running Frenzy in the last column (Frenzy grants 100 Reload Speed) and Extended Mag otherwise for those 2 extra shots. Appended Mag is also a nice option that doesn't tank your Reload Speed without Frenzy active. Personally, I'm sticking with Tactical Mag for the stats and one extra shot.
So about that 3rd column. That's got to be one of the most stacked perk pools I've seen to date. Remember how I said the Stability and Reload Speed stats on this gun were sub-par? Yeah, throw that right out of the window because we have THREE perks just in the 3rd column to help with those.
First off, Rapid Hit. It needs no introduction at this point as it's been a staple of the best Scout Rifles for ages. Showering me with Reload Speed and Stability for shooting targets in the head? Sign me up! An excellent pick for PvE but we have even better options available for PvP. Now don't get me wrong, if you like Rapid Hit in the Crucible, go right ahead! Just consider the alternatives too!
Next, we have Keep Away. Stay at least 15 meters away from enemies and get 30 Reload Speed and 10 Range for free (alongside a small accuracy bump) - pretty hard to pass up. Definitely among the top choices for PvP but is outclassed by other perks in PvE like the already-mentioned Rapid Hit.
Perpetual Motion is another excellent choice for PvP (also PvE but Rapid Hit once again outclasses it) if you have a more movement-focused playstyle or are just constantly strafing out of habit. 10 Stability, Handling, and Reload speed per stack for moving around is one more of those nice-to-haves if you're not running something more specialized like the next perk option.
Now bear with me and throw on the tinfoil hat because I'm actually about to recommend Shoot to Loot for both PvP and PvE. Let me explain though before I discredit myself for life. For PvP, this only really applies for Mouse and Keyboard (MNK) players because it's a bit too much of an ask for most controller players to shoot an ammo brick or an Orb of Power without any help from Aim Assist. With Explosive Payload, it would still be fine to use but it's too much work without it.
We'd pair it with Precision Instrument and 2-3 Weapon Surge mods on our boots. So here's the loop: pop class ability 🠚 get kill 🠚 generate an Orb of Power with Reaper (Class Item mod) 🠚 shoot orb when you're ready to pick it up with Shoot to Loot 🠚 kill all resilience tiers in 3 crits (only up to T9 with 2 Surges) for as long as you have armor charges. You can even pair this with Echo of Starvation on Void to get Devour on the Orb pickup.
Would it be reliable or competitive? Absolutely not. But I'd venture a guess that it would be a fun and unique playstyle to get comfortable with. On top of that, Shoot to Loot scouts are really good at just collecting ammo and orbs from across the map even if you're not committing to the loop. As for PvE, you can easily go with the classic combo of Shoot to Loot and Explosive Payload for a passive damage boost and AoE ammo/orb pickups.
With the meme pick out of the way, let's instead turn our attention to the last two main picks for PvP. The first is No Distractions. Even though there isn't a lot of chatter about this perk, it's an excellent choice for Scout Rifles. Especially if you like laning or floating out in the skybox after chomping down on a grenade. 35% Flinch Resistance for just ADS-ing for 1 second is essentially the perfect pairing with a scout.
On the other hand, Perfect Float is essentially the equivalent of No Distractions except you just need to be "in combat" for 6 seconds. "Being in combat" is a very vague description of the requirement as there are many different versions of it in the game now but with Perfect Float, that means having exchanged (dealt or received) damage in the last 3 (3.5 enhanced) seconds. So as long as you start a fight by plinking away at the enemies or by getting tagged up by them, this perk should be very easy to activate. After that, you have a relatively generous 5-second duration where the perk will stay active. Furthermore, you can also refresh the duration with more damage exchanges!
But in exchange for the added difficulty of activating (and keeping active) Perfect Float, you get 30 Airborne Effectiveness on top of the same 35% Flinch Resistance with the benefit of also being able to move around more freely and not being locked into ADS as much. This perk will be especially beneficial for Heat Rises warlocks and hunters who are good with hitting their throwing knives as an explosive knife and one or two shots essentially guarantee that you will activate the perk. Plus, considering that this is a 180 Scout, you can down guardians in just 3 crits for a 0.67 TTK if you have Radiant (or any 10% or higher damage buff) active.
And last but certainly not least, we have Loose Change left to cover in this column. Thankfully this is a really easy one. If you're not pairing it with Destabilizing Rounds to completely remove any reliance on your subclass, I have no idea what you're doing. Unless of course you're on void with an exceptionally grenade-spam-heavy build to take advantage of Echo of Instability (grants Volatile Rounds for 10 seconds on grenade kills) or are running Gyrfalcon's Hauberk. In those cases, you'll probably want to run Explosive Payload, or Golden Tricorn with it instead.
But do keep in mind that if you are to rely on Destabilizing Rounds, you'll need to have at least a respectable level of enemy density in the activity you're playing. Otherwise, you'll probably just be better off going with Rapid Hit. Also, just one more thing to note: Weaken is quite literally the only elemental debuff that doesn't activate Loose Change... ouch.
Whew... what a 3rd column this gun has. That was a lot of words so let's take a quick breather. Reset your brain, grab a glass of water, go to the toilet because you've been holding it in for about 2.5 hours, and we'll quickly go over the 4th column as well. Just pretend I'm staring at you judgingly because I can't really have the same comedic silence in text as I could in a video for example. But you make do with what you have, I for one find my self-aware writing quite entertaining as I'm sitting here at midnight so I'll just assume you do as well. If you don't, too bad because I just tricked you into taking a break from the info dump anyway! Let's pick things up where we left off, shall we?
Let's start with Precision Instrument as we've already touched on it with my cursed idea of a PvP loadout. Honestly, it's a tough sell for me unless you have a reliable way to get surges going but not regular empowering buffs. With the abundance of Orbs in 6v6, it might end up working out even without that Shoot to Loot abomination of a roll. However, from a neutral standpoint, it can only 3-crit up to T4 Resilience (T5 enhanced) and most players in my lobbies shoot for T6 or higher which will comfortably counter the perk.
In PvE, the story is much the same. This seems to be a less reliable version of Focused Fury (available on Doom of Chelchis) where you need to start over with building up the buff if you miss just once. Not exactly ideal but it's a decent option to bump up your damage against higher-tier minor targets like hive knights. Even then, I'm not sure if it beats out the utility of Explosive Payload that provides a ~9.4% passive damage buff for your crits (15% on body shots) alongside its AoE damage and easier time staggering targets.
Speaking of Explosive Payload, let's talk about that next. Or not because I already mentioned everything that had to be said. Excellent perk, passive damage buff, easier stagger, excellent synergy with Shoot to Loot. End of story. NEXT!
Let's go over Frenzy then. 100 Handling and 100 Reload Speed for 7 seconds once you've been in combat for 12 seconds. In this case, being in combat means that you have exchanged damage in the last 5 seconds. This perk has a small cult following in PvP among high-level players and I'd say it could be pretty interesting on this gun as well. If the fight ends up dragging out for a bit, you can whip it out to kill all Resilience levels in just 3 crits. Small caveat: Hung Jury already does that with Box Breathing and it doesn't need you to wait on it. I know, a different slot and all that but how often are you really going "Oh yeah; I want SPECIFICALLY a void scout rifle for PvP!"? I'm trying really hard to make this work but 180s essentially live and die by Box Breathing. For a 6v6 or casual 3v3 roll? I can definitely see value in Frenzy but don't expect to be particularly competitive with this gun at the higher levels.
And you know what, you don't have to! If it's not meant for that, then let's not pretend it is and just have fun with it instead. So TLDR? Frenzy is an interesting pick for PvP that elevates this gun to another level if you can get it up (poor choice of words, eh?) but it will most definitely need quite a bit of practice to be able to take full advantage of it. On the flip side, however, it's an excellent perk for those trying to get better at PvP and who want to build good habits. Try to keep the perk active while staying alive and I almost guarantee you'll improve your decision-making in the long term if you keep at it.
For PvE, it's a much simpler story. Free stats and free damage buff for plinking away at targets. Just throw on Keep Away or Rapid Hit to help the reload when Frenzy isn't up and you'll have an excellent and really snappy gun in your hands.
Next up is Adagio. I honestly don't know what to make of it on this gun but it does turn your optimal TTK in PvP into a 0.8 second 2 crit 1 body kill so there's that I guess? There's not a lot to say about it really. 30% more damage in exchange for your RPM dropping to 150 (matching that of High-Impact Scout Rifles and Sunshot). Take it for a spin if you want. As for its PvE applications, it's a kill-activated damage perk, simple as. I'll personally stay away from it in favor of Explosive Payload or Golden Tricorn but if you like it, go for it.
Speaking of Golden Tricorn, this is another great option to pair with Loose Change. Void is particularly good at spamming grenades due to Devour so you should be able to keep the second stack of Tricorn up quite well for a whopping 50% damage buff. And then we have Echo of Instability (grants Volatile Rounds on grenade kills) and Echo of Undermining (grenades apply Weaken) to keep Loose Change active. In PvP, it also allows for a 0.67 second 3 crit kill after downing an enemy, making it essentially a less forgiving but faster Adagio.
And finally, we have Destabilizing Rounds that we've already covered in regard to Loose Change. They are like a match made in heaven so you can safely just use that if you want to run this perk. But if you don't have as many adds to shoot at, just consider pairing it with Rapid Hit.
Pugilist also exists, good for it.
Conclusion - Recommended Rolls
Brya's Love is hands down one of the best Precision Frame Scout Rifles in the game and synergizes incredibly well with the Void Subclasses. In PvP, it's no Hung Jury but has some interesting or just all-around good fun rolls that make it worth taking for a spin as long as you can get over the look of the scope. Its perk pool lends itself to a lot of experimentation and gives people plenty of solid options to choose from. The perks complement each other really well and I can't help but think that if this thing had Box Breathing, it would be one of if not the best legendary scouts ever released aesthetics aside.
With all that said, here are some of my roll recommendations:
PvE Rolls:
Minor Spec is recommended, any Masterwork will do but probably go Reload Speed without a more passive reload perk
Roll #1: Smallbore/Arrowhead Brake, Tactical Mag, Keep Away/Rapid Hit, Frenzy
Roll #2: Arrowhead Brake/Fluted Barrel, Tactical Mag, Shoot to Loot, Explosive Payload
Roll #3: Arrowhead Brake/Fluted Barrel, Tactical Mag, Rapid Hit/Keep Away, Golden Tricorn/Explosive Payload
Roll #4: Arrowhead Brake/Fluted Barrel, Tactical Mag, Loose Change, Destabilizing Rounds
PvP Rolls:
A Handling or Range Masterwork is recommended, use whatever mod you prefer but consider Radar Booster too :)
Roll #1: Fluted Barrel/Smallbore/Arrowhead Brake, Steady Rounds, No Distractions/Keep Away, Explosive Payload
Mitigates flinch you take (if you go with No Distractions of course) while drastically worsening flinch you cause, excellent roll if you have an on-demand damage buff like Acrobat's Dodge on the Gunslinger Subclass to guarantee a 3 crit kill in 0.67s. Otherwise, it's mostly just an excellent dueling roll.
Roll #2: Fluted Barrel/Smallbore/Arrowhead Brake, Steady Rounds, No Distractions/Keep Away/Perpetual Motion, Golden Tricorn/Adagio
Mostly a 6v6 roll that will allow you to seamlessly chain kills with Golden Tricorn pushing you up to a 0.67s 3 crit kill. If you're a bit less comfortable with your shot, Adagio adds a bit of forgiveness by being a 2 crit 1 body but only at 150 RPM which pushes your TTK up to 0.8s.
Roll #3: Smallbore/Arrowhead Brake, Steady Rounds, Perfect Float, Frenzy
I heard you like being in combat so I added combat to your combat. Go for this if you want to get better at PvP or if you're already comfortable with your performance and are trying to push your game sense to the limits.
Meme Roll: Fluted Barrel/Smallbore, Steady Rounds, Shoot to Loot, Precision instrument
Explanation in the section about Shoot to Loot, I know it's not good but it's the dumbest kind of fun.
High-Impact (967ms Charge Time) Solar Fusion Rifle
16.6-18.5 meters of range, 2.26-2.79 second Reload Time
PvP Base Damage: 66 damage per bolt (330 damage per burst with 5 bolts)
PvP Neutral TTK: 0.1s w/ 3 bolts (0.14s w/ 4 bolts at T9-T10 Resil) (+ Charge Time)
Eremite is the first Solar High-Impact fusion since... Season of the Lost... dang. Been a while since we've seen one of those. Its competition is Iota Draconis which has some excellent neutral game perks that still mark it as the better choice in PvP for many situations. However, Eremite also has some tricks up its sleeve, especially for PvE. Not to mention its older sibling being locked away in the truly awful Dares of Eternity loot pool - marking it all but impossible to get without downloading more luck from somewhere.
In terms of stats, it isn't particularly outstanding as you would expect from a seasonal weapon but it does have a few strong suits like the weapons we've covered already.
Its Range stat is on the higher end of the archetype with only two of its currently available siblings having 1 higher in the stat. That is, if you ignore Glacioclasm which towers over all of them with a frankly comical 63 base Range. Apart from that outlier though, Eremite is among the best.
For Stability, it's tied for last alongside Midha's Reckoning with most others having 24-28 at base. Conversely, its Reload Speed is the highest available - having around 2-7 more than its competition.
Handling is solidly among the top performers if we once again ignore Glacioclasm just pretending to be a Precision Frame Fusion with its base stats. And lastly, Aim Assist is below average with both Midha's Reckoning and Loaded Question beating it out by 9 and 7 points respectively.
Before we move on to the perks, I want to remind everyone of something that I already went over in the Sandbox Overview section: Charge Time masterworks (and Charge Time decreases due to Enhanced Intrinsics or Adept Masterworks) no longer affect the damage dealt by Fusion Rifles. This means you can now freely choose them without having to worry about hurting your damage output.
Now then, the perks! For Eremite, I'm going to keep it a bit more simple as there's a lot of competition when it comes to High-Impact Fusions. So while I'll still touch on every perk, I won't go into much detail about those that aren't really relevant for this gun.
The first column choices here will depend heavily on the specific roll you're going for so for now, I'll just say that Fluted Barrel is the go-to for PvE and the other three highlighted options will be what we go for in PvP.
For magazine perks, you should pretty much default to Projection Fuse but Accelerated Coils will also be an interesting option. With Accelerated, you're essentially not giving up anything in PvP as High-Impacts kill up to T8 Resil at base and Accelerated will only drop this down to T7.
In other words, it pretty much changes nothing unless you find the one person who decided to run T8 specifically... in which case tough luck, you just won the reverse lottery. As for its PvE applications, it's really up to your preference if you are willing to give up 2% of your damage for a 40ms faster charge. I definitely am but it's not my go-to.
Ionized Battery on the other hand will be an excellent choice if you're running Envious Assassin in PvE. Bumping up your magazine size to 7 will mean that you can essentially load your entire reserves into a single mag before going to town on your enemies. This also means that you get to ignore the Reload Speed stat entirely which is a huge positive.
Now for the actual perks! First off, Pulse Monitor. It's an odd perk that I struggle to find an application for on a slow-charging special weapon but the one use-case I can see for it is if you're in the middle of a fight and your burst doesn't land quite well enough to down your enemy. If they have already dropped you below 110 HP before the realization sets in, that bump in Handling will help you swap weapons ~0.15s faster. So that's cool... I guess??
I don't know. I'd much prefer it on a primary weapon where I could also take more advantage of it refilling my magazine. Not saying that it won't refill your magazine on Eremite but you still have a close to 1-second window where you're waiting for your gun to charge up its burst. Waiting that out is just asking to be sent back to your team's spawn with FedEx same-day shipping. And since I know your brain isn't functioning anymore after this info dump, that was a joke about how you'll not be arriving in one piece.
Compulsive Reloader is just objectively the wrong choice when Envious Assassin already lets you bypass reloading. For PvP, it's definitely one of the perks of all time but you can reload a round in almost the same amount of time by just using a Solar Holster mod on your boots. Hard pass for me.
Lead from Gold is highlighted here but in all honestly, it's mostly just pity points. It's a solid perk if you're fully invested in heavy brick spawns but nowadays it's hard to run into a situation where it's needed so you're almost definitely better off with just using Envious Assassin over it.
Heal Clip applies the Solar 'Cure x1' buff to your and nearby allies which is a 30 HP heal in the Crucible and a 60 HP one in PvE. For PvP, I wouldn't even think about it. Way too situational to be worth using and by the time you get off your reload, you likely won't even need the heal anymore. For PvE, however, it's a slightly different story simply because it activates Ember of Benevolence when you heal your allies with it. That will give you some pretty insane ability regen which will then help keep Golden Tricorn's second stack active.
But if you don't need the healing, you can honestly just achieve the same thing with a melee ability combined with Ember of Torches (grants you and nearby allies Radiant on powered melee hits). I'd still recommend it because it's a bit easier to maintain the loop if your weapons are also helping with it. Plus if you're a hammer titan and accidentally launch your mini hammer into orbit again, your gun can still act like a contingency for Ember of Benevolence.
I've already mentioned Envious Assassin but it's the other top pick for PvE alongside Heal Clip (and the only pick if you're not using a solar subclass). Up to 19 rounds in the mag (with Ionized Battery) just for getting kills with your other guns alongside never needing to reload. An excellent choice.
Now let's go over the two remaining PvP-focused perks. Offhand Strike is what you'll want to use if you don't already have another High-Impact fusion with it. If you already have a good Offhand Strike roll in your vault, it's going to be objectively better compared to what Eremite can manage. The lack of Successful Warmup or any sort of consistency perk hurts Eremite a lot in that regard.
The other PvP perk is Slickdraw. And if you're an MNK (Mouse and Keyboard) player, you can instantly tune out and skip to the section about the 4th column, don't use this. If you're a controller player, though, you might want to take it for a spin at least. Slickdraw maxes out your handling which will make the originally sluggish feel of the gun take a complete 180 to become the snappiest thing you've seen since the invention of the leather belt.
The problem is that it tanks your Auto Aim Cone (the one redirecting your bolts to your target if you're not aimed exactly at them) by ~55% (~50% enhanced, but numbers are just estimates) so it'll be a lot less forgiving. On the plus side, it doesn't affect your Magnetism (reticle stickiness) so snapping to and tracking a target will feel the same with and without it.
Since MNK doesn't have Magnetism, the gun feel is disproportionally impacted there to the level that the high handling doesn't even begin to outweigh the loss of Auto Aim. But for controller, it's a choice that might actually be worth considering. Our resident Controller Fusion master and montage extraordinaire, Legoleflash, seems to enjoy that roll quite a bit at least! Take it for a spin but don't be overly surprised if it doesn't jibe with you.
Now for the 4th column. Cornered is the first on the chopping block and it's just bad on this gun (and every other gun for that matter if you ask me). Being surrounded while using a High-Impact Fusion is among the worst things you could come up with. Just no. Don't use it.
High Ground is alright in PvE if you can make use of it even remotely consistently. 20% more damage for being at a higher elevation than your enemy is pretty solid all things considered (do note that you can't be airborne). But the appeal just isn't there for me when you can just get pretty much the same thing with other perks without worrying about your vertical positioning.
For most cases, Controlled Burst will just be an objectively better option. Granted, Controlled Burst first needs you to land a full burst on a target but will also reduce your charge time by 10% on top of the 20% damage buff that both perks provide. Controlled Burst also lends itself better for chunking down high-health targets which is where you'll really want that damage buff to be present.
Pugilist still exists if you want it, not going to go over it again. 20% (22% enhanced) Melee Energy on weapon kills and 35 handling for 3 seconds on melee hits. Cool if you need it for a melee build but do you really need it though? On a High-Impact fusion? Really?
Reservoir Burst is another excellent pairing with Envious Assassin as each of the overflowed shots will work with it. A 25% damage buff and enemies exploding when you kill them is always a fun time. Not to mention it also increases your magazine size by 1.
Golden Tricorn is our first option that's a solid PvP and PvE hybrid. While the 15% damage buff after a kill in PvP won't exactly do much to increase the gun's forgiveness, it will help it land deeper one-burst kills due to the damage increase working against damage falloff. For PvE, it's an excellent option due to the synergy solar subclasses already have with the gun when using Heal Clip. You can pair it with Ember of Torches to get Radiant (25% empowering buff) on melee ability hits while also activating the second stack of Tricorn for another 50% damage buff if that melee killed the target.
And the final perk option we'll be talking about is Elemental Capacitor. This is most definitely a PvP perk as it really doesn't do much to help your PvE gameplay loops. If you're running a Void (20 Stability), Arc (50 Handling - only if not using Slickdraw), or Stasis (20 Recoil Direction and faster ADS movement speed) subclass, it's probably going to be your best bet for PvP. Otherwise, you'll be better off with Golden Tricorn.
Conclusion - Recommended Rolls
All in all, Eremite is an excellent PvE fusion and it's nice to finally see a Solar Fusion with Golden Tricorn on it. Solar enjoyers rejoice! Even without Tricorn, the synergy between Controlled/Reservoir Burst and Envious Assassin is more than enough to sell this fusion for PvE. In PvP, it's really not that special with only Slickdaw standing out from the rest of the perks that would make the gun unique. (Small note about another more unique feature: the charging sound has a relatively low pitch compared to most other fusions which makes it much harder to notice in combat.) You can make do with Offhand Strike + Tricorn on it but as previously mentioned, the other High-Impacts just complement Offhand Strike better. So considering all that, here are my recommended rolls for it:
PvE Rolls:
Solar Synergy: Fluted Barrel, Projection Fuse, Heal Clip, Golden Tricorn, Reload Speed Masterwork
Damage Output: Fluted Barrel, Projection Fuse/Ionized Battery, Envious Assassin, Controlled Burst/Reservoir Burst, Charge Time Masterwork
PvP Rolls:
There are two main options for how to build the gun out without considering the last two columns:
High Range: Extended Barrel/Hammer-Forged Rifling/Smallbore, Projection Fuse, Range Masterwork
Low Charge Time: Extended Barrel/Hammer-Forged Rifling/Smallbore, Accelerated Coils, Charge Time Masterwork
You can mix and match the two options but I found going all out in either direction felt better to use than a mix. That aside, here are the full rolls I can recommend (or rather suggest trying):
General Roll: Smallbore/Hammer-forged Rifling, Projection Fuse, Offhand Strike, Elemental Capacitor/Golden Tricorn, Range/Charge Time Masterwork
Elemental Capacitor only on Arc, Stasis, and Void subclasses
Controller Experimental Roll: Extended Barrel, Projection Fuse, Slickdraw, Elemental Capacitor/Golden Tricorn, Range Masterwork
Elemental Capacitor only on Stasis and Void subclasses
High-Impact (Baseline Damage Profile, 47.37 RPM) Strand Rocket Launcher
33.4-53 m/s Rocket Velocity, 2.1-3.67s Reload Time (including passive perks)
Baseline Damage Profile: Adaptives/Aggressives deal 10% more damage and Precisions deal 10% less damage compared to High-Impacts
Semiotician is the second-ever Strand Rocket Launcher to be released and it's a very strong showing compared to what Crowning Duologue (Solstice event weapon) brought to the table. Even so, there is essentially zero chance of you finding it in any DPS or PvP loadouts unless they specifically need a Strand Rocket... for some unknown reason. On the plus side, Semiotician heavily leans into this identity of being a general-use PvE Rocket so it has some great perk options for that.
Starting with the stats, Semiotician is surprisingly outstanding among its High-Impact siblings. It only loses out to Tomorrow's Answer (Season 13 Trials Rocket) by 1 point in Velocity and tops the charts everywhere else that matters for a Rocket.
Seeing a stat package like this on a seasonal weapon is quite rare so it certainly caught me by surprise. It's to the point where I actually have nothing else to say in this first section.
To fill up the space, let me mention that while High-Impact Rocket Launchers aren't the greatest damage dealers, they have the highest Blast Radius and Handling stats among all rockets and so will naturally perform extremely well in general play. So even if they aren't a great option for DPS scenarios, they'll still have a place in your loadout.
In the first column, the ideal choice for most will be Quick Launch as usual as it bumps up Velocity by 10 and Handling by 15. I also highlighted Volatile Launch and Linear Compensator as they bring your Blast Radius closer to 100 but also provide much fewer stat points in total so I would say they are generally not worth it. You can just go with a Blast Radius Masterwork instead and call it a day.
In the second column, the two top options for me would be Alloy Casing and High-Velocity Rounds. The former grants 30 Reload Speed in exchange for 10 Stability - or in other words, for free. Meanwhile the latter takes a more balanced approach by giving you 10 Reload Speed and 10 Velocity.
Impact casing is also there for pure damage but it's only a 2.2% overall increase and as I said, you probably won't be using this Rocket for DPS. But I thought I'd still mention it before I get torn apart for forgetting about it.
Let me just be blunt. That 3rd column is supremely confusing to me. We have 4 perks here that are ALL objectively useless on this gun. First off, Keep Away. The only benefit it really has for rockets is 30 (35 enhanced) Reload Speed. Stats for All is in the same situation, 35 Reload Speed with a 0.95x reload animation duration multiplier. But here's the problem: Impulse Amplifier (IA) exists.
Not only does it exist, but it is also a significantly better reload perk than either of the aforementioned options because it not only grants 20 (25) Reload Speed, it also provides a 0.8x reload duration multiplier. So even against the stronger reload perk of the two, Stats for All (SFA), you're looking at a difference of 0.29s between them: 2.38s with IA and 2.67s with SFA. And just to add insult to injury, IA is completely passive and ALSO increases your rocket velocity by 35%.
So yeah, I have no idea why Keep Away and Stats for All are present on this weapon with all that in mind. But we also have 2 more perks that should have no right to be in the perk pool: Perpetual Motion and Shot Swap. These have the benefit of not being completely outclassed by IA because they are Handling perks. But there's still a small problem here because High-Impact Rocket Launchers have intrinsically high Handling stats.
So just by throwing on Quick Launch for your Barrel, you're already at 84 Handling. If you really want more, throw on a Handling Masterwork and you're at 94. And I don't know about you but I wouldn't exactly say that I want to waste a 3rd column perk on getting 6 more Handling out of this gun.
And that leaves us with 3 perks in this column: Impulse Amplifier, Field Prep, and Wellspring.
I've already touched on Impulse Amplifier being an excellent choice here and it truly is. 20 (25) Reload Sped, a 0.8x Reload Duration Multiplier, and 35% increased Rocket Velocity for just having the perk on the gun. Really hard to beat that.
Field Prep is the other reload perk that's worth considering on Semiotician and it's even better than Impulse as long as you're crouching! It has the same 0.8x Reload Duration Multiplier but it gives you 50 (55 enhanced) Reload Speed instead while also granting a 0.8x Ready/Stow Animation Multiplier. On top of that, it adds 1 (2) extra rocket to your reserves so it's definitely something worth having for activities where you need to pay more attention to your ammo economy.
So in short, you'll probably want Impulse Amplifier if you're just occasionally whipping out your Rocket to blast a group of enemies apart while Field Prep will work better when you need to lay into a target or just want to have more ammo in your backpack for when it's needed.
The last perk here is Wellspring which got the highlight partially out of pity since 4 of the perks are off the table and partially because it should work decently well here. With it, you get a total of 8% (9%) ability energy evenly distributed among your uncharged abilities for each kill you score with your gun. And getting kills with an essentially max Blast Radius Rocket shouldn't be too high of an ask. I probably won't be using it but it might be at least a decent option for quickly getting back some of your abilities by disintegrating a group of adds.
That's it for the 3rd column so let's now round things out with the last one. Danger Zone is, yet again, not really a great choice by any means. The Rocket already has a great Blast Radius so extending it even further when you're surrounded by 3 or more enemies is essentially just a different phrase for willingly yeeting yourself into orbit in approximately 300 pieces. 1/10 wouldn't recommend, I do it even without the blast radius extension anyway.
Pugilist is, yet again, a perk. I feel like a broken record by now with mentioning it. Don't recommend it but use it if you want I guess??
Harmony is a bit of an odd choice as I don't really know where you'd want it honestly. Might as well just have Frenzy or Explosive Light as they are a bit simpler to use. Just play the game and get a decent damage buff whenever you need it for the most part. I just feel like Harmony, while simple, isn't worth needing to score a kill with your other weapons right before firing the Rocket. I don't know. If you don't mind constantly swapping your guns around, it'll be a 20% buff compared to Frenzy's 15% so it's more than fine, just a bit odd for me, that's all.
And since I mentioned Frenzy, let's talk about that next. It's nice because it will max out your Handling and Reload Speed as long as it's active on top of the 15% damage buff it grants. I'd say it's excellent in any activity where you don't have to always rotate from one area to another. If there isn't a lot of downtime between waves or there is high enemy density, Frenzy is a great perk that'll essentially be active passively.
Explosive Light is the damage perk on this Rocket since it maxes out your Blast Radius stat and grants a 25% damage buff for every Orb of Power you collect. The one downside of the perk is not synergizing with Wolfpack Rounds from Gjallarhorn but as you won't be using this Rocket for DPS anyway, I'd say that's only a minor inconvenience. Plus, you now even have the option to grab an Explosive Payload + Shoot to Loot Brya's Love and collect Orbs and ammo remotely with that. It's definitely something to keep in mind.
Bipod is also a surprisingly viable option on this rocket since you can mitigate its heavy stat penalties to a good extent. Throw on Volatile Launch, Alloy Casing, a Blast Radius Masterwork, and Impulse Amplifier or Field Prep and you're back to 85 (90) Blast Radius and 80-100 Reload Speed depending on your 3rd column perk choice. So essentially you just completely eat the stat penalties while keeping the benefits of Bipod like a 2 rocket magazine, a faster fire rate, and 5 more rockets in your reserves. Granted, that comes with a 25% damage penalty but for an add-clear rocket, that shouldn't be much of an issue.
Lastly, we have Hatchling which isn't anything particularly exciting but it's there for Strand synergies so it's nice to see it being present on this weapon. It will also assist a bit with add-clear and finding hidden targets which is cool.
Conclusion - Recommended Rolls
Being a High-Impact Rocket, Semiotician is already starting from a disadvantage for Boss DPS scenarios but the lack of a perk to overflow its magazine is the last nail in the coffin for its DPS prospects. Outside of that scenario, however, it has all the right perks to be an excellent general-use Rocket to clear out groups of enemies and chunk down minibosses (including champions). Its 3rd column has two of the best perks for this role in Field Prep and Impulse Amplifier that you should absolutely be running on it. The 4th column will depend more on the user but here are my recommendations:
Roll #1: Quick Launch, Alloy Casing, Impulse Amplifier/Field Prep, Explosive Light, Blast Radius MW
Probably the simplest and most effective option you can go with. Kill adds, grab orbs, nuke enemies, and repeat. It has a really simple loop and performs really well, especially if you have a steady supply of heavy ammo.
Roll #2: Quick Launch, Alloy Casing, Field Prep (enhanced), Frenzy, Blast Radius MW
Alloy Casing for a neutral Reload Speed buff if you happen to be in the air and forget to crouch for Field Prep when Frenzy isn't up yet. Field prep for 2 extra rockets (when enhanced... you really should enhance it). And finally, Frenzy for the stat boosts and an essentially passive 15% damage buff once you get it active.
Roll #3: Volatile Launch, Alloy Casing, Field Prep (enhanced), Bipod, Blast Radius MW
90 Blast Radius with Bipod is GREAT! You'll also have 14 rockets in your reserves which will jump to the max of 15 with 1 Reserves Mod on your chest armor. Amazing ammo economy while remaining an effective tool for add-clear and chunking high-health targets.
Adaptive Frame (90 RPM) Stasis Sniper Rifle
Handling Animation Durations:
0.33-0.42s Ready, 0.3-0.37s Stow, 0.37-0.44s ADS
PvP Damage: 130.99 body, 386.55 crit (one-shotting most supers is resil-gated)
I'll expand on this in the Conclusion section below but the feeling I get with this gun is that it will do a job if you need it to but you'll only need/use it until you get one of the other, better options. The scope is clean, it has a nice slim gun model, the 40 Zoom is pretty much perfect for many PvP players, and it still has some decent perks. However, it's a straight downgrade from Defiance of Yasmin for PvP and a straight downgrade from Thoughtless in PvE. It's a tough sell if you have either of those for your use cases already but if you don't, you might as well pick this up until you do.
Locus Locutus is launching into a very awkward spot just from a stat-based perspective alone. Within the kinetic slot, every single Adaptive Sniper that isn't a world drop outclasses it handily. The only non-recent but still obtainable weapon that has comparable stats to it is Tranquility which is 4 years old and is a destination weapon from the Moon. (You know, that set of weapons that was released with terrible stats)
Its Aim Assist is one of the lowest (ranges from 59-68 on others in the same slot) and in general, the only guns that don't surpass essentially every one of its stats are Shepherd's Watch and Long Shadow - both world drop weapons that you can essentially only get from random chance.
All this is to say that the theme of Locus Locutus will be "it will do everything you'd want it to but worse than you'd like".
The first column is thankfully a simple job here as the most important stat on snipers is hands-down Handling for both PvP and PvE, though definitely more so for the former use case. Hence, we'll be going with Fluted Barrel for PvP and Arrowhead Brake for PvE.
The argument for Arrowhead Break is that you'll likely be firing off multiple shots into high-health targets (namely minibosses like champions) so it should make the process of unloading your shots a bit more convenient by bumping up your Recoil Direction to 93.
The second column is also pretty clear-cut. For PvE, you'll want Tactical Mag to bump up your Magazine Size to 5. If you're planning on running Backup Mag (please don't plan on doing it), you should go with Appended Mag as that will already bring you up to 7 shots in the mag.
For PvP, you'll want to go with either Extended Mag or Steady Rounds for the bump in Airborne effectiveness. Steady rounds should help a bit with flinch resistance if you go with it but at the cost of Range. Personally, 1.87% more Flinch Resist isn't worth losing out on 3 AE and 5 Range for me so I'm going with Extended Mag. You could also make the argument for Accurized Rounds but more reliability for jump shots is more important in my personal opinion.
The 3rd column is yet again pretty sub-par here. Starting with Ensemble, I don't think anyone will want this perk on a Sniper Rifle. Let's think about it for a second, you have 18 rounds total including reserves and a 5-round mag. That means you'll at most be reloading 3 times before you're completely out of ammo. I can't see the appeal personally when you have perks like Overflow that will load more than half of your reserves into your mag every time you collect an ammo brick.
And for PvP, I don't see why you would need the Handling or Reload Speed boosts from Ensemble when you're next to your teammates. If you are next to them, you're either both sniping in the back of the map and thus making the stat boosts unnecessary or you're pushed up with your teammates and pretending you're using a shotgun. It goes right in the face of what a sniper is supposed to do.
With that in mind, Overflow is definitely going to be the winner for PvE. Whip out the gun to quickly down a larger target, stow it, do some add-clear with your other weapons, pick up some ammo to overflow it again, and repeat. It's a perk that works very well with the current utility of Sniper Rifles in the PvE sandbox.
You also have Wellspring in this column for a bit of ability energy on kills but if you ask me, I wouldn't even entertain the thought of running it on a sniper like this. The only, and I mean ONLY, place where I can see it being acceptable is running it in conjunction with Headstone as shattering stasis crystals you've created with it will count as weapon damage and should activate Wellspring. I wouldn't bother personally but it's at least an option if you really want it.
Discord is certainly an interesting perk mostly for PvP but its viability is highly questionable for 99.9% of players I would say. It's not very often that you'll get a primary kill followed up right away by a sniper kill to take advantage of the ammo refund. It's usually the other way around or you just getting 2 sniper kills back-to-back. It could prove to be an interesting training exercise in 6v6 modes but most likely not much more than that.
Steady Hands is much the same in this regard but likely a bit more helpful. Lead with the sniper, get a pick, and now you've more than maxed the Handling of all of your weapons with a bonus 100 in the stat alongside it speeding up your Ready and ADS animations by a further 17.5% for 8.5 seconds. I'd say it's a top 3 choice for PvP.
Surplus is likely going to be the ideal choice for PvP due to it essentially passively boosting your Handling as long as you have charged abilities. While the values for Enhanced Surplus are still unknown, there's a good chance that just having 2 abilities charged would max out your Handling with an ideal roll. The perk works really well on subclasses where you have multi-charge abilities like the Strand Warlock and Titan subclasses. Stasis Hunter is also a good example as the shurikens have pretty low effectiveness and can serve as a "Surplus battery" to boost your stats. But I know many don't like how this perk changes the feel of the gun throughout the match which can throw off their muscle memory.
If you're one of those people, you should probably go for Keep Away instead. Not because it's a great perk for a sniper contrary to what many people would want you to think but because it's the only perk that provides a mostly passive benefit to help you. That 10 (12) Range will help a bit with pushing out your Aim Assist Falloff which should be quite nice on a Sniper with a comparatively low 40 Zoom.
But let me just take a second to address the myth that the 5% (7.5% enhanced) accuracy boost is going to help a lot on Snipers. Well... it really won't. I won't go into the details with all the numbers in this post, but if you're interested in the reasoning, you can find that here as I made an entire other post just to talk about that. But be prepared, it's long. I tried to keep it interesting but there's only so much I could do with a technical topic like this one.
That's all for the 3rd column so let's knock this one out real quick with the 4th. First up, Under-Over: been bad, still bad, even worse on a sniper. Please don't use it. Random thought though, it could potentially one-hit people standing in a Well of Radiance/Ward of Dawn in PvP regardless of Resilience which would be kind of funny ngl.
Box Breathing. If you're using this, you're using it for the 10% bump to your Aim Assist Falloff distance. Honestly fair enough for PvP but Opening Shot exists and doesn't need you to wait 1.5 seconds in ADS to be active so I'll pass on it. The damage increase also doesn't really appeal much when the gun can already down you in a single shot in most cases.
Kill Clip. The ammo economy on snipers is awful so reload-activated damage perks automatically fall behind on them. In PvE, I question your sanity if you choose to use it on this gun. But if you're using it in PvP on an Adaptive Frame Sniper like this one... you might really be crazy. It doesn't help whatsoever. You still kill in 1 crit or in 2 bodies. Nothing changes in practice so the work to activate the perk will end up wasted.
The only perk you'll want to use on it for PvP is Opening Shot. 25 (30) Range, 20 (25) Aim Assist, and a small 5% Accuracy bump just for not having fired the gun for 3.1 seconds is EXCELLENT. It has been the go-to Sniper perk in PvP for ages and I have nothing more to add on that front. Objectively great and the only option worth even considering for the Crucible.
Everything else that was highlighted in this column in the perk selection above is for PvE but I unfortunately have to pour some cold water on the fire here. Firing Line looks great! A 20% Crit Damage buff just for being with your teammates in a DPS scenario? Seems like a no-brainer but then you remember that this is a Stasis weapon. And what that means is any Kinetic Sniper with the same roll will do 15% more damage than you just for using a gun of a different element.
The only situation where a Firing Line roll could even enter the conversation for DPS is if you're running something like Cold Comfort with triple Stasis Surge mods or something like Foetracer or Mask of Bakris for the 4x Surge if you're on a Stasis Subclass. That way, both your power weapon and kinetic slot weapon would benefit from the Surges. Still highly questionable but at least you could make the argument for it.
High Ground is similar as it also provides a 20% damage bonus but it applies to your body-shot damage as well. The catch is that you'll have to be at a higher elevation than the target you're shooting but not in the air. It's a decent option for a bit of passive damage but it's nothing earth-shattering.
For general use, I'd say that Headstone is probably going to be your best bet on this gun. Since it's a stasis gun and not that great for raw damage output, you might as well lean into that and make some crystals with it. It's almost even passable for add-clear as the crystal shatter explosions do a decent chunk of damage (especially with Whisper of Fissures).
Conclusion - Recommended Rolls
Locus Locutus is exactly as I've said at the start: Average at everything but it will get the job done until you get something better for yourself.
For PvP, it was very close to being really good but the 3rd column didn't deliver. For PvE, it's certainly a gun that fires bullets but I doubt anyone is looking forward to leveling it up to bring it into endgame activities. It being a Stasis weapon only for Kinetics to do 15% more damage than it is really just the straw that broke the camel's back here. And that's not even mentioning its sibling from Season 16: Thoughtless (now available again from Vox Obscura in the Exotic Mission rotator), which not only has better perks but also has a MUCH BETTER origin trait in Land Tank for PvE. The situation is unfortunate but at least the gun feels decently good.
Ultimately, it's a cool weapon with a great aesthetic and that's often enough for some PvP players to put thousands of kills on it. If you're fine with Surplus in the 3rd column over Snapshot Sights, I say go for it and see if it works for you. Defiance of Yasmin will almost certainly be the better option for you but if you don't have it yet, this can give you a taste.
With that said, here are my recommendations:
Rapid-Fire (900 RPM) Arc Machine Gun - 20% Faster Reloads when empty
46.53-47.60m range (please ignore the stat completely)
3.29-4.95s Reload Time (20% faster when the magazine is empty)
PvP Neutral TTK: You're not hitting it with that recoil.
Eleatic Principle is the newest addition to the relatively scarce Rapid-Fire Machine Gun family which only houses 6 non-sunset guns in total. It's the only other Arc variant following Season of Plunder's Planck's Stride.
The main thing to note about its stats is that it edges out Planck's Stride across the board so it should feel ever-so-slightly better than its Season 18 sibling. Outside of this, its stats are about average for a Rapid-Fire LMG with no particular high notes to speak of other than its 19 Airborne Effectiveness (odd) and 60 Recoil Direction. Both of which are the highest in this subfamily.
Speaking of subfamilies, can we just talk about the recoil on these? Because I sure do want to talk about it. These guns have what feels like the recoil of a tank and the individual bullets have the stopping power of stepping on a Lego brick.
Granted, this archetype is the one that can dish out the most DPS but they also burn through your reserves so fast and reload so slowly that they are almost unusable for that purpose without some sort of ammo refunding perk. Hence, they are usually relegated to being on add-clear duty where they do a very solid job in all honesty.
Eleatic Principle is no different in this sense as it's very much geared toward add-clear with a really odd side of PvP options in the mix. And I'm just going to have to say no to that part of the gun, sorry. The position of LMGs in the PvP sandbox already isn't ideal and the main appeal of them is their generous ammo economy (they can pull up to 29 shots from a heavy pickup with a high enough magazine size) which they can take advantage of to kill 3-5 people with a decent amount of forgiveness.
Rapid-Fire LMGs, however, go in the face of that idea and instead opt for the A10 Warthog way of handling things and just go BRRRRRRRT. Oftentimes you'd be lucky to snag even two kills with them due to their wild recoil and weapon/reticle shake. Plus the TTK benefits are barely even there compared to the almost objectively superior 450 RPM Adaptive Frame LMGs. Not to mention some of those even come with Killing Tally which is an excellent pairing for what LMGs are supposed to do in PvP.
Hence, I'll be completely ignoring the PvP-focused perks on this gun aside from a last-resort recommendation below if you *really* want to use it against your better judgment.
Starting with the first column, the only 3 options worth considering are Arrowhead Brake, Chambered Compensator, and Fluted Barrel. The goal with Arrowhead and Chambered is mainly to help tame the frankly stupid level of random recoil that is present on this subfamily of LMGs.
The only reason Fluted Barrel is even included in this selection is due to the presence of Zen Moment in the 3rd column which, no joke, completely fixes the problem of recoil. And if the recoil is no longer that bad, you can more freely invest in your other stats which is really only Handling because the Range stat barely does anything on LMGs.
In the second column, the main options you have are Armor-Piercing Rounds and Flared Magwell. The former should make clearing out dense groups just a bit easier due to the overpenetration effect while Flared Magwell is the best option we have for boosting the very slow reload time of this gun.
Extended Mag is also a great choice if you have loader mods on your gauntlets and bumps up your magazine capacity from 75 to 96 which will make keeping damage perks active just that much easier by not needing reloads as often. And finally, Ricochet Rounds is always there to help your Stability and Range while also giving you its signature bouncy bullets.
High-Caliber Rounds is also a decent option in most cases but the extra flinch it deas really won't matter much when you're already unleashing hell on your enemies with the gun's 900 RPM.
In the 3rd column, Moving Target is instantly out due to being a PvP perk but it's not even the best choice there so it won't be getting any airtime from me. Well-Rounded is semi-decent but it's slightly underwhelming. Granted, 10 Stability per stack is definitely going to help your recoil quite noticeably but it doesn't just disintegrate every feel issue with the gun like Zen Moment does so I wouldn't recommend it.
Heating Up is in much the same situation where it helps the gun's performance and feel but you need to get a kill in order to still be worse than Zen Moment. Hard pass for me again, it's just outclassed.
Ensemble is the first one you could make a decent argument for if you're moving down enemies from the same spot like inside a Well of Radiance but it still only cuts down your reload time to around 4-4.2 seconds from the original 4.5 so it's a tough sell for me. Especially considering Flared Magwell and a Reload Speed Masterwork already puts you at 89 Reload Speed.
This brings us to Eddy Current which is definitely still a mid perk. The only reason I highlighted it is because it plays a bit more nicely with the role of a Rapid-Fire LMG. You dump your Extended Mag-boosted magazine into a group of enemies and go on your merry way toward the next encounter area. While you're sprinting there, Eddy Current pops up and you can quickly reload your gun as soon as you get to the next zone.
It's definitely more of a low-end PvE perk where you can roll over enemies but it has some decent utility there at least. Plus it gets even better when you're Amplified which is kinda cool if you're already running an Arc subclass. Its downfall, however, is also very clear: having to stand in one general idea while fending off enemies. It completely loses any appeal in that scenario.
Offhand Strike. Now hear me out. I swear I haven't completely lost my mind after spending what is it... 10 days of my time on this post now? But this "recommendation" is purely for weapon-feel purposes. If it's low-end PvE and you're already mowing down enemies, you might as well just let loose and do it from the hip just for the coolness factor alone. Idk I'm really reaching for ideas here because this column is hilariously bad.
Anyway just go with the no thoughts Zen Moment roll and it'll fix all the problems with the weapon's jank recoil. That's it. That's literally all you need to know about this column. Just go Zen Moment and prosper.
Alright, now for the last column of the last gun. The end is nigh!
Rangefinder is a PvP perk and goes straight in the bin. (Gotta give it to the Brits, bin is just the objectively more fun word.) Tap The Trigger is somewhat of a hybrid but its effect isn't nearly significant enough compared to Zen Moment for PvE so it's following its PvP buddy in the bin.
Adaptive Munitions in the year of our lord 2023... nah, no thanks. It's still a pretty decent perk for dealing with barrier champions and elemental shields on a primary weapon but for a gun that doesn't get anti-barrier artifact perks and shreds elemental shields in a split second anyway, it's just not it.
Harmony is one of those perks that is cool if you like it but mostly pointless if you don't. And I personally don't really enjoy readying and stowing LMGs particularly much when I can just use them to remove the enemies entirely, damage buff or not. Not for me but a 20% buff is still a 20% buff so if you're more open to fitting this into your loop than I am, it's still decent for low to mid-level PvE.
For me, the winner for this column is Golden Tricorn and it's not even close. 15% damage buff for a single kill and matching element ability kills bump it up to 50%. This is a perfect perk for Arc as each one of the Arc subclasses has various ways to ensure you always have abilities up which are all pretty potent. Not to mention that last I checked when you have Knockout active, your unpowered melees count as a melee ability which would make keeping the loop up extremely easy since you need ability kills to refresh the second stack of Tricorn.
I'd say Adrenaline Junkie is far behind Tricorn but it still comes in at second place as long as you're running a grenade spam-based loadout. It's definitely not Tricorn's 50% but a 33.3% buff for grenade kills (or 5 kills with the LMG to ramp the perk up) is still solid and it doesn't rely on you being on an Arc subclass and getting ability kills every 10 seconds. It's a great add-clear perk so you might want to try it if you don't want to be locked into a single subclass element with this gun.
And finally, we have Target Lock and I'd honestly say it's pretty overrated on this gun. Sure, it gives you more damage for free but this specific gun is most definitely not meant for single-target damage. Even if you unload your entire mag into a single target, that's only going to be a 25% (28.1% enhanced) overall damage increase without even factoring in that if the target moves and you miss a few shots, that's you back at a 0% damage buff.
Why not just kill a few adds first instead and have Tricorn's 50% or Adrenaline Junkie's 33.3% buff for the chunky target after that? If you can't do that then you honestly might be using the wrong gun for the job because this gun is most certainly not meant for boss DPS in an empty room with no enemies in sight. But if you REALLY want to use Target Lock, ensure your magazine size is as low as possible so the perk ramps up faster. Probably pair it with Flared Magwell too to boost up the reload speed a bit more.
Conclusion - Recommended Rolls
Eleatic Principle is a pretty weak showing in contrast to the excellent performance and perk pool of Retrofit Escapade last year but it still delivers a pleasant experience for add-clear and at least has Zen Moment in the 3rd column. This is a main point because it is almost like an antidote to the insanity of the recoil on Rapid-Fire LMGs.
The 4th column is much more appealing with some pleasant highlights in Golden Tricorn and Adrenaline Junke which both pair excellently with the gun's add-clear role. For PvP, don't even think about it. But if you do want to think about it anyway, I'll give you one singular roll recommendation against my better judgment. It won't be good, hell, it'll be bad but here it goes anyway:
PvP (don't): Arrowhead Brake, Ricochet Rounds, Zen Moment, Tap The Trigger, Stability MW, Counterbalance Stock
The recoil for the first ~10 bullets is absolutely terrible on Rapid-Fire LMGs and you have almost no chance of controlling that unless you invest everything into that. So just don't use it but use this if you must.
PvE #1: Fluted Barrel/Chambered Compensator, Extended Mag/Armor-Piercing Rounds, Zen Moment, Golden Tricorn/Adrenaline Junkie, Reload Speed MW
PvE #2 (TL Copium): Arrowhead Brake, Flared Magwell, Zen Moment, Target Lock, Reload Speed MW
AND IT'S DONE. WE'RE DONE. I'M DONE.
This was one of my longest writing projects ever and I hope you enjoyed it a lot more than I did looking at weapon rolls and comparing/testing them for 11 days straight (minus a bit of crafting weekend tomfoolery). I massively underestimated the time it would take to review guns while also meeting my standards for what a comprehensive review could look like but I'd say it turned out quite well.
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