Crux Termination IV
Deep Dive Review
The madlads did it, they finally put Slideshot on a Rocket!
Despite being a world drop, Crux Termination IV is one of the most interesting legendary rocket launchers we’ve ever seen in Destiny 2. Let's take a look at how it fits into the meta.
Weapon Breakdown
High-Level Analysis
Weapon Behavior (dropdown)
Intrinsic Frame information, PVP Damage, Reload Time, Handling Times
Weapon Frame: Aggressive Frame Rocket Launcher
Rate of Fire: 54.55 RPM
Firing Delay: 1.1 seconds
Intrinsic Benefits:
Highest DPS archetype (for more information, see Court’s Rocket Launcher Overview)
Intrinsically high Reload Speed and Velocity stats but low Blast Radius and Handling
No special intrinsic behaviors
PVP Base Damage: 424.19 total
Impact: 94.17
Detonation: 330.02
The following numbers assume no conditionally active perks.
Reload Time:
3.3s @ 37 Reload Speed — 2.62s @ 97 (2.61s @ 100)
With 1 Loader Arms Mod: 2.67s @ 47 Reload Speed — 2.22s @ 100
Handling Times:
Ready Time: 0.62s @ 12 Handling — 0.5s @ 42 (0.26s @ 100)
With 1 Dexterity Arms Mod: 0.49s @ 12 Handling — 0.4s @ 42 (0.21s @ 100)
Stow Time: 0.51s @ 12 Handling — 0.41s @ 42 (0.22s @ 100)
With 1 Dexterity Arms Mod: 0.41s @ 12 Handling — 0.33s @ 42 (0.22s @ 100)
Note: Stow Speed caps out at the equivalent of what you have at 100 Handling. So in this case, you can’t drop your Stow Time below 0.25s.
ADS Time: 0.5s @ 12 Handling — 0.44s @ 42 (0.32s @ 100)
Weapon Stats
As you might expect from a world drop weapon, Crux Termination’s stats aren’t exactly going to set records. Amongst its Aggressive Frame siblings, it has pretty much the lowest stats across the board with its Handling and Reload Speed stats being particularly disadvantageous for its case. Thankfully, they aren’t so excessively low to make it unappealing as the differences are generally in the ballpark of just 5 stat points.
However, if you’re coming from an Adaptive Rocket Launcher, you’ll certainly feel the drop of 20-30 Handling. And even more so if you’re coming from a High-Impact rocket as those hover at around the 65-70 Handling mark just for their base stats.
As a TLDR, it has the stats you would expect from an Aggressive Frame rocket so it’ll naturally behave like one — albeit with a bit worse of a performance considering its slightly lower stats. Its one upside over Bump in the Night, Heretic, and Bad Omens is that has a high enough Inventory Size stat for three Reserve mods to bring you to 10 rockets in your reserves as opposed to only 9 with the ones mentioned.
Perk Pool Analysis
Origin Trait
Wild Card
Wild Card unfortunately won’t be doing too much for you on this weapon as it’s very clearly focused on DPS and not much else — not to mention that it’s not a great rocket origin trait in the first place.
While there are perk options that make it a semi-viable option for general use, there are much better alternatives available for that purpose. So with this being the case, you’re unlikely to make much use of Wild Card’s exploding submunitions.
Considering all that, this mostly just goes to show how the gun suffers from “world drop syndrome” even despite its excellent perk pool. It has some of the special sauce but nothing to elevate it beyond that. TLDR: the origin trait itself is nice but not a great option on a Rocket Launcher and especially not on this one.
Launcher Barrels and Mags
I won’t spend much time on this topic as the first two columns have been a solved problem for years and years at this point. You want three things: Damage, Handling, and Reload Speed. Literally nothing else matters for a DPS Rocket Launcher.
You can make an argument for Velocity but if that is a consideration for you, you should probably just opt for a Precision Frame Rocket instead to take advantage of its added forgiveness for hitting enemies. After all, it’s better to deal less damage per hit than to miss a few rockets outright.
To reflect that, the first column can just be sorted by Handling in descending order: Quick Launch first, followed by Smart Drift Control and Countermass. I wouldn’t recommend anything other than these three unless your roll is otherwise perfect with only the Launcher Barrel and maybe the mag letting you down.
In the second column, you have two options: Impact Casing for 10% more Impact Damage (2.2% more overall) or Alloy Casing for a whopping 30 more Reload Speed. But naturally, if you’re running Slideshot, you can just ignore your reload speed and so the only remaining option is Impact Casing.
3rd and 4th Columns
Clown Cartridge (CC)
Clown Cartridge is a classic perk for many DPS rolls but it unfortunately doesn’t quite cut it in this situation due to how much better Envious Assassin and Slideshot are for their respective use cases. The argument for Clown Cartridge is if you’ll be dumping your entire reserves in a team scenario without bothering much with weapon swaps — in which case it’ll be your best DPS option.
It’s still the old reliable perk that never disappoints, after all. It’s nice being able to cram two rockets into your mag with every single reload (or 3 with Bipod but why would you run Bipod on this rocket). It’s just not the main selling point.
Permeability
While Permeability had a niche use case at the start of the season when you could stack like 7 weapon surges, that’s since been patched and I don’t see much point to using it on this weapon. With how many weapons are available currently and with many of them being craftable, it’s not a very appealing choice to sacrifice a perk slot to just temporarily change the element of your weapon. You’re just giving up an entire perk column to not swap to a better rocket of the needed element. I don’t see the point and would strongly recommend against the perk.
Slideshot
Ah, Slideshot, the perk that probably brought you here and the one that motivated me to write this review. It’s good. Excellent even. You can’t do much better than Slideshot when it comes to dumping your entire reserves into a boss as fast as possible. It’s extremely good DPS with the main downside being the chance to blow yourself up in a team setting or to cause your teammates to blow themselves up instead.
But with all that said, if you’re solo or cook up a team strategy to prevent the incidents, it’s extremely good. For short damage phases, it’s essentially the perfect solution but you’ll have to think of a secondary DPS option for longer phases where you run out of rockets halfway through. At that point, damage rotations will also start to become a lot more appealing of an option over it.
Even so, Slideshot isn’t being praised for nothing. It’s good, it’s really strong, and you can’t beat it at what it allows you to do. It’s the main draw of the weapon for a good reason.
Envious Assassin
Envious is the same as usual: solid. It essentially accomplishes the same thing as Slideshot for 3 (or 6 with Bipod) shots after which you’ll have to manually reload your rocket (or just kill a random add somewhere with your other guns). But overall I don’t think it’s that appealing on this Rocket in particular. You get one extra rocket over Clown Cartridge upfront but then lose out to it on every subsequent reload. Then there’s also Slideshot which we've gone over and even Reconstruction which still helps you with reloads during your damage rotation and not just at the start of it. So considering all that, Envious Assassin is not the play in my opinion.
Reconstruction
Reconstruction, in my opinion, is basically just a more niche Clown Cartridge. The only situation in which you’d want to run it over CC is if your damage rotation can fill the 4-second activation cooldown of Reconstruction. As soon as you need to reload your Rocket, you instantly lose to CC. And although you can time reloads in a way that Reconstruction triggers right after you reload the Rocket which brings you to 2 in the mag, the timing of that is very precise and not worth choosing over opting for CC.
But like I said, if your damage rotation is one where you do give your rocket that 4-second window to reload, Reconstruction will serve you well.
Eddy Current
No. Straight out the window, into the bin. It’s so bad I don’t even recommend recycling it because the planet would frankly be offended.
Bipod
Bipod has seen some positive changes since its original release and now is a pretty viable option all things considered. But it’s another example of a perk that I don’t really see the point of on Crux specifically. Its synergy with Slideshot is sub-par at best if we’re being honest and the only options I could see working with it are Envious Assassin and Reconstruction.
Even then, “working with it” doesn’t mean you should use it. Bipod is fundamentally meant for more general use in GM Nightfalls and the like where you commonly use your rockets for add-clear purposes as well. And on an Aggressive Frame rocket with its pitifully low Blast Radius stat, that just doesn’t sound very appealing to me.
Explosive Light (EL)
Unlike Bipod, EL is a much more appealing choice both for the GM Nightfall use case and the boss DPS use case. First off, it maxing out your Blast Radius stat will make up for one of two intrinsic downsides that Aggressive Frame rockets have. Plus it also buffs Detonation Damage by 25% which leans into the general use GM add-clear aspect as well alongside more damage naturally being better for boss DPS as well.
The one downside is that EL doesn’t buff Wolfpack Rounds so the relative total damage increase will be much lower if you’re running Gjallarhorn + Rockets for DPS in a team. But it’ll still be your most reliable damage perk in the column despite not being as competitive an option nowadays. I’d generally recommend a different Rocket altogether for DPS if you’re in a team. Otherwise, in a solo setting, Slideshot + EL will serve you well.
Surrounded
Surrounded is one of the strongest damage perks in the game and is something you should absolutely consider having on hand. While it’s risky to keep it procced, if you can manage that, it’ll be by far the strongest option in this column with its slightly larger than 35% overall damage buff. I’d definitely suggest keeping a roll with it around for any boss that has adds nearby.
Demolitionist
Kinda wish Demo was in the 3rd column, not gonna lie. It’s a nice perk mostly meant for general use as grenade energy on kills on top of mag refills on grenade usage make for a nice gameplay loop. But it being in the 4th column instantly means it’s out of contention. It’s a shame but it is what it is.
It might have been worth considering on a High-Impact Rocket Launcher given their higher reserve sizes and intrinsically high Blast Radius stat but as even that condition isn't met here, I just can't recommend it.
Tracking Module
Have you heard about the existence of Precision Frame Rockets? If you have, ignore this perk. And if you haven’t, you now have and you can ignore this perk. There’s nothing sufficiently appealing in the 3rd column or about the gun to warrant giving up your 4th column perk for some tracking. Hard pass.
Quickdraw
Quickdraw is nice for a hot-swap use case which is very clearly not the intention here with the presence of Slideshot and Clown Cartridge. But even if Crux was intended for hot-swap damage rotations, Quickdraw still wouldn’t be a great choice. It’s alright because Aggressive Rockets have VERY low handling but that half a second you’ll save in every rotation doesn’t make up for the damage you’re losing by not running a damage perk.
Roll Recommendations
Before I get into my recommendations, I’d like to make it very clear that there’s not a whole lot that stands out on Crux Termination. The only real defining aspect of this Rocket Launcher is the ability to roll with Slideshot in the 3rd column and being able to pair some decent damage perks with that. Granted, the third column is packed with excellent perks and there’s a bit of interesting utility to be found in the 4th to pair with those. But you’ll find that there are much more synergistic pairings for each of these perks on other Rockets like Apex Predator, Cold Comfort, or Braytech Osprey.
At first glance, it looks like an insane Rocket but you quickly realize why it is a world drop once you take a deeper look. To be clear, none of this makes the weapon bad in any capacity. It’s solid with a lot of interesting options, it just doesn’t have the tools to compete at the high end apart from the utility that Slideshot provides.
And as for using it in PVP, just forget about it and look for a High-Impact Frame Rocket instead.
General Use PVE Recommendation
Quick Launch or Smart Drift Control or Countermass
Alloy Casing (or High-Velocity Rounds)
Reconstruction or Clown Cartridge (or Slideshot if you REALLY want to use that specifically)
Explosive Light (or Bipod)
Handling Masterwork
Boss Spec
The thing about general use PVE is that you’ll generally just use 1-2 rockets here and there to clear out groups of enemies and then call it a day there. That being the case, Reconstruction feels like the perfect option to whip the rocket out, fire, and stow until it’s needed again. But with how high the base Reload Speed of Crux is, you can also use Clown Cartridge to a similar effect while also being a bit better suited for reserve dumping into a boss.
Explosive Light is the obvious choice in the 4th column but as I mentioned in the perk breakdowns, Bipod can do a job as well if necessary — I just wouldn’t pick it over EL.
Endgame DPS PVE Recommendation
Quick Launch or Smart Drift Control or Countermass
Impact Casing or Alloy Casing
Slideshot or Clown Cartridge or Envious Assassin (or Reconstruction)
Surrounded (when applicable) or Explosive Light
Handling Masterwork
Boss Spec
Everything you need to know has already been covered extensively above but to recap:
Use Surrounded in every situation where you can make it work
Slideshot is by far the best as long as you’re not a threat to yourself or your team
Clown Cartridge is the second-best option for the most part but requires caring about your Reload Speed stat so use Alloy Casing or have a Lunafaction Boots rift/well around
Envious Assassin is nice for firing off an extra rocket at the start of a DPS phase but falls behind Clown Cartridge (and Reconstruction) as time goes on
If you can’t make either Slideshot or Explosive Light work in a team setting, you should probably run a different Rocket Launcher altogether
A Last Word
Hey there! I hope you enjoyed this deep dive into what Crux Termination IV has to offer!
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Have a great one and see you starside!
— Stardust