exotics make the noise, boys, but legendaries do the work.
After so many posts celebrating Destinyās exotics I feel compelled to pay tribute to the other, far larger portion of the weapon pool: the legendary gear that pulls its weight all day every day. These are my top five all-arounders, the weapons I infuse up first, the ones I go to when I donāt know what Iām going up against. These are:
Blast Furnace / Hammerhead
Type: Pulse Rifle / Machine Gun
Slot: Kinetic / Heavy (Void)
Perks: Outlaw+Rampage / Dynamic Sway Reduction+Rampage
Two of the Black Armoryās pieces, the Blast Furnace pulse rifle (shown here with the Verdigris shader) and Hammerhead machine gun (Amethyst Veil shader) still pull their weight a year after their introduction. Falling squarely on the scifi end of Destiny's scifi-fantasy spectrum, Black Armory weapons are easily recognized by their sleek-but-practical look, not flashy but new and designed and manufactured with great care. They have open straight-edged cowlings with visible internals and usually show traces of the Black Armoryās signature moirĆ©-pattern animation.
Blast Furnace superseded Forsakenās Go Figure pulse rifle (another of my go-to kinetics) with better stats in pretty much every column. The pulse rifle archetype is already one of Destinyās best and Blast Furnaceās great stats, great perk pool, good chatter, and friendly sights - not to mention the ease of farming for the roll you want by completing Black Armory weapon frames instead of hoping for a random drop - plant it squarely in most Guardiansā top 10 if not 5. My chosen roll is Outlaw (reload much faster immediately after a precision kill) and Rampage (damage increases with each kill, stacks up to 3x), a classic top-tier perk set.
Hammerhead was one of the first non-exotic machine guns introduced and its decent range (here extended by Ricochet Rounds), 59-round clip, and fast-but-not-too-fast 450 RPM fire rate put it right at the sweet spot where it performs well against both large numbers of weaker enemies or a handful of powerful ones. It also fares well in PvP where heavy ammo is very rare and Hammerheadās ability to put paid to a Guardian in 5 or 6 solid hits means you get more effective bang for your heavy ammo crate buck. My Hammerhead features Rampage and Dynamic Sway Reduction (holding down the trigger boosts accuracy over time) which doesn't come up much when firing short bursts but helps a lot when pouring an entire clip into a bossā crit spot. Whenever Iām running an Energy-slot exotic or if I just donāt want to think too hard about my loadout, itās a good bet Iāll throw on one or both of these weapons.
Slot: Energy (Void element)
Perk: Dragonfly/Archerās Tempo
Subtle Calamity (Clouds At Sea shader) has no great lore or storied manufacturer behind it; itās a general world loot drop added in Forsaken. And itās great. I was already pumped for the addition of bows and Subtle Calamity ended up hitting the sweet spot for daily use. With bows the key stat is draw time; longer draw times equal more power but also, well, longer draw times. Hence why I went for the perk Archer's Tempo, which decreases draw time as you land precision hits. It also has the Dragonfly perk, a flashy ability I like probably more than it deserves, which causes enemies killed with precision hits to explode into AoE elemental damage. Bows are a lot of fun, occupying the middle ground between Auto Rifles and Sniper Rifles that Scout Rifles were supposed to fill, and given how lousy I am with snipers if I need to land precision hits I'll usually go for a bow instead.
In-universe, what's the explanation for Guardians suddenly getting into bows? It's because of the events of Forsaken and the Guardian push into the Tangled Shore and Dreaming City i.e. into more regular contact with the Awoken, for whom it's a culturally-significant weapon - something like a claymore to a Scot or a katana to the Japanese. More pragmatically when the Awoken first returned to our solar system and settled in the lashed-together space derelict habitats of the Reef they faced the problem of using weapons inside said space habitats as well as launching cables and small satellites. Their solution was bows: strong enough to fly far, carry payloads, and deal damage, but unlikely to pierce a hull and far easier to manufacture than firearms. Awoken Corsairs still use bows as near-silent precision weapons in actual combat, relying on technologically-advanced payloads to deal the real damage. Or not so advanced - Sjur Eido puts a broadhead arrow through an inch of Guardian plate armor with little more than determination, skill, and the properties of whatever magical material Wish-Ender is made from.
Tigerspite / Age-Old Bond
Type: Auto Rifle / Auto Rifle
Slot: Kinetic / Energy (Void)
Perks: Outlaw+Kill Clip / Rampage+Fourth Time's The Charm
Though they come from different sources in-game, Iāve grouped these two together because theyāre both Awoken weapons. Age-Old Bond (Circadian Chill shader) drops from the first encounter of the Last Wish raid while Tigerspite (Nightās Chill shader) comes from activities in the Dreaming City. I love both of these weapons and use them all the time even when theyāre not ideal for the situation at hand. Tigerspite, like the rest of the Dreaming City weapon set, has an elven high-fantasy style featuring cloth wrappings (?) and long, sinuous curves. The Last Wish raid set has a similar aesthetic but goes for a combination of carved-bone paneling and animated celestial diagrams that recall Awoken tech displays.
Fun lore note: Tigerspite is one of the few non-exotics to be mentioned by name in the lore. Sjur Eido selects a Tigerspite for one round of her duel with Uldren Sov back in the Distributary. It gets referenced again as a standard Awoken weapon after their return to our solar system, so itās had quite the service life. Tigerspiteās stats were superseded a while ago by newer auto rifles but I love its sights and feel and keep using it anyway. Outlaw (faster reload on precision kill) and Kill Clip (increased damage immediately after reloading after a kill) are a classic weapon perk combo thatās always in season. Also Iām pretty sure a cat gave me this gun. Not a cat-cat, a Dreaming Kitty, one of the nine adorable stone cat statues hidden in the Dreaming City. While doing Dreaming City activities youāll sometimes pick up an item called āA Small Gift,ā a dish of something that āsmells faintly of mint.ā Since catnip is a member of the mint family, thatās your hint to bring that gift to your nearest Dreaming Kitty. Doing so rewards a weapon and causes the chosen statue to disappear. Iām pretty sure the first or second kitty I ever found gave me this specific gun, which just seems appropriate given its name.
Age-Old Bond is a special weapon to me. It comes from the first fight of the Last Wish raid, an encounter with the Taken Techeun Kalli, the Corrupted, and was the first fight I ever completed with my informal raid crew named āWorldās Worst Fireteam.ā Last Wish released at 550-590 light at a time when most Guardians were still trying to crack 530 and thus could barely handle redbars on raid day one. We were like most Guardians. But we were unlike most Guardians in being stupid and stubborn, and so we went into the raid anyway, because if we couldnāt get World First, we could still get Worldās Worst. We never had a chance at the full raid, but after great struggle and great teamwork we finally managed to bring down Kalli and net ourselves our first Last Wish raid drops. For me that drop was this specific auto rifle - which is not just sentimental, but actually special. Some legendary weapons in Destiny have ācuratedā rolls, perk and stat combinations chosen by Bungie to be top-tier if not the best possible. Anytime you get a weapon drop you have the chance to get a curated drop instead, which comes fully-masterworked with those chosen perks. Age-Old Bondās curated roll was the only one at the time with the new Fourth Timeās The Charm perk; when you land four rapid precision hits (they don't have to be sequential) it refunds two rounds directly back to the magazine. This does more than you might think for the weaponās versatility, since if youāre pouring fire into a single targetās crit spot (i.e. a boss) it effectively gives the weapon 50% more clip i.e. a solid 48 rounds before you have to reload. It wonāt replace a Heavy or high-DPS weapon anytime soon, but itās pretty handy in a tight spot. The other perks on the curated roll max out Age-Old Bondās range stat compared to other auto rifles, one of the dump stats of that archetype, and with a Counterbalance Stock mod to reduce recoil itās practically a trace rifle.
I do favor these five weapons, but I also try to mix it up - I picked these five based on my top kill counts, but that biases it towards Y2 guns that have been in service longer. Plenty of newer weapons routinely turn up in my loadout these days: the pleasant chatter and Demolitionist perks of Outlast, Full Court/Field Prep Love and Death, the delightful new kinetic bow Accrued Redemption, Shaxx's broke-ass Crucible pinnacle weapon The Recluse, last season's snappy Patron of Lost Causes, the 600 RPM bullet-hose Arc Logic, and of course the reliable, venerable Y1 IKELOS shotgun. But in the end the only wrong loadout is one you don't enjoy, and the best choice is whatever you find the most fun.
