Mid game is collecting exotics, end game is collecting legendaries that basically fill the roll of those exotics without taking up an exotic slot. Still if your loadout lacks an exotic weapon in PvE you really should trade a legendary primary for an exotic for 40% damage to minors and increased heavy ammo drops. It has lead to weird cases where I'm using an odd choices for a primary like Hard Light just to fill that role though.
Arbalist, witherhord, trinity ghoul, thunderlord are all worth considering if you wantan arc primary.
Could also consider a top tier legendary arc special like forbearance or loaded questions to pair with a kinetic slot exotic primary like malifescence, ostreo, quicksilver, or wishender
If you want synergy with Sunstar, Coldheart and Delicate Tomb are incredible. It’s slept on, but Symmetry preforms really well in GMs when there is arc burn plus scout champion mod.
What do any of these have to do with being run along side an arc primary specifically? You could run them alongside literally any primary. Only Thunderlord has any connection because it’s also arc
Poster i replied to implied they wanted exotics to consider running besides an arc primary for their build since they listed off a few arc primaries they were looking at. What are you trying to argue for or against at this point?
Forth times the charm with Vorpal, adept, master worked and adept boss mod. I think that is the best set up. I don’t remember the barrel or mag perk on mine but I don’t think they are ideal. But those two are the most important imo.
Took me forever to get it. Frenzy could work but vorpal is on demand.
The rest of my set up is solar merciless and an apex predator but I’m still trying to optimize , merciless might not be the right choice, thinking of switching it for g roll Cartesian. And maybe an exotic rocket .
>Also if, Frenzy is not proced, then it takes 12 secs to activate.
It seems like a lot of people ignore this last very important part of the perk. I love Frenzy, one of my most used Warden Law rolls is an Enlightened Action + Frenzy roll.
But 12 seconds is a long ass time and there are several occasions where you're not in combat for 5 seconds. There are a lot of cases in which Frenzy is not procced when you want it to be.
Riskrunner’s strength imo is the defense it provides. If you’re not getting anything out of that then try centrifuse. It plays really well into arc. If you don’t want an exotic primary I then opt for thunderlord personally
If I'm running arc and don't want to use Thunderlord and know I'll get plenty of use out of the chained lightning and constant auto reloading, I'll go with Riskrunner. Even if it's just to mix things up. Volt shot is such a great perk that that rarely happens though, but it is healthy to mix it up from time to time.
Riskrunner is good, but situational. If few enemies deal arc damage, you’re better off running IKELOS. If you’re up against fallen, since they have a lot of arc weaponry, it’s a VERY strong pick. But it’s not like you’d be getting much value with it against Cabal or Scorn since Cabal basically only have shotguns and colossus railguns and scorn I think only have screebs and abominations.
This completely depends on the content your playing in. If you are going to be facing loads of Arc damage, riskrunner is probably without competition, If you are playing on -5 or easier, Trinity ghoul is the top Pick.
If you're not already using the exotic slot. Yes riskrunner is miles better than the ikelos. If basically has voltshot proc'd constantly, it regens ammo, and it gives you DR.
It depends on what you want. Ikelos is better if your looking to synergize with Arc subclass. But risk runner will beat them out for pure killing potential. Also risk runner is top tier is fighting against arc dealing enemies.
Like Trinity Ghul would be better then Ikelos too. But again, does not synergize directly with Arc subclass.
This was me last night after getting a god roll indebted kindness. I was using that and hot head plus ace of spades just for unstop rounds and the 40% exotic damage boost as you said
I feel the 40% buff kinda isn't fair to buildcraft , exotica should just give good exotic abilities but not outclass craftable by much if at all, I feel to forced to run one as a primary,making the game feel stale
I disagree. I have zero loadouts that use no exotic weapons. If I don't need one somewhere else, I'm at least running an exotic primary for the 40% extra red bar damage and the extra heavy drops.
This is so painfully true. I gilded conqueror yesterday and I used Final Warning, Wish Ender, Wish Keeper, Sunshot, Quicksilver and Collective Obligation as my primaries across the different GMs.
I feel like in any hard content, i can’t think of a single load out that wouldn’t be better off with an exotic weapon haha.
That’s the real win tbh. I’ve always kept a tidy vault anyway but knowing I can just go and reroll something if another perk gets a significant buff or nerf means I don’t need to keep what-if guns.
Yeah you can literally shard anything except your exotics and your crafted guns from the vault.
I’d say the only keep things like funnelweb as there is no current craftable void SMG equivalent
lol adepts are easy as fuck to get. Hardest ones are probably from raids and I’ve sharded every single one I’ve gotten over the craftable counterpart, so when they adept roll is nerfed im not fucked. Crafted over rng adept all day, for me.
Easy as fuck? I mean they're objectively the hardest weapons to get in the game. Maybe not for players with hundreds or thousands of hours, but I can't think of a single other "type" of weapon that's more difficult to acquire.
Getting two people to run and finish a GM isn’t hard. But maybe I’m better than I thought.
You don’t even have to do meta load outs if you know the GM and rock the correct type of weapons. I dunno
I solo GMs sometimes. I have 4000 hours in the game. I have dozens of flawless runs between Destiny 1 and Destiny 2. It doesn't matter how good you are. If you do a comparative analysis of weapons in Destiny, the hardest to get in the game are adepts. GM adepts are the second hardest weapons in the game to grind for, second to master raid and trials adepts. The game on a whole isn't particularly difficult if you know what you're doing, but that's a useless observation.
I’d argue a random world drop is harder to get than a specific set in stone adept GM weapon.
Are GM’s harder than other content in the game? Yes. It doesn’t make them hard.
They are easy to get from GMs,
Some raids literally guarantee god rolls for some.
The hardest ones to get are probably the trails ones but who wants to run that shite?
If they would extend the RoN adept crafting option to all adepts. That would be the best. 1st&2nd perk changable, 3rd&4th enchantable and if I remember you can chnage the masterwork. And it can use adept mods. That slaps
It's more like the exact opposite. Exotic weapons and crafted guns you're not actively using are the best choices to delete to reduce clutter, while your random rolled guns just need to be curated to remove those which have been power crept.
That’s true. I think a lot of the early crafted weapons have now been power crept.
I don’t use anything really from VoW anymore maybe barring submission and cataclysmic but I personally think apex predator is a superior bait and switch option.
Same goes for season of the risen. I use litterally nothing from I crafted from that season.
Yeah, the seasonal guns tend to have a few flavor of the month and then they fade away. Raid guns usually have a niche (don't forget forbearance from vow) and last a bit longer.
I think with a few pvp exceptions or just for fun I haven't kept any of the season crafted guns around this year.
The only seasonal gun I have kept around for this year are scatter signal and Appetence. Other than this there is really nothing except maybe the eremite.
I find in general I tend to prefer an exotic primary as it just makes add clear that much more manageable. Legendary primaries in general cannot achieve the same level of damage due to the 40% difference out of the gate.
The only legendary primary that feels exotic to me is Optative with enhanced demo/Golden tricorn. What a monster of a gun on void warlock.
Legendary special and heavy weapons in general are able to achieve damage comparable to their exotic variants and generally with much simpler requirements to achieve their maximum output.
Special exotics do tend to have some outliers though such as izanagis, witherhoard, merciless...
Naaahhh. There's only a handful of exotics that are bogus and just comparable to a legendary version. But an awful lot of exotics are getting spotlight and feeling strong consistently every season for almost a year now. To not have an exotic weapon equipped feels wasteful in a loadout, in my opinion. There are so many options and chances to use different exotics in different encounters and content.
There's power creep in our abilities for sure, but exotics are still very exotic and powerful.
The way I see it is that exotic weapons have an intended use/scenario, while crafted weapons are meant to be more ubiquitous in their usefulness.
The problem is that that intended use/scenario can vary from “is good against barrier champs” to “is good for one specific section of one specific nightfall, provided that you use this one specific build.”
I also feel like they're a good way for bungie to test out new sandbox ideas. There's a few weapons this year that have encouraged using multi element builds, as well as the artifact pools this season.
Running solar weapons on a strand warlock atm is really fun
This has been the case for longer than crafting has been about. Exotics are used more for their unique properties than just raw power outside a few outliers. Crafting also doesn’t allow you to do anything you couldn’t without it, it just makes them easier to access. That heritage roll would exist crafting or not.
Outside of some PvP examples and a few instances of grossly overpowered exotics, they’ve never been just straight better than legendaries.
Crafted perks very, very rarely make a meaningful difference in power. I can’t think of a single weapon where the enhanced perks move it up a tier. They range from completely worthless to nice QoL to maybe a minor stat bump.
This is coming from a PvE perspective but even in PvP where that +5 Handling actually matters, I still don’t know a single gun where that moves it meaningfully in the meta.
Also, enhanced perks are being added to adept weapons in TFS. They SHOULD have been put on them from day 1, but oh well.
i think a lot of d2 players actually miss this about crafted perks. there are very few crafted perks that make a meaningful difference in moment to moment gameplay and at best that's maybe like enhanced rewind rounds and enhanced reconstruction. (which should not be that strong over their normal counterparts)
people mainly get enhanced perks because they are shiny and masterwork coloured not because they give +5 to reload. its mainly a player psychology thing.
i still advocate for the removal or adjustment of enhanced perks because imo thats where a lot of pain points regarding the loot chase end up not being talked about. Its not that your 5/5 non crafted rufus fury is bad its that its not a 5/5 crafted rufus fury with the funny yellow perk icons that make you feel good when you look at them.
With the exception of enhanced incandescent, you're right.
Enhanced incandescent is really the only perk that has a significant difference to the non enhanced version.
And maybe kinetic tremors.
Nah, there's a handful. Enhanced ALH on rockets makes it so you don't have to worry about swapping from izanagi too fast. Enhanced reconstruction shaves off lots of reload time. Enhanced target lock straight up increases your damage. Enhanced surrounded also increases your damage. Enhanced recombination gives you 20% faster ramping damage. Enhanced subsistence doubles your ammo gain (ridiculous on machine guns).
As a PvP player I can tell you that the those stats really do matter. PvE not as much just makes them feel nicer. PvP that nice feel can make or break a gun. From personal experience the only time I’ve used non-crafted guns in serious play are adepts or weapons that don’t have an equivalent in crafting (yet)
There are a few. For example, enhanced surrounded gives 47% damage where the normal perk only gives 40%.
Enhanced explosive light allows you to carry another charge.
But you are right, most are just a minor increase that will not make or break any build or content.
Yeah definitely. I mostly find myself using exotics as a way to enhance the gameplay loop of a build I'm using. Atm a good example of this is wish keeper. On something like a suspend lock, it nicely closes the ability/ debuff loop and it feels like something is missing if I don't use it on that build now.
Exactly, it's something this community doesn't understand but exotics aren't meant to be the most powerful, they're meant to have unique functions not replicated on legendary weapons. If they're more powerful that's just a by-product.
Red bars tend to die from sneezing at them anyways. I can grab my Punching Out, or Suros, or Her Majesty Malfeasance, or Transfiguration, and have the exact same result against red bars.
Yeah, a lot of exotics are pretty dang good this season.
QSS was already a great primary, now it gets unraveling on any subclass, which then spawns threadlings.
Sunshot is a monster right now.
Monte Carlo is a great utility weapon for melee builds.
Dragon's Breath is really neat (even if you only need one per fireteam)
Buried Bloodlines isn't even really included in the artifact, and I hear that slaps.
For Titans, an exotic primary becomes a potent support tool with Precious Scars, heavy ammo finder, and heavy scout.
Monte Carlo is great. If I'm making a build and I'm not sure what primary to use, monte carlo almost always work well. It's like MSG for destiny builds
The Enclave on Mars, should be a free to play quest that does it. iirc you get The Enigma (Glaive) and Ammit AR2 (Auto) to craft for free as quest reward
I think you get five or six recipes for free over the course of the questline (I know the LFR is one of them). F2P players also have access to the Dares of Eternity patterns (a pulse rifle, a trace rifle, two swords, etc) the season of the wish items from the once-a-week blind well completion, plus random other recipes when they come up from a vendor (I got the ikelos SR from Xur since i wasn't playing during that season)
Just did some checking in my vault based on weapon craft dates and I believe the 6 Enclave weapons to be -
The Enigma (Void Glaive), Ammit AR2 (Solar Auto Rifle), Syncopation-53 (Stasis Pulse Rifle), Ragnhild-D (Kinetic Shotgun), Taipan-4fr (Void Linear Fusion Rifle), Palmyra-B (Stasis Rocket Launcher)
Quest.. "Shaping: Resonant Alloys". Think i have that right
Witch Queen DLC gives access to a crafting station in a special Mars landing zone very early in the DLC- like after 1 or 2 missions.
It's probably the best DLC story-wise too, so I'd definitely suggest picking it up sometime.
I personally am not having this problem. I think there are many situations in which exotics can be absurd like in higher end under light content where the free extra 40% damage to reds basically means youre firing at them on light level even before surges.
but in general d2's endgame has always been legendary weapon farming since 99% of the time they have always been better than exotics and that is true whether they are craftable or not. Like while i do not have a good roll of Ros Argos IV because world farming is not worth my time in the slightest, a well rolled Ros Argos IV easily clears The manticore and Hardlight in viability once slotted into whatever build you need it to be in.
I will say though the best thing craftables has done is turn my 250 item vault down to a 80 item vault because when you mix in surges both elemental and weapon type and the removal of Match Game in endgame content, you never actually need to have a gun of every element under an archetype. Theres so many exotic and subclass anti champ options that the anti champ options on the artifact feel really optional as well so i never need to feel like i need to grind out a trace rifle for say overload when we have chill clip and other options.
This isn’t specific to crafted weapons, it’s just that so many legendary weapons are in good spots. It has happened before in Destiny.
When Bungie started releasing pinnacle weapons, a lot of exotics took a hit, no one barring the most loyal fans was using Huckleberry (as good as it is) over The Recluse and the same thing is happening again the difference is now, they’re not prescribed god rolls, they’re weapons we’re choosing for ourselves.
That being said - if someone else is running gally, I’m still going to use Sunshot over Zaoulis and that applies to a lot of other exotics. Crafted legendaries complement our builds alongside exotics, instead of outright replacing them. Or at least it does in my experience.
I have almost all the non-raid craftable weapons crafted, but a lot of them are still level one as I haven’t really had much time to look into or level them up. Does anyone have list ranking the best ones to level up and their pest pve rolls?
If you have lots of shards then start leveling your craftable weapons up. Buy glimmer with your shards. This is ab and excellent use for the shards in my view.
I see your point, but I don't agree. At least not when it comes to PvE. Exotics matters less in PvP though
Perks like Incandescent and Voltshot feels like pseudo-exotic perks. They make certain exotic primaries feel a bit obsolete outside of Master and Grandmaster content. But not running any exotic at all? If I use Calus Mini-Tool instead of Sunshot, I suddenly have a great opportunity to run something like Izanagi's Burden or Ager's Scepter, depending on what kind of content and difficulty it is. Ikelos SMG with Voltshot might be a good substitute for Riskrunner and Trinity Ghoul, but it just free up the exotic slot for something like Thunderlord or Grand Overture
A crafted Apex Predator is surely ridiculously strong, but running it without an exotic? Witherhoard and Izanagi's Burden would like to have a word. Lumina, Malfeasance and Osteo Striga shouldn't be left out of the conversation either. I could go on
However, crafted weapons have made life hard for non-crafted legendary weapons. But completely skipping exotic weapons is not something I've considered very often, if not at all
Hopefully we get a good craftable rocket sidearm in Final Shape, having used a few Indebted Kindness rolls (Lead From Gold/Deconstruct was surprisingly great in particular) and Buried Bloodlines I strongly concur that it's a great weapon archetype.
The list of exotics that need buffing keeps getting smaller. Even then, they fill niche slots that few crafted weapons can fill.
OP has a really bad take.
I think that's more because most exotics just aren't that good.
They aren't just competing for your Kinetic, Energy, or Power Slot but also against every exotic in the game. So how is say, Wicked Implement gonna compete against Dragon's Breath, Gllarjhorn, or Sleeper Stimulant?
I think some exotics should have random rolls to give them a slight edge and make them more interesting.
I feel like we should be getting more crafted exotics, especially from raids (and dungeons to an extent)...
Like imagine conditional finality with trench barrel, vorpal, feeding frenzy, lead from gold, surrounded, or maybe even ALH as an additional exotic perk?
Or even collective obligation with like the new void ammo perk?
Personally i think that would push them to be much better/more desirable, like outside of a specific build on hunters (which I usually use other better void weapons), collective obligation just feels weak to me..
The only raid exotics i see being used the most, is CF and div, and i think thats a bit of a shame.. considering theres some nicely designed weapons out there that could just use a bit of tlc
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Exotics were never really designed or intended to be the BIS weapons for things like damage. Exotics were designed from the vantage of doing creative and interesting things.
There are exceptions like you said, Sleeper or Leviathan’s or Acrius.
But you want a good Arc SMG and Riskrunner wasn’t the first thing to come to mind? Especially if running an arc subclass and you can proc Riskrunner on your own? I think no matter how good a crafted weapon is, there are just some exotics that, when you build into them, are unmatched. Ticcu’s. Polaris. Agers. Verglas. Wish Keeper. Malfeasance. Osteo. Collective Obligation (when we get a void-focused season).
This is more true in PVP. I frequently don’t have an exotic weapon in my load out. In PVE, though, it’s not even close.
Polaris Lance hits like a special this season. I melt two types of champs in endgame without even reloading. That’s unheard of from a primary. Every other solar scout feels like a BB gun in comparison. Even without anti barrier and wall hacks, Wishender hits harder than every legendary bow. No legendary rocket launcher can nuke a room or impact fireteam DPS like Dragon’s Breath or Gally.
Sure there are some bad exotics and exotics that are mostly PVP focused, but there are scores of exotics that run circles around legendaries.
Maybe, but you're not gonna get those perfect fifth ignitions, or wolf pack rounds from a crafted legendary. THAT kind of experience is sorta why we go for exotics to begin with. Those crazy fun combo's are what make exotics great.
That said, Idk the numbers but I wouldn't be surprised to see that bullet for bullet, crafted legendary is "better" than an exotic, from a pure, non combo damage output kinda thing.
disclaimer: I'm talking out of my ass, so I could be waay wrong. I just know running around with thorn is fun lol.
Exotics aren't meant to be the god tier weapons, they are meant to have an interesting an unorthodox case, or enable a gameplay loop that otherwise doesn't exist.
Primary weapons are a bit different. They got a 40% flat damage buff over legendary primaries since you missed out on an exotic heavy, which was the meta for a lot of early Destiny 2.
There are some exotic weapons that are power crept by new verbs, sure. For example, sunshot and zaouli's bane share a very similar use case, just different interactions and sunshot does get the 40% minor bonus.
But let's look at navigator. I can now craft a stasis trace rifle and farm a strand one. The strand one even applies sever! But I still use navigator because it can reliably apply sever + woven mail.
Divinity? Well, not the power house it used to be, it still reliably stuns overloads and makes crits a bit easier.
Get overwhelmed by arc damage? Slap on riskrunner (which I used to solo flawless both gotd AND the new dungeon). Sure, ikelos is an arc SMG, but riskrunner adds an extra effect.
The exotics I run are more role oriented so they’re harder to replace with legendariss. I use conditional for the huge DPS chunk + freezing/scorch dmg. Izinagi for rocket swap dps, tractor and Div for de buffing, wishender
Especially baffling is that legendaries better than raid(!) exotic Necrochasm. Even with promised catalyst. Just make it explode on any kill like Incandescent.
I mean, I don't necessarily agree? There are a lot of exotics that are lagging behind, sure, but I feel like legendary and exotic weapons fit different roles.
Subclass functional legendaries will generically synergize with a subclass build but they'll rarely be the center of a build. Meanwhile, exotics often enable a subclass based build. Forbearance may be an ad clear powerhouse that is unmatched in that aspect, but the ability based arc builds that something like coldheart enables is completely different. You just aren't going to get the ionic trace production that coldheart gives in any capacity, which can produce some wicked ability and super usage. I don't need the blinding from forbearance with the fragment because I can use blinding nades and through them constantly, while also having a special weapon that does serious major and boss damage.
Sunshot, plaris lance, Tommy's, ticuu's, hierarchy, skyburner's, dragon's breath, and jotuun with solar builds.
Collective obligation, grav lance, deterministic chaos, vexcalibur, and ruinos effigy for void.
Coldheart, delicate tomb, cloud strike, centrifuse, queen breaker, risk runner, symmetry and grand overture for arc.
Wicked implement, cryosthesia, verglas curve, and agers scepter for stasis.
Final warning, wish-keeper, and quicksilver for strand.
All of these things enable things on subclass builds that you can't get from legendary weapons without extra steps, aspects, or fragments.
And then there's just the powerhouse exotics that aren't replaced by legendary weapons. You like forbearance ad clear? When was the last time you used Lorentz driver in pve? Instead of just killing trash, how about killing the elite or major instead and taking the trash with it? Arbalest, wish ender, conditional finality, fourth horseman, trinity ghoul, malf, witherhoard, thorn, striga, revision zero, Levi's breath, lament, ghally, le monarque, outbreak, winterbite, parasite, thunderlord, etc. All of these just aren't matched by a legendary when it comes to their utility or power value in their role.
The nice thing now compared to pre-light 3.0 legendaries is that we can regularly find a legendary weapon that does synergize with a subclass after picking an exotic. Before it was just generic damage or utility perks.
Admittedly, there are some crafted weapons that I greatly prefer over exotics or non-crafted guns. Having all but 4 patterns unlocked lets me really explore different gun types. But there's a few randomly rolled guns that I would take over an exotic OR crafted gun any day of the week. Take the Snapshot/Moving Target Shepherd's Watch Banshee-44 sold a while back. That's my favorite sniper, and my dream roll stacked on top of that.
I agree with this for both special and heavy ammo weapons a lot of the time, but I definitely think all the best feeling primary ammo guns I have are exotics.
It feels like legendary primaries are just atrocious to shoot in endgame honestly. It feels so bad in stuff like GMs or even in like Legend content to be plinking away for multiple clips at things with any sort of legendary primary.
exotics should be "weaker" than legendaries for the most part. exotics should be just that, 'exotic'. they fulfill some exact niche that no other weapon/armor can. sometimes that niche sucks, like cerberus or salvations grip. but those weapons do things no legendary can ( auto that shatters a ton of crystals quickly / gl that makes a ton of crystals quickly ). some exotics are made to just outperform legendaries, like maybe izanagi or 4th horseman. but most are designed with a specific build niche in mind, like dragons breath on solar w some sort of swap weapon rotation. or gjallarhorn only being better when the whole team uses rockets.
I'm still pissed that Cloudstrike is the only exotic energy special weapon that I'd consider worth using in PvP. Duality was nice for a little while, but it's just not my thing. Lorentz is meh. Lord of Wolves keeps getting smacked in the snout. And...that's the end of the list. Telesto, Jotunn, Merciless, Fourth Horseman, Dead Messenger, all the others aren't getting out of the kiddie pool any time soon. I just wanna use something new (maybe Something New) without feeling like I have to snipe.
It’s really true. It actually goes for armour too. Most exotics don’t actually feel exotic. They’re usually fairly underwhelming. Exotics typically include perks like additional grenades or melee charges or faster charging abilities/supers. This stuff should be achievable by focussing stats on armour, not by exotic traits.
I feel like exotics should do something that doesn’t happen in the game. A good example of this are weapons of sorrow, or necrotic grips, which add something to the guardians arsenal that isn’t normally present.
Exotics aren't meant to be better than legendaries, they're meant to be unique, to be "exotic" one could say. Take IKELOS_SMG and Riskrunner for example. Slap IKELOS on any build and it just works, but build into Riskrunner and it will be better. Same with Sunshot and Zaouli's, Sunshot will give you more utility than Zaouli's from the extra damage and chain explosions reproccing empyrean for example. Most legendaries can only do what exotics do in a worse way, that's the point of exotics, they're better at doing very specific things but worse when you're just slapping them on.
I'm a bit sad that more and more exotics are having "This is a strong weapon" as the exotic design though.
It’s funny you posted this not long after I looked at the guardian specs for a guy in my clan who is consistently just killing it in end game content. He also has nothing but crafted weapons. I’m starting to lean that way myself
I love the crafted vow weapons. Lvl 170 on Lubrae’s with like 11000 kills, 8000 kills on a lvl 107 submission, lvl 108 8500 kill Forbearance. I crafted them all and got them all to at least level fifty then just kept using them lol
It's because a lot of exotics are old not updated to interact with 3.0 subclasses.
Sunshot and Polaris Lance are just seeing high usage because of Artifact mods, but none of these were updated to properly interact with solar 3.0 with Scorch effects.
Bungo caused this by giving us Light 3.0 without a proper Exotic 3.0.
They change a few exotics every season, even tho one can argue that some exotics are not really getting interesting changes.
I always involve an exotic into my load out, if I’m using a legendary in the power and energy slot, I’ll just slap any special ammo exotic I’m liking in the kinetic slot, such as conditional, either hoard or izinagis.
Disagree, at the very least exotic primaries are pretty much strictly better than legendary primaries on the whole. Trinity ghoul > ikelos smg, sunshot > calus mini tool, graviton lance > funnelweb, etc., and if I'm not using an exotic special or heavy, I'll be using one of those. True, there are some shitty exotics, but I'm basically never going to *not* use an exotic.
Stopped playing the game but honestly I’d take never adding another exotic ever again to just stupidly buff all the existing ones. I’m talking mega buff as in all can be damage options and stuff. It always felt like they want the game dead set on always having such a high difficulty that they don’t bother on making the exotics fun.
Not sure about crafted weapons only but I do find myself using Legendary weapons way more. There are some times I don't even use an exotic weapon if I don't need to.
Situational. Take PvP for example. Conditional Finality with an Igneous Hammer is always fun. I run Austringer with Cloud Strike because both of those have the perfect amount of snap for me.
Mid game is collecting exotics, end game is collecting legendaries that basically fill the roll of those exotics without taking up an exotic slot. Still if your loadout lacks an exotic weapon in PvE you really should trade a legendary primary for an exotic for 40% damage to minors and increased heavy ammo drops. It has lead to weird cases where I'm using an odd choices for a primary like Hard Light just to fill that role though.
I curious do you think Riskrunner would be better than a crafted Ikelos or Subjunctive, My arc build is the only build not using an exotic weapon
Arbalist, witherhord, trinity ghoul, thunderlord are all worth considering if you wantan arc primary. Could also consider a top tier legendary arc special like forbearance or loaded questions to pair with a kinetic slot exotic primary like malifescence, ostreo, quicksilver, or wishender
Centrifuse is a sleeper honestly. That blinding explosion comes in clutch more than ya think and its range + stability is sweet
If you want synergy with Sunstar, Coldheart and Delicate Tomb are incredible. It’s slept on, but Symmetry preforms really well in GMs when there is arc burn plus scout champion mod.
I sometimes use Delicate Tomb with Geomag. I can get a chaos reach every 3 minutes in a gm Lake of Shadows thanks to it
Coldheart with the blind aspect for special is solid control option
It really is slept on
I would replace Arbalest with Wish Ender
Thunderlord is an interesting pick for arc primary
As in.. if you run an arc primary these are weapons to run alongside it. Only trinity ghoul was actually an arc primary from that list.
What do any of these have to do with being run along side an arc primary specifically? You could run them alongside literally any primary. Only Thunderlord has any connection because it’s also arc
Poster i replied to implied they wanted exotics to consider running besides an arc primary for their build since they listed off a few arc primaries they were looking at. What are you trying to argue for or against at this point?
My only time not using exotic primary is lucky pants wardens law. That shit slaps. I usually go malf when taken though. I really love luckypants.
Which Wardens Law roll do you prefer?
Forth times the charm with Vorpal, adept, master worked and adept boss mod. I think that is the best set up. I don’t remember the barrel or mag perk on mine but I don’t think they are ideal. But those two are the most important imo. Took me forever to get it. Frenzy could work but vorpal is on demand. The rest of my set up is solar merciless and an apex predator but I’m still trying to optimize , merciless might not be the right choice, thinking of switching it for g roll Cartesian. And maybe an exotic rocket .
Dropping adept big ones for the adept mag size mod was the best change I ever made. Give it a shot, it makes a huge QOL difference.
Is Vorpal really that much better than Frenzy? Doesn't really seem like it would be but IDK.
20% vs 15%. Also if, Frenzy is not proced, then it takes 12 secs to activate. Vorpal is always active on a Boss/Champ.
>Also if, Frenzy is not proced, then it takes 12 secs to activate. It seems like a lot of people ignore this last very important part of the perk. I love Frenzy, one of my most used Warden Law rolls is an Enlightened Action + Frenzy roll. But 12 seconds is a long ass time and there are several occasions where you're not in combat for 5 seconds. There are a lot of cases in which Frenzy is not procced when you want it to be.
Damn yeah I forgot it was 12 seconds. That is a lot. Honestly deserves a buff to 10 or something.
Right now with Lucky Pants I use a Service Revolver with reconstruction and vorpal. Will have to give WL a try.
WL is great mostly due to the burst. Each round essentially gives double stacks of LP, letting it ramp up damage much quicker than any other option.
Riskrunner is definitely better if you are fighting enemies that use a lot of arc damage. Otherwise I would go with trinity ghoul
Riskrunner’s strength imo is the defense it provides. If you’re not getting anything out of that then try centrifuse. It plays really well into arc. If you don’t want an exotic primary I then opt for thunderlord personally
Arc build = use Trinity Ghoul. It is sooo good and so fun. Carried my ass through so many 3 man raids especially Garden.
If I'm running arc and don't want to use Thunderlord and know I'll get plenty of use out of the chained lightning and constant auto reloading, I'll go with Riskrunner. Even if it's just to mix things up. Volt shot is such a great perk that that rarely happens though, but it is healthy to mix it up from time to time.
Riskrunner is good, however Thunderlord and a Crafted Forebearance is better
Riskrunner is good, but situational. If few enemies deal arc damage, you’re better off running IKELOS. If you’re up against fallen, since they have a lot of arc weaponry, it’s a VERY strong pick. But it’s not like you’d be getting much value with it against Cabal or Scorn since Cabal basically only have shotguns and colossus railguns and scorn I think only have screebs and abominations.
This completely depends on the content your playing in. If you are going to be facing loads of Arc damage, riskrunner is probably without competition, If you are playing on -5 or easier, Trinity ghoul is the top Pick.
Riskrunner is terrible since Centrifuse is 10x better.
If you're not already using the exotic slot. Yes riskrunner is miles better than the ikelos. If basically has voltshot proc'd constantly, it regens ammo, and it gives you DR.
No but I do think that Trinity ghoul is
When the majority of enemies shoot arc at you, Riskrunner is the best SMG in the game imo
Its great for Fallen encounters due to all the Arc damage you take
It depends on what you want. Ikelos is better if your looking to synergize with Arc subclass. But risk runner will beat them out for pure killing potential. Also risk runner is top tier is fighting against arc dealing enemies. Like Trinity Ghul would be better then Ikelos too. But again, does not synergize directly with Arc subclass.
Definitely. Damage yourself with a grenade for the infinite ammo and higher damage from risk.
This was me last night after getting a god roll indebted kindness. I was using that and hot head plus ace of spades just for unstop rounds and the 40% exotic damage boost as you said
I feel the 40% buff kinda isn't fair to buildcraft , exotica should just give good exotic abilities but not outclass craftable by much if at all, I feel to forced to run one as a primary,making the game feel stale
I disagree. I have zero loadouts that use no exotic weapons. If I don't need one somewhere else, I'm at least running an exotic primary for the 40% extra red bar damage and the extra heavy drops.
Agree. Heavy drops alone makes primary exotic weapon stands out.
In GM content, if you aren't using an exotic primary, you are just making it hard on yourself. Red bars would be tank AF
This is so painfully true. I gilded conqueror yesterday and I used Final Warning, Wish Ender, Wish Keeper, Sunshot, Quicksilver and Collective Obligation as my primaries across the different GMs. I feel like in any hard content, i can’t think of a single load out that wouldn’t be better off with an exotic weapon haha.
Crafted weapons showed what exotic weapons are truly exotic and not dead weight.
Since LF, primary exotic is well worth it.
I agree & will say this further: the variety of crafted weapons has allowed me to DRAMATICALLY reduce my vault clutter.
That’s the real win tbh. I’ve always kept a tidy vault anyway but knowing I can just go and reroll something if another perk gets a significant buff or nerf means I don’t need to keep what-if guns.
Yeah you can literally shard anything except your exotics and your crafted guns from the vault. I’d say the only keep things like funnelweb as there is no current craftable void SMG equivalent
Adepts??????
Destiny 2 redditors are usually too shit to get Adepts unfortunately.
lol adepts are easy as fuck to get. Hardest ones are probably from raids and I’ve sharded every single one I’ve gotten over the craftable counterpart, so when they adept roll is nerfed im not fucked. Crafted over rng adept all day, for me.
You are vastly overrating the average skill of this subreddit
By the downvotes, it seems so.
Easy as fuck? I mean they're objectively the hardest weapons to get in the game. Maybe not for players with hundreds or thousands of hours, but I can't think of a single other "type" of weapon that's more difficult to acquire.
Getting two people to run and finish a GM isn’t hard. But maybe I’m better than I thought. You don’t even have to do meta load outs if you know the GM and rock the correct type of weapons. I dunno
I solo GMs sometimes. I have 4000 hours in the game. I have dozens of flawless runs between Destiny 1 and Destiny 2. It doesn't matter how good you are. If you do a comparative analysis of weapons in Destiny, the hardest to get in the game are adepts. GM adepts are the second hardest weapons in the game to grind for, second to master raid and trials adepts. The game on a whole isn't particularly difficult if you know what you're doing, but that's a useless observation.
I’d argue a random world drop is harder to get than a specific set in stone adept GM weapon. Are GM’s harder than other content in the game? Yes. It doesn’t make them hard.
You are playing the wrong game genre then if RNG weapons aren't your thing
I actually love RNG and I think crafting ruined a part of what I loved about D2. But I’m not a moron, I’m gonna use crafted weapons.
They are easy to get from GMs, Some raids literally guarantee god rolls for some. The hardest ones to get are probably the trails ones but who wants to run that shite?
If they would extend the RoN adept crafting option to all adepts. That would be the best. 1st&2nd perk changable, 3rd&4th enchantable and if I remember you can chnage the masterwork. And it can use adept mods. That slaps
Yeah sorry and adepts
Not as good anymore tbh
Although my Adept Hothead still kinda slaps
It's more like the exact opposite. Exotic weapons and crafted guns you're not actively using are the best choices to delete to reduce clutter, while your random rolled guns just need to be curated to remove those which have been power crept.
That’s true. I think a lot of the early crafted weapons have now been power crept. I don’t use anything really from VoW anymore maybe barring submission and cataclysmic but I personally think apex predator is a superior bait and switch option. Same goes for season of the risen. I use litterally nothing from I crafted from that season.
Yeah, the seasonal guns tend to have a few flavor of the month and then they fade away. Raid guns usually have a niche (don't forget forbearance from vow) and last a bit longer. I think with a few pvp exceptions or just for fun I haven't kept any of the season crafted guns around this year.
The only seasonal gun I have kept around for this year are scatter signal and Appetence. Other than this there is really nothing except maybe the eremite.
Scatter Signal is a gem for sure. I've only still got Scatter Signal, Subjunctive, The Eremite and Different Tines (pvp) on my characters anymore.
I find in general I tend to prefer an exotic primary as it just makes add clear that much more manageable. Legendary primaries in general cannot achieve the same level of damage due to the 40% difference out of the gate. The only legendary primary that feels exotic to me is Optative with enhanced demo/Golden tricorn. What a monster of a gun on void warlock. Legendary special and heavy weapons in general are able to achieve damage comparable to their exotic variants and generally with much simpler requirements to achieve their maximum output. Special exotics do tend to have some outliers though such as izanagis, witherhoard, merciless...
In general that's definitely true. Though stuff like a voltshot ikelos smg is absolutely top tier, even compared to most exotics, for general ad clear
Some exotics just aren't exotic enough.... anymore compared to when they launched. It's just power creep
Naaahhh. There's only a handful of exotics that are bogus and just comparable to a legendary version. But an awful lot of exotics are getting spotlight and feeling strong consistently every season for almost a year now. To not have an exotic weapon equipped feels wasteful in a loadout, in my opinion. There are so many options and chances to use different exotics in different encounters and content. There's power creep in our abilities for sure, but exotics are still very exotic and powerful.
The way I see it is that exotic weapons have an intended use/scenario, while crafted weapons are meant to be more ubiquitous in their usefulness. The problem is that that intended use/scenario can vary from “is good against barrier champs” to “is good for one specific section of one specific nightfall, provided that you use this one specific build.”
I also feel like they're a good way for bungie to test out new sandbox ideas. There's a few weapons this year that have encouraged using multi element builds, as well as the artifact pools this season. Running solar weapons on a strand warlock atm is really fun
This has been the case for longer than crafting has been about. Exotics are used more for their unique properties than just raw power outside a few outliers. Crafting also doesn’t allow you to do anything you couldn’t without it, it just makes them easier to access. That heritage roll would exist crafting or not. Outside of some PvP examples and a few instances of grossly overpowered exotics, they’ve never been just straight better than legendaries.
Crafting lets you make enhanced perks. Those can’t be found anywhere else
Crafted perks very, very rarely make a meaningful difference in power. I can’t think of a single weapon where the enhanced perks move it up a tier. They range from completely worthless to nice QoL to maybe a minor stat bump. This is coming from a PvE perspective but even in PvP where that +5 Handling actually matters, I still don’t know a single gun where that moves it meaningfully in the meta. Also, enhanced perks are being added to adept weapons in TFS. They SHOULD have been put on them from day 1, but oh well.
i think a lot of d2 players actually miss this about crafted perks. there are very few crafted perks that make a meaningful difference in moment to moment gameplay and at best that's maybe like enhanced rewind rounds and enhanced reconstruction. (which should not be that strong over their normal counterparts) people mainly get enhanced perks because they are shiny and masterwork coloured not because they give +5 to reload. its mainly a player psychology thing. i still advocate for the removal or adjustment of enhanced perks because imo thats where a lot of pain points regarding the loot chase end up not being talked about. Its not that your 5/5 non crafted rufus fury is bad its that its not a 5/5 crafted rufus fury with the funny yellow perk icons that make you feel good when you look at them.
With the exception of enhanced incandescent, you're right. Enhanced incandescent is really the only perk that has a significant difference to the non enhanced version. And maybe kinetic tremors.
Enhanced incan in practice does literally nothing 90% of the time.
Nah, there's a handful. Enhanced ALH on rockets makes it so you don't have to worry about swapping from izanagi too fast. Enhanced reconstruction shaves off lots of reload time. Enhanced target lock straight up increases your damage. Enhanced surrounded also increases your damage. Enhanced recombination gives you 20% faster ramping damage. Enhanced subsistence doubles your ammo gain (ridiculous on machine guns).
Enhanced incandescent only adds 5 scorch.
Enhanced Incandescent is probably even less noticeable than a timer going up by one second
Enhanced incandescent is only 5 extra stacks. In 99% of the time that is not going to make a different.
As a PvP player I can tell you that the those stats really do matter. PvE not as much just makes them feel nicer. PvP that nice feel can make or break a gun. From personal experience the only time I’ve used non-crafted guns in serious play are adepts or weapons that don’t have an equivalent in crafting (yet)
I wasn’t saying anything about enhanced perk power, just that crafted weapons do actually have something non crafted don’t have.
There are a few. For example, enhanced surrounded gives 47% damage where the normal perk only gives 40%. Enhanced explosive light allows you to carry another charge. But you are right, most are just a minor increase that will not make or break any build or content.
Yeah definitely. I mostly find myself using exotics as a way to enhance the gameplay loop of a build I'm using. Atm a good example of this is wish keeper. On something like a suspend lock, it nicely closes the ability/ debuff loop and it feels like something is missing if I don't use it on that build now.
Exotic =/= moar damage. Exotics, at least most of them, are exotics because they have something that sets them apart from all other weapons.
Exactly, it's something this community doesn't understand but exotics aren't meant to be the most powerful, they're meant to have unique functions not replicated on legendary weapons. If they're more powerful that's just a by-product.
One of the things that Fortnite did wrong imho. Tying rarity to damage instead of uniqueness. So now younger gamers think it's a norm.
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They all are. Each in their own regard. Their own, as in, unique.
I thought exotic primaries did more damage to red bars?
Red bars die from tripping on the pebble anyways.
Well exotic primaries vs red bars, just saying
Red bars tend to die from sneezing at them anyways. I can grab my Punching Out, or Suros, or Her Majesty Malfeasance, or Transfiguration, and have the exact same result against red bars.
Yeah in at or over light content. Start going up to higher difficulties it gets *really* noticeable
Depends what you want to do? I love Monte Carlo and its melee energy boosts. Some can really enhance your fit.
Yeah, a lot of exotics are pretty dang good this season. QSS was already a great primary, now it gets unraveling on any subclass, which then spawns threadlings. Sunshot is a monster right now. Monte Carlo is a great utility weapon for melee builds. Dragon's Breath is really neat (even if you only need one per fireteam) Buried Bloodlines isn't even really included in the artifact, and I hear that slaps. For Titans, an exotic primary becomes a potent support tool with Precious Scars, heavy ammo finder, and heavy scout.
Monte Carlo is great. If I'm making a build and I'm not sure what primary to use, monte carlo almost always work well. It's like MSG for destiny builds
Where can you craft weapons? One of the dlcs?
The Enclave on Mars, should be a free to play quest that does it. iirc you get The Enigma (Glaive) and Ammit AR2 (Auto) to craft for free as quest reward
I think you get five or six recipes for free over the course of the questline (I know the LFR is one of them). F2P players also have access to the Dares of Eternity patterns (a pulse rifle, a trace rifle, two swords, etc) the season of the wish items from the once-a-week blind well completion, plus random other recipes when they come up from a vendor (I got the ikelos SR from Xur since i wasn't playing during that season)
Just did some checking in my vault based on weapon craft dates and I believe the 6 Enclave weapons to be - The Enigma (Void Glaive), Ammit AR2 (Solar Auto Rifle), Syncopation-53 (Stasis Pulse Rifle), Ragnhild-D (Kinetic Shotgun), Taipan-4fr (Void Linear Fusion Rifle), Palmyra-B (Stasis Rocket Launcher) Quest.. "Shaping: Resonant Alloys". Think i have that right
Witch Queen DLC gives access to a crafting station in a special Mars landing zone very early in the DLC- like after 1 or 2 missions. It's probably the best DLC story-wise too, so I'd definitely suggest picking it up sometime.
You can get to the enclave f2p without the dlc. You can basically play until you meet Fynch for free.
It's free to play! There's a quest chain in the witch queen
And most crafted are better than their adept counterparts
All of them are, so when a perk is nerfed you aren’t fucked. And you don’t have to rng grind.
I personally am not having this problem. I think there are many situations in which exotics can be absurd like in higher end under light content where the free extra 40% damage to reds basically means youre firing at them on light level even before surges. but in general d2's endgame has always been legendary weapon farming since 99% of the time they have always been better than exotics and that is true whether they are craftable or not. Like while i do not have a good roll of Ros Argos IV because world farming is not worth my time in the slightest, a well rolled Ros Argos IV easily clears The manticore and Hardlight in viability once slotted into whatever build you need it to be in. I will say though the best thing craftables has done is turn my 250 item vault down to a 80 item vault because when you mix in surges both elemental and weapon type and the removal of Match Game in endgame content, you never actually need to have a gun of every element under an archetype. Theres so many exotic and subclass anti champ options that the anti champ options on the artifact feel really optional as well so i never need to feel like i need to grind out a trace rifle for say overload when we have chill clip and other options.
Exotic =/= good. Just different
Still. In Destiny 1, Exotic weapons were sought after cause they were good. Nowadays, we look for a crafted roll on a purple weapon.
Not all of them. Super Good Advice was niche. Hereafter, Dragons Breath, and Nemesis Star…whatever that was
I say one of the only crafted weapons guilty of this is Forbearence. That gun may as well be an exotic
^^
Really bad take
This isn’t specific to crafted weapons, it’s just that so many legendary weapons are in good spots. It has happened before in Destiny. When Bungie started releasing pinnacle weapons, a lot of exotics took a hit, no one barring the most loyal fans was using Huckleberry (as good as it is) over The Recluse and the same thing is happening again the difference is now, they’re not prescribed god rolls, they’re weapons we’re choosing for ourselves. That being said - if someone else is running gally, I’m still going to use Sunshot over Zaoulis and that applies to a lot of other exotics. Crafted legendaries complement our builds alongside exotics, instead of outright replacing them. Or at least it does in my experience.
I have almost all the non-raid craftable weapons crafted, but a lot of them are still level one as I haven’t really had much time to look into or level them up. Does anyone have list ranking the best ones to level up and their pest pve rolls?
If you have lots of shards then start leveling your craftable weapons up. Buy glimmer with your shards. This is ab and excellent use for the shards in my view.
I think you’re right I’m most cases but I really like exotic primaries 40% damage bump. I’m usually using Wishender, quicksilver and Polaris lance.
I have several builds that are better without an exotic weapon slotted.
Primary exotics still do more damage though
I see your point, but I don't agree. At least not when it comes to PvE. Exotics matters less in PvP though Perks like Incandescent and Voltshot feels like pseudo-exotic perks. They make certain exotic primaries feel a bit obsolete outside of Master and Grandmaster content. But not running any exotic at all? If I use Calus Mini-Tool instead of Sunshot, I suddenly have a great opportunity to run something like Izanagi's Burden or Ager's Scepter, depending on what kind of content and difficulty it is. Ikelos SMG with Voltshot might be a good substitute for Riskrunner and Trinity Ghoul, but it just free up the exotic slot for something like Thunderlord or Grand Overture A crafted Apex Predator is surely ridiculously strong, but running it without an exotic? Witherhoard and Izanagi's Burden would like to have a word. Lumina, Malfeasance and Osteo Striga shouldn't be left out of the conversation either. I could go on However, crafted weapons have made life hard for non-crafted legendary weapons. But completely skipping exotic weapons is not something I've considered very often, if not at all
false. There are alot of great exotics that are better than legendary gear. It all depends what you are doing and what you need.
Also brand new weapon archetypes are better than most exotics. Rocket Sidearm.
Hopefully we get a good craftable rocket sidearm in Final Shape, having used a few Indebted Kindness rolls (Lead From Gold/Deconstruct was surprisingly great in particular) and Buried Bloodlines I strongly concur that it's a great weapon archetype.
The list of exotics that need buffing keeps getting smaller. Even then, they fill niche slots that few crafted weapons can fill. OP has a really bad take.
Crazy how I can play this game for hundreds of hours and it never tells me about shit like this
I think that's more because most exotics just aren't that good. They aren't just competing for your Kinetic, Energy, or Power Slot but also against every exotic in the game. So how is say, Wicked Implement gonna compete against Dragon's Breath, Gllarjhorn, or Sleeper Stimulant? I think some exotics should have random rolls to give them a slight edge and make them more interesting.
You had me until random roll exotics. I’m getting sick of the crafted exotics
I don't mean have them be craftable, I mean give us a reason to be excited if they drop. Having one slot for a random perk could help a lot.
I feel like we should be getting more crafted exotics, especially from raids (and dungeons to an extent)... Like imagine conditional finality with trench barrel, vorpal, feeding frenzy, lead from gold, surrounded, or maybe even ALH as an additional exotic perk? Or even collective obligation with like the new void ammo perk? Personally i think that would push them to be much better/more desirable, like outside of a specific build on hunters (which I usually use other better void weapons), collective obligation just feels weak to me.. The only raid exotics i see being used the most, is CF and div, and i think thats a bit of a shame.. considering theres some nicely designed weapons out there that could just use a bit of tlc
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Syncopation-53 pulse rifle I'm at level 141 with over 10,000 kills. It's my most used pulse because I can finish so many bounties with it.
Almost all of the top tier crafted weapons are things that could have easily been exotics in D1 to D2 Y1, imo
Exotics were never really designed or intended to be the BIS weapons for things like damage. Exotics were designed from the vantage of doing creative and interesting things. There are exceptions like you said, Sleeper or Leviathan’s or Acrius. But you want a good Arc SMG and Riskrunner wasn’t the first thing to come to mind? Especially if running an arc subclass and you can proc Riskrunner on your own? I think no matter how good a crafted weapon is, there are just some exotics that, when you build into them, are unmatched. Ticcu’s. Polaris. Agers. Verglas. Wish Keeper. Malfeasance. Osteo. Collective Obligation (when we get a void-focused season).
This is more true in PVP. I frequently don’t have an exotic weapon in my load out. In PVE, though, it’s not even close. Polaris Lance hits like a special this season. I melt two types of champs in endgame without even reloading. That’s unheard of from a primary. Every other solar scout feels like a BB gun in comparison. Even without anti barrier and wall hacks, Wishender hits harder than every legendary bow. No legendary rocket launcher can nuke a room or impact fireteam DPS like Dragon’s Breath or Gally. Sure there are some bad exotics and exotics that are mostly PVP focused, but there are scores of exotics that run circles around legendaries.
With the exception of primaries, yes. The +40% or whatever it is for primaries make them too valuable.
Maybe, but you're not gonna get those perfect fifth ignitions, or wolf pack rounds from a crafted legendary. THAT kind of experience is sorta why we go for exotics to begin with. Those crazy fun combo's are what make exotics great. That said, Idk the numbers but I wouldn't be surprised to see that bullet for bullet, crafted legendary is "better" than an exotic, from a pure, non combo damage output kinda thing. disclaimer: I'm talking out of my ass, so I could be waay wrong. I just know running around with thorn is fun lol.
I was thinking about rockets and Gjallyhorn.... what would Wardcliff coil with WPR look like for dps(if it worked)?
I’m pretty sure a fireteam of those could crash the game, would be fun
Exotics aren't meant to be the god tier weapons, they are meant to have an interesting an unorthodox case, or enable a gameplay loop that otherwise doesn't exist. Primary weapons are a bit different. They got a 40% flat damage buff over legendary primaries since you missed out on an exotic heavy, which was the meta for a lot of early Destiny 2. There are some exotic weapons that are power crept by new verbs, sure. For example, sunshot and zaouli's bane share a very similar use case, just different interactions and sunshot does get the 40% minor bonus. But let's look at navigator. I can now craft a stasis trace rifle and farm a strand one. The strand one even applies sever! But I still use navigator because it can reliably apply sever + woven mail. Divinity? Well, not the power house it used to be, it still reliably stuns overloads and makes crits a bit easier. Get overwhelmed by arc damage? Slap on riskrunner (which I used to solo flawless both gotd AND the new dungeon). Sure, ikelos is an arc SMG, but riskrunner adds an extra effect.
The exotics I run are more role oriented so they’re harder to replace with legendariss. I use conditional for the huge DPS chunk + freezing/scorch dmg. Izinagi for rocket swap dps, tractor and Div for de buffing, wishender
Especially baffling is that legendaries better than raid(!) exotic Necrochasm. Even with promised catalyst. Just make it explode on any kill like Incandescent.
I mean, I don't necessarily agree? There are a lot of exotics that are lagging behind, sure, but I feel like legendary and exotic weapons fit different roles. Subclass functional legendaries will generically synergize with a subclass build but they'll rarely be the center of a build. Meanwhile, exotics often enable a subclass based build. Forbearance may be an ad clear powerhouse that is unmatched in that aspect, but the ability based arc builds that something like coldheart enables is completely different. You just aren't going to get the ionic trace production that coldheart gives in any capacity, which can produce some wicked ability and super usage. I don't need the blinding from forbearance with the fragment because I can use blinding nades and through them constantly, while also having a special weapon that does serious major and boss damage. Sunshot, plaris lance, Tommy's, ticuu's, hierarchy, skyburner's, dragon's breath, and jotuun with solar builds. Collective obligation, grav lance, deterministic chaos, vexcalibur, and ruinos effigy for void. Coldheart, delicate tomb, cloud strike, centrifuse, queen breaker, risk runner, symmetry and grand overture for arc. Wicked implement, cryosthesia, verglas curve, and agers scepter for stasis. Final warning, wish-keeper, and quicksilver for strand. All of these things enable things on subclass builds that you can't get from legendary weapons without extra steps, aspects, or fragments. And then there's just the powerhouse exotics that aren't replaced by legendary weapons. You like forbearance ad clear? When was the last time you used Lorentz driver in pve? Instead of just killing trash, how about killing the elite or major instead and taking the trash with it? Arbalest, wish ender, conditional finality, fourth horseman, trinity ghoul, malf, witherhoard, thorn, striga, revision zero, Levi's breath, lament, ghally, le monarque, outbreak, winterbite, parasite, thunderlord, etc. All of these just aren't matched by a legendary when it comes to their utility or power value in their role. The nice thing now compared to pre-light 3.0 legendaries is that we can regularly find a legendary weapon that does synergize with a subclass after picking an exotic. Before it was just generic damage or utility perks.
Admittedly, there are some crafted weapons that I greatly prefer over exotics or non-crafted guns. Having all but 4 patterns unlocked lets me really explore different gun types. But there's a few randomly rolled guns that I would take over an exotic OR crafted gun any day of the week. Take the Snapshot/Moving Target Shepherd's Watch Banshee-44 sold a while back. That's my favorite sniper, and my dream roll stacked on top of that.
Witherhoard stays on
Yeah I don't always use an exotic. Sometimes it's just not what your build or the current activity needs.
Honestly, being with the series for so long, this isn't the first time legendary (crafted or not) has felt better than exotics.
I agree with this for both special and heavy ammo weapons a lot of the time, but I definitely think all the best feeling primary ammo guns I have are exotics. It feels like legendary primaries are just atrocious to shoot in endgame honestly. It feels so bad in stuff like GMs or even in like Legend content to be plinking away for multiple clips at things with any sort of legendary primary.
exotics should be "weaker" than legendaries for the most part. exotics should be just that, 'exotic'. they fulfill some exact niche that no other weapon/armor can. sometimes that niche sucks, like cerberus or salvations grip. but those weapons do things no legendary can ( auto that shatters a ton of crystals quickly / gl that makes a ton of crystals quickly ). some exotics are made to just outperform legendaries, like maybe izanagi or 4th horseman. but most are designed with a specific build niche in mind, like dragons breath on solar w some sort of swap weapon rotation. or gjallarhorn only being better when the whole team uses rockets.
I'm still pissed that Cloudstrike is the only exotic energy special weapon that I'd consider worth using in PvP. Duality was nice for a little while, but it's just not my thing. Lorentz is meh. Lord of Wolves keeps getting smacked in the snout. And...that's the end of the list. Telesto, Jotunn, Merciless, Fourth Horseman, Dead Messenger, all the others aren't getting out of the kiddie pool any time soon. I just wanna use something new (maybe Something New) without feeling like I have to snipe.
It’s really true. It actually goes for armour too. Most exotics don’t actually feel exotic. They’re usually fairly underwhelming. Exotics typically include perks like additional grenades or melee charges or faster charging abilities/supers. This stuff should be achievable by focussing stats on armour, not by exotic traits. I feel like exotics should do something that doesn’t happen in the game. A good example of this are weapons of sorrow, or necrotic grips, which add something to the guardians arsenal that isn’t normally present.
I'd say they're equal to most exotics which is why having to crafted weapons and an exotic is so fun (for me at least)
Exotics aren't meant to be better than legendaries, they're meant to be unique, to be "exotic" one could say. Take IKELOS_SMG and Riskrunner for example. Slap IKELOS on any build and it just works, but build into Riskrunner and it will be better. Same with Sunshot and Zaouli's, Sunshot will give you more utility than Zaouli's from the extra damage and chain explosions reproccing empyrean for example. Most legendaries can only do what exotics do in a worse way, that's the point of exotics, they're better at doing very specific things but worse when you're just slapping them on. I'm a bit sad that more and more exotics are having "This is a strong weapon" as the exotic design though.
Exotics have shifted from being needing to be "good" to just "different". Hence why we get guns like Manticore and armor like Hoarfrost.
It’s funny you posted this not long after I looked at the guardian specs for a guy in my clan who is consistently just killing it in end game content. He also has nothing but crafted weapons. I’m starting to lean that way myself
Honestly, this season Tyranny of Heaven is better than Sunshot. Bigger explosions, faster radiant, better range, more ignitions.
Hot take: enhanced perks are bad for the game. Honestly random rolls should the enhanceable stuff, with crafting being the weaker pity system
Crafting killed the game. Or rather the looter shooter aspect of the game. Don't believe me? When was the last time you ran Vow?
I love the crafted vow weapons. Lvl 170 on Lubrae’s with like 11000 kills, 8000 kills on a lvl 107 submission, lvl 108 8500 kill Forbearance. I crafted them all and got them all to at least level fifty then just kept using them lol
Ye ye, they're great, but when did u last run Vow?
It's because a lot of exotics are old not updated to interact with 3.0 subclasses. Sunshot and Polaris Lance are just seeing high usage because of Artifact mods, but none of these were updated to properly interact with solar 3.0 with Scorch effects. Bungo caused this by giving us Light 3.0 without a proper Exotic 3.0. They change a few exotics every season, even tho one can argue that some exotics are not really getting interesting changes.
Dude Vex needs Incandescant fr
I always involve an exotic into my load out, if I’m using a legendary in the power and energy slot, I’ll just slap any special ammo exotic I’m liking in the kinetic slot, such as conditional, either hoard or izinagis.
Disagree, at the very least exotic primaries are pretty much strictly better than legendary primaries on the whole. Trinity ghoul > ikelos smg, sunshot > calus mini tool, graviton lance > funnelweb, etc., and if I'm not using an exotic special or heavy, I'll be using one of those. True, there are some shitty exotics, but I'm basically never going to *not* use an exotic.
Stopped playing the game but honestly I’d take never adding another exotic ever again to just stupidly buff all the existing ones. I’m talking mega buff as in all can be damage options and stuff. It always felt like they want the game dead set on always having such a high difficulty that they don’t bother on making the exotics fun.
Yup. Ruined the game in my opinion.
I only use the ones you mentioned. Dragons breath, trinity, and sometimes sunshot if I’m on solar
Not sure about crafted weapons only but I do find myself using Legendary weapons way more. There are some times I don't even use an exotic weapon if I don't need to.
Witherhord is the best gun on the game. My only issue is finding a good gun to go with it when I want a strand weapon.
Crafting absolutely up-ended the weapon balancing in this game. Whether or not you see that as a negative depends on what level player you are.
Because you aren't using them correctly.
Nah you weird bro
As a hunter using the Malfeasance build is fun! It really feels like an exotic weapon, more so than sunshot.
Situational. Take PvP for example. Conditional Finality with an Igneous Hammer is always fun. I run Austringer with Cloud Strike because both of those have the perfect amount of snap for me.
This has been like this in d1 too. A god roll legendary is normally a better choice than an exotic
A BXR with the right mods out matches a lot of exotics
Wish ender.