If you want to have the best weapons to destroy the worst enemies in Destiny 2, this is the article for you. Your Fireteam needs you, Guardian. Whether you’re grinding for engrams in public events or pounding away at Emperor Calus in the Leviathan Raid, you need to have the best weapons for every situation. This means keeping up to date with which weapons in Destiny 2 are mowing through enemies with the most force and precision. With the recent Warmind expansion came new weapons to play with, along with a host of buffs to classic Destiny 2 standbys. The question is: with all of the choices available to you, which should you have equipped? Read on, dear Guardian, and find out which weapons made our list for the top 10 Destiny 2 PvE weapons.
10. Merciless Fusion Rifle
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Lord, have mercy.
Don’t you hate it when an enemy just won’t go down? When it feels like you’ve pumped shot after shot after shot into a vicious beast, and there’s no end in sight? Well, that’s where the Merciless comes in. When you absolutely must down an enemy boss, why not turn to the Fusion Rifle that has no mercy? What has kept this weapon at the top of the PvE hill is the righteous amounts of DPS it doles out. This Fusion Rifle melts through shields. Beyond that, if your enemy keeps on coming after you’ve spent a couple of rounds, the Merciless starts firing faster and faster, upping that DPS like crazy. This is because of Merciless’s Conservative Momentum perk, which allows you to keep hammering enemy Knights, Centurions, and Captains as if there were no tomorrow. There shall be no mercy for the wicked.
9. Duty Bound Auto Rifle
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Duty. Heh. Duty.
What’s better than an assault rifle? How about an Assault Rifle that’s super accurate and deals massive damage? Duty Bound is a recent addition to Destiny 2, and it packs a wallop. The Adaptive Frame perk makes it a super reliable option, ensuring that your close to mid-range foes are caught within your deadly barrage. The different sight and scope perks will either make Duty Bound an extremely quick handle, or an extremely accurate hitter. This means you can use it in long range situations, hitting enemies from across the field with ease. But the best thing about Duty Bound isn’t just its accuracy: it’s the traits which set it apart. Either Zen Moment, which increases the stability of the weapon as you cause damage, or Rampage, which increases the damage Duty Bound can put out with every kill (stacks up to 3 times), make great options for taking out opponents all over the map. Do your duty. Pick up Duty Bound.
8. Inaugural Address Pulse Rifle
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Mr. President
Pulse rifles are a good idea if you want to do solid mid-range damage. Post-Warmind, Bungie really upped the Rounds Per Minute on all adaptive pulse rifles, meaning Inaugural Address’s starting 360 RPM is now a fantastic 390 RPM. What does that mean? It means more bang for your proverbial buck, that’s what. Picture this: you and your Fireteam are rockin’ and rollin’ against a Hive horde, really giving them the business, thralls flailing and falling all around. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on the situation, an ogre pops out, and this guy starts taking it to you. He’s laser-ing your teammates left and right, and you’re really in trouble. But then, you remember: you have a speech to give, an Inaugural Address. What makes Inaugural Address such a solid PvE option isn’t just its Sturdy Frame perk or its awesome DPS. This energy weapon also combines a wonderful pair of perks in Outlaw and Kill Clip. On their own, either is a great addition to any weapon, but together they are ridiculous. Outlaw decreases the time for reloading after precision kills, and Kill Clip increases damage after reloading. It’s a constant feedback loop of mayhem and destruction. Stand up and boldly declare your allegiance to victory with Inaugural Address.
7. Tractor Cannon Shotgun
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Tractor Cannon? More like Attractive Cannon.
What was once Destiny 2’s primary source of hilarity in PvP matches (this gun pushes people!) is now one of the best weapons in the game. Why? Because of its abilities with the void class. The Repulsor Force perk, which is how this shotgun “pushes” enemies, also suppresses their abilities and makes them more vulnerable to void abilities. This doesn’t apply to just ammo or weapons, or even just to yourself. It applies to your entire Fireteam, and their super abilities as well. Let’s paint a picture: You and your Fireteam are fighting against Protheon, the Modular Mind, and you’re hoping to get this done quickly; there’s always more strikes, after all. So, you and your teammates all whip out your Tractor Cannons and just start going to town on poor Protheon. You rain so much damage on the mechanical beast you rack up your Fireteam’s supers, and then you unleash a collective barrage of void damage so powerful that poor Protheon just melts away. Don’t let Tractor Cannon's glory days as a funky meme push you away.
6. Graviton Lance Pulse Rifle
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Falling upwards.
This weapon is a beast. If you’ve read our list of the best PvP weapons in Destiny 2, you’ll remember that the Graviton Lance pulse rifle took the number 1 spot. Here, however, it comes in at number 6, and for many of the same reasons that it took a place on the PvP list. With a fantastic amount of stability and range, this would be a solid energy weapon option without diving into the perks. But those perks are what make Graviton Lance shine. Especially after being seriously buffed up after Warmind’s drop. Picture this: You’re taking on a horde of Fallen; Dregs, Vandals, and Shanks are crawling towards you. You’re up against the wall, using trusty Duty Bound to fend them off, but its just not doing the trick. A Major-level Fallen Captain emerges, and this guy means business. So, what do you do? You switch over to your Graviton Lance, that’s what. And you start pounding away not only at the Captain, but at the adds around it. How? Because of the Cosmology perk. Cosmology causes each of the ads you take down to explode in a flash of void energy which releases additional void projectiles which seek out and explode additional enemies. This means that your Major-level Captain is getting its health wittled away slowly but surely at the same time as all of his little friends are getting blown up. Defy gravity with the Graviton Lance.
5. Huckleberry Submachine Gun
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I’ll be your Huckleberry.
Adds. They keep us from the goal we really want to achieve, which is to rip off the heads of bosses. I hate ads, you hate ads, but we all have to deal with them. I’ve provided a few different options for add-mopping weapons, but let’s look at one of my favorites, and a recent addition to Destiny 2, The Huckleberry. First and foremost, just take a look at the RPM in the picture above. 750 rounds, are you kidding me? This thing slices through adds like butter, and that’s before we look at Huckleberry’s perks. Like Inaugural Address, The Huckleberry has a perk combination too good to pass up. Ride the Bull increases the rate of fire if you keep holding the trigger down, at the risk of increased recoil, and ensures that any kills with The Huckleberry will reload a portion of the magazine. Combine Ride the Bull with Rampage, which increases damage dealt after kills up to 3 times, and you have yourself the potential to take down a whole field of thralls without ever having to reload. Do yourself a favor and try The Huckleberry.
4. Nameless Midnight Scout Rifle
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The gun with no name.
Nameless Midnight is a good all around weapon. Its reliable, sturdy, and it perform negatively in any category. It fires off high impact rounds, has decent range, stability, and handling, and its reload speed is fantastic for a Scout Rifle. Why place this weapon at number 4, above weapons that I prefer (such as The Huckleberry and Graviton Lance)? Because of its versatility. Nameless Midnight provides your Guardian with a short, mid, and long-range tool which is easily adaptable against both adds and bosses alike. Nameless Midnight’s quick handling speed, in concert with its high impact, means you can take out Destiny 2’s quicker bosses (like wizards) quickly. Not only that, but Nameless Midnight has also proven itself to be just as reliable in PvP as in PvE, which means that if you don’t have Nameless Midnight in your loadout, you should get it. It’s a powerful weapon in any situation.
3. Midnight Coup Hand Cannon
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Overthrow your oppressors.
I was tempted to go with Crimson here, but Midnight Coup is too much fun to pass up. Like a couple of the other weapons on this list, Midnight Coup is perfectly viable in either PvE or PvP, and this is because of the marriage of the Outlaw and Rampage perks. Rampage stacks a damage increase up to 3 times when Midnight Coup gets a kill. If that kill happens to be the result of a precision shot, then Rampage makes it so your time to reload is greatly increased. The two perks combine to make Midnight Coup fantastic in any situation. This is a great weapon for the Leviathan Raid, especially against adds. It chews through Cabal (provided you’re landing precision shots) and its handling and stability make sure that you’ve got the ability to be precise and accurate through any encounter. Take down Calus by staging a Coup.
2. Sleeper Simulant Linear Fusion Rifle
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This is not a dream.
Sleeper Simulant is so much fun that I couldn’t resist putting it on this list. It’s a fusion rifle with overcharge, which means projectiles penetrate shields (and even enemies) entirely. Shots with this beauty make quick work of bosses and adds. But the most fun in PvE with Sleeper Simulant comes from experimenting with the Dornoschen perk, which causes the overcharge effect. Dornoschen makes it so projectiles bounce off surfaces. What the perk’s description doesn’t explicitly state is that those bouncing projectiles actually cause nearly twice the damage of a perfectly accurate shot. Let’s say you’re running a Nightfall Strike, and you come up against the Ogres at the end of Savathun’s Song. Now, your instinct will be to aim right at their central eyes, but you should hold off for a second. Aim at the ground in front of an ogre, take a shot, and see what happens. You can thank me later.
1. D.A.R.C.I Sniper Rifle
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Take a trip to Derbyshire with Mr. Darci.
It shouldn’t come as any surprise that D.A.R.C.I. is making an appearance on this list, though it might shock you to find it at number one. There have to be better weapons, right? Maybe a nice Rocket Launcher like the Braytech Osprey or the Curtain Call? That might have been the case before Warmind, but post-Warmind? D.A.R.C.I. is the best weapon in the game. D.A.R.C.I. handles like a dream and reloads quickly for a sniper rifle. It is also extremely stable. But, like most of the other weapons on this list, it’s not the stats, but the perks, that sets D.A.R.C.I. apart as a cut above the rest. The seemingly useless Personal Assistant perk, which provides you with the health and stats of a given target if you keep it in your sites for at least 3 seconds, is perfectly fine. It’s always nice to know the health of a target, right? Alone, Personal Assistant does little to aid you other than giving out some nice information. Combine Personal Assistant with the Target Acquired perk and suddenly you have a sniper rifle which deals out the most DPS of any weapon in the game. Target Acquired makes it so that when Personal Assistant is activated, your target acquisition and damage are both amplified, meaning that you can now double your damage with every shot D.A.R.C.I. takes. This means that if you wait a couple of seconds before firing you should be dealing massive damage to even the most powerful enemies in the game, ripping through them quickly. Get yourself a D.A.R.C.I., and make yourself happy.
His mountainous homeland of Colorado has provided Cyle with the survival skills necessary to expertly navigate the wilds of Skyrim, Temeria, and Thedas. He wants you to be just as successful as he is.
Gamer Since:
1993
Favorite Genre:
RPG
Currently Playing:
Bloodborne
Top 3 Favorite Games:
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Mass Effect
