Highlights
- Weapon perks in Destiny 2 greatly impact a weapon’s feel and performance, so it’s important to evaluate good perk combinations before deciding to pursue a weapon.
- Some of the new Season of the Witch weapon perks, like Loose Change and Heal Clip, have drawbacks compared to other perks that offer similar benefits, making them less appealing.
- High Ground, while a damage-boosting perk, is highly situational and provides a flat bonus, limiting its usefulness compared to other perks with more consistent benefits. Enlightened Action and Precision Instrument offer decent improvements, but there are better perk options available.
Weapon Perks help in creating the identity of the weapon in Destiny 2. Each perk can significantly change how a weapon feels and performs. Good perks and their combinations are important to see if a weapon is worth going after or not.
Season of the Witch released 6 brand new Weapon Perks: Barrel Constrictor (Shotgun exclusive), Heal Clip, High Ground, Loose Change, Precision Instrument, and Enlightened Action. Some of these perks will only be available on certain weapon archetypes.
6
Loose Change
Loose Change is a reload speed-boosting perk that will only be available on weapons that have elemental affinities. Loose Change states, “Applying an elemental debuff to a target increases this weapon’s reload speed for a short duration.”
There are a lot of reload speed-boosting perks in the game, like Outlaw, Rapid Hit, and Frenzy, which are much easier to take advantage of and provide much more extensive benefits. Loose Change requires you to run a build or have a weapon that is focused on elemental debuffs — like Volatile, Scorch, Jolt, and Slow — and provides little benefit in exchange. However, there are a lot of better perks than Loose Change that do the same thing without the downsides, making it a bit underwhelming.
5
Heal Clip
Heal Clip is the first ever Support Perk to be added in the game and is currently only available on the seasonal weapon, The Eremite. It is not confirmed whether this perk is exclusive to Solar weapons. Heal Clip states, “Reloading after a final blow grants cure to you and your nearby allies.”
Cure is a Solar verb that provides the player with 60 health in PvE and 30 health in The Crucible. Though Heal Clip can cure allies, it is underwhelming mainly when the perk Unrelenting exists, which is much better in providing health to the player and requires no reload as well.
4
High Ground
High Ground is not a weapon-exclusive perk and is also available on the new Seasonal Weapons, Locus Locutus, and The Eremite. It is a damage-boosting Weapon Perk that states, “Gain bonus damage when attacking targets from higher ground.”
The working of the perk makes it extremely situational and unreliable for most people, i.e., it requires you to stand on a platform higher than the enemy. The damage boost does not scale with height and provides a flat damage bonus of 20 percent in PvE and 10 percent in PvP. Furthermore, using aspects like Heat Rises will not activate the perk. Overall, many damage-boosting perks are much less situational and provide a better bonus.
3
Enlightened Action
Enlightened Action is also not a weapon-type exclusive perk and helps boost the weapon’s reload speed and handling. It is currently available in 13 weapons and is a decent perk option. The in-game description of the perk states, “Dealing damage improves reload speed and handling.”
This perk provides a noticeable improvement in both the weapon’s handling and reload speed, but again, there are better perk options that provide much better benefits on similar or even slightly lower requirements. While Enlightened Action does not require much to activate, it remains a pretty mediocre choice on almost every weapon.
2
Barrel Constrictor
Barrel Constrictor is a Shotgun-exclusive weapon perk currently only available on Deadpan Delivery, a returning Red War Weapon. Barrel Constrictor states, “Final blows with this weapon reduce the projectile spread of its next shot for a short duration.”
The projectile spread of a Shotgun is a very important factor in PvE and especially in Crucible. A tighter projectile spread effectively increases the range and makes the Shotgun much easier to use. Barrel Constrictor is mainly a PvP perk and has the downside of being activated after getting a weapon kill, which makes it harder to take advantage of as you already have low ammo to begin with.
1
Precision Instrument
Precision Instrument is a Weapon Perk that is exclusive to Precision Weapons and works similarly to the popular perk Target Lock. Precision Instrument states, “Dealing sustained damage increases precision damage.” This sustained damage can be both precision and body damage.
Precision Instrument provides a stacking damage bonus that stacks up to 6 times, meaning you can get the maximum precision damage upon landing 6 weapon shots, and it will last for about 1 second after you have stopped shooting. The precision damage increases from 4 percent to 25 percent in both PvP and PvE based on the number of stacks you have.
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