My Thoughts on What Destiny 1 Exotic Weapons Could Come to Destiny 2
Dragon’s Breath was a Solar Rocket Launcher that would release a napalm canister when you release the trigger, raining fire down on everything. It was a little gimmicky and at one point considered the worst gun in the game, though it did get a buff that made it tolerable. Deathbringer has a similar idea to it and I don’t see a lot of people using it (though why would they when Anarchy is so good right now), so I don’t think we’ll be seeing it unless they just dump it into the world loot pool with no prior announcement. Plan C was an Arc Fusion Rifle whose charge and equip times were very short immediately after weapon swap. This effect is basically a normal random roll perk for Fusion Rifles in Backup Plan now which means this gun is not really special anymore. Either this effect would have to be dramatically increased with a bonus effect or the gun would need a complete rework for it to come back.
Exotic Weapons | Destiny Wiki
Exotic Weapons are available through special vendors such as the Agent of the Nine as well as by completing Exotic Bounties. These weapons are powerful and come with static upgrades including a unique upgrade. Below is a comprehensive list of all Exotic Weapons in the game.
Gallery
List
Hard Light
- Crucible or Vanguard Tiger Strike Rewards
- Bought from Xür
Monte Carlo
Necrochasm
SUROS Regime
Plan C
Pocket Infinity
Vex Mythoclast
Hawkmoon
The Last Word
Thorn
Bad Juju
Red Death
Fate of All Fools
MIDA Multi-Tool
347 Vesta Dynasty
The 4th Horseman
Invective
My Thoughts on What Destiny 1 Exotic Weapons Could Come to Destiny 2
It’s been a while since the last post. I have no excuses; life can get hard, especially in the past six months. But I’ve been having a lot of ideas for small pieces percolating in my head and I think it’s high time I put some of those to virtual paper and sort them out. So! I’ve been playing a LOT of Destiny 2 recently, even finally managing to clear not one but two raids for the first time! Only… three more to go before they’re temporarily removed from the game, and five more total in D2 right now (not counting the new one coming with Beyond Light in November, the reprised Vault of Glass coming sometime after that, and going back to the rest of the old D1 raids if I want). I have a large checklist of tasks to accomplish before the new expansion and the content vaulting takes place, and at the top of the list is acquiring every remaining Exotic weapon and catalyst in the game (that I can; gonna have to wait for Heir Apparent and the Fourth Horseman catalyst to become available again since I missed out on those originally). I’m also greatly looking forward to the two confirmed returning D1 Exotics for Season 12, being Hawkmoon and No Time To Explain, especially since I never finished the D1 quest for the latter and, being an Xbox player, never getting the PS4-exclusive former, so I can finally use those for the first time and see what I missed (even if Hawkmoon is going to be very different from its original incarnation). And it got me thinking: what other remaining D1 Exotics have not been brought to D2 yet, and what are the chances of them returning soon, either with Beyond Light’s launch or sometime over the course of Year 4? So I’mma look at them in no particular order and briefly explain my thought process on their chances of making it into Destiny 2’s sandbox. I’m only looking at the weapons; the armor is an entirely other topic that I’m not sure I can cover since I only ever played Warlock in Destiny 1.
First let’s go over all the D1 Exotics that have already made it into D2 over the course of the past three years: MIDA Multi-Tool, Hard Light, The Jade Rabbit, Telesto, SUROS Regime, Sleeper Simulant, Ace of Spades, The Chaperone, Lord of Wolves, The Queenbreaker’s Bow (now just called The Queenbreaker since there are actual bows in the game now), Thunderlord, The Last Word, Thorn, Outbreak Prime (now Outbreak Perfected), Bad Juju, Truth, Monte Carlo, and The 4th Horseman (now… The Fourth Horseman for some reason). Beyond Light is bringing back Hawkmoon and No Time To Explain, with potentially more that has yet to be revealed. While technically a different gun entirely with a different backstory and lore, the Whisper of the Worm is functionally identical to the Black Spindle: missed shots have a chance to return to the magazine, and landing three precision hits immediately refills the mag from reserve. The only difference is Spindle was a Solar Special Sniper Rifle, and Whisper is a Solar Power Sniper. And an honorable mention to the Wardcliff Coil since that’s based on the previously-unreleased Dubious Volley. Some of these guns have changed in some way; Hard Light is now a Void gun with new additional perks, Sleeper and Queenbreaker are now Linear Fusion Rifles instead of normal Fusions and go in the Power slot, Chaperone is now a Kinetic shotgun, Outbreak lost the bonus damage against Fallen, and we know Hawkmoon’s luck-based perks will be altered in some way when that gun returns. Not to mention that most of these got Exotic Catalysts to additionally buff the weapons in some way or other. We’ll look into this more when we discuss ways old Exotics may change when coming to D2, so remember that for later. Now let’s look at some other weapons that are similar but not quite the same as older ones. Crimson is basically the Red Death Pulse Rifle, but in Hand Cannon form; same perks and everything and it even fires in a 3-round burst, unique for HCs. The Riskrunner SMG is functionally very similar to the Zhalo Supercell Auto Rifle, though with the additional Arc Conductor perk of reducing Arc damage and boosting the gun’s damage when taking Arc damage for the first time, and getting kills while in this state extend the duration, and only then do you get Zhalo’s original effect of chain lightning kills and ammo refund on kill – so basically a better Zhalo, although true you don’t get bonus Super energy from it. And finally Season of Arrivals introduced the Temptation’s Hook and Falling Guillotine Legendary Swords, which are almost identical to the Bolt-Caster and Dark-Drinker respectively (casting a bolt of Arc energy and doing a Void spiral attack for their heavy attacks), but, you know, not Exotic. Now that we’re all caught up to speed, let’s do some speculating.
First order of business: eliminate the least likely Exotics to return. Top of that list: Fate of All Fools, which I’m not even sure it really counts since only ONE player was ever gifted this gun by Bungie and it was a Solar prototype/hybrid of both The Jade Rabbit and No Time To Explain, both of which are already/soon to come into the game. There’s a really heartwarming story behind that, look it up sometime. Secondly: Pocket Infinity. Allegedly this Solar Fusion Rifle was supposed to come back to D2 in Year 3, but it’s unique perk of Full Auto firing and returning missed shots to the magazine kept crashing the game. Considering it is the only Exotic weapon from Year 1 of Destiny 1 to never get a reprised version for similar bug-related reasons, I think it’s safe to say that unless Bungie ever finally fixes the gun, changes its function entirely, or the engine is updated when we move to the next generation of consoles to accommodate it, it will forever be stuck in Y1 of D1, never to return. Thirdly: Black Spindle. Again, Whisper is functionally the same gun, so unless they change the Spindle’s functionality enough to differentiate it from Whisper (and not just make it pre-nerf Whisper or Black Hammer), I literally don’t see the point in bringing it forward. Fourthly: all of the Adept weapons from the Age of Triumph Hard Mode raids. They were just Exotic versions of the normal Primary raid weapons that all added a random element type. Destiny 2’s weapon system is different, so they’d all just go in the Energy weapon slot and lose that part of their “uniqueness”, and I’m not even sure people really liked them in the first place. Cool idea for sure, but not executed that well. If they come back at all, it’ll be as normal Legendary versions for if/when the old raids come to D2 – like I fully expect all the Vault of Glass guns to come back, though maybe not with the same loot table/drop rate. If I had to choose one to return in Adept form, maybe Fatebringer could considering its legacy in the community, but I can’t say that’d be likely.
Briefly going back to Red Death and Zhalo Supercell, on the one hand Crimson is essentially the replacement for Red Death. On the other, being a different weapon type altogether, there may be some merit in having a similar gun for different purposes, especially if they change RD to differentiate it from Crimson in some way. Same goes for Zhalo, although as I said Riskrunner already has a stronger version of Zhalo’s main perk so they’d have to work to make Zhalo a viable alternative (though an Exotic Arc Auto is already unique for D2). For Bolt-Caster and Dark-Drinker, again we technically have replacements for those now, although they’re not Exotics so that has its own pros and cons. In a similar fashion, Raze-Lighter’s main effect of a strong heavy attack uppercut is now standard across all swords in D2, so it’d have to be changed drastically in some way. That’s not to say these three swords would be pointless since plenty of players have strong nostalgic attachment to them, it’d just be difficult. Ironically the only remaining sword, The Young Wolf’s Howl, while seen in D1 as a downgrade to Raze-Lighter, could fare better in D2; they could just adjust it’s heavy attack’s ammo consumption and it’d have a unique place in D2’s sandbox, especially since we don’t have an Exotic Solar sword yet, and more weapons that can debuff enemies while also dealing damage over time would be great. Plus I really like it’s unique background given that it’s a sword made for us the player, it is our personal sword, and I think it’s a shame we didn’t get to hang onto it when the Tower fell.
In Destiny 1, Thunderlord had two sibling Machine Guns that were literally the exact same weapon with the exact same effect of boosting rate-of-fire and accuracy while holding down the trigger, just of different elemental varieties. Thunderlord was Arc, Abaddon was Solar, and Nova Mortis was Void. In Destiny 2, we’ve only gotten Thunderlord so far, and it got an upgrade to actually better represent the Thunder part. Calling down lightning bolts on precision kills is so cool. If Abaddon or Nova Mortis were to come over, I hope they could also find a way to better incorporate their elements while also not just being a reskin of Thunderlord. Fingers crossed more so for Nova so we can have an Exotic Void MG. Nemesis Star was essentially the inverse of the Thunderlord trio where the rate-of-fire slowed down as the range and accuracy increased the longer the trigger was held down. While it could work, I feel like it wouldn’t make a big impact in the current sandbox. It could change of course, but time will tell. Super Good Advice combined both Black Spindle and No Time To Explain’s perks to have crazy ammo recovery both on missed shots and headshots and had a quest involving the Vault of Glass, and I can see that coming back when VoG returns, maybe as a reprise of the original quest, maybe as a Season Pass reward, who knows. Both are Solar MGs and we already have two right now so while they could come back as the same element, they could also be changed, Bungie has done that before. They’d also have to compete with Xenophage’s DPS and yeah that’s not happening.
Fabian Strategy was a Kinetic Auto Rifle, exclusive to the Titan class whose perk granted a boost to handling, stability, and rate of fire when near by enemies, and regenerated a portion of ammo on kill. It was kind of underwhelming and we have a similar idea with The Huckleberry SMG but better, and it would have to compete with SUROS and Monte Carlo. Pretty low on the totem pole for me. For the Warlocks we had Tlaloc, a Kinetic Scout Rifle that a got boost to the same stats as Fabian when your Super was full. An interesting concept, and when the conditions were met the gun was quite good. But it hinges on conserving your Super, which depending on the activity and player you might not want to do, and Scouts aren’t super good right now apart from maybe MIDA, so it’s also not likely, although we did get an ornament for Thunderlord referencing it. Not at all the same but still. (If you’re wondering the Hunter exclusive was Ace of Spades, which we have in D2 already and can be used by all classes now) Boolean Gemini was a Kinetic Scout with two selectable perks: One Way, which gave bonus agility on precision kills; Or Another, which gave bonus armor on bodyshot kills, both of which could stack up to three times. While SUROS does still have two selectable perks, if they brought it back I’d like if they could combine the effects, although I’m not sure if the stat bonuses would work the same. It wasn’t very popular though so who knows. I do like the Blondie reference though.
The First Curse was the evil twin of The Last Word (even though Thorn kinda already is that): the first headshot kill refreshed the mag and granted a bonus to range and stability until you reload, and you gained a bonus to those two stats plus movement speed when aiming down sights (and it also had Triple Tap for extra precision incentive). The idea behind the gun is good, and I like the thematic foil incorporated even if its just a reskin. But Crimson has the same ammo refund feature while also healing you, it never had the same kind of fame as Last Word, Thorn or Hawkmoon, and it’d be yet another Exotic Kinetic Hand Cannon and we’re already getting another when Hawkmoon comes back. We don’t need a ninth – NINTH! – Exotic Kinetic HC, even if it’d be the final HC to bring back from D1 (not counting the Adept weapons). People would barely tolerate if we got another Energy HC of the Arc and Void and/or possibly Stasis variety just so we could complete the full elemental set. Maybe not for awhile, maybe not ever.
Dragon’s Breath was a Solar Rocket Launcher that would release a napalm canister when you release the trigger, raining fire down on everything. It was a little gimmicky and at one point considered the worst gun in the game, though it did get a buff that made it tolerable. Deathbringer has a similar idea to it and I don’t see a lot of people using it (though why would they when Anarchy is so good right now), so I don’t think we’ll be seeing it unless they just dump it into the world loot pool with no prior announcement. Plan C was an Arc Fusion Rifle whose charge and equip times were very short immediately after weapon swap. This effect is basically a normal random roll perk for Fusion Rifles in Backup Plan now which means this gun is not really special anymore. Either this effect would have to be dramatically increased with a bonus effect or the gun would need a complete rework for it to come back.
Dreg’s Promise was an Arc Sidearm (one of the first of the archetype I believe) with high ricochet shock rounds with enhanced targeting, plus Grave Robber and Reserve Ammo. Reserve Ammo is pointless in D2 since ammo works differently, and it was always the least popular of the House of Wolves exotics as you may have guessed. While I don’t really expect it any time soon, I would like to see it, both to have an Exotic Arc Sidearm and to complete the trinity of HoW guns. Give it a buff while you’re at it, it could use it. Trespasser was an Arc Sidearm and the personal weapon of choice for Shiro-4 from Rise of Iron, and was a burst gun that gave enhanced radar on kill and reloading after a kill caused the next burst to be longer and more powerful. If Shiro ever comes back (and I mean, someone’s gotta replace Cayde and it’s either him, Marcus Ren or Uldren), I don’t see why this gun can’t come back too. It probably won’t make a big splash or anything but it’s not like Sidearms have ever been very meta. Though maybe we’ll see if Traveler’s Chosen changes that hmm?
Universal Remote was a Kinetic Shotgun with a scope, offering increased range and precision damage when looking down it. Chaperone is very similar to it, minus the scope but plus stat bonuses on precision kills. I feel like this would need something to help differentiate it from Chaperone and/or just something to help it in general since while I like the idea of using a shotgun as a longer-range weapon, I don’t see enough reason to use it over Amanda Holliday’s personal favorite. Also I’m not great with Chaperone in the first place so. On the other side of the spectrum, No Land Beyond was a Kinetic Sniper Rifle without a proper scope that still offered increased precision damage and a bonus to damage on kill. Oh and also Spindle/Whisper’s Mulligan perk (the refund missed shots one). This gun was not very well liked, though it did have its fans on the PvP side. I’m not looking forward to it if the use of Revoker and Beloved in the Crucible right now is any indication of what skilled snipers could do with this thing, though I do appreciate the novelty of a scopeless long rifle. And hey, technically, it’s already in the game, as Devrim Kay is using it to literally no-scope Fallen and Cabal in the EDZ. Really helps with his Allan Quatermain image he’s got. Though I hope if we do get to use it again it’s a gift from Devrim and not a memento of him.
Invective was a Solar Shotgun with Full Auto and constantly regenerating ammo, and the personal weapon of choice for our Warlock Vanguard, Ikora Rey. I don’t think we’ll be seeing it as it was in Destiny 1 since the ammo system is changed and regen-ing ammo isn’t a thing Bungie wants around anymore. It could get reworked, but to what I don’t know. Ice Breaker is a Solar Sniper Rifle that also constantly regenerated ammo, though unlike Invective it couldn’t be reloaded at all. It also had Mulligan and made enemies explode and deal splash damage on kill. Again, the regen-ing ammo thing makes its return unlikely, though since it can’t be reloaded period I feel like maybe Bungie could make an exception to this rule to keep it unique and preserve its legacy, at least for PvE. Also with a name like ICE Breaker you’d think they could bring it back as a Stasis gun, though that makes the Breaker part not make sense since fire melts ice and I’m rambling now I’ll stop.
Patience and Time was an Arc Sniper Rifle that had a gillie suit theme and an appropriate perk: you gained active camo (invisibility when standing still) while aiming down sights, plus Third Eye (radar stays up when ADS). It sounds broken, but it wasn’t really, neither in PvE or PvP. I don’t think people are exactly clamoring for its return. Hereafter was another Arc Sniper that gave a boost to zoom and flinch resist while crouching, refunded the mag if all shots were headshot kills, and said headshot kills also blinded other nearby enemies. The blinding effect is kinda cool, not enough guns do that, but other than that it wasn’t really that special, though it was apparently the most popular of the three snipers I’m talking about in this paragraph. Zen Meteor was a Solar Sniper with two main perks: Dynamite, where every round was explosive and getting rapid kills with every round in the clip added a bonus higher-damage round for 5 seconds; and With a Laser Beam, where that bonus round created a massive explosion. Cool on paper and I love the Queen reference, but getting the perks to proc was a bit of a hassle and most people would’ve rather have just used Ice Breaker. Maybe Bungie could adjust the perk to proc easier, like maybe not make that bonus round time-gated for example? I just hate to see a good Queen shout-out wasted.
Nearing the end here and I wanted to group up all the raid Exotics (minus Outbreak) together: Vex Mythoclast the Solar Primary Fusion Rifle from the Vault of Glass on Hard Mode, Necrochasm the Arc Auto Rifle from Crota’s End on Hard Mode and The Crux of Darkness questline, and Touch of Malice the Kinetic Scout Rifle from King’s Fall and The Old Hunger questline. I fully expect the Mythoclast to come back when the Vault returns, maybe as a full questline reward, maybe as a random drop, maybe even a Hard Mode exclusive if they bring that back, who knows, but they can’t not bring it back it’s way too iconic to leave out. A semi-auto FR? There’s nothing else like it. Sure it can’t be as broken as it was back in Y1 but no one would expect it to. Whether it would still use Primary ammo or not, I dunno, Bungie did start to experiment with that with Eriana’s Vow being an Energy HC that uses Special ammo, so we could see it still stick with Primary, who knows. Necrochasm and its Cursed Thrall-explosion-on-kill effect, same deal, though I’m torn between expecting a quest for it like the Y3 version or a random drop since the raid is so short anyway. We also don’t know if Crota’s End (or King’s Fall for that matter) is for sure going to come back at some point, and considering Bungie’s history with the old raid, it might come later rather than sooner. Finally, Touch of Malice was a very unique gun where the final round of the mag would constantly regenerate and deal bonus damage, but at the cost of your health, though three rapid kills would also give you back some health. Also yknow the little detail that IT CONTAINS ORYX’S SOUL, YOU KNOW, THE MAIN BAD GUY OF YEAR 2, THE GOD-KING OF THE HIVE AND THE MOST INFAMOUS VILLAIN IN THE HISTORY OF THE FRANCHISE? AND WE SOMEHOW LOST IT AT THE BEGINNING OF DESTINY 2 HOW COULD WE HAVE LET THAT HAPPEN?! (Apparently Eris has it but still) It may not affect the current meta very much right now, and it might need a tweak to fit D2’s engine, but I really want to see this gun come back.
Now I admit, while I expect these guns to remain raid-exclusive rewards, Bungie can and has proven me wrong before, so who knows. This leads me to Wrath of the Machine, where the raid Exotic was Outbreak Prime… which we now have in D2 from a random secret mission in the middle of last year, and it’s even better than before (hence the Perfected change). So if Wrath ever comes back, what could replace Outbreak? I definitely don’t expect the Adept weapons, those were very unmemorable. Therefore I have two propositions: Khvostov 7G-0X, the Exotic redux of the very first Kinetic Auto Rifle we ever got. Now, Khvostov in Rise of Iron billed itself as being very versatile with multiple selectable perks, but in practice was a major letdown as none of the perks made it feel Exotic. Maybe, with a little bit of SIVA magic, it could be good? Hmm? No? Iunno, but it would definitely need a rework of some kind, take some cues from its successor Traveler’s Chosen maybe. The other idea is… wait for it… you know it’s coming… GJALLARHORN. THE Exotic weapon that defined the Destiny meta and set the standard for Solar Heavies, Rocket Launchers, and Exotic weapons in general. Rockets that split into more rockets when they explode AND they track? Yes please! Now I understand that there are those who’d prefer it not to come back because they don’t want it to dominate the meta again, or they don’t want it’s legacy tarnished by getting a nerfed version. But if Hawkmoon coming back with a big rework is any indication, I don’t think Bungie cares. I think they’d rather just appeal to nostalgia and wish fulfillment, and that’s valid if disappointing for some. I don’t expect it’d be nerfed majorly at launch, though maybe getting one over time if necessary – not like rockets are meta right now. Like it or not, I don’t think G-Horn’s return is a matter of “if”, but “when”.
And that about covers all of them! I may or may not have a few more Destiny-related posts coming out in the near future, we’ll see if I can keep this motivation going. I’ve still got a lot to do in the game before Beyond Light launches so once I get some sleep I’m gonna head back to the old grind. Thanks for reading!
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