Heavy burst hand cannons might finally have a use for people who aren’t hunters.
Last season Destiny 2 introduced a new kind of hand cannon: Warden’s Law was a kinetic heavy burst frame, which meant that it fired two quick shots in a row. It was weird, it was new, people tried out all sorts of combinations, but eventually it found its main use in combination with the hunter exotic Lucky Pants. Now there are two new guns in this category, one of which is Bold Endings, a craftable stasis variant. Is it an easily obtained replacement for Warden’s Law? Not really, but it does some things Warden’s Law never could.
Bold Endings PvE god roll
Barrel: Smallbore. Hammer Forged Magazine: Flared Magwell, Tactical Magazine 3rd Column: Headstone, Rapid Hit 4th Column: Demolitionist, Desperate Measures, Collective Action Masterwork: Reload Speed
Right off the bat Bold Endings is far more useful for general PvE than Warden’s Law due to its strong stasis synergies. Headstone is a very useful perk for many stasis classes, due to the ability to smash the crystal for both area damage and a big boost in grenade energy due to Whisper of Shards. Immediately that suggests a partnership with Demolitionist for large amounts of grenade energy that warlocks and hunters can turn into bleak watchers or duskfield grenades. Non-stasis builds will likely prefer Rapid Hit, an all round solid perk that makes a gun reload faster and also increases stability.
Alternatively Bold Endings also features a large number of damage perks in the fourth column (but no Vorpal or Frenzy, which means it doesn’t work well with Lucky Pants). The pick of the bunch is probably the new Desperate Measures, which triggers a small damage buff from regular kills and large one from grenade or melee kills. A more unusual option might be Collective Action, which offers a moderate (20%) damage buff that doesn’t need to stack up, but is triggered by collecting a subclass pickup. The big advantage here is that stasis builds frequently create large numbers of pickups, this could work well on a stasis titan, who can easily make stasis shards by destroying stasis crystals.
One last note: you’ve probably noticed that Bold Endings can get both Headstone and Dragonfly and thought “does this mean the Dragonfly explosion will smash the Headstone crystal?” and the answer is unfortunately not. The two effects are both good for clearing weak enemies, but they don’t synergise.
Bold Endings PvP god roll
Barrel: Smallbore. Hammer Forged Magazine: Accurized Rounds, Flared Magwell 3rd Column: Rapid Hit, To the Pain 4th Column: Eye of the Storm, Desperate Measures Masterwork: Range, Stability
Warden’s Law did not make a huge splash in PvP, and many people assumed heavy burst hand cannons would never compete there, yet Bold Endings seems to be making waves with a surprising number of crucible players advocating for it. So what’s the difference? It seems Bold Ending’s higher base accuracy and stability, plus its access to multiple accuracy perks just makes it way easier to land those headshots. The weapon’s initial time to kill isn’t spectacular, but once it starts hitting reliably it can compete.
Stability and accuracy are the name of the game here. Rapid Hit and Eye of the Storm are extremely reliable crucible perks that reward you with increased accuracy for landing headshots or getting hurt respectively. Then there is the new To The Pain perk, which says “While this weapon is equipped, taking damage increases handling and aim assist until the weapon is stowed.” The key part here is “until the weapon is stowed”, To The Pain acts as a weaker Eye of the Storm (although I don’t have the exact numbers) that persists even after your health recovers, so long as you don’t put your weapon away. Thus it acts as a fascinating hybrid between “win this fight” perks and “win the next fight” perks, offering a small bonus when you need it most that then carries over and stacks up as you get into more and more gunfights.
Those who prefer “snowball” builds, where winning the first fight increases their ability to win a second should also look at Desperate Measures, which offers a 20% damage buff on a Grenade or Melee kill, which should be enough to let Bold Endings kill anyone in only two bursts instead of three, greatly decreasing it’s time to kill.
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