Foreword

When it comes to most first-person shooters, whether it be Counter-Strike, Call of Duty, or Rainbow Six, the question inevitably arises: “What’s the best weapon?” or “What’s the best loadout?” Whatever the game may be, it always seems like players are searching for the most optimal method to play it, especially when it comes to taking down opposing players in first-person shooters.

In this sense, Destiny 2 is somewhat of an oddball when it comes to player vs. player (PvP) content. This is mostly due to the nature of the game itself; Destiny 2 is a first-person shooter, as well as a massively multiplayer online action role playing game. In short, this means that, rather than having a small, fixed list of weapons for players to choose from and customize, players are instead rewarded with randomly generated weapons and armor as they play, based on what activites they’re doing. In addition to that, there are about five-hundred unique weapons in the game, each with their own stats, perks, special abilities, and drawbacks, and so the question inevitably arises:

What are the most popular weapons in Destiny 2 for PvP?

Data pulled on March 1st from https://destinytracker.com/destiny-2/db/insights

Fortunately, when it comes to answering that question, doing so is fairly easy; all you need to do is head over to Destiny Tracker’s Insights page and see what the most used weapons are, and those are probably the best. Answering the question of why, however, can be somewhat difficult, as there are a multitude of ways one weapon can hold an edge over another. From varying stats, differing time-to-kill (TTK) values between sub-types, damage falloff, different perk pools, or, in the case of exotic weapons, special abilities, these are just a few ways some weapons can rise in use amongst so many choices.

Loadouts in Destiny 2 and how they work

There are a couple restrictions when it comes to equipping weapons in Destiny 2. For starters, weapons can only be equipped in their respective slot, those being the kinetic (top) slot, the energy (middle) slot, or the power (bottom) slot. In addition, only one exotic weapon (weapons with a yellow background) can be equipped at a time.

In player vs. player gamemodes, the most common type of loadout to bring is to pick one primary and one special weapon, denoted by the respective white and green ammo boxes on the icons of the weapons. Shown in the picture above is a loadout comprised of Bygones, a pulse rifle, in the kinetic slot, Mindbender’s Ambition, a shotgun, in the energy slot, and Thunderlord, an exotic machine gun in the power slot. Primary weapon have deep, always-full ammo reserves, and are generally used for gunfights, designed to be, as the name implies, a guardian’s primary weapon. Special weapons on the other hand, are severely limited in both ammo reserves, but also starting ammo, with most special weapons only starting with two shots to fire. To make up for this, special weapons have the ability to take down enemy players in one shot, provided the wielder can meet the requirements to do so; for example, shotgun wielders need to be very close to their enemy to get a one-shot-kill, whereas sniper rifle wielders need to land a shot on an enemy guardian’s head to take them down in one blow.

Side note: The gold borders around the weapon icons denote that the weapon has been “masterworked”. Legendary weapons gain 10 points in the given stat noted on the weapon’s masterwork icon when fully upgraded, however exotic weapons can gain many more stats, and sometimes even extra perks when masterworked, however the process of doing so is much more rigorous and the stats and/or perks recieved are fixed.

Incidentally, primary and special weapons are not restricted to the slots they inhabit, as shown by this loadout comprised of Revoker, a sniper rifle, in the kinetic slot, Sunshot, an exotic hand cannon, in the energy slot, and Hammerhead, another machine gun, in the power slot. Additionally, because Sunshot is in the energy slot, that means that Thunderlord, from the previous loadout, had to be unequipped, as players can only equip one exotic weapon at a time.

What weapons are the most popular?

By far one of the most used types of primary weapons, and weapons in general, are hand cannons. These guns make up over a quarter of all weapons used in PvP, rivalling that of every other primary weapon type combined. These aptly-named slow-firing revolvers pack quite a punch, with most, if not all, being able to down an enemy guardian in a second or less. These weapons are killer in the hands of skilled players, usually knocking out an opposing guardian in three shots (or three bursts, in the case of Crimson), and are also an exceptional primary weapon choice for mid-range battles. Their superiority in midrange battles also allows for a hefty amount of freedom when it comes to picking a special weapon, and allows players to choose one that compliments their playstyle, rather than one required out of necessity.

Hand Cannons: Three-shot Wonder

With the nerf to hand cannon range that came with the previous season, Season of Undying, all hand cannons, regardless of archetype, now start falling off in damage between twenty-three meters at a range stat of 0, and twenty-six meters at 100. This means that shots fired at enemies outside of that range deal less and less damage the further away the enemy is, making it take more shots, and more time, to take down that enemy. This has resulted in a rise in popularity of lightweight hand cannons like Spare Rations and lightweight-like exotics like Thorn, as well as fast-firing exotics such as The Last Word and Crimson. In addition, the lightweight archetype grants handcannons implicitly high handling and bonus movement speed, essentially changing the battle of range from before to what has now become a battle of speed. In this case, lightweight hand cannons (and by extension the precision hand cannons Luna’s Howl and Not Forgotten which have the same time-to-kill) reign supreme, because not only do they have the fastest optimal time-to-kill, but their stats are higher in the catagories that matter, namely handling and aim assistance.

Shotguns: Point-blank Powerhouse

As for shotguns, the main draw here is, again, handling, but also range. Shotguns are a bit weird with how they function in-game; since the pellets they fire scatter randomly across the wide cone in which they fire, it makes determining the distance before damage falloff kicks in difficult, because it’s hard to tell the difference between the spread of the pellets and the falloff itself. In addition to that, all shotgun archetypes, while able to one-shot-kill an enemy guardian, do different total amounts of damage, as well as have wildly varying stats. Rapid-fire frames, for example, deal the least amount damage but fire the fastest, allowing for quick follow-up shots, precision frames, of which a few shoot single-pellet slugs, support overwhelming range stats, and aggressive frames fire slowly, but pack the most amount of punch at the cost of range. Incidentally, as shown in the graph above, the aggressive frames win out, with the shotgun Mindbender’s Ambition not only seeing over 5% usage in PvP, but making it into the top 10 most used weapons overall.

The question is: why?

What makes Mindbender’s so much better than literally every other shotgun in the game?

Well, much like quantum physics, it turns out that the closer two opposing players come to each other, the more likely it is that one of them is going to throw a punch rather than shoot their gun, and since melee attacks do half a guardian’s health in damage, as well as magnetise the person throwing the punch to their target, the combo of tagging an opponent with an almost-lethal shotgun shot and finishing with a swift right hook emerges. The aggressive frames win out because they can secure the kill more consistently within the five or so meters just outside of melee range.

But that’s not everything Mindbender’s does better, in addition to being quite literally the best aggressive frame shotgun stat-wise, it is also the only aggressive frame shotgun that roll the perk “Quickdraw”.

While there’s no information in the metadata or game manifest that says what quickdraw itself explicitly does, general consensus among the playerbase is that the perk maxes out the handling stat for the weapon, setting it to 100, or at the very least, providing a 50 point bonus. Given that handling is the stat that determines how quickly a weapon is drawn and readied, the split second that Quickdraw shaves off of pulling the weapon out gives that little extra edge in close quarters skirmishes to push it into the top 10.

Sniper Rifles: Easy Pickings

Snipers, like shotguns, are also in a weird gray area when it comes to determining which one is the overall best. In terms of stats, pretty much all of them don’t matter except for the two hidden, behind the scenes stats, Zoom and Aim Assistance, and even then, it doesn’t matter if they’re not the most optimal values. Generally speaking, in 99.9% of cases where a guardian is firing at another guardian, a single shot to the head is usually all it takes to take them down. Range doesn’t matter. Stability doesn’t matter. Handling matters a little bit, but having Snapshot Sights is generally more important, as no matter how much you have, scoping in will usually take a fair amount of time. With all of this in mind, surely the aptly named “Rapid-Fire” frames would win out on top, given that you could take down one guardian and not have to wait as long for the weapon to be ready to fire again, but that’s not the case. Looking at the graph, there are two obvious standout fan favorites among the many snipers used in PvP, namely Revoker and Beloved.

Revoker: The Power of Reversal of Fortune

Revoker is, as the graph states, an aggressive frame sniper rifle. It’s also a pinnacle weapon which means it has fixed perks; no matter how many times you get it again, it’ll always be the same. It fires slow but packs a punch, so why is it not only number one in terms of usage on the graph, but the most used gun in PvP overall?

Short answer: this perk right here (and Snapshot Sights).

Reversal of Fortune quite literally changes the way a guardian approaches sniping, and using special weapons in general. Instead of hoarding every little bit of special ammo you can and only taking shots when you’re certain you can hit them, Reversal of Fortune instead allows players to take as many shots as they like, since the consequences for doing so are reduced to a negligable amount. The only way to waste ammo with Revoker would be to miss multiple shots or reload before the perk could activate, as only the last bullet is returned with the perk, and bullets don’t get returned when the weapon has a full magazine. In addition, the weapon is an aggressive frame sniper, dealing such a large amount of damage that, even if the shot hits the body and the enemy guardian lives, cleaning up with a primary weapon (preferrably with Quickdraw) is no problem. In short: the weapon ensures that, no matter what, you have at least one shot of special ammo to use against your opponents.

Beloved: The Jack of All Trades

Beloved on the other hand is a weapon with randomly rolled perks; it’s also really easy to farm, with one run through the PvE activity The Menagerie, you can get two of them, or one, if you’ve run The Menagerie three times already on that character for that week. It’s also got a pretty diverse pool of weapon perks, with the first two slots having your standard affair of barrel and magazine perks, and the last two having some pretty interesting choices:

Slot One	Slot Two

Perk descriptions screenshotted from light.gg

Both slots have a number of combinations to suit the needs of the wielder, obviously, a top pick would be Snapshot Sights and Quickdraw, but even a Beloved with something like No Distractions and Moving target would make for an excellent rifle to provide overwatch over a portion of the map. In addition to its great perk selections, Beloved also has the highest aim assistance stat out of every sniper within its archetype, another factor to contribute to its popularity.

Speaking of Perks

Now is also probably as good a time as any to compare perk popularity among legendary weapons. Since most legendary weapons can have a variety of perk combinations that alter the way the weapon is used in PvP, it’s good to know what to look out for in terms of what other players are using.

Bygones: “The Dad Rifle”

Bygones’ popularity stems from a similar place as Beloved’s, its perk rolls are very broad and provide for a wide variety of combinations most of which are very useful in player vs. player gameplay. In addition, it has the highest aim assistance stat out of all adaptive frame pulse rifles, and its stats are such that it pretty much overperforms in all catagories. It’s stable, accurate, handles quickly, and is all-around a generally decent weapon at most ranges.

The Wardcliff Coil and Power Weapons in General

When it comes to the power weapon slots, most of the choices are all pretty much the same; what you choose will most likely be what you feel comfortable with, and as such, power weapons are sort of spread out in terms of usage. This is because power weapons, while they usually see use in the player vs. player Crucible matches, are only available when the ammo for it spawns, which is only once or twice a round, and need to be fought over in order to secure it. Then, depending if ammo sharing is on, and you or a teammate grabbed the ammo, your team can load up on a pittance of power ammo, otherwise whoever got there first has a slightly less pitiful amount of power ammo.

The reason behind Wardcliff taking one of the top ten spots is simply due to the weapon’s type and exotic perk; The Wardcliff Coil is a rocket launcher, and only gets one shot when power ammo is picked up, however Wardcliff’s exotic perk turns that one shot into a volley of about 15-20 tracking micro-rockets when fired, allowing its destructive potential to be spread over a wide area.

Conclusion

So, the question remains, why are the the most popular weapons in Destiny 2 PvP the most popular?

The top ten, and even top one hundred most used weapons in Destiny 2 PvP all have a reason for being there. Whether its because of the weapon’s ease of use, like Revoker’s Reversal of Fortune, incredible abilities or potential rolls, like with Bygones and Beloved, ease of acquisition, like Spare Rations or Dust Rock Blues, or even because it’s just statistically the best like Mindbender’s, each one deserves the position it holds. If I had to make a list of what factors I would use to definitively rate a weapon, they would be as follows:

1. Good Perks

This would be perks like Revoker’s Reversal of Fortune, Snapshot Sights, Quickdraw, or some of the perks on the perk comparison graph in the “Speaking of Perks” section above; perks that really define the weapon and make it feel strong when you’re using it.

2. Ease of Acquisition

Obviously, if you can’t get a weapon, you won’t use it. Weapons with fixed rolls that are the results of quests gain a lot of points here, as do randomly generated legendary weapons that are the result of easy to complete activities. In the case of randomly generated weapons, the more you can get in a shorter amount of time, the more likely you are to have the version that you want.

3. Personal Choice

Not really that present in the top 10 most used weapons in PvP, but once the usage in PvP drops below 0.5%, that’s where this starts to kick in. People will usually find a weapon type or specific weapon that really suits them, and use those weapons over the ones that the playerbase deems the best, and that’s where the weapons whose usage is under 0.5% comes in; they’re coming from players playing casually the way they want to, not dictated what the current meta, “best” weapons are.

4. Covering all of your bases

This is moreso an overarching force rather than one that determines the most popular weapons. Given that, as mentioned in the beginning of this article, most, if not all loadouts in PvP are comprised of one primary, special, and power weapon, it’s no surprise then that this would effect the usages of various weapon types

Links

Code that I used to generate the CSV to plot this data
Code that I used to generate the graphs in this article
The CSV that I used
data.destinysets.com: a visual Destiny 2 manifest lookup app
Light.gg: a way cleaner and more visually friendly manifest lookup app
DestinyTracker Insights: where I pulled the weapon usage stats from