Getting Better Part 2 (Secondary Weapon Choice)

Secondary weapons are very important most of the time and can vary depending on your playstyle. Some people like to run a Last Word and Sniper Combo. Others may run a Thorn and Shotty combo. Hipsters may run Mida Multi Tool with a Sniper for the ultimate in camp.

There are two things that you will notice about secondaries. The best ones are not exotic, and ammo is a lot more scarce.

First of all, lets talk about fusion rifles. Almost nobody uses them, and for good reason mostly. They have been nerfed pretty hard from what they once were, and I tend to think that they get starved for ammo since the special ammo nerf. They used to be amazing in crucible, now they are usually outclassed by either a shotgun or a primary weapon. I only know one player who ever uses them outside of bounties, and even he switches to a shotgun when in the midst of some sweaties.

Exotic fusion rifles include Plan C and Pocket Infinity which both used to be absolute beasts back in the day. Now they are merely "good", and Pocket Infinity is hard to use with a lack of special ammo available.

Second, perhaps the most hated gun in crucible, the shotgun. The only real choices for shotguns in my opinion are the high impact ones. Felwinter's Lie, Party Crasher +1, The Judgement,  and Matador 64 are all in the top tier of shotgun. Proper rolls for best effect should be aggressive ballistics in the first tree, whatever you want for a second perk (although I recommend knee pads, luck in the chamber, or final round), something to increase range in the middle tree, and the most powerful shotgun perk in the game for your final perk....shot package. Shot package is so important because it reduces the spread of your shotgun over distance giving you a much further one hit kill range. If you have ever thought to your self......"What the fuck? How did he kill me from there?", you will most likely find that it was a shot package shotty.

If you really want to try out the exotic shotguns, feel free. They usually lost to all shot package shotguns, but can be good in different situations. The Universal Remote is useful if you really want a shotgun for close range and want to use your favorite legendary sniper as well. You can also run a full troll build with double shotgun. The big advantage to the UR besides looking really cool is that you pretty much always have ammo for it.

The Invective is also outclassed by shot package shotguns, but it is amazing for one thing. Taking out blade dancers and sunsingers. The full auto fires very fast, and can take out either of those supers without so much as blinking an eye.

I am no expert on Snipers, but know what is good generally and what is not. Depending on game type, you may want a couple of different snipers. For Skirmish and other revive game modes, you will want to use something with high impact that can still headshot kill revived enemies. Her Benevolence is the best of these currently available, and probably the best PvP sniper overall right now. Another very good sniper for 6 man modes is the Low-Grade Humility. It has very good aim assist and a decent rate of fire.

On most PvP snipers, I see people running with Hidden Hand, which increases the stickiness of your sights when moving it across  your enemy. Most like the have snapshot in the middle column for that fast ADS, and unflinching in the final column to help reduce flinch a bit when being shot. Finally, there is the scope. Most PvPers seem to agree that shortgaze is probably the best sight as it has good added aim assist and is not too big of a zoom. Other favorites inclide Ambush (which has no aim assist and a wider view), and Longview SLR10. Try them out to find what you like best.

Again, I never use exotic snipers in PvP. Patience in Time is actually quite strong as it has a very high aim assist and very low kick. Ice Breaker respawns ammo and has a pretty good scope and high impact. It doest however kick like a mule, and I feel like there are better options for snipers that will allow you to use an exotic primary.

Next up will be optimum heavy loadouts.

Getting Better Part 1 (Primary Weapon Choice)

As with any game, when you first start out playing crucible, you will probably not be great. There are obvious exceptions, but those are the people who are going to be good at any shooter they drop into.

One of the things that makes Destiny a little different is that you dont immediately have access to all of the weapons, and the most powerful ones will be randomly picked up along the way. Just because you dont have a Thorn or The Last Word, doesnt mean you cant compete. It just means that you will need to find another way to win gun fights.

Step 1, Weapons: If you already have some of the top tier crucible exotics, then SWEET! If not, there are a number of decent replacements that are not too difficult to obtain one way or another.

Legendary Primaries are not all amazing. You can roll some of them to be serviceable, such as the Fulcrum handcannon that can be purchased from the Future War Cult vendor. It can be rolled into a mini Hawkmoon if you get luck in the chamber, final round, and something like smallbore.

In my opinion, some of the best non exotic primaries are in the Pulse Rifle category. The Messenger is top tier, and is two head burst kill and has ridiculous range. You can obtain this from Brother Vance in the Reef if he is selling it, or through the packages you get for winning games in Trials of Osiris. You can also get an Adept version of it in the chest after completing a flawless trials run.

One I have not obtained myself, but is apparently just as good and with the ability to be rerolled is the Hopscotch Pilgrim. This is a pulse rifle obtained through Dragon Strikes that has similar stats to The Messenger. It is apparently a pain to obtain, so be aware that you will probably be doing a lot of strikes to get it. If you are like me, that is not something I would particularly like to endure.

One thing about improving in crucible....dont let people get super salty and try to shit on you for using the overpowered weapons. You are there to dominate, and just because they think they are the White Knight Protector of Guardian Crucible Honor, you dont have to adhere to their dumb thinking. Here is a list of some of the top exotic primaries.

Thorn is an all around amazing weapon. It is a two headshot kill with the poison dot (damage over time). It is also a three body shot kill. It can be fired pretty quickly, and you can often beat out snipers over range if you can get them to miss their shots. Thorn is also the weapon that will cause the most salt for other guardians and you may receive a hate mail from time to time. The proper setup on Thorn is agressive ballistics and send it. Why dont you use the stability perk you ask? Well, first, send it increase the range by a ton. You will be getting cross map kills with it. Second, it also increases the hit box, and you will be hitting a lot more headshots with it. The recoil takes a little getting used to, but it is overall amazing.

The Last Word has one of the fastest kill times in the game. Part of it is that the fire rate is amazing. The other part is because the hip fire perk is bugged, and you often get the hipfire damage while aiming down sights. At medium range, there is nothing that can really beat it. It is also capable of defeating a shotgun user at close range if they are unable to get you with one shot. The proper setup on the last word is aggressive ballistics and perfect balance. Aggressive gives you the ability to get 111 head shot with the hipfire perk and bug. Perfect balance allows you to not shoot at the ceiling when you are firing.

Red Death is really the last of the top tier exotic primaries. If is a two burst headshot kill, and also heals you after every kill. This can be a direct counter to the Thorn dot bleeding you out. The only problem is that Red Death is a little bit worse than both of the handcannons, so you will probably have to get the first shot in to win most gun fights against TLW and Thorn.

Mida Multi Tool is a decent gun and can be fun to use, but I do not consider it on par with these other three. It is a great anti sniper weapon as it will throw off a sniper's aim. It takes four headshots to kill, which will get you killed a lot against the other weapons. It is mostly used in a more campy/support role.

Next article will be about secondary weapons.

Introduction

Well, since this is a Destiny blog, I should probably give you my Xbone gamertag, which is Bigjuicyhog52.

I was previously a blogger at Darraxusthewarrior.blogspot.com, but an bit really playing a lot of WoW these days.

These days, I am mostly into Crucible, which is Destiny's version of PvP. I am pretty decent at it, and play it with much of my free time.

I have a couple of regular team mates who I run threes with, and a bunch of other people who I will run 6 mans with.

These are my Destinytracker stats.

http://destinytracker.com/destiny/player/xbox/bigjuicyhog52

I play quite a bit and have been improving over time. One thing about having played a lot is that it takes a lot of time to raise your KD as well.

I will be trying to put some tips together at different times for different posts.

If you are a fan of crucible, or hope to get better at it, maybe I can help you out.