Five weapons to grind for ahead of Season of the Worthy and the return of Trials

The new season in Destiny 2, rumored to be Season of the Worthy, is just around the corner. Releasing alongside this new Season will be a large balance update to the game’s sandbox including changes to Sniper Rifles, Auto Rifles, and a select few Exotic Weapons.

To read about the above changes, check out the recent articles on Exotic Weapon Changes and Weapon Class Updates.

These balance updates are slated to shake up the meta a little bit, giving some weapon types there turn in the limelight while shuffling a few off to the side. Here is our list of the best weapons to grind for in preparation for next season as they have a high chance of becoming top tier once the changes hit.

Hard Light

The Exotic Auto Rifle Hard Light has been decidedly average for most, if not all, of its time in the game. The weapon was only being used for high-level content with the Match Game modifier where the weapon’s ability to switch element types was extremely valuable.

This lack of use was partly due to Auto Rifles themselves being a bad spot but also due to the obnoxious screen shake that was present on the gun when firing which made the weapon difficult and awkward to use.

Thankfully, in a very recent patch, Bungie decided to drastically lower this screen shake to bring it in line with other Auto Rifles. Combine this with the weapons lack of damage fall off and its Catalyst that boosts Stability when completed, Hard Light is currently a monster before the upcoming Auto Rifle buffs have hit.

With the upcoming buffs, Adaptive Frame Auto Rifles like Hard Light are set to have their body/precision damage changed from 13.75/22 to 15.75/25.2. This change will slightly decrease the weapon's optimal Time to Kill from 0.8 seconds to 0.7 seconds.

This might not seem like much but it will cause it to beat out both the meta Pulse Rifles and Hand Cannons if the player is able to hit consistent headshots, which as pointed out earlier has become much easier with Hard Light’s recent changes.

Hard Light is a random Exotic drop so be sure to farm the Weekly Powerful/Pinnacle drops as these have a high chance of granting an Exotic.

Monte Carlo

Unlike Hard Light, Monte Carlo has not recently received any kind of targeted buffs but it will still benefit greatly from the Auto Rifle changes as, like the Hard Light, it too is part of the archetype that will benefit the most, Adaptive Frames.

Monte Carlo is already a workhorse of an Auto Rifle with it having respectable Range, great Stability and Exotic perks that regenerate Melee energy when damaging opponents as well as increasing damage when chaining kills.

The Auto Rifle changes will slightly reduce the Time to Kill of Monte Carlo and since the damage-increasing perk ‘Markov Chain’ is a percentage increase, it will give a higher increase in damage after the changes. 

Like Hard Light, Monte Carlo will most likely become a staple in the meta as it will be an easy to use Auto Rifle with one of the best TTK’s of any primary weapon, especially once Markov Chain has gained a few stacks.

Monte Carlo can also only be farmed from Exotic sources. So grind out those Powerful/Pinnacle rewards and pray to the RNG gods, or hope Xur decides to sell it in the last remaining weeks of the Season.

Line in the Sand

Line in the Sand is a Linear Fusion Rifle in the Power Weapon slot that deals Arc damage. For a very long time, Linear Fusion Rifles were considered fairly bottom tier as they had fairly mediocre DPS, combining that with their low ammo economy due to them being Power Weapons and they were soon swept to the side. Nothing has really changed for Linear Fusion Rifles as a whole but in Season of Dawn, a Linear Fusion Rifle by the name of Line in the Sand was introduced that can roll with some amazing perks.

The best two perks for each slot to roll for Line in the Sand is Rapid Hit and Firing Line. Rapid Hit increases Reload Speed and Stability after landing consecutive precision hits, which drastically increases Boss DPS as it lowers the downtime between reloads. Firing Line increases the weapon’s damage by 25% when near 2 or more allies.

So with these two perks working in tangent, you are not only spending less time reloading but each shot is doing significantly more damage.

Now, presently this weapon’s DPS was only comparable to a lot of Legendary Sniper Rifle’s DPS but with the upcoming patch, Sniper Rifles are set to have their damage decreased by 20% to pre-Shadowkeep values. This will allow Line in the Sand to possibly take a spot as a top tier choice for ranged DPS when fighting a Boss.

Line in the Sand can be farmed either from completing a run-through of The Sundial and choosing it as your reward or visiting the Mars/Tower Obelisk and grabbing a Timelost Weapon bounty. Take note that as of the writing of this article, an event is underway where Guardians are tasked with donating Polarised Fractaline to the Tower Obelisk to restore the Empyrean Foundation.

Each time a Guardian donates to the Obelisk that is automatically rewarded with a 25% progression to any TImelost bounty in their inventory. So stack up as many Line in the Sand bounties as you can and then donate 4 times to easily complete the bounties.

Trophy Hunter

Trophy Hunter is a Legendary Aggressive Frame Sniper Rifle that sits in the Kinetic slot.  At the present time, Trophy Hunter is considered to be a fairly low tier for a Sniper Rifle as its perk selection is fairly mediocre and it being an Aggressive Frame with low magazine capacity means it has low Boss DPS.

In the upcoming patch Sniper Rifles will have their damage lowered by 20% back to pre-Shadowkeep values and unfortunately, this will also hit Trophy Hunter. 

Luckily for us Trophy Hunter has a hidden trick up its sleeve, a perk by the name of Vorpal Weapon and Trophy Hunter is the only Sniper Rifle that can roll with it. Vorpal Weapon increases the weapon’s damage to Bosses by 15% and to Guardian Supers by 50%.

This extra damage will almost cancel out the patch’s reduction in damage, allowing Trophy Hunter to still remain as a good ranged DPS option if the right perks are rolled. 

When farming for the weapon, the perks of Triple Tap and Vorpal weapon are a must with Magazine perks like Extended Mag, Appended Mag, and Tactical Mag also being critical. 

Like Line in the Sand, Trophy Hunter can be farmed from bounties acquired through the Tower Obelisk. Be sure to grab a few bounties and then donate to the Empyrean Foundation to quickly finish those bounties.

Wendigo GL3

Wendigo GL3 is a Legendary Grenade Launcher that deals Arc damage and sits in the Power Weapon slot. In the upcoming patch, Aggressive Frame Grenade Launchers such as Swarm of the Raven and Outrageous Fortune will be having their damage reduced to match their fire rate and then on top of that all Grenade Launchers will see a 10% damage reduction. This will hit these meta DPS Grenade Launchers very hard.

Presently, Wendigo GL3 is able to hang with these Aggressive Grenade Launchers due to its Explosive Light perk. This perk increases the damage of the next grenade fired by a whopping 70% when an Orb of Light is picked up.

This effect can stack up to 6 times to fully buff the damage of the entire magazine by 70%. When the entire magazine is buffed, Wendigo has crazy DPS that outpaces other Grenade Launchers. Unfortunately, the weapon's damage does fall off significantly once the Explosive Light rounds are expended. 

Wendigo GL3 will still be getting hit by the 10% damage reduction to all Grenade Launchers but since it is not an Aggressive Frame it will not receive the additional lowering of damage like the other meta Grenade Launchers.

This will cause Wendigo to rocket to the top as one of the best Grenade Launcher choices for Boss DPS and will still remain an extremely solid weapon all around. Just be sure to be using a Masterworked Primary weapon to help generate Orbs of Light to keep activating Explosive Light.

The quest for Wendigo GL3 can be obtained from Zavala in the Tower which requires a high amount of Grenade Launcher final blows, multi-kills and points earned in the Strikes playlist. Power through Strikes with Fighting Lion to have an easier time completing this quest.