Nightfall exclusive weapons: Shadow Price, Palindrome & The Swarm - best perks, god rolls

In Season of the Chosen three new weapons were added into the Nightfall loot pool. These weapons are Shadow Price, The Palindrome and The Swarm which also all happen to be weapons that are from the original Destiny. These weapons have been updated with refreshed perk pools in order for them to feel at home in the latest Destiny 2 sandbox.

All of these weapons can only be acquired through the weekly Nightfall: The Ordeal Strike as an end of activity reward. Only a single weapon of the three is available each week with the available weapon rotating upon each weekly reset. The order is Shadow Price, Palindrome then The Swarm. Currently, Shadow Price is the weapon available this week.

Adept versions of these weapons, improved versions of the regular weapons that can take special Adept mods, will become available on March 16 when Grandmaster difficulty of The Ordeal goes live.

Shadow Price

Shadow Price is a 450RPM, Precision Frame Auto Rifle that deals Arc damage. Compared to other Precision Frame Auto Rifles like Seventh Seraph and Horror Story, Shadow Price has overall improved stats but with slightly worse recoil direction. To counteract this, Shadow Price has the option of switching out the Barrel perk to Arrowhead Brake to give it perfect vertical recoil. These Barrel options do mean you are stuck with the default short zoom scope but fortunately this scope is fairly easy to see through.

As of right now Shadow Price is more of a PvE gun as 450RPM Auto Rifles are easily outclassed by both 600RPM and 720RPM Auto Rifles in overall performance in PvP. For perks in PvE you can always go the tried and true Feeding Frenzy and Swashbuckler which is nothing fancy but sure gets the job done. I have really been enjoying the One for All perk in this recent Season though. This perk gives a large 35% damage boost for a whopping 10 seconds when three enemies are hit with the weapon within a few seconds of each other. This perk is incredibly easy to activate on high firing weapons like Auto Rifles too.

Overflow is also a fairly underrated perk in PvE but it can give a huge bonus to mag size. I have a Shadow Price with Extended Mag, Backup Mag and Overflow which brings the base magazine size to 45. When I pick up Special or Heavy ammo this magazine size doubles to 90 rounds. Pair this with One for All or Swashbuckler and you have a high damage Auto Rifle that feels like it can shoot forever. To offset the lowered reload speed from Extended Mag you can always slap the Auto Rifle Loading mod on your arms armor.

As said before I wouldn't really recommend using this in PvP as it is simply outclassed by other Auto Rifle options. If you are feeling brave then Killing Wind or Surplus are decent options to take in the first column while Swashbuckler and Unrelenting are decent choices in the second column.

Recommended Perks for PvE:

• Barrel - Extended Barrel, Corkscrew Rifling
• Magazine - Extended Mag, Appended Mag, Tactical Mag
• Perk 1 - Feeding Frenzy, Overflow, Fourth Time’s The Charm
• Perk 2 - One for All, Swashbuckler, Dragonfly
• Masterwork - Range
• Mod - Backup Mag, Minor Spec, Major Spec

Recommended Perks for PvP:

• Barrel - Arrowhead Brake, Polygonal Rifling
• Magazine - Accurized Rounds, Steady Rounds
• Perk 1 - Killing Wind, Surplus
• Perk 2 - Swashbuckler, Unrelenting
• Masterwork - Range, Stability
• Mod - Targeting Adjuster

The Palindrome

The Palindrome is a 140RPM, Adaptive Frame Hand Cannon that deals Void damage. When looking at this weapons stats compared to other popular Hand Cannons in the same archetype like Dire Promise and Waking Vigil, The Palindrome has extremely respectable Range, Stability and Handling stats. In fact it actually beats out almost all of the similar Hand Cannons in all of these stats.

In PvE, Hand Cannons have never been the absolute best choice of Primary but have always been fairly decent weapons if paired with the right perks. Like Shadow Price, The Palindrome can roll with the simple reload speed plus damage perk combo of Outlaw and Rampage. This will be useful in almost all situations you find yourself in in either PvE or PvP and is always a solid pick. However, The Palindrome can roll with One for All which I talked about earlier. I just feel like this is a better damage perk than Rampage for PvE although Rampage would be better for PvP.

Subsistence pairs nicely with One for All as since you won't have to reload as much this means you can take full advantage of the 10 seconds of 35% increased damage. This does drastically decrease the amount of reserve ammo you can carry though so be wary of that.

In PvP, 140RPM Hand Cannons are not currently at the top of the meta. That spot is instead held by 120RPM Hand Cannons. That’s not to say that you shouldn't use the Palindrome in PvP, far from it, it’s just that from the longer ranges you will notice the weapon failing compared to the 120RPM Hand Cannons like The Steady Hand and Igneous Hammer.

Using perks like Killing Wind and Rangefinder will bring the range of The Palindrome up to the base value of these higher range Hand Cannons so these can be useful for leveling the playing field.

Recommended Perks for PvE:

• Barrel - Hammer-Forged Rifling
• Magazine - Extended Mag, Appending Mag
• Perk 1 - Outlaw, Subsistence, Overflow
• Perk 2 - One for All, Rampage,
• Masterwork - Range
• Mod - Rampage Spec (If using Rampage), Backup Mag

Recommended Perks for PvP:

• Barrel - Hammer-Forged Rifling
• Magazine - High-Caliber Rounds, Ricochet Rounds
• Perk 1 - Killing Wind, Outlaw
• Perk 2 - Rangefinder, Rampage
• Masterwork - Range
• Mod - Targeting Adjuster

The Swarm

The Swarm is a 360RPM, High-Impact Frame Machine Gun that deals Arc damage. There are very few Machine Guns currently available in Destiny 2 so this means any new one is always worth grinding for to add to your collection.

When compared to the only other Machine Gun of the same archetype, Seventh Seraph SAW, The Swarm has drastically better stats and recoil. The SAW does however have the huge benefit of being able to generate Warmind Cells which is why it has lower base stats.

Some time ago, Machine Guns were the go to weapons for boss damage with the Exotic Thunderlord being the top dog. Not long after this, Bungie completely gutted Machine Gun damage to bosses and so their usage rates have plummeted. These weapons are now mainly used in clearing out lesser enemies, which dont get me wrong, they still do amazingly well.

In PvE, Outlaw is always a good option to drastically offset the extremely slow reload speed that all Machine Guns have. Surplus can also function similarly, albeit in a lesser fashion, while also giving bonuses to Handling and Stability. Yet again, I cannot recommend One for All enough as it is an extremely powerful damage perk that is useful on basically every weapon that can roll with it. This perk roll of something like Surplus and One for All will allow you to obliterate your way through enemies.

In PvP, Machine Guns can still be fairly useful Heavy weapon as the larger amount of ammo given compared to Grenade and Rocket Launchers means more easy kills. Surplus is still a really great perk as while you won't benefit from the increased reload speed due to Heavy ammo bricks only giving under half a magazine, the increased Stability and Handling are still useful. In theory, Dynamic Sway Reduction would be good on a Machine Gun but since you don't get that much ammo from a Heavy brick, you won't be able to hold the trigger down for long enough before the perk fully activates. Tap the Trigger and Zen Moment are the go to in the second column as the high recoil of Machine Guns, and low amount of given ammo, means you absolutely must be hitting your shots.

Recommended Perks for PvE:

• Barrel - Smallbore, Corkscrew Rifling
• Magazine - Extended Mag, Appended Mag, Tactical Mag
• Perk 1 - Outlaw, Surplus
• Perk 2 - One for All
• Masterwork - Stability
• Mod - Backup Mag

Recommended Perks for PvP:

• Barrel - Arrowhead Brake, Chambered Compensator
• Magazine - Steady Rounds
• Perk 1 - Surplus, Killing Wind
• Perk 2 - Tap the Trigger, Zen Moment
• Masterwork - Stability
• Mod - Targeting Adjuster