Super Good Advice Exotic Review v.2

This weapon is full of it.

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Weapon Review

The much-maligned Machine Gun from Y1 has received a small but important buff to its titular perk, and suddenly it’s on the short list for go-to Heavy Weapons in Destiny. In this review, we’ll briefly go over the stats and auxiliary perks, which have remained essentially unchanged, and then talk about how – if at all – its changes have positioned it more favorably in each metagame.

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Stats

Super Good Advice has always been a bit of a slouch in the statistical standings, and Y2 has offered it no extra bonuses. Aside from its lightning fast RoF at 88, you couldn’t pick this one out of a crowd. The aforementioned RoF is offset by its lower Impact level, meaning that while your DPS is a touch higher, you’ll be consuming more rounds to take advantage of it. Just make sure you’re down to be up-close-and-personal, as the pitiful base Range and Stability of 14 and 41, respectively, make it nearly impossible to kill anything at a distance. The average Magazine Size of 58, and laughable Reload Speed of 22, may look like yet another demerit, but as we’ll get into a bit later in the review, it’s hardly a bother at all.

All-in-all, the base model of Super Good Advice is the Exotic realization of Bungie’s strange design decisions for Machine Guns. In Destiny, the ones with the highest RoF also have the lowest Stability, despite being the very weapons that could use a higher base value. Instead, Bungie gave the hardest hitters the tightest spread and greatest Range, putting guns like Super Good Advice and its ilk at a supreme disadvantage.
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Perks

First, you have the choice between Smooth, Soft, and CQB Ballistics. While it may be tempting to select CQB Ballistics to patch up the Stability at the cost of the already poor Range, testing has demonstrated the recoil pattern to be unpredictable and wild even with the substantial boost. For this reason, our recommendation is Smooth Ballistics. As our conversation about Range with Bungie has revealed, a great many significant statistics are tied into the Range stat, and being able to tackle foes at greater distances, you’ll also get minor buffs to Aim Assist and effective hitbox size, too.

For its designed role, Crowd Control is perfect. This perk offers a 15% increase to damage for 3 seconds following a kill. With how quickly you can churn through PvE trash, you’ll have lots of chances to proc Crowd Control, and you can use the crucial 3 seconds of 15% extra damage to focus your fire on tougher enemies, or keep the pain on the adds. It’s a shame that Crowd Control won’t stack though.

In the middle column, you can select between Single Point Sling, Hand Loaded, and Flared Magwell. The only sensible option here is Hand Loaded. While Single Point Sling isn’t totally hopeless, Machine Guns limit ADS movement speed enough that even the slight bonus from SPS isn’t enough to produce a noticeable effect, and the swap time will never be ideal. Instead, it’s best to double down on Range in tandem with Smooth Ballistics. And Flared Magwell? Again, a Reload Speed increase is, in theory, a big positive for SGA. However, the final perk will put your reloading worries to rest…

Super Good Advice. It’s nice when the Exotic perk goes a long way to defining it. Like the recently reviewed Dragons Breath, SGA’s Y2 redesign makes it unique among its class – just like an Exotic should be. Compared to Y1’s iteration, this perk, while reducing the chance of returning a missed round to the magazine, adds the chance that a hit will feed reserve ammunition directly back to the magazine. And how frequently exactly does this proc? As it turns out, 100% of the time! Whether intentional or not, this means that Super Good Advice has an effective Magazine Size as deep as its reserves. This gives it some unique advantages in PvE and PvP.
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PvE

In Y1, using SGA was essentially pointless. It had a minor niche as an Oracle-killer in the Vault of Glass – but this was a consequence of a hit detection bug and not one of design intent. No, Bungie had created a weapon with impossibly poor stats, ridiculous recoil, and a perplexing perk that rewarded missing while remaining impassive to accuracy.

Year 2 is a different story.

As long as you have even one round left in the magazine, you can perpetually fire until you’ve exhausted every last round in your reserves. DPS is one of the most important stats in PvE, and if you’ve been following along, you can see how SGA can pack a punch if given the time. Its advantage over other Machine Guns is the ability to keep a priority target locked down with fire. As Datto revealed in his review of SGA’s DPS capabilities, given the time, SGA has the highest theoretical DPS among all Machine Guns, including Quillum’s Terminus and Thunderlord.

These circumstances are few and far between though. SGA doesn’t begin to show its quality until hitting the thresholds at which other Machine Guns would need to reload. For instances in which you’re putting bullets downstream in bursts of five to seven seconds, you’re better off with another weapon. However, if you’ve set up shop in view of a Boss’s critical weak spot, and are able to keep precision fire on it, by about 10 seconds you’ll start doing enough damage to justify using SGA.

Compared to Sniper DPS, including the powerful Black Spindle, SGA pales in comparison. However, it’s best to limit our comparison to other Machine Guns. Sure, you’ll still be way better off with Black Spindle at Golgoroth, but the versatility afforded you by SGA in dealing with adds in between DPS phases adds an extra dimension to its usefulness.

It’s also not too shabby with adds. It takes a little bit of creativity and cleverness to reliably take advantage of its Exotic Perk – but it is possible. The key is to cycle between tier 1 red bars and stronger enemies like Hallowed Knights and other majors. You’ll expend ammunition as you chew through adds, but gain it back when you shift your focus to the more resilient enemies. All the while, Crowd Control will push DPS into acceptable ranges to justify SGA over another Exotic.
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PvP

Our advice for PvP: don’t use it.

If you spend any time in PvP, you understand how important stats are in a Machine Gun. Historically, the most in-demand MGs in the Crucible have been ranged, stable monsters like the BTRD-345, Deviant Gravity-A, Jolder’s Hammer, and Thunderlord. Each of these can handle engagements at Primary range, kill in 3-5 shots, and have little enough kick that it’s possible to string headshots together consistently, all while conserving ammunition. The archetype to which Super Good Advice belongs has historically been less successful, with the notable exception of Corrective Measure – a Machine Gun that succeeded through the sheer quantity of rounds it would grant its user on each pickup.

SGA can’t compete with its alternatives in any meaningful way. Instead, it grants its owner one benefit and one benefit only: you won’t have to reload. As you amass kills, you can keep your head on a swivel instead of worrying about feeding more ammo into your magazine. However, as soon as you reach the point at which a reload would leave zero ammunition in reserve, for all intents and purposes, you now just have a poor Machine Gun with Crowd Control.

Crowd Control can be occasionally useful in combination with the Exotic Perk to clearing out groups of unsuspecting Guardians. In these cases, however, an Exotic Rocket Launcher like Truth, or the powerful and accurate Qullim’s Terminus or Ruin Wake would serve you much better.

What’s more, SGA’s low TTK and lower Stability cause it to lose out in gunfights to weapons like The Last Word and popular Pulse Rifles with some regularity. Expect frustration when you’re having a difficult time getting precision kills. Sure, you’ll get a few of those missed rounds back – but it won’t mean anything when you’re outgunned before you can even spend half a magazine.
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Conclusion

Like Dragon’s Breath, the updated Super Good Advice does not flip the meta on its head. Instead, it provides an intriguing and – most importantly – fun reason to pick up an Exotic you might have written off a long time ago.

In PvE, you’ll enjoy it for the sheer glee of keeping the trigger held down and mowing down bosses and crowds alike. In PvP, in between bouts of facepalming, wondering why you ever brought it into the Crucible in the first place, you may string together a few impressive multikills. It might not talk to you, but its message is still loud and clear: “Give me another shot!”

Thanks for reading our updated Exotic Review for Super Good Advice! For PvP this weapon earns a 5/10 and for PvE a 7/10.