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Primary

Vision Stone

• Pros – Above average range and mag size. High stability and aim assist. Very high reload speed.
• Cons – Low recoil direction.

Recommended Perks:

1. Smart Drift Control
2. Send It
3. Hand Loaded
4. Crowd Control

Hailing from an underused and overlooked archetype, the Vision Stone on paper looks like it could be a dark horse in PvP. Smart Drift Control will help to address the only real negative of poor recoil direction, making it nearly vertical and significantly easier to handle. The penalty to range can be addressed by the next two perks, with Hand Loaded and Send It more than making up for the loss from the barrel perk.

In the last column I’m a huge fan of Crowd Control on ARs, especially because the high mag size will allow you to engage multiple targets consecutively without needing to reload. While I don’t think this weapon is the optimal choice for highly competitive Crucible matches, with the added focus on short range combat brought about with Supremacy, the Vision Stone may yet find a place in the meta.

Burning Eye

• Pros – High range, stability, and reload speed. Above average aim assist.
• Neutral – Average mag size.
• Cons – Slow Ttk.

Recommended Perks:

1. Accurized Ballistics
2. Smallbore
3. Explosive Rounds
4. Third Eye or Zen Moment

Although this specific sub-class of scout rifles lacks the fast time-to-kill most high level players look for, it does have quite a few things going for it. Only needing to hit two crits and two body shots to achieve the optimal TtK makes this weapon among the most forgiving in the game, while having Accurized Ballistics as a barrel perk actually increases the impact and damage enough to kill low armor Guardians with only three headshots in 0.67s.

Smallbore will boost both range and stability at the cost of a couple rounds from the magazine, and Explosive Rounds will assist you in making it nearly impossible for other players to directly engage you to return fire. In the final column, Third Eye is a universally good perk in PvP, but for those people who don’t need it Zen Moment can improve on the already high base stability.

Blind Perdition

• Pros – Quick reload speed. Above average aim assist.
• Neutral – Average range.
• Cons – Average stability and recoil direction. Very low mag size.

Recommended Perks for Reload Speed:

1. Smart Drift Control
2. Smallbore
3. Hand Loaded
4. Outlaw

Recommended Perks for Aim Assist:

1. Smooth Ballistics
2. Hand-laid Stock
3. Hand Loaded
4. Counterbalance

This is one of the most interesting primary weapons to come out of Trials in a long time. While at first glance it appears to be somewhat lacking compared to other weapons in the archetype like the SUROS PDX-45 and Hawksaw, it actually offers two distinct combinations of perks that play up its strengths and mask its weaknesses. The first set up relies on the barrel perk Smart Drift Control to improve the recoil direction and stability, at the cost of a bit of range. Smallbore then comes into play to negate that range penalty, while adding on a bit more stability, and Handloaded then adds some more range on top of that. Outlaw will drastically increase the reload speed, which will be necessary with the mag size decreased to 18.

A second options aims to focus on a different style, with the barrel perk Smooth Ballistics decreasing stability, but increasing aim assist by five, and giving a small boost to range. Hand-laid Stock will more than make up for the decreased stability from Smooth Ballistics, but will also mostly negate the range bonus it gave too. To make up for this, we select Hand Loaded, and then Counterbalance in the last column to improve the recoil direction and offer an easier to handle burst spread.

Either one of these setups will more than likely prove competitive at most levels in the current Crucible meta, so those people who weren’t lucky enough to get a well-rolled PDX-45 or the previous vendor Hawksaw may want to take a look. If you don’t mind killing the range, you could also run the combination of Smart Drift Control, Hand-laid Stock, and Outlaw for great stability and reload speed, but keep in mind your damage drop off will suffer. I no long recommend High Caliber Rounds simply because they aren’t needed, and you can generally provide sufficient flinch with high RoF guns like this one without it.

Exile’s Student

• Pros – Very high aim assist. High reload speed, equip speed, and recoil direction. Above average mag size.
• Neutral – Average stability.
• Cons – Very low range.

Recommended Perks for Range:

1. Accurized Ballistics
2. Hammer Forged
3. Explosive Rounds
4. Hidden Hand

Recommended Perks for Stability:

1. Smart Drift Control
2. Braced Frame
3. Extended Mag
4. Firefly or Hidden Hand

Unfortunately this hand cannon just doesn’t seem to have what it takes to be a PvP gem. Horrible base and max ranges mean it won’t be able to compete with weapons like the Palindrome outside of CQB. You can still try to make it work by choosing perks like Accurized Ballistics and Hammer Forged to push out the damage and accuracy fall off, or you can try to take advantage of the weapon’s quick RoF at close range by maximizing stability with Smart Drift Control and Braced Frame. When pushing the range out, Accurized Ballistics will drop the aim assist by 10, so Hidden Hand can help to put it right back into the higher level. Explosive Rounds will be excellent in making it difficult for other players to accurately return fire, and also allows the gun to hit harder at longer distances, as the explosion does not suffer from damage fall off.

The second combination won’t allow you to go toe-to-toe with most weapons at mid-range, but it will make it possible to put to use the faster RoF up close. High stability means you can more quickly realign on target and follow up shots, which might give you the advantage you need within optimal combat windows. Extended Mag will make up for the Braced Frame mag size penalty, and I’d recommend Firefly in the last slot because, at 94 base aim assist, I’m not really sure Hidden Hand is going to make that much more of a difference. If you really feel like maxing out aim assist though, go for it.

Ultimately, I feel like this weapon will actually be more suited to add clean-up in PvE, with the combination of Explosive Rounds and Firefly working together to tear through low-health enemies. Choosing to improve range and damage with Accurized and Hammer Forged would probably be the most be useful setup, in this case.

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Special

The Winged Word

• Pros – Above average stability, aim assist, and equip speed.
• Neutral – Average mag size.
• Cons – Below average range.

Recommended Perks:

1. Linear Compensator
2. Perfect Balance or Injection Mold
3. Snapshot
4. Unflinching or Life Support

This sniper is probably going to be the Longbow synthesis of the new sniper meta. If you liked sniping with the high-impact archetype before 2.4.0, then this is the weapon you need to get. Adding the impact from Linear Compensator to the weapon will allow it to snipe any Guardian at nine armor or less out of their roaming super, at the small cost of losing 10 aim assist. This means all Bladedancers, Sunbreakers not at max armor, and any Stormcaller or Sunsinger not using The Ram.

This is a huge step up from normal snipers in this archetype, which can only kill Guardians at six armor or less, which means any class using max armor even without chest piece or exotic perks will survive. On top of that goodness, it comes with a low zoom scope of 4.9x magnification, or the same as ShortGaze, Ambush, and ViewTac (and the same as the Devil’s Dawn). This is an improvement over the Stillpiercer and Archon’s Forge snipers which, although they also have an impact increasing barrel perk, do not have the shortest zoom.

In the second column, players who want to increase the equip speed from its already high base will go with Injection Mold, but everyone else can be happy with Perfect Balance giving you more stability without any drawbacks. In the third column, Snapshot is the optimal choice here for quicker ADS speeds, as the small increase in range that comes with Hand Loaded won’t provide many benefits to this weapon.

For the last slot, you’ll have to choose between two very good perks, Life Support and Unflinching. Although Unflinching’s effectiveness was recently decreased, due to the fact that flinch was increased, it actually still functions the exact same. Life Support is a gamble, but when it activates it can literally save your life in the heat of battle. Either one will be an excellent choice, so pick what you think benefits your playstyle best. Long-range hardscopers will probably find Unflinching more useful, while aggressive quickscopers may benefit more from Life Support.

Unraveling Thread

• Pros – High base range and reload speed. Above average max range.
• Neutral – Average mag size.
• Cons – Below average stability, aim assist, and equip speed.

Recommended Perks:

1. Accurized Ballistics
2. Hammer Forged
3. Hand Loaded
4. Rangefinder

Although this shotgun isn’t in the most sought after very-high impact archetype like Matador and Party Crasher, it still offers quite a bit to the discerning user. With a faster rate of fire, and range within a few points of max if you choose the right perks, it can be an effective weapon in the right hands.

Accurized Ballistics with increase the both the range and damage per pellet, and if you combine that Hammer Forged, Hand Loaded, and Rangefinder, you’ve got just about the best possible perks for a shotgun of this type. It won’t give you the ridiculous one hit kill distances of some of the shotguns that are more popular in the meta, but it can hold its own and provide a serviceable placeholder until you have one drop. On top of that, some people find that the higher RoF is worth the lower range, with quicker follow up shots making multiple target engagements much less risky.

Stellar Vestige

• Pros – Above average charge rate, impact/damage per bolt, and aim assist. Very high mag size. High stability.
• Neutral – Average bolts to kill and reload speed.
• Cons – Below average range.

Recommended Perks:

1. Linear Compensator
2. Perfect Balance
3. Accelerated Coils
4. Rangefinder

This fusion might end up being one of the hidden gems of the Trials’ armory. With Linear Compensator pushing the recoil to almost completely vertical (while adding range) and Perfect Balance adding even more stability, Stellar Vestige is going to have a fantastic and easy to control bolt spread. Add in Accelerated Coils, which will increase the charge rate without increasing bolts-to-kill, and Rangefinder for the extra zoom and tighter bolt pattern, and you’ve got basically everything you could ever want in a PvP fusion rifle. Think of it like a Susanoo that everybody can use.