History GameBreaker / Destiny2

*** Stasis Crystals in general are extremely useful. As long as you don't break them immediately, they're perfect for temporarily blocking off pathways to the ADU. Enemies will temporarily try to break through to no effect, before giving up and taking another path, letting you funnel them into choke points. As such, finding ways to make tons of crystals at once, like the '''Verglas Curve''', is a big boon. Behemoth Titans can also join in on creating tons of crystals to block off access to the ADU and stop enemies in their tracks.

* With the advent of Onslaught, a HoldTheLine style activity, numerous strategies and loadouts were soon devised as the perfect ways to withstand the, uh, onslaught:
** Revenant Hunters with '''Renewal Grasps''' are great candidates for the SupportPartyMember. Stasis inherently slows, then freezes enemies solid, hampering their attempts to move, which is undoubtedly helpful in an activity that involves protecting a device against hordes. Building around the Grasps lets a Revenant deploy lots of Duskfield Grenades to not only hamstring enemies' movement, but also steadily freeze and break them apart, and also form large Stasis crystals to shatter. The field not only lowers enemy damage, but also reduces player damage taken, serving a twofold role - weakening enemies' damage output, and also assisting with damage resistance in hectic situations. It's almost like a very low-key version of the Ward of Dawn for Revenants.
** On a related note, Stasis Crystals in general are extremely useful. As long as you don't break them immediately, they're perfect for temporarily blocking off pathways to the ADU. Enemies will temporarily try to break through to no effect, before giving up and taking another path, letting you funnel them into choke points. As such, finding ways to make tons of crystals at once, like the '''Verglas Curve''', is a big boon. Behemoth Titans can also join in on creating tons of crystals to block off access to the ADU and stop enemies in their tracks.
** Wave Frame grenade launchers are king in this mode. The wave can rush through multiple enemies as it passes, either softening multiple tough guys or wasting tons of mooks in one go. While they'll falter against bosses, they're still great against crowds. In particular, the BRAVE version of '''Forbearance''' has gained quite a monstrous makeover. In place of ''Souldrinker'' (restores health based on amount of hits before reloading), it has ''Indomitability'' (kills give grenade energy for Light subclasses and melee energy for Darkness subclasses). While it's only a paltry 5% by itself, the weapon can roll with both ''Demolitionist'' (kills give grenade energy, throwing a grenade instantly loads the weapon) and ''Wellspring'' (gain ability energy split amongst all three abilities) at once. The result is a weapon that can rapidly recharge your abilities as soon as it tears through groups, and let you chuck grenades like no tomorrow! If paired with the Spark of Beacons fragment (Arc special weapon kills while Amplified cause a Blinding explosion), it also gains some utility by temporarily turning off enemy attacks and slowing them down!

* '''Whisper of the Worm''' was once the most broken of heavy weapons, until years of power creep saw it be outclassed by even special snipers. The craftable version fixes its biggest problem, its small reserves and a perk that's inconsistent at best and useless at worst, with one change - replacing ''Mulligan'' (chance to return a missed shot to the mag) with ''Field Prep'' (more reserve ammo, crouch to increase reload speed and handling). This simple change gives Whisper a much needed shot in the arm, letting it have much more ammo to work with and also making it handle faster. And in the event you miss your shots, at least there's much less downtime between reloads.

* On PC, '''"Titan Skating"''', which is achieved through binding the jump function to a macro (or the mouse's scroll wheel) and using a Titan's Catapult Lift, is considered by anyone worth their salt to be an essential asset for speedrun-level plays in PvE and blazingly fast flanks in PvP. By Titan skating, you can also abuse the aforementioned Shoulder Charge / Insurmountable Skullfort combo in the Crucible, as you'll be in the enemy's face before they can even react or even fathom how you got to them so quickly. This was patched out with the release of Joker's Wild.

* The Black Hammer in all its unnerfed ''Destiny 1 Year 1'' glory comes back in this game as the '''Whisper of the Worm''', being able to fire forever so long as you keep chaining precision hits, on top of dealing obscenely high damage on those precision hits (moreso once you complete its Masterwork objective, which increases the crit's modifier). All in all, it's usually the first answer to difficult bosses, especially as new content with higher power level requirements pile upon the base game. It's one of the few times the fandom has been genuinely ecstasic about a secret weapon's discovery, as the weapon is a throwback to Destiny's early months of hilariously broken PvE loadouts. It took until ''Joker's Wild'' for Bungie to turn the Whisper into the post-nerf Black Hammer (or ''The Taken King''[='=]s Black Spindle) by making chained precision hits take from reserves instead of out of thin air, severely limiting its potency, especially in {{self imposed challenge}}s like low-man raids. Because of the blanket nerf to sniper rifle damage in ''Season of the Warmind'' and the shift to highly mobile endgame bosses (or ones with a crit spot that's hard to hit), the Whisper (and by extension, the D.A.R.C.I.) fell behind in the DPS competition, and only got a new lease of life with Bungie's 30th anniversary update.

* Ever since the weapon slot changes occurred shortly before ''Forsaken'', the '''Telesto''' was noted to have retained its damage numbers from when it was still a Power weapon, swiftly killing Guardians with only 4 bolts connecting to the body. Consequently, it became one of the most prevalent, easy-to-use Exotics in the Crucible, and one of the few Fusion Rifles actually worth using in a meta that's unfavourable to them. Update 2.1.4 reduced its damage per bolt and consequently its viability in the Crucible, though it also got a damage increase in PvE as a consolation. Aside from that, it is a recurrent problem child when it comes to GoodBadBugs, triggering all sorts of broken shenanigans since its bolts are coded as entities in the same vein as enemies.

* On PC, the '''Ace of Spades''' is the number one Primary in the Crucible due to its massive Range stat of 86 (whereas most [=HCs=] fall in the [=70s=], placing the Ace firmly in Pulse Rifle range territory) and very manageable recoil when you play with a keyboard and mouse. Those two traits turn what is a fairly situational PvP gun on console into a menace in ranged confrontations, and the Firefly perk, which you can keep indefinitely until you use it all up, allows you to casually kill Guardians with two headshots. It's such a dominant gun on PC that the likes of Luna's Howl and Not Forgotten, or any other Primary for that matter, are usually shelved in favour of Energy Secondaries for better coverage. Its use eventually diminished by ''Shadowkeep'', given that expansion's launch patch introduced a blanket nerf to hand cannon range and made 150 [=RPM=]s much more desirable than ever in [=PvP=]. With the adjustment of making 150 RPM handcannons becoming 140 RPM guns starting in ''Beyond Light'', Bungie has given handcannons a range buff that increases range falloff up to 30 meters. This becomes significant with Ace of Spades because it's one of the biggest beneficiaries with the buff thanks to its already impressive range, meaning it has climbed quite closely back to the top of the charts, particularly in the Crucible, regaining a good chunk of its previous status from ''Forsaken''.

* The Warlock solar Super '''Well of Radiance''' introduced in ''Forsaken'' is basically an overcharged Healing and Empowering Rift. What made it crazy was making any Guardian inside the circle functionally invincible in PvE by giving them an overshield and immediate healing when taking damage. The only thing able to kill a guardian inside is insta-kill mechanics, though PvP had many more options (sniper headshots, heavy weapons, destroying the sword, etc.). When combined with the Lunafaction Boots Exotic, the Guardian(s) inside gained BottomlessMagazines (pre-Shadowkeep) or faster reload (post-Shadowkeep). When combined with '''Phoenix Protocol''' exotic, kills while in the Well including allies are returned to the guardian as Super energy, letting them redeploy it almost immediately. It became a Raid staple for that reason, letting you one-phase every single boss in the game with the right amount of firepower.

* For basic PvE content, '''Izanagi's Burden''' is one of the best weapons you could ask for, as its unique perk turns it into a Special weapon with the firepower of a Heavy weapon (moreso if you score precision shots, effectively outstripping any other weapon in single shot damage), giving it less constraint on ammo as it is more common than Heavy bricks. Honed Edge is also very effective in Gambit, oneshotting High Value Targets with a headshot once their shield is down; it's more situational in the Crucible due to the need to find special ammo while starting with only 2 rounds, but the threat becomes real once you've scavenged a few green bricks. Its DPS might fall short of the Whisper of the Worm, another PvE Game-Breaker, but it's still impressive for a Special weapon.

* '''The Recluse''', Season 6's pinnacle Crucible reward. This SMG is normally tame by itself, but the moment you get a kill through any of your equipped weapons, it turns itself into one of most powerful mob-clearing Primaries in the game, owing to the Master of Arms perk being essentially Kill Clip with the refresh rate of Rampage, ramping up bodyshot damage to being just slightly lower than headshots (considering it's a 900 RPM weapon, this means it has the lowest TTK of all Primaries in the Crucible with the perk active, and melts elite PvE combatants with incredible ease). Feeding Frenzy is also a nice quick reload bonus to keep the carnage going. It took until Update 2.7.0 (Season of the Dawn) for the Master of Arms perk to get its disproportionate non-precision damage increase nerfed.

* It might not seem like much on paper, but '''Divinity''' is a seriously effective tool for getting through high level PvE content. The weapon is an exotic Trace Rifle that does medicore damage, but applies a massive defensive debuff and creates a large crit spot to strike. Dominant strategies for raids now boil down to "Divinity laser it while everyone piles on the damage", since the debuff is a weighty ''30%'' malus against all incoming damage.

* The Hunter stasis perk '''Shatterdive''' proved to be one of the most controversial aspects of the Stasis subclass, particularly in pvp. While in air you can trigger an immediate dive to the ground that makes a stasis area of effect damage, while also shattering nearby crystals and frozen enemies. The shattered crystals themselves can easily kill enemy players, but with the right build you can chain throwing a stasis wall grenade, shatterdive to kill and enemy, shards regenerate your grenade and you can do it all again near instantly. Combined with Hunter dodges being able to produce slow effects, you basically had a Hunter that was bouncing all over the map and can easily team wipe. The Radiant Dance Machines exotic legs produced a related problem, as the aggressive dodging nature of the gear made the stasis slowing bursts impossible to counter. Bungie had to patch Shatterdive to give it a cooldown.

* The Trials of Osiris Submachine Gun '''The Immortal''' became ''the'' PVP weapon due to being the first SMG that can roll with ''Target Lock'', which activates through simply landing the first few shots on a target. This bumped the time-to-kill down a solid .25 seconds from the previous record holder, and is able to do so without a secondary activation trigger like getting a kill or reloading.

* '''Cenotaph Mask''' is a Warlock helmet that works with trace rifles, if you sustain fire on a target they become marked and if the marked target is killed it spawns special ammo for you and heavy ammo for your allies. This is one of the few exotics that impact ammo drops (the Aeon arms have one perk option but require coordination between players to all wear the same) and seemingly tailor-made for Grandmaster Nightfalls, while allowing a lot of flexibility on which trace rifle you want to use and which subclass to play. But the big thing is ''it works in PVP as well'', a coordinated crucible team can have one player with Cenotaph Mask and a trace rifle and have continuous heavy ammo against the enemy team.

* Weavewalk, the Warlock Strand aspect, allows a Warlock to enter the Weave, reducing damage taken by a full 90%. In pvp, using this ability means surviving nearly everything shy of a Super, giving the Warlock a way out of a bad situation, with nothing the opponent can do about it. Oh, and they also generate Threadlings while they're using the ability.

** Once a solar Hunter staple, '''Celestial Nighthawk''' had become nerfed due to restrictions to the base Golden Gun damage and was always limited to being a single purpose exotic that modifies the super and provide no benefit to moment-to-moment gameplay. ''Nighthawk'' was then upgraded to where precision kills can boost super regeneration, creating a passive effect similar to other super-regenerating exotics. Add in the artifact perks of the season heavily favor solar abilities, with Golden Gun benefitting from Kinetic Surge mods and Radiance, and in lower end content can reach [[BrokeTheRatingScale the 999,999]] damage numbers once again.
** '''Precious Scars''' suffered from CripplingOverspecialization from the start, providing an overshield after reviving or being revived and sustaining that overshield for a length of time. The one piece of content it made most sense was Trials of Osiris but the benefits required the fireteam to be in a bad position, which made it not a popular choice there either. With the changes this season in addition to it's natural effect it would give a burst of healing and restoration to both the user and team members when getting weapon kills that match the player subclass. This instantly put it near the top of Titan exotics, even overshadowing Lorelei Splendor Helm. It is also not subclass specific, meaning you can grant restoration to yourself even with a Strand build and Banner of War making you almost literally unkillable.

* What was originally a "Charged with Light" armor mod before the ''Lightfall'' armor redesigns, ''Argent Ordinance'' returns as an artifact mod for the season. The mod still gives rockets the "Godslayer" perk that drains armor charge for boosted damage with each rocket launcher shot, similar to the "Charged with Light" design, but unlike before this is stackable with all other subclass and armor mod damage boosting options including ''Radiance'' and ''Solar Weapon Surge''[[note]]Bonuses from subclass, armor mods, weapon perks and artifact perks won't stack individually but will take the best from each category. Since Argent Ordinance is an artifact mod instead of armor mod, this frees up a lot of options within the character build[[/note]]. What was once a solid 20% damage bonus can now reach 50%.

** Warlocks gain the Incinerator Snap melee, which lets loose a spread of explosive pellets in front of the player using it. Combined with the right exotic, this makes clearing a room full of enemies a [[JustForPun snap]]. ''Touch of Flame'' improves your equipped grenade's potency, and with the right exotic piece (think Starfire Protocol with a boosted Fusion Grenade that now explodes ''twice''), all bets are off when dealing damage with a subclass that's not traditionally about raw damage. Ever wanted to embody Roy Mustang from ''Anime/FullMetalAlchemistBrotherhood''? Here you go!

* Banner of War, the Titan Strand aspect, activates whenever the Titan gets a melee, finisher or Sword kill: a Strand banner forms on their back and begins pulsing, granting healing and a damage buff to everyone in it's range. More kills increase the frequency of the pulses, with x4 being the max. Combined with Woven Mail, Banner of War makes the Titan near-invincible as long as it's active.

* ''Cenotaph Mask''' is a Warlock helmet that works with trace rifles, if you sustain fire on a target they become marked and if the marked target is killed it spawns special ammo for you and heavy ammo for your allies. This is one of the few exotics that impact ammo drops (the Aeon arms have one perk option but require coordination between players to all wear the same) and seemingly tailor-made for Grandmaster Nightfalls, while allowing a lot of flexibility on which trace rifle you want to use and which subclass to play. But the big thing is ''it works in PVP as well'', a coordinated crucible team can have one player with Cenotaph Mask and a trace rifle and have continuous heavy ammo against the enemy team.

* ''Kinetic Tremors'' is quickly making the rounds as a must-have perk. Its premise is simple - shoot the target for a short time before kinetic shockwaves start surging around them, damaging them and nearby enemies for a few seconds. While weaker enemies will fall before it kicks in, it really shines against beefier enemies like orange bars and champions, who will last far longer and give ample time for the perk's effect to trigger. It gives kinetic weapons far more damage potential and lets them compete better with all other elemental weapons, while also ensuring you can have an easier time with beefier enemies if your special and heavy ammo is gone and your abilities are still recharging. If it rolls in combination with ''Shoot to Loot'' (shooting special/heavy bricks will instantly warp the ammo into reserves), it gets some utility as well, letting it immediately grab any ammo the enemy drops on death if they die to the shockwaves. So far, it can only roll on three weapons, but its potency cannot be denied.

* '''Cold Comfort'' from the "Ghosts of the Deep" dungeon is an Aggresive Frame Stasis Rocket Launcher that comes with the trait Restoration Ritual, which automatically reloads the gun and prepares an emergency reload for the next time it runs out of ammo when you revive an ally or finish a combatent. It can also roll with the perk "Envious Assassin", which can overflow the mag up to 3 if you get kills with other weapons before drawing it. This essentially means that a user can get 4 back-to-back rockets with just one perk, plus the trait.

* The Trials of Osiris Submachine Gun '''The Immortal''' became ''the'' pvp weapon due to being the first SMG that can roll with Target Lock, which activates through simply landing the first few shots on a target. This bumped the time-to-kill down a solid .25 seconds from the previous record holder, and is able to do so without a secondary activation trigger like getting a kill or reloading.
* ''Kinetic Tremors'' is quickly making the rounds as a must-have perk. Its premise is simple - shoot the target for a short time before kinetic shockwaves start surging around them, damaging them and nearby enemies for a few seconds. While weaker enemies will fall before it kicks in, it really shines against beefier enemies like orange bars and champions, who will last far longer and give ample time for the perk's effect to trigger. It gives kinetic weapons far more damage potential and lets them compete better with all other elemental weapons, while also ensuring you can have an easier time with beefier enemies if your special and heavy ammo is gone and your abilities are still recharging. So far, it can only roll on three weapons, but its potency cannot be denied.