Weapon tiers
1–5Legendaries only
The guns you remember mostly still work — but the chase changed completely. Legendary weapons now drop with a 1–5 tier, enhanced perks are baked in at higher tiers, the old Grandmaster Adept chase became a Tier 5 chase (raid and Trials Adepts still exist), and a handful of damage perks define the entire DPS meta. Here's the refresher, then the current armory. Built on the Monument baseline, Destiny 2's final content sandbox; these are settled recommendations, not a rotating tier list.
Edge of Fate added gear tiers, which took over from the old Grandmaster-Adept chase as the top-end pursuit. A weapon's tier (teal pips on the icon) is set by how hard the activity is — and it controls how many perks and enhancements the gun drops with. This applies to Legendary weapons: Exotics sit outside it, while crafted Legendaries — and raid Adepts that can be Reshaped — can now be tier-upgraded toward Tier 5 power at the crafting table.
One trait per column. Takes a standard weapon mod. Your run-of-the-mill drop.
Drops with 2 enhanced traits already applied. Newly crafted Legendary weapons start from the crafting path, then can be upgraded into the gear-tier system at the crafting table.
2 selectable perks per column plus enhanced traits — roughly the old Adept power level. Legacy/pre-EoF weapons cap around here.
Everything from T3, plus enhanced barrels, magazines, and mods.
Everything above, plus an enhanced Origin Trait, up to 3 perks per column (on copies that drop at Tier 5), +5 to all stats when fully Masterworked, and a unique shader with blue-flame kill flair. Tier 5 is the closest thing to the old Adept prestige.
You know this part — quick reset on what changed. The three ammo economies behave differently in PvE vs PvP, and matching your damage type to the weekly surge is most of build optimization for casual content.
White ammo, infinite. Hand cannons, pulses, scouts, autos, SMGs, bows, sidearms. Your add-clear and uptime backbone, and the Monument sandbox buffed them: Legendary primaries deal +30% vs base combatants, Exotic primaries went 30% → 40%, and Bows do +20% vs base / +40% vs elite. Many builds now run a Special weapon in the top slot too.
Green ammo. Snipers, shotguns, fusions, glaives, breach GLs. Specials now deal +20% vs elite combatants — excluding Snipers, Rocket Pulses, Rocket Sidearms, and Choir of One. PvE keeps the ammo relatively plentiful; PvP meters it tightly. "Double special" still works in PvE but was reined in (see below).
Purple ammo, scarce. Rockets, LFRs, machine guns, swords, heavy GLs, heavy bows. This is where your boss DPS lives. Manage bricks around damage phases.
Six damage types — match the weekly surge mod for a free damage boost, and pair weapon element with your subclass for synergy perks:
PvP lens: this page is the global, PvE-first rulebook. In Crucible the same archetypes get judged on range bands and TTK, and a PvE god roll and a PvP god roll can be different weapons entirely. For the duel-first weapon model — range bands, roll priorities, the metered special-ammo economy, and Crucible farms — see the PvP Weapons guide.
If a weapon is "meta" right now, it's usually because it can roll one of these. Knowing the vocabulary lets you read any drop instantly. Enhanced versions (from higher tiers / enhancing) are simply stronger numbers on the same perk.
The reason DPS is about rotations, not spamming one gun: you weave Primary → Special → Heavy to keep Bait and Switch active, while Envious refills your Heavy between windows.
A simple, strong template: Witherhoard (apply DoT) → Special shots → Envious + Bait and Switch rocket/LFR for the big hits. Add a debuff (next section) and your numbers jump.
Enhancing still exists for eligible weapons — it adds enhanced perks, a weapon level, and a memento slot, similar to crafting. Monument of Triumph also lets Legendary crafted weapons enter the gear-tier upgrade path, so old patterns can still matter even while natural Tier 5 drops remain the cleanest farm.
Barrier (shields itself — pierce or stun to break), Overload (heals/teleports — interrupt to stun), Unstoppable (charges — stagger to stun).
Anti-champion is no longer a rotating Artifact column you scramble to slot each season. Champion stun is now intrinsic to weapon frames — built into every weapon by its archetype, Exotics included, with no activation and no seasonal mod swapping. Each frame counters one specific champion type — for example Aggressive and High-Impact → Unstoppable, Precision and Adaptive → Barrier, Lightweight and Rapid-Fire → Overload (more archetypes map in on top of these) — so mix frames to cover the types present. Your guns define your coverage; build the loadout, then read its frames.
Radiant and Volatile Rounds no longer stun Barrier — instead they now add +10% weapon damage against champions. Treat them as damage buffs, not counters.
The Artifact (now plural and loadout-aware) still hands out damage and economy perks that accelerate your coverage — but it doesn't replace your frames as the source of stun. It's disabled in Competitive and Trials, so those modes run on intrinsic frames and gear alone (Gambit is unaffected). Before a Grandmaster, just make sure your loadout's frames cover the champion types present.
Reliable, broadly-available picks for the mid-2026 sandbox, organized by the job they do. Build a loadout as one DPS option + one add-clear + a debuff or utility piece. Slot color = ammo type.
Exotics aside, these Legendaries carry endgame loadouts in the current sandbox — and because anti-champion is now built into frames, one good Legendary can clear, stun, and deal damage. Chase the Tier 5 drops — only a copy that drops at Tier 5 gets the extra perk column; upgrading won't add it. God-roll perks are in the last card. Slot color = ammo type.
A list of good guns doesn't tell you what to launch tonight. This turns the armory into routing — which acquisition model a weapon uses, what to chase first, and for ten staples the exact source, farm order, and keep-roll.
Collect red-border / Deepsight copies to unlock a craftable pattern, then craft the exact roll at the Enclave.
Spend engrams at a vendor to target the weapon directly instead of relying on random drops.
Random-roll drop from a specific activity's encounters — grind until the roll lands.
Launched from the Portal's Pinnacle Ops tab; old seasonal loot returns via the Classic Collector modifier — infinitely farmable with no weekly lockout (you must own the original expansion).
Bought from a vendor (Xûr, Monument to Lost Lights) or pulled from the general Exotic engram pool.
Three systems turn a wishlist into a route. Use them before you grind blind.
From your inventory, attune one weapon per activity type to raise its drop rate for the session — free, no cooldown, swap any run. Update 9.7.0.2 fixed the Solo Ops wrong-weapon bug, so attunement now targets exactly what you picked. Weapons only — armor still comes from focusing and drops.
Spend a vendor's engrams to target a weapon's pool directly — the fastest route to a known roll. Focus what a vendor sells; attune what you have to grind an activity for.
Only a copy that drops at Tier 5 can roll three options in a perk column. Upgrading a lower-tier copy adds enhanced traits, +5 stats and flair — never extra column options. So chase the craftable pattern for a guaranteed roll, a natural Tier 5 for the multi-perk ceiling, or keep and upgrade a great lower-tier drop.
Fill the missing role in your vault — don't chase all five at once.
Choir of One, Sunshot, Graviton Lance, or Khvostov 7G-0X — pick one and most add-clear is solved.
Tractor Cannon, Divinity, or Gjallarhorn — one player running this lifts the whole fireteam's damage.
CALUS Mini-Tool (Incandescent) or IKELOS_SMG_v1.0.3 (Voltshot) — craftable, and their frames carry intrinsic anti-champion.
Apex Predator, Cold Comfort, Commemoration, or Cataclysmic — one reliable damage-phase weapon you can execute under pressure.
Riptide (Chill Clip), Conditional Finality, or Witherhoard — freeze, ignite, or area-deny when a fight gets messy.
No paywall, no login. If a guide saved you a wipe, the videos and the people who watch them are what keep this site going.