Destiny 2 best PvP weapons

Looking for the Destiny 2 best PvP weapons? There’s a huge arsenal of weapons in Destiny 2, and an ever changing meta. This can often make picking out the best weapons to bring into the crucible a difficult task.

With the Season 22 release date approaching, it’s as important as ever to optimise your loadouts if you want to maximise your performance in player versus player theatres. Here then are our picks for the current Destiny 2 best PvP weapons. These are guns that excel for one reason or another in fighting other Guardians in casual and competitive game modes.

Best PvP weapons in Destiny 2

Here are our picks for the best Destiny 2 PvP weapons. As special and heavy ammunition is limited in PvP gamemodes, we’ve decided to break down weapons by weapon slot rather than ammo type.

Best primary slot weapons for PvP

Here are our picks for the best primary slot weapons for PvP.

• Rufus’ Fury
  • Coming from the Root of Nightmares raid, this strand auto rifle is highly capable in PvE, but it performs excellently in PvP too. This is due primarily to its high rate of fire, decent mid-range capability, and extremely low recoil. Hitting precision hits with this weapon isn’t too tough, and with potential perks like Frenzy, Rewind Rounds and Hatchling, it’s got excellent destructive potential.
• Witherhoad
  • Witherhoard is an exotic grenade launcher, and it’s popularity in PvP should come as little surprise. On grenade detonation, it leaves behind an area of Taken residue that continuously damages anything stood in it. In PvP, that Taken residue is enough to kill a guardian in seconds. Not only does this give Witherhoard excellent synergy with any loadout as a primer weapon, but it allows the launcher to act as a crowd control mechanism, pushing enemies back or momentarily cutting off approaches of attack.
• Conditional Finality
  • The exotic shotgun from Root of Nightmares is a popular choice in the crucible, and for good reason. The shotgun can fire two shots in succession, the first being stasis damage, the second being solar. If you’re able to land all pellets in a hit against an opponent, the first shot will freeze them, and the second will ignite them. This allows Conditional Finality to score rapid kills while immobilising enemies and reducing the risk to the wielder.
• Crimson
  • This hand cannon has been a top choice for PvP for a long time, and though the meta has changed much over the years, it still ranks among the best guns. Crimson is an exotic hand cannon. It’s exotic perk, Banned Weapon, allows shots to fire as three-round bursts. This effectively means the hit rate of a pulse rifle with the damage of a hand cannon. Even better, the gun ranks extremely highly in Impact, Aim Assist, and Stability, making it ergonomic. To top it all off, its secondary unique perk, Cruel Remedy, heals the wielder on kills, and refills the magazine on precision kills.
• Wicked Implement
  • One of the newest exotics to arrive during Season of The Deep, Wicked Implement is a stasis scout rifle. It has excellent range, high damage, and virtually no damage falloff. Combined with a sizable magazine and the ability to freeze targets after six consecutive hits, and it should be clear why this is a strong contender in PvP. What makes it truly special is its perks. That six-hit-freeze ability is thanks to its exotic trait, Creeping Attraction, a buff activated by landing precision hits, which slows targets when you land such blows. The Tithing Harvest perk extends the viability of this though, creating a stasis shard on precision final blows, and enabling stasis shards to automatically reload the magazine to full capacity on collection.

Best secondary slot weapons for PvP

These are our picks for the best secondary slot weapons for PvP.

• Centrifuse
  • At first glance, the new exotic arc auto rifle that arrived with Season 21 might seem like a poor choice for PvP. It has a slow rate of fire for an autorifle, a poor range, and middling stability. What pushes this gun so far up in quality however is its synergy with arc builds. As we covered in our best warlock builds guide, Centrifuse’s exotic trait, Electrostatic Charge, allows it to build up a metre of charge when fired, or when the player is mobile. At high charge final blows will then unleash powerful AOE arc explosions, and at maximum charge the explosions will inflict the Blinding debuff. It also gains better handling and speed. If you have the catalyst however, then the Amplified buff can also passively charge the metre, and it’s a very easy buff to get and maintain with the right arc build. This elevates Centrifuse as a PvP weapon, giving it major crowd control and multi-enemy engagement potential.
• Beloved
  • Like Crimson, Beloved is an old favourite, and one that has a lot of staying power in the PvP weapon rankings. At first glance, its lower-than-average impact and range might seem like detriments, but this is made up for by Beloved’s fantastic handling. Even better, it can roll with both the Quickdraw and Snapshot Sights perks, making it a remarkably flexible and mobile sniper rifle with few contenders in the hands of a skilled PvP player.
• Jotunn
  • Probably the most infamous weapon on this list, it nonetheless remains true that Jotunn excels in PvP. This fusion rifle is a PvP menace for one reason alone: Charge Shot. The exotic trait allows the wielder to charge up a shot, which when fired, tracks the opponent, explodes, and burns on impact. This is more than enough damage to kill a guardian in a single hit. While it might be a weapon favoured by PvP goblins, it’s effective regardless.
• Le Monarque
  • Bows are often a weapon quite at home in PvP, and with the lightweight bow buff from the mid-season update now here, that isn’t likely to change. The reigning monarch of all bows though will probably keep it’s throne. Le Monarque is a combat bow with excellent aim assist, Snapshot Sights, high impact and high accuracy. It excels in all the most important categories for these types of engagements, and is a highly versatile weapon. Even better, its Poison Arrows exotic trait allows it to finish off combatants even if they’re able to disengage before the end of the fight.
• Last Man Standing
  • There are an awful lot of shotguns that excel in PvP – we could probably make a separate guide for them alone. Our pick for secondary slots though is Last Man Standing. It’s an aggressive frame, high impact beast with a lot of good potential rolls, like One-Two Punch and Opening Shot. Combined with the Disaster Plan origin trait, which increases flinch resistance and range after picking up ammo until fired again, and the reason it takes this spot becomes clear. This is a shotgun that can hit shots at ranges others simply can’t and that can do the damage to put close-quarters opponents down in the blink of an eye.

Best heavy slot weapons for PvP

This category is a little more tough. In PvP, you won’t find yourself with much in the way of heavy ammunition, and what little spawns in has to be fought over. This list therefore weighs weapon effectiveness against ammo efficiency. Here are our choices.

• Thunderlord
  • Thunderlord is already known for its top tier damage output, and its something that carries across to PvP. Because of its exotic trait, Reign Havoc, it can deal both devastatingly high damage on a target as well as AOE damage to their nearby allies. It’s got a bit of a windup, but if you hit your shots and use your ammunition smartly, it can easily bring down multiple opponents on a single heavy ammo pickup.
• Gjallarhorn
  • Gjallarhorn certainly isn’t as useful in PvP compared to PvE, but it does still have two things going for it. Firstly, it’s enormous blast radius score of 100 makes it an ideal candidate for maximising the number of Guardians you take out with a hit. Secondly, the micro missiles released after initial detonation, while not powerful enough to kill on their own, can certainly finish off wounded opponents on the edge of the starting blast radius, or injure other nearby enemies, setting them up for an easy kill in the following moments.
• Reed’s Regret
  • A stasis linear fusion rifle, Reed’s Regret is pretty much built for PvP. Not too surprising, as it’s a Trials of Osiris weapon. The rifle doesn’t excel in range or impact, but it doesn’t have to for PvP kills. Where it’s true strength lies, similarly to Beloved, is in its handling and versatility. It can roll with both Quickdraw and Headstone, and it’s got an excellent aim assist as well as a precision frame. It can also be outfitted with the origin trait Alacrity, improving reload, range, and stability when you’re the last living member of your fireteam. This makes it a potent competitive weapon.
• Retrofit Escapade
  • This legendary machine gun is on here for a few reasons. It has some pretty great potential rolls – a Frenzy and Fourth Time’s The Charm roll will perform pretty well in the crucible. It’s also got great reload speed and handling. While these things elevate it onto a spot here, they’re built on a foundation of one simple characteristic – speed. With a 900 RMP firing rate, this thing isn’t the most ammo efficient, but it sure makes up for it with the rate at which it can melt through opponents.
• Play Of The Game
  • Grenade launchers are some of the most versatile weapons in the game. While rocket launchers may still hold the PvE meta, the speed of a grenade launcher like Play Of The Game showcases the capacity for this weapon type to perform in PvP. Its high blast radius and strong aim assist stats make it a good choice for players seeking something easy to use and versatile to implement.

What’s the best PvP weapon in Destiny 2?

Because of how varied and situational PvP is, it’s simply impossible to choose any one weapon that really reigns above the rest. If we had to pick a favourite for each weapon slot, we’d say Witherhorde for its crowd control capability, Beloved for its versatility, and Thunderlord for its ammo efficiency.

That covers our list for the Destiny 2 best PvP weapons in the game right now. Again, these are just our choices, and not an exhaustive list. Everyone will find different loadouts that work best for them. Be sure to check in on the Destiny 2 best PvE weapons too if you’re itching to hop into the weekly Nightfall with the best optimised loadout you can get.

What’s the most important stat for Destiny 2 PvP weapons?

The most important stat for a weapon to have in Destiny 2 PvP is arguably handling or aim assist. Both of these control how quickly a weapon can be drawn and how easily it can be aimed and fired, so they have a massive impact on a weapon’s versatility and time to kill.

What is the Destiny 2 PvP meta?

Weapons with fast time to kill (TTK) ratings remain a core of the meta, but weapons with crowd control capabilities that can force players onto your terms are also favourable.