Destiny 2: Best Auto Rifles for PVE

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Human Made

Kody is our expert Destiny 2 and shooter genre writer. He lives in Oregon.

Auto rifles have been a heavily featured weapon type in Destiny ever since the beginning. They offer the most “classic” shooter experience you can have, with barely any extra frills (usually). Auto rifles have a lot to offer in Destiny 2, from ad-clear to occasionally DPS. In this article, I’ll go through my overall picks for the best Auto Rifles in Destiny 2 (in no particular order), so let’s get right into it!

Exotic Auto Rifles

Hard Light

How to Get: Exotic Engrams or Xur

Hard Light has evolved from a Crucible-only weapon into a powerhouse in every single game mode. While it remains a great PVP weapon as well, Hard Light has a solid place in elemental builds everywhere. The truly remarkable thing about this rifle is how shots can ricochet off of surfaces. The more it bounces, the more damage it will do. This makes it perfect for spraying fire without concern for accuracy. The only drawback is the lack of mod slots due to it being exotic.

Hard Light is a personal favorite of mine, largely because it’s just fun. The visual of ricocheting shots all over the place is satisfying, and when you’re able to actually utilize the increased damage after bouncing, you can do some serious DPS. Hard Light is one of the most reliable auto rifles in Destiny 2, as well as one of the most fun.

Monte Carlo

How to Get: Exotic Engrams or Xur

The Monte Carlo has always been one of those auto rifles that’s either incredibly good or terrible, depending on how Bungie feels about nerfing it at a given time. This is because of its intrinsic trait, Monte Carlo Method. With this trait, dealing damage and killing enemies recharges your melee. Specifically, dealing damage reduces the cooldown, while each enemy kill has a chance to fully recharge it. If you’re running a melee build, the Monte Carlo is easily a top pick.

In addition to its melee synergies, Monte Carlo also just generally feels great to use. It’s not too hard to control its recoil, it has a solid fire rate, and it does really great damage. I personally think it works best on Titans since they have the best melee abilities for PVE, but it can work on Warlocks and Hunters too.

Quicksilver Storm

How to Get: Exotics Archive at the Tower

Quicksilver Storm was the pre-order incentive for the deluxe edition of Lightfall, so they had to make it good. (It’s available now in-game for those who did not pre-order Lightfall as well.) Not only is Quicksilver the best Strand auto rifle, but it also has some of the strongest auto rifle abilities in the game.

There are two perks/traits that make Quicksilver so strong. The Rocket Tracers intrinsic trait turns every few shots into a homing mini-rocket, which grants charges for the Grenade Chaser perk. With that perk, you get to turn Quicksilver into a grenade launcher for a few high-damage shots. These grenades output great burst damage, so you can use them to help pick off powerful enemies or take out Champions.

Quicksilver is one of the most unique Exotics in Destiny 2, as the perks make it stand out as one of the only auto rifles capable of strong burst damage. Everything about Quicksilver Storm is great, from its visuals to the effects themselves.

Sweet Business

How to Get: Exotic Engrams or Xur

Sweet Business has bounced around a lot between being actually viable and just being a meme. No-one can deny how fun it is to spin up this minigun. It’s definitely a fun weapon to use, but it goes beyond that.

Sweet Business is generally good thanks to its huge magazine size and constant fire. It’s even better on Titan. Since it is a minigun inspired weapon, it runs through a lot of ammo quickly. And since it has one of the longest reload animations in the game, this can be a problem. Luckily for Titans, Actium War Rig exists. Actium is an Exotic Titan chest piece that constantly reloads your auto rifles and machine guns, so it’s great here.

Once you spin this weapon up, it fires faster than you can imagine. It lays down constant damage, even if it is hard to control sometimes. You can obliterate enemies of all kinds with this nonstop torrent of damage, from Champions to random ads and everything in-between.

Legendary Auto Rifles

Adamantite

How to Get: Pit of Heresy Dungeon
God Roll: Demolitionist / Reciprocity + Circle of Life

Adamantite is on this list mainly due to how unique it is. It is one of the only support frame weapons in the game, which allow you to heal allies by shooting at them. These weapons are really fun to use on heavy support builds (usually on Warlock). For the perks, Demolitionist is just a bit better than Reciprocity since grenades are so important and the self-healing from Reciprocity isn’t that important. It’s still strong though if you really plan on maximizing the support side of the weapon. Circle of Life is an obvious pick since it gives a damage boost after rapidly healing several allies. More damage is never a bad thing.

It looked like Adamantite might get left without any official source of acquiring it, but thankfully Bungie added it and the other Heresy weapons to the Pit of Heresy loot pool. Pit is one of the easiest dungeons, so if you haven’t done one before, it’s a great one to try out.

Age-Old Bond

How to Get: Last Wish Raid
God Roll: Repulsor Brace + Destabilizing Rounds

Age-Old Bond is a must-include on auto rifle “best of” lists. It has easily the best perk combo for Void ad-clear in Repulsor Brace + Destabilizing Rounds. This combo is so powerful because of how they empower one another. First, Destabilizing Rounds causes a Volatile burst which debuffs nearby enemies. This causes Repulsor Brace to trigger and give you an overshield whenever you kill a de-buffed enemy. Nothing is better for clearing ads than a strong Void build, and Age-Old Bond is the perfect weapon to use in those builds.

Ammit AR2

How to Get: Legendary Engrams or Xur

God Roll: Ambitious Assassin + Incandescent

Ammit AR2 is one of the best Solar auto rifles in Destiny 2. There are two main reasons for this. One is that it’s a precision frame auto rifle, which means it can be used accurately from longer distances. Second is its insane perk pool. It has Incandescent as one of its perks, which is great since its the best perk for ad-clear. Pair that with Ambitious Assassin and you have one of the most effective auto rifles in the game.

Ammit AR2 is at its best when used for ad-clear in a Solar build. Incandescent is just so efficient for ad-clear that using any other perk feels foolish. All those AOE explosions make the ad-clear role a breeze, especially in content that actually treats it like a real role (Root of Nightmares, for example). With this weapon, you’ll be blowing up enemies constantly.

Giver’s Blessing

How to Get: Kepler Drops
God Roll: Rewind Rounds + Kinetic Tremors

Giver’s Blessing is the newest auto rifle on this list, and it easily has one of the best God Rolls possible. Rewind Rounds and Kinetic Tremors are both S-tier perks, especially when combined. Rewind Rounds refunds ammo back to the mag when you run out based on how many hits you landed prior. Then Kinetic Tremors causes a shockwave that damages targets after consecutive shots. So with Rewind Rounds and Kinetic Tremors on the same weapon, you can cause multiple activations of Kinetic Tremors in a single attempt.

This is easily a weapon worth seeking out. If you already have the Renegades expansion, then it’s a no-brainer. If you don’t already, it might be worth picking up when on sale to get this and some other weapons on Kepler and/or the expansion’s activities. (The expansions go on sale a lot, so try not to pay full price, especially if you’re only interested in weapons and not the story or raid.)

Rufus’s Fury

How to Get: Root of Nightmares Raid
God Roll: Reconstruction + Target Lock

Rufus’s Fury is 100% worth farming the RON raid, as it’s one of the strongest auto rifles in the game (especially in its adept form). The Reconstruction perk is pretty rare on legendary weapons, and it’s incredibly strong here. It lets your weapon passively reload itself up to double the original mag capacity, which makes reloading completely optional. Then Target Lock gives you a scaling damage increase the longer you’re shooting a single target. Since Target Lock’s damage increases the longer you fire, having a massively increased mag size is a huge bonus. It’s a great combo for taking out mid- to high-HP enemies of all types.

Seventh Seraph Carbine

How to Get: Cosmodrome Drops
God Roll: Reconstruction + Kinetic Tremors / Target Lock

I’ve always been a huge fan of precision frame auto rifles, even if they haven’t always been the best. Seventh Seraph Carbine is easily the best of them, as it has several great rolls and is easy to get. Reconstruction is easily the best perk in the first slot, but the second one is more competitive. Reconstruction makes any perk which requires you to shoot enemies consistently better since you have more ammo to do so, which is great for both Kinetic Tremors and Target Lock. Reconstruction + Kinetic Tremors is better when fighting lower-health enemies where a long-lasting Target Lock isn’t necessary. Target Lock is better against really high-HP enemies or bosses. Both are nearly equal, though, and have similar damage-boosting effects.

The Last Breath

How to Get: Prophecy Dungeon
God Roll: Demolitionist / Subsistence + Frenzy

One of the best things that Bungie did during the last few years of Destiny 2 was updating older dungeons and raids to have refreshed weapons. One of the better, more subtle options is the Last Breath. It’s built around light but sprawling damage in PvE. This is mainly thanks to the excellent perks you can roll, with ones like Frenzy and Demolitionist taking center stage.

The standard Frenzy and Demolitionist/Subsistence roll works incredibly well for clearing huge waves of ads, as well as other enemies too. This isn’t an auto rifle that’s really intended for fighting major enemies, but it works incredibly well against lesser ones. Frenzy gives you a damage boost after you’ve been in combat for a bit, while Demolitionist refills grenade energy while also reloading the weapon when you use one. Subsistence is also a good perk, and it’s better overall if you’re not using a grenade-heavy build.

Destiny 2: Best Auto Rifles for PVE

The top exotic and legendary auto rifles right now.