Destiny 2: Retrofit Escapade God Rolls (PvE & PvP)

Image: Bungie via HGG / Brett Moss

Human Made

I've been playing video games pretty much nonstop ever since I got my first 360. I love arena shooters, MMOs, and MOBAs, but I'll pretty much try any kind of game.

Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

If you’re ever in need of a machine gun that rips through everything it touches, Retrofit Escapade is the one for you. This thing is an absolutely incredible rapid-fire machine gun, with tons of build potential since it’s Void as well. It’s great for everything from ad clear to boss DPS, and while it’s not amazing in PVP, it’s still worth picking up. In today’s article, we’re taking a look at how to get Retrofit Escapade in Destiny 2, its god rolls for PVE and PVP, and a few places you can use it to best effect.

Let’s get started!

How to Get Retrofit Escapade

Unfortunately, there’s no way to farm Retrofit Escapade right now. Since it was originally tied to a seasonal activity last year, that activity is no longer available. However, you can find Retrofit Escapade in Xur’s inventory some weeks. You’ll just have to wait until he has it and go buy it.

Retrofit Escapade is also a craftable weapon. Since you can’t acquire it outside of Xur’s inventory, you’ll have to use Deepsight Harmonizers to unlock the pattern. The only way to get Deepsight Harmonizers is from the Season Pass, so you only have a limited amount of them. You only get 1/5 progression from each use, so use them wisely!

Retrofit Escapade | Best PVE God Roll and Perks

Retrofit Escapade PVE God Roll — Image: Bungie via HGG / Brett Moss

In PVE, it’d be hard to name a single machine gun that is objectively better than this one. In Void builds, it absolutely shreds everything in sight, especially if you can get Volatile Rounds going. Here’s the full god roll for Retrofit Escapade in Destiny 2 PVE!

Barrels

Arrowhead Brake (+30 Recoil, +10 Handling)
Corkscrew Rifling (+5 Stability, +5 Handling, +5 Range)

Since it gives +30 recoil control, Arrowhead Brake is by far the best barrel for Retrofit. As a rapid-fire frame machine gun, it has a pretty high amount of base recoil. Controlling this weapon can be fairly difficult, which causes a lot of problems thanks to some of the perks. (More on those in a bit.)

If you aren’t feeling Arrowhead Brake, Corkscrew Rifling is a suitable option as well. You get a bit of everything with it, so you can’t really go wrong. It just sucks not to have the extra recoil control.

Magazines

Extended Mag (+21 Mag Size, +10 Airborne Effectiveness, -20 Reload Speed)
Tactical Mag (+7 Mag Size, +10 Stability, +10 Reload Speed)
Accurized Rounds (+10 Range)

Which magazine is best for Retrofit depends entirely on what you’re using it for. For general use, Extended Mag is the best option. 21 extra rounds in the mag is pretty significant, and the airborne effectiveness is decent to have. The reload speed loss doesn’t really matter here, as long as you’re using Fourth Time’s the Charm in the first perk slot (which we recommend). Tactical Mag is the better option if you aren’t using that perk, or if you just find yourself reloading a lot. Against adds, it might be your best bet.

Accurized Rounds is a much more situational pick. We’d really just recommend it if you’re primarily using Retrofit for boss DPS where the boss is far away. Against an enemy like Oryx, range is important enough to warrant the slot.

Perk 1

Fourth Time’s the Charm
Feeding Frenzy

Both of these perks are based around reloading, but in different ways. Fourth Time’s the Charm is the best pick for most situations, especially if you wanna use it against bosses. All you have to do is land four precision shots within a two-second window, then it’ll return 2 rounds to the mag. If you land all your shots, that’s half your mag back! It makes reloading basically nonexistent in boss fights, and even works against smaller enemies as well.

Feeding Frenzy is the only alternative we’d really recommend. If you find yourself primarily using Retrofit as an ad clear weapon, then this is a solid pick. But we’d still probably recommend Fourth Time’s the Charm over it.

Perk 2

Target Lock
Rampage

Target Lock is easily the best perk for Retrofit, as it usually is with every weapon it’s on. With Target Lock, after you’ve landed enough consecutive hits (it depends on the magazine size, but it doesn’t take long to stack), you get a scaling damage bonus. According to light.gg, the average is around 25% by the end of the magazine. This is the best perk in the game for boss fights, so we highly recommend it.

If you’re not using your Retrofit Escapade for boss damage, Rampage is great. It gives up to 3 stacks of damage bonuses (up to 33%), and all you have to do is kill enemies. It’s a fantastic perk for ad clear, and you can also go into boss fights with a bit of a boost as well.

Retrofit Escapade | Best PVP God Roll and Perks

Retrofit Escapade PVP God Roll — Image: Bungie via HGG / Brett Moss

Let’s be honest. Retrofit Escapade is absolutely not a PVP weapon. However, who’s to say it can’t be? Heavy weapons aren’t nearly as important as your other ones in Destiny 2 PVP, so if you’re wanting to try out something a bit experimental, here are some ideas.

Barrels

Fluted Barrel (+5 Stability, +15 Handling)
Smallbore (+7 Stability, +7 Range)
Corkscrew Rifling (+5 Stability, +5 Handling, +5 Range)

The recoil shouldn’t be too much of a problem in PVP since you’ll only need to hit a couple shots anyway, so we’re focusing more on other stats. Range is usually the go-to best stat for PVP, but it shouldn’t matter all that much on a machine gun. Fluted Barrel seems like the best pick, since the stability is always nice and 15 handling is amazing. Corkscrew Rifling and Smallbore are also picks worth considering, especially if you find yourself needing the range bonus.

Magazines

Accurized Rounds

Mag size itself doesn’t matter in PVP for heavy weapons since you get so little ammo. Reload speed is also unimportant because of the limited ammo. With that in mind, Accurized Rounds is the only real option that doesn’t lean into those stats. It gives a flat +10 range bonus, so it’s perfect for PVP (even though it doesn’t matter as much on heavy weapons).

Perk 1

Zen Moment

Zen Moment is a great PVP perk in general, and especially on weapons with naturally high recoil like this one. With Zen Moment, whenever you deal damage, your recoil is reduced and you gain flinch resistance. This makes firing the weapon significantly easier, and it only requires a single shot to activate!

Perk 2

Tap the Trigger
Vorpal Weapon

Tap the Trigger is another perk mostly concerned with recoil control, but it also grants quite a bit of stability whenever you fire the weapon as well. As soon as you fire your weapon, Tap the Trigger grants 40 stability, 50% recoil control, and a reduced accuracy cone size. This is great for grabbing quick PVP kills without the “kick” that usually comes with this weapon.

Vorpal Weapon is also a solid choice for PVP, since it grants increased damage against Guardians using their super. Against roaming supers like Fist of Havoc or Arc Staff, Vorpal Weapon helps take out enemies even faster than normal. The only downside is how situational it is. Since you won’t get to use your heavy much in PVP anyway, it sucks that you also then have to find a Guardian using a super for this to do anything.

Where to Use Retrofit Escapade

Now that we’ve covered the god rolls for Retrofit Escapade in Destiny 2, let’s take a quick look at a few good places to put it to use!

Grandmaster Strikes

Grandmaster Strikes are usually very hard. Since Retrofit Escapade is among the best heavy weapons in the game right now, it’s always a good pick! GM strikes have plenty of high-HP enemies for Fourth Time’s the Charm and Target Lock to tear through. This allows you to get the maximum value out of Retrofit, and it also leaves your Exotic slot open for something like Witherhoard or Eriana’s Vow.

Gambit

Honestly, Gambit ends up on almost every one of these articles in the “where to use it” section. And for good reason. Gambit is a great place to put any build to work, as it’s the only place where you get to experience PVE and PVP at the same time (PvEvP). Every Gambit match has a long boss fight that’s perfect for a weapon like Retrofit, so it’d be hard not to recommend it here.

King’s Fall Raid

You can’t talk about long boss fights without bringing up King’s Fall. This raid has three separate long boss fights perfect for Retrofit Escapade. Especially in the Oryx fight, having a really strong heavy weapon is essential. He’s also a very easy enemy to maintain Target Lock on since he doesn’t move around during the fight, which makes things even better.

Join the High Ground!

That’s it for our guide on Retrofit Escapade in Destiny 2 — thanks for reading! Let us know your thoughts in the comments and be sure to subscribe to our newsletter for more content like this.

Happy gaming!