Sidearms are the talk of the town in Destiny 2 PvP as of late, and the new Spire of the Watcher dungeon in Season of the Seraph has added yet another contender to the ever-growing list of meta options.
Liminal Vigil is an Aggressive Burst frame sidearm, one that is capable of rolling with entirely unique perks such as Desperado alongside coming equipped with a new Origin Trait that plays directly into the Crucible fantasy. As one of the few Tex Mechanica weapons now in Destiny 2, it comes with Tex Balanced Stock, which increases handling, movement speed, and reload speed while aiming down sights after dealing damage to enemies through hipfire.
These stat boosts can go a long way during PvP fights where your ability to strafe is key to victory at close range. Accompany utility perks such as Tap the Trigger, Tunnel Vision or Perpetual Motion take this philosophy further until the Liminal Vigil becomes one of the most impressive sidearms statistically out there.
The ideal roll will vary from person to person, hinging on the player’s confidence to consistently hit shots with certain perks, but there are still some universally fantastic rolls that anyone should be hunting down to get the most out of this new weapon.
Liminal Vigil PvE god roll in Destiny 2
- Barrel: Corkscrew Rifling or Smallbore
- Mag: High-Caliber Rounds
- First perk: Headstone or Perpetual Motion
- Second perk: Kill Clip or Desperado
Liminal Vigil PvP god roll in Destiny 2
- Barrel: Corkscrew Rifling or Smallbore
- Mag: High-Caliber Rounds, Armor-Piercing Rounds, or Ricochet Rounds
- First perk: Tap the Trigger or Tunnel Vision
- Second perk: Kill Clip or Desperado
Guide to Liminal Vigil’s god roll and best perks: third column
Headstone
Headstone is a welcome surprise in this column, where it is allowed to combine with damage-boosting perks such as Kill Clip or Desperado in the fourth column as a result. With Stasis subclass users traditionally forced to choose between the utility of Headstone’s Stasis Crystal generation and increased damage, this makes Liminal Vigil’s PvE potential stand above the rest in this department.
Perpetual Motion
Perpetual Motion would traditionally be the perk of choice here in PvP as it is with so many other weapons with a heavy kick and lack of stability. But with Tap the Trigger’s unique functionality on Liminal Vigil, allowing it to effectively be permanently active, Perpetual Motion is quite overshadowed. A roll of this weapon with Perpetual Motion is by no means a bad one, but Tap the Trigger is where you’ll want to go for the perfect build.
Tap the Trigger
Tap the Trigger isn’t usually what you’d expect from a weapon, but Liminal Vigil seems to have a special interaction with the perk. Tap the Trigger stays active on each trigger pull, according to content creator Aztecross’ testing, meaning players get a free stat boost from it. As long as this interaction persists, Tap the Trigger will certainly be a force to be reckoned with.
Pugilist
This perk is a nice option to take for players focused more on their melee abilities than the sidearm itself. The handling bump to the gun after dealing damage with a melee hit is nice, but the main reason to take the perk is for the melee ability generation that killing blows with it will cause. With each kill generating 10 percent of your melee ability’s energy, only 10 kills would be needed to fully regenerate it without factoring in the passive cooldown already at play.
Tunnel Vision
Tunnel Vision might not be the most recommended perk here compared to Tap The Trigger, but its synergy with both Kill Clip and potentially Desperado means it’s still a good alternative for players struggling to keep their shots on target. The bump in aim assist that Tunnel Vision provides to Liminal Vigil is very noticeable, especially with how heavy the weapon’s recoil is. If you’re losing fights against more stable weapons, Tunnel Vision could balance out this gun’s drawbacks.
Threat Detector
It’s fair to say that Threat Detector’s purpose here is to be paired with Surrounded in the fourth column. Not to say that its boosts to stability, reload speed and handling aren’t welcome, but just that other perks offer similar effects without requiring groups of enemies in such close proximity. As Surrounded’s damage boost requires the same proximity though, Threat Detector gets to shine on this weapon when paired with it.
Guide to Liminal Vigil’s god roll and best perks: fourth column
Desperado
Desperado has been reserved exclusively for pulse rifles until now, with Liminal Vigil being the first alternative burst-fire weapon to roll with it. It’s just as deadly as you would imagine, drastically reducing the time to kill of a gun that already has a low time to kill at close range, to begin with.
The reason it’s been reserved for pulse rifles, however, and won’t be for everyone on a sidearm like this, is because it requires a precision final blow to activate. With the stability and range of pulse rifles, such a requirement is no big deal, but Liminal Vigil is an inherently unstable weapon. Consistently landing headshots to utilize Desperado will be a challenge in PvP, making Kill Clip a much more promising choice for most players.
Kill Clip
Kill Clip’s sizeable nerf this season does hurt its prominence here, but for players that don’t have the accuracy to capitalize on Desperado, Kill Clip is the perfect alternative. A 25-percent damage boost is still going to noticeably impact every fight, and the presence of Tunnel Vision or Tap the Trigger in the third column makes for a deadly potential combination. This will no doubt be the damage perk of choice for most people.
Rangefinder
On paper, Rangefinder seems like the ideal perk for Liminal Vigil in PvP. For controller players, that might be the case, where the drawbacks of the perk’s increased zoom magnification are less prominent thanks to aim assist. But those drawbacks can lead to inconsistencies at the close range that sidearms are supposed to excel in, making Rangefinder’s utility here entirely up to personal preference.
Swashbuckler
Pugilist and Swashbuckler are not both on this weapon as a pure coincidence. With Swashbuckler’s damage boosts best achieved via melee kills, combining it with a perk in the third column that explicitly generates bonus melee ability energy will make for a satisfying loop in PvE for this gun.
Surrounded
Surrounded’s 40 percent damage boost is the most significant on this weapon, but its need to be surrounded by three or more enemies to proc holds it back from usage beyond niche scenarios. If you’re using Liminal Vigil in enemy dense encounters, Surrounded can be a fantastic perk choice with the likes of Threat Detector or Perpetual Motion. But knowing when this perk will work and when it won’t is key.
Quickdraw
Quickdraw won’t be a popular pick by any means in this fourth column but does still serve a purpose for a specific brand of PvP player. The ability to quickly pull out the sidearm will most benefit players that move around a Crucible arena with their Special weapon out more than any Primary. If you get jumped by an enemy wielding a shotgun or fusion rifle, Quickdraw can potentially give you the crucial milliseconds needed to ready Liminal Vigil and shut them down before they can close the gap.
How to get Liminal Vigil in Destiny 2
The Liminal Vigil sidearm is available exclusively via the new Spire of the Watcher dungeon in Season of the Seraph. Unfortunately, Liminal Vigil is also only a drop in the final encounter against Persys, Primordial Ruin.
Make sure you’ve got a reliable fireteam with you for quick clears, as thanks to the dungeon being endlessly farmable, you can run it as many times as you want each week to try and lock down this sidearm. Here’s our breakdown of the full loot table for Spire of the Watcher so you know what drops and when.
