Destiny 2’s Duality dungeon sends players into a mind heist deep inside Calus’ consciousness thanks to Eris Morn’s Hive magic, and in true looter shooter fashion, gives them plenty of drops and gear to make it worth their while. Though the Heartshadow Exotic sword is the rarest prize, the crown jewel of Duality is arguably Stormchaser, a linear fusion rifle that packs a punch and has quickly become one of the best options for damage.
Unlike normal linear fusion rifles, Stormchaser fires three heavy shots in a short, timed burst. This makes it somewhat of a hybrid between a linear fusion rifle and a regular fusion rifle and lends a unique feel to the weapon. Each bolt, however, also hits heavily, making Stormchaser a top contender for damage and a weapon you’ll likely bring to most boss encounters.
That said, it comes with a fairly steep recoil, which could mean you’ll miss the precision damage on the latter parts of the burst, especially in targets with small crit spots (though that’s what Divinity is for).
Though Stormchaser packs a punch regardless of what combinations you have for it, there are a few options that vastly increase its damage potential. Here is our PvE god roll for Stormchaser in Destiny 2. Stormchaser doesn’t really have any particular PvP characteristics, so we will only take on the PvE side of it.
What is the god roll for the Stormchaser in Destiny 2?
Stormchaser PvE god roll
- Barrel: Chambered Compensator, Corkscrew Rifling, or Arrowhead Brake (to mitigate its recoil)
- Mag: Liquid Coils or Enhanced Battery (for more damage/bigger magazine size).
- First perk: Auto-Loading Holster or Clown Cartridge (Honorable mention: Rapid Hit)
- Second perk: Firing Line, Vorpal Weapon, or Frenzy.
Stormchaser has access to a slew of perks, though these outperform the rest and make up our god roll. Though some of these are clear contenders for the title of best in slot, other options can also be decent.
Here’s a breakdown of all the perks so you know what to keep and what to dismantle, and so you know what to look for if you go farm the second encounter of Duality for a better roll. Values and perk availability are written based on light.gg’s Stormchaser perk information and stats from Season of the Haunted.
First Perk
Auto-Loading Holster
Some of Destiny 2’s best damage combinations involve swapping out to different weapons to get maximum damage, and having Auto-Loading Holster refill a weapon’s magazine when it’s stowed is a key part of that. Running Auto-Loading Holster on Stormchaser lets you pair it with Izanagi’s Burden or Witherhoard in the Kinetic slot, making it so you can shoot a Witherhoard or fire a honed Izanagi shot, then swap to Stormchaser, unload your mag, and swap back.
By the time you have Stormchaser back in your hands, odds are the mag will be full. Throw a damage super into the mix and odds are you’ll be topping the damage charts.
Clown Cartridge
Clown Cartridge overflows your magazine randomly, which comes in handy to give you more bullets to shoot. Pair that with a Loader mod (if you can afford the space in your armor) or even your friendly Warlock’s Lunafaction boosts and you can fire for a long time without reloading, raising your DPS.
Its downside is that Clown Cartridge has a strong RNG element to it, but with enough luck and an Enhanced Battery, you can have nine rounds in your magazine at once.
Rapid Hit
Rapid Hit affects the same space as Auto-Loading Holster and Clown Cartridge by mitigating downtime and increasing your damage sustain. Each precision shot gives you a stacking bonus to reload speed and stability, and just like with pulse rifles, each round in your burst counts as a stack, so you can get to three with a single pull of the trigger.
The reload boost part of it is made redundant by Lunafaction Boots, but the boost to stability is nothing to scoff at.
Rangefinder
Rangefinder gives you more zoom and improves your aim assist falloff range with this weapon, which comes in handy. That said, the improved zoom can be detrimental in encounters where you’re pretty close to the enemies, and it’s not worth ditching Auto-Loading, Clown Cartridge, or Rapid Hit for it.
Well-Rounded
Well-Rounded is one of the new perks in Season of the Haunted, giving you more stability, handling, and range after hitting a target with your powered melee or throwing a grenade. In most damage phase scenarios, you don’t want to stop shooting to use an ability, especially at the expense of the big three perks in the god roll.
While Well-Rounded could work for primaries, having it on Stormchaser feels like a waste of space compared to what you could have.
Turnabout
Turnabout has always been a circumstantial perk, and if you’re using Stormchaser exclusively for boss or champion damage, you won’t really break many shields. On the rare occasions when it does proc, the chances of the overshield being life-or-death are even rarer, so running Turnabout feels like counting on ifs layered up on ifs.
Second Perk
Firing Line
The gold standard for team-based damage, Firing Line boosts your precision damage by 20 percent when close to two or more allies. In most raids and dungeons, this is a surefire perk to bring with you, and Firing Line takes up the top spot in our god roll because of it.
Vorpal Weapon
You can hardly go wrong with Vorpal Weapon on a Heavy weapon. It boosts your damage against Elite enemies by 10 percent in Heavy weapons (Primary and Special have higher values), and has no setup. Though it offers a smaller boost than Firing Line, it is far simpler since it applies to all outgoing damage and doesn’t require a fireteam to activate.
Having a Stormchaser with Vorpal Weapon and another with Firing Line may sound like overkill, but there’s a strong argument for it if you have the vault space.
Frenzy
Like the rest of the top contenders on this list, Frenzy also boosts damage, and it throws in some extra handling and reload speed to boot. That bonus is bigger than Vorpal Weapon, though it requires you to be in combat for 12 seconds to activate. Frenzy can definitely be a strong contender, especially if running solo.
Demolitionist
In Primary weapons, you want Demolitionist for the extra grenade energy. In Heavy weapons, however, you want to lean in on the reload aspect of Demolitionist: using your grenade instantly refills your magazine, which increases your DPS.
That said, you can reach similar effects as Demolitionist by having Rapid Hit (or even Frenzy) to boost your reload and still get more damage per shot. Demolitionist is not a bad choice, but odds are you’ll get more benefits from Firing Line, Vorpal Weapon, or Frenzy.
Rampage
Rampage is one of the most established damage perks in Destiny 2, and a staple choice for Primary weapons in the game. That said, Heavy weapons don’t really benefit as much from Rampage because of the setup you’d need from it.
After getting one kill, it offers the same bonus as Vorpal Weapon, but for a much shorter duration and at the expense of one round in your magazine—and that’s if there are any adds in the boss arena. We don’t say that often, but there are better choices than Rampage in this case.
Adaptive Munitions
Adaptive Munitions can find its use in higher-end content with Match Game, but with so many options of weapons that can roll Adaptive Munitions (and with New Purpose, the Duality pulse rifle, even rolling with it in your Kinetic slot), there is no reason to sacrifice a vital perk slot on your Heavy for this.
Just bring Arbalest with you and you won’t have to worry about Match Game, and with an intrinsic Anti-Barrier on top, you’ll be serving yourself or your fireteam with the Exotic instead.
