Xur, Destiny’s travelling weekend Exotic trader, artisan blade crafter, and disgraced former home shopping TV presenter (don’t talk to him about spiralisers), is back. This week he’s in the Reef, and this is what he’s selling.
• Thagomizers (Exotic Titan Gauntlets) - 13 SC
• Radiant Dance Machines (Exotic Hunter Boots) - 13 SC
• Sunbreakers (Exotic Warlock Gauntlets) - 13 SC
• Legacy Exotic Engram (Special Weapon) - 29 SC
• The Last Word and Addendum (Exotic weapon and ornament combo) - 30SC and 25 Silver Dust
• Telesto and Queen’s Command (Exotic weapon and ornament combo) - 30SC and 25SD
• Exotic Shard - 7SC
• Three of Coins – 7SC
• Glass Needle – 3SC
What’s good? Well the armour is pretty solid, overall. The Titan’s Thagomizers are decent on the surface of it – giving the Amplify perk for free, meaning extra Fist of Havoc cooldown on every Storm Fist kill - but get really potent when you start thinking more deeply about character builds. Being gifted Amplify, you see, frees up a slot in the skill tree, opening up the possibility of equipping Overload at the same time. Overload gives you a chance of resetting your Storm Fist on every hit, meaning that… well, you know.
The Hunters’ Radiant Dance machines are another good one, though once more, even better once you set up a sympathetic load-out. They give you a speed boost while aiming down the sights, which is obviously a massive boon in the Crucible. Combine this with something like the MIDA Multi-Tool though, which comes with a speed buff of its own, and ye gods, you’ll be flying. The Warlocks’ Sunbreakers are pretty good too, increasing the duration of solar grenades, and adding an extra charge to the gauge. Two, longer-burning solar grenades is a heck of a spatial control tool, in PvE or the Crucible. Though being a Sunsinger-specific Exotic, you might want to ponder whether you’d prefer the super-boosting, damage-volcano utility of the Heart of the Praxic Fire.
As for guns? Well for some reason, Xur isn’t selling a standalone firearm this week Probably thought we wouldn’t notice if all the armour was good. But we noticed, Xur. We noticed. You don’t fool us, coming in here all stinking of booze, with your hair not combed, pretending you’re just “tired” and the gun crate got stolen from the suppliers. I don’t know what happened last night, and I don’t even want to know.
But he is selling a couple of weapon / Ornament bundle packs. The Last Word, once the terror of the Crucible, is now distinctly less omnipotent than it once was, but it’s still a hell of a lot of fun to use. A hard-hitting, fan-firing hand cannon (you can empty its mag in a couple of seconds of you hammer the trigger fast enough), its now-reduced range makes it pretty useless in anything other than close-up encounters (so it’s fairly bum in PvE as well). But its perks, which give it increased accuracy when firing from the hip, and extra damage on hip-fire precision shots, make it a beast at close range. Getting good with it does require a whole new approach to Crucible shooting, but if you’re willing to adapt – and don’t mind reloading constantly - The Last Word can fill in for a shotgun surprisingly well.
Telesto, also, is a banger. A fusion rifle that works more like a sticky grenade launcher, it’s great for both doling out big hits to specific targets, and doing decent area-of-effect damage around the area of detonation. See it as a charge-based descendant of Halo’s Needler. Two fairly gimmicky guns, then, but both of them an excellent time, if not perfectly suited to every situation.
As ever, Xur will be around until Sunday at 10am UK / 2am PT, at which point he’ll be away for another week. Or five days, to be specific.
