High-Caliber Rounds, Explosive Payload, and Aggressive Frame

Weapons with the High-Caliber Rounds perk currently dominate in Destiny 2 PvP, mostly because they disrupt opponents' firing to the point that they can turn battles to your advantage -- even if an opponent has started firing first. A lot goes into the tuning of the aiming mechanism in Destiny 2:

1. The characteristics of the gun firing at you (including perks, rate of fire, and weapon type). Some weapons do more "shaking" than others.
2. The characteristics of the gun you're firing (including perks, rate of fire, and weapon type). Some weapons are less "shaky" than others.
3. Distance

Destiny 2 developers revealed that these complicated nuances work with each other, defying any simple explanation; still, they referenced that intrinsic perks specific to certain weapons "archetypes" (such as Precision, High-Impact, Rapid-Fire, Lightweight, Aggressive) play a significant role in the math. They also revealed that "Aggressive" archetype weapons have the High-Caliber Rounds perk intrinsically.

Below is a list of the 40 Kinetic or Energy weapons that have either

• the High-Caliber Rounds perk,
• the Explosive Payload perk, which also knocks back targets, or
• the "Aggressive" archetype.

There are 25 Legendary weapons in one of these categories, 3 Exotic weapons (I'm including Sturm, which appears to be in the "Aggressive" archetype), 9 Rare weapons, and 3 Uncommon weapons.

Exotic Weapons With High-Caliber Rounds

There are only two Exotic weapons that live in one of a player's Destiny 2 primary weapons slots that have this as a perk. The MIDA Multi-Tool scout rifle, and the Sweet Business auto rifle, both of which are Kinetic Weapons.

They are among the highest-ranking weapons in PvP: the MIDA Multi-Tool ranks 3rd in PvP kills overall as of this writing, while Sweet Business ranks a respectable 17th.

Based on the rate of fire, a third Exotic weapon appears to belong to the "Aggressive" archetype of Hand Cannons, which may have High-Caliber Rounds as an intrinsic perk: Sturm. Since the archetype is not actually listed on its weapon page, this may or may not be true; at any rate, Hand Cannons appear to do a lot of shaking (and be shaken easily) as a trait of their weapon type, so it's hard to tell.

Note that even though Sunshot can create explosions, it does so only on kills. Causing an explosion next to a person shooting you would most likely disrupt their aiming; nonetheless, it simply can't disrupt the shooting of the person you are aiming at, because it can only be triggered when they are killed (and no longer trying to fire at you).

Exotic Weapons With Aim-Disrupting Perks

Legendary Weapons With High-Caliber Rounds

Of the top six Legendary weapons in Crucible play (by kills), five have either High-Caliber Rounds or Explosive Payload, headed by Uriel's Gift (#1), but also including Nameless Midnight (#4), Better Devils (#5) and Scathelocke (#7).

Uriel's Gift is particularly strong, due to a devastating mix of qualities:

• High-Caliber Rounds
• Counterbalance, a lack of horizontal recoil due to the intrinsic perk of its "Precision" archetype
• 450 rounds/minute rate of fire, which drops 7.5 High-Caliber Rounds on opponents per second
• An auto-rifle, which fires as fast as possible without re-pressing the trigger button (there is some leak in the true rate of fire of other kinds of weapons).

It's used twice as much as any other single weapon in Crucible (judging by kills percentages). It's responsible for more than 10% of kills on every Crucible map (in Clash), ranging from 10.59% (the Midtown map) to 11.73% (the Retribution map).

Of the 25 Legendary weapons listed here, 18 are listed because of the High-Caliber Rounds perk. 3 are listed due to the Explosive Payload perk, while 4 are included because they belong to the Aggressive archetype of Hand Cannon.

A special note is due to the True Prophecy, a Season 1 weapon from Future War Cult in Destiny 2: it enjoys the High-Caliber Rounds perk as an intrinsic perk due to its Aggressive archetype, but it also has the Timed Payload perk, which creates a secondary explosion much like Explosive Payload (but timed differently, creating a second "flinch"). The weapon packs more punches per round but ranks a lowly 92 in Crucible kills.

Also, note that the Imset-HC4 (energy Hand Cannon) and the Tone Patrol (energy Scout Rifle) have the perk "Dragonfly" in addition to High-Caliber Rounds. As such, they create a small elemental explosion with precision kills (similar to the Sunshot). As noted above, a perk that creates an explosion with a kill doesn't affect the aim of the player you're shooting at; nonetheless, there is the potential for an extra flinch there in multi-player gun battles.

Legendary Weapons with Aim-Disrupting Perks

Rare and Uncommon Weapons with High-Caliber Rounds

There are nine Rare and three Uncommon weapons in Destiny 2 that also have aim-disrupting perks, many of which are lower-rated versions of Legendary weapons, such as the Sand Wasp 3au (Uriel's Gift), the Lionheart (Scathelocke), the Sonata-48 (Tone Patrol), and the Madrugada-SR2 (Manannan-SR4).

There are some unique weapons, as well: the Azimuth-DSu Hand Cannon is within the Aggressive archetype, but also has High-Caliber Rounds as an explicit perk; if the Aggressive archetype really does have High-Caliber Rounds as an intrinsic perk, it would seem to have the effect twice. Also among the Rare weapons are the second of two Timed Payload guns (the Presto-48 Hand Cannon), and the only Kinetic Scout Rifle to have the High-Caliber Rounds perk (the Armillary-PSu).

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