There's a little under a week to go before Destiny 2's highly anticipated The Final Shape expansion goes live and kicks off the bombastic conclusion to the game's decade-long Light and Darkness Saga, and until the game comes offline for pre-launch maintenance on Monday morning, players are rushing to get some last-minute prep done. After all, there are tons of amazing Destiny 2 weapons and powerful Exotic armaments to collect in Bungie's space fantasy looter shooter, and having lots of them at your disposal during your battle with the Witness will elevate your experience in the DLC.
With just a few days left before the expansion's release, though, you'll need to prioritize and focus on farming the most lucrative loot sources. And right now, the best activity to grind is unquestionably Onslaught, the three-player PvE wave-based horde mode added as part of April's free-to-play Into the Light update. Onslaught was already showering Guardians with loot before, but thanks to some big boosts to the mode's drop rates that came in the last two weeks, the amount of gear it's rewarding — both from direct drops and from Tokens of Bravery you can spend on drops in the Hall of Champions — is honestly downright ridiculous. After just a few hours of play, you'll be walking away with dozens of weapons.
The big reason you should be grinding Onslaught is that nearly every single weapon you can get from it will be (and already is) cemented in the Destiny 2 PvE meta. I go over the best god rolls to hunt in the section below, but know that whether you're hoping to pick up something for elite boss DPS, strong crowd control and add clear, or specialized buildcrafting utility, you won't have trouble getting something effective and fun to use from Onslaught's "BRAVE" weapon pool. Each weapon also has multiple great perk combinations available, so it's pretty unlikely you'll get something bad.
It's worth noting that while Onslaught isn't going away when The Final Shape arrives on June 4, the ability to attune to specific weapons to make them drop more often and get lucky "shiny" drops with two perks in each trait column is. Therefore, you should grind the mode now so you can target farm the weapons you want and snag some shinies, too. Note that the standard rate for shiny drops was very low before (2.5% or lower), but this week it was doubled, and since that increase, I've managed to get at least one or two per Onslaught run.
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Onslaught itself is also just a ton of fun to play, with high enemy density and diverse wave spawns making it a highly replayable playground for creative and synergistic PvE builds. There's also a Legend variant of the mode that's harder, but gives you even better rewards; I wrote up some builds that work great in it (my builds skew a bit more towards "fun" than "meta"), but there are plenty of other setups for every class that will perform well, too. Generally, as long as you've got at least 100 Resilience on your armor for the 30% damage resistance it provides, you shouldn't have too much trouble in Legend Onslaught if you're an experienced player.
Ultimately, if you're not sure what to do in the days leading up to The Final Shape, hop into Onslaught and farm for some great weapons to use in the DLC. You'll be happy you did, especially if you plan to take on some of the expansion's harder challenges like the Legendary version of the campaign and its new raid that's coming out on June 7.
The best Destiny 2 BRAVE weapon god rolls
All 12 of the BRAVE weapons from Onslaught can get some truly exceptional PvE god rolls, but some are more useful than others overall. To give you an idea of the best ones to prioritize farming for, I've put together a list below that's organized in order from the best to worst weapons. Also included are the top perk combinations for each that you should keep an eye out for as you play.
- Edge Transit: Spike Grenades / Envious Assassin / Bait and Switch
- Forbearance: Ambitious Assassin / Chain Reaction OR Demolitionist / Wellspring
- The Mountaintop: Hard Launch / Spike Grenades OR Implosion Rounds, Auto-Loading Holster / Recombination OR Impulse Amplifier / Frenzy
- Luna's Howl: Appended Mag / Heal Clip / Incandescent
- Midnight Coup: Arrowhead Brake / Accurized Rounds / Explosive Payload OR Firefly / Kinetic Tremors
- Succession: Arrowhead Brake / Tactical Mag / Reconstruction / Vorpal Weapon OR Recombination OR Firing Line
- Hammerhead: Arrowhead Brake / Ricochet Rounds / Rampage OR Rewind Rounds / Killing Tally OR Onslaught
- The Recluse: Arrowhead Brake / Alloy Magazine / Repulsor Brace OR Subsistence / Destabilizing Rounds OR Frenzy OR Master of Arms
- Elsie's Rifle: Arrowhead Brake / Ricochet Rounds / Repulsor Brace / Destabilizing Rounds
- Blast Furnace: Arrowhead Brake / Accurized Rounds / Kinetic Tremors / Firefly OR One for All
- Hung Jury SR4: Arrowhead Brake / Accurized Rounds / Kinetic Tremors OR Enlightened Action / Firefly OR Explosive Payload OR Precision Instrument
- Falling Guillotine: Hungry Edge / Balanced Guard OR Swordmaster's Guard / Frenzy OR Vorpal Weapon / Eager Edge OR Surrounded
With Envious Assassin and Bait and Switch, the Edge Transit heavy grenade launcher has instantly become a top DPS weapon for endgame dungeon and raid encounters, arguably making it the single most-valuable weapon from Onslaught. I would focus on getting a good Forbearance wave frame grenade launcher next if you never obtained a good roll of the original from the Vow of the Disciple raid, with either Ambitious Assassin and Chain Reaction or Demolitionist and Wellspring; the former is superb for add clear, while the latter performs spectacularly in builds centered around grenades. The Mountaintop grenade launcher is also extremely valuable, with Auto-Loading Holster and Recombination making it a "kill this yellow bar now" tool and the combo of Impulse Amplifier and Frenzy making it a strong option for general-purpose add clear in the Kinetic slot.
From there, I'd move down the list and attune to each weapon so you can target farm each one as you go, making sure to complete the (simple) quests from Arcite 99-40 in the Hall of Champions that unlocks this focusing. The refreshed Luna's Howl has become a powerhouse for Solar builds with the combo of Heal Clip and Incandescent, while Succession with Reconstruction and Vorpal Weapon, Recombination, or Firing Line stands tall as Destiny 2's best sniper rifle. The Hammerhead machine gun is fantastic for slaying adds, and both The Recluse and Elsie's Rifle synergize strongly with Void builds. Midnight Coup, Blast Furnace, and Hung Jury SR4 will all see lots of play during The Final Shape since anti-Champion perks will be available for their archetypes (as revealed in a new blog post), and Falling Guillotine may get popular too since there will also be Artifact perks for sword damage.
I didn't focus on PvP options at all in this article, but one crazy good god roll for the Crucible I'll highlight in closing is Elsie's Rifle with Zen Moment and Headseeker. This combination turns the weapon into a two-tapping machine, and it's quickly become one of my favorite primaries to use whenever I have a reason to go into PvP activities.
Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — looks to be the biggest DLC that Bungie's popular live service game has ever gotten.
