What you should buy from Destiny’s Xur this weekend – 8/7/15

Destiny’s elusive Exotic merchant, Xur, is back and ready to disappoint by not selling Gjallarhorn yet again. At least he actually remembered to bring weapons for this, the weekend of August 7, 2015. Overall, his selection isn’t too terrible, though it isn’t chock-full of must-haves either.

Eternal Warrior: The newest Exotic Titan helmet, Eternal Warrior essentially has one application: miming immortality in the Crucible. The Unstoppable perk provided by its Resolute bonus will significantly reduce damage taken while in the Fist of Havoc Super animation, rendering you all but invincible. Even a shot of Golden Gun can’t drop an Unstoppable Titan, so if that sounds fun to you and you'd rather use a different skill in your talent tree, give it a go.

Bones of Eao: Oh, those wily Hunters and their silly boots. First the Radiant Dance Machines, now the Bones of Eao. The latter is even less practical, though arguably more stylish, and is only good for goofing off with a souped-up jump. Still, to the curious Guardian, goofing off is just another term for exploration. If you want to inspect the nooks and crannies of, say, the innards of the Vault of Glass, you’ll have an easier time with a quad-jump or triple-high-jump.

Voidfang Vestments: Warlocks are not short on powerful Exotic chest pieces, so the Voidfang Vestments faces stiff competition. But what it does, it does best. And what it does is let you spam grenades as a Sunslinger in Trials of Osiris. See, the Vestments’ Improved Axion Bolt perk, while dedicated to the titular grenade, always grants you full grenade energy when you spawn. This ability stacks with the Sunslinger’s Gift of the Sun perk, which adds a second grenade, and also activates off the Fireborn self-resurrection perk.

The result of all this is a hot-headed build that not only spawns with two grenades at the start of each round, but can self-res mid-match to surprise enemies with some heavy and literal fire. It’s a potent combination in PvP and a potential trump card for Osiris, especially when paired with Firebolt grenades. Still, this weekend’s Vestments do have a terrible stat roll of pure Strength. Do with it what you will.

The Last Word: In optimal circumstances, The Last Word is the most powerful primary weapon for Crucible in Destiny. It has an absurd rate of fire and deals enough damage to drop even the most armored Guardians in three head shots—two if you’re lucky enough to run into the infamous damage glitch which causes it to two-shot on head. Fortunately, that glitch will be patched up in the next round of weapon tuning, which will also see the Word’s range halved, among a million other and equally necessary changes. Even so, if you don’t own one yet, you definitely want to pick up The Last Word this weekend.