Destiny’s PvP competitive gauntlet Trials of Osiris causes players to equip their best weapons in an attempt to eliminate the competition to reap end-game rewards. So, it's a good testbed to discover what the most popular PvP weapons in the game are right now.

This past weekend saw the return of the highly-competitive mode since the release of Destiny: The Taken KingIn a search for the most effective weapons in PvP, a Destiny player, who goes by SpiffyJr on Reddit, posted his list of the top 25 weapons used during his time Trials of Osiris. These are not official statistics from Bungie, but constructed from SpiffyJr’s own extensive playtime and observations. His percentages are based off number of kills that occurred with each weapon.

The top five overall weapons on his list from one to five are:

  1. 1000-Yard Stare sniper rifle
  2. Nirwen’s Mercy pulse rifle
  3. Red Death pulse rifle
  4. Conspiracy Theory-D shotgun
  5. Hawksaw pulse rifle.

If the list is broken into Primary, Special, and Heavy weapon categories, the top five in each category are:

Primary

  1. Nirwen’s Mercy
  2. Red Death
  3. Hawksaw
  4. Smite of Merain
  5. Hawkmoon

Special

  1. 1000-Yard Stare
  2. Conspiracy Theory-D
  3. Defiance of Yasmin
  4. Invective
  5. Eirene RR4

Heavy (only two made the top 25 list)

  1. Qullim’s Terminus
  2. Elulim’s Frenzy

As expected, most players opted for pulse rifles in their primary weapon slot. Since Bungie's weapon balancing in Patch 2.0, pulse rifles have been a cut above the rest when it comes to damage output in PvP. Nirwen’s Mercy (available from last month’s Iron Banner), the exotic Red Death, the fast-firing Hawksaw, and the King’s Fall raid’s Smite of Merain are all incredibly powerful pulse rifles. When it comes to hand cannons, it’s not surprising to see Hawkmoon, which has been left almost alone at the top after Thorn and The Last Word were nerfed.

Destiny Top Guns - Red Death

When it comes to Trials, players are either snipers or shotgunners. For snipers, 1000-Yard Stare is all the rage. It has enough Impact to one-shot headshot a Trials of Osiris opponent off a revive (called a res snipe), and with a super high auto aim stat (which causes the reticle to “stick” a bit on an adversary's head) it has become the sniper for Trials. As for those who prefer to run in close with a shotgun, the Conspiracy Theory-D has filled the spot of high-range/high-impact shotguns previously held by shotguns like Party Crasher +1 and Felwinter’s Lie.

The raid rocket launcher and machine gun sitting atop the heavy weapons category is a bit of a surprise. Before Trials of Osiris this past weekend, the Destiny community seemed to be largely favoring rocket launchers The Vertigo and Suros JLB-47 for their high Velocity and Blast Radius stats, coupled with the Grenades and Horseshoes perk (which detonates its payload in proximity to an enemy), but the lack of reforging means few players have the ideal roll. The exotic rocket launcher Truth with its tracking ability is also a common pick in Trials of Osiris. However, since heavy ammo only spawns one round per Trials match, there may be too little data to go on to get a comprehensive picture of players’ choices for heavy weapons.

Even though this is not official data from Bungie, it gives a pretty accurate picture to which guns are currently leading the pack in PvP . Players can't go too wrong taking any of these weapons into the Crucible.

What are your go-to weapons for the Destiny's PvP modes?

Source: Destiny Reddit