Use one of Destiny 2’s best submachine guns to take over the Crucible.
Guardians can use a lot of different guns in Destiny 2’s Crucible sandbox. SMGs are one of the best choices for most game types. They let you shoot a lot of shots at Hand Cannon players, which is a good way to hurt them. A good SMG player is a nightmare to fight, but a good SMG player can benefit from a good weapon.
Season of the Haunted made changes to SMGs that make most of them great for PvP. From world drops that you can farm to raid gear, we’ll talk about ten SMGs that are great for 6v6 matches all the way up to the Trials of Osiris. We’ll also suggest perks for each weapon so that you can see what it can really do.
The Hero’s Burden
How to obtain: Iron Banner matches and Engrams.
In Season of the Haunted, Destiny 2’s only Adaptive Frame SMG is back with a new set of perks. This gun has the same rate of fire as a Lightweight SMG, but it does less damage when it hits. This means it can kill Guardians with both headshots and bodyshots.
Hero’s Burden doesn’t have a great range stat—it can reach just over 20 meters with a good roll—but it has access to some great killing bonuses. Tunnel Vision and Kill Clip are amazing for 6v6 games where it’s easy to kill an enemy. Kill an enemy, reload, and enjoy a ridiculously short time to kill and a big boost to your aim. If you want more stability, you can roll this SMG with Dynamic Sway Reduction. After ten shots, this gun will be almost as accurate as it could be. If you combine that with Zen Moment, you will almost never flinch again. Hero’s Burden is a good SMG that has a lot of room for error but is far from the best.
We don’t think this weapon should have Iron Reach. This tool can’t be controlled in battle because it has less stability.
Recommended Perks:
- Column One: Tunnel Vision, Zen Moment
- Column Two: Kill Clip, Dynamic Sway Reduction
Pizzicato-22
How to obtain: Legendary world Engrams.
The Pizzicato-22 is made by SUROS, which makes some of the most reliable guns in Destiny 2. This Adaptive Frame SMG has great stats, the SUROS Synergy origin trait, and some amazing bonuses that are hard to find on other SMGs.
The best PvP roll for this weapon is Eye of the Storm with Rangefinder, which makes it much more consistent from a distance and in duels. With good range perks, you can use this weapon up to about 23 meters before the damage starts to drop. This is a good range that is on par with other top-tier SMGs. When your health goes down, Eye of the Storm makes your weapons act like magnets, which greatly increases your chances of winning a battle or even a one-on-one fight. If accuracy is more important to you than raw TTK, Pizzicato-22 will not let you down.
Recommended Perks:
- Column One: Eye of the Storm, Perpetual Motion, Fragile Focus
- Column Two: Rangefinder, Multikill Clip
Submission
How to obtain: Vow of the Disciple raid.
Submission is a tool that fools people. At first glance, this weapon’s base range of 29 doesn’t look like it can be saved. But if you look into this weapon’s perk pool a little more, you’ll see that it can compete with weapons like Shayura’s Wrath while still having the great TTK that 900 RPMs are known for.
You can also get perks that make your range number better, but Submission has a great set of perks that no other SMG can get: Encore and Killing Wind. A single kill with precision will give you +30 range, which will increase your damage falloff by 4 meters. If you get an Adept version of this weapon, you can add Adept Range to give it close to 100 range after a single kill. It has great base stability, control, perfectly vertical recoil, one of the cleanest sights in the game, and if you have Encore and Killing Wind active, it can kill Guardians from 25 meters away. The best part is that you can make this tool. If you want a good Kinetic SMG, you should try Submission.
Recommended Perks:
- Column One: Encore, Perpetual Motion
- Column Two: Killing Wind
Borrowed Time
How to obtain: Gambit matches and Engrams.
Borrowed Time, which belongs to Gambit, has slowly become one of the best SMGs you can use. Borrowed Time got the most out of Season of the Haunted’s changes to the range of most SMGs, letting it reach falloff distances that are on par with those of top-tier SMGs.
Borrowed Time starts with a zoom of 15 and a range of 37. Even though it’s easy to increase range, Borrowed Time is one of the few SMGs in Destiny 2 that can get Rangefinder, which gives you a 10% increase in zoom. If you roll well, you can make this tool work up to 23–24 meters away. When combined with “Tap the Trigger,” this is one of the most reliable SMGs in Destiny 2 that can kill from great distances.
Recommended Perks:
- Column One: Rangefinder
- Column Two: Tap the Trigger, Snapshot Sights, Frenzy
IKELOS_SMG_V1.0.3
How to obtain: Occasionally sold by Xur.
In Season of the Seraph, the IKELOS guns from Warmind and Season of Arrivals came back, this time with new perks and origin traits. This form of the IKELOS SMG is the strongest one yet. It has great neutral game benefits for PvP and can be crafted, as long as you got enough red border drops that season.
Most people think that the IKELOS SMG is a PvE weapon, but it is surprisingly good in the Crucible. With the right perks, the Perpetual Motion and Rangefinder perks make for a great fighting gun with a range of 22 meters. If you don’t like Perpetual Motion, you can try Dynamic Sway Reduction or Shoot to Loot instead. When you combine this gun’s origin trait, which partially reloads the magazine when you break someone’s shield, you have a great 750 SMG for 6v6 and 3v3 duels.
Recommended Perks:
- Column One: Perpetual Motion, Dynamic Sway Reduction
- Column Two: Rangefinder, Tap the Trigger
The Huckleberry
How to obtain: Exotic Engrams found through Xur or world drops.
In Season of the Haunted, Huckleberry got a Zoom boost, which lets it fight from farther away. This makes it much easier for Huckleberry to get a kill so that its Exotic perk and Rampage effect can start to go up. Huckleberry’s rate of fire will increase as long as it keeps firing, and each kill will fully reload the gun and give a stack of Rampage. With this gun, it’s easy to go on a long killing spree, and Huckleberry’s never-ending storm of bullets will make most guns back away. If you can control how fast and how far this gun shoots, you’ll have one of the deadliest tools in the Crucible.
Funnelweb
How to obtain: Legendary world Engrams.
After it came out in The Witch Queen, Funnelweb still rules the Destiny 2 game. Most people use Funnelweb as an add-killing machine in PvE, but it’s also a great tool in the Crucible if you roll well.
With Killing Wind and Rangefinder, Funnelweb can fight with most 600 RPM SMGs, which is a great combination. With a base stability of 44 and a good handling of 70, the weapon is a dream to use. It has one of the best origin traits in Spacebar Clicker and can melt Guardians if you hit them in the head with it. If you get a PvP roll of Funnelweb, you should definitely try it out.
Recommended Perks:
- Column One: Killing Wind, Perpetual Motion
- Column Two: Rangefinder
Shayura’s Wrath
How to obtain: Legacy Trials Focusing.
Shayura’s Wrath set the standard for what SMGs in the Crucible can do. By default, this 600 RPM SMG has 59 range and 15 zoom. It can fight at 22 meters without any bonuses. That’s about the same as most of the other god roll SMGs on this list. When you think about its perks and its Adept version, it’s clear that Shayura’s Wrath is a leader among SMGs in general.
With the right roll, Shayura’s Wrath can have a range of 100, which causes damage to start going down at 25 meters. Not many SMGs in Destiny 2 can beat that. That doesn’t even cover the most important things about it. You can put Killing Wind or Tunnel Vision in the first box to make it work more often after killing something. If you pair Kill Clip in the second column with a 600 RPM SMG, you won’t find a better feeling one. Dynamic Sway Reduction and Tap The Trigger work well together to make this gun very consistent and give it a nice boost to its accuracy. Overall, Shayura’s Wrath is a great tool for those who like to play aggressively and for those who like SMGs.
Recommended Perks:
- Column One: Killing Wind, Tunnel Vision, Dynamic Sway Reduction
- Column Two: Kill Clip, Tap the Trigger, Elemental Capacitor (Arc)
The Immortal
How to obtain: Trials of Osiris matches and Engrams.
Since it was added in Season of Defiance, the Immortal has quickly changed how PvP is played. This 750 RPM SMG has an insanely fast TTK thanks to a perk called “Target Lock.” This perk makes your damage go up when you hit the same target multiple times. With this and Rangefinder, you can destroy targets from more than 20 meters away and up to 25 meters with a perfect roll. This gun is a lot like Shayura’s Wrath, but it has a faster time to kill.
Even if Target Lock changes in the future, The Immortal has so many good benefits that it won’t make much of a difference. Kill Clip is another great damage perk, Hatchling works well with Strand builds, and Tap the Trigger gives this weapon an insane accuracy boost. If you don’t want to use Rangefinder, you can use Surplus or Threat Detector instead. The Immortal is Destiny 2’s best Legendary SMG. A good roll makes it better than most SMGs in the PvP playground, but a god roll makes it the best Legendary SMG in the game.
Recommended Perks:
- Column One: Rangefinder, Surplus, Threat Detector
- Column Two: Target Lock, Kill Clip, Tap the Trigger
Tarrabah
How to obtain: Bought in the Tower from the Exotic Kiosk. It costs 1 Exotic Cipher, 150,000 Glimmer, 240 Spoils of Conquest, and 2 Ascendant Shards.
Few SMGs can match the Tarrabah’s killing power. On the surface, this 750 RPM SMG isn’t very good, but its Exotic perk turns it into a Machine Gun with endless ammo. Tarrabah will slowly gain power as it takes or gives out damage. To use Ravenous Beast, hold down the reload key after the gun is charged.
When Bungie says that this gun “unleashes the beast,” they mean it. This gun shoots faster, does a lot more damage, lets you move faster, and speeds up how fast Tarrabah can reload. Enemies die in a quarter of a second, and each kill you get makes this perk last longer. And because Restoration and healing are so common in the game right now, Tarrabah is a great way to punish passive play.