Best Rocket Sidearms In Destiny 2

Key Takeaways

• Rocket Sidearms like Indebted Kindness are great for clearing enemies and triggering effects; ideal for PvE.
• Aberrant Action offers explosive chaining ability with Incandescent perk; better for PvE with a solid roll.
• The Call is a top choice for add-clear in Strand builds, benefits from unique traits; ideal for PvE usage.

The Rocket Assisted Frame is one of the most popular weapon archetypes in Destiny 2. Ever since the first of them popped out of the Warlords Ruin Dungeon during Season of The Wish, Guardians were eager to try one of these beauties for their builds. The combination of a light weapon and the properties of rocket launchers creates a great option to cause serious damage from a safe distance, and they are also really fun to play.

No other weapon is so consistent when it comes to clearing hordes of rank-and-file enemies, while also breaking apart challenging enemies and even bosses. These are all Rocket Sidearms, with important info on their specs, the best Perks for PvP and PvE, and a detailed summary of which builds are best to use them for.

Updated November 28, 2024, by Lucas Simons: With the arrival of a new Rocket Pistol, the meta of Destiny 2 has suffered a landslide: Tinasha’s Mastery has come to jeopardize the balance of power in the game, with access to one Perk that has been locked for Rocket Launchers, Power Grenade Launchers, and Rapid-Fire Fusion Rifles for quite a bit now: Chill Clip. Well, no more, as Tinasha’s Mastery, the first Stasis Rocket Pistol is here to break the mold and offers a killed God Roll combo that is guaranteed to make some guardians squirm in the Crucible, Iron Banner, and even Trials.

5 Indebted Kindness

The First Of Many, And A Great Equalizer

• Range: 25
• Velocity: 56
• Blast Radius: 35
• Stability: 48
• Handling: 45
• Reload Speed: 28
• Aim Assistance: 80
• Zoom: 18
• Airborne Effectiveness: 11

When Season of The Wish arrived in Destiny 2, Guardians were tremendously excited about a new weapon archetype that was going to make its debut in the game, and it was an absolute blast. The Rocket Assisted Frame Sidearms, also known as Rocket Sidearms, was first presented to the players with the Indebted Kindness Arc energy sidearm, which uses Special Ammo, like any other Sidearms of the same archetype. Indebted Kindness is a notoriously good weapon, great for clearing waves of enemies, and for triggering Arc-related effects such as Amplified, Blind, and Jolt.

Of all the currently available Rocket Sidearms, it boasts the lowest stats between blast radius and projectile velocity, which are the most important stats for these weapons. Damage fall-off begins at range 10.4m-(10.5m) which is considerably good for an energy weapon of this caliber. All things considered, it is a great option for Guardians looking for that extra damage in High Tier Difficulty Ops, like Dungeons and Grandmaster Nightfall.

In PvP, Indebted Kindness is not as good as other Special Ammo weapons, but if players insist on making it part of their build, then the ideal roll for it should have Quick Launch, High-Velocity Rounds, Impulse Amplifier, and Adagio, with Velocity Masterwork. For PvE it depends on what players need to build in a similar way: with Quick Launch, High-Velocity Rounds, Impulse Amplifier or Beacon Rounds, and Voltshot or Surrounded. The PvE God Roll should also have Velocity as its masterwork, but Reload Speed can be considered a good alternative.

4 Aberrant Action

The Best Way To Spread Scorch Among Enemies

• Range: 35
• Velocity: 56
• Blast Radius: 35
• Stability: 48
• Handling: 45
• Reload Speed: 28
• Aim Assistance: 80
• Zoom: 18
• Airborne Effectiveness: 11

Aberrant Action is the latest addition to the Rocket Sidearm family and a Solar Energy one at that. This gives it access to a particularly great perk most Destiny 2 players have learned to love: Incandescent. This perk causes kills from this gun to spread a scorching explosion every time an enemy dies, and when scorch stacks up it also triggers another explosion called Ignition. With its intrinsic trait Radiolaria Transistor, it creates ponds of damaging energy upon killing several enemies in a row. This means players can create a chain reaction of non-stop explosions wherever they aim, if they do it right, of course. Another of the strong points of this weapon is that it boasts an even higher range than other Rocket Sidearms and this makes its damage fall-off trigger later than the average Rocket Assisted Frame Sidearm, at an 11m-(13.2m) threshold.

The PvE God Roll consists of Quick Launch, Flared Magwell, Heal Clip, and Incandescent. For Masterwork, players should consider Velocity – it makes projectiles travel faster and thus, hit targets sooner. For PvP, the ideal Roll would be Countermass, High-Velocity Rounds, Threat Detector, and Harmony. The weapon handling and ready speed of the Threat Detector perk combined with the Harmony perk is perfect for landing the last shot during heated fights, especially against more than one opponent. Nevertheless, Aberrant Action is definitely better suited for PvE, and since fans can basically scorch dozens of enemies and constantly heal, it has become one of the greatest options now that healing abilities have been greatly nerfed.

3 The Call

This Is What Cayde Meant By Golden Age Ray Gun

• Range: 30
• Velocity: 60
• Blast Radius: 31
• Stability: 35
• Handling: 40
• Reload Speed: 35
• Aim Assistance: 70
• Zoom: 18
• Airborne Effectiveness: 14

The Call was brought with The Final Shape update and it came with a new intrinsic trait named Dealer’s Choice that grants Super energy the more enemies players kill with this beauty. And since it’s a Strand Primary Rocket Sidearm, it has become a staple part of every strand-based build since its launch. The Call greatly benefits from Unravelling Rounds and Threadling synergies, and no other primary has such an effective add-clear kit. Arguably, the second best choice for a Rocket Sidearm, its God Roll for PvE consists of Linear Compensator, High Velocity Rounds, Subsistence, and One-for-All or Hatchling for more add-clear power.

Every time Hatchling activates in a mass of enemies, it will also trigger other effects of the Strand Subclass, meaning that players can consistently pair it with Unraveling Rounds and Sever and it can also synergize with Fragments that empower said effects and grant powerful buffs like Woven Mail, or boost the spawn of Tangles. In other words, this weapon is designed for PvE purposes, but if players are also looking for the PvP God Roll, they should pick the following: Quick Launch, High Velocity Rounds, Beacon Rounds, Vorpal Weapon, and of course, the Velocity Masterwork.

2 Buried Bloodline

Heals, Weakens, Has High Damage, What Else Do You Need?

• Range: 35
• Velocity: 87
• Blast Radius: -5
• Stability: 57
• Handling: 55
• Reload Speed: 36
• Aim Assistance: 89
• Zoom: 18
• Airborne Effectiveness: 22

The best Rocket Sidearm, or should we say Crossbow, and up to the most recent addition of Warlord’s Ruin to the weekly dungeon rotation, an extremely hard one to get. Buried Bloodline is an exotic Void energy sidearm, and has the following properties: It has an extremely reduced Blast Radius, meaning that its rounds will implode instead of exploding in a wider area, but thanks to its Hungering Quarrel perk, it shoots dual bolts of void energy, which track down the targets and can cause precision damage, healing the user upon hitting enemies.

Its intrinsic perk grants Devour to the Guardian when killing multiple targets in quick succession. Pairing this with Volatile Rounds is extremely efficient. Finally, its catalyst grants the weapon its ultimate form with the additional perk: Splitvein Lineage, which causes targets hit when Devour is active to be Weakened as well. All these properties pair up nicely with any Void build, but they are absolutely broken with a Void Hunter equipped with Gyrfalcon’s Hauberk, or a Prismatic Hunter with its Exotic Class Item that has Spirit of the Gyrfalcon among its perks. When doing so, killing with Buried Bloodline will trigger Void Rounds, Devour, Weaken, Overshield, and Invisibility at the same time, making it the perfect weapon for a Stealth Hunter play.

1 Tinasha’s Mastery

The Best Way To Cool Off Enemies

• Range: 28
• Velocity: 56
• Blast Radius: 35
• Stability: 54
• Handling: 42
• Reload Speed: 29
• Aim Assistance: 78
• Zoom: 18
• Airborne Effectiveness: 10

Tinasha’s Mastery is the newest addition to the Rocket Pistol family, boasting one of the best perk combinations for a God Roll in any of the weapons of its Archetype: Impulse Amplifier and Chill Clip. These two can be used for both PvP and PvE, and guarantee a swift Stasis Damage and slow debuff delivery upon your enemies (and associates). Since every Rocket Pistol does Area damage (except Buried Bloodline) expect some cool AoE synergies with several Artifact Perks and Class Traits.

Stasis has been quite OP ever since Eclipse and continues to dominate the top picks for competitive players. So, having a Rocket Assisted Frame Pistol with Stasis element gives us shivers, quite literally, more so if it is in the right hands. There are other possible combinations for worthwhile Perks (especially in PvE) Enlightened Action with Bait And Switch could have damage potential, and the combination of Air Trigger and Chill Clip is also good for PvP.