Q: What are masterwork rolls?
A: Most legendary weapons are capable of being Masterworked. The masterwork system is a way for you to upgrade your favorite weapons to their maximum potential.
Q: What does it take to upgrade a weapon to a masterwork?
A: Upgrading your weapons, in broad terms, takes a small amount of glimmer, legendary shards, and, most importantly, Enhancement Cores.
Depending on what Tier your weapon is at, the requirements to raise it to the next tier increase the closer the weapon is to being fully masterworked (Tier 10).
Q: What benefits do I get for masterworking a weapon?
A: Each tier that you increase your weapon will grant a small buff to a single stat, chosen randomly when the item drops.
Beyond that, at Tier 5 you gain access to a kill tracker. At Tier 10, your multi-kills will generate orbs of light.
Q: So what are these "masterwork roll" stats?
A: These are the possible stats that upgrading your weapon will grant a bonus to. Depending on what tier you are at, you can grant anywhere from 1-10 additional points in any of the stats listed to your weapon.
Q: Any catch with this?
A: The Bungie API currently says that all weapons can potentially roll with all stats as their masterwork stat. This obviously isn't accurate, as Blast Radius isn't applicable to, say, Auto Rifles.
The list you see on this page is trimmed to only show stats that actually appear on the weapon. However, it is possible that Bungie has additional logic behind the scenes that further filters these
possibilities to, for example, prevent certain items from being able to have an Impact masterwork. Until Bungie modifies the API files to 100% accurately display which masterwork stats are possible on
each item, take what you see here with a pinch of salt.
Like Verglas, you loose from the hip to create a field construct, and anything you hit directly, even with a bodyshot, is instantly suspended. Otherwise it will take a second or two after they touch the trap to become suspended. Pretty comparable with the delay of a suspend grenade. But unlike Verglas that allows you to loose a Stasis arrow after scoring just one kill or retain them to build towards a 5-arrow volley, Wish-Keeper requires you to fill up your six stacks before you can hipfire (hiploose) a snare arrow (snarrow) off.
BUT! Unlike Verglas, non-fatal precision hits count. And not just for one stack, but two! And damage dealt towards suspended enemies is increased, so you can mop up bound opponents and have another snarrow ready. After getting the hang of it, I'm easily suspending clusters of 4 and having another snarrow ready in no time.
Due to its nature, the snarrows are inherently anti-Champ. It can pseudo-stun Barriers, truly stun Unstoppables, and at the very least it can get an Overload to shut the fuck up for a second while you catch your breath. And it's especially suited for the one Champ it can legit stun, since Unstoppables will blindly charge through a snare you've set, and the two others generally don't. That flexibility is gonna make it viable in a lot of endgame activities, and I'd go as far as to call it a Day One holdout just because it can deal with whatever you might encounter.
For ad clear, it's pretty good against bum-rushers like Shanks, Thralls, and Wraiths. You can lay a snare down in the path you see them taking towards you, and they'll run into it. But stationary enemies that are crowded together seem to get suspended one at a time, so there's plenty of opportunity for them to disperse.
[Spongebob narrator voice] Two months later [/Spongebob narrator voice]
Okay, refits secured, let's take a look at them:
There are two refits that extend trap life and the number of targets you can snare, and in my opinion both are solutions to problems that don't really exist as it's rare to encounter more than three or four enemies chunked together close enough for one trap to get them all, and in my experience if you don't catch anything very quickly after setting a snare, you're unlikely to do so no matter how long it lasts. There are of course exceptions to both of those points, but I am more than happy enough with the snare's current duration and number of targets it can grab for me, so I passed on both of these pretty easily.
The real contest is between Vorpal and Hatchling, and in my opinion Hatchling is the clear winner. I did actually bother to visit Carl, and shockingly a primary weapon did not wow me with never-before-seen DPS numbers. But even if they buffed Vorpal through the roof, I still wouldn't pick it. Why?
For one thing, Threadlings created by Wish-Keeper contribute toward snarrows if they get a final blow (sadly, Tangles don't, even if shot by Wish-Keeper). This is enough to take a weapon that has high uptime in the right hands, and push it to near unlimited uptime in the wrong hands. Threadlings also do splash damage so they put in way more work in a crowd than a perk that only buffs damage against bosses and Guardians who are in party-time mode.
But most importantly, Threadlings are Strand keywords that interact with fragments like Thread of Evolution. Threadlings are highly likely to get more keyword interaction in the future, while Vorpal is now and forever just a flat damage boost.
But hey, if you want your funny BDSM bow to put in DPS work during your solo GM run, I'm certainly not trying to talk you out of it. Good luck, party responsibly, and get yourself checked every six months.