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.
So. This gorgeous beast. Its pretty damn great. The Energy slot AOE Breachload GL counterpart to last Episodes Lost Signal... and its a hell of an improvement.
First, I have to mention PvP. Because interestingly, this thing does have some viability in that field. This thing rolls with Slickdraw, which is pretty good on GLs for PvP, since they lose nothing for losing Target Acquisition (they are explosives and the pipe bombs come with same day shipping). Granted, Velocity Baton already has a solid 70 handling which can be boosted further by the right barrel perk, but its nice nontheless. High Ground is also a free 15% boost if you're standing higher than whoever gets caught in your Void death pools, so thats solid as well. Sure, this is no Witherhoard, but its not bad by any means.
But you aren't here for PvP musings are you? Oh no, you're here for that juicy PvE goodness. Sure, you have damage perks, but there are two real kicker combos here. The first is Destabilizing Rounds + Repulsor Brace. A textbook subclass synergy pairing, with an AOE GL you will be blowing mobs of enemies away and getting the purple gel coating for your trouble. But... BUT. The real god roll... is Demolitionist + Attrition Orbs. "WHAT! Attrition Orbs? But thats such a mid perk!" Yes, it is - on other weapons. Velocity Batons tick damage guarantees a high rate of Orb generation, whether you're shelling a swarm of ads or a big bastard. Any build that likes Armour Charge - dps, Special or other Finishers, ability spam - all will appreciate the orbs this thing can churn out. Demolitionist meanwhile just adds to the fun factor - 10% energy per kill is easy for an AOE GL to take heavy advantage of, and the origin trait gives you even more energy off of HITS - which means off of the tick damage of the AOE pools.
So, just for covering a target or a few in purple poison, you get ability energy and orb generation off of enough ticks of damage (not counting a void siphon for kills), as well as Demolitionist charging grenade energy for kills? Is it any wonder this roll is more popular than the Void Synergy one? Braytech continues to pump out bangers, so acquire yourself the ultimate utility AOE GL today. The passcode is 1421 ;-)
PVE: ATTRITION ORBS! I know everyone's eyes will probably dart to Destabilizing rounds first and if you want even more ad clearing, it's still a great choice. But attrition orbs really makes this weapon feel unique. Personally, whenever I see demo in the 3rd column, that's typically my go-to perk. Demo combined with the origin trait will help keep your abilities and super with an almost indefinite uptime. Unrelenting would be my other option for survivability; Repulsor Brace if going for a destabilizing rounds roll. Bait and Switch may seem tempting, but really that's more of a heavy weapon perk; DPS min/maxers may find a way to utilize it in a hot-swap dps phase though. Combos to look for: demo/attrition orbs or repulsor brace/destabilizing rounds and throw on high velocity rounds.
PVP: Unless you're playing something like Iron Banner or Control, I wouldn't really bother with AOE GL's.
You need a kill to begin with, which isn't exactly viable in any content above 2010 light. And you're forfeiting Attrition Orbs (see other reviews why).
This Baton of the Velocity variety has a perk combo that I never thought I would call 'absolutely busted': Demolitionist and Attrition Orbs. Might seem unimpressive on paper, but the thing that makes this cracked is how the gun works when combined with Attrition Orbs. Each little pool that this gun makes will cause tick damage to every enemy inside it, which is a no-brainer... but that means it can just bleed orbs out of your foes, especially when pinged on something really tanky, like a boss... which you should be doing this season because of the aforementioned artifact perk. Just blow your literal load over a boss, and watch the orbs fall. Your teammates will thank you, your super will go off an ungodly amount of times (with Star-Eater's, I might add), and your crops will be flourishing off the soil nurtured by the body of the raid or dungeon boss you just obliterated.
Did I also mention this weapon is Void flavored? Gotta love good synergy, and this thing is asking - nay, BEGGING - to be paired with Edge Transit for that sweet, sweet double Void damage destruction. Sadly, Void supers aren't in a great state right now (They neutered our boys Nova Bomb and Twilight Arsenal! Can't have s*** in the Last City!), but at least your Void Weapon Surges will stack up!
The only part that makes me upset is the drop source: Not that the new dungeon isn't fun, but outside of the first encounter, the places it drops from are a bit harder to farm. You wanna farm Corrupted Puppeteer on a Warlock? Hope you like running a Well with Grand Overture. Seriously, I hear the plink-plink-plonk sounds in my sleep even more now than I did after Pantheon...
whenever you through this nuke you need to yell "domain expansion: screw everything in that general direction"