Archetype
Stats
Impact | 41 | ||||
Range | 60 | ||||
• Damage Falloff | |||||
Stability | 60 | ||||
Handling | 50 | ||||
Reload Speed | 64 | ||||
• Reload Time | |||||
Aim Assistance | 90 | ||||
Inventory Size | 40 | ||||
Zoom | 15 | ||||
Airborne Effectiveness | 6 | ||||
Recoil | 75 | ||||
Rounds Per Minute | 450 | ||||
Magazine | 57 | ||||
Selected Perks | |||||
Popularity: Overall | Select 4 perks to see their popularity. | ||||
Popularity: Perks | |||||
Popularity: Trait Combo | |||||
Popularity: MW Bonus |
Perk Playground
Curated Roll
Random Rolls
TIP: Theorycrafter Recommendations
The blue/red/gold icons & glows below are Theorycrafter Recommendations. They are the perks that trusted community theorycrafters like for this weapon and can disagree with what is most popular. The colors indicate the game mode for which they prefer the perk.Learn More
Color Icon Game Mode Blue PVE Red PVP Gold PVE & PVP
Popular Trait Combos
Popular Individual Perks
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19.0%
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15.0%
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14.3%
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11.9%
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9.7%
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9.3%
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8.7%
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6.9%
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4.9%
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16.5%
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15.6%
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14.0%
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13.1%
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12.3%
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11.7%
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8.9%
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7.4%
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25.1%
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19.9%
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15.6%
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14.3%
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13.9%
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6.1%
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4.9%
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32.3%
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20.9%
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18.3%
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8.6%
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8.0%
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6.4%
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5.2%
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100.0%
Masterwork Popularity
Mod Popularity
Your Rolls
TIP: Popularity Ranks
The letters F thru S below are Popularity Ranks. They measure how popular your roll is versus the most popular roll for this weapon among the global community. The most popular roll is ranked S+. The least popular is ranked F-. Popular doesn't necessarily mean "good"; unpopular doesn't necessarily mean "bad". Use what you enjoy!
Learn More
TIP: Theorycrafter Recommendations
The blue/red/gold icons & glows below are Theorycrafter Recommendations. They are the perks that trusted community theorycrafters like for this weapon and can disagree with what is most popular. The colors indicate the game mode for which they prefer the perk.Learn More
Color Icon Game Mode Blue PVE Red PVP Gold PVE & PVP
TIP: API Perk Swap
The Bungie API now allows us to swap weapon perks for you*. Click individual perks below to swap them in-game. Click "Equip Popular Perks" to pick the perks that result in the highest popularity rank (if you're not already using them).* You must be in orbit, a social space, or logged off.
Related Collectible
Lore
Hammerhead
Smash through the veil.
Adit and Majjora clung to the chain link fence, well beyond the outside perimeter of the Crucible viewing area. They peered past a motionless Redjack stationed at the entrance, straining to see snippets of action on the massive viewing screens. Adit caught a glimpse of an Arc explosion as the audience roared.
Lord Shaxx's voice boomed from the loudspeakers: "Your spirit is unrivaled. Show me more!"
Adit glanced over at her classmate. Majjora's pinky finger was just a few centimeters away from her own, but it seemed like a kilometer.
Adit cleared her throat, mustering courage, "So, umm, what Cryptarch Matsuo said in class today. About, like, the final shape and everything. The Witness."
"I can't believe what I'm seeing!" Shaxx's voice rang out.
Majjora nodded gravely. Though the visiting Cryptarch had explained the situation in the gentlest terms, the students understood the seriousness of the situation.
"Yeah," Majjora replied. "It's… I don't know what to do."
"Nothing we can do, I guess," Adit replied.
Adit inched her pinky closer to Majjora's for what felt like an eternity. And then finally, they touched.
Majjora smiled.
A Stasis grenade detonated on the viewing screens, but neither of them heard it.
I've been really excited for this one; the fan favourite Black Armory machine gun returns with some unique combinations and some tried-and-true ones.
PVE:
Double damage perks is a no-brainer for nearly all content, so having Rampage in the left column lets you pair it with a few things depending on what you're looking for:
Rampage + ____
- Killing Tally to make the best use of each bullet. Stacking both to 3x gives +73% damage.
- Surrounded has a higher cap at +86.3% when paired with 3x Rampage, but is more difficult to maintain.
- Onslaught trades damage per bullet for DPS by reducing firing delay and increasing RPM. With a max stack of both, your DPS should increase by +111% or so, but this is based on whether you can maintain both perks through a reload, and machine guns reload notoriously slowly. An odd workaround might be using Alloy Mag alongside this combo to drop your reload time to 3.43s with the 95 reload stat (60 base +35) that Onslaught brings you to.
*I don't mention Desperate Measures here because it has the same damage stacking profile that Killing Tally has, but KT will likely fit into how you use this weapon better and it doesn't have a timer to manage.
For longer instances of DPS, there's a few mag extending perks that can work well:
____ + Target Lock
- Envious Assassin, Rewind Rounds, and Fourth Time's the Charm allow you to shoot longer before needing to reload; Envious to prepare for chunk damage by overflowing the mag. Rewind and FTTC for substantially longer damage phases, but FTTC also gives you free ammo and might be the best of both worlds. FTTC + Target Lock already exists on Retrofit Escapade, but I don't have the numbers to suggest which is better; it could be useful if you don't have the pattern for this. (EDIT: Check the comments below for specifics.)
Beyond double damage, the left column also offers Destabilizing Rounds for AoE and void synergy. Feeding Frenzy also exists for the reload scalar, but I think there are more interesting things you can do with this gun. Rewind + Onslaught for a bullet hose machine gun, but still won't reach the 900rpm archetype's rate of fire.
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PVP:
For PVP, D2 Foundry's helping me get some TTK values because I'm not much of a PVPer myself. Because this is a kill chaining weapon, the usual double damage perks can get you some TTK shifts from the 0.53s base. Contrary to the PVE recommendations, Desperate Measures CAN be substituted in over KT because it lets you prime Hammerhead to x2 stacks by beginning with an ability kill and it lets you do this while the gun is stowed, so keep that in mind for these numbers. These are also for T10 resilience, just as a worst-case scenario:
- 0.4s: Rampage x1 is all you need, can also be achieved with Killing Tally x2. Higher stacks of Rampage or pairing the damage perks together can reduce your headshot percentage.
- 0.27s: You can only get this with Rampage x3 and Killing Tally x2 or higher. The easiest way to get this would be to prime the gun with an ability kill and get Desperate Measures x2, then get 3 kills for Rampage x3 with each one resetting the DM timer. Or, if you feel spicy, you can actually get this with Surrounded and Rampage x1
Onslaught also steadily reduces your TTK with subsequent kills and can get it as low as 0.25s with x3 stacks of both Rampage and Onslaught.
Outside of kill chaining, there's also Under Over to take care of overshields from void barricades and rifts, and Tap the Trigger for better initial stability.
Hammerhead is a 450 rpm and Retro is 900 rpm, so keep these in mind.
Hammerhead raw damage output base mag 59, 256k with all crits.
Retrofit raw damage base mag 77, 194k all crits.
With extended+FTTC on both, Retro hits ~189 shots or so. Can't really go above that, since it kinda only adds half of the total crits fired, assuming all are precision.
Hammer hits 141 shots.
Retro hits 477k damage, hammer 612k damage.
Retro will hit 477k damage at 12.6 seconds. (900rpm/60=15bps, 189b/15bps)
Hammerhead will hit 612k damage at 18.8s. (450rpm/60s=7.5bps, 141b/7.5bps)
At 12.6s, Hammerhead should have hit at least 91~92 bullets, or roughly ~400k damage with another 212k to go.
While it's not the most optimal for damage, Hammerhead does put out enough damage that in the same phase as retrofit it'll only do about 66% the mag for 83% the damage. This is without damage perks. To note, if a phase goes longer than 12~24 seconds, you'll probably want Hammerhead rather than Retrofit. As well as Actium being available, and Rewind Rounds not being on Retrofit means it can have a longer mag and higher uptime on TL.
Both will have enhanced perks in final shape, so no, don't consider that difference right now.
TL;DR:
Retrofit good for very short DPS phases. Good if you're gonna be missing bullets often (maybe ir Yut, definitely Wicked Implement)
Hammerhead good for Ir Yut, Rhulk, and other machine gun DPS phases.