Season of the Witch has introduced a plethora of new weapons to Destiny 2, but none are more intriguing than those that came as part of the new Nadir foundry. Heliocentric QSc, a Lightweight Frame sidearm, is one such weapon. It comes equipped with an incredibly impressive perk pool on top of its stock Nadir Focus Origin Trait to form a sidearm that every player should be trying to farm the god roll of.
Whether it’s the familiar faces like Incandescent and Kill Clip in the fourth column or promising perk newcomers like Precision Instrument and Heal Clip, Heliocentric QSc has very few options in its 12 total perks that could be considered even mediocre. In a season where the seasonal gear itself has been somewhat disappointing in this department, the sidearm stands out even more as a result.
Another point in Heliocentric QSc’s favor is that there isn’t a lot of competition within its archetype. The Lightweight Frame is a more common thing to see when it comes to weapons like submachine guns and shotguns, but there are surprisingly few sidearms with it. Spoiler Alert, Farewell and Redback-5si come to mind, but a quick glance at the stats shows that even among this limited competition, Heliocentric QSc has the best stability and goes toe-to-toe when it comes to range and aim assistance as well.
Right now, the only mark against Heliocentric QSc’s potential is its drop chances. All of the newly released Nadir weapons in Season of the Witch are at the mercy of the world drops system, meaning players are reliant on random Legendary Engram drops or Banshee-44’s rotating vendor offerings to get their hands on this gun. Fortunately, in season 23, Bungie is reintroducing Season of Plunder’s Foundry Focusing options. If your luck is as bad as ours, there will at least be that safety net available in a few months.
But if you’re looking for a gun worth chasing right now as you knock out seasonal challenges in Strikes or Gambit, Heliocentric QSc is definitely one to look out for. Here are our recommendations on its best perk combinations and what our idealized god rolls for both PvE and PvP are.
Heliocentric QSc PvE god roll in Destiny 2’s Season of the Witch
- Barrel: Smallbore
- Magazine: Tactical Mag
- First perk: Heal Clip or Demolitionist
- Second perk: Incandescent or Kill Clip
There are a plethora of interesting options here for a PvE god roll of Heliocentric QSc. The synergy of Heal Clip and Incandescent is very compelling, especially for Guardians running this Primary with a Solar subclass. Yet even if you aren’t building all in on its Solar components, perks like Demolitionist and Kill Clip are still potent perks to pick for Nightfall runs.
Incandescent somewhat suffers because Heliocentric cannot be crafted—therefore, it cannot get Enhanced Incandescent. Yet even in its base form, the Scorch effect it can deploy against a group of combatants greatly helps a sidearm in enemy-dense encounters. Pair that with Heal Clip, which provides healing for you and your allies on kills as well as having interactions with Solar Fragments like Ember of Benevolence, and you get a lot of value from this gun.
Demolitionist and Kill Clip are more traditional, but that does not discredit their effectiveness. Demolitionist is an easily accessible well of grenade ability generation, and perks like Kill Clip or even Adrenaline Junkie offer a similar sort of flat damage buff. It might be a less unique god roll, but you can find plenty of success with this combination if Solar 3.0 isn’t something that appeals to you.
The impressive base handling stats of a Lightweight Frame sidearm means that we can safely get away with not building into its handling stat at all with our magazine and barrel options. That opens the door for picks such as Smallbore, which can make the gun feel a lot better to use in neutral game with the improvements to its otherwise lacking range and stability stats. Top that off with something like Tactical Mag for more weapon uptime to craft a fairly complete package.
Heliocentric QSc PvP god roll in Destiny 2’s Season of the Witch
- Barrel: Smallbore
- Magazine: Accurized Rounds
- First perk: Moving Target or Demolitionist
- Second perk: Precision Instrument or Kill Clip
Sidearms have been a powerful class of weapon in PvP for some time now for the players that dare to step outside of the comfort zone of submachine guns and hand cannons, but Heliocentric QSc’s god roll is particularly notable. Season 22’s new perk, Precision Instrument, can be paired with Moving Target for a significant time-to-kill reduction against Guardians with maxed out Resilience.
Nadir Focus does a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to Heliocentric’s success in the Crucible. With Accurized Rounds, Moving Target and Nadir Focus combined, players can improve the gun’s range, accuracy and aim assistance, which all feed into making Precision Instrument significantly more effective. That’s important, as even a single miss will remove all the stacks of bonus critical damage you’ve accrued, making perks that keep you on target even more essential.
Getting the most out of Precision Instrument will require a steady hand, but for those who get the perfect roll, it’s one of the best dueling perks you could hope to have on a fast-firing sidearm like this. Even if you find its requirements intimidating, an alternative like Kill Clip exists to give you a less challenging damage-buffing perk to get rolling.
Once again, handling isn’t a stat we need to worry about too much with Heliocentric QSc. Therefore, like with its PvE god roll, we’re recommending the Smallbore barrel for the joint range and stability boost, but pairing that with Accurized Rounds in PvP to get an additional half a meter before damage falloff starts. It might not seem like much, but it can make all the difference in medium-range gunfights that weapons like hand cannons would otherwise have the upper hand in.
