Destiny 2‘s Root of Nightmares raid dove deep into the lore of Nezarec and his Acolytes. Each of the raid’s weapons is named after one of Nezarec’s victims or zealots, and the raid sidearm is named after Mykel, presumed to be the most fervent supporter. His sidearm has more than a fascinating (if macabre) story, though: the Mykel’s Reverence sidearm boasts some valuable perks, and players can also craft it to come up with their own god roll or just apply rolls with enhanced traits.
Mykel’s Reverence is one of the two primary weapons within Root of Nightmares, with Rufus’ Fury rounding out the lineup. While players already have a mix of Strand-aligned weapons to choose from throughout Destiny 2, this is the first Strand-aligned sidearm in Lightfall, which opens up more build options if you’re using a Strand subclass. It also has access to unique perks, both for being Strand and a part of the Root of Nightmares loot pool. Here is our PvE god roll for Mykel’s Reverence.
Mykel’s Reverence PvE god roll in Destiny 2
- Barrel: Smallbore, Corkscrew Rifling, or Fluted Barrel
- Magazine: High-Caliber Rounds, Appended Mag, or Ricochet Rounds
- First perk: Rewind Rounds or Perpetual Motion (Honorable mention: Pugilist)
- Fourth perk: Paracausal Affinity, Hatchling, or Frenzy
Mykel’s Reverence adds another name to the pool of Strand-aligned weapons, marking another promising option for players who want monochrome builds in green. It has access to raid perks from Root of Nightmares and Vault of Glass, as well as Strand-focused perks. This opens up different choices while keeping the flavor of this weapon.
One of the first things you’ll notice with Mykel’s Reverence is its short magazine size, which may make you reload a bit often. This isn’t too much of an issue with this weapon, though: it already has an amazingly high reload stat, and since it has a Rapid-Fire Frame, you’ll also get an intrinsic boost to reload when your magazine is empty.
Rewind Rounds is the perfect perk choice for Mykel’s Reverence since it will refill your magazine based on how many hits you land before your shots run out. Even though you’re not facing long reloads with Mykel’s Reverence, having a longer window to fire doesn’t hurt its case at all. Perpetual Motion can come as a second option since it gives this sidearm a boost to stability, handling, and reload speed. Between two stacks of Perpetual Motion, the high base reload speed, and the boost to Rapid-Fire Frames when reloading with an empty magazine, odds are you’ll reload before you even know it.
These two perk choices are at the top of our god roll, but with Strand, Pugilist also has some good potential. Since Warlocks and Titans have multiple melee charges, Pugilist can keep topping up those multiple melee attacks on kills, and it provides benefits regardless of subclass. Unrelenting isn’t a terrible option either, providing you with some free health on multikills.
For the fourth column, you also have a few choices that carved a spot at the top of our god roll. The two new Lightfall perks are the flashiest and most effective ones in the pool: Hatchling creates a Threadling upon getting a precision kill, which works well with Strand. Paracausal Affinity is exclusive to Root of Nightmares and boosts the damage on Mykel’s Reverence after getting a kill with a Darkness-based damage type, including grenades or weapons. This means you can keep Mykel’s topped up with extra damage just by getting kills with this weapon since the sidearm will also proc Paracausal Affinity.
Though these two perks have the most flair, Mykel’s also brings access to two other stellar damage perks: Frenzy and Swashbuckler. Frenzy only requires you to be in combat for 12 seconds before activating (though Paracausal Affinity will work better when it’s easier to get kills), and Swashbuckler leans well into this sidearm’s optimal engagement range. You can also pair Swashbuckler with Pugilist for some synergy, mixing in Pugilist’s melee regeneration with Swashbuckler’s higher stack generation on melee kills.
Parts aren’t exactly essential for Mykel’s Reverence either, but High-Caliber Rounds (magazine) will give it some extra stagger against most enemies and marginally boost your range. Appended Mag helps offset the short magazine size, but it doesn’t substitute Rewind Rounds by itself. Alloy Magazine may also not be too bad if you’re constantly using up the magazine, but that’s somewhat circumstantial.
