Destiny‘s classic raid, King’s Fall, has returned in Destiny 2 during Season of Plunder. Most importantly of all though, its loot has returned as well, with some incredible perk combinations and potent rolls that make many of its weapons a must-have for avid endgame players. Smite of Merain, the new Legendary pulse rifle, is no exception.
While Adaptive Frame pulse rifles haven’t been the talk of the town with the dominance of Rapid-Fire and High-Impact Frames in recent seasons, Smite of Merain brings with it not only some of the best PvE perks currently available in Destiny 2 but pairs them with synergizing utility perks that ensure there is a god roll out there for any playstyle. Building heavily into grenades? Pair Demolitionist with Adrenaline Junkie. Running a melee build? Both Pugilist and Swashbuckler are here to help you maximize your gameplay loop. What Smite of Merain lacks in its frame, it more than makes up for in its scale of options.
The fact that it’s craftable on top of this fact gives it an edge over similar competitors, allowing players to not only custom pick the perks they want but also enhance those perks for additional benefits or increased percentage impact. If you enjoy pulse rifles, Smite of Merain is an essential acquisition.
Here’s our picks for Smite of Merain’s god rolls in both PvE and PvP, as well as which perks in its pool suit it best.
Smite of Merain god rolls and best perks in Destiny 2
Smite of Merain PvE god roll
- Barrel: Corkscrew Rifling
- Magazine: Tactical Mag
- First perk: Demolitionist or Pugilist
- Second perk: Adrenaline Junkie or Swashbuckler
Smite of Merain PvP god roll
- Barrel: Arrowhead Brake
- Magazine: Accurized Rounds or Tactical Mag
- First perk: Moving Target
- Second perk: Eye of the Storm
The absence of mainstay choices for a damage perk such as Rampage or Kill Clip means that a PvP roll of Smite of Merain has to build toward a path more akin to a duelist. While players can still utilize more traditional choices in the second perk column such as Swashbuckler or Adrenaline Junkie, combining Eye of the Storm with perks like Moving Target presents an opportunity to really lean into the stability of an Adaptive Frame pulse rifle to consistently win duels.
A PvE god roll is also difficult to pick, but for the opposite problem where there are simply too many good options that achieve similar goals. The ideal Smite of Merain for each player is going to be based on the abilities they like to use, or if they don’t often use abilities, falling back on the comfortable reliability of One For All.
Beyond even these great combinations though, lies a treasure trove of other great perks that may speak to more niche playstyles.
First perk column
Pugilist and Demolitionist
Both of these perks synergize amazingly with their respective matching damage perks in the second column: Swashbuckler and Adrenaline Junkie. With the ability to generate sizeable amounts of melee or grenade energy on kills with Smite of Merain, you can easily maintain your damage boosts during a fight and have the ability cooldowns needed to quickly attain maximum stacks of both perks again if you lose them.
Stats For All
If building your Guardian around their abilities isn’t quite your style, Stats For All provides a great utility option with the simply activation requirement of shooting three enemies in quick succession. While this makes it exclusively useful in a PvE environment, the stat boosts it provides are incredibly powerful in most of that PvE content. Matching it with One For All in column two is a natural combination to entertain, but it works just as well with the likes of Firefly or other damage-boosting choices.
Moving Target
Moving Target is a specifically PvP-focused perk, where traditional utility options aren’t as essential to success. The bonus to target acquisition when aiming down sights can give you a crucial edge in many gunfights at a longer range, giving each burst from the rifle the additional bullet magnetism required to deal more consistent damage against opponents.
Focused Fury
Focused Fury is a more niche choice, but a 20 percent damage boost for 11 seconds is nothing to scoff at when running content where its activation cost is achievable. Dealing half of the original magazine size as precision damage is also a lot easier to do with Smite of Merain’s origin trait, which overflows the magazine when you reload near allies. Pairing this with Vorpal Weapon turns Smite of Merain into a deadly Champion killer in high-end Nightfalls, where the precision damage is easy to lay down consistently against big targets.
Well-Rounded and Ensemble
While both of these perks are not inherently weak choices, with Well-Rounded offering stat boosts similar to Stats For All and Ensemble synergizing perfectly with the Runneth Over origin trait, both perks simply pale in comparison to many of the other great options available in this first column.
Second perk column
Swashbuckler and Adrenaline Junkie
Both offering 33 percent damage boosts with all five stacks achieved, Swashbuckler and Adrenaline Junkie are easy choices for Smite of Merain’s damage perk choice for players making full use of the abilities that each perk synergizes with. Smite of Merain’s inclusion of Pugilist and Demolitionist means that you can get the most out of these perks with minimal need for heavily building into your melee or grenade cooldowns through your armor stats.
One For All
With a 35 percent damage boost available for simply applying damage to three different targets in a short amount of time, One For All is a perk that makes for a great universal choice if you don’t want to lean as heavily into your abilities. While Stats For All’s identical activation requirement makes it a natural choice to pair with One For All, the ability-boosting capabilities of Pugilist and Demolitionist are just as useful as they are with any other combining perk. One For All can be a great choice in difficult content where kills are hard to come by, and the consistent damage boost is needed to pull through particularly challenging combat.
Firefly
Firefly is a fun perk on any weapon. It’s a great choice for crowd control, offering both potent Solar explosions upon precision kills and a boost to reload speed in the wake of those explosions. It’s difficult to compete against more traditional choices in endgame content, but for activities that require killing hordes of weaker enemies without getting overwhelmed, Firefly is an efficient choice and can even synergize with a Solar 3.0 build.
Vorpal Weapon
Classic and reliable, Vorpal Weapon is a go-to choice for players building a Smite of Merain intended for Nightfall strike usage. Being a primary weapon, it gets the full 20 percent damage boost from Vorpal, inherently buffing the base damage of Smite of Merain against larger targets with no activation requirements to worry about.
Eye of the Storm and Gutshot Straight
Neither Eye of the Storm nor Gutshot Straight are bad perks but inherently cater to more niche requirements in a playstyle. Eye of the Storm gives some great boosts to both accuracy and handling, but the gamble of needing low health to reap the benefits makes its use case limited almost entirely to PvP. The boosts can come in clutch in many duels with opposing Guardians, where losing most of your health is practically a guarantee, but offer little in PvE environments where damage boosts are more essential.
Gutshot Straight is a new perk with some potential for players that can’t reliably hit headshots in PvP, instead boosting the damage that Smite of Merain does to the body at the cost of some target acquisition. However, personal experimentation with this perk is practically a requirement to see whether its benefits outweight the strength of the second column’s more universally applicable choices.
