The 2023 edition of Destiny 2’s Guardian Games event has brought with it a new suite of ways to best represent your class pride and earn some sweet new additions to your arsenal along the way. Besides returning weapons from previous years such as The Title, Guardian Games this year also has a brand new Scout Rifle to earn: Taraxippos.
Taraxippos’s Omolon frame will no doubt draw comparisons to the Hung Jury SR4 Scout Rifle available via Nightfalls, but Taraxippos has a lot of its own unique quirks to make it a gun worth chasing down for the duration of the Guardian Games event’s runtime. It’s a Lightweight Frame, putting it in conversation with the likes of Vouchsafe and Night Watch, as well as being a Strand Scout Rifle—the first of its kind.
Scout Rifles can be a bit of a tough sell in comparison to more popular Primary weapon picks like SMG’s, but the perk pool that Taraxippos comes with prevents it from immediately falling into obscurity. Not only does its unique property of being powered by Strand give reason enough to earn one, but perk picks like Hatchling, Explosive Payload, and Focused Fury gives players a diverse list of options for an optimal god roll.
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Whether you want a great Taraxippos roll to bring into endgame Nightfalls or you just want to make sure the one you tuck away in the vault will have some utility if you ever need to bring it out, here are our picks for the Taraxippos god rolls and the best perks to look for in Destiny 2.
Taraxippos PvE god roll in Destiny 2
- Barrel: Smallbore
- Magazine: Tactical Mag
- First perk: Outlaw or Fourth Times The Charm
- Second perk: Hatchling or Focused Fury
While you do have some flexibility here when it comes to a PvE god roll for Taraxippos, what intrigues us most is playing into either its strengths as a Strand weapon specifically or relying on classically effective Scout Rifle perk combinations that are already proven. Hatchling has already become a popular perk on other weapons with its ability to consistently generate Threadlings that flow into the gameplay loop of the Strand subclass, but this is only really a perk worth looking at if you are aiming to use it with said subclass.
Perks like Fourth Times The Charm and Focused Fury represent the more traditional experience and use case for a Scout Rifle. Explosive Payload can also be a good option in that fourth column too if Focused Fury’s damage bonus isn’t to your liking, as it achieves the same goal of giving the gun an easily applicable damage bonus for the beefier health bars in endgame content. Scout Rifles are consistently popular for the safety they represent in Master and Grandmaster Nightfalls, so leaning into that with your choice of god roll can make Taraxippos a very useful weapon to have.
More challenging content tends to be where people build their weapons to excel, but if you only plan to use Taraxippos in playlist content with enemies that are far easier to take down, combinations like Outlaw and Kill Clip can be a great boon to your activity completion efficiency as well. Everyone’s ideal roll is different—it’s important to know what activities you’re planning on using a weapon in before choosing what perks suit you best.
Taraxippos PvP god roll in Destiny 2
- Barrel: Smallbore
- Magazine: Accurized Rounds
- First perk: Moving Target or No Distractions
- Second perk: Explosive Payload or Kill Clip (honorable mention: Encore)
Scout Rifles aren’t a particularly common PvP pick but can be deadly in the Crucible with the right roll in the right hands—especially on maps with longer sightlines such as Bannerfall. While it is disappointing that Encore is in the fourth column, preventing Destiny 2’s best utility perk from being paired with a damage-enhancing perk, there’s still a lot to love here when it comes to building a great Taraxippos for taking down other Guardians.
Moving Target is an obvious choice in the third column, but No Distractions’s easily accessible flinch reduction might be the stability boost you need to land all of your shots and win an unlikely duel. Zen Moment, in a similar vein, might prove a useful perk for players on controller specifically. Pairing it then with Explosive Payload, which both enhances Taraxippos’s natural range and can make it harder for the enemy to shoot back with the additional flinch, allows even a Lightweight Scout Rifle like this to compete against the Crucible’s finest.
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Despite Encore’s unfortunate placement, however, there is still merit to carrying a roll of Taraxippos into battle with Encore equipped in place of a more traditional damage buffing perk. Players confident enough in their shot to secure the final blows needed to get Encore’s stat package stacks rolling will have a deadly level of target acquisition and accuracy to rely on in any follow-up engagements. You won’t need to worry about flinch or a faster time-to-kill if your weapon’s bullet magnetism and stability is at the point where it’s practically aiming for you.
