Pulse rifles have been the talk of the town in Destiny 2 for a number of seasons now, owed in part to their prevalence in the Crucible due to the changes to Airborne Effectiveness. With the release of Season of the Seraph, yet another contender for the pulse rifle-shaped hole in every Guardians loadout has jumped onto the stage.
Disparity, a seasonal weapon available in Heist Battlegrounds and focusing on the Exo Frame vendor, is a rare Aggressive Burst frame pulse rifle. Sharing hallowed ground with old favorites such as Blast Furnace, the frame alone means it has potential in PvP, but its fantastic perk selection is what has it standing head and shoulders above the competition.
Desperado, Kill Clip, Frenzy, and One For All are each present as options, giving players the full buffet of damage-boosting perk choices to cater to their specific tastes. Combine that with Rapid Hit and Outlaw being available as well, and you have a recipe for success in mid to long-range encounters against Guardian opponents.
Even if the Crucible isn’t your speed, Disparity has just as many options for an audience more inclined toward Destiny 2’s PvE offerings. With the Anti-Barrier Pulse Rifle mod being in the Artifact for Season of the Seraph, a reliable option like Disparity will get a lot of use in endgame content such as Nightfalls and the Heist Battlegrounds playlist. Plus, it’s craftable, meaning that the suite of Enhanced variants of each perk is accessible to you as well.
There are some definite god rolls to be found here, but some of the alternatives on offer can be just as potent in the right hands.
The Disparity god rolls and best perks in Destiny 2
Disparity PvP god roll
- Barrel: Arrowhead Brake
- Magazine: Tactical Mag or Accurized Rounds
- First perk: Outlaw
- Second perk: Desperado
Disparity PvE god roll
- Barrel: Corkscrew Rifling
- Magazine: Tactical Mag
- First perk: Rapid Hit
- Second perk: One For All or Kill Clip
It’s been an icon of perk synergy for a long time, and the Outlaw/Desperado combination isn’t losing that throne anytime soon for PvP. While Desperado did get nerfed a few seasons back to allow it to be offered on more weaponry, the significant jump in fire rate will still handily increase your efficiency in a fight. Pairing that with Outlaw is a no-brainer, with the rapid reload speed bonus activated off of the same precision final blow that Desperado needs to activate as well.
Arrowhead Brake is the barrel of choice because Aggressive Burst frame pulse rifles like Disparity carry with them a difficult recoil pattern. Arrowhead Brake nullifies a lot of the weapon’s kick, allowing you to more consistently hit the full burst on a distant target. This changes in PvE, where barrel options focused on widespread stat bonuses can be equipped as recoil is less of a significant factor.
You could choose the same perk combination in PvE too, but the damage bonus of something like One For All or Kill Clip won’t require the same precision while offering similar or better results. There are also options here for specific builds, such as Headstone for Stasis users or Pugilist and Swashbuckler for Guardians building into their melee. These won’t be standard god rolls by any means, but great in the right hands.
First column
Outlaw
The undisputed best option here for a PvP roll of Disparity, Outlaw’s significant boost to the weapon’s reload speed will clutch you a lot of fights facing multiple Guardians at the same time. Without any improvements to its reload speed, Disparity faces a 2.28-second reload time that leaves you very vulnerable, so mitigating that is important. Outlaw’s perk activating off the same precision final blow requirement as Desperado also makes it a perfect pairing.
Rapid Hit
Rapid Hit is here as a PvE alternative to Outlaw. Outlaw can still be used with great success in PvE environments, but Rapid Hit allows you to achieve the same fast reload speeds with only consistent precision hits instead of a precision final blow. With the larger health bars on PvE enemies compared to enemy players, reaching the maximum five stacks of Rapid Hit will be easy comparatively.
Heating Up
Heating Up can be a great option if you dedicate the barrel and magazine choices toward improving Disparity’s reload speed. The improvements to accuracy and recoil direction after a kill will make the pulse rifle a laser at even longer ranges, nullifying the kick it’s supposed to have with each successive burst to instead provide a smooth shooting experience. There can be an argument made for this perk’s potential in PvP.
Moving Target
Similarly to Heating Up, this is a good perk to use in PvP as long as you have other options for enhancing the reload speed of Disparity to make up for the lack of Outlaw or Rapid Hit. These options instead lean toward accuracy, making certain that the fights you do take are ones you can handily win rather than worrying about the fight afterward. For Moving Target, that’s through a bump to aim assist and a faster strafe speed while aiming down sights.
Pugilist
Pugilist is here in the first column for players that are mostly looking for a Primary weapon that will further enhance a melee-focused build. Final blows with Disparity will generate chunks of melee ability energy, and dealing melee energy in return will offer the pulse rifle a bump to handling. This is a more niche choice, but one that can work in the right hands, especially if paired with Swashbuckler as the damage perk in the second column.
Eye of the Storm and No Distractions
Both of these perks have some potential but ultimately find themselves overshadowed by the better perk options here. The accuracy bump Eye of the Storm grants is one of the largest in Destiny 2 but requires the risk of reaching critical health to fully benefit from. No Distractions can be a handy tool for gunfights against other pulse rifles, reducing your flinch taken to better keep your reticle on your opponent during the battle. The same effect, however, can be somewhat achieved with a high resilience and doesn’t merit the sacrifice of a perk such as Outlaw.
Second column
Desperado
A famously overpowered perk that was recently brought in line, Desperado is still an incredibly difficult damage perk for enemy Guardians to face off against. The 30 percent bonus to Disparity’s fire rate will drastically reduce the weapon’s time to kill, and Aggressive Burst frame pulse rifles already have one of the lowest in the game if its wielder is consistently hitting headshots.
One For All
With the nerfs to Kill Clip in Season of the Seraph, One For All is now looking like an even more tempting option for a gun like Disparity. Because it requires hitting three targets to activate, an argument can be made for alternatives in activities with low enemy density, but One For All will be your best choice in endgame content. Its 35 percent damage boost can only be closely matched by Swashbuckler at its maximum stacks and requires much less work to get for most players.
Kill Clip
Kill Clip is still a good option for a weapon like Disparity, even with the nerfs it has received. When it used to offer a 33 percent damage increase upon reloading after a kill, other perks struggled to compete. The cost of it now being refreshable is that it also only has a 25 percent increase, however. With it being refreshable, it can pair well with Rapid Hit or Outlaw but is still a little overshadowed by One For All.
Frenzy
Frenzy is living in the shadow of its former self to some degree, sporting only a 15 percent damage increase alongside the bonuses to handling and stability after being in combat for 12 seconds. Those stat bonuses are still very noticeable though, and Aggressive Burst frame pulse rifles feel notoriously heavy—a problem that Frenzy can help alleviate in most PvE encounters. But whether or not that quality of life to its feel is worth a much lower damage boost than other options in this column offer is up to you.
Swashbuckler
It’s an odd scenario when Swashbuckler struggles to shine in a perk column as it does here, but Disparity has so many fantastic options that it’s hard to stand out in the category of damage boosts. Fortunately, as usual, Swashbuckler still enjoys the same recommendation it often does for players who heavily utilize their melee abilities. Jumping straight to a 33 percent damage boost off of a single melee kill that can be consistently refreshed and maintained will always be a powerful option, especially with Pugilist to pair in the first column.
Headstone
Another great perk that is somewhat overshadowed by its alternatives in this column, Headstone can still be worth investing in for players who have heavily built into the Stasis subclass and their Stasis Crystals specifically. Having your gun also be able to produce the Stasis crystals that can provide everything from damage reduction to ability energy will never not be a great boon for those willing to sacrifice more reliable options like Kill Clip.
Headseeker
Headseeker got a pretty major buff in Season of the Seraph, but the jury is still out on whether that buff makes it a viable option over the mainstays such as Desperado, Kill Clip, and One For All. The combination of bonuses to both Disparity’s precision multiplier and aim assist could be great, but the requirement to deal non-precision weapon damage for that bonus is a sacrifice to the gun’s time to kill that might not be worth it for most people.
