this is a guide on how to do optimal damage and we're going to be covering things like the best weapons in the current meta tips and tricks to optimize your DPS and the mistakes that can massively reduce your damage output jumping right in there are a bunch of different things to consider When selecting your Loadout and damage strategy for any given boss and perhaps the most important factor is the type of boss that you're fighting for example if this is a boss with a huge crit spot it might be a situation where Precision weapons are significantly more viable there are many factors though like how many people are in your fire team how mobile or evasive the boss tends to be activity or artifact modifiers that could impact your performance and the overall fire team composition for most encounters the most popular heavy weapon types for damage Cycles tend to be Rockets swords linear fusions and grenade launchers in the following sections I'll be going through each of these weapon types to cover the best individual weapons the best damage strategies and why you should be looking for certain perks in order to get the best possible results we're going to be starting with with swords and the insane things that they can do nowadays but first this video is sponsored by raycon and their new and improved everyday earbuds if you haven't tried out these earbuds yet you'll be blown away by all the features like active noise cancelling awareness mode weatherproofing multi-point connectivity and the overall ergonomic design that fits into the widest possible range of ear types the previous model of the everyday earbuds sold over 3 million units so it's safe to say that this is an extremely popular and Fan Favorite design they also weren't lying when they named these the everyday earbuds they really can be used for everything I personally like to use them when walking because they fit really well and they're weatherproof and sweat resistant I'm also planning to bring these along the 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swords are definitely not viable in every single situation for bosses that do permit sword usage though they can be very strong and they also received a buff in the final shape allowing them to deal 7% more damage swords became even more relevant thanks to the introduction of ergosum the first ever Special ammo sword now in many ways the ergosum isn't really just one sword this exotic can roll with either solar Arc or void damage along with with one of the five different frames including aggressive lightweight Caster Vortex and the new wave frame allowing you to play very differently depending on which type you have that's not all though it can also roll with one of eight different exotic perks that are based on other exotic weapons allowing for some incredibly unique combinations one in particular that really stands out is Wolfpack rounds and yes the same Wolfpack rounds that make pairing Galah horn so important for Rockets is also able to C ize with swords so whenever a player with this sword uses a powered heavy attack it will also give Wolfpack rounds to the swords of all nearby allies allowing them to deal even more damage unlike Galah horn however this resides in the energy slot meaning that the user can also have their heavy sword equipped to get even more damage and it will also get Wolfpack rounds this means that they can use a powered attack with their urosome and then switch over to their heavy sword to deal optimal damage the only thing is you need to make sure to go back to your UR M to reactivate the Wolfpack rounds and then repeat the cycle Wolfpack is pretty awesome for team scenarios but the best possible damage when you're running solo would be the perfect fifth and the Caster frame this will add delayed solar explosives just for using your sword normally drastically increasing your DPS this will however get pretty messed up if you have multiple people scorching the boss at the same time so as I mentioned this is really best for when you're running solo legendary swords are also very good as well falling guillotine from Onslaught the slammer from nightfalls the quest from deepstone Crypt summon bottom from The salvation's Edge and the throne Cleaver are all popular choices for outgoing damage when looking at these swords though there are a few perks that you will want to search for when it comes to optimizing damage Jagged Edge is a popular blade that increases the damage of each strike but it does come at the cost of a small amount of ammo thankfully this can be offset by the perk Relentless strike where you get one ammo for every three powered melee hits within about 2 seconds this is the ideal per for bosses if you need extra ammo but you can also use frenzy for extra damage if you find that you always have leftover ammo at the end as far as the main damage perks go there are a few different options depending on which sword you're using if you're using bequest you'll definitely want to go for surrounded as it gives you a huge Buff when three enemies are nearby and at 35% this is the largest buff that a sword can get it is however extremely situational and I would say it's very difficult to trigger unless you're fighting against croa the Salvation Edge wave frame sword can get the raid exclusive perk called chaos reshaped which ramps up to the same 35% damage buff after being in combat for about 24 seconds similar to other weapon types you can also get bait and switch on many swords which gives you a large 30% damage buff with just a little bit of setup but you do have to make sure that you're reactivating it throughout the damage phase if you want to just turn your brain off though Whirlwind blade is a great choice on falling Guillotine this gives you a small buff for every strike with the weapon and you can stack it up to 10 times for a total of 30% this does take some time to ramp up though so usually bait and switch is the better choice however when warwind is paired with a Wolfpack or go some the Wolfpack rounds will actually synergize with the perk to get the max damage almost immediately making this combo extremely convenient and Powerful this part brings me to an important point when it comes to how you should actually be using your swords like falling guillotin many Guardians make the mistake of regularly using their heavy attack whenever it is fully charged this does do a fair bit of damage but it can also cause you to run out of ammo before the damage cycle is even over therefore light attacks are usually the best way to go and while you technically might do a tiny bit less damage overall the difference is almost imperceivable if you are using a sword like lament though you will want to continue using the combinations the best combination is the following step one is to rev up your sword and then do two light attacks and a heavy attack step two is stop revving The Sword and do a double light attack all you have to do is simply repeat those steps over and over in order to get the best results also don't forget to make use of the loosen blade Mod on your chest in order to make the sword energy recharge more quickly if you will be using your heavy attack during a damage cycle as a reminder I'm giving away 10,000 silver to random subscribers when we reach 100K on this channel so feel free to subscribe if you would like to be entered Rockets tend to be a very popular choice for larger bosses who are relatively far away and also relatively stationary since Rockets also have a a limited inventory they are best used for short to medium length damage phases the important thing to consider here is that any legendary rocket launcher can be greatly improved when one fire team member is using the Galah horn the Galah horn user will give Wolfpack rounds to everyone with legendary rocket launchers and these create small clusters that significantly increase the damage of each rocket Galah horn itself doesn't actually do that much damage compared to Legendary Rockets so it is technically suboptimal to have more than one person using it at the same time Rockets on their own are relatively straightforward to use but there are a few perks that can kind of complicate things but also massively improve your outgoing damage first off you will want to look for perks that allow you to fire Rockets more efficiently and then also bonus damage perks as well Rockets have some of the slowest reload speeds in the game and this is a huge problem that can severely cap their DPS but there are several perks that can help you solve this issue for example the perk autoloading holster will automatically reload your rocket when it is stowed this means that you can effectively swap back and forth between a rocket and another high damage option in order to never reload your rocket and thus optimize your damage in the current meta some good options for this are izanagi's burden wither horde Cloud strike still hunt or basically any other high damage shotgun Fusion or sniper rifle after a while of having your rocket stowed you will hear the audio cue that indicates it has been reloaded so then you can swap back over to it fire off a shot and then continue rotating as normal as you can see this is quite a useful perk but an even better version of it is called reconstruction similarly this perk will reload your Rockets over time but if you wait long enough it will actually load an extra rocket into the magazine this will allow you to fire off two rockets before you reload and thus substantially increase your burst damage there are some other perks that are quite good and while they don't automatically reload they can still overflow the magazine envious assassin is a popular perk especially on the cold comfort rocket launcher this perk Works similar to reconstruction but it can actually give you a third rocket instead of just two all you have to do is get a kill with another weapon swap to cold comfort and now there will be two rockets put it away again get another kill and then swap back and now you will have three rockets in the mag for other weapon types this perk isn't quite the same because it does require you to get more kills to get the maximum benefit thankfully for rocket launchers though just a single primary final blow for each swap will do the trick what makes cold comfort extra strong is actually at the weapon's origin trait this perk will do an immediate reload of the weapon that will proc once the magazine has been emptied in order to ready this reload all you need to do is revive an ally or get a finisher final blow on an enemy this means that with this rocket you can use envious assassin to get three shots but then this perk will give you a fourth shot before you have to ever manually reload this can allow for some absolutely insane burst damage against any boss clown cartridge is also found in this slot and it can give you a second rocket upon each manual reload but obviously this is not quite as strong demolitionist can also be an okay option if you have a grenad spam build because using a grenade will reload the rocket slideshot does a similar Thing by sliding but it is very dangerous to do this around teammates I would caution you to stay away from the bipod perk even though it may immediately seem attractive based on the magazine size increase and the extra rockets in reserves unfortunately though it also reduces the damage that each rocket does and you often don't have enough time to fire the extra Rockets during a damage phase it certainly does have a use in some activities and encounters but I wouldn't recommend it as part of a high DPS build as far as your damage perks go there are a few of these that you will want to keep an eye out for explosive light gives you an increased 25% damage to your impact and also the explosion this unfortunately does not help your wolf pack rounds but it is still a very nice damage buff to take advantage of this perk you need to pick up orbs of power and each orb will give one rocket increased damage stacking up to six times vle weapon gives you an increased damage buff of 10% against mini bosses bosses and vehicles with zero setup what whatever but this is pretty minimal so I probably wouldn't recommend this as your first choice if you want something that has literally zero setup and you still want to be able to get the 25% damage bonus you could go with something that has Lasting Impression the trouble with this perk however is that you need to actually wait 3 seconds after the rocket hits before you actually see any explosion damage if the boss goes immune during that time you will miss out on a large part of your Rockets damage entirely baiten switch is another very popular perk that gives you a 30% damage buff buff it does require a small amount of setup but it synergizes very well and you can pair it with perks like reconstruction on the craftable apex predator rocket launcher from The Last Wish raid this perk gives you a buff if you deal damage with all weapons within 7 Seconds of each other so what you basically do is fire off the first of your rockets and then use your other weapons to proc bait and switch after a short time two rockets will be automatically loaded into your Apex so you can just switch over to that fire them off and then repeat the process isogi burden is a great combo to use here but you can also use other weapons like Cloud strike as well one thing to keep in mind with rockets is they are fantastic for six player activities when buffed with Galah horn but they do lose a little bit in Trio activities like Dungeons since the Galah horn is now buffing less rockets in these situations and especially if you're doing something solo you might want to opt for a heavy grenade launcher instead heavy grenade launchers do a bit less damage than Rockets but they do get the benefit of having larger magazines deeper ammo reserves and also firing much faster so this means that they tend to do slightly less damage per second but they usually do more damage overall another bonus of grenade launchers is that you can use a couple shots to clear out ads during a damage phase and it doesn't completely sabotage your damage rotation two of the most popular grenade launchers are going to be the cact gl3 from Trials of Osiris which can be focused from sa 14 if you have it unlocked as well as Edge Transit which is earnable from Onslaught the thing with grenade launchers is they're going to want to use many of the same perks as Rockets such as envious assassin autoloading holster bait and switch and explosive light Cascade point point however is an interesting choice that is available on some grenade launchers and it greatly increases your rate of fire probably the easiest way to proc this is just to fire off a couple quick sniper shots on your Target and then you get the increased rate of fire for 5 seconds this perk really begins to shine though if you're able to pair it with envious assassin overall if you're still missing a good grenade launcher I would Farm the legend Onslaught until you receive a good roll of edge Transit envious assassin is great here but Cascade point would be technically better if you're able to reload with a marksman's Dodge or when you're using the rain of fire exotic even then doing those movements in proximity to other players is very dangerous so you may still want to stick with nvs assassin just to be safe explosive light is okay but keep in mind that the damage buff will only stack up to six shots until you need to pick up more orbs of power so if you are already having to fire another weapon to trigger Cascade point I would recommend bait and switch for your damage perk deconstruction is an interesting perk that used to create ammo from thin air after landing multiple hits but considering that it now pulls from reserves it doesn't make a lot of sense to be using this rooll anymore another weapon type with deep ammo reserves would be linear Fusion rifles these are Precision weapons unlike rockets and grenade launchers so they do particularly well on enemies with large crit spots and also when paired with divinity since they also don't have travel time like rockets and grenades do they pair particularly well with bosses that like to move around a lot such as eute in cot's end or the final boss in Ghost of the deep as far as perks go many of the same ones from rockets and grenade launchers will also be viable here but in addition you should keep your eyes out for rewind rounds fourth times the charm Precision instrument High ground and Firing Line fourth times the charm rewards accurate players who are able to land four Precision shots within 3 seconds by immediately filling two additional rounds into the magazine also quite notably these are created out of thin air and not pulled from reserves allowing you to do significantly more damage overall rewind rounds feel similar in many ways but it requires less precision and also is a little bit less rewarding this perk works when your magazine is empty by immediately refilling a percentage of the shots that you have landed on the target but this does not require Precision hits unlike fourth times the charm and it will also pull from reserves this is a particularly nice perk on the new Nightfall linear Fusion rifle scintillation which has the Vic singer origin trait this trait can occasionally refill 25% of the magazine from reserves and this has a 10% chance of happening whenever you land a hit with the linear Fusion rifle this means that if you just get a little bit lucky and also pair it with rewind rounds you will be able to fire off all of your ammo without ever having to reload among your damage perks Precision instrument is one that requires accuracy but can stack a damage buff of up to 25% if you accurately land six Precision hits on your target this buff only lasts a couple seconds however so you do need to make sure that you keep Landing your Precision hits to keep it activated High Ground is a perk that is pretty bad in a lot of situations but specifically against the witness this can be really interesting because the boss is always considered to be below you and therefore you basically get a free 25% damage buff without needing to do any sort of mechanics this isn't the case in a lot of other situations though and if you're playing with a fire team you may prefer the firing line perk this gives you a 20% increase in Precision damage when you're standing near two of your allies of course this buff is considerably smaller than some of the others we talked about like bait and switch but it can be a pretty good option especially for beginners considering that you barely have to do anything to activate it so outside of the four legendary weapon types that we just discussed there are a few few exotic weapons that can do some significant damage on their own and that's what we're covering in this next section the uses for these may be a little bit more circumstantial but they are definitely worth considering the Exotic sniper rifle Whisper of the worm has very deep reserves especially now that the craftable version can get field prep there are basically two main perks that are important for this weapon whispered breathing gives you increased Precision damage as long as you are scoped in and after you look down the scope you'll just want to wait a minute before firing your first shot then white nail will activate to give you more Precision damage in addition to refilling the magazine if you land all Precision hits this makes the weapon very good at long damage phases for a boss with a large crit spot you do however need to be in a pretty safe position so that you can stay scoped in all the time and make sure that you land every single shot if you start missing the damage will drastically fall off because it takes a long time to reload this weapon and reactivate The Whisper breathing perk you will often see this used during the orex encounter because he has a very large crit spot and and you are quite protected inside the aura during the damage phase leviathan's breath as well as sleeper simulant are two Precision weapons that can hit hard but are also a bit slow to fire with limited reserves it is almost the requirement to use the benefit of a warlock lunafaction with the leviathan's breath as its reload is incredibly slow if all else fails though you can always fall back on the thunderlord or the microcosm for Pure damage both of these are very simple heavy weapons that you just point and hold down click and they are very forgiving if you happen to miss a shot or two due to their deep ammo reserves they certainly aren't the best weapons out there but their ease of use is great for beginners who may still be chasing rolles on their other weapons that might technically be more optimal most people tend to not talk about this but I think it's really important to mention that the best weapons that are hard to use are often not the best option for new players for example if you know that you don't have the greatest aim and you're missing your shots with Whisper of the worm you will just do way more damage by switching to thunderlord and holding it down even though it does have a lower damage potential so overall that covers the weapons but what is optimal when it comes to crafting your subclass Loadout for optimal damage well you have a few choices depending on if you play warlock Titan or Hunter and all classes have both support and high damage options that should be considered warlocks in particular have been relegated to using The Well of Radiance in a lot of raid teams as it provides a 25% damage buff to all teammates it used to also basically make you invincible when you stood inside it but nowadays well of Radiance has been been nerfed and it only grants you restoration time two making you much more susceptible to death if you have a lot of incoming damage it is however still extremely useful and well of Radiance now also gives you a radiant buff for 8 seconds after you leave it this can allow you to continue to deliver high damage even if you have to move around and leave the well due to the design of Any Given encounter we mentioned the lunafaction boots recently and depending on what your team comp is it is often a good idea to have your well loock use the Luna factions this will increase your reload speed so is most effective if you notice that your teammates are using a lot of weapons that require manual reloads on the other hand though if you notice that perhaps someone else in your fire team is using well you might want to do a high damage option on your warlock you can take advantage of the Exotic class item with Spirit of the starer to buff the damage of your Prismatic nova bombs and they can deal up to 1.4 million damage as we mentioned in the Exotic combinations video Titans unfortunately are kind of struggling in the build Department especially after the release of the Prismatic subclasses this is so noticeable that Bungie has even announced that they are taking a look at Titans to see what they can do to help them out in the future it's a little bit anticlimactic but the best vet for Titans in today's state of the game is probably to focus on being a support role Titans have the option to run Banner Shield which can actually Grant allies up to 40% bonus damage but it takes them completely out of the picture entirely if you really do want to deal damage as a Titan right now though you can use Prismatic with the Twilight Arsenal super and spirit of the star readers on your exotic class item for the other perk you may want to go with Spirit of the Eternal Warrior if you're lucky enough to have it on the same mark this is because it will muff the outgoing damage of your Void weapons once you have finished with your super outside of this though Titans are a great option for making use of the Exotic shotgun tractor Cannon which is highly useful for bosses that are at close range this provides your team with a 30% debuff for 10 seconds while having the added benefit of suppressing the target this is significantly better than the 15% weaken debuff that Divinity or grenades can provide Titans can pair this with another shotgun or a fusion rifle to do some damage before they need to reapply again with the tractor Cannon Hunters also have the ability to apply a 30% debuff using tether and this can be a very legitimate debuff strategy for bosses that are difficult to crit but we can't ignore the fact that Hunters have access to Golden Gun clearly highlighted in the witness boss fight in the salvations edge raid the still hunt exotic sniper rifle Golden Gun combo is by far the best DPS in the game with this combo you can use Celestial Nighthawk and this will make it so that both your golden gun super and your golden gun sniper will have incredible damage output and efficiency instead of wasting time firing off a bunch of shots it will combine all of the shots into just one single high damage blast one thing to keep in mind with golden gun though is you do not want to be standing in a well of Radiance when you're using it this is because it is further buffed when you are radiant but well of Radiance will actually remove the radiant buff so therefore if you are inside of a well just go step outside of it which will give you the radiant buff before firing off the Golden Gun Shot if you don't have a well for any reason you can just use the facet of dawn or Ember of torches to make sure that you're radiant Before You cast your golden gun extra talented Hunters may also want to mix in the use of a rocket like apex predator with reconstruction to send out two rockets before going into their still hunt rotation and then by the time they are done with that their Rockets should be reloaded allowing them to push out an overall insane amount of damage there are a few other important optimizations to take note of and these tend to revolve around armor mods some mods are absolutely essential in order to maximize the amount of damage you are putting out and depending on how sweaty you want to get with it it's often a good idea to have multiple loadouts or armor pieces allowing you to quickly swap out certain mods another extremely important slot when it comes to damage is your boots here you can equip up to three weapon surge mods to get a 22% damage buff for all of your weapons that match the mod damage type this does not work on Golden Gun but it will work with still hunt or any other weapon so be sure to make use of these mods for a very significant boost to your outgoing damage if you do want to make use of scavenger mods for extra ammo you may want to have an extra Loadout saved so that you can quickly swap to surges for the damage phase be careful though because if parts of your subass or different weapons are saved in this Loadout it can take away your abilities or your ammo so be sure that the only part that is different is the load out with these mods speaking of ammo the helmet has mods that help with your ammo economy heavy and Special ammo finder mods and their related Scout versions can help you gener generate lots of ammo for you and your teammates your class item also is an important slot to look at to make sure that your armor surges are properly giving you their damage bonus the surges will only work when you have an armor charge and it does slowly Decay over time the time dilation mods are extremely helpful as they extend the length of your armor charges allowing your surge mods to give you the increased damage for a longer period of time another really powerful strategy is you can run special finisher for ad clear because this lets you hold your charges without them decaying then you can swap over to your surge for DPS powerful attraction can also be nice to help you become charged more easily because it will just Auto gather all nearby orbs when you use your class ability and there you have it that was your summary on how to deal optimal damage to bosses in Destiny 2 this game is not only about dealing damage though so next up check out this video covering the Exotic synergies that will completely change how you play the game forever and trust me some of these will blow your mind