Earlier Destiny Year 1 was the age of being a glass cannon. Busted exotics plus burns meant we could do insane damage but we were extremely squishy in Nightfalls.
Also to note in 6:28, Feeding Frenzy didnt get that having to stack it nerf until season 11, so imagine you got 5 stacks of feeding frenzy for one kill, the same reload bump n all, it was an insane perk imo.
A couple minor things that weren't mentioned that add to how stupid full power Recluse was: 1. Master of Arms not only buffed your crit damage, but it buffed non-precision damage to the poi t where it was essentially the same as the weapon's crit damage, making it probably the easiest to use weapon of all time, since you barely had to aim. 2. For much (maybe all?) of its lifespan, Recluse had pre-nerf Feeding Frenzy, meaning that a single kill gave you its full benefits which included a reload boost that was superior to Outlaw, the prior gold standard for a reload perk.
FF got nerfed in Season of Arrivals, which was right before sunsetting. I remember using Recluse after the nerf and reloading feeling so slow and sluggish. That effectively made me stop using the gun altogether.
The exact same thing happened in D2 with Anarchy and Mountaintop. As well as among the variety of weapons throughout the various Metas in both games. I even remember some coldheart or kick posts for a time.
it wasn't even close to the same scale. looking for groups to do crotas hard or even just vog i remember essentially every other party having gjally as a requirement, raiding during anarchy and mountaintop era was not nearly as strict lol.@@cptenn9419
tbh Anarchy never got that bad. It was more of a "anarchy would be nice" but gally used to be "Have gally" as the only part of the lfg post@@cptenn9419
@@loko8706season of the worthy and arrival weapons are not sunset, so the error really should be rectified as "weapons that came out before season of the worthy"
6:34 MoA was not the highest of a Precision damage buff at the time, since this was before the damage buff crush that shifted rampage x3 from +66% to +33%. It was certainly the highest for a single kill though. Similarly, the reason mountaintop "took longer to catch on" despite having released earlier (season of the drifter) than recluse (season of opulence) is that it had an additional "quest" triumph requiring tons of GL PvP kills on top of the competitive glory ranking, not to mention it was before they added floors to glory to mitigate loss streaks.
Multi kill clip was the highest precision buff at 100% for x3 but MOA was the best since its body shot buff was 150% and 50% for headshots so body shots did the same damage as headshots.
Nah real ones remember the load out for Skolas. That was the craziness of d1. I hold onto the d1 Loadout for that reason alone, bc fatebringer was addclear with the buffs. Just a different time really
I want to give a shoutout to Witherhoard, Ikelos SMG and Xenophage during the warmind cell era. Couldn't use witherhoard and Xenophage together but they both synergized well with Ikelos and warmind cells. As long as you had the right warmind cell mods on, you were constantly dropping warmind cells after every other kill, with the room wide explosions from a single cell spawning a new cell from it's own kills. Witherhoard gave you the set-it-and-forget-it damage over time of anarchy but with special ammo and autoloading. The trick was that kills with it could also spawn cells as long as you switched to Ikelos before the blight got the kill. Alternatively if you wanted to use your exotic slot on a heavy, with the right solar warmind cell mods, you could basically use Xenophage as sniper-nuke hybrid since it could spawn it's own cells on kills without needing an Ikelos weapon due to solar explosive damage and it could also one shot those cells at any range. Just shoot a cluster of red bars and snipe the cell that pops out for an instant room clear in 2 shots. Those weapons might have lived in the shadows of Mountaintop, Recluse and Anarchy since warmind cells were a prerequisite and Ada-1 was stingy with handing those out to those who missed the season they launched in but damn did it feel good to constantly nuke rooms.
You missed the original Falling Guillotine off of here for Season 11 (provided you could reasonably hit the target with a sword). Back then it hit a lot harder but also swords were bugged and would deal an additional 80% damage after a short delay meaning that you could do some bonkers numbers.
If anyone say anything other than just telesto they’re wrong. The strongest gun to break the whole game is telesto. Telesto is so strong it’ll turn your console or pc off.
A time specific shoutout. It may not stand shoulder to shoulder with these two titan loadouts but Particle Deconstruction, and everyone vooping down every boss was stupidly fun. Vex became a demon, Cartesian went from a gun nobody cared about to the best Special, especially when Banshee sold the god roll. Definitely in my Top 5 PvE loadouts.
Fun Fact: Anarchy received a 30% damage nerf and lost 10 grenades. After 2 20% buffs( 100 - 30%= 70; 70 + 20%= 84; 84 + 20%= 100.8 ) and the incoming buff to reserves ( +6 grenades to 120rpm and +10 to 150rpm [Anarchy is a 150]) it will soon return to its former glory!
Issue, they also nerfed the duration that the grenades stay latched onto a target before exploding. Not nearly as bad as the Witherhoard duration nerf, but it still happened.
It’s definitely D1, either people are forgetting how crazy that loadout was or they haven’t played. The fact that you’d get kicked from LFGs if you didn’t have these weapons, that they had to convert multiple of them into exotics, and that they didn’t rely on any outside abilities and were just that busted, gives them the W. Also it’s not a point that the D2 load-out lasted longer, it’s actually a point for the D1 loud-out, shit was so busted they had to get rid of it ASAP.
Imma be honest.. you clearly didn't play during prime anarchy. Especially when dsc was the prime raid. If you didn't have it you best have had a good trade
Fr! In d1 there was ONE load out that you had to have, in d2 there was the load out and then still other viable options. I think d2s load out was maybe more op, but you have to take into account the game. D2 has always had other options than the BEST load out. Yes the best load out was op but there were other things that were strong asf at the same time. D1 was FB BH GH all the way or you couldn’t get a raid. (Yes there were other options but they didn’t come close)
My first D1 PVP match, I joined late game and got 0 kills, 0 deaths, and 1 assist. I got Gjalla. This was a time when you can see what people got as rewards in the post game lobby. It was crazy. I didn’t care at the time for the reasons stated in the video. But man was I wrong.
Crazy lol, I remember getting a pocket infinity something he didn’t mention. The first ever weapon to get sunset in Destiny because it was so broken the devs couldn’t even fix it 😂💀
After playing the game for literally hours every day for the entirety if D1Y1 (I was addicted) I finally got my first Ghorn like the day before Xur sold it that final time before it got nerfed into the ground. I also ran VoG weekly and never got vex. D1 was a different game man, some people just got fucked
It’s gotta be d2 meta for strongest ever. That load out was everywhere regardless of difficulty or type of content; pvp, raids, gm’s, strikes, it didn’t matter. It was so strong they had to resort to a highly controversial business decision in that of sunsetting.
Mountaintop needed additional nerfs, i think there were 3 total, post sunsetting to finally kill it. It was so strong that it was a valid meta pick in trials while light level advantage was a thing.
As someone who sank 7 years into D1 and 2 (since the Beta) - this made me smile, especially the D1 loadout. Great memories but it was nice to wrench my life back from continually levelling 3 characters every week.
The fact that Mountaintop and Recluse have not been turned into exotics at this point is an argument for why they are more busted than the D1 loadout. Fate Bringer and Black Hammer they were able to balance out eventually, we haven't seen Recluse and Mountaintop, or even their perks, brought back after almost 4 years now, and those perks have even been re-balanced.
Tarrabah basically is Recluse, but as a solar energy weapon. And the perk isn't as forgiving to proc. Yes, you can get it from simply dealing damage, but you NEED to stay on the Weapon and get that damage WITH Tarrabah itself to proc it. It also doesn't refresh itself as seamlessly. But it's the closest we'll ever get to OG Recluse, I'm sure. Mountaintop doesn't really have a direct successor, that is true. One could argue that the double grenade Archetype comes somewhat close, but the lack of good options and perks (Wilderflight just isn't as potent) speaks against that. Now for Anarchy, I don't know the exact numbers but I think in comparison to way back in the day, many of the more recent buffs to grenade launchers as a whole, and some of the (upward) adjustments to Anarchy have brought it to a point where it could certainly serve a solid niche again. It might not be the beast from back in the day, but it is far from dead. The only thing stopping a Tarrabah/Anarchy Loadout to be meta, is the fact that they are both exotic weapons... Which is probably for the best.
@@VorrtaXi just wish they’d make micro-missile a perk on random roll GLs, make it fire in a straight line and reduce the projectile speed to make it less than impulse amplifier and it’d be fine. hell even if they’re still scared, make it be a fourth column perk, replacing the damage buff
@@VorrtaX Tarrabah is nothing like recluse. Recluse perk was so easy to proc you didn’t even have to think. Also anarchy is nowhere near its older days especially since it’s prime was with double slug
@@VorrtaX Good call on Tarrabah. I almost feel like the rocket sidearm is the closes thing we have to mountaintop (or the final shape preorder fusion with the grenade loaded)
In context, it's easily destiny 1's fatebringer, black hammer and gjallarhorn pre nerfs. Black hammer was such a strong weapon as a legendary that it had to get nerfed. It broke boss fights and let you be prepped for anything. What actually made mountaintop over the top, was the auto reloads from titan barricades and wells.
Way I look at it in d2: the weapons ended up getting nerfed, got two subclass’s functions reworked, and slight conspiracy but not unlikely, were ONE of the causes of gear sunsetting.
If we are looking at it as a strictly weapon at face value perspective then I agree when accounting for the whole sandbox and the surrounding builds it’s not close and MT Recluse Anarchy mops the floor. In vacuum just weapons no contextualization you’re right but looking at the whole picture everything on the table it’s a landslide.
black spindle by itself is absolutely insane. a legendary weapon that trivialises all pve combat, where you can just lean back and shoot endlessly with insane damage edit: i accidentally said spindle instead of hammer lmao thank you to the person who pointed that out
D1 Nightfall modifiers were so insane that, combined with the sponginess of the bosses, it was just as hard if not harder than Grandmaster Nightfalls have been, IMO. I’ll never forget the day I got my first Gjallarhorn to drop after doing the Cerberus Vae III Nightfall (without icebreaker either for that matter), and the memory of it was carved deep into my mind through the sheer travail of it all. I was finally able to join lfg groups for a few months before Gjallarhorn was sunset. Hahaha……….
Important quick of recluse that was often forgotten: body shot damage was essentially the same as headshot damage, meaning ttk was incredibly consistent
the thing that made MTT/recluse/anarchy so strong is that we really didn't have options that were *that* good back then, it's like they put a bunch of post-powercreep weapons from current day into a way less powerful sandbox with some absurdly insane perks (especially for pvp). if they came out in their pre-nerf state now, recluse would still be ridiculous in pvp, but mtt and anarchy wouldn't be nearly as crazy anymore.
Master of Arms's damage buff was not just 50%, it was 50% for critical and A LOT MORE on bodyshots (I don't remember the specific number but it was close to 100%) It made bodyshots do critical damage numbers
Mountaintop and Recluse weren't just given when you hit 2100 btw, there was a quest to Mountaintop that was frankly quite lengthy, and Recluse still required a ton of wins outside of hitting 2100.
Damn, 10 years of Destiny. That old loadout hits hard man. All those VOG and Crota's End memories Mountaintop, Recluse and Anarchy is the strongest loadout in Destiny history. Anarchy got nerfed, Recluse's perk was never seen again, and Mountaintop's weapon archetype was never seen again. Also both the legendary weapons have been retired, because in no way was Bungo gonna make stronger weapons than those 3.
Mountaintop was a regular special ammo GL archetype, it was its pinnacle perk, Micro Missile, that made it so strong and unique. Just like Master of Arms, it's unlikely that we will ever see it again, even though I do think that Micro Missile wouldn't be as crazy today due to some of the incredible weapons we got over the last couple of years. It could be a nuisance in PvP at most, but Bungie could easily put a big enough modifier on its damage there to keep the perk in check.
@@life-destiny1196well, master of arms is a shell of its former self. That perk now does only 15% bonus damage, same as frenzy except that’s better now because of the free reload and handling buffs that came with it. And micro missile has been turned into a weapon frame, opening the doors for possible future GLs to have micro missile frames.
fatebringer, black hammer, gally loadout was not only extremely powerful, it also just made you FEEL powerful. the aesthetics and fantasy of those guns truly made me feel like a legendary guardian, and i cannot truly describe the emotions i had using them. a feeling that frankly, i haven’t really had all that much if at all in destiny 2. maybe it’s merely nostalgia for a more simple, more innocent time in my life, but i will never forget using that loadout.
@@Fenneken141yeah, master of arms was murdered. It does the same amount of bonus damage as frenzy except that perk is better now because it comes with free bonus reload and handling as long as you stayed in combat.
So if you play D1 these days and even a few years ago you'll see a lot of people running Fatebringer, 4th, and a Tripod Cluster Unto Dust or Fatebringer, Found Verdict and Gally on Sunbreaker Titan. I'd argue, just based on speedrunning that game so much and seeing how powerful Unto is that's my vote. I may be bias, but man that Unto is crazy. There's videos comparing it to things like Gally, Sleeper and Spindle and it's just no competition. Thing is nutty beyond reason.
I think it’s pretty hard to beat Mountaintop Recluse Anarchy (or any other good exotic heavy) mountain top and recluse are probably the two weapons in destiny history that were HARD meta for pvp and pve
Im assuming this was in the era of warmind cells as well (do correct me if im wrong). And honestly, its probably up there. But swords are still limiting, and its not exactly relevant in pvp if we are looking overall
@apunchbot4163 I'm going purely off pve. But I agree with you about the lack of range/ versatility, although arrivals guillotine and launch witherhoard were just straight up overtuned and broken (one hit glitch with witherhoard). And yes, og warmind cells were a gamechanger
I'd argue Recluse lives on in Tarrabah, in the same way White Nail lived on in a neutered and exotic state. You get the huge reload speed, crazy damage buff, and body shot damage equaling the headshot damage.
Late comment but man it’s crazy this game is coming to an “end” I’ve loved SOOOOOO many games but this has given me some of my best memories. It’s crazy to see videos like these and realize how time flies and what I loved going away
6:30 should be mentioned that this was before the nerf to give feeding frenzy stacks At the height of Recluses power, feeding frenzy gave a very high reload boost immediately on any kill
Consider the fact that Anarchy has since been buffed to now deal the same damage from before its nerf, and it will soon receive a reserves buff, to either within 4 shots to exactly where it was from before the nerf. Flat circle.
The Fatebringer loadout was my favorite thing about the game. The joy I felt when Fatebringer dropped for me very early in D1 is one of my most memorable moments in gaming.
I never had any of the weapons mentioned, but I did have the thorn/felwinters lie combo in D1. For PvP at the time, it was basically the ONLY load out to use. I would go into Iron Banner (where light level mattered way more than in D2) like 50 points below max and still merc people.
Looking back now…after 10 long years of playing “Destiny” how fortunate I was to have experienced both eras. What hilariously good memories these have been as we move onto the beginning of the end.
We also must remember, Feeding Frenzy wasn't as we know it today, it used to only need 1 kill to reach full effect, the nerf made it so you needed 5 kills for it
For those that tried finding raid groups that did not have Ghorn or BH know the struggle was real. In no way did the D2 loadout control whether or not you were deemed good enough to join. House of wolves end game was limited to those who only had Ghorn and i was unlucky enough to get my Ghorn when Xur sold it for the second time, a few weeks before house of wolves ended.
Midnight coup, ikelos SG, Whisper for the brief time we had new weapon system before whisper and trench barrel nerf was arguably a top tier one as well
unrelated but ill still cherish my memory of running the black spindle mission when i was 12, screen faded to black right as the timer ran out and my friend just spammed the exotic sword special and we somehow cleared it, good times 😭😭
No one talking about the new meta for D1? Hand of Judgement with explosive rounds is a hard hitting legendary primary (Jade is the best, for arc ((Chaos Dogma~))). Devils Dawn is the hardest hitting legendary sniper in the game (Whisper/Black Spindle is the best depending on burn, for arc it’s Fourth Horsemen/Found Verdict) The heavy section can be switched out. The best will be Sleeper, G-Horn, swords, or The Warpath God roll with 100 blast and cluster for Aksis, or Hunger, or Hezen. This is the loadout I use to this day on D1.
Another thing to remember about Recluse is that it singlehandedly got Feeding Frenzy nerfed. Datto says FF isnt that good, but at the time Recluse was released, it did not have stacks. It had a 1 kill requirement for what was a massive reload buff. So Recluse had the best damage and reload perk at the same time.
Honorable mention to Outbreak Perfected as well. It was insane with the autoloading meta and the nanites didn't have a cap on potential DPS so it was definitely a strong contender for raid meta back in the day.
If I remember correctly an Outbreak 6-stack was used for the Crown of Sorrows world's first clear. I myself have many fine memories of curb stomping raid bosses during the Outbreak glory days, I don't think it quite matches up to the other two because Outbreak is it's own package and doesn't really synergize with other weapons. Still my favorite exotic in destiny history though.
Honestly, these Loadouts weren’t the strongest but I like Better Devils w/Uriels, or Midnight Coup w/EP shotgun and Whisper/Sleeper. I honestly didn’t hate double primary, I think we just needed more interesting loot to make it more enjoyable.
It depends on who you ask. recluse mountain top and anarchy basically shaped the way bungie did pinnacle weapons going forward, now the og black hammer was a beast in itself and Ghorn got me into raids at level 29 just for having it so you could argue that the game changers were the og Fate Black Hammer and Ghorn. They set the scale so high that they were all changed fundamentally and from that point nothing quite reached that potential, although the aforementioned come very close
This whole video was such a nostalgia trip. The D1 gameplay had me smiling thinking about all the good times back then. Also, I miss the recluse meta in pvp so bad lol
Voting for the D1 loadout. Back then, Firefly was a crowd damage perk that wasn't so easily available on any weapon like it or dragonfly is today, the elemental damage actually did more than kinetic so it was like having a surge on at all times, Hammer had infinite ammo with means if you could survive, you could overcome ANY wall in your path. Gjallarhorn was strong enough that if you had 6 people running it, you could instantly end a raid boss as he spawned in. Yeah, the D2 meta was good, but D1 enemies were way more powerful and I think a lot of guardians forget about that. I did WotM last year and the captains in there are as strong as GM champions, and they're just part of the ad waves on each section of the rooms that come with a ton of other enemies alongside them.
Mountaintop/Recluse were such Swiss Army Knives my vote has to go to them. A Striker Titan with that pair and OEM was basically a death sentence for anything on-screen.
One thing to note about Recluse; it got a 50% damage buff, but it also EQUALIZED your crit and body damage. In PVP, you'd do 25 to the head and also 25 to the body, meaning you didn't have to aim at all-- they only later nerfed Recluse to only apply the damage boost on critical hits. The equalizing damage also meant that it was the best shield-breaker in the entire game. Even against weapons of a matching element, Recluse with Master of Arms would burn through elemental shields faster than them. It was literally more efficient to run Recluse than to use elemental-aligned weapons for a given activity.
I never got Black Hammer in D1, so my go to sniper was LDR-5001 and then 1000 Yard Stare during TTK. I find it funny how after all these years and weapons being re introduced, I basically have my D1 Year 1 load out again: Fatebringer (Time Lost version in D2), Beloved (in place of LDR and 1KY Stare) and Gjallarhorn.
this was a great video. id love to see you cover more random stuff from destinys past. i think it would be interesting to hear you talk about how much power weve gained/lost over the course of the game and what point in the game you thought we were the weakest and strongest
I didnt really watch Destiny when the D1 loadout in the vid was on top but i was watching destiny by the time the D2 loadout was on top and i remember being bored because every video or stream was the same just mountaintop the big thing then swipe left to right with master of arms deleting trash mobs.
MRA was so fun to use. I got the loadout after its peak and some nerfs rolled out. Anarchy was such a satisfying weapon. Nostalgic for those days, crazy how its been almost 3 years
What's funny is Datto undersold how crazy pre-nerf Recluse was. Master of Arms originally on release was a 150% damage buff that was nerfed down to 100% in Shadowkeep, and then nerfed all the way down to what it is now at 15%. Lol
Let’s remember that the Feeding Frenzy that launched on Recluse was the pre-nerf Feeding Frenzy-the one that only took a single kill to be at what’s now “5x” & was a 50% faster reload than the current “5x” Feeding Frenzy.
D2 loadout was when our Guardians were most powerful, it was actually fun to know you could take it into any content and bang. I liked the Black armory weapons too especially as the game changed from Vanilla & having to rely on just your Exotic or Super.
Lets not forget that even after the sunsetting of both Mountaintop and Recluse, Anarchy would continue to terrorize the PvE meta with other friends, like Heritage, First In, Last Out, The Ikelos Sniper Rifle (with FTTC and High-Impact Reserves). Anarchy is a prime example of a busted in half exotic weapon.
I think the true deciding factor here wasn't the guns, it was Lunafactions. The only reason the Recluse+MT+Anarchy meta popped as hard as it did was because you could full auto Mountaintop and get the passive from your Anarchy shots. I feel like the D1 loadout stood on its own. I view them largely as equals, but I do take the external requirement on Mountaintop as a tiebreaker.
Top 3 daily driver loadouts in D2: Mtop, Recluse, Anarchy Witherhoard, Ikelos SMG, Falling Guillotine Quicksilver Storm, Forbearance, good rocket or LFR depending on the fight(s)
Also id like to argue for d2 meta being the most potent ever because while the dps meta was reliant on auto reloads, the d1 was reliant on the crazy burn modifiers so they kinda cancel each other out. And the argument for the d1 weapons becoming exotics only kinda works because who’s to say bungie won’t bring back Mountain top or recluse as exotics?
I’m sure other stuff put up higher numbers, but the most cracked I’ve ever felt was during Season of Defiance. Strand Titan with Chill Clip Riptide, Wavesplitter, and Retrofit was totally bonkers. You could also sub Graviton Lance for Wave if you wanted some fun. That build made it rain orbs before the nerf, instantly made everything except bosses powerless, and cleared raid rooms instantly when Volatile Flow was crazy.
Earlier Destiny Year 1 was the age of being a glass cannon. Busted exotics plus burns meant we could do insane damage but we were extremely squishy in Nightfalls.
The good ol days of sitting back and plinking away for an hour in a GM
@@patrickoakley7890crazy how they were just nightfalls tho
And it was glorious
@@patrickoakley7890There were no GMs. The Nightfall was the "GM"
There was one difficulty, and that difficulty was "fuck you dont die"
Golgoroth had me cowering in a room with an icebreaker and a machine gun
Also to note in 6:28, Feeding Frenzy didnt get that having to stack it nerf until season 11, so imagine you got 5 stacks of feeding frenzy for one kill, the same reload bump n all, it was an insane perk imo.
came down to see you already beat me to it :D
if i also remember correct it was just better than outlaw because both gave 100 reload, but FF has a reload multiplier too, and no headshot needed
my fav back then
Don't we also forget that Recluse had 98% buff to body damage
@@flopre9213 yea basically, it was just a better outlaw with no headshot requirement
Shoutout to Izanagi-Recluse-Wendigo loadout. It was one of the hottest loadouts when I started playing D2 when Shadowkeep came out.
God I miss Izi-go hotswaps, thanks for reminding me of those days lol
Hell yeah, that’s just what I was thinking lol.
@@orubasdon’t worry izzy edge transit bouta go crazy 🙏🏼
This loadout was the best D2 loadout imo mountaintop loadout was only good because of auto loading from lunas
Had a ton of fun with this one.
Mountaintop, Recluse, Anarchy
Remember, with auto reloading🤯💪
/thread
the best loadout. gambit prime❤❤
OG😊
Yes
5:35 when I saw that it gave me chills. Autoloading Mountaintop was straight-up insane. No other word can describe it.
And also that was hard mode menagerie, where it was like 15/20 light level above max cap
I'm more impressed by the amount of D1 footage you still had readily available.
I'm pretty sure he keeps all of his video footage stored in external hard drives
@@parz.unlikely, he probably had some saved for just this purpose tho
@@LearnedSophistryah yes saved for when he sees a reddit post that brings up specific weapons 10 years later
@@parz. external hard drives or just pulled from his old videos from those times
@@slorbonmyknorb777 I was just thinking of he kept it for whenever he needed d1 footage
A couple minor things that weren't mentioned that add to how stupid full power Recluse was:
1. Master of Arms not only buffed your crit damage, but it buffed non-precision damage to the poi t where it was essentially the same as the weapon's crit damage, making it probably the easiest to use weapon of all time, since you barely had to aim.
2. For much (maybe all?) of its lifespan, Recluse had pre-nerf Feeding Frenzy, meaning that a single kill gave you its full benefits which included a reload boost that was superior to Outlaw, the prior gold standard for a reload perk.
Post nerf FF was during the shadowkeep days, so Recluse did have some time in the sun at that point
I miss grinding for comp just to get Recluse 😐
FF got nerfed in Season of Arrivals, which was right before sunsetting. I remember using Recluse after the nerf and reloading feeling so slow and sluggish. That effectively made me stop using the gun altogether.
and i remember how stability on mnk back then literally didnt exist and playing a console was so ass
what made Recluse even better was that this was before Feeding Frenzy had stacks, you simply got a single kill then got the full reload buff
The fact that not having Gjally could get you kicked from D1 LFGs gives more points to D1's meta loadout
Same goes for anarchy. I remember people getting kicked plenty of times during raids because they didn’t have anarchy
The exact same thing happened in D2 with Anarchy and Mountaintop. As well as among the variety of weapons throughout the various Metas in both games. I even remember some coldheart or kick posts for a time.
it wasn't even close to the same scale. looking for groups to do crotas hard or even just vog i remember essentially every other party having gjally as a requirement, raiding during anarchy and mountaintop era was not nearly as strict lol.@@cptenn9419
You see that happen more on D2 with even worse criteria, so idk about that
tbh Anarchy never got that bad. It was more of a "anarchy would be nice" but gally used to be "Have gally" as the only part of the lfg post@@cptenn9419
9:06 "Weapons that came out before Season of the Seraph."
Goodbye Forbearance. Will be missed.
Misinformation. Before season of the Hunt. Don't know how that slipped through into the final video
@@loko8706season of the worthy and arrival weapons are not sunset, so the error really should be rectified as "weapons that came out before season of the worthy"
@@loko8706 It was just a mistake. There were two Warmind-themed seasons, and he said the wrong one. No biggie.
@@loko8706You're also wrong, you're even more wrong than Datto.
@@loko8706 lmao I’ve never seen someone call someone else out for “misinformation” and then be so confidently wrong themselves
6:34 MoA was not the highest of a Precision damage buff at the time, since this was before the damage buff crush that shifted rampage x3 from +66% to +33%. It was certainly the highest for a single kill though.
Similarly, the reason mountaintop "took longer to catch on" despite having released earlier (season of the drifter) than recluse (season of opulence) is that it had an additional "quest" triumph requiring tons of GL PvP kills on top of the competitive glory ranking, not to mention it was before they added floors to glory to mitigate loss streaks.
Recluse released in Season of the Drifter, and Mountaintop released in Season of the Forge. It was Revoker that released in Season of Opulence.
Multi kill clip was the highest precision buff at 100% for x3 but MOA was the best since its body shot buff was 150% and 50% for headshots so body shots did the same damage as headshots.
That D1 loadout of FB, BH, and G-horn was perma-glued to all 3 characters.
💯
💯
Yeah, until year 2 and then it wasn't.
Nah real ones remember the load out for Skolas. That was the craziness of d1. I hold onto the d1 Loadout for that reason alone, bc fatebringer was addclear with the buffs. Just a different time really
@@kelingoodon7374 doing skolas before TTK was hell😂 fun but complete hell
I want to give a shoutout to Witherhoard, Ikelos SMG and Xenophage during the warmind cell era. Couldn't use witherhoard and Xenophage together but they both synergized well with Ikelos and warmind cells.
As long as you had the right warmind cell mods on, you were constantly dropping warmind cells after every other kill, with the room wide explosions from a single cell spawning a new cell from it's own kills. Witherhoard gave you the set-it-and-forget-it damage over time of anarchy but with special ammo and autoloading. The trick was that kills with it could also spawn cells as long as you switched to Ikelos before the blight got the kill.
Alternatively if you wanted to use your exotic slot on a heavy, with the right solar warmind cell mods, you could basically use Xenophage as sniper-nuke hybrid since it could spawn it's own cells on kills without needing an Ikelos weapon due to solar explosive damage and it could also one shot those cells at any range. Just shoot a cluster of red bars and snipe the cell that pops out for an instant room clear in 2 shots.
Those weapons might have lived in the shadows of Mountaintop, Recluse and Anarchy since warmind cells were a prerequisite and Ada-1 was stingy with handing those out to those who missed the season they launched in but damn did it feel good to constantly nuke rooms.
Very underrated loadout
You missed the original Falling Guillotine off of here for Season 11 (provided you could reasonably hit the target with a sword). Back then it hit a lot harder but also swords were bugged and would deal an additional 80% damage after a short delay meaning that you could do some bonkers numbers.
If anyone say anything other than just telesto they’re wrong. The strongest gun to break the whole game is telesto. Telesto is so strong it’ll turn your console or pc off.
A time specific shoutout. It may not stand shoulder to shoulder with these two titan loadouts but Particle Deconstruction, and everyone vooping down every boss was stupidly fun. Vex became a demon, Cartesian went from a gun nobody cared about to the best Special, especially when Banshee sold the god roll. Definitely in my Top 5 PvE loadouts.
Fun Fact: Anarchy received a 30% damage nerf and lost 10 grenades. After 2 20% buffs( 100 - 30%= 70; 70 + 20%= 84; 84 + 20%= 100.8 ) and the incoming buff to reserves ( +6 grenades to 120rpm and +10 to 150rpm [Anarchy is a 150]) it will soon return to its former glory!
Just because its same rpm its not a guarantee is it?
@@BREAKoceanwould be hella weird if they left it out tho
@@lunarstrikeok9756 for exotics that are OP they sometimes get individually tuned and anarchy was definitely very OP back in the day
Issue, they also nerfed the duration that the grenades stay latched onto a target before exploding. Not nearly as bad as the Witherhoard duration nerf, but it still happened.
@@therobustllamanice point guardian, why don't you back it up with a source?
It’s definitely D1, either people are forgetting how crazy that loadout was or they haven’t played. The fact that you’d get kicked from LFGs if you didn’t have these weapons, that they had to convert multiple of them into exotics, and that they didn’t rely on any outside abilities and were just that busted, gives them the W. Also it’s not a point that the D2 load-out lasted longer, it’s actually a point for the D1 loud-out, shit was so busted they had to get rid of it ASAP.
need i remind you that "kicked for not having Ghorn" was rampant in D1. i can't recall Anarchy ever getting to that level of "have it or fuck off"
Don’t forget “have emblem”
oh it was there for sure
Imma be honest.. you clearly didn't play during prime anarchy. Especially when dsc was the prime raid. If you didn't have it you best have had a good trade
Fr! In d1 there was ONE load out that you had to have, in d2 there was the load out and then still other viable options.
I think d2s load out was maybe more op, but you have to take into account the game. D2 has always had other options than the BEST load out. Yes the best load out was op but there were other things that were strong asf at the same time.
D1 was FB BH GH all the way or you couldn’t get a raid. (Yes there were other options but they didn’t come close)
@@Sytsn_anarchy was the same way
My first D1 PVP match, I joined late game and got 0 kills, 0 deaths, and 1 assist. I got Gjalla. This was a time when you can see what people got as rewards in the post game lobby. It was crazy. I didn’t care at the time for the reasons stated in the video. But man was I wrong.
Crazy lol, I remember getting a pocket infinity something he didn’t mention. The first ever weapon to get sunset in Destiny because it was so broken the devs couldn’t even fix it 😂💀
@frankmateo8754 pre nerf pocket infinity is probably the best special weapon in pvp history that gun was hilarious
Are you... SmogyPluto?😄
I’ve also gotten 1 for joining at the end
After playing the game for literally hours every day for the entirety if D1Y1 (I was addicted) I finally got my first Ghorn like the day before Xur sold it that final time before it got nerfed into the ground. I also ran VoG weekly and never got vex. D1 was a different game man, some people just got fucked
Midnight coup, ikelos shotgun, whisper of the worm during forsaken
This was my favorite loadout and midnight coup still is weapon I have the most kills with
@@LaMonsta252before the rapid fire shotgun nerf it was just a stupid
this before rapid fire/trench barrel nerfs and whisper rework was insane yes
It was good as well, but nowhere close to Rec, Anarcy, MT
Trashcan load out (I never could get midnight or ikelos SG 😭)
It’s gotta be d2 meta for strongest ever. That load out was everywhere regardless of difficulty or type of content; pvp, raids, gm’s, strikes, it didn’t matter. It was so strong they had to resort to a highly controversial business decision in that of sunsetting.
Mountaintop needed additional nerfs, i think there were 3 total, post sunsetting to finally kill it. It was so strong that it was a valid meta pick in trials while light level advantage was a thing.
G-horn and Fate bringer were actually sunset though at the start of the Taken king they didn't allow those two to be infused and brought up to power.
I mean all of destiny 1 guns were also sunset
As someone who sank 7 years into D1 and 2 (since the Beta) - this made me smile, especially the D1 loadout. Great memories but it was nice to wrench my life back from continually levelling 3 characters every week.
The fact that Mountaintop and Recluse have not been turned into exotics at this point is an argument for why they are more busted than the D1 loadout. Fate Bringer and Black Hammer they were able to balance out eventually, we haven't seen Recluse and Mountaintop, or even their perks, brought back after almost 4 years now, and those perks have even been re-balanced.
Tarrabah basically is Recluse, but as a solar energy weapon. And the perk isn't as forgiving to proc. Yes, you can get it from simply dealing damage, but you NEED to stay on the Weapon and get that damage WITH Tarrabah itself to proc it. It also doesn't refresh itself as seamlessly. But it's the closest we'll ever get to OG Recluse, I'm sure.
Mountaintop doesn't really have a direct successor, that is true. One could argue that the double grenade Archetype comes somewhat close, but the lack of good options and perks (Wilderflight just isn't as potent) speaks against that.
Now for Anarchy, I don't know the exact numbers but I think in comparison to way back in the day, many of the more recent buffs to grenade launchers as a whole, and some of the (upward) adjustments to Anarchy have brought it to a point where it could certainly serve a solid niche again. It might not be the beast from back in the day, but it is far from dead.
The only thing stopping a Tarrabah/Anarchy Loadout to be meta, is the fact that they are both exotic weapons... Which is probably for the best.
@@VorrtaXi just wish they’d make micro-missile a perk on random roll GLs, make it fire in a straight line and reduce the projectile speed to make it less than impulse amplifier and it’d be fine. hell even if they’re still scared, make it be a fourth column perk, replacing the damage buff
Mountaintop even if brought back would only really be a problem in PvP. Without auto loading luna well or barricade it was mid in PvE even back then.
@@VorrtaX Tarrabah is nothing like recluse. Recluse perk was so easy to proc you didn’t even have to think. Also anarchy is nowhere near its older days especially since it’s prime was with double slug
@@VorrtaX Good call on Tarrabah. I almost feel like the rocket sidearm is the closes thing we have to mountaintop (or the final shape preorder fusion with the grenade loaded)
In context, it's easily destiny 1's fatebringer, black hammer and gjallarhorn pre nerfs. Black hammer was such a strong weapon as a legendary that it had to get nerfed. It broke boss fights and let you be prepped for anything. What actually made mountaintop over the top, was the auto reloads from titan barricades and wells.
Way I look at it in d2:
the weapons ended up getting nerfed, got two subclass’s functions reworked, and slight conspiracy but not unlikely, were ONE of the causes of gear sunsetting.
Icebreaker deserves recognition to. One of the only guns to regenerate ammo in destiny i believe
@@brandondean5680Invective shotgun, and every sidearm upon death
If we are looking at it as a strictly weapon at face value perspective then I agree when accounting for the whole sandbox and the surrounding builds it’s not close and MT Recluse Anarchy mops the floor. In vacuum just weapons no contextualization you’re right but looking at the whole picture everything on the table it’s a landslide.
black spindle by itself is absolutely insane. a legendary weapon that trivialises all pve combat, where you can just lean back and shoot endlessly with insane damage
edit: i accidentally said spindle instead of hammer lmao thank you to the person who pointed that out
Hammer was the legendary. Spindle was the exotic.
D1 Nightfall modifiers were so insane that, combined with the sponginess of the bosses, it was just as hard if not harder than Grandmaster Nightfalls have been, IMO. I’ll never forget the day I got my first Gjallarhorn to drop after doing the Cerberus Vae III Nightfall (without icebreaker either for that matter), and the memory of it was carved deep into my mind through the sheer travail of it all. I was finally able to join lfg groups for a few months before Gjallarhorn was sunset. Hahaha……….
I got mine from ir yut and sprinted around the house screaming. Good times.
I remember cheesing that nightfall hiding under the stairs. Good times man.
Yes but every nightfall was very cheesable back then. If you tried to tackle them head on though you would get annihilated
Important quick of recluse that was often forgotten: body shot damage was essentially the same as headshot damage, meaning ttk was incredibly consistent
Playing with mountaintop, and recluse with lunas is some of my favourite gaming memories ever, such a great time to be playing imo.
Couple of notes, Feeding Frenzy didn't stack back then, and sunsetting was for weapons before Season of Worthy, not Seraph.
i’ll admit i didn’t play much during the era of recluse-mountaintop but either you had ghorn or weren’t staying in that lfg, that’s how good it was y1
Love that the damage and (almost) reserves for Anarchy are pretty much back to where they were before the initial nerf
Yep, it's back to where it was before, but now nobody wants to run it because we have better ways of doing DPS.
the thing that made MTT/recluse/anarchy so strong is that we really didn't have options that were *that* good back then, it's like they put a bunch of post-powercreep weapons from current day into a way less powerful sandbox with some absurdly insane perks (especially for pvp). if they came out in their pre-nerf state now, recluse would still be ridiculous in pvp, but mtt and anarchy wouldn't be nearly as crazy anymore.
Master of Arms's damage buff was not just 50%, it was 50% for critical and A LOT MORE on bodyshots (I don't remember the specific number but it was close to 100%)
It made bodyshots do critical damage numbers
I still rewatch your videos when i get bored, i could follow you through anything u play
Mountaintop and Recluse weren't just given when you hit 2100 btw, there was a quest to Mountaintop that was frankly quite lengthy, and Recluse still required a ton of wins outside of hitting 2100.
Damn, 10 years of Destiny. That old loadout hits hard man. All those VOG and Crota's End memories
Mountaintop, Recluse and Anarchy is the strongest loadout in Destiny history. Anarchy got nerfed, Recluse's perk was never seen again, and Mountaintop's weapon archetype was never seen again. Also both the legendary weapons have been retired, because in no way was Bungo gonna make stronger weapons than those 3.
Mountaintop was a regular special ammo GL archetype, it was its pinnacle perk, Micro Missile, that made it so strong and unique. Just like Master of Arms, it's unlikely that we will ever see it again, even though I do think that Micro Missile wouldn't be as crazy today due to some of the incredible weapons we got over the last couple of years. It could be a nuisance in PvP at most, but Bungie could easily put a big enough modifier on its damage there to keep the perk in check.
@@hashtunr4952 comments that aged very quickly :P
@@life-destiny1196well, master of arms is a shell of its former self. That perk now does only 15% bonus damage, same as frenzy except that’s better now because of the free reload and handling buffs that came with it. And micro missile has been turned into a weapon frame, opening the doors for possible future GLs to have micro missile frames.
The strongest loadout of today vs The strongest loadout in history
"sunset" didn't age well
Sunsetting got sunsetted
fatebringer, black hammer, gally loadout was not only extremely powerful, it also just made you FEEL powerful. the aesthetics and fantasy of those guns truly made me feel like a legendary guardian, and i cannot truly describe the emotions i had using them. a feeling that frankly, i haven’t really had all that much if at all in destiny 2. maybe it’s merely nostalgia for a more simple, more innocent time in my life, but i will never forget using that loadout.
"Mountaintop and Recluse could be considered exotic tier were they ever to return in a non-sunset state" oh if only past Datto knew
Unfortunately, Recluse wont be what it once was
@@Fenneken141yeah, master of arms was murdered. It does the same amount of bonus damage as frenzy except that perk is better now because it comes with free bonus reload and handling as long as you stayed in combat.
So if you play D1 these days and even a few years ago you'll see a lot of people running Fatebringer, 4th, and a Tripod Cluster Unto Dust or Fatebringer, Found Verdict and Gally on Sunbreaker Titan. I'd argue, just based on speedrunning that game so much and seeing how powerful Unto is that's my vote. I may be bias, but man that Unto is crazy. There's videos comparing it to things like Gally, Sleeper and Spindle and it's just no competition. Thing is nutty beyond reason.
I think it’s pretty hard to beat
Mountaintop
Recluse
Anarchy (or any other good exotic heavy)
mountain top and recluse are probably the two weapons in destiny history that were HARD meta for pvp and pve
Strand Titan is pretty fucking broken lol
I think witherhoard, ikelos smg, falling guillotine and global reach also deserves an honerable mention
witherhoard, ikelos smg, falling guillotine in Season of arrivals was something special
Nah
Im assuming this was in the era of warmind cells as well (do correct me if im wrong). And honestly, its probably up there. But swords are still limiting, and its not exactly relevant in pvp if we are looking overall
@apunchbot4163 I'm going purely off pve. But I agree with you about the lack of range/ versatility, although arrivals guillotine and launch witherhoard were just straight up overtuned and broken (one hit glitch with witherhoard).
And yes, og warmind cells were a gamechanger
just the way ammo looked on the ground was so great
God every time I see the pre Beyond Light D2 lighting I want to cry it looks so much better 😢
I'd argue Recluse lives on in Tarrabah, in the same way White Nail lived on in a neutered and exotic state. You get the huge reload speed, crazy damage buff, and body shot damage equaling the headshot damage.
D1 has my heart
For PvP Mine was Elysium the orange Sniper and Rocket or sword
forbearance with anything else
haven't played destiny in 5 years, first vid watched in yrs , thoroughly enjoyed, keep grinding
Late comment but man it’s crazy this game is coming to an “end” I’ve loved SOOOOOO many games but this has given me some of my best memories. It’s crazy to see videos like these and realize how time flies and what I loved going away
6:30 should be mentioned that this was before the nerf to give feeding frenzy stacks
At the height of Recluses power, feeding frenzy gave a very high reload boost immediately on any kill
Consider the fact that Anarchy has since been buffed to now deal the same damage from before its nerf, and it will soon receive a reserves buff, to either within 4 shots to exactly where it was from before the nerf.
Flat circle.
sadly cant keep up with the new meta
The Fatebringer loadout was my favorite thing about the game. The joy I felt when Fatebringer dropped for me very early in D1 is one of my most memorable moments in gaming.
I never had any of the weapons mentioned, but I did have the thorn/felwinters lie combo in D1. For PvP at the time, it was basically the ONLY load out to use. I would go into Iron Banner (where light level mattered way more than in D2) like 50 points below max and still merc people.
Looking back now…after 10 long years of playing “Destiny” how fortunate I was to have experienced both eras. What hilariously good memories these have been as we move onto the beginning of the end.
We also must remember, Feeding Frenzy wasn't as we know it today, it used to only need 1 kill to reach full effect, the nerf made it so you needed 5 kills for it
For those that tried finding raid groups that did not have Ghorn or BH know the struggle was real. In no way did the D2 loadout control whether or not you were deemed good enough to join. House of wolves end game was limited to those who only had Ghorn and i was unlucky enough to get my Ghorn when Xur sold it for the second time, a few weeks before house of wolves ended.
heritage, ammit, briars contempt, all three of them aggressive frames. best loadout of all time.
My Mulligan Osmosis 900 RPM machine gun with an aggressive shotgun frame was goin crazy ngl 😂 farmed GM’s like they were patrols
Midnight coup, ikelos SG, Whisper for the brief time we had new weapon system before whisper and trench barrel nerf was arguably a top tier one as well
I miss destiny 1 year 1 so much, so many good memories😢
unrelated but ill still cherish my memory of running the black spindle mission when i was 12, screen faded to black right as the timer ran out and my friend just spammed the exotic sword special and we somehow cleared it, good times 😭😭
No one talking about the new meta for D1? Hand of Judgement with explosive rounds is a hard hitting legendary primary (Jade is the best, for arc ((Chaos Dogma~))). Devils Dawn is the hardest hitting legendary sniper in the game (Whisper/Black Spindle is the best depending on burn, for arc it’s Fourth Horsemen/Found Verdict) The heavy section can be switched out. The best will be Sleeper, G-Horn, swords, or The Warpath God roll with 100 blast and cluster for Aksis, or Hunger, or Hezen. This is the loadout I use to this day on D1.
People play D1 for reasons other than a quick novelty/nostalgia trip?
well, what a fitting video to get the day after the into the light livestream.
Another thing to remember about Recluse is that it singlehandedly got Feeding Frenzy nerfed. Datto says FF isnt that good, but at the time Recluse was released, it did not have stacks. It had a 1 kill requirement for what was a massive reload buff. So Recluse had the best damage and reload perk at the same time.
Both were insane but particle deconstruction with cartesian co and sleeper was nuts too
Vietnam flashbacks seeing that green engram
While I never got to experience having a ghorn, I did run Moutaintop Recluse Anarchy and it just felt like Destny on easy mode
Unless you were on the recieving end of it in PvP, in which case you were playing on hardcore mode.
@@readyforlolnah, you were playing on ultra nightmare difficulty.
Honorable mention to Outbreak Perfected as well. It was insane with the autoloading meta and the nanites didn't have a cap on potential DPS so it was definitely a strong contender for raid meta back in the day.
If I remember correctly an Outbreak 6-stack was used for the Crown of Sorrows world's first clear.
I myself have many fine memories of curb stomping raid bosses during the Outbreak glory days, I don't think it quite matches up to the other two because Outbreak is it's own package and doesn't really synergize with other weapons.
Still my favorite exotic in destiny history though.
6:22 old rampage used to go from 22%, to 44% and then 66%. Huckleberry still has unerfed rampage on it
I used Fatebringer, Ice Breaker and Corrective Measure or FB + Black Hammer + Gally
The best load out ever in d1 is obviously burning eye, found verdict, unto dust. But only real ones who still play d1 know that
I miss unloading 6 mountain tops on gahlran without reloading with lunas. Good times
Honestly, these Loadouts weren’t the strongest but I like Better Devils w/Uriels, or Midnight Coup w/EP shotgun and Whisper/Sleeper. I honestly didn’t hate double primary, I think we just needed more interesting loot to make it more enjoyable.
It depends on who you ask. recluse mountain top and anarchy basically shaped the way bungie did pinnacle weapons going forward, now the og black hammer was a beast in itself and Ghorn got me into raids at level 29 just for having it so you could argue that the game changers were the og Fate Black Hammer and Ghorn. They set the scale so high that they were all changed fundamentally and from that point nothing quite reached that potential, although the aforementioned come very close
This whole video was such a nostalgia trip. The D1 gameplay had me smiling thinking about all the good times back then. Also, I miss the recluse meta in pvp so bad lol
Voting for the D1 loadout. Back then, Firefly was a crowd damage perk that wasn't so easily available on any weapon like it or dragonfly is today, the elemental damage actually did more than kinetic so it was like having a surge on at all times, Hammer had infinite ammo with means if you could survive, you could overcome ANY wall in your path. Gjallarhorn was strong enough that if you had 6 people running it, you could instantly end a raid boss as he spawned in.
Yeah, the D2 meta was good, but D1 enemies were way more powerful and I think a lot of guardians forget about that. I did WotM last year and the captains in there are as strong as GM champions, and they're just part of the ad waves on each section of the rooms that come with a ton of other enemies alongside them.
Mountaintop/Recluse were such Swiss Army Knives my vote has to go to them. A Striker Titan with that pair and OEM was basically a death sentence for anything on-screen.
I appreciate the weapon explanations, despite their infamy I actually had no idea until now that mountaintop shot in a straight line
One thing to note about Recluse; it got a 50% damage buff, but it also EQUALIZED your crit and body damage. In PVP, you'd do 25 to the head and also 25 to the body, meaning you didn't have to aim at all-- they only later nerfed Recluse to only apply the damage boost on critical hits.
The equalizing damage also meant that it was the best shield-breaker in the entire game. Even against weapons of a matching element, Recluse with Master of Arms would burn through elemental shields faster than them. It was literally more efficient to run Recluse than to use elemental-aligned weapons for a given activity.
We can't ignore how that hobgoblin absolutely head tapped datto in the beginning.
i think its funny how he said "we'll never see it again" meanwhile bungie reintroduced mountaintop and recluse in into the light 5:40
I never got Black Hammer in D1, so my go to sniper was LDR-5001 and then 1000 Yard Stare during TTK. I find it funny how after all these years and weapons being re introduced, I basically have my D1 Year 1 load out again: Fatebringer (Time Lost version in D2), Beloved (in place of LDR and 1KY Stare) and Gjallarhorn.
this was a great video. id love to see you cover more random stuff from destinys past. i think it would be interesting to hear you talk about how much power weve gained/lost over the course of the game and what point in the game you thought we were the weakest and strongest
That fatebringer, black hammer, gjallarhorn thumbnail brought some feels in me
Datto, a vid spoofing the chain that Fallout added to about Fallout’s “Truth” of Aztecross’ “Truth” of Jake’s “Truth” about D2 would be divine 😂
I didnt really watch Destiny when the D1 loadout in the vid was on top but i was watching destiny by the time the D2 loadout was on top and i remember being bored because every video or stream was the same just mountaintop the big thing then swipe left to right with master of arms deleting trash mobs.
MRA was so fun to use. I got the loadout after its peak and some nerfs rolled out. Anarchy was such a satisfying weapon. Nostalgic for those days, crazy how its been almost 3 years
What's funny is Datto undersold how crazy pre-nerf Recluse was. Master of Arms originally on release was a 150% damage buff that was nerfed down to 100% in Shadowkeep, and then nerfed all the way down to what it is now at 15%. Lol
Let’s remember that the Feeding Frenzy that launched on Recluse was the pre-nerf Feeding Frenzy-the one that only took a single kill to be at what’s now “5x” & was a 50% faster reload than the current “5x” Feeding Frenzy.
D2 loadout was when our Guardians were most powerful, it was actually fun to know you could take it into any content and bang. I liked the Black armory weapons too especially as the game changed from Vanilla & having to rely on just your Exotic or Super.
Lets not forget that even after the sunsetting of both Mountaintop and Recluse, Anarchy would continue to terrorize the PvE meta with other friends, like Heritage, First In, Last Out, The Ikelos Sniper Rifle (with FTTC and High-Impact Reserves). Anarchy is a prime example of a busted in half exotic weapon.
I think the true deciding factor here wasn't the guns, it was Lunafactions. The only reason the Recluse+MT+Anarchy meta popped as hard as it did was because you could full auto Mountaintop and get the passive from your Anarchy shots. I feel like the D1 loadout stood on its own. I view them largely as equals, but I do take the external requirement on Mountaintop as a tiebreaker.
Top 3 daily driver loadouts in D2:
Mtop, Recluse, Anarchy
Witherhoard, Ikelos SMG, Falling Guillotine
Quicksilver Storm, Forbearance, good rocket or LFR depending on the fight(s)
I’m going with the craftening Amit and heavy grenade launcher. Truly unmatched. Mulligan on a shotgun heavy grenade launcher was truly an experience.
Don't forget that recluse also did as much bodyshot damage as crit (like tarrabah today) so you always had an optimal ttk
Another thing too, recluse had pre nerf feeding frenzy. It didn’t use to stack up to 5x it was just straight up a reload buff after 1 kill .
Also id like to argue for d2 meta being the most potent ever because while the dps meta was reliant on auto reloads, the d1 was reliant on the crazy burn modifiers so they kinda cancel each other out. And the argument for the d1 weapons becoming exotics only kinda works because who’s to say bungie won’t bring back Mountain top or recluse as exotics?
Fatebringer, black hammer and g horn is so nostalgic. I went from having none to all 3 dropping within a day.
I’m sure other stuff put up higher numbers, but the most cracked I’ve ever felt was during Season of Defiance. Strand Titan with Chill Clip Riptide, Wavesplitter, and Retrofit was totally bonkers. You could also sub Graviton Lance for Wave if you wanted some fun. That build made it rain orbs before the nerf, instantly made everything except bosses powerless, and cleared raid rooms instantly when Volatile Flow was crazy.
Bugged Volatile Retrofit was so fun 😭😭😭 it made bossfights a firework display
Agreed - Mountaintop was a new level of busted having a mini rocket launcher that used special ammo was nuts.