The Zhalo Supercell is a primary Auto Rifle Xur is selling this week. While it’s one of the exotic weapons that was added with The Taken King expansion, it’s still a viable weapon when it comes to both PVP and PVE, even compared to Rise Of Iron weapons. I have to say that this gun looks fantastic, and if you don’t already own it for collection purposes, then that alone is a reason to buy it.
As one of the few exotic weapons with elemental properties, the Zhalo Supercell is perfect for many PVE activities, including the Nightfall, Raids, and Prison of Elders. The reason the elemental damage helps is to do with the modifiers applied to each activity each weekly reset. Arc Burn is the most obvious modifier this gun is suited to, since it increases Arc damage for that activity. Other modifiers change the enemy’s shield variants, and increase different types of damage for different shields, making this gun extremely valuable to anyone who frequents these weekly activities.
Prison of Elders has various modifiers for each round, and this gun is bound to be useful for at least one, if not all of them. Raids are slightly different, but modifiers still apply, and it may be that this week there’s a boss the Zhalo Supercell could help dispatch faster than normal. Heroic strikes could also make great use of the gun, particularly if you aren’t at maximum Light level yet, so if you’re finding those hard it could be worth your while buying this.
The gun’s unique perk means lightning is chained between enemies that are close to each other, further increasing damage. When combined with its other perks, improved accuracy the longer it is fired and ammo and super energy recharge from double kills, the Zhalo Supercell can see you slaying minions of the Darkness faster than any other Guardian in your Fireteam. As far as elemental primary weapons go, this gun is also not only one of the few exotics, but one of the few primary weapons in general that has elemental damage.
When it comes to PVP this gun isn’t as great as it is in PVE. However, Bungie designer Luke Smith has confirmed that no more elemental primary weapons are on their way, so it’s worth having simply for that. In Trials of Osiris a clutch Super can sometimes save the team from losing, but your chances of getting a double kill in this mode are slim. Larger Crucible games could benefit from the increased Super energy and ammo regeneration perk, but again you need to be getting a decent amount of double kills to make it viable. One thing I will say is that in Control matches, when enemy players will be in close proximity to each other on certain points, this gun could cause massive damage and ruin the enemy’s efforts at taking your points.