This week Xur is selling the D.A.R.C.I Sniper Rifle. This sits in your Power Weapon slot and for all intents and purposes looks to be a solid gun, but a lot of Guardians have bad things to say about it. The fact is that this is one of those Exotic weapons that you’ll pick up because of the collector’s impulse within you, not because you need it to give you that edge in PVE or while you’re hunting down other Guardians in the Crucible. Really this is a big toy and an experiment by the developers at Bungie that seems to have fallen short of the original vision, or just failed.
However, I don’t think it’s as bad as people are saying, so here’s an overview to give you a rounded picture of the weapon to better help your decision as to whether to buy it or not.
The Exotic Intrinsic Perk of this weapon is Personal Assistant. This allows you to see an enemy’s health and other vital information when you aim at them through the scope.
Next up is Extended Barrel, which increases range while decreasing handling speed, and Extended Mag, which increases magazine size but decreases reload speed.
Finally we have Target Acquired, which deals more precision damage (about 6% more) when Personal Assistant is active, and Short-Action Stock, which greatly increases handling speed.
All in all these add up to a Sniper Rifle that is ridiculously easy to handle and can reveal a lot about your enemy. While it doesn’t have some of the perks you might want from a weapon like this, such as allowing you to see enemies through walls or keep the radar up while aiming down slights, it more than makes up for it.
The combination of Target Acquired and Personal Assistant means that you can aim at targets far better and maintain that aim more easily, whilst dealing an increased amount of precision damage. That increased damage can make all the difference in certain modes, particularly if you’re good at making clutch shots while falling from heights and bad jumps.
Over on the game’s Subreddit the community have discovered a potentially unintentional use for the weapon, one that aids YouTubers, Streamers, and Destiny analysts. Using D.A.R.C.I Guardians can detect the range at which certain perks and abilities activate, or become useful, thanks to the sights showing the distance you are from your enemy. For example, did you know that Gambler’s Dodge activates withing 13 metres, Arc Soul will target enemies withing 30 metres, and every class has a base melee lunge range of 4 metres? Let me know what you think of the weapon in the comments.
Image Source: PowerPyx
