Tommy’s Matchbook Could Herald A Change To Exotics

Bungie launched Season of the Worthy with Tommy’s Matchbook, an Exotic Auto Rifle that’s really quite different. While it’s a powerful weapon, no one can argue that, it’s Intrinsic Perk points in a direction that’s distinctly more dungeons and dragons than it is Destiny 2 and sci-fi, but I kind of like it.

Tommy’s Matchbook

The Intrinsic Perk on Tommy’s Matchbook, Ignition Trigger, makes the weapon more powerful with sustained fire. However, that sustained fire also burns the Guardian using it if sustained for too long. Adding onto this perk is Heat Sink, which decreases the burn you feel from it if you don’t aim down the sights.

What we’re seeing here is a weapon that gets more powerful the longer you shoot it, but it punishes you for continuous fire with a small burn on your health. If you use hip fire, that burn is reduced, but that means that you really do just have to hold it and spray bullets like a gangster in the Godfather trilogy.

There has only ever been one other Exotic weapon to do something like this, Touch of Malice. That weapon had a perk which was named the same, and allowed the user to use the final round of the magazine to deal bonus damage. This round would regenerate, so you could effectively deal more damage with one shot, and just have it regenerate and keep dealing bonus damage. But that would cost you health, and if you didn’t get three rapid kills in a row, which would regenerate your health, this weapon could kill you.

Both Touch of Malice and Tommy’s Matchbook threaten a Guardian’s wellbeing whilst also offering them a lot of power at their fingertips. This is a classic design used in dungeons and dragons for years. Players would all be characters with abilities that they chose, but they’d also need to pick up something that wasn’t good for them, like the inability to look up, fear of the darkness, or instant death upon being completely submerged in water.

The abilities and downsides would work with one another. In this way they were so interlinked that they were impossible to completely avoid. That’s exactly what’s happened with both Touch of Malice and Tommy’s Matchbook.

I want to know if this is a new direction that Bungie is taking Destiny 2 in. With another season to go, I’m curious to see if we get more Exotics that harm us as much as they help us. It would definitely make for more interesting builds, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Image Source: Gamepur