Oh, happy day! Xur is back and he's no longer bugged. That mean's the armor he sells is once again rolling with correct stat distribution, although with the slight caveat from Bungie that the: "fix has caused an issue... where the advertised stats on Xûr’s inventory screen may be slightly different than the item you receive." Oh Xur!
This week, he can be found in the Winding Cove area in the EDZ. Head straight forward from spawn and he's lurking up the cliffs on the right by the crashed ship. If in doubt, look for a clump of player names also paying him a visit.
Xur arrives at 1:00 PM EST / 9.00 AM PDT / 17.00 PM GMT, and leaves when the game resets the following Tuesday. This week's wares can be found below, along with my recommendations. Provided you have the shards to spare, I advise picking up any exotic you don't already have so it's added to your potential loot pool for future drops.
Aeon Swift
Hunter exotic gauntlets
Mobility: +3
Resilience: +7
Recovery: +20
Discipline: +6
Intellect: +17
Strength: +10
Total: 63
Exotic perk: "You specialize in punishing powerful combatants before they can harm your allies."
Recommendation: The Aeon gauntlets (each class has its own version) have gone from being an ignored meme to the meta in Grandmaster Nightfalls. You can spec them out in three different ways, but by far the most popular is Sect of Insight, which generates power ammo for your allies when you finish champions. This season, that effect doubles with the Lucent Finisher from the artifact, resulting in double purple brick drops. Aside from the lack of mobility, not a bad stat spread either.
Sunbracers
Warlock exotic gloves
Mobility: +8
Resilience: +21
Recovery: +3
Discipline: +8
Intellect: +9
Strength: +12
Total: 61
Exotic perk: "Resist incoming damage while charging your Void grenade. Charged Void grenades return grenade energy on a hit."
Recommendation: Despite having a very powerful effect—you'll feel like a pyromaniac on crack as you sling solar 'nades everywhere—Sunbracers tend to see play in lower end content where it's easier to get off melee kills. Try them in the Strike playlist when the Brawler modifier is active and watch the world burn. Shame there's so much resilience in the stat spread.
Ursa Furiosa
Titan exotic boots
Mobility: +25
Resilience: +8
Recovery: +2
Discipline: +2
Intellect: +6
Strength: +23
Total: 66
Exotic perk: "Move faster while guarding when Sentinel Shield is active. Guarded damage converts to Super energy when the Super ends."
Recommendation: Another exotic that's best suited to endgame activities such as raids and Grandmaster Nightfalls, because it benefits from taking a lot of incoming fire. The Ursa gauntlets grant greater uptime for your Banner Shield super, which now grants a 40% damage buff to allies firing through it, enabling your team to stay alive during risky DPS phases.
Crimson
Exotic kinetic hand cannon
Exotic Perk: "Kills with this weapon heal the wielder. Precision kills also refill the magazine."
Recommendation: The instant heal-on-kill effect makes Crimson solid in PvP and very useful in PvE, particularly when playing solo, where staying alive is crucial. Think day one raids and trying to flawless dungeons. Also pairs very nicely with the Lucky Pants Hunter exotic boots due to its high rate of fire.
The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Legendary armor and weapons
Each week, Xur brings a range of armor that's no longer acquirable in-game. Perfect for transmog purposes, as we all know that creating killer fits is the true endgame. These are also now rolling with correct stat distributions—which doesn't mean to say they're all good, but there's at least a chance!
This week's set is the Anti-Extinction gear from the now defunct Dead Orbit faction. Decent for edgelord monochromatic fits. In terms of stats, each class has a good chest piece and the titan boots are worth a look too.
Armour/Class | Hunter - Anti-Extinction | Warlock - Anti-Extinction | Titan - Anti-Extinction |
---|---|---|---|
Helmet | 54 | 55 | 58 |
Gloves | 63 | 60 | 61 |
Chest | 63 | 62 | 63 |
Boots | 59 | 55 | 65 |
Class Item | N/A | N/A | N/A |
He also has a grab bag of weapons for sale, which thanks to his random nature can occasionally include a god roll perk combo. Both the guns and the armor cost 50 Legendary Shards and 1,000 glimmer per purchase. It's slim pickings this week. The Frozen Orbit might be okay in PvP as a super killer, thanks to Vorpal Weapon, and Osmosis on the Dire Promise can be fun with Void 3.0 Volatile Rounds builds, but honestly nothing jumps out.
Weapon | Archetype | Ammo | Element | Perk | Perk | Masterwork |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Seventh Seraph SAW | 390 RPM LMG | Power | Arc | Grave Robber | Mulligan | Reload |
Dire Promise | 140 RPM hand cannon | Primary | Kinetic | Snapshot | Osmosis | Stability |
Widow's Bite | 140 RPM sniper rifle | Special | Solar | Pulse Monitor | Demolitionist | Range |
Imperial Needle | Lightweight Bow | Primary | Void | Killing Wind | Opening Shot | Draw Time |
Frozen Orbit | 72 RPM sniper rifle | Special | Void | Outlaw | Vorpal Weapon | Range |
Ignition Code | Lightweight grenade launcher | Special | Kinetic | Field Prep | Demolitionist | Reload |
Wolftone Draw | Precision bow | Primary | Arc | Sneak Bow | Harmony | Draw Time |
Finally, squidface sells a randomly rolled version of Dead Man's Tale and Hawkmoon (i.e. some of the perks change each week), which can be found on the second tab of his inventory.
These weapons were previously only obtainable via their own secret missions, which have since been sunset. Their cost is punitively high at 125k glimmer, 200 Legendary Shards, 1 Ascendant Shard and an Exotic Cipher. However, they're both great weapons, so if you didn't snag either when they were available, or Xur is selling a better roll than the one you have, it's still worth ponying up.
Dead Man's Tale
Exotic 120 RPM scout rifle
Barrel: Hammer-Forged Rifling
Magazine: Armor-Piercing Rounds
Perk: Killing Wind
Stock: Fitted Stock
Exotic Perk: "Chaining precision hits grants bonus damage and quickens reload speed."
Recommendation: A solid but unspectacular roll on the DMT this week. As noted previously, Armor-Piercing Rounds synergizes well with the Anti-Barrier scout mod from the artifact this season.
Hawkmoon
Exotic 140 RPM kinetic hand cannon
Barrel: Chambered Compensator
Magazine: Alloy Magazine
Perk: Quickdraw
Grip: Heavy Grip
Exotic Perk: "Final blows and precision hits with Hawkmoon grant stacks of Paracausal Charge. The final round in the magazine deals bonus damage based on the number of stacks. Stowing Hawkmoon on the final round removes this bonus."
Recommendation: Not a hugely inspiring roll on this, either. Quickdraw isn't the perk it once was, and Chambered Compensator and Heavy Grip both hurt handling. Wait for something saucier.
Before you go, don't forget to pick up the Exotic Cipher quest if you don't already have it. It's free, and will enable you to earn a random exotic just for completing a set amount of playlist activities. See you next week, for more mild disappointment.
With over two decades covering videogames, Tim has been there from the beginning. In his case, that meant playing Elite in 'co-op' on a BBC Micro (one player uses the movement keys, the other shoots) until his parents finally caved and bought an Amstrad CPC 6128. These days, when not steering the good ship PC Gamer, Tim spends his time complaining that all Priest mains in Hearthstone are degenerates and raiding in Destiny 2. He's almost certainly doing one of these right now.
'Destiny has a long history of reinventing itself in response to feedback': Assistant director teases a Metroidvania-inspired future, talks weapon crafting and vault space, but fails to address the shocking number of bugs
Ballistic, Fortnite's new tactical FPS mode, is a deeply unserious Counter-Strike clone that's going to be huge anyway