Destiny

seems like a very "grandmaster content" workhorse gun for sure. I look at it like I look at malfeasance. It ain't sexy... but it slaps comparative to legendries in it's class; it fills a role agnostic of artifact mods; and it can do so from the relative safety of range and cover.

I tried comparing it head to head in 2x runs of Terminal Overload against the Glassando which Banshee just sold (both at 1810); Wicked has a +10 range/stability but is otherwise on par for stats. Against the red bars you can get that exotic damage buff (for example, from the same close distance 2 shots from Wicked vs. 3 shots from Glassando to take out a Cabal ground turrent) - it was roughly ~3300 vs ~4700 (it varied on how well the shots were placed, Vex are hard) for precision damage but sometimes up to 6700 on Wicked with a beefy red bar Colossus but sometimes lower like 2200 even for Wicked.

Once we moved onto orange/yellows though, the advantage disappeared - so shot for shot (a lot of body shots on those angels during the last phase, boss precision, etc.) from both guns was even at normal distance you'd use a scout for this kind of fighting. Maybe the shots slowed enemies, it was hard to tell - there were no champs so not sure if it stuns or not or how many shots it takes, but that perk just felt... underwhelming. By the time I collected the shard I'd already reloaded most of the time, as I was in the "keep shooting fast" type of scenario (not a ranged plinker one like say a GM). It might help though with the stasis fragment which grants overshields on shards, need to test that. But that limits it to a specific subclass benefit and I'm enjoying strand Warlock right now (I played this char/class to get Wicked).

The jury is still out, but it's sort of OK but not knocking my socks off compared to Glassando as a direct competitor other than red bar damage. In contrast, I just started leveling Transfiguration up (150 raid scout) yesterday and took it into the Cosmodrome 2A legend lost sector and even at cheesy level 1 beginner perks that thing shredded the overload Vandals and the final boss from a distance and I can eventually craft some really good perks on it.

My thoughts are I need my clan to get back online so we can get it together lol.

From what I've seen it looks like it has a lot of synergy with Stasis which I appreciate. We've been hit or miss on new exotics and their integration with subclasses but this season has given us two good ones.

I think its long term viability is going to depend on getting Stasis to a good spot where it can compete with the other subclasses. Stasis has been power crept so hard in endgame content, especially by Strand.

Just got it last night and only had time to plink at a few Dregs in the EDZ before I had to log off, but it seems decent! I'm more interested in trying it out in Crucible though, as I really like scouts in PVP, definitely gonna try that this weekend.

Someone pls tell me if its good for gms, I really don't wanna grind fishing of all things just for the gun to suck

visually great, but feels inadequate compared to either Verglas Curve or Ager's Scepter so it feels like a miss so far.

If nothing else, reducing the required total hits to proc slow/freeze would make it much more viable.

Some folks have said the melee regen from the shard is class agnostic which, along with a pseudo chill clip on a primary, can be pretty nice with the right build

I think it's alright, feels good to shoot and like the concept. I agree with your tithe point, that'd be interesting. Maybe like a tweaked version of collective action where collecting a stasis shard grants you a stack of tithe or something and gives a small damage boost

Depending on how much you want to build into it, you can sort of accomplish what you're looking for today. Behemoth Titans may be one of the easier ways to go since they can make shards on demand a couple different ways.

I've been rocking HoIL + Howl of the Storm + Tectonic Harvest. Whisper of Rending helps a lot since we'll be using the scout rifle to break all the crystals we create, and Rime gives you a good chunk of healing on demand. Elemental Charge will let you gain armor charge often enough, and then you can add some surge mods.