Destiny Weapon Stats Guide

Destiny Weapon Stats Guide by Shark_Rocket

Visible Weapon Stats
Stat+++++++++Effect
Rate of Fire——How quickly the weapon fires
Impact———–Damage dealt per shot
Range————Distance at which you can deal 100% Impact damage
Stability———-Dampens recoil
Reload————How quickly you reload
Magazine———The size of your magazine
Charge Time—–Time to charge a fusion rifle
Blast Radius—–The size of the blast zone from a rocket
Velocity———–How fast a rocket travels

Rate of Fire
How quickly your weapon fires repeated shots. Rate of fire applies to full-auto firing mode for auto rifles; for semi-auto weapons, it applies to how quickly you can pull the trigger. High rate of fire weapons can have issues with recoil control. Either seek out weapons with high Stability stats, or use them at shorter distances.

Impact
Base damage dealt per shot. Remember that in PvE and PvP where Level Advantages are enabled, your Attack and your Level stats modify this amount. Against higher-level targets, you deal lower damage, and vice versa against lower-level targets. There are very few mods that directly affect the Impact stat. Most have conditional triggers you must fulfill before you can get the damage boost. As a general rule while leveling, if you have two weapons (of the same class) with Attack values that are similar, the weapon with more Impact will still hit harder on enemies around your level. Once you are looking at weapons a few levels higher that have considerably higher Attack values, even a hard-hitting, slow-firing weapon starts dealing less damage than a weaker but faster-firing weapon. Also, don’t go trying to compare Impact values directly across weapon classes. They are very much apples and oranges (for example, sniper rifles hit harder than auto rifles).

Range
The distance at which the weapon remains effective. Range determines the distance that your shots hit for 100% damage before they begin falling off to 50% damage. Range also affects the minimum and maximum size of your “bloom” circle when hipfiring (and a small fraction of that circle is used for ADS accuracy, as well).

Range is a very important stat for long-range combat, for obvious reasons. What is not obvious is that sights provide a range multiplier, and so the exact same weapon with or without a long-range sight can perform far, far differently when shooting distant targets. Beyond the maximum range of your weapon, damage falls off steadily until you reach 50% of your normal damage amount. For weapons with poor Range stats, this can make them very inefficient for fighting distant targets. Choose a weapon (and a sight) that suits the mission or PvP map you are entering!

Range also plays a role in accuracy when you are firing your weapon, so weapons with a good Range stat tend to be easier to handle when you’re firing at distant enemies. Fusion rifles do not suffer damage falloff, so sights are not as vital for improving long-range damage. However, range affects fusion rifle projectile speed. The blasts travel more quickly when you have a mod like Hammer Forged equipped, making it easier to hit a target at medium range with more of the shot. “Range” is also essentially the same stat for Rocket Launcher’s projectile speed.

Important!—- Sights Multiply Range while ADS
When you equip your weapon with a sight and go into ADS, the zoom factor provides a direct multiplier to the base range of the weapon. Equipping a 2x zoom sight doubles the distance from which you can deal maximum damage. Unsurprisingly, sniper rifles tend to have the highest zoom factor sights. Combined with a high base damage to begin with, this gives them the best-long range performance of any weapon.

Stability
How hard your weapon kicks when you fire it. Stability represents how much your weapon jerks in your hand when you are ADS. It also affects view kick when you hipfire a weapon (though Range has control over how large your bloom circle is). High-stability weapons are generally much easier to handle, and other than Impact, this stat has the greatest effect on your outgoing damage. Landing more precision hits and missing fewer shots both improve your damage output. Prize primary weapons with high Stability stats and mods that grant bonus Stability, as these make for lethal mid- to long-range tools. Special and heavy weapons don’t always need amazing Stability scores. Depending on the weapon in question, you may find that handling the recoil doesn’t trouble you.

Reload
How quickly your weapon can be reloaded. Reload is a simple but important stat. Weapons in Destiny do not reload more slowly whether your magazine is empty or not. In PvE, Reload can improve your sustained damage output, giving you more time firing and less reloading, and occasionally saving you from a rushing enemy. In PvP, it can save your life if an opponent rounds the corner just as you finished a battle. There are also quite a few player abilities and weapon mods that interact with Reload, either speeding it up or giving you bonuses for reloading.

Reload Cancelling
Here’s a useful trick for speeding reloads: you do not have to wait for the full reload animation to complete before the ammo is actually in the magazine. The instant you see the ammo counter increase, your gun is considered reloaded, even if you cancel the remaining animation time. For almost all weapons, the time that the ammo actually reloads coincides almost perfectly with the sound effect and the animation of the magazine being inserted into the weapon. You can cancel the remaining animation by sprinting, switching weapons twice quickly, meleeing, or throwing a grenade. The most practical application of this technique is sprinting. By reloading and then sprinting out of the full animation, you save time that you would otherwise spend walking. This sounds really minor, and it is most of the time—except in PvP, where fractions of a second count.

Magazine
The amount of ammunition your weapon can hold. This is a simple but important stat. Not every weapon of the same archetype has the same amount of ammo, and mods can boost this number even higher. Sniper rifles and rocket launchers have less variance in their magazine sizes; both weapons have much smaller magazines compared to other weapon types.

Charge Time
How quickly the weapon fully charges its lethal burst of energy. This stat is exclusive to fusion rifles. A quick charge time makes for an easy to use close-range fusion rifle. But in PvP, don’t expect to beat a shotgun at point-blank range, even with a very short charge. In PvE, the charge time can influence how you utilize cover, with longer charge times allowing you to stay behind hard cover while you prime the charge, stepping out for just a moment to unleash a powerful blast. One critically important point: changing the Charge Time stat affects damage. If you have a slow charge time, you’re going to hit harder, but if you have a fast charge time, your shots are weaker. You must decide if you want all your damage dealt in one big, slower burst, or distributed across several weaker but faster blasts.

Blast Radius
Both the size and the potential damage of a blast. This stat is exclusive to rocket launchers. Blast damage falls off from the center of the explosion. A large blast both increases the number of targets you can hit and improves the damage dealt to opponents not directly at the center of the blast.

Velocity
The speed at which rockets travel once fired. This stat is also exclusive to rocket launchers. High-velocity rockets are much more effective at hitting nimble targets at medium range, while slower ones can be unreliable when aimed at distant targets. Keep in mind that fusion rifles do have a “hidden” Velocity value, as well: their Range stat affects the speed of the fusion blasts. Fusion beams travel much faster than rockets, but they are slow enough that hitting distant targets can be difficult.

Non-visible Weapon Stats
* Stat______Effect
* Optics Zoom factor, multiplies Range stat
* Handling How quickly you ADS, raise, and lower your gun
* Recoil Affects direction of gun kick
* Inventory Boosts ammo reserve, affects initial spawn ammo and max possible capacity