Whether you’re someone that’s still trying to get the perfect Menagerie weapon roll in what’s left of the Season of Opulence in Destiny 2, or you’ve picked up a weapon with the Swashbuckler perk and you’re trying to work out whether or not this is an upgrade on what you have, we’ve got you covered. We’ll give you the rundown on the Swashbuckler Destiny 2 perk and let you know what we think about it.
Swashbuckler Destiny 2 Perk: Why is it Good?
Let’s run some numbers and do a basic comparison. At its core, Swashbuckler gains increased damage from melee kills and kills with this weapon. That’s how it’s tagged in Bungie’s system and that’s what the perk text will read, which admittedly, isn’t very helpful when it comes to describing what it does for you when you’re rampaging through your enemies.
Here’s what we understand is so good about the Swashbuckler Destiny 2 perk:
- It goes to 5 stacks of its damage buff counter
- Getting a melee kill will rocket your damage buff to 5 stacks
In comparison to a perk like Rampage, which also gives you a damage buff when you’re getting successful kills, we’d argue that this is better for a number of reasons. First of all, Rampage caps you off at 3. Furthermore, there’s no quick way to hit the maximum stack damage buff unlike in Swashbuckler, where a melee kill will do the trick. Sure, those are a little riskier to pull off but the reward is that you’re an absolute madman who’s going to rip through the next person who looks at you even a little bit funny.
Some number crunching with the weapon has led us to believe that for every stack of the Swashbuckler buff, you’re looking at around a 13% increase on the base damage that the weapon with the perk is capable off. If you’re hitting 5 stacks consistently, which you should be if you rotate a few killer swipes in here and there, then you’re looking at punching out around 65% over your base damage when you’re max-stacked and mad about it. Talk about dishing out a whole lot of pain.
Hopefully this has explained the Swashbuckler Destiny 2 perk to you and why we like it so much. It’s something which has great synergy with perks that grant you reloads, so you can keep tearing through enemies and keep maximum uptime on those stacks. Need a hand with collecting more weapons before Shadowkeep? We’ve got a guide on getting the Oxygen SR3 Scout Rifle.
