Published , by Sam Chandler
Published , by Sam Chandler
Destiny 2’s Black Scorpion-4SR Scout Rifle is fast becoming a top-contender in Crucible. Part of its appeal is the perks it can potentially roll as well as its overall stats. If you’re looking to improve your Crucible performance, and slide into a new meta, take a look at the Black Scorpion-4SR.
The Black Scorpion-4SR is a 260 RPM Scout Rifle, putting it squarely in the rapid-fire class of rifles. Given that it is an Energy weapon (Arc), it means you’ll be sacrificing your secondary slot shotgun or sniper rifle. However, this leaves your primary slot open for Izanagi’s Burden, Last Word, Thorn, or any other extremely powerful weapon.
Some may be wondering why there has been an uptick of Black Scorpions being used in the Crucible, and it’s likely due to update 2.1.4. Bungie took a pass at most of the Scout Rifle archetypes, and high rate-of-fire rifles were one of those. While a 6% damage increase is small, it’s enough to make the gun feel quite viable.
Because the Black Scorpion is a rapid fire Scout Rifle, it doesn’t deal as much damage as others. Ideally, you will be hitting 4-5 critical shots to get a kill or a mixture of precision and body shots.
While no single roll of a weapon is going to feel right for every player (unless it’s Fatebringer), there are some excellent “god rolls” of the Black Scorpion-4SR Scout Rifle. This gun does come with one built-in perk that is standard across each roll:
Veist Rapid Fire lets you to hold down fire, preventing any shake from tapping or pulling, allowing you to focus entirely on aiming. You'll also be able to quickly reload if you manage to deplete the magazine.
As for the randomly rolled perks, like the barrel, magazine, and trait, anything that increases range, helps with target acquisition, reduces recoil and tightens stability is going to help immensely. Of the available perks, there are two clear winners:
Rangefinder lets you avoid most of the damage drop-off and allows you to push out the effective killing range. This will help you engage from further away, giving you more time to land those hits. Meanwhile, Moving Target keeps you agile while also helping you keep your reticle locked on to your enemy.
To further help boost the effectiveness of Moving Target, a Targeting Adjuster weapon mod is a good idea. This will make your reticle quite “sticky”, helping you hit those 4-5 crits with some confidence.
Outside of these two perks, there are a few others that could be valuable.
Zen Moment will obviously help with the weapon’s stability. Landing 4 to 5 critical hits in a row is just difficult enough to separate users into advanced users and those just getting by. As for High-Impact Reserves, this will help push the damage up high enough to be quite competitive. However, this only applies to the bottom half of the magazine – how you get there is up to you.
The Black Scorpion-4SR is a legendary scout rifle that is only available through Banshee-44 rank-up packages. This means you will need to start giving all of your Gunsmith Materials to Banshee in hopes of receiving a god roll Black Scorpion. Depending on your luck, you might receive a lot of decent rolls or no scout rifles whatsoever. Because it does come with random rolled perks, you cannot pull it out of your collections book.
Overall, the Black Scorpion-4SR is an extremely versatile and competitive Scout Rifle in Destiny 2. If you’re able to get a god roll Black Scorpion from Banshee-44, hold onto it, as it’s becoming quite popular in the Crucible. Check out the Shacknews Destiny 2 guide for an exhaustive list of guides, walkthroughs, and weapon breakdowns.