Built from 1008 curated wishlist rolls for this Machine Gun. Perks marked essential appear in every roll of a recommendation; alternatives are the other perks curators call worth keeping.
Recommended rolls
Community wishlist roll
224 wishlist rolls
Constructed by @Adamsdown_Boy (PvE PvE-Minor PvE-SingleAdd PvE-EndGame PvE-God M+KB Controller): First-choice PvE roll for clearing individual Minor adds or tougher enemies in activities rated Normal, Hard or Very Hard difficulty. Hammerhead is an adaptive LMG, which are rated B-Tier for endgame PvE by @TheAegisRelic Endgame Analysis Spreadsheet, who says "technically a strict downgrade to aggressive damage profile, but barrier intrinsic is noticeable". The frame intrinsic offers built in Anti-Barrier, but offers no bonuses beyond being "well-rounded, reliable and sturdy" as per the Destiny Data Compendium. The recoil direction is vertical and reasonably tight so you could improve recoil control or just look to boost Stability to help hit crits with the barrel perk, or just boost Handling if you can land your shots. In the magazine perk slot, any of the combat effect mags, or perks that improve Reload Speed or mag size are fine. Hammerhead offers double damage perks for dealing with tougher adds, which is the usual go-to. In the first trait perk column, Rampage stacks up to ×3 on kills for ×1.331 damage for a refreshable 5s, with the stacks decaying one at a time. For your second column choice, Killing Tally gains a stack for each enemy killed up to ×3 to boost damage by up to ×1.3 until you reload or stow, One For All boosts damage by ×1.35 for a non-refreshable 11s after hitting three separate targets within 3s of each, or Desperate Measures provides up to ×3 stacks for ×1.3 damage for a refreshable 7.5s for a weapon and then two ability kills. Alternatively, Onslaught, while not boosting damage per shot does increase raw DPS as you ramp up to the max ×3 stacks, for a refreshable 5s per kill, to increase RPM from 450 to around 720. There's two useful origin traits: Aegis ranks Forge's Kin as S-Tier - it provides a ×1 stack of "Forge's Kin" for 5s after a kill, or on swapping from another Black Armory weapon kill within 7s. Each additional Black Armory weapon equipped adds an additional stack, boosting the activation window by +2s each together with increasing Reload Speed and Ammo Generation and damage boosts of ×1.1 and ×1.13. There's also the B-Tier Indomitability which provides 6% grenade energy on Light subclasses or melee energy on Darkness subclasses, on kills. If you're interested, the name refers to the business-end of a blacksmith's hammer, a direct homage to the Black Armory's culture of industrial craftsmanship, forging weapons, and "striking down" humanity's enemies. Recommended MW: Handling, with your preferred choice of mod to boost weapon stats, ammo generation, or elemental pickups for builds.|tags:PvE PvE-Minor PvE-SingleAdd PvE-EndGame PvE-God M+KB Controller
Essential perks
Rampage
Strong alternatives
Killing Tally
Arrowhead Brake
High-Caliber Rounds
One for All
Desperate Measures
Onslaught
Armor-Piercing Rounds
Ricochet Rounds
Appended Mag
Alloy Magazine
Flared Magwell
Light Mag
Chambered Compensator
Extended Barrel
Fluted Barrel
Corkscrew Rifling
Polygonal Rifling
Smallbore
Hammer-Forged Rifling
Community wishlist roll
224 wishlist rolls
Constructed by @Adamsdown_Boy (PvE PvE-Minor PvE-SingleAdd PvE-EndGame PvE-God M+KB Controller): First-choice PvE roll for clearing individual Minor adds or tougher enemies in activities rated Normal, Hard or Very Hard difficulty. Hammerhead is an adaptive LMG, which are rated B-Tier for endgame PvE by @TheAegisRelic Endgame Analysis Spreadsheet, who says "technically a strict downgrade to aggressive damage profile, but barrier intrinsic is noticeable". The frame intrinsic offers built in Anti-Barrier, but offers no bonuses beyond being "well-rounded, reliable and sturdy" as per the The recoil direction is vertical and reasonably tight so you could improve recoil control or just look to boost Stability to help hit crits with the barrel perk, or just boost Handling if you can land your shots. In the magazine perk slot, any of the combat effect mags, or perks that improve Reload Speed or mag size are fine. In the first trait perk column, Fourth Time's the Charm generates 2 shots from thin air after 4 crits within 3s of each other, almost doubling your total ammo if you can keep hitting crits. For your second column choice for damage, Killing Tally gains a stack for each enemy killed up to ×3 to boost damage by up to ×1.3 until you reload or stow, One For All boosts damage by ×1.35 for a non-refreshable 11s after hitting three separate targets within 3s of each, or Desperate Measures provides up to ×3 stacks for ×1.3 damage for a refreshable 7.5s for a weapon and then two ability kills. Alternatively, Onslaught, while not boosting damage per shot does increase raw DPS as you ramp up to the max ×3 stacks, for a refreshable 5s per kill, to increase RPM from 450 to around 720. There's two useful origin traits: Aegis ranks Forge's Kin as S-Tier - it provides a ×1 stack of "Forge's Kin" for 5s after a kill, or on swapping from another Black Armory weapon kill within 7s. Each additional Black Armory weapon equipped adds an additional stack, boosting the activation window by +2s each together with increasing Reload Speed and Ammo Generation and damage boosts of ×1.1 and ×1.13. There's also the B-Tier Indomitability which provides 6% grenade energy on Light subclasses or melee energy on Darkness subclasses, on kills. If you're interested, the name refers to the business-end of a blacksmith's hammer, a direct homage to the Black Armory's culture of industrial craftsmanship, forging weapons, and "striking down" humanity's enemies. Recommended MW: Handling, with your preferred choice of mod to boost weapon stats, ammo generation, or elemental pickups for builds.|tags:PvE PvE-Minor PvE-SingleAdd PvE-EndGame PvE-God M+KB Controller
Essential perks
Fourth Time's the Charm
Strong alternatives
Killing Tally
Arrowhead Brake
High-Caliber Rounds
One for All
Desperate Measures
Onslaught
Armor-Piercing Rounds
Ricochet Rounds
Appended Mag
Alloy Magazine
Flared Magwell
Light Mag
Chambered Compensator
Extended Barrel
Fluted Barrel
Corkscrew Rifling
Polygonal Rifling
Smallbore
Hammer-Forged Rifling
Community wishlist roll
224 wishlist rolls
Constructed by @Adamsdown_Boy (PvE PvE-Minor PvE-SingleAdd PvE-EndGame PvE-God M+KB Controller): First-choice PvE roll for clearing individual Minor adds or tougher enemies in activities rated Normal, Hard or Very Hard difficulty, particularly with Void builds. Hammerhead is an adaptive LMG, which are rated B-Tier for endgame @TheAegisRelic Endgame Analysis Spreadsheet, who says "technically a strict downgrade to aggressive damage profile, but barrier intrinsic is noticeable". The frame intrinsic offers built in Anti-Barrier, but offers no bonuses beyond being "well-rounded, reliable and sturdy" as per the Destiny Data Compendium. The recoil direction is vertical and reasonably tight so you could improve recoil control or just look to boost Stability to help hit crits with the barrel perk, or just boost Handling if you can land your shots. In the magazine perk slot, any of the combat effect mags, or perks that improve Reload Speed or mag size are fine. Hammerhead offers double damage perks for dealing with tougher adds, which is the usual go-to. In the first trait perk column, for Void synergy, Destabilizing Rounds spreads Void Volatility on a kill in a 6.5m radius and provides Volatile Rounds for 5.25s. For your second column choice, Killing Tally gains a stack for each enemy killed up to ×3 to boost damage by up to ×1.3 until you reload or stow, One For All boosts damage by ×1.35 for a non-refreshable 11s after hitting three separate targets within 3s of each, or Desperate Measures provides up to ×3 stacks for ×1.3 damage for a refreshable 7.5s for a weapon and then two ability kills. Alternatively, Onslaught, while not boosting damage per shot does increase raw DPS as you ramp up to the max ×3 stacks, for a refreshable 5s per kill, to increase RPM from 450 to around 720. There's two useful origin traits: Aegis ranks Forge's Kin as S-Tier - it provides a ×1 stack of "Forge's Kin" for 5s after a kill, or on swapping from another Black Armory weapon kill within 7s. Each additional Black Armory weapon equipped adds an additional stack, boosting the activation window by +2s each together with increasing Reload Speed and Ammo Generation and damage boosts of ×1.1 and ×1.13. There's also the B-Tier Indomitability which provides 6% grenade energy on Light subclasses or melee energy on Darkness subclasses, on kills. If you're interested, the name refers to the business-end of a blacksmith's hammer, a direct homage to the Black Armory's culture of industrial craftsmanship, forging weapons, and "striking down" humanity's enemies. Recommended MW: Handling, with your preferred choice of mod to boost weapon stats, ammo generation, or elemental pickups for builds.|tags:PvE PvE-Minor PvE-SingleAdd PvE-EndGame PvE-God M+KB Controller
Essential perks
Destabilizing Rounds
Strong alternatives
Killing Tally
Arrowhead Brake
High-Caliber Rounds
One for All
Desperate Measures
Onslaught
Armor-Piercing Rounds
Ricochet Rounds
Appended Mag
Alloy Magazine
Flared Magwell
Light Mag
Chambered Compensator
Extended Barrel
Fluted Barrel
Corkscrew Rifling
Polygonal Rifling
Smallbore
Hammer-Forged Rifling
Community wishlist roll
168 wishlist rolls
Constructed by @Adamsdown_Boy (PvE PvE-Boss PvE-SustainedDamage PvE-EndGame PvE-God M+KB Controller): First-choice PvE roll for sustained DPS against a single yellow-bar target in activities rated Normal, Hard or Very Hard difficulty. Hammerhead is an adaptive LMG, which are rated B-Tier for endgame PvE by @TheAegisRelic Endgame Analysis Spreadsheet, who says "technically a strict downgrade to aggressive damage profile, but barrier intrinsic is noticeable". The frame intrinsic offers built in Anti-Barrier, but offers no bonuses beyond being "well-rounded, reliable and sturdy" as per the Destiny Data Compendium. The recoil direction is vertical and reasonably tight so you could improve recoil control or just look to boost Stability to help hit crits with the barrel perk, or just boost Handling if you can land your shots. In the magazine perk slot, any of the combat effect mags, or perks that improve Reload Speed or mag size are fine. For sustained boss damage, in the first trait perk column, Fourth Time's the Charm generates 2 shots from thin air after 4 crits within 3s of each other, almost doubling your total ammo if you can keep hitting crits. Not quite as good, but there's also Rewind Rounds to refill 70% of hits landed from reserves when the magazine empties, or Demolitionist provides an instant magazine refill on grenade use and chunk grenade ability energy on kills. For your second column choice for damage, Target Lock stacks up to 5 times on repeated hits within 0.2s of each other, for up to ×1.4 damage at 110.33% of base magazine capacity - so works well with overflowed or auto-refilled magazines. There's two useful origin traits: Aegis ranks Forge's Kin as S-Tier - it provides a ×1 stack of "Forge's Kin" for 5s after a kill, or on swapping from another Black Armory weapon kill within 7s. Each additional Black Armory weapon equipped adds an additional stack, boosting the activation window by +2s each together with increasing Reload Speed and Ammo Generation and damage boosts of ×1.1 and ×1.13. There's also the B-Tier Indomitability which provides 6% grenade energy on Light subclasses or melee energy on Darkness subclasses, on kills. If you're interested, the name refers to the business-end of a blacksmith's hammer, a direct homage to the Black Armory's culture of industrial craftsmanship, forging weapons, and "striking down" humanity's enemies. Recommended MW: Handling, with your preferred choice of mod to boost weapon stats, ammo generation, or elemental pickups for builds.|tags:PvE PvE-Boss PvE-SustainedDamage PvE-EndGame PvE-God M+KB Controller
Essential perks
Target Lock
Strong alternatives
Arrowhead Brake
Fourth Time's the Charm
High-Caliber Rounds
Rewind Rounds
Demolitionist
Armor-Piercing Rounds
Ricochet Rounds
Appended Mag
Alloy Magazine
Flared Magwell
Light Mag
Chambered Compensator
Extended Barrel
Fluted Barrel
Corkscrew Rifling
Polygonal Rifling
Smallbore
Hammer-Forged Rifling
Community wishlist roll
112 wishlist rolls
Constructed by @Adamsdown_Boy (PvE PvE-Boss PvE-SustainedDamage PvE-EndGame PvE-God M+KB Controller): First-choice PvE roll for sustained DPS against a single yellow-bar target in activities rated Normal, Hard or Very Hard difficulty, particularly on Void builds. Hammerhead is an adaptive LMG, which are rated B-Tier for endgame PvE by @TheAegisRelic Endgame Analysis Spreadsheet, who says "technically a strict downgrade to aggressive damage profile, but barrier intrinsic is noticeable". The frame intrinsic offers built in Anti-Barrier, but offers no bonuses beyond being "well-rounded, reliable and sturdy" as per the Destiny Data Compendium. The recoil direction is vertical and reasonably tight so you could improve recoil control or just look to boost Stability to help hit crits with the barrel perk, or just boost Handling if you can land your shots. In the magazine perk slot, any of the combat effect mags, or perks that improve Reload Speed or mag size are fine. For Void synergy, in the first trait perk column Destabilizing Rounds spreads Void Volatility on a kill in a 6.5m radius and provides Volatile Rounds for 5.25s, or Dimensional Shift grants Dimensional Breach on picking up a Void Breach which, while active provides a refreshable 8s overshield on kills. In the second column, Demoralize spreads a ~4m AoE cloud of Void Weaken to nearby enemies for a ×1.15 boost to damage for your fireteam for 5s on a crit kill. For your second column choice for damage, Target Lock stacks up to 5 times on repeated hits within 0.2s of each other, for up to ×1.4 damage at 110.33% of base magazine capacity - so works well with overflowed or auto-refilled magazines. There's two useful origin traits: Aegis ranks Forge's Kin as S-Tier - it provides a ×1 stack of "Forge's Kin" for 5s after a kill, or on swapping from another Black Armory weapon kill within 7s. Each additional Black Armory weapon equipped adds an additional stack, boosting the activation window by +2s each together with increasing Reload Speed and Ammo Generation and damage boosts of ×1.1 and ×1.13. There's also the B-Tier Indomitability which provides 6% grenade energy on Light subclasses or melee energy on Darkness subclasses, on kills. If you're interested, the name refers to the business-end of a blacksmith's hammer, a direct homage to the Black Armory's culture of industrial craftsmanship, forging weapons, and "striking down" humanity's enemies. Recommended MW: Handling, with your preferred choice of mod to boost weapon stats, ammo generation, or elemental pickups for builds.|tags:PvE PvE-Boss PvE-SustainedDamage PvE-EndGame PvE-God M+KB Controller
Essential perks
Demoralize
Strong alternatives
Arrowhead Brake
High-Caliber Rounds
Destabilizing Rounds
Dimensional Shift
Armor-Piercing Rounds
Ricochet Rounds
Appended Mag
Alloy Magazine
Flared Magwell
Light Mag
Chambered Compensator
Extended Barrel
Fluted Barrel
Corkscrew Rifling
Polygonal Rifling
Smallbore
Hammer-Forged Rifling
Community wishlist roll
56 wishlist rolls
Constructed by @Adamsdown_Boy (PvE PvE-Minor PvE-SingleAdd PvE-EndGame PvE-God M+KB Controller): First-choice PvE roll for clearing individual Minor adds or tougher enemies in activities rated Normal, Hard or Very Hard difficulty, particularly with grenade builds. Hammerhead is an adaptive LMG, which are rated B-Tier for endgame PvE by @TheAegisRelic Endgame Analysis Spreadsheet, who says "technically a strict downgrade to aggressive damage profile, but barrier intrinsic is noticeable". The frame intrinsic offers built in Anti-Barrier, but offers no bonuses beyond being "well-rounded, reliable and sturdy" as per the Destiny Data Compendium. The recoil direction is vertical and reasonably tight so you could improve recoil control or just look to boost Stability to help hit crits with the barrel perk, or just boost Handling if you can land your shots. In the magazine perk slot, any of the combat effect mags, or perks that improve Reload Speed or mag size are fine. With grenade builds, Demolitionist generates chunk grenade ability energy on kills and an instant magazine refill on grenade use. You can use these grenades to help proc Desperate Measures in the second column to provide up to ×3 stacks for ×1.3 damage for a refreshable 7.5s for a weapon and then two ability kills. There's two useful origin traits: Aegis ranks Forge's Kin as S-Tier - it provides a ×1 stack of "Forge's Kin" for 5s after a kill, or on swapping from another Black Armory weapon kill within 7s. Each additional Black Armory weapon equipped adds an additional stack, boosting the activation window by +2s each together with increasing Reload Speed and Ammo Generation and damage boosts of ×1.1 and ×1.13. There's also the B-Tier Indomitability which provides 6% grenade energy on Light subclasses or melee energy on Darkness subclasses, on kills. If you're interested, the name refers to the business-end of a blacksmith's hammer, a direct homage to the Black Armory's culture of industrial craftsmanship, forging weapons, and "striking down" humanity's enemies. Recommended MW: Handling, with your preferred choice of mod to boost weapon stats, ammo generation, or elemental pickups for builds.|tags:PvE PvE-Minor PvE-SingleAdd PvE-EndGame PvE-God M+KB Controller
Essential perks
Desperate Measures
Demolitionist
Strong alternatives
Arrowhead Brake
High-Caliber Rounds
Armor-Piercing Rounds
Ricochet Rounds
Appended Mag
Alloy Magazine
Flared Magwell
Light Mag
Chambered Compensator
Extended Barrel
Fluted Barrel
Corkscrew Rifling
Polygonal Rifling
Smallbore
Hammer-Forged Rifling
Recommendations aggregated from curated community wishlists; credit to the curators linked above.