Well, Bungie has put another extremely solid PvE weapon inside PvP. I just finished farming up a Hatchling-spawning Immortal in Trials of Osiris, which is now a staple of all my Strand builds, but right now Iron Banner is offering something for Void builds instead.
The gun is Hero’s Burden, another SMG in a time when SMGs are so coveted because they’re really the only legendary primaries worth much of a damn in PvE with recently beefed-up enemies. Hero’s Burden is not new, but it has gotten its perk pool changed this season with one notable, specific alteration.
Hero’s Burden is now currently the only primary in the game that can roll with Destabilizing Rounds, the new Void perk that makes surrounding enemies Volatile when you kill one. It’s pretty close to Void Incandescent.
Some caveats. Yes, I know that Volatile has its issues after some recent nerfs to its cooldowns. I also know there are plenty of ways to get Void Volatile Rounds on your existing Void weapons and other strong SMGs like Funnelweb.
However, one of the primary ways this is available, the artifact perk where orbs will give you Volatile Rounds, is going away after this season, so you are back to grenade kills only for Volatile Rounds or something like Gyrfalcon. Or this.
But despite some haters, I have been loving my Hero’s Burden with Destabilizing, particularly on my Titan where Volatile does extra work as a healing tool. My roll is Under Pressure/Destabilizing, which is not ideal but it’s good enough for me to not want to run a million more rounds of Iron Banner.
The god roll you’re looking for is Feeding Frenzy/Destabilizing Rounds since this is all about mob clearing and FF will mean super fast reloads.
The bad news is that if you do not already have Hero’s Burden you cannot easily focus it for one Iron Engram each at Saladin. It is also not in the reward track this season so you won’t guarantee get one through grinding. It will have to be a random drop or a random engram turn-in. The odds are not great.
There is also a different version of this that no longer exists, a Hero’s Burden with Repulsor Brace, where you were trading a damage perk for the ability to constantly generate overshields if you get Volatile Rounds another way. This roll, unfortunately, is no longer available for some reason, so you can’t get it as a consolation prize.
I love this gun a lot. It feels great and I’m frankly just a bit tired of using the Funnelweb archetype anyway. Plus this has the SUROS Origin Trait to initially boost stats even further. Feels good, man. Get one.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.