The Breakneck Auto Rifle is broken in Destiny 2.
And no, we don’t mean “broken” in the sense that it’s so good that it breaks the game, or that you might as well not use any other gun. Quite the opposite, in fact. You might as well use any other Auto Rifle because the Breakneck just plain sucks.
This sad news comes courtesy of some in-depth analysis from Reddit user SpeedoSanta, who found that the Breakneck is “not functioning properly.” To put it bluntly, the Breakneck no longer does sufficient damage to out-perform other Auto Rifles with the same Rampage Perk.
For those unaware, the Breakneck is a Pinnacle weapon achieved by performing a particularly Gambit-focused quest. It comes with the Rampage perk, which allows damage to stack up to 3 times with each kill, but also comes with the Onslaught perk which increases fire rate with each stack of Rampage.
On the surface this sounds great: increased damage AND fire rate per kill just means more overall DPS. But that’s not actually the case for the Breakneck. In fact, damage decreases overall compared to other Auto Rifles.
You can see the damage table over on Reddit that shows how Auto Rifles with a different frame will out damage the Breakneck so long as they have the Rampage perk. SpeedoSanta posits that this is due to the Breakneck’s Rampage not increasing damage in the same way as regular Rampage-perked Auto Rifles, as noted by the fact the Breakneck actually deals LESS damage at 2 stacks of Rampage than at 1 stack.
The top comment notes that the real culprit is the Onslaught perk. In the October 1st patch, Onslaught was changed to deal less damage while increasing fire rate, a move that was supposedly done for balance but seems to just defeat the purpose of the perk entirely.
With the amount of attention this post is getting, hopefully Bungie is paying attention and will revert the Onslaught perk changes in the next patch. Otherwise, the Breakneck might as well stay in your vault, and new players shouldn’t bother completing its laborious quest.
(via Reddit)
