Destiny 2 – Witherhoard review (Exotic Grenade Launcher)

Witherhoard is the new season pass exotic weapon for Season of Arrivals. It’s unique, powerful and a whole lot of fun, so whether you’re a season pass owner or a free to play player then this one is worth looking at. The following is a review of Witherhoard, the exotic grenade launcher found in Destiny 2.

Witherhoard is available via the season pass and available to all players. If you purchase the season pass then you’ll get it immediately, but it’s also available for all players at rank 35 on the season pass. This one shouldn’t be overlooked though, it looks cool and has a very interesting and unique mechanic to it that makes it one of the most unique weapons in the game. It’s also super powerful!

This one comes with Primevals Torment – Projectiles fired by this weapon light the target or nearby area on impact. It also comes with Break the Bank – Blighted Targets take more damage over time and blight the nearby area on death.

Witherhoard is a 90 rpm grenade launcher and holds 6 shots, but can only be shot one at a time. It’s got impact stats of 60, the stability of 67 and handling of 53. It also has some nice hidden stats of 84 aim assist, so if you’re using a controller on PC or console, this is going to be nice and easy to fire at enemies.

This is a pretty unique gun. Rather than shooting bullets, or regular grenades, this shoots out blights which damage over time and this can be used in one of two ways. You can either shoot directly at the target for maximum damage, or you can shoot next to the enemy to cause partial damage or essentially create a trap that sits on the floor damaging over time.

In PVE this is a good DPS weapon for bosses, especially if a whole fireteam has this. It’s also good for dealing with smaller groups of enemies, so for example, if you’re in the new Contact public event then you can take out groups of Vex and Cabal that spawn.

As mentioned before you can shoot directly at enemies, which has the benefit of doing damage over time if you get a direct shot. You get more damage with direct shots, however, the AOE appears to last less time. If you stick an enemy and then they die, it then drops another blight on the floor where the enemy died.

You can shoot near the enemy on the floor, but it doesn’t help you try to keep the enemies in the area of effect for damage – they can simply walk through it. The damage lasts about 7 seconds if you hit the area near an enemy.

The best combo here is when you get an enemy stuck in the AOE damage, and then fire a direct shot for maximum damage.

In PVP you can one-shot kill if you get a direct shot. You can also trap enemies in an area, but they can simply run through it. It’s also tricky to hit enemies from a distance, so you have to be up close, or a really good shot to get a one-shot kill. It’s the same as PVE, if you get a direct shot then you get damage over time.

It’s worth mentioning that you can pick up the catalyst from Banchee at the Tower and then get grenade launcher kills in activities to pick up that catalyst.

Overall, this is a fun and unique weapon although probably more usable in PVE over PVP. The seasonal exotics have been hit and miss, with Eriana’s Vow most likely the best option for PVP before now. It’s worth noting that you can pick up previous season’s exotics from Shadowkeep from Rahool. For those who missed out on Eriana’s Vow, Devil’s Ruin, Bastion etc you can get these weapons once again, however, you’ll need an Exotic Cipher which is available from the season pass and maybe Xur on Friday’s bu Xur hasn’t shown up just yet so we don’t know.