Destiny 2 – How to get Cloudstrike (Exotic Sniper Rifle) and review

Cloudstrike is a new exotic sniper that’s been put into the game and this is one of the most unique sniper rifles in the game, raining down lightning strikes on opponents on precision kills. This is deadly, looks very cool and is well worth your time in getting this sniper. The following is a guide for how to get Cloudstrike Exotic Sniper Rifle in Destiny 2 Beyond Light.

This is a new exotic for Beyond Light, so you’re going to need to own the expansion for this. The first step, as always, is to complete the campaign and then you want to do the post-campaign missions from Variks. The objective here is to unlock the elected difficulty Empire Hunts and once you unlock a few nodes on Variks’ Sabotage tab.

What are Empire Hunts?

Empire Hunts are a new weekly activity and we have 3 available at the moment – The Warrior, The Dark Priestess, and The Technocrat. Empire Hunts are quests from Variks with 3 parts – the first step is to go out there and get some kills or do some patrols, the second part is to draw out the Fallen and then the final part is the mission, where you have to Hunt down one of the Fallen from House Salvation.

How to unlock Empire Hunts

Once you complete the main campaign, post-campaign and the Empire Hunts themselves you’ll get access to the repeatable Empire Hunts. These cost 40 Herealways pieces until you get the unlocks and upgrades on Variks’ Sabotage menu. There are a few keys unlocks you want to focus on to get more Herealways currency.

• Empire Hunt 1 – Empire Hunt Quests cost less
• Europan Protector II – Earn more herealways pieces by defeating with Stasis
• Europan Protector III – Earn more herealways pieces by defeating with precision final blows

How to unlock weekly Empire Hunts

You’ll get to a point where you cannot upgrade the Sabotage menu any further until you get complete the quest A Hard Rain Falls from the Exo Stranger. This was released after the first completion of the Deep Stone Crypt raid. At the end of this quest, you’ll get the Europa Sidearm, plus access to the new upgrades available from Variks to allow you to get to elected difficulty Empire Hunts. The key upgrades you need are Europan Explorer 1 and Europan Explorer 2.

Europan Explorer 2 seemed a little intimidating at first, beating 30 challenging combatants in Empire Hunts. These objectives may be random, but if you get this one you can do The Warrior and then you’ll have a lot of challenging combatants to spawn at the end with Phylax (the boss). There are a few phases to the boss fight, and if you want you can wipe on the final phase once you have killed a few challenging combatants to farm them. Once you have completed this step, you’ll be able to access weekly Empire Hunts where you can select the difficulty.

Cloudstrike is a random drop from the Weekly Empire Hunts activity, it’s a rare drop. You can easily speedrun the Weekly Empire Hunts, we were getting through runs in about 4-5mins. Getting a drop of Cloudstrike is a random drop, and to get mine I had to run about 15 Empire Hunts, so do be prepared for a bit of a grind for this one. I don’t know if more difficult activities mean a higher chance of getting it, but it’s worth testing.

Once you get it, congrats! Let’s have a look at the weapon.

Cloudstrike is an Exotic Energy Sniper Rifle

• Mortal Polarity – Precision final blows generate a lightning bolt at the target’s location.
• Stormbringer – Rapid precision hits create a lightning storm at the point of impact.

Let’s check out the stats

Impact 55
Range 64
Stability 54
Handling 51
Reload Speed 46
Rounds Per Minute 140
Magazine 7

Aim Assistance 68
Inventory Size 70
Zoom 50
Recoil 68
Bounce Intensity 32
Bounce Direction Tends Left

This is great in crucible, especially if other teams bunch together – it’s enitrely possible to wipe a whole team with a precision kill.

Cloudstrike Lore

They return to moons devoid. Their eyes searching. It’s just begun. Meet this storm of sound and fury, till thunder-clashes fade to silence.

“Tell us about the Stormherd!” Kellikin shouted.

She resisted the urge to shush him because he’d been helpful earlier, yelling a warning to her when he saw the violet haze rising from the hilltops. It had given her time to call them into the bunker. Eldest of the children, he’d already experienced several voltaic squalls.

“Okay. Gather round. Come on. Huddle up so I don’t have to shout.

“A long time ago, the raiders came every winter. They came and took nearly all our stored food, and many in our village starved. But then spring would come with time for planting, and another summer. In the autumn, we harvested as we are doing now. Each time, we stored even more food, and we hid it more carefully, in case the raiders returned.

“And they did. When they saw that we had survived the winter, they fought even harder for our food, and found nearly all that we had hidden. And so it was, for too many years. They always took from us, never giving anything in return.

“And then, one autumn night, there was a great rumbling. At first some thought it was thunder, but it was the roar of the raiders’ quads in the valleys. They had come early!

“Maybe they had a new leader. Perhaps they were too impatient for the harvest. We’ll never know.

“Because as the raiders roared through our village, a blue-white bolt of lightning struck among them—BOOM! Before anyone’s eyes had cleared of spots, a masked stranger clad in robes and wielding a crook had killed a score of them. With her weapon, she hooked lightning from the clouds and hurled it, thundering among them.

“They say there was something more than mortal about her, for those who were there said she could move faster than the eye could track, and her steps took her higher than anyone could leap. But eventually, the raiders surrounded her, and she fell to their guns.

“Yet there was something else different about her: the storm crow. It flew at her shoulder, and when she fell, it looked upon her body, and under its gaze, she rose again.

“This time, she pointed her crook to the sky, and clouds moved at her command. Our people fled as thunderbolts stampeded through the village. Our homes were not safe. Only our root cellars, like this bunker, were a refuge.

“No one emerged until the thunder ceased rolling. The raiders had fallen or fled. None would return, not until three winters had passed. And now, raiders only trouble us outside the village.

“So when you see the purple mist rise from the hills and hear the thunder, that is your sign to take shelter. And when you hear the rumbling roll through the village, it just might be the Stormherd, come back to make sure we’re safe.”

Thunder rolled again, but only a few children started. All looked to the ceiling and wondered.

Let me know down in the comments what you think of Cloudstrike.

That’s it for this guide on how to get Cloudstrike in Beyond Light. For more Destiny 2 Beyond Light content check out the full guide and subscribe on YouTube to This Week In Video Games today.