Lucky Pants and Hand Cannon Hunter Build for Season of the Lost in Destiny 2

There’s a new PVE combo for Hunters this season in the form of Lucky Pants and Hand Cannons. A recent change to Lucky Pants and Illegally Modded Holster combined with Exotic Hand Cannons is very effective in PVE content. Today I am going to look through some of the best Exotic Hand Cannons to go with Lucky Pants and we’re going to be looking at damage numbers.

First up let’s have a look at Lucky Pants. Lucky Pants recently got buffed to not just make Hand Cannons snappier and reload automagically while stowed, but now they also give a stacking damage buff on precision hits. Normally on slow-firing Hand Cannons, this damage buff isn’t particularly impressive, but when combined with the quick-firing Last Word, it can let a solo Hunter with good aim finish off boss enemies in two clips.

Lucky Pants + The Last Word can put up damage numbers that are on par with most Power weapons and can even rival the DPS of Deathbringer, perhaps the most potent Rocket Launcher in the game at current.

Lucky Pants

Lucky Pants are Exotic Hunter Leg Armor

Illegally Modded Holster – When you ready a fully loaded Hand Cannon that deals kinetic damage or a damage type that matches your subclass energy type, each hit from that Hand Cannon increases the damage of the next shot for a short time against a combatant. Hand Cannons are ready faster and are more accurate immediately after swapping to them.

Mobility Enhancement Mod – Increased mobility.

This all sounds great if you are a Hunter, but there are some details we need to cover before we can get the damage stacks to work for us in PVE.

What you have to do to get this to work is ready a full loaded hand cannon, and you’ll get see the buff Illegally Modded Holster. You’ll want to start shooting immediately, because the buff only lasts 5 seconds, and you’ll get a debuff when you run out of bullets or change weapon.

Massive thanks to reddit user CourtRooom for the detailed breakdown, and I’ll link the full post below.

Activation, Buff, Debuff and PVP

Activation:

Readying a fully loaded Hand Cannon
Hand Cannon must be matching your Subclass Element or Kinetic
Stasis Hand Cannons – existing in your “Kinetic” slot – requires matching Stasis Super
5-second window after readying to trigger Buff
Damage Boost activates on Combatant hit
Must be inside the 5-second window, else you are Debuffed

Buff:

Text string: “Damage Boost”
Duration: 5 seconds
This is not refreshed; 5 seconds is the total duration
Each Hand Cannon damage hit adds a stack up to 10x
Damage Boost effects stack with the following:
Empowering Buffs like Bubble, Well, High-Energy Fire, etc
Global Debuffs like Tether, Divinity, etc
Power of Rasputin Mod
Font of Might Mod (see my other post re: this change)
Stacks with Weapon Perks, Mod Perks, Activity Modifiers, and more
Reloading while the Damage Boost is active is allowed and does not consume the Buff

When you get shots off with the buff you’re going to get damage increases in increments of approx 60% like 60%, 120%, 180%, 240%, 300% all the way up to Damage Boost x 10, which is a 600% increase in damage.

Debuff:

Text string: “Out of Luck”
Duration: 10 seconds
Activates on the following:
Swapping Hand Cannon before, or during Damage Boost
Firing outside of 5 second activation window
After Damage Boost duration elapses
While Debuffed, you are unable to start or gain more Damage Boost stacks
Other effects like Handling, Accuracy, and Holster bonuses are not affected and persist at all times

PvP:

Damage Boost effects do not apply
Other effects like Handlings, Accuracy, and Holster bonuses do work in PvP

Next, let’s have a look at some of the best hand cannons to use with Lucky pants. I’ve selected Exotic 140 hand cannons here. You can of course use Eriana’s Vow and Sturm, but given the perk improvement on Lucky Pants, then hand cannons that fire faster is going to get the most benefit. Again, Legendary Hand Cannons work well too, but you’re not going to be benefitting from some of the speed these Exotic Hand Cannons have over their Legendary counterparts.

Sunshot

Sunshot is the only 150 rpm hand cannon left in the game, plus it’s an Exotic Energy Hand Cannon.

Sunburn – This weapon fires explosive rounds and highlights targets that take damage from Sunshot.

Sun Blast – Targets killed with Sunshot explode in Solar energy.

The Lucky Pants Effect

Explosive Damage is NOT affected

Note: Sunshot and Explosive Hand Cannons’ impact damage is affected, just not the explosive damage

Hawkmoon

Let’s have a quick look at the perks:

Paracausal Shot – Final blows and precision hits with Hawkmoon grant stacks of Paracausal Charge. The final round in the magazine deals bonus damage based on the number of stacks. Stowing Hawkmoon on the final round removes this bonus.

The Lucky Pants Effect

Paracausal Last Shot is NOT affected
Paracausal Shot overrides Lucky Pants’ Damage Boost

Note: Hawkmoon’s base shots are affected, just not any buffed final bullet stacks

Thorn

Thorn is an Exotic Kinetic Hand Cannon. It handles well, has devastating perks, and sounds awesome.

Mark of the Devourer – Rounds pierce targets and deal damage over time. Kills with this weapon leave behind Remnants.

Soul Devourer – Absorbing a Remnant strengthens Mark of the Devourer and partially refills the magazine.

The Lucky Pants Effect

Mark of the Devourer (Poison damage-over-time) is NOT affected

Soul Devourer (Buffed Poison damage-over-time) is NOT affected

Note: Thorn’s base impact damage is affected, just not the damage-over-time effects

Ace of Spades

Ace of Spades is Exotic Kinetic Hand Cannon. It handles well, has devastating perks, and sounds awesome.

Memento Mori – Reloading after a kill loads magazine with a few extra-damage bullets. Grants radar while aiming down sights.

Firefly – Precision kills with this weapon increase reload speed and cause the target to explode, dealing Solar damage to nearby enemies.

You can pick this one up from the Exotic Kiosk, the Monuments to Lost Light in the Tower under Forsaken Exotics. You need access to Forsaken DLC to be able to buy this weapon.

The Lucky Pants Effect

Stacks with Memento Mori (Kill-Reload provides 6x Buffed Shots at 50% each).

Crimson

Crimson is an Exotic Kinetic Hand Cannon and shoots much like a pulse rifle with a three-burst shot.

Banned Weapon – This weapon fires a 3-round burst.

Cruel Remedy – Kills with this weapon heal the wielder. Precision kills also refill the magazine.

The Lucky Pants Effect

Each bullet in its 3-burst adds a stack

e.g. a 3 burst hit = 3 stacks

Last Word

The Last Word is an Exotic Kinetic hand cannon, which has an 82 reload speed making this one very useful in PVP. Together with the base reload speed the main perk on this weapon is Fan Fire where this weapon can be fired continuously and quickly. Faster reload and increased accuracy on successive hip-fire damage.

The Lucky Pants Effect

Stacks with The Last Word’s Hip-Fire Damage Bonus (Hip-Fire Precision Damage = 30%)

Effectively benefits the most; can use up to 2 magazines during the Damage Boost due to its RPM

Let me know what you think of the Lucky Pants rework and let me know which hand cannon you are using the most.

That’s it for this Lucky Pants and Hand Cannon build for Hunters in Destiny 2. For more Destiny 2 content like this check out This Week In Video Games on YouTube and subscribe today.