As a long-time Destiny player, I can confidently say that Skyburner‘s Oath has been one of the most mediocre exotic weapons in the game‘s history. The unwieldy scout rifle has languished in my vault since year one. But the recent rework in Season of the Deep has transformed this zero into an absolute hero overnight.
I can‘t understate how incredible this turnaround is. Bungie has taken one of the most underwhelming exotics ever and tuned it into a top tier solar beast that dominates PvE activities. The new functionality takes full advantage of the reworked solar 3.0 subclasses to enable some of the most ability-spam heavy builds I‘ve ever experienced.
Let‘s take an in-depth look at why Skyburner‘s Oath should be on every Guardian‘s radar in Season of the Deep.
Perks, Stats and Firing Modes
The base stats have remained unchanged for the most part – above average range with lower handling and stability. It‘s the exotic perks and firing modes that have received some sizable improvements:
Phalanx Breach – Slug rounds fired from the hip have increased range and Blast Radius. Kills with this weapon leave behind Solar Flare, which damages enemies that stand inside it.
- The core functionality remains but now applies to all hip fire shots rather than just Cabal Phalanx shields
Slug Rifle Mode – Fires Solar slugs that burn targets upon impact. When ADS, the weapon fires top-loaded missiles that track enemy targets.
- Previously slug rounds were only hip fire with a delay between shots. Now Skyburner‘s rate of fire jumps to 150 RPM in both modes.
- Hip fire does 78 crit damage / 50 body shot. Still retains the delayed slug explosion after impact.
- Aiming down sights switches to a three round tracking burst that hits instantly. So you trade off damage for consistency at longer ranges.
| Stats ||
|-|-|
| RPM | 150 |
| Impact | 65 |
| Range | 68 |
| Stability | 36 |
| Handling | 32 |
| Reload | 43 |
| Aim Assist | 36 |
| Magazine | 12 |
This unification of the firing modes is the most important change. I no longer have to consciously adjust my playstyle when aiming down sights – 150 RPM across the board provides consistency. And the sluggish projectile hip fire forces you to use cover effectively while providing huge single target damage at closer ranges.
Scorch and Ignite Synergy
This rework seems tailor-made to synergize with the new solar 3.0 subclasses. Every single slug shot applies a stack of scorch to enemies. Even just two stacks will cause an ignition, creating both an explosive burst and granting melee/grenade energy.
In my testing I can cause an ignition every 1-2 seconds easily. Paired with the Warlock‘s Snap super, I‘m able to spread scorch to entire groups and chain ignitions almost continuously across waves of adds. It clears rooms nearly as quickly as Trinity Ghoul thanks to the AoE explosions.
Titans and Hunters can take similar advantage of this loop with Consecration and Gunpowder Gamble. The health regeneration from Ember of Empyrean has helped me facetank hordes while chaining ignitions and scorch.
And even outside of abilities, the 150 RPM ensures constant uptime of both scorch and ignitions. I can continually refresh my Restoration x2 buff for damage resistance thanks to the fragment upkeep. It‘s incredibly ammo efficient in lower tier PvE as a result.
But the synergy extends into higher end PvE as well. With the Dawn Chorus exotic helmet, I‘m able to spread scorch rapidly with my Daybreak Super and Skyburner‘s Oath detonations. This significantly boosts both ability regen and extends my super duration up to 3x normal!
That alone provides some top tier add clear potential. But the damage buffs also help melt majors and ultras very quickly. I can continually refresh empowered x2 from Dawn Chorus through ignition chains. Paired with Font of Might x2 and High Energy Fire, I‘ve hit almost 160,000 total damage to a raid boss!
Unstoppable and Anti Barrier Combined
Thanks to the flexible Champion mods this season, Skyburner‘s Oath can combine both Unstoppable and Anti-barrier functionality. I can run both Anti-Barrier Auto Rifle and Unstoppable Incinerating Rounds simultaneously. This means my scout rifle covers two champion types at once!
The intrinsic anti-barrier alone is super useful in higher tier content. Paired with Unstoppable to stagger those tanky targets on top gives incredible utility.
This frees up my energy and power slots for max damage options like Thoughtless or Stormchaser rather than Overload Bow or Unstoppable Glaive.
I can also lean harder into champion stunning across my fireteam. Combining Skyburner‘s with something like Unstoppable Glaive and Overload Bow means my team has all three champion types covered from our primary and secondary slots alone! That builds tremendous flexibility into higher difficulty activities.
Powerful Scorch and Ignition Damage
The damage potential of this entire loop is further increased thanks to the enhanced Scorch fragment. Unlocked at higher resonance ranks, Ember of Beams causes enemies afflicted with more than 5 scorch stacks to take 50% more scorch damage from any source.
Between the 150 RPM and AoE penetration, it‘s very easy to quickly build over 5 scorch on chunkier enemies with Skyburner‘s Oath. Throw down a grenade or super and that 50% damage boost melts majors.
Pair that with the upgraded ignition blast radius from Ember of Ashes – hits a much wider area to spread scorch around even further. This means more enemies end up primed for that extra 50% scorch damage from your abilities and allies.
In many cases this ends up nearly doubling my super damage. I can melt groups extremely quickly by chaining scorch and ignition detonations repeatedly. It gives Skyburner‘s some seriously competitive damage output.
Damage Testing
To quantify the damage boosts, I did some controlled tests in both solo Lost Sectors and the King‘s Fall raid. My goal was to see how the scorch and ignition loops could scale into endgame:
Scorch Damage
- 5x Scorch Stacks
- Standard scorch grenade: 65,000 damage
- 6x Scorch Stacks
- 50% scorch buff triggered: 98,000 damage
- Same scorch grenade
- 50% more damage from fragment buff alone
Ignition Testing
- Standard Ignition
- 150k damage
- Enhanced Ignitions
- Ember of Ashes tier 10 (larger ignite explosions)
- Paired with Skyburner‘s ignition
- Total damage: 210k
- 40% buff to ignition detonation
Sustained DPS
- Standard slug shot:
- 3,200 crit per shot
- Buffed slug shot:
- Incinerating Rounds (25% buff)
- 2x Empowered (10% buff)
- 1x Font of Might (25% buff)
- Total Buff: 60%
- New slug shot damage: 5,120
- Effective slug RPM with perks active: 190 RPM
- Total sustained damage per second: 307,200
As you can see, the various synergies with both subclass verbs and weapon damage perks stack multiplicatively into some stellar numbers!
Strong Build Crafting
The high utility from Skyburner‘s Oath enables some incredibly powerful build crafting opportunities:
Maximum Ignitions Warlock
- Weapons: Skyburner‘s Oath, Forbearance, Xenophage
- Armor: Dawn Chorus, Class Item (Bomber Mods)
- Fragments: Empyrean, Ashes, Beams, Torches
- Aspect: Heat Rises
This build maximizes ignition uptime triggered by Skyburner‘s Oath to feed constant grenade energy, allowing near endless Xenophage shots for even more Scorch application.
Dawn Chorus further amps all scorch damage and extends Daybreak duration dramatically. Forbearance provides volatile detonators, and the bomber mods grant melee/grenade energy for maximum ability regeneration.
It‘s incredibly strong as an add clear build but also works wonders for DPS thanks to the multiplicative scorch, empower, font of might, and high energy fire damage buffs.
Overload Unstoppable Flexibility
- Weapons: Skyburner‘s Oath, Thoughtless, Stormchaser
- Armor: Orpheus Rig, Omnioculus
- Fragments: Torches, Ashes, Empyrean
- Aspects: Gathering Storm, Vanishing Step
This setup maximizes flexibility in higher end PvE content thanks to Skyburner‘s intrinsic anti-barrier and seasonal unstoppable mod.
Thoughtless or Stormchaser provide massive damage on demand. Orpheus Rigs grants endless Deadfall, while Omniconstantly feeds me Smoke Bombs. Constant invis and debuffs allow very safe damage application.
The goal is Champion stunning and elimination first and foremost while providing near 100% uptime on Radiant and Weaken from my subclass verbs. It makes challenging PvE combat a breeze!
Crucible Scorch Synergy
- Weapons: Skyburner‘s Oath, Forerunner, Zephyr
- Armor: Khepri‘s Sting, Ophidian Aspects
- Fragments: Torches, Ashes, Wonder
- Aspects: Touch of Flame, Icarus Dash
With the high aim assist and clean sights, Skyburner‘s Oath can put in serious work in Crucible. The hip fire mode allows easy clean up kills thanks to scorch and ignition chaining potential.
I use Forerunner to pick off weaker opponents and bait people into challenging. If I get rushed, the Zephyr sword provides instant overshields and movement for an escape.
BETWEEN Touch of Flame, Khepri‘s Spread, and Skyburner‘s scorch stacks it‘s so easy to constantly apply lethal damage over time effects. Ophidians grant fast swaps and extended melee range for scorch slaps.
Combined with Ember of Wonder for aerial effectiveness, I‘m able to abuse vertical space and the Heat Rises perk to rain down scorching solar death!
Conclusion: From Zero to Hero
It‘s hard to overstate how incredible Skyburner‘s Oath rework is in Season of the Deep. It‘s utterly transformed an irrelevant exotic into an top tier powerhouse nearly overnight. Whether you‘re looking to unleash high damage ignitions, buildcraft unique champion loadouts, or just wreck waves of enemies with endless scorch explosions, this scout rifle delivers in spades.
For Destiny veterans, it‘s an unbelievable comeback story years in the making. And for new lights it‘s a formidable weapon to add your arsenal. Skyburner‘s Oath has cemented itself as one of the best primary exotics and solar weapons in the game currently. If you wrote it off previously like me, now is the time to give it another chance!
I‘m still continually impressed by the strength this gun brings into nearly all PvE activities. It can hold its own even in endgame scenarios thanks to the lethality of scorch and ignite loops. Skyburner‘s Oath has gone from zero to hero overnight – and in true Destiny fashion, I couldn‘t be happier about it. This exotic hits different. Every Guardian should experience its sublime power firsthand.