Best Auto Rifles in Destiny 2: Tier List Ranking

Auto rifles are not as dominant as they were just a few seasons ago, and while most Guardians have moved on to more popular options, the top Auto rifles remain some of the best weapons in Destiny 2.

But because auto rifles, in general, aren’t necessarily considered the best weapon type, we’ll be ranking them based on their relative strength to each other.

This guide covers every Auto rifle in Destiny 2, including both Exotic and Legendary auto rifles, as well as the best rolls for PVE and PVP.

Destiny 2 Auto Rifles Tier list

Today we’re doing things a little differently. This Tier list comes straight from Pattycakes and his excellent video below.

Pattycakes is one of my favorite Destiny 2 content creators focused on PVP and someone you should definitely check out.

The Tier list below includes every Exotic and non-sunset legendary Auto Rifle in the game. It starts with the S Tier weapons and moves down from there. It also covers both PVE and PVP, with the “Excels in” column clearly identifying in what area each weapon shines:

These are the different Tier levels used for our list:

• S Tier – Best: Highest ranking weapons in our Tier List.
• A Tier – Strong: Very strong weapons, but not on the same level as S Tier Choices.
• B Tier – Average: Decent choices that can be lethal in the hands of a skilled player.
• C Tier – Weak: The middle of the pack, somewhat mediocre.
• D Tier – Worst: Lagging behind the competition, these don’t have much to offer.

More Destiny 2 Tier lists:

Best Destiny 2 Auto Rifles in 2022

This section not only covers the top Auto Rifles currently in the game, it also tells you where you can find them. This guide covers every weapon source in Destiny 2 and most of the sources below are self-explanatory, but in doubt, you can always leave a comment below or ask away on our Discord server.

Overall, these are our Top 10 favorite Autos for PVE and PVP.

 

10. Seventh Seraph Carbine

 Excels in PVE

The Seventh Seraph Carbine is the AK-47 of Destiny 2. Just look at it!

This Auto rifle has average stats and decent perks along with a scope that highlights enemy players. Most notably it can roll with Rangefinder, to significantly increase its effective range.

It can also roll with one consistency perk, Slideshot, which can be quite nice, but not quite on the same level as something like Dynamic Sway Reduction or Tap the Trigger for improving an Auto Rifle’s performance.

Overall, the Seventh Seraph Carbine is exactly what you’d think it is: A mediocre 450 RPM auto rifle. Though it is worth making it an honorable mention since it’s the only auto rifle able to produce Warmind cells in PvE..

PVE God roll:

• Perk 1: Auto-Loading Holster
• Perk 2: Vorpal Weapon (also good: Rampage)

How to get it: Seventh Seraph Carbine can be randomly acquired as end-of-match activities or via Legendary and Prime engrams.

 

9. Hard Light

 Excels in PVE

Hard Light’s ability to change elements can be incredibly useful in PvE, but in PvP… It’s borderline useless. At most, you’ll be able to activate your enemy’s Riskrunner if you choose the arc mode.

The second part of Hard Light’s intrinsic perk, however, can be decisive. If you recall, the main problem which plagues all auto rifles is their poor performance in peek shot-duels. Fortunately, though, Hard Light’s exotic perk grants its bullets a slight increase to damage after they ricochet.

This means that you can keep tagging your opponent for quite a bit of damage, even if they’re behind cover. This, combined with Hard Light’s absolutely massive 100 stability and reduced damage falloff make it a menacing auto rifle in the Crucible.

While it might lack the lethality of Gnawing Hunger, it’s a consistent and flexible auto rifle that can make your opponent’s day much worse.

Exotic Perk: “Rounds fired from this weapon have reduced damage falloff, over-penetrate targets, and ricochet off hard surfaces dealing extra damage. It can also change its damage type.”

How to get it: Hard Light can be acquired via Exotic engrams and Xûr.

 

8. The Summoner

 Excels in PVE

The Summoner is a Trials Of Osiris weapon, which, unfortunately, is unobtainable as of now, so you’ll have to find one in your vault if you want to use it.

The Summoner has excellent base stats, great perks, and a beautiful aesthetic. It occupies the best AR archetype and has access to Rangefinder for a substantial range increase. In the final column, wonderful consistency perks, are available, such as Dynamic Sway Reduction.

While the summoner isn’t as lethal as the gnawing hunger, it is very consistent and highly effective even at extended ranges.

The Summoner is a sleek, consistent and satisfying auto rifle. It’s fantastic for winning 1v1 duels, but unfortunately lacking the lethality of kill clip for 1vX situations.

PVP God roll:

• Perk 1: Dynamic Sway Reduction
• Perk 2: Rangefinder

How to get it: The Summoner can be acquired via Trials of Osiris engrams and rank ups.

 

7. Monte Carlo

 Excels in PVE

In its base form, Monte Carlo is a decent auto rifle with a clean aesthetic and nice stats overall. It’s slightly unfortunate that its recoil direction stat of 80 tends to go to the right, but once you get used to it, it becomes quite manageable.

Monte Carlo’s exotic perk grants you melee energy for landing hits using the weapon. And kills with monte carlo have a chance to completely recharge your melee energy.

Additionally, Monte Carlo also comes with an exotic version of Swashbuckler, which is a nice touch and pairs really well with melee-focused playstyles. Overall the Monte Carlo is a solid auto rifle, especially useful if you have a melee-centric build.

Exotic Perk: “Dealing damage with this weapon reduces melee cooldown and can fully charge your melee with each kill. Melee kills and kills with this weapon increase damage.”

How to get it: Monte Carlo can be acquired via Exotic engrams and Xûr.

 

6. The Last Breath

 Excels in PVE

The Last Breath is a must-have auto rifle for PVE. It has all the right perks to excel in everyday PVE activities. And if next season happens to have an Anti-barrier auto rifle mod, you can bet The Last Breath will become meta.

PVE God roll:

• Perk 1: Subsistence (also good: Demolitionist)
• Perk 2: Frenzy (also good: Adrenaline Junkie)

How to get it: The Last Breath can be acquired by completing the second encounter in the Prophecy dungeon.

 

5. Tommy’s Matchbook

Excels in PVP

Tommy’s Matchbook has overall decent stats and features an astronomical mag size of 100 bullets. Its exotic perk is powerful but it will encourage you to hipfire Tommy as much as possible. Conveniently, Tommy’s matchbook secretly has perfect hip-fire accuracy and very good hip-fire in-air accuracy.

This makes Tommy play more like a hybrid between a submachine gun and an auto rifle while having perfect hip-fire accuracy and an absolutely crazy mag size. As we’ve seen with the Dead Man’s Tale on mouse and keyboard and The Last Word on controller, hipfire weapons are very strong, because when hip-firing, your radar remains open and your strafe becomes fast and unpredictable.

It pairs beautifully with a sniper rifle, since the hipfire mode can let you shut down aggressive players trying to get close to you, yet the ADS mode will yield you a very strong primary weapon should you run out of sniper ammo.

While burning, Tommy’s Matchbook can absolutely melt your opponents in a 0.77 second BODYSHOT time to kill.

If you are accurate and play to the strengths of a hipfire weapon, Tommy’s Matchbook is an absolutely fantastic choice, worth a try in your loadout.

Exotic Perk: “Sustained fire with this weapon overheats it, increasing damage but burning the user. Overheat damage is reduced while hip firing.”

How to get it: Tommy’s Matchbook can be purchased at the Monument to Lost Lights in the Tower.

 

4. Scathelocke

Excels in PVP

One of our favorite auto rifles from Year 1 is finally back. On top of bringing everything we used to love about, including great stats and an even better feel, Scathelocke also features excellent perks, especially for PVP.

PVP God roll:

• Perk 1: Heating Up (also good: Surplus)
• Perk 2: Rampage (also good: PERK)

How to get it: Scathelocke can be randomly acquired as end-of-match activities or via Legendary and Prime engrams.

 

3. Gnawing Hunger

 Excels in PVE

Unlike Chroma Rush, Gnawing Hunger has been around for a while. And while it no longer completely dominates PVE and PVP as it did just a couple of seasons ago, it remains a strong and viable alternative.

Adaptive auto rifles such as the Gnawing Hunger can’t deal as much DPS as rapid-fires do, but on the other hand, they have way better range and stability. And in the particular case of the Gnawing Hunger, it also has an insane magazine size that gives it an incredibly high uptime and all of the best PVE perks you could ask for.

In PVP, 600 RPM auto rifles have a decent 0.8s TTK requiring 8 headshots and 1 bodyshot. Thanks to their higher rate of fire, they are also very forgiving should you miss a couple of shots.

Gnawing Hunger benefits from that, but also great stats, a clean and crisp sight aesthetics, and an absolutely fantastic perk pool

Bottom line: Gnawing Hunger is a true workhorse and you should never dismantle one before carefully looking at its perks and stats. A good Gnawing Hunger is always a keeper.

PVE God roll:

• Perk 1: Subsistence (also good: Overflow)
• Perk 2: Rampage (also good: Multikill Clip)

PVP God roll:

• Perk 1: Tap the Trigger
• Perk 2: Kill Clip

How to get it: Gnawing Hunger can be randomly acquired as end-of-match activities or via Legendary and Prime engrams.

 

2. SUROS Regime

Best PVP Auto Rifles in Destiny 2

The SUROS Regime is an Exotic kinetic auto rifle. Depending on which perk you choose in the third column, it’s either a 360rpm auto rifle when aiming down sights or a 600rpm auto which can significantly increase its rpm with sustained fire.

Additionally, its exotic perk gives you a chance to start instantly recovering your health after a kill as well as increasing the damage output for the bottom half of the magazine.

In this case, you should go for the 600rpm option, since the 360rpm variant does not receive bonus range as other aggressive frame auto rifles do.

The crazy thing about SUROS is that its damage doesn’t get reduced as it ramps up its RPM and it can absolutely shred your opponent. The lethality of a spinning up SUROS Regime can’t be understated: Your opponents really can’t do much besides duck behind cover.

This makes SUROS an incredibly oppressive option that can dominate many meta weapons if used correctly with good aim and quick target acquisition.

SUROS Regime gets bonus points for having a chance to return your health on a kill, which becomes more likely if you have the Catalyst. This can allow you to go on long tears frequently regenerating your health and being ready to re-engage. The catalyst also gives it a perfectly vertical 100 recoil direction which along with nice sight aesthetics makes it very easy to use.

Exotic Perk: “The bottom half of each magazine deals bonus damage and can return health on kill. Holding down the trigger increases rate of fire.”

How to get it: SUROS Regime can be acquired via Exotic engrams and Xûr.

 

1. Chroma Rush

Best PVE Auto Rifle in Destiny 2

In PVP, Chroma Rush can roll with some absolutely amazing perks in both columns, including Kill Clip for a massive damage boost and absolute melt after a kill. It also has nice consistency perks in the left column, such as Moving Target and Dynamic Sway Reduction. Being more consistent and dealing more damage means that you can still engage slightly outside your optimal range while maintaining a decent time-to-kill and good shot registration.

Chroma Rush really does feel like an SMG, and it fulfills the role of a submachine gun excellently. With Kill Clip, it becomes a menacing auto rifle giving even hand cannons a run for their money, and just feels fantastic to use in PvP.

In PVE, rapid-fire auto rifles have the best DPS figures among auto rifles. Their range may not be as good as other archetypes, but it’s still better than SMGs and sidearms. For this reason, rapid-fire autos such as Chroma Rush are a great compromise.

And everything that makes it a good PVP weapon also applies to PVE. It has stellar stats that make it extremely consistent and easy to use and it has excellent perks.

PVP God roll:

• Perk 1: Dynamic Sway Reduction (also good: Moving Target)
• Perk 2: Kill Clip

PVE God roll:

• Perk 1: Subsistence
• Perk 2: Rampage

How to get it: Chroma Rush can be acquired by completing Overrides and focusing Umbral engrams.

Auto Rifles in PVP: Lethality & TTK

TTK is particularly important in PVP, because the lowest the TTK, the faster you can kill your opponent. You can read all about it in our TTK guide below.

This TTK guide includes the TTKs for every weapon in Destiny 2. When it comes to PVP, top Autos are definitely viable, with more than acceptable TTK numbers:

That said, it should be obvious by now that the main problem with Auto Rifles is their inability to hold their ground in a peek shooting duel, which at the higher levels of Destiny 2’s PVP is a huge flaw. This is inherent to the entire auto rifle archetype and only a few select A and S tier options can hold their own in duels against more Meta choices.

You might think that Hardlight’s ricochets, Tommy’s burn, or SUROS’ rate of fire are gimmicks, but these perks allow them to challenge weapons that would otherwise dominate them in a peek shooting battle.

600 RPM auto rifles were very oppressive for two seasons back when they were buffed, but since their nerf, we haven’t seen them much. It is by far the existence of stronger peek shooting options that have kept auto rifles out of fashion.

Though with the nerf to 120 RPM hand cannons, A and S-Tier Autos finally have a place in the meta, with some of them even challenging the most mainstream options.

The 450 and 360 RPM Auto Rifles on the other hand feel like a tremendous amount of work to get a kill compared to most other meta options. It would be great to see these get some love in a future balance patch.

Bottom Line: You should try out some of the top Auto rifles from this tier list. They’re great and fun to use, and we think you’ll enjoy them.

Auto Rifles in PVE: DPS

DPS is important for PVE, because the higher the DPS, the more damage you can deal to a Boss or Major.

This DPS chart includes the DPS numbers for every weapon in Destiny 2. When it comes to actual DPS, Auto rifles are right in the middle. Superior to Pulses, for example, but slightly behind closer range weapons such as sidearms and SMGs:

Destiny 2 Auto Rifles: Are they Meta?

We’ve talked about the best Auto Rifles for PVE and PVP already, but how do they compare, in general, with other primary weapon types? In other words:

Are Auto Rifles good in Destiny 2?

The current Meta for PVE

So, are Auto Rifles good in Destiny 2 PVE? This table summarizes how the several primary weapon types rank against each other in PVE:

The current Meta for PVP

What about PVP? This table summarizes how they rank against each other in PVP:

Your turn

You now know everything there is to know about Auto Rifles in Destiny 2, whether that is for PVP or PVE content.

Ranking criteria

For the record, as much as we tried to keep this list as objective as possible, it’s still based on our personal experience playing the PC version of the game.

Finally, if you’re wondering what criteria was used to build this Tier list, these are the main factors I took into account:

• Lethality: The higher the effective DPS and usability, the higher the ranking.
• Consistency: Some weapons may not have the highest DPS numbers, but they are so consistent, they more than make up for their lower DPS numbers.
• Ease of use: Similar to the point above, some weapons are very effective because they are easy to use and don’t require too much skill or setup. This is also rewarded with higher rankings.
• PVE/PVP Performance: High lethality in either PVE or  PVP is equally valuable. However, a weapon that is good at both PVE and PVP should rank higher than one that is slightly better on only PVE or PVP.
• Fun factor: Not the most important factor, but it also helps if the weapon is damn fun to shoot with!

If you strongly disagree with some of the rankings here, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section. By the way, what is your personal favorite?

Latest changes made to this guide

Things change fast in Destiny 2, especially when a new Season or Expansion launches. For that reason, this post will be updated at least once per season.

With the release of Season of the Lost (Season 15), the following weapons were added:

• Sorrow’s Verse
• The Last Breath
• Chrysura Melo
• Scathelocke

Stay tuned and don’t forget to bookmark this page for next season!