It’s been a few days since Destiny 2 released its chainsaw sword into the wild, The Lament, and I am already willing to declare that yes, it’s one of the strongest exotics in Destiny history, provided you are using it correctly.
Swords have already been in a strong spot going into this season. We just had Arrivals where Falling Guillotine was dominant for killing bosses and champions alike, and even after a nerf or two, remains a strong option to this day.
The Lament, however, is on another plane of existence. Yes, it’s an exotic, so unlike Guillotine, you are giving up an exotic slot for it so you can’t pair it with Witherhoard or Izanagi’s or whatever, but the sheer damage it puts out is just out of this world.
3-6 Laments can take out pretty much anything in the game in seconds. Here’s a one phase of Atraks-1, the raid boss that was giving everyone so much trouble when contest mode was active:
On a smaller scale, but still significant in my eyes, I was playing a regular Exodus Crash strike and paired with one other person with Lament, we killed the final boss of that strike in two phases, a boss well known for teleporting away 4-5 times when taking any amount of significant damage. But The Lament just does so much damage so quickly that it melts through absolutely anything.
The Lament is strong on its own, but it has added bonuses that make it even better. It’s an anti-barrier sword, which means it can get through impassable barriers in addition to cutting through overload and unstoppable champions with sheer damage. It also heals you when revved up, so it puts you at less risk than other swords like Guillotine.
The key to The Lament is making sure you rev it up to the max for pinnacle damage. You do this by holding block, then you light attack 2-3 times usually to build up stacks of Banshee’s Wail. Then you let loose with a heavy attack that will do the insane amount of damage. And repeat. If you just hack and slash like a normal sword, yeah, most other whirlwind blades may beat it. But if you use it right, I just don’t know what else there is to compare it to.
Since this is me writing this, no, I am not calling for a nerf. I am having too much fun with it to ask for that, and there are some situations where it’s not great like with floating bosses that swords cannot touch. However, if we start seeing every champion activity decimated by Lament alone, or the strat for every ground-bound raid boss being 6x Lament, yes, I would imagine Bungie might take a look at its damage output. This is Gjallarhorn, the sword, if not even better.
I am also hearing good things about Eyes of Tomorrow, the raid exotic, and Cloudstrike, which I just recently got. But nothing appears to be on quite the same level as The Lament which is easily accessible to all players through a quick (and very story-important) quest that was unlocked for everyone after the raid. We’ll see how the meta is shaped over the course of the season, but Bungie does seem to be more open to wild weapons and massive damage lately than they’ve been in the past, so maybe they’ll leave it alone.
If you don’t have the sword yet, go grab it. There’s no telling what the future holds for it and trust me, you’re going to want to experience it in its current state.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels Herokiller and Herokiller 2, and read my first series, The Earthborn Trilogy, which is also on audiobook.
