So Destiny 2 has these special guns called “Pinnacle Weapons,” which can only be acquired by persevering through long, arduous quests that require a lot of skill and a lot of patience. The weapons themselves range from bows, to fusion rifles and everything in between, but there’s one unifying quality among them: They’re all a huge pain in the ass to get. The trouble is that each Pinnacle Weapon has a unique perk that can’t be found on any other gun, and more often than not, they’re damn good perks that can make a big difference.
Last weekend, for instance, I finally earned Hush, a Pinnacle bow awarded by the Drifter for getting 1,000 normal bow eliminations, 500 precision bow eliminations, and roughly 600 medals in Gambit modes. This took several weeks of daily grinding to achieve, and while the community has varying opinions about whether Hush is actually “””””good”””””, I love the dang thing and think that it compliments my play-style perfectly.
Two Pinnacle Weapons, The Mountaintop and Wendigo GL3, have historically been some of the most time consuming to acquire. I say “historically” because as of today’s version 2.5.2.2 update, both quests have been mercifully nerfed, and now require far less of your precious, fleeting life.
Wendigo GL3’s quest, “A Gift for the Worthy,” requires 1,500 grenade launcher kills and 500 grenade launcher multikills in playlist Strikes, along with 15,000 points earned by defeating enemies in Strikes — enemies defeated with grenade launchers are worth more points, natch. As of today’s update, “Grenade Launcher kills are worth 100% more for each objective,” and “Grenade Launcher multikills grant 50% more progress,” according to the patch notes. Additionally, dying no longer removes points from the last objective.
It’s unclear if these changes mean that you only need 750 launcher kills, rather than 1,500, but the patch notes are clear that grenade launcher kills now grant 100 percent more (read: twice as many) points towards the last objective, and grenade launcher multikills grant 1.5 times as many points. Overall, “completing Playlist strikes grants a significant amount of progress towards the final objective,” according to the patch notes. This should vastly reduce the amount of grinding needed to obtain Wendigo, which loads up bonus blast radius and damage whenever you pick up an Orb of Light.
In order to receive The Mountaintop, players must first complete the quest “First of Many” by raising their Glory rank to “Brave,” the second tier. During the next quest, “The Third Wave,” players must complete the Crucible Triumph “In Pursuit of Honor.” This Triumph hasn’t been changed, but the amount of credit you get towards the Triumph has been.
You still gotta earn 750 points by landing grenade launcher final blows in the Crucible, but the amount of points awarded in some Crucible modes have been increased. Applicable kills in Quickplay still grant just three points, but grenade launcher final blows in Iron Banner now grant six points, and kills in Competitive mode now grant a whopping 30 points. This means that, if you were to play Competitive Crucible exclusively, you’d have enough points after 25 final blows, instead of 75.
You also need to earn points with grenade launcher multikills, but that requirement has been lowered as well. Whereas previously you needed to earn 200 multikill points, you now need just 75. Double Plays in non-competitive modes grant two points per (and 1 additional point for each kill after the Double Play), while Competitive Crucible grants 5 points per and two for each kill afterwards.
Now, the kicker is that you still have to complete the third quest, “No Second Chances,” which asks that you kindly raise your Glory rank to “Fabled.” This is about two thirds of the way up the tree, and will require time and skill to achieve. Glory is only awarded for playing Competitive Crucible, so there’s no way to cheese this through Quickplay or other modes. But for your trouble, you’ll receive the only grenade launcher in the game that fires tiny missiles instead of grenades. That’s right — The Mountaintop is actually a little tiny baby rocket launcher.
