DexertoThe Palindrome is currently the featured Nightfall weapon, and a lot of Destiny 2 players are farming it, but it turns out one of the most popular god rolls is something you need to avoid.
The perk combination of Explosive Payload + Master of Arms is the second most popular roll on the reprised Palindrome. It ranks ahead of everything except for Explosive Payload + Rolling Storm, with that combo being perfect for Arc builds.
For most other builds, you would think the former roll would be the best overall option, but there’s a bug preventing it from working as intended.
As discovered by stats guru MossyMax, these perks do not complement each other well at all, with Explosive Payload only dealing 2% more damage when used with Master of Arms. Ordinarily, this would be closer to 30% in PvE, making Explosive Payload practically worthless on this weapon.
Switching out these perks might not help either, as Explosive Payload is even worse when used alongside Magnificent Howl. This combination actually reduces damage, leaving you with very few options.
Explosive Payload bug is bad news for Palindrome
While it’s iconic and still a stat monster that performs great in the Crucible, The Palindrome’s perk pool isn’t particularly well-suited to PvE, and this bug has only made that even more apparent.
If you want to avoid using Explosive Payload, your next best options are Outlaw or Elemental Capacitor on specific subclasses. These aren’t terrible perks per se, but they certainly aren’t meta either.
Unless you really like Rolling Storm, The Palindrome is a hard gun to defend. You would be better off crafting Nation of Beasts from Last Wish or even farming a Waking Vigil god roll from Dreaming City activities like this week’s Ascendant Challenge.
Of course, this only applies if Bungie doesn’t get around to solving the issue. However, that is far from a guarantee, as a similar bug was found with Rampage and Explosive Payload when Midnight Coup was reprised in April 2024, and that interaction is still broken to this day.
