Destiny 2 Exotic is the most dominant Trials weapon since The Craftening

Destiny 2’s Trials of Osiris always has the potential to throw up surprises as guns rise to the top of the meta quickly. That has happened once again, with a relatively new Exotic dominating the kill counts for the past week.

According to Trials Report on Twitter/X, the Khvostov 7G-0X is seeing spectacular usage in the competitive PvP mode. Overall, the gun managed to rake in a little over 4.9 million kills, while its nearest rival, the also new Red Death Reformed, managed a still impressive 1.359 million.

The Khvostov was used for 24% of the kills in Trials this week.

Since Trials of Osiris returned, the only weapon to ever get more was really really broken: it was the Ammit AR2 during The Craftening week (37%). pic.twitter.com/t9cjKQFQMW

— Trials Report (@TrialsReport) June 25, 2024

That amounts to a 24% share of the total kills across Trials of Osiris for the last week, with Red Death Reformed in second on 7%. The rest of the top ten list is mainly made up of the usual suspects, including Rose, The Summoner (Adept) and Conditional Finality.

The major thing that these statistics don’t account for is how successful players have been using the Khvostov. There’s no arguing that the gun is brilliant at the moment, but it’s unclear how many players were able to go Flawless in Trials using the weapon as their main.

This is the highest percentage usage since the Ammit-AR2 rose to prominence during The Craftening. The Craftening saw the community find a bug where the perks of one gun could be placed onto another, using clever manipulation of the network.

As such, it might not be time for the community to resign themselves to nerfs at this juncture. The gun’s time-to-kill is solid, but it isn’t outstripping the other meta guns in any significant way, and Bungie will likely be cautious before wielding the nerf hammer.

That said, many players are requesting specific nerfs in the comments. One fan said, “I think the problem for me is the easy orb generation that leads to the empowered ricochets. Nerf the empowered ricochet and Speakers Helm easy orbs strat, and the gun should be fine. At base, it is not as OP as the numbers might show.”

Another user added, “That gun is crazy, but Idk if I’m ready to call it OP yet. Peak shooting can reliably beat it. But maybe it does need to be toned down. Autos, the easiest guns to pick up, maybe shouldn’t be that lethal.”

There is no word yet on whether next week’s update will include nerfs for the Khvostov or any other Trials weapon.