• Unique Perks

Master of Arms: Lasts 5 seconds and gives a ~21% damage buff, there was a recent nerf to this but i believe that number is still the same. Refreshes after each kill & can be activated by kills from other weapons.

Onslaught: The tooltip says it increases rate of fire per tier of rampage, but it's actually 600rpm at 1 stack, 600rpm again at 2 stacks, & finally 720rpm at 3 stacks. Also increases reload speed per tier of rampage.

Desperado: Reloading while outlaw is active increases rate of fire from 340 to 600. Lasts for the duration of outlaw (5 seconds). (NOTE: The damage while this perk is active has been severely nerfed, to the point where the gun actually does more damage without it.)

Magnificent Howl: Rapidly landing two precision shots increases the next shot's damage and range for .03 seconds. This has been bugged on & off frequently, but basically the way it's supposed to work is; after 2 crits the next body shot damage is increased to be in line with a crit, making it slightly more forgiving.

Meganuera: Lasts 3 seconds, crits refresh duration, dragonfly deals more damage based on the number of crits landed beforehand, up to 3x. the numbers are different in pvp/pve, in pvp at one stack = no damage increase, 2 stacks = ~67% increase, 3 stacks = ~80% increase. In pve at 1 stack = ~67% increase, at 2 stacks = ~134% increase, at 3 stacks = ~180% increase.

Archer's Gambit: After hip-firing a crit, grants a 6 second draw time decrease... the reduction in draw time is significant & the buff can be compared to a supercharged version of archer's tempo.

Explosive Light: Picking up orbs of light increase grenade blast radius and damage, you can hold up to 6 buffed grenades (backup mag doesn't affect this), which stay that way until you fire them or respawn. Grenade launcher damage is hard to measure but explosive light appears to increase overall damage by ~67%.

Killing Tally: Kills increase this weapon's damage until it is stowed or reloaded. Damage at 1 stack is increased by 22%, at 2 stacks it is increased by 43%, and at 3 stacks it is increased by 65%.

Reservoir Burst: The first shot fired from a full mag does increased damage and causes enemies to explode on death. Bolts do 33% more damage with the perk active. The explosion is hard to quantify but it seems to be around ~1.3x of the total bolt damage. The explosion is also very large compared to other similar perks, dragonfly, memento mori etc.

• Magazines

Armor-Piercing Rounds: Deals an extra ~5% damage to enemy shields, allows rounds to pierce through up to one target, hitting a single enemy behind them.

High Caliber Rounds: In pve, increases the duration on the stagger effect on enemies when you deal damage to them. In pvp, increases flinch on the person you're shooting at.

• Perks

Rampage: Lasts 3.5 seconds, timer starts immediately after a kill, and is refreshed with each kill. has 3 stacks, gives more or less a ~10% damage boost per stack, up to ~33% at 3 stacks. Huckleberry is the only exception I know of to those numbers, rampage on Huckleberry gives a ~20% damage buff per stack, up to 66%. (NOTE: when used with rampage spec, the timer can be increased by 1 second bringing it more in line with other perks.)

Kill Clip: Lasts 5 seconds, timer starts immediately after a kill/reload, cannot be refreshed like multikill clip, keeping the perk active requires a bit of juggling & you need to wait untill the damage buff runs out to re-proc it... gives a flat 33% damage buff.

Swashbuckler: Lasts 4.5 seconds, behaves in a way similar to rampage; timer starts immediately after a kill and is refreshed with each kill. has 5 stacks, each one gives more or less a ~7% damage buff, up to 33%. melee kills immediately give 5 stacks.

Multikill Clip: Lasts 5 seconds and can be refreshed while the timer is still up unlike kill clip, although the refresh will overwrite the previous buff (example, if you have MKC x3, kill one thing and reload, you'll have MKC x1 but the timer will start over). The timer in between kills is pretty forgiving, up to ~2 seconds. has 3 stacks and gives different damage numbers per stack, one is ~17%, 2 is ~33% and 3 is ~50%

High Impact Reserves: Starts when magazine is 50% empty and ramps up from ~12.1% on the first round up to ~25.6% on the last round. Scaling may differ depending on the magazine capacity of the weapon. (NOTE: for some reason, if you respawn with the mag only half full, crucible for example, the perk won't activate until you fire a round.)

Explosive/Timed Payload: Actually reduces the direct impact of the weapon by half, but adds that damage along with a slight buff to a small AOE. Overall damage boost from this is roughly ~1.15x which includes direct hit & blast radius damage in total.

Vorpal Weapon: Gives a flat 15% damage increase to majors & bosses in PvE. In PvP it increases damage to guardians in their super, which varies greatly depending on weapon archetype and where your shots landed. I have seen anywhere from 15% to 62% depending on weapon type, so I won't get into trying to put numbers to each one, but the multiplier tends to be higher on primaries (<60% on body shots) vs special weapons, as well as body shots vs crits. (NOTE: When used for pve, damage can be increased to roughly ~25% with major/boss spec.)

Surrounded: Procs when in close proximity to 3 or more enemies, gives a 30% damage increase. Ends when 3 or more enemies are no longer in close proximity (or dead).

Headseeker: I'm just going to do a PSA first to say; intentionally activating this will always result in an overall damage loss... The actual damage increase is different based on the weapon archetype the perk is on, but it is always very small, it ranges anywhere from 1.075x to 1.095x. (NOTE: Headseeker is still functioning incorrectly on aggressive frame pulse rifles, for some reason the perk will not apply itself to the fourth round of a burst, even if all 3 were body shots beforehand.)

Dynamic Sway Reduction: When holding down the trigger, this weapon's sway-reduction system boosts accuracy over time. What this perk actually does is more or less takes away the additional bloom that comes from firing the weapon. It kicks in once about 3 rounds are fired and stays active until you stop firing. (NOTE: If you want to see the effect from this, fire 6 rounds from the hip, then let go of the trigger & you'll notice the reticle pulse outwards once the perk deactivates)

Rangefinder: Increases range and effective zoom magnification while aiming down sights. Rangefinder gives a 1.1x boost to the gun's zoom magnification which has the added effect of also increasing range. (NOTE: this is is one of the easiest ways to push past the damage dropoff on a gun.)

Outlaw/Feeding Frenzy: I'm lumping these two together because they do basically the same thing. Outlaw requires a headshot kill and boosts reload speed by 150%. Feeding Frenzy boosts reload speed by 120%, but it activates on any kill, headshot or otherwise. Both of them have a 5 second timer.

Rapid Hit: Rapid precision hits temporarily increase reload speed and stability. Has 5 stacks, the reload speed and timer is dependant on weapon archetype, on primaries the perk lasts 2 seconds, and buffs reload speed starting at ~25% up to ~45%. On special weapons it lasts 3.5 seconds and buffs reload speed starting at ~15%.

Eye of the Storm: The weapon becomes more accurate and boosts handling as your health gets lower. Activates around ~55% health remain in and stays active until you regenerate to ~70% health, the handling boost is slight (not Quickdraw tier) but noticeable. This handling boost does not increase as health gets lower, however the accuracy boost does.

Subsistence: Kills partially reload the magazine, but reserve capacity is reduced. After a kill, reloads roughly ~15-20% of the magazine. Reserve capacity is reduced to roughly ~65% of the original amount.

Overflow: Picking up a special or heavy ammo brick reloads this weapon to beyond it's normal capacity. Does exactly what it says on the tin, the ammo is pulled from out of reserves rather than generated. If you have the necessary ammo in reserves it can double magazine capacity.

Demolitionist: Kills with this weapon grant grenade energy, activating your grenade ability refills the magazine from reserves. 10% grenade energy per kill on primary and heavy weapons, and ~20% grenade energy per kill on special weapons. This scales regardless of discipline stat.

• Magazines

Armor-Piercing Rounds: On energy weapons, this magazine deals an extra ~10.7% damage to enemy shields, allows rounds to pierce through up to one target, hitting a single enemy behind them.

• Perks

Osmosis: Using your grenade ability changes this weapons damage type from kinetic to the element of your subclass, lasts until the weapon is stowed. This increases damage done to shields (~5.7x if matching, ~1.9x if non-matching) however, comes with the downside of 5% damage loss on unshielded targets. (NOTE: If used with the matching elemental burn, grants the weapon a permanent 25% damage buff.)

Dragonfly: Adds an explosion to headshot kills. Dragonfly explosions are hard to quantify because the explosion's damage depends on the weapon's archetype. The damage from the explosion can range anywhere from 0.8x all the way up to 3.3x weapon damage. Damage perks like rampage/swashbuckler/kill clip etc. do not affect the damage of the actual blast radius. (NOTE: I had never noticed this before, but with the amount of testing to get actual numbers for dragonfly i've noticed a bug where it will occasionally proc after a delay or sometimes not at all... according to reddit this is a known bug.)

Disruption Break: Lasts 5 seconds after breaking an enemy's shield, gives kinetic weapons a 50% damage bonus to the target.

Shield Disorient: Energy matched shield explosion disorients nearby combatants. This works similar to blinding grenades and other effects like it, making enemies fire blindly and move slowly in place. It lasts ~7 seconds, the aoe is roughly ~7 meters.

• Perks

Archer's Tempo: After hitting a crit, grants a 1.5 second reduction in draw time, improving sustained dps, making it one of the better bow perks. Draw time can be improved by up to ~1/5 of a second (170ms) with this perk, depending on the bow. This feels surprisingly noticeable especially on sustained fire, dispite the seemingly small amount of decrease in draw time.

Explosive Head: Actually reduces the direct impact of the weapon by half, but adds that damage along with a slight buff to a small AOE. Overall damage boost from this is roughly ~1.15x which includes direct hit & blast radius damage in total.

Sneak Bow: Increases hold time and reload speed while crouched. Can be looked at sort of like a field prep for bows. Gives ~15 extra arrows, and while crouched improves reload time (knock speed) by roughly ~5%. The amount of time you can hold a charge (pulled back) is roughly ~25% longer.

Opening Shot: Increases range and accuracy on initial shot. I'm adding this perk to this section because of its behavior on bows... In effect opening shot on a bow, in contrast to other weapons is active on every shot, I have no idea why this is, possibly because you are effectively reloading each time you knock a new arrow, but there it is. Grants about a ~20% boost to accuracy/magnetism, the range boost is zero because bows have no dropoff.

• Magazines

Assault Mag: Gives the weapon a 10% increase in rate of fire.

Full Choke: Tightens pellet spread while aiming down sights, reduces precision damage to about ~0.95x of its base value.

• Perks

Full-Auto Trigger System: Provides a 10% increase in rate of fire while also allowing the trigger to be held down for continuous fire.

Trench Barrel: Lasts 3 shots or 5 seconds, whichever comes first. does a flat 50% increase and slightly boosts reload speed.

Opening Shot: I'm adding this again to shotguns because its behavior is slightly different on shotties... Increases range and accuracy on initial shot of engagement. Increases pellet magnetism by about 20% which can also reduce spread. Range boost is ~5%. Reactivates after 3.1 seconds between shots.

Celerity: Increased handling, reload speed, target acquisition and reduced flinch from incoming fire while you are the last living member of your fireteam. The effect from this is pretty significant... when it is active, handling is on par with quickdraw, reload is on par with an enhanced reload mod, there is a bit of flinch reduction & pellet magnetism is increased which in some cases can affect pellet spread. (NOTE: The effects of this perk are very similar to a quickdraw/moving target combo.)

Moving Target: Increased movement speed and target acquisition while aiming down sights. Increases movement speed by roughly ~3% and target acquisition/pellet magnetism by roughly ~10% while aiming down sights.

Quickdraw: Allows this weapon to be drawn/stowed unbelievably fast. This perk basically adds 20%-40% to the gun's handling. Since the gun's handling stat is being affected, this also increases ADS speed making the perk doubly useful on pvp shotguns. (NOTE: This handling boost is not affected by exotic perks but can still be increased by dexterity mods)

Slideshot: Sliding partially reloads this weapon and temporarily boosts range and stability. It's a bit hard to test but I beleive the range boost is roughly ~8%, lasts about 3 seconds. This perk always reloads 15% of the gun's magazine, so the higher the capacity, the more rounds get reloaded.

Vorpal Weapon: Gives a flat 15% damage increase to majors & bosses in PvE. In PvP it increases damage to guardians in their super, which on the weapon I tested (lightweight frame) was roughly ~22%. (NOTE: When used for pve, damage can be increased to roughly ~25% with major/boss spec.)

One-two Punch: Lasts 1 punch, 3x melee damage. This one is hard to test because it increases your melee damage, which depends on a lot of things, but from what I can tell this is more or less 3x.

Surrounded: Procs when in close proximity to 3 or more enemies, gives a 30% damage increase. Ends when 3 or more enemies are no longer in close proximity (or dead).

• Magazines

Liquid Coils: Increases the weapons damage/impact by 2% while also increasing charge time by 40ms.

Accelerated Coils: Decreases the weapons damage/impact by 2% while also decreasing charge time by 40ms.

• Perks

Backup Plan: I've added this more as a PSA, as of update 2.8.0, backup plan now reduces fusion rifle charge time to ~500-540 for the duration. This means that the impact now gets reduced, lowering damage per bolt. What this means for pvp is that high impact fusions can still OHK with backup plan activated, but only if you hit with every. single. bolt. Liquid coils does not seem to help. Handling is also boosted for 4 seconds. (NOTE: Patch notes say that impact changes to that of a rapid-fire frame while backup plan is activated, and weirdly bc of this, rapid-fire fusions now get zero benefit from backup plan besides a very slight reduction in damage and a handling increase.)

• Perks

Vorpal Weapon: Gives a flat 15% damage increase to majors & bosses in PvE. In PvP it increases damage to guardians in their super, which varies slightly depending on archetype and where your shots landed. On 72 rpm sniper rifles this is roughly ~15% on crits, ~19% on body shots. On 90 rpm sniper rifles this is roughly ~20% on both crit and body. (NOTE: When used for pve, damage can be increased to roughly ~25% with major/boss spec.)

Clown Cartridge: Reloading this weapon randomly overfills it from reserves. The number of extra rounds is random but maxes out at ~50%, but will always add at least 1 extra round on reloads.

Moving Target: Increased movement speed and target acquisition while aiming down sights. Increases movement speed by roughly ~3% and target acquisition/bullet magnetism by roughly ~10% while aiming down sights.

Moving Target: Increased movement speed and target acquisition while aiming down sights. Increases movement speed by roughly ~25% and bullet magnetism by roughly ~10% while aiming down sights.

Opening Shot: Increases range and accuracy on initial shot of engagement. On sniper rifles this is effectively about a ~20% boost to accuracy/magnetism, and the range boost is ~12%. Technically the perk reactivates after 3.1 seconds between shots, but in crucible for all intents and purposes this perk will be active for most sniper shots.

Snapshot Sights: Faster time to aim down sights. Snapshot effectively maxes out ADS (aim down sights) speed, making it easily the most valuable perk for sniping in the crucible. (NOTE: Even though this maxes out ADS speed, this still varies greatly depending in weapon archetype, targeting mods do not affect this speed, however dexterity perks do.)

No Distractions: Aiming this weapon for a short period reduces flinch. Activates after aiming down sights for 1.5 seconds & only deactivates once you stop aiming. You'll notice the difference from this more in pve than pvp, but it does work, however it's difficult to quantify exactly how much flinch is being reduced.

Celerity: Increased handling, reload speed, target acquisition and reduced flinch from incoming fire while you are the last living member of your fireteam. The effect from this is pretty significant... When it is active, handling is on par with quickdraw, reload is on par with an enhanced reload mod, flinch reduction and target acquisition are both significant on a sniper rifle. (NOTE: Celerity also has the hidden benefit of highlighting targets in your scope.)

Firing Line: Gives a 25% increase to precision damage when in proximity to two other guardians or friendly npc's.

Box Breathing: Gives a 20% increase to precision damage after aiming down sights for 1.5 seconds.

• Notes

Direct Hit & Blast Radius: Grenade launcher damage has two numbers. When a target is hit directly, one number corresponds to direct hit damage, and the other one corresponds to the blast radius damage. On grenade launchers specifically, the two numbers are tied to each other inversely; the lower your blast radius, the higher direct hit damage will be and vice versa.

• Grenades

Spike Grenades: Buffs direct hit damage by ~50%. This is the perk you should be looking for if planning on using a grenade launcher for boss dps. (NOTE: To get the most out of this perk you also want as small of a blast radius as possible, a higher blast radius subtracts from what this buff can do.)

Blinding Grenades: Greatly reduces blast radius, any non-boss enemies caught within 10m of the explosion are blinded & unable to use abilities for 4.5 seconds.

Concussion Grenades: Grenades fired from this weapon emit a blast that staggers enemies. The effect is similar to blinding grenades but is only applied to the target that was directly hit by it. In pvp it also applies a slowing effect.

Proximity Grenades: Reduces blast radius, and gives grenades increased proximity detection. Completely removes direct hit damage.

• Perks

Full Court: Adds ~24-25% extra blast radius damage based on the distance the grenade had to travel in order to reach the target, impact damage isn’t affected by this buff. Damage boost starts at 10m and doesn’t scale past 50m. Basically, for every 1m beyond the 10m mark, it’s an increased .625% damage up to 50m.

Auto-loading Holster: The holstered weapon is automatically reloaded after a short time. After 3 seconds of being stowed, the weapon fully reloads itself, at this time an audible reloading sound can be heard.

Field Prep: Increased ammo reserves, faster reload, stow and ready speed while crouching. The reload boost while crouching is comparable to feeding frenzy. The amount of increased reserves depend on frame but it is always at least 1x.

Rangefinder: Increases velocity while aiming down sights. Rangefinder gives a 1.1x boost to the grenade's velocity while aiming down sights.

• Notes

Direct Hit & Blast Radius: Rocket launcher damage has two numbers. When a target is hit directly, one number corresponds to direct hit damage, and the other one corresponds to the blast radius damage. On rocket launchers specifically, and conversely to grenade launchers, for every one point of damage done via impact it does an additional 3.5 blast radius damage.

• Magazines

Impact Casing: Buffs direct hit damage by ~10%. This does not affect the direct hit/blast radius calculation however, the ~10% buff is applied after it. Best when paired with tracking module or a tracking frame rocket launcher.

• Perks

Cluster Bombs: Adds 8 additional cluster bomblets, each of which deals an additional ~3% damage, if all 8 somehow manage to connect with both impact and blast radius, you'd have an overall 24% increase... their bounce direction is seemingly random though & this generally won't happen.

Tracking Module: Adds tracking capability to rockets, locks onto targets while aiming down sights. This is not something I can quantify but this perk basically adds the tracking capability of precision frame rocket launchers to other frames. The tracking is somewhat dependant on other factors such as velocity, it won't give truth-like tracking & can still be juked but is still significant.

Field Prep: Increased ammo reserves, faster reload, stow and ready speed while crouching. The reload boost while crouching is comparable to feeding frenzy. The amount of increased reserves depend on frame but it is always at least 1x.

Auto-loading Holster: The holstered weapon is automatically reloaded after a short time. After 3 seconds of being stowed, the weapon fully reloads itself, at this time an audible reloading sound can be heard.

Rangefinder: Increases velocity while aiming down sights. Rangefinder gives a 1.1x boost to the rocket's velocity when aiming down sights.

• Perks

Surrounded: Procs when in close proximity to 3 or more enemies, gives a 25% (for swords) damage increase. Ends when 3 or more enemies are no longer in close proximity (or dead).

Whirlwind Blade: Lasts 3 seconds, each consecutive attack that connects (does not require a kill) refreshes the timer & buffs damage by 6% for each hit up to 5 stacks (~30%). (NOTE: There are a lot of good options now but imo this is still the one to look for if using swords for boss dps, due to ease of use & sustained output.)

Assassin's Blade: Lasts 5 seconds after killing an enemy, is refreshed after each kill & gives a 15% damage boost as well as a boost to mobility/speed.

En Guard: Lasts 2 seconds and begins immediately after switching to the weapon. buffs sword damage by 1.3x. Can be used again after the weapon is stowed for 1 second.

Shattering Blade: On consuming the last of your sword's ammo, damage is increased by 1.67x.

Flash Counter: The tooltip says "melee blocked immediately after guarding disorients and weakens the attacker" in practice this functions more like a buff than a debuff, sword damage is increased by 20% against the enemy for 6-7 seconds.

Counterattack: Lasts 2 seconds after guarding an attack & gives a 50% buff to sword damage.

• Gunsmith

Minor Spec: Increase damage against any minor tier (red bar) enemy by 7.8%.

Major Spec: Increase damage against any elite or major tier (orange or yellow bar) enemy by 7.8%.

Boss Spec: Increase damage against any boss tier (yellow bar) enemy by 10%

• Raid

Taken Spec: Increases damage against taken enemies by 10%.

• Black Armory

Rampage Spec: Adds 1 second to the duration of rampage, (~3.5 seconds to ~4.5 seconds)

Surrounded Spec: Increases the damage of surrounded by 10%, and delays the buff ending by 1.5 seconds after 3 or more enemies are no longer in close proximity.

Dragonfly Spec: Increases the size and damage of dragonfly explosions. the size increase is hard to quantify but I want to say double? the damage increase is roughly ~1.47x.

Testing Methods Used: PvP testing was done by myself and a freind using private crucible matches. PvE testing was done primarily in the tribute hall with the ogre there due to its large crit spot and simple (x1) crit multiplier. Any perk testing that required a large group of enemies (dragonfly for example) was done in the thrallway of the heroic whisper mission.

What's the point of this?: I originally started putting this together as a way for me personally to keep track of the numbers on damage perks, but while testing my friends and I became curious about other perks that are also ambiguous & so it kind of expanded... If anything useful comes of it; something I've noticed is that quite a few of my freinds have trouble deciding what to MW and what to shard. They end up filling up their vaults, clogging up clan chat with what to shard/keep or making forum posts about each one, or just going by what perks have a thumbs up on DIM... and in the end, that only leaves them with maybe some other person's idea of what's good. My hope is that people can use this as a general breakdown of what these perks actually do, and use that to decide for themself what their own personal "god roll" is according to their playstyle.

Using damage perks in the Crucible: Damage perks do not guarantee a faster ttk (time to kill) inside the crucible. the faster the weapon fires, the higher the chance of a damage perk actually speeding up ttk, but, for example; let's say you're using a 150rpm hand cannon & have managed to get 3 stacks of rampage inside of the crucible, ttk does not change, you still need 3 hits to kill, the difference is that some of those can be body shots now. This is often the case with slower-firing aggressive frame guns that tend to be popular inside of the crucible, and all these perks can do is make the gun slightly more forgiving in certain situations... just something to keep in mind.

Differences in PVE/PVP: On many of these perks, the PvE numbers were changed some time ago to be more in line with PvP, so the percentages here are for both unless otherwise stated. This is by no means an exact thing and sometimes gets complicated, so I tried to give everything a general number/multiplier that applies to both or is close enough to.

Patch changes/Errors: My friends and myself have tested most of these ourselves in pve and in private crucible matches, thoroughly with multiple weapon frames, however it is still possible we/I made a mistake. If you see one please point it out to me in comments and I'll test it again, I do appreciate it... When someone points something out, I do test them, but if I haven't changed anything it just means I didn't see a change in value from the original one... I tried to make this as un-complicated as possible, so if I left out some extraneous bit of info, that's the idea. I've also currently run out of room in the first section, so I can't add anything to it unless I delete something.