July 02, 2019
Lumina and Rose are hand cannons you can acquire through a very fun team quest, the details of which can be found here.
Rose Stats:
Rate of fire - 150
Impact - 80
Range - 53 (62 with masterwork)
Stability - 55
Handling - 76
Reload Speed - 60
Magazine - 11
Aim Assist - 85
Recoil Direction - 95
Lightweight Frame / Chambered Compensator / Accurized Rounds / Outlaw / Polymer Grip
Lumina Stats:
Rate of fire - 150
Impact - 80
Range - 53
Stability - 55
Handling - 78
Reload Speed - 65
Magazine - 13
Aim Assist - 88
Recoil Direction - 95
Noble Rounds / Chambered Compensator / Accurized Rounds / Blessing of the Sky / Polymer Grip
Rose is the quest weapon you get from the transponder. When you get it Rose will only have the intrinsic Lightweight Frame bonus. Through the quest you will be able to upgrade Rose and give it the perks listed above. As a disclaimer, I play primarily on PlayStation and with a controller. So we have issues with hit detection through bloom. Through all this I can confidently say that Rose surpassed my expectations. The hit registration was phenomenal as a base 150 rpm hand cannon and the recoil was very manageable. The only two places it fell short in, was Rose had no secondary trait perk. Like we are now very used to with all year 2 weapons. Rose also had sub-par range, especially at base.
After the Xol strike you obtain the Lumina hand cannon, I will get to that in a second. But you can pull another Rose from your collections with a tier 1 range masterwork as well as a mod slot. This solves one of the two issues I had with Rose as I was going through the quest.
Rose as it stands fully masterworked is among my favorite feeling hand cannons in all of Destiny. It is very controllable, very smooth, and Outlaw being its only perk makes the gun feel very responsive after a precision kill. Everything about this gun just feels good. Unfortunately Rose falls victim to something that plagues all hand cannons on controller. Bloom. Precision hand cannons do not feel this mechanic as harshly as other hand cannons. So a well rolled Service Revolver or Trust, or either of the Magnificent Howl twins will be better for a controller hand cannon connoisseur. I still like them, but they are nowhere near as competitive as other options.
Which brings us to Lumina. The main reason we started this quest in the first place. Lumina is the near polar opposite of the infamous Thorn. We cleanse Rose by defeating enemies of humanity instead of tainting the weapon in the Crucible. The theme with Lumina is teamwork makes the dream work, wherein a lot of the quest steps have to be done with a team, granting more progress. This theme is continued after you’ve obtained the weapon because Lumina is Destiny’s first true support weapon.
Lumina works similar to Thorn. You get a kill with either weapon and a Remnant spawns where the enemy has died. That Remnant will last for 8 seconds and will track towards you if you stand within 15 in game meters of it. The Remnant will also restore 4 bullets directly into the magazine. But this is where Thorn and Lumina deviate. When powered by a Remnant Thorn will overcharge and the damage over time will bump up from 2 ticks of damage every ½ a second, to 7 ticks of damage for the same duration.
Lumina works in a completely different way. When you kill someone and grab the Remnant buff Lumina will store a Noble Round. The Noble Rounds can stack up to 5 rounds and will persist through a reload until used or the wielder dies. To fire a Noble Round you have to be in hip-fire. Otherwise you’ll fire a regular bullet. After getting Lumina and running around getting some preliminary data I found something very interesting happening with the Noble Rounds that I was eager to test.
The most surprising feature of the Noble Rounds was the range. If you fire a Noble Round in a straight line it will travel over 150 in game meters. The Noble Rounds can also bounce off hard surfaces and travel for another 45m. They can also ricochet off walls more than once. The tracking for the Noble Rounds is a little wonky, and the largest radius you can be shooting away from an ally to track onto them is 5m at 20m. What this means is standing 20m away from an ally the “hitbox” for tracking is 5m around them. After that point the “hitbox” will shrink as the distance from you and your ally gets greater. The tracking is extremely aggressive and no Traction ST0MP-EE5 Hunter can escape the Noble Round.
Another interesting feature is it activates the Warlock’s Well of Radiance buff known as Benevolent Dawn. Benevolent Dawn states that “Healing or empowering an ally recharges your grenade, melee, and Rift energy.” This is very useful for anyone who wants to double down into the Healer build using Well of Radiance in PvP or PvE. Get a kill with Lumina, buff an ally, get faster cool downs, use those to get more grenades and rifts to kill more enemies, to heal more allies. It’s a continuous cycle that some might find really fun.
You might have noticed I said buff an ally. That is partially true. When you hit an ally with a Noble Round they will regain 80% of their health and start shield regeneration. The 80% health is more than enough for most players but certainly a bonus to be had. On top of that there will be a small area around you that will get a damage bonus. That damage bonus is different in PvE versus PvP but is still very appreciated. In PvE activities you will receive a 35% damage bonus, or do 1.35x increased damage. Against enemy guardians you’ll only get a 20% damage bonus, or a 1.2x damage increase.
In PvP this changes Lumina from a 3 crit kill to a 2 crit 1 body optimal time to kill. But I don’t really think PvP is the most relevant place for Lumina and a healer build. In PvE activities and raid activities I can see Lumina becoming more of a help. Sherpa raids and helping under-leveled guardians through some higher end activities is where Lumina will shine until we can get some more defined roles.
So can I recommend Lumina? It’s arguably the easiest of the exotic hand cannons to get, and you will get two rewards for the price of one. Even if you don’t like healer builds, or don’t like support, the damage increase and assistance you can offer to your fireteam in general activities is more than fun to use. It gives me hope for more defined roles with Shadowkeep, and interesting exotics to pair with them. Lumina is just the start.