The Best Destiny 2 Hand Cannons for PVP and PVE, Ranked

There are a decent amount of weapon types you can choose from in Destiny 2. One weapon type that has always been a fan favorite has been the hand cannons or revolvers of Destiny 2. Running around with a big iron on your hip is something many players want to do. If you want to run a hand cannon as your primary weapon, you will want the best tool for the job. While you can get away with any old hand cannon for common content, some hand cannons are better than others. Let’s go over the best PvE and PvP hand cannons in Destiny 2.

The Best PvP Hand Cannons in Destiny 2

PvP is really where hand cannons shine for Destiny 2, being able to kill a player with a few well-placed shots and feeling cool while doing it. While any old hand cannon will still kill a guardian, if you want to make it through a flawless Trials of Osiris run you may want to consider getting a god roll of one of these hand cannons.

Austringer

A returning hand cannon from the old Leviathan raid, the Austringer was added back with the season of the Haunted and is craftable to top it off. Being able to have Eye of the Storm or Snapshot Sights for the first perk column, and Rangefinder or Opening Shot in the second column, gives this weapon multiple builds. Combine this with the ability to equip enhanced perks on it and you have a hand cannon a step above the rest.

Dire Promise

Since Spare Rations have been retired from the drop pool, many players have been searching for a replacement that fills the niche of a smaller build hand cannon. Dire Promise fulfills this search and brings with it the god roll perks that you want for PvP of Opening Shot and Snapshot Sights with Rangefinder to be paired with it. While you can’t put enhanced perks on Dire Promise, the smaller build of the hand cannon frees up more of your screen compared to other hand cannons. The only issue with Dire Promise is that it is not easily farmable since it can only be obtained through worldly weapon engrams.

Eyasluna

Any fans of the original Destiny already know about Eyasluna. While it is already a weapon you should farm from dungeons, an Eyasluna is a solid option for a PvP hand cannon. Almost every available on the Eyasluna is desired with it also offering Heating Up, Rangefinder, Moving Target, and Snapshot Sights. All of these are great PvP perks and although you can’t easily change the perks out since the Eyasluna is not currently craftable like other 30th Anniversary weapons. Even if you don’t manage to get a PvP god roll you may still get a useable PvE roll of the hand cannon on any dungeon run.

The Best PvE Hand Cannons in Destiny 2

While a good PvP hand cannon needs the ability to accurately and quickly, a good PvE hand cannon needs to be able to help clear ads and deal damage to a boss in a pinch. A lot of exotic hand cannons are more suited for PvE rather than PvP since a proper build can push them beyond their normal limits in PvE content.

Ace of Spades

A hand cannon that every player wanted but never realized the cost of getting it. The Ace of Spades is the signature hand cannon of Cayde-6 and is quite useful in any PvE content. With the ability to boost your damage after any kill on top of increasing the magazine size makes it decent for tackling tougher enemies.

It is also one of the first weapons to have the Firefly perk which causes a target to explode upon a headshot kill and provides an increase to reload speed. Firefly pairs well with the exotic perk of Ace of Spades since it lets you clear a pack of ads with a well-placed headshot and then quickly reload to get your extra damage rounds.

Sunshot

Harnessing the power of the sun inside of your hand cannon and firing it at anything can be quite devastating. The Sunshot is an ad clearing and solar well generating machine with its solar explosive shots. Every shot fired from this hand cannon operates similarly to the explosive payload perk that is so sought after on PvE. To top it off, any target killed by Sunshot will explode dealing solar damage to any nearby enemies. While this is similar to the dragonfly and firefly perks, the sun blast perk on Sunshot will activate on a body shot kill.

Fatebringer

The Vault of Glass raid brought many sought-after weapons into Destiny 2 with one of them being the Fatebringer hand cannon. The ability to combine Explosive Payload and Firefly allows the Fatebringer to function similarly to the Ace of Spade or the Sunshot without the need to take up your exotic weapon slot.

While the perks are a bit weaker on Fatebringer, the ability to have access to a weapon similar to an exotic and be able to run a different exotic at the same time is crucial for PvE content. Normally you will want your exotic slot to be taken up by something that deals boss damage or assists with taking down a boss rather than a weapon for ad clear and Fatebringer will let you do just that

If you don’t feel like using a hand cannon all the time you may want to consider picking up a god roll SMG to fall back on. As the Season of Plunder continues, you may want to browse through our Destiny guides to make sure you are not missing out on anything that won’t be around forever.

Destiny 2 is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Google Stadia.