The Summoner auto rifle once oversaw a notorious 600 RPM meta back when it first released in Season of the Worthy. The archetype may no longer be dominant in Destiny 2, but the new perk pool The Summoner’s been reprised with in Season of the Wish is practically perfect.
There’s almost no bad choices in both the third and fourth column. Your personal god roll for The Summoner could include anything from Incandescent and Heal Clip to Subsistence and Onslaught. There aren’t any wrong answers here, only different playstyles which you can build into. Trials of Osiris might not be everyone’s favorite Destiny 2 endgame activity to grind, but Bungie’s made it easier than ever to earn loot from it in Update 7.3.5 with the Passage of Persistence. The new Summoner is worth taking the plunge—whether you’re a PvE aficionado or looking for a laser beam in PvP.
Here’s what we recommend when it comes to The Summoner’s strongest perks and the god rolls you should be looking out for in your Trials drops.
What is The Summoner god roll in Destiny 2?
The Summoner PvP god roll
- Barrel: Chambered Compensator
- Magazine: High-Caliber Rounds
- First perk: Zen Moment or Dynamic Sway Reduction
- Second perk: Kill Clip
- Origin Trait: Wild Card or Alacrity
- Masterwork: Range
In PvP, The Summoner’s god roll is Zen Moment and Kill Clip. While it might not be a perk pairing that’s reinventing the wheel, the enhanced accuracy and incredible damage output this roll is capable of will be more than enough for most players to dominate a Destiny 2 Crucible lobby.
The 600 RPM auto rifle archetype has always had a good balance between its time-to-kill values and its consistency. However, after the nerfs that hit them a few years ago, they do require a few key stat bumps to operate efficiently—namely range and stability. Chambered Compensator and High-Caliber Rounds gives The Summoner an extra 10 stability and five range, while also improving its recoil direction and increasing the flinch you can inflict on opponents. In tandem with Zen Moment, you can easily eliminate the majority of the sway and recoil that could otherwise harm your ability to win a fight.
In the fourth column, both Onslaught and Target Lock have some niche potential, but Kill Clip is the strongest perk overall. The 25 percent damage increase is easy to proc, and greatly improves The Summoner’s ability to compete against pulse rifles and hand cannons at medium range. Taking Target Lock also has this benefit, and the perk doesn’t require a kill to wind up in the same way Kill Clip does. However, it’s easy to miss a bullet in a gunfight and lose Target Lock’s damage stacks, therefore making it a much riskier alternative.
Even though the majority of players will prefer to take Zen Moment in the third column, both Dynamic Sway Reduction and Elemental Capacitor can’t be slept on either. Dynamic Sway Reduction provides similar benefits to Zen Moment, just improving the gun’s stability and accuracy instead of its recoil. Elemental Capacitor’s benefits vary wildly depending on your preferred subclass, but each buff it can provide is much more significant than other utility perks. If you run Void or Stasis in PvP, this perk is worth looking at.
The Summoner PvE god roll
- Barrel: Smallbore or Polygonal Rifling
- Magazine: Light Mag or Ricochet Rounds
- First perk: Subsistence or Overflow
- Second perk: Onslaught
- Origin Trait: Wild Card
- Masterwork: Stability
For PvE in Destiny 2, The Summoner god roll you should be looking for is Subsistence or Overflow paired with Onslaught. Onslaught synergizes perfectly with both of these perks, dramatically upgrading the gun’s fire rate and time-to-kill while the perk in the third column extends the life of the magazine.
For those who like to run the Solar subclass, Heal Clip in the third column and Incandescent in the fourth column will also stick out. Paired together, these perks have some fantastic potential when they interact with Solar’s Fragments and Aspects—the combination is arguably just as worthy of god roll status if you’re making use of that symbiosis. Unfortunately, The Summoner can’t be crafted, which does dampen the appeal of Incandescent a little bit when Enhanced Incandescent is unobtainable.
While Kill Clip and Rampage aren’t bad damage-boosting perks you might end up with in the fourth column, Onslaught’s DPS values have quickly made it many people’s favorite perk to take in this slot when it’s available. A hidden aspect of Onslaught is a buff to your reload speed, meaning not only can you enjoy the benefits of a faster fire rate with the perk active, but also less downtime between magazines.
As for the barrel and magazine, compared to PvP, recoil direction isn’t a big deal. That means we can branch out into a few different options which further enhance stability. Depending on how much you want to push out the range of The Summoner, take either Smallbore or Polygonal Rifling in the barrel slot. Light Mag and Ricochet Rounds are both great choices for the magazine, with your pick ultimately coming down to whether you prefer a reload speed buff or an extra 10 stability.
