Zaouli’s Bane god roll and best perks in Destiny 2

Destiny 2’s King’s Fall raid reprised several weapons from its Destiny version but gave them a pass to adjust them to the sequel’s sandbox. In practice, this meant a series of highly coveted combinations across all its weapons—and Zaouli’s Bane is no exception.

Like other King’s Fall guns, Zaouli’s Bane is one of the few guns that can roll damage-boosting perks on columns three and four, making the hand cannon a coveted choice. It’s also fully craftable after obtaining five Deepsight extractions from it, meaning players may eventually tailor their hand cannon to their needs.

With so much to choose from and its limited availability (based on RNG and Spoils of Conquest before crafting), it can be hard to settle on a god roll for Zaouli’s Bane, and each player may have their own personal god roll based on preference and build. Here is our god roll for Zaouli’s Bane, followed by a breakdown of its perks so you can decide on your own god roll.

Zaouli’s Bane PvE god roll in Destiny 2

• Barrel: Polygonal Rifling, Smallbore, or Corkscrew Rifling
• Magazine: Tactical Mag, Flared Magwell, Accurized Rounds, or Steady Rounds
• Third column: Explosive Payload (Honorable mention: Pugilist)
• Fourth column: One For All, Incandescent, or Firefly (Honorable mentions: Demolitionist, Surrounded)

For PvP, go with Explosive Payload and Eye of the Storm, with Opening Shot or Pugilist and Firefly or Incandescent as backup choices (the extra handling on a melee hit for Pugilist can be helpful). Aim for range without sacrificing handling.

Explosive Payload vs. the competition (third column)

Explosive Payload is easily the best option in its slot in the third column regardless of activity type. The flat damage buff it gives guardians in PvE makes it essential, while the added flinch is welcome in PvP. More importantly, though, having Explosive Payload in the third column allows you to get another damage buff in the second column, giving players even more firepower. Gutshot Straight also adds damage on body shots (20 percent, according to Pip1n’s perk value spreadsheets), but unlike Explosive Payload, it comes with a trade-off of having less target acquisition. Since this has the potential to drastically alter how a weapon feels (and since ideally, you’d be getting headshots anyway), it takes the backseat to Explosive Payload.

In the lack of Explosive Payload, however, Pugilist can be a good choice for melee-focused builds (or players who just like to punch enemies). It functions similarly to Demolitionist, with kills granting you 10 percent melee energy. Well-Rounded is also easy to activate and gives players a cheap buff to stability, handling, and range, while Ensemble synergizes with Runneth Over, its origin trait, which overflows the magazine when reloading near allies.

Fourth column: damage or crowd control

Though there are some clear contenders in the third column (and a few safety options in case you don’t get the roll you wanted), the fourth column has far more choices to make on a god roll.

If you’re looking for sheer firepower, One For All is the go-to. It’s one of the largest damage boosts in the game, and paired with Explosive Payload, it can make Zaouli’s Bane a monster. Surrounded also offers the potential for harder hits as long as you’re near three or more enemies, which may proc often. Focused Fury grants a smaller boost to damage, though activating it takes up half your mag.

If you’re not looking for raw damage, though, some of its perks offer plenty of utility and crowd control. Firefly, for instance, creates an elemental explosion whenever you kill a target with a critical hit, with increased reload speed as a bonus. This makes it a pocket Fatebringer or Ace of Spades that does not take up your Kinetic slot and allows you to clear out mobs with one or two shots. Incandescent has a similar effect to Firefly but brings more Solar synergy due to applying Scorch. We’re more partial to the damage from Firefly when not running a Solar Class, however.

Though not directly a crowd perk, Demolitionist is great for grenade-based builds since it will give you 10 percent grenade energy per kill with this weapon, and throwing your grenade will also reload it instantly. It won’t directly take out mobs like Firefly or Incandescent, but the extra grenade energy grants that crowd control indirectly.

Eye of the Storm is a bet-against-yourself perk that does not hold a candle to the rest of its competition in PvE, but it can be valuable for PvP. And since Zaouli’s Bane doesn’t really have any other PvP-focused perks like Killing Wind or Snapshot Sights, Eye of the Storm is the main PvP choice in this column.