Recently, the arsenal of Destiny 2 has been enriched with another exotic weapon – the Pulse Rifle Bad Juju from the predecessor is back. What can this weapon exotic do, and what influence does the associated catalyst have?
For just over a week, the new exotic Pulse Rifle Bad Juju and its catalyst can be earned through the Tribute Hall. We’ll take a look at how this returnee performs in PvE and PvP and what the catalyst for the Bad Juju brings.
How to get Bad Juju: The new weapon exotic comes from a quest centered around the Tribute Hall. The catalyst for Bad Juju can also be obtained through this personal little palace aboard the Leviathan, which the Cabal Emperor Calus has built in your honor.
A step-by-step guide for this quest as well as some tips can be found here:
- Bad Juju is back – How to get the new exotic weapon and its catalyst
- This trick gives you a 8% discount daily for the Tribute Hall
What can the new exotic Pulse Rifle Bad Juju do?
What makes this weapon special? Bad Juju is a pulse rifle with a lightweight frame and has a rate of fire of 450. The weapon fires automatically.
Your intrinsic perk Curse of the Rain causes kills to reload the magazine of Bad Juju, not from reserves but from thin air. As long as you get kills, you essentially generate ammunition continuously.
Additionally, it temporarily increases the weapon’s damage and grants Super energy back – depending on the strength of the Curse of Rain (up to 5x stackable). One stack of Curse of Rain lasts 3.5 seconds.
This is how damage increases with Curse of Rain in PvE:
- 1x Curse of Rain – 20% damage increase
- 2x Curse of Rain – 40% damage increase
- 3x Curse of Rain – 60% damage increase
- 4x Curse of Rain – 80% damage increase
- 5x Curse of Rain – 99% damage increase
For comparison: A 3x stack of Recklessness increases damage by 66%, a 5-stack of Brute increases damage by 65%. The damage of Bad Juju with 5x Curse of Rain is certainly notable.
In PvP, damage stacks as follows:
- 1x Curse of Rain – 12% damage increase
- 2x Curse of Rain – 20% damage increase
- 3x Curse of Rain – 32% damage increase
- 4x Curse of Rain – 40% damage increase
- 5x Curse of Rain – 52% damage increase
What does the masterpiece catalyst do? If you fully level up the catalyst and turn Bad Juju into a masterpiece, the duration of Curse of Rain is increased to 5 seconds. The individual stacks last longer, allowing you more time to further stack the perk effect. At 5 seconds, the effect lasts longer than Recklessness (3.4 seconds or 4.4 seconds with mod).
How Bad Juju performs in PvE
In PvE, Bad Juju can really shine. The 99% additional damage is quite noticeable in most situations. Additionally, you’ll never run out of ammunition as long as there are enough enemies in front of you.
Especially with the masterpiece version, you can easily maintain a 5-stack of Curse of Rain and mow down entire hordes of enemies without ever lifting a finger off the trigger or pressing the reload button.
Furthermore, the Super also charges significantly faster. The regeneration time of a complete Super is roughly halved when using the weapon with sufficient enemies, and that without Super mods on your armor.
All three Guardian classes can benefit greatly from this; Bad Juju opens up various interesting build possibilities. Additionally, legendary grenade launchers are currently a strong alternative for the power slot, allowing Bad Juju to be confidently carried in the primary slot without sacrificing much firepower.
Especially for solo players, this weapon is very valuable, allowing them to use their Super more frequently, thus significantly enhancing their offensive power or survivability (depending on the Super). There are certainly many exotic weapons that are deadlier and more effective when it comes to pure firepower – especially against bosses.
However, none of these weapons charges your Super as quickly as Bad Juju. And Supers can be crucial at the right moment – whether solo, in a team, in a raid, Nightfall, Menagerie, or Gambit.
In PvE, Bad Juju may not be a DPS monster, but it is certainly a worthwhile exotic alternative in many situations, opening up numerous new build possibilities, and could become a popular companion for solo players.
What Bad Juju can do in PvP
While Bad Juju feels good in the Crucible in terms of handling, the weapon is clearly geared towards PvE.
You can only benefit from the damage increase through Curse of Rain to a limited extent. For maximum damage, you need to get 5 kills in quick succession with the weapon, which is likely to happen very rarely. And 1 to 2 stacks rarely provide the hoped-for advantage.
Furthermore, like many other pulse rifles with lightweight frames, it suffers from a lack of range. Within its optimal range, which is short to medium distance, it performs strongly. However, at medium to long range, you will likely always come up short against many hand cannons or even other pulse rifles with better ranges, such as Perfected Outbreak, in direct duels.
While you can charge your Super faster with kills, you sacrifice a stronger option in the primary slot. Here, each player must decide for themselves whether they can get more kills through the more frequent use of the Super or with another weapon.
In PvP, Bad Juju is a good pulse rifle (TTK 0.87 seconds), but just one of many. It can rarely benefit from its exotic perk (even as a masterpiece), so it is not really better than legendary competition. However, Bad Juju takes up the valuable exotic slot, which would be better filled by many other alternatives in the Crucible.
You can find a detailed review of Bad Juju in this video by Aztecross Gaming:
Have you already earned Bad Juju and perhaps fully leveled the catalyst? What impression has the weapon left on you and what experiences have you had with it?
