Destiny Guide: When to Equip High-Caliber Rounds
By Weston Albert 15 January 2017
Destiny‘s High-Caliber Round perk has more to it than meets the eye, being highly effective on some weapons while being practically useless on others.
If there’s one weapon perk in Destiny that has become extremely popular it’s High-Caliber Rounds. The perk has been around for a while, but it was only with the release of the Clever Dragon pulse rifle during Iron Banner in November that players started to really take notice. In fact, one of the most desired rolls on the pulse included High-Caliber Rounds, which increases the amount of flinch an enemy player experiences when being shot.
With a fast-firing pulse rifle like Clever Dragon or Grasp of Malok, High-Caliber Rounds can be extremely effective, disorienting the aim of an enemy and helping win gunfights in the Crucible. But, Destiny fans have been doing some research, and have found that the High-Caliber Rounds perk is only effective on certain weapons, and is completely useless on others.
This was tested by Destiny YouTuber Patrick Casey, who found that High-Caliber Rounds makes a noticeable difference when it is equipped on pulse rifles and auto rifles. The perk will send the enemy’s reticle much higher than usual, but only when hit by a pulse or auto rifle. He noticed that the perk did nothing when using it on hand cannons or on scout rifles. In fact, when an enemy is hit with High-Caliber Rounds from a hand cannon, it will actually knock the reticle up and then back down to center screen.
Despite that testing, many Destiny players have still been seeking out the perk on scout rifles, believing it to have a major effect. That could be due to the fact that the exotic scout rifle MIDA Multi-Tool used to have High-Caliber Rounds as an intrinsic (or hidden) perk, and its effects in increasing flinch were very noticeable.
A Reddit user by the name of gintellectual posted some findings on the Destiny subreddit to finally prove that High-Caliber Rounds have no effect on scout rifles. Similar to how the perk works on hand cannons, it appears High-Caliber Rounds on scout rifles may actually be more detrimental to the user than not having it. What he found was that the perk creates a straighter, up-and-down flinch, which is easier to correct than a flinch with horizontal movement (like on pulse and auto rifles).
So while High-Caliber Rounds may be highly effective and a good choice for pulse rifles and auto rifles, it is best to avoid the perk on hand cannons and scout rifles. That is, unless Bungie issues a new weapon balancing patch some time in the future that makes it a more effective perk on these weapon classes. But chances are Bungie would be more likely to nerf the perk’s effect than to improve it.
Destiny: Rise of Iron is out now on PS4 and Xbox One.
