Destiny 2 The Recluse Guide – How To Get It, Curated Roll, And God Roll

Destiny 2‘s free Into the Light content drop is now live, and with it comes a new version of The Recluse, one of the best submachine guns the game has ever seen. Formerly a tough gun to earn that required finishing a lengthy player-vs.-player quest, The Recluse was among several guns that were sunset before the Beyond Light expansion that are now making a comeback in Into the Light. The Recluse is one of a dozen weapons that make up the Brave arsenal, returning to the game with new perks and adjustments after years out of players’ hands.

Unlike the old Recluse, the Brave arsenal version comes with random perk rolls, giving it a variety of different properties. Of course, there’s always a roll or two that are considered the very best, though–the god roll. Here’s everything you need to know to get your hands on The Recluse in Into the Light and which rolls you’ll want to keep.

How To Get The Recluse

When you first head to the Hall of Champions at the start of Into the Light, you’ll pick up a quest from Shaxx that will fill you in on the basics. There are 12 weapons in the Brave arsenal, and you’ll have access to six of them from the start, with more unlocking over time. The Recluse is in that first batch, which means you can earn it either as a reward for playing the new Onslaught activity, or by turning in Trophies of Bravery, a new currency you earn from Onslaught, in the Hall of Champions.

So the simplest way to get The Recluse is to just play Onslaught, the new wave-based defense activity, and hope the gun drops from the chests that appear periodically as you go. With just a few weapons available now in the activity, there’s a high chance random versions of The Recluse will drop pretty quickly.

However, the Recluses that you can get from Onslaught have randomized perks, meaning they might not be the best versions of the gun. To chase down a god roll of the submachine gun, you’ll need to farm these random rolls. However, it’s also possible to attune your rewards to receive The Recluse more often, and to unlock a curated version of the gun, as well.

How To Unlock The Curated Recluse And Attunement

All the Brave arsenal weapons have dedicated quests that make it easier to earn more rolls of them, as well as to unlock their curated versions. To gain access to those quests, you’ll have to work your way through the Feats of Strength quest you get from Lord Shaxx when you first start the Into the Light content.

The quest will take you into the Onslaught activity, and once you’ve completed a run, it’ll unlock your ability to take weapon-specific quests from Shaxx’s right-hand bot, Arcite 99-40. Speak with the robot and you’ll first have to complete the Stranger Danger quest, which awards you with Elsie’s Rifle. It’s not too particularly difficult–we got it within two 10-wave runs of Onslaught by focusing on the objective requiring pulse rifle precision kills.

Once you’ve completed Stranger Danger and returned to Shaxx, you’ll be able to unlock other quests from Arcite 99-40 for each of the currently unlocked Brave arsenal weapons. You can take them all at the same time, but you’ll want to focus on Recluse Endangerment.

As with Stranger Danger, the Recluse Endangerment quest has two different ways of completing it:

• Rapidly defeat 400 enemies in total with submachine guns, with bonus progress for enemies defeated in Onslaught, or:
• Defeat 50 Guardians with submachine guns.

Once you finish Recluse Endangerment, you’ll be able to attune your Onslaught drops so that you’re more likely to receive The Recluse from activity rewards and from Trophies of Bravery chests. To attune to The Recluse, visit the hologram of Lord Shaxx holding the gun in the Hall of Champions.

When you complete the quest, you’ll also receive a curated version of the gun that is also Masterworked. This isn’t necessarily the god roll version of The Recluse, but it’s one that Bungie considers to be both very powerful and in keeping with the weapon’s classic feel.

The Recluse Curated Perks

• Barrel: Polygonal Rifling
• Magazine: Ricochet Rounds
  • Rounds ricochet off surfaces. Increases Stability; slightly increases Range
• First Column: Feeding Frenzy
  • Rapid kills with this weapon increase its reload speed for a short time
• Second Column: Master of Arms
  • Kills with any weapon increase this weapon’s damage for a short time
• Origin Perk: Indomitability
  • Kills with this weapon provide grenade energy if you’re using a Light subclass, or melee energy if you’re using a Dark subclass

The Recluse God Rolls

When it was last a major force in Destiny 2, The Recluse was best known as a powerful player-vs.-player weapon, thanks to its fast firing speed and high stability. It paired extremely well with The Mountaintop, since its laser beam-like fire made it easy to mop up an enemy you’d damaged but not killed with the grenade launcher.

With its new slate of perks, The Recluse is great in both the Crucible and activities across the solar system, but it might be a better player-vs.-environment weapon these days than it is for PvP. As a Void gun, it carries some pretty useful synergy perks for Void builds, like Repulsor Brace and Destabilizing Rounds, making it great for mowing down tons of enemies while maintaining your Void debuffs and overshields.

In PvP, however, The Recluse will still serve you well for putting a lot of rounds into Guardians very quickly. Stability is still key here; you want to hit with as much of The Recluse’s magazine as possible, and since it fires so fast, misses due to recoil can be punishing. As always, Range should also be a major consideration for your PvP rolls, but that’s especially true with The Recluse since submachine guns lose effectiveness at shorter ranges than auto rifles and pulse rifles.

The Recluse PvE God Roll

• Barrel: Arrowhead Break or Corkscrew Rifling
  • Arrowhead Break: +10 Handling
  • Corkscrew Rifling: +5 Stability, +5 Range, +5 Handling
• Magazine: High-Caliber Rounds or Armor-Piercing Rounds
  • High-Caliber Rounds: Shots from this weapon knock targets back farther +5 Range
  • Armor-Piercing Rounds: Causes extra damage to enemy shields and overpenetrates targets, +5 Range
• First Perk: Subsistence or Repulsor Brace
  • Subsistence: Each kill partially reloads the magazine from reserves
  • Repulsor Brace: Killing Void-debuffed targets grants an overshield
• Second Perk: Desperate Measures, Master of Arms, or Destabilizing Rounds
  • Desperate Measures: Kills with this weapon grant bonus damage; melee and grenade kills grant a larger bonus that can stack
  • Master of Arms: Kills with all weapons grant improve this weapon’s damage for a short period of time
  • Destabilizing Rounds: Final blows cause nearby targets to become Volatile

You get a lot of solid options for The Recluse in PvE, so the god roll here depends a bit on your needs and loadout. For the straight murder option in all cases, Subsistence and Desperate Measures or Master of Arms are great. Subsistence keeps your gun reloaded as you blast through enemies, and Desperate Measures or Master of Arms keeps your damage against those targets boosted up.

If you want to pair The Recluse with a Void build, though, you might consider Repulsor Brace and Destabilizing Rounds. The latter is great when you’re shooting into a crowd because you can make lots of enemies Volatile. Kill them to activate Repulsor Brace and give yourself an overshield. Paired with other Void synergies, one or both of those perks can help provide a lot of uptime for your Void buffs and debuffs.

The Recluse PvP God Roll

• Barrel: Extended Barrel
• Magazine: Ricochet Rounds
• First Perk: Dynamic Sway Reduction
  • Improves accuracy, stability, and precision hit targeting while the trigger is held
• Second Perk: Tap the Trigger or Master of Arms
  • Tap the Trigger: Grants a short period of increased stability and accuracy upon initial trigger pull
  • Master of Arms: Kills with all weapons grant improve this weapon’s damage for a short period

There are a few good options for the PvP version of The Recluse, but you’ll generally want to lean on having the most stability and accuracy possible, giving you the best ability to land a lot of shots quickly to take down opponents. Dynamic Sway Reduction and Tap the Trigger give you added stability both when you first start firing and as you hold down the trigger. Alternatively, The Recluse has some solid damage-boosting options. Master of Arms is a downgraded version of the gun’s original perk, but it’s still a solid option, as is Target Lock, which boosts The Recluse’s damage the longer you hold it on a target–which can be great if you’re good at landing your shots.

You might also want to check out our guide for getting the craftable Exotic sniper rifle Whisper of the Worm, and learn about the new Prismatic subclass coming with The Final Shape expansion.