Whether you are a veteran or a beginner to Destiny 2, submachine guns are a great choice of weapon to invest your time into. A lot of SMGs did not make it onto this list purely because they could not keep up range-wise and the damage fall-off just meant losing too often in exchanges. SMGs as a whole received a buff across the board to make them more viable in PvP and to make them more desirable, with them quickly becoming one of the most used weapon types in Destiny 2’s current meta.
Like all lists about weapons, these might not be the penultimate best choices for everyone, meaning players will need to experiment and test weapons to see which ones complement their play style and determine which ones work best for them.
10 IKELOS
Fans of Aggressive frame weapons will want to give the IKELOS some attention. The stability and damage falloff of SMGs should be improved, and thanks to the perks offered by this weapon, such a task is easily accomplished. By using the Seraph Rounds perk, it reduces damage falloff by 10% and this can be a decisive factor if you want your opponent to go down first. This gun is in the world drop loot pool, so you can find one yourself by just playing the game and completing some of the challenges.
9 Hero’s Burden
Just like IKELOS, The Hero’s Burden has had several versions over the course of the game’s lifespan. This version is not as impressive as the second incarnation, but combining Iron Reach with Fragile Focus is enough to make the numbers show that this gun does perform better in precision than a lot of other SMGs, and what it comes down to is not how many bells and whistles make a weapon sound impressive, it’s how effective it is when you take it out into a real experience.
This Submachine gun was added back in Season of the Chosen and was originally obtained through a loot table for Battlegrounds. The way to obtain it has since been moved, and players will now need to purchase it from Xur.
A nice array of perks and solid base range make it a good option for fans of SMG gameplay. Players should pick up Firmly Planted to help with stability, so they can effectively maneuver around a map without too much penalty from performing a slide.
7 Multimach CCX
Range is a very big factor in the game, as being able to hit your opponent effectively from further away and with less damage fall-off, means they will go down first. This is one of the weapons that saw its zoom get reduced, but that didn’t stop it from being so good that it still snagged a high spot among SMGs. Using perks can drive up its range at the cost of stability, but once you get used to that lower stability, this weapon becomes one you can dominate with.
6 The Huckleberry
First off, this weapon’s old-timey wood and polished gold look is just elegant and worth noting. This exotic has the Ride The Bull perk, which will increase the rate of fire and recoil while you hold down the trigger, and kills with this weapon will reload a portion of its magazine. When the developers reworked some of the game’s features, they wanted to make the entire weapon class slightly better, and this pushed The Huckleberry into a very good place in terms of its range. If you want one, good old Xur has got your back.
5 Enyo-D
This weapon has some great zoom right off the bat, and its thermo scope will light up your targets, making them easier to discern from their surroundings. There are many ways to build this gun, there is the tried and true method of building towards range, but there are also some less orthodox yet surprisingly fun perk combinations to be found with this weapon. Enyo-D has earned its spot on our list thanks to its solid combination of good perks and range. If you want to get one and not wait around for a world drop, save up those legendary engrams and dismantle gear with Banshee-44 while watching for the chance they have it for sale.
4 Borrowed Time
This entry has a very large pool of perks for each column, meaning it will be hard to get one that perfectly fits what you’re looking for. Once you get the range stats up, Borrowed Time becomes one of the longest-ranged submachine guns in Destiny 2.
This entry is one that will take longer to farm than some of the others. A reason for this is that you have to acquire it through playing Gambit matches. However, the developers have since added the option to acquire it through the use of spending engrams, which can reduce the time it takes to get your hands on one.
3 Shayura’s Wrath
This weapon is the perfect introduction for competitive AR players wanting to go into SMGs. You can build it so that it has the range of an AR to get a feel for the gun or build it so it does what SMGs do best, helping bridge the difference in feel. This weapon has a deep pool of perks, further increasing the versatility of how you can build it and what works best for you. It saw a nerf a while back, but that nerf doesn’t seem to have done much to negatively affect it.
2 The Immortal
This submachine gun is everything you want in a submachine gun; solid stats that can be built to range and stability for the exact numbers you need. Having access to the perfect combination of perks can make it a beast in combat, especially when you combine the Target Lock, Full Bore, and Rangefinder perks. This gives it great range, and the longer the weapon stays on its intended target, the higher the damage output will be. This is a weapon you can farm through the Trials of Osiris matches. Once you get one, brush up on your PvP skills because this is something you’ll want to show off.
1 Tarrabah
Exotics are not inherently better than Legendaries, as many new players think due to them being rarer to come by and being yellow. Exotics have a uniqueness to them and sometimes this does not measure up to the raw numbers that some Legendaries just dominate over them with. That is not the case for the monster that is Tarrabah.
When you take or dish out damage, this gun stores power, and later allows you to trigger the Ravenous Beast ability. This ability will boost several aspects, that when tallied up together, will significantly increase your total damage output while it’s active. You will lose half of your stored power if you swap weapons, so it is best to prioritize continuously using Tarrabah as much as possible.