The D.F.A. is solely tied to the Nightfall activity. Yet, it’s not as simple as playing the Nightfall activity until one drops. Weapons specifically tied to this activity rotate in availability every week. Meaning, that there will be some weeks when you cannot get this hand cannon, and some when you can. Sometimes Bungie removes them out of the Nightfall pool for entire seasons.
Additionally, the difficulty of the Nightfall will determine the drop rate for this gun. This means that if you play on the Adept difficulty, you’ll have a much slimmer chance of obtaining a D.F.A. than if you complete a Master Nightfall. Below are all the Nightfall difficulty options and the rarity of the weapons tied to it:
- Adept – Rare
- Hero – Uncommon
- Legend – Common
- Master – Common
- Grandmaster – Common (Adept Variants Only)
Keep in mind that if you want the Adept variant of D.F.A., you need to play the Grandmaster version when this gun is available. If this sounds like you’ll be jumping through a lot of hoops, you kind of are. It’s not a terribly eloquent system, but it’s the only way to earn this gun. At the time of writing this article, you cannot craft the hand cannon since no gun patterns exist for it. You are entirely reliant on RNG for getting a “god roll.”
D.F.A. God Rolls
D.F.A. PVE God Roll
- Smallbore
- Tactical Mag or Appended Mag
- Triple Tap or Outlaw
- Rampage or Vorpal Weapon
The D.F.A. rolls are classic Destiny 2, maybe to a fault. There aren’t any new or intriguing perks that will synergize with a specific build or ability. This weapon is all about the classic combo of reloading faster and doing more damage. In the barrel sloot, I am going with Smallbore to give us a +7 boost to range and stability. As for your magazine, I suggest either Tactical Mag or Appended Mag. Tactical is my preferred choice since it not only gives us an extra round in the magazine but increases our reload speed and stability.
As for the primary perks, you will want Triple Tap or Outlaw in the first slot. Triple Tap lets us get three extra rounds if you land every shot, while Outlaw speeds up our reload upon precision kills. Both are good, so it really comes down to which perk suits your playstyle. I personally like Outlaw because it’s more consistent, but Triple Tap is great if you pair it with a perk like Vorpal Weapon. Alternatively, you can just use Rampage to increase the D.F.A.’s damage after each kill. Yes, it’s not exactly exciting, but Outlaw/Rampage has been a classic perk combo since the game was released.
D.F.A. PVP God Roll
- Hammer-Forged Rifling
- Accurized Rounds
- Perpetual Motion or Fragile Focus
- Opening Shot
Look there are just objectively better hand cannons you can use in the Kinetic slot for PVP. However, if you are determined to bring the D.F.A. into the Crucible it does have a pretty solid god roll. Unsurprisingly, I will be focusing on buffing this weapon’s range stat so it can contest with long-range options like No Time to Explain which is dominating the meta. Combined, these two perks give us a +20 to the range, increasing this stat to 65.
In the primary perk slots, your first choice should either be Perpetual Motion or Fragile Focus. I’ve always been a big fan of Perpetual Motion since Destiny 2 is a very mobile game, which allows most users to always have this perk triggered. Fragile Focus is also a curious perk, as it can further increase our range. The catch is we need to take damage first, which is a little risky in PVP since the time to kill is so low. Regardless of which perk you pick; you’ll want Opening Shot in the second slot. It’s a PVP all-star that is definitely a best-in-slot option for hand cannons.
Even though I think there are better options exist the combo of Perpetual Motion and Opening Shot makes this weapon quite scary in the Crucible.
