Compact Defender is one of the Star Wars-styled weapons in Destiny 2‘s Renegades, but there’s a lot more to it than just style. This sidearm’s god roll and archetype make it particularly deadly across both PvE and PvP.
As one of the first batch of heat weapons in the game, Compact Defender doesn’t use a traditional magazine. Instead, it generates heat and cools down, giving it a highly coveted advantage. If you’re quick on the draw, you can also land perfect vents, which let you fire longer.
Looking at its perk pool, this sidearm is not the type of gun that gets you to pick between four or five good options per column, but what it does offer is more than enough to get the job done. Here are our Compact Defender god rolls in Destiny 2, based on perk data from d2foundry.gg.
Compact Defender PvE god rolls in Destiny 2
- Barrel: Polygonal Rifling, Smallbore, or Corkscrew Rifling
- Magazine: Enhanced Heatsink or Overclocked Heatsink
- First perk: Destabilizing Rounds or Proximity Power
- Second perk: Repulsor Brace, Desperate Measures, or Frenzy
- Honorable mention: Swashbuckler
The power of the Void brings out Compact Defender’s best qualities, and its god roll is tied to this arcane element. Destabilizing Rounds is a natural pick even if you’re not running Void: final blows create an area-of-effect that applies Volatile, making it easy to chain kills.
If you’re going up close and personal, melee-based builds will benefit from Proximity Power. With this perk, kills while near enemies grant you a bonus to the Melee stat. Sidearms are close-ranged weapons by default, so you’ll get plenty of uptime with this perk.
The rest of the choices here aren’t anything too special. Cooling Baubles and Delicate Tuning are exclusive to heat weapons, but they’re actually counterproductive here. You can keep your weapon cooled just fine if you chain perfect reloads for the intrinsic Dynamic Heat Limiter buff, so the former is out. Delicate Tuning is more PvP-focused, so it doesn’t belong here either. Hip-Fire Grip and Built to Blast can’t compete with Destabilizing Rounds, especially not with the state of primaries in Renegades.
The fourth column has more than a few solid choices. Repulsor Brace is the obvious one, especially with access to Destabilizing Rounds. This tried-and-true Void combo grants you overshields in any subclass, so it’s the natural pairing in our god roll.
For more damage, however, Compact Defender brings Desperate Measures, Kill Clip, and Frenzy, all giving you bigger numbers through different avenues. Desperate Measures stacks on any weapon or ability final blow, Kill Clip requires you to get a kill with this weapon, and Frenzy triggers just by being in combat for 12 seconds.
Swashbuckler rears its head as an honorable mention in our god roll because melee builds can benefit from it, especially with Proximity Power. Desperate Measures works similarly and for any ability, however.
Compact Defender PvP god rolls in Destiny 2
- Barrel: Smallbore, Hammer-Forged Rifling, or Corkscrew Rifling
- Magazine: Tactical Heatsink, Projection Fuse, or Light Heatsink
- First perk: Rangefinder or Delicate Tuning
- Second perk: Precision Instrument or Kill Clip
Compact Defender also gets a couple of solid options for PvP, leaning into the fact that it’s a powerful weapon up close. Rangefinder squeezes a little bit of extra range to make it more comfortable in its element, while Delicate Tuning gives you some range, handling, and accuracy on the top half of your magazine. It’s up to personal preference here.
The second perk column has two good options for the Crucible. Kill Clip is a classic, bumping up your damage after a kill. Precision Instrument gives you more crit damage when landing headshots, so in the hands of a skilled player, that one is also deadly.
How to get Compact Defender in Destiny 2
Compact Defender drops from Renegades activities in Destiny 2, though you can also guarantee copies of this weapon in the Tharsis Outpost. One of the vendors sells tier four rolls of this weapon for Credits, with odds of it being tier five with some luck.
To farm Compact Defender, get to max rank with any Syndicate to unlock Spider’s tier upgrade, potentially giving you tier five drops on every Lawless Frontier completion in Grandmaster difficulty. Using keycards and completing bonus objectives can also drop extractables, which may contain weapons.
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