Hey everyone, Librarian Husky here! Aberant Action, the weapon everyone was waiting for in Act 2 of the Final Shape launch, had us all excited when we discovered there were two new Rocket sidearms. Chris Proctor had mentioned these a few months back. One of them, The Call, became an instant favorite, especially during the Day One raid. We’ve got a review on it if you’re interested. But the other Rocket sidearm we stumbled upon was Aberant Action.

The Launch and Initial Disappointment

To our dismay, we couldn’t actually get it yet. We found out that this weapon, among others, were time-gated until the release of Act 2. But with Act 2 finally launched, we can now acquire what we’ve waited on for so long. Today, we’re going to be looking at this sidearm in all of its glory.

Analyzing Aberant Action

We’ll analyze every piece of this new Rocket sidearm to find out what the God roll is and if it can compare to both The Call and, of course, Eded Kindness. By the way, if you want to check out our guide on how to obtain this weapon in the most efficient manner, at least for this week, feel free to check out our Act 2 guide.

Perks in Column Three

With that being said, let’s dive into the Perks. In column three, we have Strategists, Pugilist, Field Beacon, Rout’s Thread Detector, Ambitious Assassin, and Hill Clip.

Perks in Column Four

In our fourth column, we have Snapshot, Harmony, Golden Tricorn, Demolitionist, Swashbuckler, Reverberation, and Incandescent. Now, starting off with the third column, we have a number of juicy Perks that are all enhanceable.

Crafting and Personal Picks

Because this weapon is craftable now, my personal picks are Strategist, Pugilist, Ambitious Assassin, and of course, Hill Clip.

Ability Regeneration Perks

First up, we have Strategist, which reads that final blows of this weapon generate class ability energy. Activating your class ability briefly improves this weapon’s stability. The numbers here are 10% ability energy per kill, with the enhanced version cranking this up to 11%. We often include these ability regeneration Perks when reviewing weapons because, quite frankly, they’re just good. Depending on your build, a perk like Strategist can make it much more potent.

Pugilist and Its Benefits

Pugilist is the same way but instead contributes to melee energy. These Perks are very potent, especially on Aberant Action. Between both of these Perks, you have the opportunity, depending on your build, to net yourself 11% with the enhanced versions to either your class ability or your melee. As someone who rocks a melee-based build, especially on Titan, this is very good for me.

Ambitious Assassin

Our next perk that I want to look at is Ambitious Assassin. This reads that you overflow the magazine based on the number of rapid kills before reloading. This perk overflows our mag up to 150% of our base mag. To get the max overflow, you’ll need to get eight kills within seven seconds, with special weapon kills counting for 20% each.

Enhanced Version Benefits

The enhanced version gives us plus five reload and extends the window to 8 seconds. For instance, on Aber Action with a max size of 12, we can actually top out at 30, which is an incredible number considering the ammo used to score the eight kills. You could put more than half of your entire reserves into one magazine. If you’re looking for a way to never reload, this is it.

Hill Clip Perk

For our last perk in the column, which is all about reloading, we have Hill Clip. This perk states that reloading shortly after dealing a final blow grants cure to you and nearby allies. Many of us have come to love this perk, and for good reason. Upon reloading after a kill, you’ll instantly proc Cure Time Two for yourself and also Cure Time One for nearby allies. That is an instant 120 HP to yourself and 60 HP to your teammates.

Enhanced Hill Clip Version

The enhanced version of Hill Clip simply increases the window between getting the kill and then proccing your reload. This perk is fantastic on weapons like Helios-Centric. I love it on Darkest Before, Time Worn Spire, Luna’s Howl, you name it. And here on Aber Action, that’s no different.

Fourth Column Perks

Now this takes us to our fourth column. I’ve narrowed down these Perks to three: Demolitionist, Reverberation, and Incandescence. Let’s start with Demolitionist. As we’ve already spoken about its counterparts, this is where kills with this weapon generate grenade energy, and activating your grenade ability reloads this weapon from reserves.

Demolitionist Perk

Kills generate 10% grenade energy here, with the enhanced version giving us 11% energy. You have a special sidearm that does a tremendous amount of damage and has the ability to roll perk combinations like Strategist and Demolitionist, and Pugilist and Demolitionist. You’re able to double down on your ability regeneration here, and that’s a perk combination we can’t overlook.

Reverberation Perk

Next, we have Reverberation. This perk may be unfamiliar to you, and that’s fine; it’s a new one but has been out since the release of Final Shape. It states that final blows of this weapon increase the size of its detonation for a short duration. I’ve used this on weapons like L-Signal and Faithkeeper, but neither of those weapons felt different with this perk. Aberant Action here does feel a bit better, but you’re not going to see any rocket-sized explosions.

Reverberation Perk Details

Specifically, the buff lasts for 5.5 seconds and is refreshed with each kill. As for the size increase, it looks to be about double our blast radius. You can see the shot hit for 8,280 with the perk active and 4,228 without Reverberation being proc’d. The enhanced Reverberation bumps that buff timer to 6 seconds. Think of this perk as a way of increasing its AOE effect, which is pretty handy in game modes like Battlegrounds where enemies are right on top of each other.

Incandescent Perk

I know many of you are going to be looking at Incandescent, a fan-favorite perk. Defeating a target spreads Scorch to those nearby, and more powerful enemies and opposing Guardians cause Scorch in a larger radius. On every kill, we get a 4-meter explosion that deals light damage and applies 30 Scorch stacks. High-tier enemies will increase that AOE to 8 meters.

Enhanced Incandescent Version

The enhanced version of Incandescent only matters when Ember of Ashes is equipped. In this case, the explosion will apply 30 plus 15 stacks of Scorch, which is really nice. Incandescent is up there as one of the best Perks of all time. While many of us have The Call with things like Hatchling and Eded Kindness with Volt Shot, Aberant Action fits right in here with Incandescent as one of the best Perks to synergize with your subclass while simultaneously increasing our ability to clear ads.

Origin Traits and Minor Perks

Before delving into the God roll and our comparison to those other sidearms, we also need to look at its origin traits and minor Perks. The origin trait is Radiolarian Transposer, and it reads that rapid final blows cause targets to explode into a pool of radiolarian fluid. This is a very good origin trait, which can cause an explosion very similar to Incandescent after three rapid kills.

Incandescent Activation

The answer to whether it can proc things like Incandescent again is unfortunately no. It does not proc Incandescent from the pool kills, which I know is a bummer. It’s still a great origin trait, though. It’s extra damage, and you have artifact mods that build into it even more, so I highly advise you to take advantage of it.

The God Roll for Aberant Action

This brings us to what we believe the God roll is for Aberant Action. There are several ways you can really outfit this weapon. Personally, this is one of those situations where I need multiple roles. I need one role purely for ability regeneration, with Perks like Strategist or Pugilist with Demolitionist, treating this sidearm as a secondary weapon for topping off my abilities.

Ability Regeneration Build

Most of my builds revolve around utilizing my abilities more than my weapons these days, due to the fact that Prismatic is so lethal. Having a weapon perfectly positioned to top off those abilities in the world of Prismatic is extremely valuable. You don’t have to solely commit to pure ability regeneration. You could still run Strategist and Pugilist with, say, Incandescent, giving you a weapon that’s very good at clearing ads while also topping off those abilities, and in some cases, topping those abilities off even faster.

Hill Clip and Incandescent Build

I greatly love weapons like Helios-Centric that include Hill Clip and Incandescent. This is perfect for my folks building into Solar, and it’s also perfect for anybody just trying to stay alive. Hill Clip is very good, and I found myself even in Battlegrounds needing to rely on Hill Clip to get me out of a pinch. That extra 120 HP that you can instantly pull off with the sidearm is huge.

God Roll Recommendation

For the weapon itself, not including building into your ability regeneration, Prismatic builds, or neutral game builds, I think the God roll is Quick Launch for that increase in velocity, Tactical Mag for the larger magazine and reload benefits, then Hill Clip plus Incandescent. What’s crazy is that I’m still probably going to utilize multiple rolls on this sidearm.

Comparison to Other Rocket Sidearms

You may be wondering how Aberant Action compares to our other Rocket sidearms. The answer is quite well. I think most people can agree that Eded Kindness is probably the best of the bunch; Volt Shot adds simply too much extra lethality. But even with that fact, I still find myself using The Call probably more than Eded Kindness, at least recently.

Base Form Effectiveness

This is a good weapon even in its base form. In a one-to-one comparison, it just comes down to which one fits your loadout better. The Call and Aberant Action do have one leg up on Eded Kindness, and that’s the ability to interface with the artifact mods.

Synergy with Artifact Mods

The Call has the ability to synergize with Threaded Blasts. This allows our Tangles to be much more lethal when you destroy them with a Strand weapon. This mod brings a normal Tangle explosion from 18,529 damage to a whopping 49,492 damage when adding those two extra damage instances. Similarly, Aberant Action now synergizes with Solar Fulmination. This mod increases the size and damage of ignitions and will work with Incandescent, which will increase ignition damage from 36,210 to a whopping 45,330. Additionally, there’s another damage instance, which is the 9,120 that we’ve added here.

Eded Kindness Comparison

Meanwhile, Eded Kindness doesn’t do much with the artifact now. Who knows, next season or the next episode, we may be leaning heavily into Arc, and suddenly Eded Kindness is going to take the lead. With that being said, though, in my opinion, I think it’s a pretty even playing field as of now, and Aberant Action is clearly hanging with our other special sidearms.

Final Thoughts

This is a great weapon with a number of fantastic Perks. It’s craftable, but unfortunately, you cannot focus for it this week as it is time-gated. However, as detailed by our guide, there are ways to get Echo Engrams very fast, and in my opinion, this may be a weapon worth sinking a Deepsight Harmonizer for. For my PvP players, use something else. Thank you all for reading, and as always, take care!

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