Good day! It’s Librarian Husky. In front of us today is a classic, the Exotic Auto rifle Kastoff. I would argue that this is probably the most iconic weapon in Destiny. It’s the first weapon that a Guardian starts with. Even back at Destiny 1, we had an exotic version which was a hybrid of every single archetype. Personally, I thought the Exotic version back in Destiny 1 really wasn’t that good, but Bungie has brought it back in Destiny 2, and it is way different than its Destiny 1 exotic variants.

Basic Characteristics

Let’s get some basics out of the way. This is a 600 round per minute Auto rifle, placing it in the Adaptive frame archetype. Something clever that Bungie has done here with Kastoff is centered everything around the number seven. Its exotic traits have a Ricochet effect every seventh bullet, and its other exotic perk increases that Ricochet effect and can stack up to seven times. Interestingly, its stats also feature the number seven extensively: 47 range, 47 stability, 71 handling, 79 reload, 87 aim assist, 17 zoom, 27 airborne effectiveness, and 97 recoil direction.

Exotic Perks

Starting with our perks, we have the intrinsic exotic trait “The Right Choice,” which reads: every seventh bullet from this weapon deals additional damage and ricochets to nearby targets. Its secondary exotic perk is called “Eyes Up, Guardian,” a callback indeed. This one reads that collecting Orbs of power strengthens this weapon’s next several Ricochet shots, providing more damage and more bounces between targets.

Additional Features

That’s not everything that Kastoff has to offer. We also have another perk on this, and that’s “Shoot the Loot.” Shooting an orb of power picks it up; shooting an ammo brick picks it up and automatically reloads all your equipped weapons from reserves. This plays beautifully into the role of picking up an orb, enhancing the weapon’s strength upon picking up that orb of power. This synergizes beautifully with “Shoot the Loot,” as you can essentially shoot the Orbs as well as shoot ammo.

Weapon Perks and Performance

If you want to know about other perks, we have Hammer Forge rifling as our barrel perk, Alloy Magazine for our mag perk giving us that 85 reload duration multiplier when your mag is empty, and we also have Confident Stock for that plus five stability and plus five handling, which of course helps round out that seven number in our stats. Most of you are probably thinking, “Just give it to me, man. How good is that Ricochet effect?” This one’s pretty interesting. You see, the “Right Choice” perk allows every seventh bullet from this weapon to deal additional damage and will then Ricochet to nearby targets.

Detailed Damage Analysis

We did our testing here, and against red-bar enemies at base, we’re dealing 1,614 damage to the body and 2,516 damage to the head. Now, when that seventh bullet activates, giving us that increase in damage, this jumps things up substantially: its body shot damage goes up to 5,690, a 22% increase in damage, and for our crits, this jumps up to 8,869 damage. So, that same 252% increase, but these are substantial jumps.

At this point, the bullet would then Ricochet to nearby targets, which in our testing was showing 663 damage if it Ricochets to the body, which again is another 275% increase over base, and then a massive 1,215 damage if the Ricochet hits a crit, which is a whopping 384% increase in damage.

Testing and Observations

I do want to mention that a lot of this footage involved me literally just shooting these weapons over and over, just kind of getting a feel for them on the fly. Then, after the capture event, we can go back through the footage. So a lot of this is like looking back and also remembering when I played with the weapon. There are a lot of things happening here that we have to slow down to take a look at. Based on our footage, this seems to only Ricochet twice. Another thing to note is that the increased damage that the seventh bullet gets can be affected by damage fall-off, but it seems the Ricochet shot itself will keep its full damage even if outside of range. Now, the secondary exotic perk is where things get a little weird.

Orb of Power and Ricochet Dynamics

We have here again states that collecting Orbs of power strengthens this weapon’s next several Ricochet shots, providing more damage and more bounces between targets. Once a single orb of power is picked up, right above your super meter, it’ll say “Eyes Up, Guardian, x7.” Each time a Ricochet round is shot, that charge decreases down to six, then down to five, until you run out or pick up another orb to get back up to seven stacks. While “Eyes Up, Guardian” is proed, this seems to allow your bullet to Ricochet seven times per activation, which aligns with the theme of this exotic.

Damage Analysis with “Eyes Up, Guardian”

The part I don’t really understand is the extra damage part. I wasn’t noticing any extra damage when the bullet ricocheted and I had “Eyes Up, Guardian” proed; it was still dealing the same 6,603 to the body when it would Ricochet. I think maybe it can’t land that massive Ricochet crit if you don’t have “Eyes Up, Guardian” pro, but that isn’t the case either, as I have footage showing me dealing 12,185 crit damage without the perk even being proed. So, I’m not sure what that part of the description is supposed to mean; maybe it simply means because the bullet can Ricochet, therefore giving it more total damage since it’s ricocheting 10 times as opposed to once or twice.

Further Testing and Observations

This is definitely something we’re going to need to circle back to once we get the full release, but this is what I’ve been able to observe with Kostov from my PlayStation, just combing through this footage. I also tested if there was a way to increase the damage here on Kasta, and the answer is yes, but also no. I put on one Kinetic surge mod, which should be netting us a 10% increase in damage.

This, of course, works on our base auto rifle shots and also increases the damage of our seventh bullet, taking it from 5,690 damage per body shot to 6,259. However, Kinetic surge mods do not buff our actual Ricochet shots, which is super unfortunate. These were still dealing their normal 663 to the body and 12,185 to the head, which is a bit of a bummer. It would have been nice here if surges played into the Ricochet damage itself, considering literally picking up Orbs is literally how you proc the trait here. You could do a two-in-one: two buffs, one orb.

Weapon Testing and Potential Buffs

I didn’t get to test things like Radiance or even Transcendence, which could give you that 5% buff. Perhaps those effects will bleed into the Ricochet damage, but it is very surprising to me that Kinetic surges did not. Granted, this is a development build; perhaps in the main game when this all goes through, surges will in fact bleed into that. Overall though, this is an incredibly fun weapon, and I think it’s going to be a pretty good Kinetic weapon to use with Prismatic, considering it’s an exotic primary. Therefore, it deals increased damage to Red Bar enemies. This used to be a 40% buff but they’ve toned it down to 30%.

Enhancements and Play Style

Gastov, alongside all other auto rifles, is getting a 15% damage bonus to Red Bar enemies which should offset this exotic nerf. I really do like the play on “Seventh” of you having every seventh bullet deal massively increased damage which also ricochets to nearby enemies. You can increase those amounts of ricochets by simply picking up an orb of power, and throwing on “Shoot the Loot” is just an added cherry on top.

Now, one thing to remember about Kinetic weapons, and we talked about this during our microcosm review, is that Kinetic weapons contribute to both light and darkness meters, albeit at a reduced rate. But if you combine this with fragments, a facet of Grace, this reads that damaging targets with Kinetic weapons grants you bonus Transcendent energy, and defeating targets with your super grants you and nearby allies bonus Transcendent energy. So there’s definitely going to be a play on using Kinetic weapons in the final shape. Kastoff will be one of those.

Kastoff in PvP

We also got to play with it inside of PvP, and I will say I played with it just for a brief amount of time, but just to give you a rough idea of what you’re looking at with Kastoff based on its range, which is 47, damage fall off should begin pretty quickly at 26.6 meters.