Vesper’s Host, the dungeon that’s part of Destiny 2’s Episode: Revenant content release, brings a new Exotic weapon to the game that’s actually an old one: Ice Breaker. The Exotic Solar sniper rifle was a fan favorite in the original Destiny thanks to its ability to slowly generate its own ammunition, making it great for hitting bosses with an intense amount of damage.
The new version of Ice Breaker is a bit different, but it has similar perks that make it a great boss damage weapon that you’ll want to chase down. Here’s everything you need to know about Ice Breaker so far, including what it does, how to get it from the Vesper’s Host dungeon, and more–we’ll report back on how to make it more powerful with its Exotic Catalyst once we discover the process.
How To Get Ice Breaker
Ice Breaker is a reward that’s only available in the Vesper’s Host dungeon. That means you’ll need access to the dungeon, which requires the Final Shape Dungeon Key. If you don’t already own it from purchasing the last Destiny 2 expansion, you can buy it in-game for 2,000 Silver, Destiny 2’s in-game currency. That amounts to about $20.
Like other dungeon Exotics, the Ice Breaker is obtained as a random drop that can come from the dungeon’s final boss. Unfortunately, that means that unlike some other Exotics, you’ll need to replay Vesper’s Host until you receive it.
There is one way to guarantee getting Ice Breaker, and that’s by completing Vesper’s Host during contest mode. That’s the challenging mode that’s only available during the first 48 hours of the dungeon’s release, as part of the race in which teams compete to be the first group to finish the dungeon. Contest mode caps players’ levels beneath the recommended level of each encounter, equalizing the challenge among all players and making the whole thing a bit more difficult than usual. If you finish Vesper’s Host in contest mode, you’ll get Ice Breaker for your trouble.
If you miss contest mode or would rather play the dungeon normally, you might be able to amp up your chances of earning Ice Breaker. Other dungeons have included Triumphs that increase the drop rate of their Exotics, and we can expect that to be the same situation here. We’ll expand this guide with additional details once the dungeon is available.
Can You Farm Ice Breaker?
In some Destiny 2 activities, you can replay them over and over until you get the drops you want–in other words, you can “farm” for a particular piece of gear. However, it’s usually the case that Exotics in newly released dungeons are not farmable. Instead, the number of chances you get at the Exotic are limited each week to one per character. That means that if you play on all three characters, you get three opportunities per week to earn Ice Breaker; once you’ve made all three attempts, you’ll have to wait for the weekly reset at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET on Tuesday for another three shots.
How To Get Ice Breaker’s Exotic Catalyst
With other dungeon Exotics, getting the gun is only the first step. There’s also the Exotic Catalyst, which brings additional abilities and buffs to their guns. Usually, these require you to take on the dungeon on the higher Master difficulty, while also completing puzzles and Triumphs along the way.
Check back for additional updates to this guide once Vesper’s Host goes live and we have an opportunity to dive in and fully explore what it has to offer.
What Can Ice Breaker Do?
Ice Breaker is a Solar sniper rifle that uses Special ammo, and its main use cases are likely to be precision boss damage–landing a bunch of high-power shots on a weak point during a damage phase–and using its perks to blow up lots of targets to clear rooms.
The Exotic perk of Ice Breaker and the element that makes it notable is called No Backpack. With this perk, Ice Breaker can generate its own ammo, allowing you to bypass having to pick up additional Special ammo to keep using it. No Backpack gives you a chance to generate a round for Ice Breaker whenever you get a kill or an assist with one of your other weapons. If you get a kill a powerful combatant, you’ll generate multiple rounds. So while the gun is a little different from its Destiny 1 counterpart, you can still live the fantasy of creating a ton of ammo and dealing extended damage to tougher enemies and bosses without relying on ammo bricks to drop on the ground.
Ice Breaker also has an intrinsic trait called, fittingly, Ice Breaker. When you defeat a target with the sniper, it will explode, damaging other targets around it. However, you get an even bigger benefit if you kill an enemy with a precision hit or shatter a frozen enemy. When that happens, you create a Solar Ignition, an explosion that also spreads Scorch to nearby targets, which causes them to also take burn damage.
That means that Ice Breaker will go very well in Solar builds, Stasis builds, and Prismatic builds, especially if you’re freezing and scorching other enemies. It should also pair well with Stasis primary weapons that can freeze enemies to make for easy Ignitions to control crowds.
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