Hunters, it is time for your exotic tier list
update for 2021 or should I say your re-posting of the 2020 exotic armor tier list. As usual, we'll cover the 4 exotics that came
out over the past year first. Raiju's Harness makes it so your guard doesn't
consume any energy and you can deactivate whirlwind guard early. Unfortunately for Hunters, they got one of
the best exotic armor pieces in the entire game in Raiden Flux for Arcstrider, at least
in PvE, 3 and a half years ago. While the non-super draining blocking potential
is nice, it's not really something that I feel is that necessary compared to just bashing
everything into the ground via Raiden Flux. I guess being able to cancel your super early
is... nice in a Geomags kind of way, just pop, kill something and then turn it off,
but Geomags works because of the top off mechanic on top of it being ranged. Also, I forgot how embarrassingly short this
super is when you're not buffed by Raiden Flux's buff. It's very short. While Raiden Flux's damage boost is insane
overkill in PvP, the duration portion is pretty handy as well, although it's way more fun
to reflect stuff into people's face than bashing them with a stick. Mask of Bakris has been making some headway
into the meta, coming with Beyond Light. Your STASIS dodge turns into a longer range
shift, teleport kinda thing and after shifting, arc weapons deal increased damage for a short
time AND you deal more damage to slowed or frozen enemies. A lot going on there. For PvE, this is just a nice little damage
boost on command, although you do need to be using an arc weapon to really get the most
out of it obviously, but it's nice to boost something like Anarchy damage on a boss or
champion. Not to mention, it's one of very few exotics
IN THE GAME that has any sort of Stasis specific attribute. PvP is where the shift ability shines a lot
more, really confusing an opponent in a 1v1 or just being able to get out of a combat
situation a little more reliably. The outplay potential is incredibly high with
Bakris, as you're seeing in these clips with Jez because I am not good at the PvP, especially
when combined with the Stasis aspect that slows any opponents nearby when you dodge. Stasis post nerf is not as insane as it used
to be, but is still usable at the least, making Mask of Bakris a top tier option for those
who are able to wield its strengths. If you want to see this helm in action a lot
more, check out Jez's video linked in the description. Thanks for free clip you effing IDIOT. Athrys's Embrace on the other hand, this is
an interesting one. Weighted Knife, aka bottom tree, gets a second
bounce and precision hits allow you to use your knife as a way to stun Unstoppable Champions,
on top of giving you a big boost in damage. This is a bit of extra utility when it comes
to high end content, although I'm not sure how many people are absolutely relying on
it for their only Unstoppable Stun, this is probably going to be a backup. The second bounce is neat, but I'm not using
an entire exotic for a second bounce of a knife for PvE. The main thing here for PvE though is the
bonus throwing knife damage. A few precision hits is going to boost the
HELL out of your throwing knife damage and add the Unstoppable stun on top of it. But, if you stun a champion, you're not gonna
get that bonus damage unless you get another knife and then throw it. Outside of Master and GM content, there's
a lot of fun to be had with these, especially when maxing out all of your mobility and strength
stats and perks and all that to be spamming one shotting knives. Within a Master or GM though... I'm a bit more skeptical of its use considering
you're dumping all of your effort into a throwing knife. If you can hit constant headshot knives, then
more power to you, but I don't think of this as something the average person should really
concern themselves with, again, in GM content. In the context of PvP though... very, very
interesting. The aim assistance with the strengthened throw
used to be insane when they first launched, you could just bounce it off of the floor
and it would auto track people. Since then, not so much, although you ARE
capable of some very fun kills thanks to said aim assistance. BUT, still not something I'm going to recommend
to the average player unless you have really good map knowledge and game sense because
I don't think the effort required matches the reward. You have to spend far too much time finding
set ups and getting knives back when you could just be... you know, playing the game. Finally, we have Omnioculus, new with Season
13, which is all about invisibility. You get a second smoke bomb and get damage
resistance when invisible. When you make an ally invisible, they get
damage resistance and you get melee energy. Essentially, this is all about chaining invisibility
effects on your team and it does that pretty well. Invisibility effects are very good to have
in something like GM content or even lesser content in order to be able to res people
safely or get out of bad situations. The average team will likely find themselves
in at least 1 or 2 of those situations per run and being able to be bailed out like that
is very valuable. If you hit all teammates in a Nightfall, you
get your smoke bomb back, allowing you to stack Heart of the Pack with ease AND keep
it up constantly, which is a MASSIVE boost to your team. The competition here is Sixth Coyote. In the Proving Grounds GM Nightfall, we saw
it was very difficult to get close to enemies to dodge near them to get melee charges back
compared to other GMs, this is where Omni can shine more. Omni also shines in something like Fallen
Saber, where you and your teammates are typically bunched up due to the smaller combat arenas
In other GMs, Sixth Coyote can get the job done as well. Definitely has SOME PvP viability, but I would
focus way more on offensive tools as a Hunter in PvP, save for a couple of exotics. Moving to the best of, let's review our best
subclass specific exotics and Hunters, lemme tell you... got quite the list here. And by quite the list, I mean literally the
exact same list as last time. Celestial Nighthawk and Shards of Galanor
continue to dominate the PvE meta for Gunslingers. Really tough to beat the instant massive burst
damage of Celestial and if you're on Blade Barrage, Shards is not a tough choice to make. You could opt for Ophidia as well if you're
feeling more of a throwing knife type build in that middle or bottom tree or if you're
generating a lot of melee energy thanks to a strike modifier, but in end game content,
Shards is gonna be the easy set and forget for middle and Celestial for bottom tree. Raiden Flux, as I just said, is THE Arcstrider
exotic and honestly, will probably be the Arcstrider exotic until the end of time. Light-light-heavy attack murders everything
in sight. It is god tier for PvE or all modes of play. Still. The other arc exotics Liar's Handshake, Lucky
Raspberry and Shinobu's Vow are good, but they're not Raiden Flux good. If you want something besides Raiden Flux,
Liar's Handshake and a One-Two punch shotgun can make for some wicked melee damage combos,
especially when combined with a melee-regenerating dodge, although again, One-Two Punch is in
low supply nowadays. Shinobu's Vow and Lucky Raspberry, for PvE
anyway, are lower down the list here because, well, the other two are better in terms of
offensive firepower. And surprise, surprise, Orpheus Rig continues
its dominance as well. Nothing else really competes in the tree in
PvE whatsoever in terms of ease of use. Omnioculus is definitely flirting with a decently
high spot on the list though, it just requires a lot more attention to the battlefield than
just dropping a fat tether on the ground and getting a ton of super energy back. Ease of use definitely goes to Rig, but Omni
has almost full up time when it comes to the perk. Gwisin Vest is definitely what you want to
use for Spectral, but that would require you to use Spectral in end game content, which
is tougher to pull off, not as good and doesn't have the utility of the other trees, save
for Flawless Executioner, which is risky in end game content. Hunter neutral exotics are pretty good as
well for PvE. While St0mp-EE5 are probably the most widely
used neutral exotic, I won't be giving them a rating due to them being a movement exotic,
but I think we all know how good they are. Otherwise, from last year, we have Dragon's
Shadow, Fr0st-EE5, The Sixth Coyote and Gemini Jester. The Dragon's Shadow to me is much more of
a PvP exotic. While the reload portion of the perk is very
nice and while you can have a lot of uptime with this perk, I don't value fast handling
speeds in PvE whatsoever; there are not many times where you need to swap to another weapon
with lightning speed. It does allow you to get both reload and melee
energy on dodge, which is nice, but you're nuts if you think I'm using this over the
subclass exotics. Fr0st-EE5 are a very passive exotic: you gain
energy when you sprint and dodging increases your sprint speed. This is just something that happens in the
background, but it is also something you can actively control if you want. Decent utility, decent exotic, nothing insane
for PvE, but it just has a ton of flexibility for any subclass branch you're using. The Sixth Coyote's extra dodge charge opens
up a lot of possibilities across a lot of subclasses. In the context of high-end PvE though, this
is mainly going to revolve around getting extra smoke bombs for invis to res your teammates,
so you can smoke bomb, dodge, smoke bomb, dodge, smoke bomb. Omnioculus feels like it was made specifically
for this kind of play, of which I would say either one works. This is the utility it'll have for GM content,
although Stasis also works with Sixth Coyote because of the Hunter's ability to slow enemies
on dodge. For the other two trees though, I'm not AS
thrilled, but there's always going to be something you can do with multiple dodges in hand. Gemini Jester's disorient effect is strong,
especially on such a short cooldown. You can use it both offensively and defensively,
getting out of tight spots or setting up your team to wipe out some enemies. But, what holds this back is the short duration
of the disorient affect. It's short enough to let yourself get out
of trouble, but not long enough to really use it for MUCH more than that. In that case, going invis is going to be a
way better choice. Also, sometimes, it just doesn't do anything
at all, and then you're really screwed. Invis has very little consistency problems,
compared to this, where I had it fail on me 3-4 times in the span on 7 minutes. As far as PvP goes though, for Gunslingers
specifically, you're looking at knife based exotics, so Ophidia or Athrys's Embrace, Ophidia
being the most reliable one since having two is better than having one, but I think most
people are opting for neutral subclass exotics when it comes to Hunter PvP nowadays. For Arc, Shinobu's Vow is probably the best
option here, again, more ability charges are always going to be good and Shinobu's is definitely
simplest to use as well. Lucky Raspberry, well it's in the name, relies
on luck to trigger that grenade a second time: if you get it, great, if not, well, your exotic
is now worthless until your grenade comes back. You can always swap to Raiden or Raiju's whenever
you have your super though. For Void, you're still running Gwisin for
Spectral and you're still running Rig for tether or Quiver, but these are also swap
exotics. Graviton Forfeit is still technically in the
mix, but again, neutral exotics are where Hunters really see a lot of their power. So, let's cut to the chase. Hunter neutral PvP exotics. There are quite a lot of good ones. But one sticks out among the rest and that's
St0mp-EE5, plain and simple. Again, I don't like to rate movement exotics,
but it is undeniable that these boots are the meta, these transcend my no rating movement
exotics system. The movement benefits you gain are substantial:
sprint speed, slide distance, all jumps. The first 20 hunters I looked up on some top
PvP lists all had St0mp-EE5 on. All of them, 20 in a row. It's not even close. In the current meta, movement is king and
Hunters are the kings of movement. Other highlights include The Dragon's Shadow,
Wormhusk Crown, Gemini Jester and The Sixth Coyote, a very familiar looking list. Personally, I am putting Wormhusk above all
of these due to the health regen as I value health regen quite highly. Health regen effects are so good in this game
and will continue to be unless something happens to them. Being able to exit a fight you're losing safely
or re-engage a fight in order to win it is incredible, period. It's why I like Crest of Alpha Lupi on Titan,
but with Wormhusk, the effect happens much faster and is on a shorter cooldown. With regards to Dragon's Shadow, I didn't
like swap speed in PvE, but in PvP, it is arguably one of the most important traits
to have, it's why so many people want Quickdraw on their shotgun. Being able to fast swap allows you to shut
down approaching players or swap to a primary, yeah, a primary, and finish off an opponent. The Dragon's Shadow has a lot of uptime potential,
but it is something you'll need to keep track of a bit more than your average exotic and
it does require maxed out mobility to see the best results. Gemini Jester is not bad, being able to get
rid of the enemy's radar for a short time can allow for some outplay potential for sure,
as players will tend to go on the defensive whenever this is triggered on them. With high uptime, this can be pretty annoying
to play against. The Sixth Coyote, again, multiple charges
of dodge allow you to simply do more dodge based stuff a little more often. However, when it comes to PvP, I'm throwing
this down the list a bit more than the PvE rating. There are too many other good neutrals for
Hunters AND for Hunters with maximum mobility, there is almost no way you'll need to dodge
that often where having 2 will ever be a necessity. Finally, we have the rest of the exotics and
there is quite a "the rest of the exotics," list. Starting with helms, Knucklehead Radar is
a lackluster PvE exotic, not really needing its utility outside of the most specific of
circumstances and while it's not the worst choice for PvP, you have so many better options. Foetracer's target marking ability felt like
it has been forgotten about, one of the few things left in the game with said ability. It maybe deserves a little bit more than what
I'm giving it for PvP, but for PvE, the damage boost is insignificant and so is the target
marking. Assassin's Cowl has some interesting utility
for getting out of dangerous situations. In the context of GM Nightfalls, it's a decent
way of ensuring a safe escape after a finisher, which might be necessary for a couple of reasons,
but mainly for special ammo finisher. There aren't too many times where I think
you NEED the benefits of Assassin's Cowl to be successful in GMs though. Arms, we have Young Ahamkara's Spine, Mechaneer's
Tricksleeves, Sealed Ahamkara Grasps, Oathkeeper, and Khepri's Sting. A lot to cover, but I'll be brief. Young Ahamkara's Spine boosts your Tripmines. Tripmines are not very good in PvE, decent
in PvP, but not to the extent where I'd want to spend my exotic slot on it. Mechaneer's Tricksleeves are quite good at
what they do, it's just what they do is typically not in demand. Sidearms are a bit better than they used to
be, they pretty useable actually, but investing fully into sidearms is a big commitment. Not saying that it can't be done though, especially
considering the Surprise Attack mod. Sealed Ahamkara Grasps reload your weapon
after a melee attack. While you can instantly reload some very slow
reloading weapons in this way, I'm gonna guess there are only a very specific amount of instances
where this is going to be worth running, especially considering the amount of reload bonuses you
can get from other effects, like Barricade and Lunafaction Boots. Oathkeeper, you can indefinitely hold bow
charges. Neat, I guess, but in the grand scheme of
the game, this is insignificant. Khepri's Sting has niche utility in being
able to gain some truesight, aka wallhacks, by dropping a smoke bomb on yourself. Useable in more intimate settings for sure,
but I don't think the average player is getting a ton of use from that mechanic. We've covered all of the chest armor in some
way, so we'll move to boots. Lucky Pants had their time when fast swapping
to Eriana's Vow was a thing in PvP. I guess it technically still is, but the gimmick
isn't really used that much anymore, was more of a flavor of the month kind of build. Being able to quick swap to a hand cannon
though, not bad, but using your entire exotic for it? Dunno about that. Finally, Bombardiers, much like Titan's Severance
Enclosure, never really took off at all, there are so many other dodge effects to use and
unless this explosion is wiping out GM Nightfall enemies, it's not gonna be worth it. That's it. Hunters, you guys have some of the best exotics
the game has to offer, subclass specific ones for PvE, neutrals for PvP. But, you also have some of the more lackluster
exotics in the game. That'll wrap up the exotic tier list for armor
for 2021. 2022's tier list is probably going to be done
a little differently as I don't think we really need full, in-depth analysis of most exotics
in the game anymore. Even yearly, things aren't changing enough
to the point where I need to do such a deep dive. Regardless, thank you for watching and I'll
see you next time.
