Thorn
Thorn has had a special place in players’ hearts ever since it made its debut in Destiny 1. Fortunately for fans, it was carried forward to Destiny 2 and now continues to rain terror in both PvE and PvP. Thorn is an exotic 140RPM hand cannon that generates a green-like orb on every precision kill (headshot kill).
Orbs that are generated from kills slowly make their way towards Thorn returning its ammo back to the magazine. This also causes the second perk of Thorn to activate called “Mark of The Devourer” that turns Thorns shots into more than just gun fire, as each shot that you hit bites away at your foes.
Necrotic Grip
Now that Destiny 2: Beyond Light has been in players’ hands for almost three weeks, new exotics are starting to appear in the world. One of the new exotics that has come into the spotlight is known as Necrotic Grip which is a pair of gauntlets for the Warlock class only. Both Titan and Hunter cannot use these.
Necrotic Grip damages enemies with your melee attack, corrupting them with increasing damage over time which is very similar to how Thorn works with its Mark of The Devourer perk. Every target that you kill from the bite of Necrotic Grips damage spreads corruption which can leach onto nearby targets and start biting at them too! On top of this, the more enemies that get corrupted from this effect restores melee energy back to your guardian.
Thorn + Necrotic Grip
Before the release of Beyond Light, Bungie were releasing many trailers showing off aspects of its new fall expansion. This includes their exotic trailer! The release of this trailer is when fans first placed their eyes on Necrotic Grip, watching it rip through enemies with it’s corruption. As soon as the corruption became visible, players were very quickly linking both the Thorn and Necrotic Grip together. It appears Bungie was also!
The only way you can acquire these new Warlock gauntlets is through Destiny’s new and improved legendary lost sectors. If you wish to find out more about legendary lost sectors, please check out our blog here on MGN where we tell you how to complete one of these with ease!
This is where the fun starts.
After equipping both Necrotic Grip and Thorn into your loadout, you have suddenly given your Thorn hand cannon a secret perk which isn’t written anywhere in the game. The corruption damage that spreads between enemies through the power of Necrotic Grip, now has just passed it’s way through to Thorn! Every single precision kill that you hit with your Thorn creates the exact same burst of damage, a perk it never had before equipping Necrotic Grip.
This suddenly changes the way you look at Thorn now. I have personally tried this out and have never taken it off due to the fact that you can clear the entire boss room lost sectors with one shot from Thorn. That is incredible. This also works in PvP too! If you guardians all huddled together in the crucible, grab your precision headshot with your Thorn and watch the corruption take place. I can really see this becoming meta in competitive play such as Survival and Trials of Osiris.
Player feedback
I have seen a wide variety of opinions when it comes to the love that Thorn has received from Bungie with it tying into relations with Necrotic Grip, mostly good too! It goes without saying that Warlocks have really had the limelight this season especially with their Stasis super completely breaking the game, so giving Warlocks the only exotic in the game that benefits another exotic that is available to all players has peaked peoples attention.
Necrotic Grip is only for the Warlock class which means that only Warlocks will reek the benefits of Thorn’s extra secret perk. This also makes Necrotic Grip the only exotic in the entire game to do this. DMG (community manager at Bungie) tweeted out to players on Twitter explaining that this isn’t a bug and is very much intended. He further asks for community feedback on this so we might just see some love heading towards both Titans and Hunters with future exotics granting them an extra bonus too!
Personal opinion
Thorn is by far my favourite exotic in Destiny 2 however it will never take over the spot of my Gjallarhorn from Destiny 1. That rocket launcher will always have a special place in my heart as it’s the first ever exotic I acquired, the first ever exotic I shot in the Destiny universe and is my all time favourite. Enough about Gjallarhorn, got a little carried away there! I love Thorn, it’s my main gun that I always use in pretty much any activity including both competitive play and raids.
Luckily for me I am a Warlock main, so the benefit of Necrotic Grip is something I have been taking advantage of every since I got it within the first week of Beyond light being available. I think this is a brilliant move by Bungie and I have to admit, it does give me that little selfish feeling of knowing that my Thorn is not only different, but better than your Thorn. Looking at you Titan’s and Hunters ;).
Overall I am very excited to see where Bungie take this with future exotics, I feel this is a really great way to keep things new and exciting whilst bringing along the old stuff for the ride! I can’t wait to take both Thorn and Necrotic Grip into future content.
Thank you for reading and stay safe out there, Guardian!
Links
Get Destiny 2: Beyond Light on Steam
Official Beyond Light website by Bungie
Popular Beyond Light videos collected by MGN
Credits
| Program | Freedom! Scholarship |
| Author | Brad Hahn |
| YouTuber | Brad Hahn |
| Publisher | MGN TV |
| Game | Destiny 2 |