Fighting Lion

Fighting Lion

An exotic grenade launcher in Destiny 2

Getting Started was just the sales pitch, but what if you’re not ready for 7,000 words of Mastery detail?

Here is your too long; didn’t read.

The Gun

  • Always hip-fire.
  • Always hold to fire, release to detonate.

  • Like all tube grenade launchers, it’s a Lightweight Frame, and thus it gives a mobility bonus.

  • Thin the Herd, the exotic perk, is 3 perks in one:
    • Do extra damage to enemy shields (bonus damage doesn’t work in Crucible or on Arc shields)
    • Killing any enemy with non-Lion damage shortly after dealing damage with Lion refills Lion’s magazine (Helps maintain uptime)
    • Kills with Lion always drop ammo. (It’s enough to completely refill your reserves.)
  • Masterworking:
    • New perk Chimera, gives your kinetic Quickdraw, Snapshot Sights and Opening Shot for 3 seconds.
    • Masterworking also gives you a 50% increase in reload speed.
    • And it makes orbs on multi-kills, which nearly all of your PvE kills will be.

PvP

  • Damage: 128 splash, 22 direct hit.
  • Lion has good hip fire and in-air accuracy. Be mobile. Use vertical space.
  • Lion does massive burst damage and is well-suited for team-shooting.
  • Dealing damage to targets that you cant see (and vice versa) gives you and your team a health advantage without putting you at risk. This is the greatest strength of Fighting Lion.

Bank! Those! Shots!

  • Double primaries is very viable and starves your enemies of special ammo.
  • Fighting Lion is weak in close range due to the minimum delay on manual detonation and difficulty of direct hits.

Close Range: Make sure you cover this weakness!!!

PvE

  • The gun may be “90” rpm, but in practice, it’s gated by reload speed. Actual fire rate is ~42 rpm.
  • You can invert the Lion combo in PvE only:
    • Fire your kinetic, then get a lion kill to instantly refill your lion.
  • Focus on multi-kills and staying mobile.
  • Lion is bad for sustained DPS, so open with it, then swap to your DPS for beefy targets.

Weapon Pairings

  • You don’t need Quickdraw, Snapshot Sights and Opening Shot
    • So use perks like Kill Clip, Rampage, Vorpal, Autoloading Holster, Hipfire Grip, etc.
  • Lion is a solid mid-range weapon, so make your choice around that. It is very flexible.
    • Shotguns, Side-arms, SMGs for close range.
    • Hand cannons for close/mid.
    • Snipers for long range.
  • For PvP, follow-up damage is very important!
    • Fast firing, lower damage is forgiving, but on average slower.
    • Slow, big damage is faster, but unforgiving.
  • For PvE, consider Lion like any other primary and bring a special weapon of your choice.

Loadout

  • 1x Grenade Launcher Loader (non-enhanced) gets you 80% of the way to the reload cap.
  • Dire Artillery (the equivalent of Pump Action/Remote Connection) does work for Fighting Lion.
  • You don’t need dexterity perks for your primary, because of Chimera.
  • Grenade Launcher Scavenger & Reserves don’t help much for Fighting Lion (1-2 extra rounds)
    • Remember that Thin the Herd perk will completely refill your reserves with a single white ammo box on kill.
  • Exotic armors that benefit reloading/ability-synergies/mobility or damage-utility are great choices.
    • My favorites are Nezarec’s Sins, Transversive Steps, Sunbracers, Synthoceps, Dragon’s Shadow.
  • Focus on subclasses with high mobility and strong grenade or melee options (depending on your preferences)

Video Showcase & Tutorial

Thanks to TerriblePuns for the suggestion of this page and its contents!