Turncoat Exotic Hand Cannon Guide

Turncoat is a Void Exotic hand cannon introduced in Destiny 2: Monument of Triumph: free on the Triumphant Rewards Pass, because Bungie wants you hooked before the lights go out. It comes with an Anti-Barrier intrinsic, no artifact required, which means Champions in high-end content no longer need a dedicated slot.

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The weapon's fantasy is simple: play aggressively, charge a power bar, then briefly become unstoppable. The catch is that "unstoppable" eventually starts eating your own health. Classic Destiny design philosophy: give you something fantastic, then politely knife you for using it.

How to Get It The Turncoat exotic hand cannon drops from the Triumphant Rewards Pass (free track). The catalyst unlocks at rank 90. If you missed it, check the Monument of Lost Lights kiosk in future seasons.

Perk Breakdown

The perk kit is straightforward on paper, terrifying in practice. Here is the full loop: read it once; it is not complicated.

Latent Power

Dealing damage builds a power bar. Precision hits and final blows fill it faster. In PvP you need roughly 6–7 headshots without a kill to max it.

Unleashed Power

Hold Alternate Weapon Action at full bar. Grants increased rate of fire, hip-fire accuracy, and shots that weaken targets. This is the Last Word mode.

Overwhelming Power

After a short window, Unleashed Power degrades into this. You take damage over time. Reload or stow the weapon to cancel. Your fault for holding it too long.

Power Surge

Rapid hits load an explosive round with bonus damage and faster stack buildup. While empowered, every single shot is explosive. Every shot.

The Power Flow

Hit Enemies→Latent Power Fills→Hold [Alt Action]→Unleashed Power→Wait too long → Damage Yourself

The only way to exit the self-harm portion is to reload or stow. Stowing preserves the empowered state, which means you can swap weapons, do whatever, and return to Turncoat with the perk still active. This is not a bug. Use it.

Catalyst Bonus When empowerment ends, you gain a Void overshield. Its strength scales with how long you stayed empowered. Suddenly the self-damage clause becomes a trade-off rather than a punishment.

Base Stats

PvE Usage

In standard PvE content, Latent Power fills almost immediately. Final blows and precision kills accelerate it so fast that in a dense encounter you will barely notice the buildup phase. Pair it with the Tablet of Ruin artifact mods for a dark subclass synergy: the community has already found that running Void-aligned mods amplifies the weaken shots into something unreasonable.

The Anti-Barrier intrinsic removes any awkward planning around Champion mods. That alone justifies the exotic slot in Grandmaster Nightfalls and Legend Lost Sectors. The Destiny 2 exotic hand cannon slot is contested, but Turncoat earns it without begging.

• Best used in burst windows: activate, burn the priority target, stow before Overwhelming Power triggers.
• Works on all enemy types; weaken shots soften bosses fast.
• Healing rift or Well of Radiance while empowered keeps you alive through the self-damage phase.
• Power Surge's explosive rounds deal bonus damage to grouped enemies: treat it as a free AoE on demand.

PvP & Trials

This is where Turncoat gets obnoxious. The key insight, confirmed in Trials of Osiris gameplay, is that you do not need kills to charge Latent Power. Body shots count. Every hit counts. In a mode like Trials where information duels are half the game, building a full power bar off a retreat or a poke is obscene.

Once Unleashed Power is active, the weapon behaves like a Destiny 2 Last Word clone: hipfire-accurate, fast, and with every shot applying weaken. A fully empowered Turncoat is a guaranteed fight-winner at mid-to-close range. The TTK empowered is fast enough that opponents struggling to engage from range will lose before they close distance.

Core PvP Loop Poke in a 1v1 to charge the bar without committing to a kill. Activate Unleashed Power. Push the angle. Three-tap. Stow immediately. Repeat. Your opponent will not know what happened until they are already watching a respawn timer.

Practical Tactics

1. Build the bar during off-angles and peek exchanges: no kill required.
2. Activate Unleashed Power only when an opponent commits to an approach.
3. Stow after a kill to reset Overwhelming Power and bank the empowered state.
4. Use a healing grenade or rift to counteract the self-damage if you overextend.
5. Abuse the weaken effect in 1v2 scenarios: weakened opponents die faster to teammates too.

Comparing it to past weapons: Turncoat's charge mechanic functions similarly to the old Graviton Spike from Destiny 1: you build power through engagements rather than requiring a specific kill event. Against lagging opponents, the perk will still read as hits. Not your fault. Not your problem.

Tips You Will Ignore Until You Die Twice

• Never activate Unleashed Power in an open area with nowhere to stow. You will take the damage and gain nothing.
• The Turncoat catalyst's Void overshield reward scales with empowerment duration. Slightly longer windows in PvE are worthwhile.
• In PvP, activating the perk on a flag or contested zone gives you the best odds: enemies have to come to you.
• Pair with a Void subclass for synergy with fragments that benefit weakened targets, like Echo of Undermining.
• Power Surge explosive rounds also accelerate the Latent Power buildup on hit. Rapid engagements recharge faster than you expect.
• The empowered state persists when you stow. Use your secondary while the perk is banked, then swap back for the finisher.