Over one of Bungies holidays, I reached out to one of our weapon's designers to help me prototype and implement a legendary perk. I wanted the learning opportunity to get a bit closer to how the content I was testing was made, and had an idea to try to diversify the very competitive perk selection for legendary shotguns.  I wanted to do something simple at first, so I used a pre-existing event system for another legendary shotgun perk "One-Two Punch". That way all I had to change was the effect from granting melee damage to weapon stats.  I continued to tweak its benefits based on playtest feedback, and as part of the Final Shape destination shotgun pool, I had the ability to ensure the perk was fairly powerful, justifying its quite loaded stat benefits while not requiring a full kill on a target. Unfortunately when the Final shape released, it came pretty apparent that even while this perk doesn't require a kill, players will generally opt for as low friction perk activators as possible, even if the benefit from something with slightly more friction is significantly higher. I've since buffed this perk, and it found a nice home as one of the perks considered a "godroll" on a very popular shotgun. 

I was able to pickup some work for Episode Revenant, and had the opportunity to take a perk and stat pass at a few new legendary World Pool weapons! The first being this Stasis Scout rifle.  World pool weapons offer an interesting design challenge. They shouldn't necessarily be best in class, but should have one or two perk combinations that make them Raid and Dungeon weapon tier.  Additionally they should have a fairly decent stat line, but not Best in Slot by any means.  As a heavy pvp player personally, i found that the scout rifle archetype had been lacking in double stat perk combos, (two combos of perks that really buff the stat line to make certain parts of the weapon feel incredible) so i made that the primary offering for this weapon with perk combos like "Heating Up" and "Offhand Strike" to boost the aim assist and accuracy of the weapon to give a Halo-like hipfire fantasy. With this weapons fixed Origin trait, this makes going on a killstreak make the gun feel incredible, adding dozens of stat points for fragging out with it.  Additonally, the stasis damage type received a new legendary perk this season: "Rime-stealer", making it an easier contender for that perk and Headstone to be a rollable combo. This seems to be the roll players are most interested in, and has boasted fairly positive reviews! 

I took a similar approach to this new Bow as I did with Live Fire.  Instead of offering a lot of high damage increase perks, this weapon offers a very powerful stat line for minimal investment with combos like Range finder + Lone Wolf! I also gave it a higher than average Zoom stat, so players would find the very sticky mechnical fantasy that feels great in a pvp bow. Unfortunately players did not find this desirable, and seem to find that bows are more fun and engaging to use with either damage increasing, or draw time reducing perks. Leaving this weapon to be likely overshadowed by another Kinetic Bow that was in this release. Next time, I'd try to keep in mind that players find the mechnical fantasy of fast drawing, hard hitting bows in mind, and focus less on making them feel easier to use. 

This was another personal favorite weapon of mine that had come out a few years back, and it was in need of a fresh coat of perks. My approach was pretty straightforward with this one, as I didnt have to take a stat pass on this fan favorite pvp sniper! I removed a couple perks that players were not excited to have on this type of weapon. The Clown Cartridge + Voltshot combo was already popular, so i thought I'd lean into that fantasy a bit more by adding Air Trigger to its left column for faster reloads and the ability to more reliabliy jump shot. There were also some new perks this Episode that NEEDED to be on this weapon line Lone Wolf (which stacks perfectly with this weapons origin trait) and Closing Time. A perfect perk for Special Ammo weapons in pvp. Overall players continued to find this weapon to be a banger after my iterations and I'm very proud of how its turned out to be one of the strongest pvp snipers in the game.