This review covers Opaque Hourglass, Destiny's first-ever heavy crossbow, examining its unique mechanics, bolt types, perk combinations, damage potential, and optimal "god rolls" for both PvE and PvP scenarios.

Unique Features & Functionality

• Opaque Hourglass is the first crossbow and only the second bow in the heavy slot after Leviathan's Breath.

• It is a high-impact, slow-firing, high-damage weapon that is more accurate while stationary or aiming.

• Holds 10 shots per magazine; bolts can be fully retrieved from targets or surfaces, making ammo effectively infinite if retrieved.

• Bolts can be used as climbing aids when shot into walls, aiding map traversal.

• Bolt persistence (how long bolts remain in the world) is determined by a new 'persistence' stat.

Bolt Types & Effects

• Serrated Bolts: Extra damage when bolts are recovered from living targets; partial stacking per enemy.

• Explosive Bolts: Bolts explode after impact, splitting damage between impact and explosion.

• Charge Bolts: Deals damage over time to a target; DoT does not stack from multiple bolts.

• Heavy Bolts: Highest immediate impact damage, slower, and more affected by gravity at long range.

• Spring Auger Bolts: Small impulse and high flinch chance on impact; moderate direct damage.

Perks & Trait Discussion

• Notable Third Column Perks:

  • Bolt Scavenger: Increases reload and handling upon bolt retrieval, stackable.

  • Impulse Amplifier: Increases projectile velocity and reload speed.

  • Field Prep: Improved ammo generation and reload, especially when crouched.

  • Rolling Storm: Kills grant Bolt Charge, enhanced by amplification.

  • Firefly: Precision kills cause solar explosions and fast reloads.

• Fourth Column Perks:

  • Binary Orbit: 25% bonus damage for short duration after opposite-element kill.

  • Elemental Honing: Up to 35% stacking bonus damage for unique elemental damage, long duration.

  • Vorpal Weapon (bugged): Provides a 31.4% damage bonus on bosses, much higher than intended.

  • Frenzy, Firing Line, Master of Arms, Dragonfly for various buffs and area effects.

Origin Trait: Frame of Reference

• Grants increasing stacks of damage, reload, and range with kills (up to 7% damage at five stacks); effect is paused when weapon is stowed.

Damage & Performance Analysis

• Heavy Bolts and Serrated Bolts deliver highest per-shot damage.

• Theoretical maximum DPS achieved with Heavy Bolts, Bolt Scavenger, Elemental Honing, and origin trait at max stacks.

• Outperforms Leviathan's Breath in DPS with all buffs, but has lower total damage due to smaller magazine.

• Infinite ammo potential and strong ammo generation stats support extended use for high-health targets and add clear.

• Oathkeeper exotic perk does not currently work with Opaque Hourglass.

PvP Considerations

• All bolt types can one-hit kill with headshots; Serrated Bolts allow for body shot kills if bolt is retrieved quickly.

• Radiant and certain builds enable one-hit body shots.

• Bolt retrieval supports sustained plays; Impulse Amplifier, Master of Arms, and Dragonfly among viable PvP roles.

God Roll Recommendations

• Major Buster/Champion Hunting: Heavy or Serrated Bolts + Bolt Scavenger + Elemental Honing.

• Ad Clear: Dragonfly + Firefly (avoid explosive bolts for optimal crit).

• DPS Focus: Heavy Bolts + Bolt Scavenger (or Impulse Amplifier) + Elemental Honing.

Weapon Acquisition & Mod Use

• Opaque Hourglass is a raid drop; higher tier rolls require completing raid feats.

• Various seasonal weapon mods (like Temporal Armaments and Temporal Blast) significantly enhance performance.

Final Notes

• The crossbow is versatile, excels against majors and champions, and offers unique playstyles.

• Awaiting enhanced origin trait versions and future balance patches, especially for the bugged Vorpal Weapon perk.

Opaque Hourglass Overview

Fellas for the first time ever we are reviewing an entirely new weapon type in the game that being opaque hourglass This weapon is our first ever crossbow and if there's one thing to say about it to fate bungees really trying to push the edge here when it comes to these different archetypes and different weapon types you've got mid retrograde which is our rocket assisted pulse rifle which by the way is one of the best weapons in the game. Please get it, guys. It does so much damage.

And I've actually been utilizing Mint Retrograde in my top slot alongside Opaque Hourglass in my heavy slot. That's right, guys. This is a heavy crossbow. And there is a ton of things about this weapon that make it truly unique. Now, this weapon falls under the high impact frame, which reads that it's slow firing and high damage.

This weapon is more accurate when stationary, moving slowly and aiming down sights. Now, keep in mind, not Only is it our first ever crossbow, but it's also our only other bow present in our heavy slots. The only other bow we have in the game is Leviathan's Breath.

Now to start things off, let's take a look at the general functionality of this crossbow. At base, it holds 10 shots, but get this, all of these bolts here that you shoot can be retrieved. What I really like about this is that you can literally shoot all 10 shots into a target, go over there, and literally retrieve them all. And what's so great about this is that you can retrieve them all in a single retrieval action.

No lie, this is even better than how Bungie described it in their live stream. I was under the impression we could only retrieve the last bolt. Now, ultimately, what this means for opaque is that it essentially has infinite ammo, as long as you go and retrieve the bolts. Another cool function about these bolts is that when you shoot them into the wall, get this, you can mantle them. If you're in a situation where you have to reach a high point on the map, maybe you're just trying to get into a cheese spot, you can literally shoot the bolt into the wall and then climb it, which would be fantastic for my speedrunners out there.

Now, keep in mind, the bolts don't last forever in the world, and the amount of time they stay active before disappearing is determined by the new persistence stats. Now, this doesn't significantly increase the amount of time it lasts or anything. For instance, when testing at 35 persistence, our bolt lasts for about 30 seconds. And then with the 65 stat roll, it would then last for about 30 seconds. 39 seconds.

So I wouldn't say you need to spec into the stat hard, unless maybe you're a speedrunner trying to climb walls, and so those extra seconds really matter. Or just for ease of use. Now this brings us into the bolts themselves, as these are randomly rolled and all have different functionalities. First up, we have serrated bolts. Recovering a bolt from a living target deals damage.

So as you can see, when we shoot Carl in the head, With this bolt, it deals 1538 damage. But you can then recover the bolt, which deals an additional 292 damage, giving us a total of 1830 damage from a single shot. Now, can you shoot all 10 shots into an enemy and then pull them all out and receive damage?

Sort of. When you shoot all 10 shots into an enemy, Upon pulling them out, all but one of the damage numbers will be cut in half. As you can see here in this clip, they all deal 146 damage, besides one of them dealing the normal 292, which is interesting.

Next, we have Explosive Bolts, which reads that bolts explode shortly after hitting the environment or a target, but deal less damage on impact. When hitting Carl's crit, this does 693 damage. Then after a few moments, it explodes to deal 846 damage, giving us a total of 1,539 damage per bolt. Next, we have charge bolts. It states that bolts attached to targets deals damage over time.

Now for this one here, upon impact, we do 1,538 damage, and then it ticks for about 9 seconds, dealing 18 damage per tick, giving us a total of 1,881 per shot. Now get this, you cannot stack the damage over time with multiple bolts. We tried it out guys, and unfortunately, this, like many other things in the game that does damage over time, does not stack. With that being said though, I do believe that anything that does damage over time is pretty valuable, especially for super regeneration.

Next, we have heavy bolts. Bolts deal increased damage, but are slower and more affected by gravity. Now, this one right here, as you can see, does more damage right out the gate at 1,692. Now, in our testing, it doesn't really seem that much slower. And it also didn't seem to be affected much by gravity until you get into pretty far ranges.

And we're talking like 70 meters plus. Then lastly, we have the spring auger bolts. This states that bolts release an impulse shortly after impact that deals a small amount of damage and has a high chance to cause flinch.

Now our damage here is adjusted because unfortunately, I only had this with Vorpal Weapon, but at base, it should be around 1,540. 44 damage. The impulse here isn't really doing that much damage. So the main draw of this one would just be the flinch it provides. By the way, we're going to be talking about Vorpal in just a moment because yes, there's some funky stuff going on with that trait.

Now out of all of these bolts, technically charge bolts deal the most damage per shot, but you need to wait for that damage over time period to pass. On its own though, Heavy Bolt would be the highest damage bolt. But I also like Serrated simply because when retrieving the bolt after each shot, you're getting that extra damage. Not necessarily viable in every scenario, but still good.

Now with our bolt breakdown out of the way, let's now get into our other perks. In column 3, we have Sympathetic Arsenal, Field Prep, Firefly, Rolling Storm, Bolt Scamager, Wellspring, and Impulse Amplifier. In our fourth column, we have Vorpal Weapon, Firing Line, Master of Arms, Binary Orbit, Frenzy, Elemental Honing, and Dragonfly.

Now, I'm gonna start in our third column with the brand new perk, Bolt Scavenger. It reads that recovering a bolt increases reload speed and handling. Right now, this is really the only one weapon that this perk can roll on, and it works pretty much just as you would expect. When you retrieve a bolt, this increases reload speed and handling for 3 seconds, and can stack up to a max of 15 seconds.

So at base, with the 58 reload stats, it took 120 frames from the moment we shot it to the moment Shodan Arrow was loaded back into the weapon. So two seconds exactly. And then with Bolt Scavenger Proct, this took 90 frames. So it could reload down by half a second.

Now we don't have the enhanced version of this perk yet. Pretty much everything you're seeing here is like the base version of this crossbow. But this should increase the duration that the perk lasts for.

Next, we have Impulse Amplifier, which is a perk you should consider. It massively increases projectile velocity and it increases reload speed. This perk grants 35% increased projectile velocity, plus 20 reload speed, and a .85x reload duration multiplier, which again, allows you to knock a bolt in even faster.

For the enhanced version of this perk, the reload speed bonus is increased by plus 25. Now, when comparing Impulse Amplifier directly to Bolt Scalpager in terms of reload speed, unfortunately, this isn't a perfect comparison. The closest we get our reload speed stat to was 55, but that took 109 frames to reload. Now again, it's not perfect, but it does seem like Bolt Scavenger is the better option if you do have the ability to retrieve your bolts.

Then we also have Field Prep, which increases ammo generation and gives faster reload, as well as stow and ready speed while crouching. Unfortunately, I don't have this roll to test, guys, but it is a substantial amount. We're talking plus 50 reload speed, a 0.8 times reload duration multiplier, and a ready stove duration multiplier when crouch, as well as plus 30 ammo generation, which is very nice. And the enhanced version increases these stats even further.

Now, Reload stats sound good, but let's move away from them real quick and take a look at Rolling Storm. Final Blows grant Bolt Charge. While Amplified, Final Blows grant additional Bolt Charge. With this perk, each kill is going to grant one stack of Bolt Charge. Or if you're Amplified, this jumps up to two stacks per kill.

Now, the Enhanced version is what really juices this perk up. Essentially, kills grant three stacks of bolt charge while you're at zero stacks. And then if you're amplified, this jumps up to four stacks if you're starting at zero stacks. Definitely a perk I used a lot last season, considering how strong bolt charge is. And I do believe it's usable here.

It's not as strong as what we saw in Psycho Pop last season. Then finally for our third column perk, we have to bring up Firefly. Precision kills with this weapon increases reload speed and causes the target to explode, dealing solar damage to nearby enemies.

Pretty self-explanatory. It's a good perk, and it also got a buff at the beginning of the season, essentially doing more damage as it's no longer tethered to weapon archetypes. When landing that precision kill though, you're going to see a solar damage explosion in a four meter radius. It's also going to grant you a plus 50 reload speed for six seconds, which is quite nice guys.

It's a Both good for Reload and also for Ad Clear. Now moving on to our fourth column perks. We have another new option called Binary Orbits.

This perk reads that elemental Phyton Blows opposite this weapon increases damage for a short duration. Darkness Phyton Blows boosts Arc, Solar, and Void weapons. Light Phyton Blows boosts Stasis, Strand, and Kinetic weapons.

Now since this is an Arc weapon, You'll need to get a Strand or Stasis final blow, but upon doing so, this grants a plus 25% increase in damage, which will last for 8 seconds or 9 seconds when enhanced. It can also be refreshed by getting additional kills with Darkness elements. Now, in a lot of ways, this is very similar to Elemental Honing, except you need a kill and it's just a flat 25% damage increase and doesn't last nearly as long.

Now, speaking of Elemental Honing, that perk is of course present here as well. It reads that dealing unique Elemental damage grants this weapon a stacking damage bonus. Essentially, dealing elemental damage gives you a single stack of elemental honing for each unique element and will max out at 5 stacks. Now, the damage bonus is higher for genetic weapons, but since Opaque Hourglass is ARK, we've been maxing out our damage at 35%. percent if we were to reach those five stacks that lasts for a good long time we're talking 20 seconds at base 23 seconds in the enhanced version and let me just say guys i've been using elemental honing a bunch on mint retrograde and the damage is so nice especially in high-end content where kill activation is just so tough considering how thick everything is this is a top damage perk in the game and to me it's one of the easiest things to proc most notably on Prismatic classes.

But this takes us to Vorpal Weapon. Vorpal Weapon is normally a perk we wouldn't pay attention to, but on opaque Hourglass, it's bugged, and bugged in a good way. This perk is granting us an increase in damage against bosses, vehicles, and guardians in their super, And on heavy weapons, this is only supposed to be a 10% increase in damage. However, something in Destiny's Code is being funky here on this crossbow. It thinks it's both a primary, but also a heavy weapon.

And in doing so, it's actually giving us both buffs at the same time. What this results in is that Vorpal is actually increasing our damage by 31.4%. Testing this with Serrated Bolts, normally we deal 1,538 damage and an additional 292 damage upon retrieving it from an enemy.

But with Vorpal, we're dealing 2,021 damage to the head plus 385 damage when we retrieve the bolts. Now again, I don't expect this glitch to remain for long. I'm sure Bungie's gonna address it at some point.

But if you're looking at your opaque right now with Vorpal and you're like, ah, it's garbage, I'm gonna shred it, hold up. You're rocking damn near 32%. I wouldn't get rid of it.

Now, in terms of other damage perks, you've got Frenzy, you've got Firing Line, you've got Master of Arms. Those are pretty good, but the damage buffs there aren't that crazy. Firing Line requires you to be near allies.

Master of Arms is not bad, as you can get a 15% damage buff when getting a kill with any weapon, and it goes up to 25%, but of course, it only lasts for four seconds on that buff. The other perk that's pretty interesting here is our AoE damage perk, Dragonfly. You see, precision kills create an elemental damage explosion.

And what's so crazy about this is you can stack this with Firefly, essentially having double the Kabloomies, which is a pretty unique combination as the only other weapon in the game that can roll this combo is Doom of Chelkis from King's Fall. Now, we have one more perk to talk about, and that is our origin trait, Frame of Reference. It reads that final blows of this weapon temporarily grants increased damage, reload speed, and range.

This effect is frozen in time while the weapon is stowed. Now this perk will stack up to five times, and that's with each kill that you get, and it'll last for eight seconds. The timer freezes when the weapon is stowed. Now time is one. This gives us 1.45% increase in damage.

Times two, it goes to 2.8%. Times three, it's 4.2%. Times four, it goes to 5.6%.

And then finally at times five, this grants us a 7% increase in damage. Now each stack also gives escalating range and reload speed benefits. We don't have the exact numbers on this, but just testing roughly our reload speed here in terms of frames at max stacks. This dropped our reload speed down to 113 frames at a reload speed of 58. Now, considering this is an origin trait, you can use this on top of things like Bolt Scavenger, Impulse Amplifier, hell, even Firefly to bring that reload even lower.

Overall, I personally think this is a pretty strong origin trait as it not only buffs our reload, but also gives us a decent enough damage bonus. And again, when we get tier fives, we'll be able to see the enhanced version of this origin trait, which I'm really curious to see how it juices this weapon. Now, before we get into our god rolls, I do think it's important to look at the damage potential of this weapon. And also figure out where exactly this new crossbow fits within our sandbox.

Now, again, per single shot, our two highest damage dealing bolts are serrated bolts, dealing 1,830 damage per shot, assuming you retrieve the bolt from the enemy, and heavy bolts, dealing 1,692 damage per shot. Now, for our comparison, we're just gonna stick with heavy bolt for now. As in most DPS scenarios, you're probably not going to retrieve those bolts.

With Heavy Bolt emptying all of our reserves, we're able to deal a total of 16,920 damage with a DPS value of 752. Now we can get this higher by using Bolt Scavenger as our reload perk, along with a damage perk like Element Honing at x5 and our origin trait frame of reference also at x5. Now I know that's a lot of hoops to jump through, but theoretically this gives us 24,441 total damage and a DPS value of 1,375. Now you can also take this further. Hire V of Needs got a big buff this season, essentially becoming the Gjallarhorn of Boes, which you can utilize alongside Opaque Hourglass.

This brings up our total damage to 27,041, with all those buffs our dps value goes up to 1521 as well now before anyone asks unfortunately we cannot use oath keeper with opaque hourglass in our testing at least we got no damage buff and no noticeable reload speed buff which is really perplexing bungee please for the love of god allow Oathkeeper to work with Opaque Hourglass. Literally the first time I saw that we were going to be getting a crossbow, I immediately wanted to see it with Oathkeeper. Oathkeeper, of course, increases the damage of our bows, and it should apply here to our crossbow, or at least I would think it should.

It also got a nice buff at the beginning of the season. Now, comparing this to Lavindan's Breath, considering that it is the only other heavy bow in the game that one deals 2097 damage per shot and in terms of total damage we're dealing 29 358 with the dps value of 1053. now if we tack on hierarchy of needs unfortunately this gives us barely any extra damage only boosting us to 29 778 and the dps value of 1068. now with everything stacking together opaque hourglass at least with all the bells and whistles can outpaced Leviathan's Breath in terms of DPS, although its total damage does fall behind Leviathan's Breath. And yes, this was Leviathan's Breath with its Exotic Calus, which greatly drops our draw speed. With that being said though, guys, Opaque Hourglass does do a hefty amount of damage.

You can utilize it for DPS. The biggest downside to it is you only have 10 shots, and in most boss encounters, It's not super realistic to be able to go over there and pick up your bolts, at least not without dying. In my opinion, at least from my playtime playing with this crossbow, to me, it's a major buster.

Mini bosses, majors, champions, I love using this crossbow against those enemy types. I've literally been using it to clear out a number of mini bosses during my leveling grind. And with it having essentially infinite ammo, you could also use it as much as you want when it comes to clearing adds. Not saying you can't use it in DPS phases, I just find that I really like using it when it comes to just dealing with high health targets. Another beautiful thing about this crossbow is that it's got a pretty high ammo generation stats, at least for a heavy weapon.

It sits at 47. Our new linear fusion rifle sits at 31. Our Kepler machine gun sits at 42 and the Raid rocket launcher sits at 38. So that's pretty good. It's almost as if Bungie wants us to use it as a means of killing a number of adds, champs, mini bosses, and high health targets, and then feed ammo back to ourselves. So that brings us to what we believe our god role is.

Considering I'm looking at this crossbow as more of a major buster weapon. I would recommend Heavy Bolts and Serrated Bolts with either Bolt Scavenger with Elemental Honing. Now, could you use Frenzy for that 15% buff and the increased reload speed?

You could. You could also use Vorpal. Keep in mind, Vorpal is bugged and Frenzy is only 15% versus what you could pull off with Elemental Honing.

Now, for the more ad-clear approach, you could also do Dragonfly and Firefly. Again, I wouldn't choose a bolt that hurts my impact damage, that being my crit damage, as you want to make sure your kill is a kill that's not an explosive kill, but actually a precision kill to proc those AoE explosions. Then if you want to make this weapon work as a DPS weapon, probably heavy bolts with Bolt Scavenger or even Impulse with Element of Honing. Now, in terms of your rail perk options, these aren't as impactful as the bolts, but I think quick load rail is really good as it gives you plus 30 reload speed, but it does give you minus 10 velocity. Granted, you can utilize impulse, which could counter that.

You can also do frictionless rail for that plus 15 to your reload and that plus 15 to velocity. Now, at the same time, I do want to entertain a rolling storm, maybe dragonfly roll, right? I'm clearing out adds.

I'm proccing those AoE explosions. I'm getting big kabloomies off. Maybe I'm sitting behind my Storm's Keep barricade with Rolling Storm.

It's a thought, man. Overall, guys, all I can say is that I've been a big fan of this crossbow. The first time I saw gameplay of it, I'm not gonna lie, guys, I've really was not that impressed. It looked weak, but as I have looped it into my builds, I want that elemental honing roll to stack with my mint retrograde. That would be so juiced.

The real question is, is what is going to be the enhanced version of this origin trait? Now, keep in mind, guys, another special thing about this weapon, amongst many of our new weapons, is the ability to rock our various different weapon mods this season. from weapon mods like Temporal Armaments, where it deals bonus damage against Cabal and Vex targets, and that's a significant one, or Temporal Blast, which essentially gives us an extra explosive blast on impact.

I'm really excited to see those mods on this weapon in particular. Now, in terms of PvP, all bolt types can one-hit to the head inside of PvP, but you can also body shot inside of PvP as well. The only bolt that can pull this off is Serrated, but you need to be close enough to retrieve the bolts before the enemy starts to regenerate health.

Now, if you do proc Radiant, you can, in fact, one-hit body, even under 200 weapon stats, but you need to invest in some sort of build to get Radiant often. So, think things like Acrobat's Dodge. In theory though, a Heavy Bolt at 200 weapon stats plus one stack of Elemental Honing should allow you to run around and one hit Bonnie as well.

Matter of fact, Heavy Bolt with 200 weapon stats pretty much left Guardians 1 HP. We just didn't have Elemental Honing to top things off to really see this one through. Now, the beautiful thing about this inside of PvP is that you can continually keep picking up your bolt.

And yes, if you build into it, you can run around getting one-shot body shots. I'm interested in seeing how people play with this or if people even give it a chance inside of PvP. Role-wise, there's nothing really in particular here I would choose. Maybe Impulse Amplifier.

And I don't know, maybe Master of Arms, perhaps Dragonfly if I'm just going to go for the crits anyways. Definitely a weapon I'm going to meme with. So guys, that is Opaque Hourglass.

Again, in order to get this crossbow, you have to do the raid. It's a drop chance, and of course, we just recently put a guide out on all the different feats. Yes, you have to do feats in order to increase the tiers of your loot.

This is definitely going to be a weapon, though, that I'm going to target. I want to get a tier 5 roll of this weapon. I think the weapon is incredible. Incredibly unique, and it's something I've been able to utilize quite effectively in my own builds.

Let me know in the comments below if we missed anything and your thoughts on this new weapon type inside of Destiny. Fellas and ladies, thank you all for coming and watching, and as always, slap that like button like your mama told you, right?

Today we are finally looking at one of my most anticipated weapons from Edge of Fate, the brand new Crossbow Opaque Hourglass. This is our first new weapon type to launch in Destiny in many years and its now the 2nd bow in that heavy slot joining the likes of Leviathan's Breath. This Crossbow has a lot of interesting things going on with it which we've broken down all of it in today's video.

#destiny2 #bungie #edgeoffate

Crossbow Functionality 2:13

Bolt Breakdown 4:54

Perks 5:12

3rd Column Perks 7:57

4th Column Perks 10:58

Origin Trait Frame of Reference 12:10

Damage Comparison Vs Leviathan's Breath 14:29

PvE God Roll 17:36

PvP Performance 18:37