Who? What? When? Where? Why?

TL;DR - At first taste, I've found the perks for this thing to be just... weird once you give it a good 2'n'2 look.

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I was low key looking forward to getting this, especially as Knives are the saving grace to my fun in this particular subclass. Just as I play at times a Hunter in an Arc Subclass for that sweet SWEET Arcstrider action, I'll play Solar for some sweet stabby-stabby-at-a-distance. This evening I was able to get the Beyond Light Hunter Arm Exotic called Athys's Embrace. It's exotic perk being;

Skittering Stinger
Weighted Knife gains a second bounce. Rapid precision hits with your weapons grant Weighted Knife a significant damage bonus and the ability to [Stagger] stagger unshielded combatants for a short time.

Note in the description that it exactly states "Weighted Knife", there for requiring lower tree in the Hunters Solar Subclass. What is the Subclass called?

It's called "Way of the Sharpshooter". You can only use this Exotic with the batch of perks under "Way of the Sharpshooter". Mm'k?

What are those perks? In short;

• Precision hits reduce cool down of the Golden Gun
  
• Allows Precision damage with the super, which also multiplies its damage and duration with each hit.
  
• Precision kills make weapons more stable with better handling for a time. With a large enough buff, adds even more damage to super.

...and last but most certainly not least...

• WEIGHTED KNIFE: Throw a knife that deals extra precision damage. Precision knife kills with this melee ability immediately recharge it.

So when you look at the exotic perk in relation to the only tree you can use with this, everything all in all looks pretty good right? I thought so at first, but admittedly I didn't really think about it much. Apparently, if you can get it going in PvP you can one hit. Neat! I haven't really been able to test in in PvP yet, as I'm still weighting my barrings with it in PvE, which is where all this build up in this post is coming from. I find myself scratching my head wondering what am I missing?

Who's game play style is this exotic for? While I can say the built in [Stagger] is nice, what is this exotic for? When should I be useing this thing this over other exotics? Where in PvE is this Exotic supposed to shine? ... and then there is just... why? Why why why?

A Second Bounce? The WHOLE IDEA of the "Sharpshooter" tree is to... uh... not miss? Yeah? How am I supposed to use a second bounce when, honestly, I only want one so that I can recharge my knife and do it again. This is why I'd generally use Ophidia Spathe instead, so that I can have two knives on a whim, which is far more forgiving in the event I don't hit a crit kill (or are up against Vex).

When it comes to WEIGHTED KNIFE - DON'T. DO. BODYSHOTS. Getting the knife back so you can chain headshots is *chefs kiss* fantastically fun.

I can't control that if I just toss the knife willy nilly and cross my fingers to the simple geometry. Right now that "second bounce" feels moot to me. Why is that perk here on THIS branch of the tree? I'm bewildered that it's even there. (Might be interesting if this was for middle tree.)

So what about the damage bonus? Well, I can confirm that it does indeed boost damage considerably... BUT...

When it comes to WEIGHTED KNIFE - DON'T. DO. BODYSHOTS. Getting the knife back so you can chain headshots is *chefs kiss* fantastically fun.

In PvP, if you can get that conditional buff a-going, you can one hit, as mentioned above. Because it's all guardians all the time, there brings with it a confidence. If you do X and buff Y you can get Z result. I've yet to pull this off myself, but I'm looking forward to giving it a solid college try.

In PvE though... and I grant it may be inexperience as I'm still new with this thing... it feels riskyer to try. Again, I WANT MY KNIFE BACK. That is my KEY concern. Well... that and offing whatever if trying to get at me. To get the buff, you need to shoot something in a crit a few times. More than once, as if you're filling a meter. It's not hard to do, but it does feel distracting to the little loop I have been able to perceive. I want the buff so I can do cool exotic things, but, man... I'm not feeling it at all.

Red Bar Headshot - Can one hit without buff. Extra dead with buff. Nothing fancy. Don't really need the exotic buff here.

Orange Bar Headshot - With buff I can one hit "Nightmare Legionnaires" in the EDZ lost sector, "The Quarry". Unbuffed, the throwing knife can remove a little over 2/3rds of the total health pool. Same is true with the Orange Bar Hive in the Cosmodrome area "The Steppes". You know... that dark underbelly downstairs. So that's something but... is that it? Do I really need an exotic for one shootin' orange bars?

Yellow Bar Headshot "Majors" - Can not one hit. Have to whittle them down, but by how much? Might as well just keep shooting. If I had a prompt that let me know that what I was aiming at could be one shot (much like the assassinations do), that would be very helpful.

I'm just... maybe I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth here, but... I don't get it. I'm probably being thick somehow, but... I'm not seeing the "exotic" worthy loop here. If say the buff also happened when your shields popped, or if the perk stacked so I could work one shot knife magic on bigger and badder foes, or if precision hits/kills also added to your melee regen as well (much like the warlock exotic "Necrotic Grip" is supposed to) than maybe I could see some use in this within PvE, but right now... What is this for? Am I missing something here?

Oh! and one more thing while I'm pecking at this exotic; Stagger? Does it not make more sense for a "Weighted Knife" based exotic have piercing instead of stagger? Like geeze, what am I throwing? Sharp bricks of lead?

- No text -

Yep.

Also, the exotic seems mostly geared towards PvP, where bouncing a knife around a corner could potentially be very effective. The anti-champion effect seems to me like an attempt to give it some PvE utility as well, as the bouncing knife alone doesn’t seem to have much PvE appeal.

Yep.

Also, the exotic seems mostly geared towards PvP, where bouncing a knife around a corner could potentially be very effective. The anti-champion effect seems to me like an attempt to give it some PvE utility as well, as the bouncing knife alone doesn’t seem to have much PvE appeal.

Yeah. As I mentioned, that one hit (body) in PvP is pretty cool if you can get it to happen, but I was really hoping I could make out some sort of PvE build with this. I suppose Occam's razor strikes again. "The simplest explanation is usually the right one".