So I picked up Ice Breaker from Xûr last week and been working on leveling it. I'm confused about the first and fourth tier upgrades, though, since they don't seem to to have any effect on the weapon's performance. I would expect that Accurized Ballistics, Field Choke, and Linear Compensator would at the very least all exhibit slightly different stat changes, but all of them seem to be normalized.

Here's a video comparing Ice Breaker's perks with the perks from my other exotics (note how every other weapon changes stats in the first and fourth column):

This has been bugging me also.

Somebody did a breakdown on reddit a couple of days ago, for what it's worth: http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2ivyxr/ice_breaker_research/

Thanks for the link. Based on his findings, I would expect the Stability stat to change with Linear Compensator (#3). I'll play with that and see if I notice a difference.

Ive noticed this on certain shotguns with stability upgrades. The stability bar doesnt move one bit.

Could anyone tell me what Spontaneous Combustion perk does? I know it's supposed to cause explosions, but if this has been occurring it hasn't been obvious at all. I was expecting it to be a more bad-ass version of Firefly, since it is an exotic weapon, but so far it has been a dud as far as I can tell.

Ive noticed this on certain shotguns with stability upgrades. The stability bar doesnt move one bit.

I either have or have had a sniper with a scope that increases range only to have the range stat decrease once equipped. :|

- CC

Could anyone tell me what Spontaneous Combustion perk does? I know it's supposed to cause explosions, but if this has been occurring it hasn't been obvious at all. I was expecting it to be a more bad-ass version of Firefly, since it is an exotic weapon, but so far it has been a dud as far as I can tell.

It looks to me that it needs to warm up. Playing patrol the other day, I noticed the first 5-10 kills didn't trigger the explosion effect, then it was happening all of the time. Saw this during strikes last night too.

Doesn't do a ton of damage; more useful for staggering enemies and pinning them down for a follow up shot.

Could be that it increases Range less than the previous Scope, but still increases range compared to the base stats.

Could be that it increases Range less than the previous Scope, but still increases range compared to the base stats.

Yeah, you're probably right. Didn't think of it like that.

- CC