Destiny 2 Turncoat Exotic Hand Cannon: How to Get and God Roll

TL;DR

• Turncoat is the only Exotic Void Hand Cannon in Destiny 2 — added in Monument of Triumph (Update 9.7.0).
• Free track of the Triumphant Rewards Pass: unlocks at Rank 35. Premium track: unlocks at Rank 1 instantly.
• Dealing damage builds Latent Power. Hold Reload when full to activate Unleashed Power.
• Unleashed Power raises rate of fire, boosts hip-fire accuracy, and Weakens every target you hit.
• Stay in Unleashed Power too long and it becomes Overwhelming Power — dealing damage to you over time.
• Stow the weapon to pause self-damage and bank the empowered state. The buff stays when you swap back.
• The Catalyst unlocks at Rank 90 and adds Void Mastery — a Void Overshield when empowerment ends.
• Best for Void builds, Anti-Barrier content, and aggressive PvP play.

The Destiny 2 Turncoat Exotic Hand Cannon is the only Exotic Void Hand Cannon in the game and the last Exotic Hand Cannon Bungie will ever add. It dropped with Monument of Triumph on June 9, 2026, and split the community immediately — the self-damage mechanic sounds punishing on paper, but once you understand the stow trick and the Weaken loop, Turncoat becomes one of the most satisfying and aggressive primary weapons in the current sandbox. This guide covers how to get it for free, exactly what every perk does, the Catalyst, and how to use it well in both PvE and PvP. Get Destiny 2 free on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, or the Bungie website.

How to Get Turncoat in Destiny 2

Turncoat comes from the Triumphant Rewards Pass — the final Rewards Pass Bungie released with Monument of Triumph. There are two ways to claim it depending on whether you have the paid pass:

• Premium track: Turncoat unlocks immediately at Rank 1. Buy the pass and the weapon is yours instantly.
• Free track: Turncoat unlocks at approximately Rank 35. You earn XP toward pass ranks through any activity — Strikes, Crucible, Gambit, patrols, and Triumphs all contribute. No purchase required.

The Triumphant Rewards Pass has no end date. It is permanently available alongside the rest of Monument of Triumph content. Most active players reach Rank 35 within one to two weeks of normal play without targeting pass progress specifically. The Catalyst unlocks at Rank 90 of the same pass and requires 700 kills with Turncoat to complete after claiming. For the full Catalyst farming guide, the existing Destiny 2 Turncoat Catalyst guide covers every step.

Turncoat Base Stats

• Type: Adaptive Frame Hand Cannon
• Element: Void
• Slot: Kinetic
• Impact: 84
• Range: 52
• Stability: 54
• Handling: 46
• Reload Speed: 38
• Rounds Per Minute: 140
• Magazine: 11
• Barrel: Smallbore (fixed)
• Magazine: Accurized Rounds (fixed)

The 140 RPM Adaptive Frame puts Turncoat in the same archetype as Zaouli’s Bane and Ace of Spades — deliberate, hard-hitting shots over speed. The 84 Impact is high for the archetype. Smallbore gives both Stability and Range simultaneously, and Accurized Rounds pushes Range further. The 38 base Reload Speed is weak but becomes less noticeable once Unleashed Power is active and shots are firing faster. These are fixed stats — Turncoat is an Exotic with a set roll, so there is no perk variance to chase.

Turncoat Perks Explained

Latent Power — How the Buff Builds

Latent Power is Turncoat’s core engine. Every time you deal damage, a power bar builds in the background. Precision hits fill it faster than body shots. Final blows contribute the most progress of any single event. When the bar is full, the weapon is primed and ready for you to activate the empowered state.

In dense PvE content with plentiful enemies, the bar fills so quickly that you barely notice the buildup phase. You will spend most of your time empowered rather than charging. In PvP, building the bar without a kill takes roughly six to seven headshots on a single opponent — achievable mid-duel but not instant. The weapon rewards sustained engagement rather than lucky one-shots.

Unleashed Power — What Happens When You Activate It

When Latent Power is full, hold the Reload button (Alternate Weapon Action) to trigger Unleashed Power. Three things change immediately:

• Rate of fire increases — Turncoat fires noticeably faster, closer to an aggressive 180 RPM Hand Cannon feel. The cadence shift is immediate and makes sustained fire feel aggressive and fluid.
• Hip-fire accuracy increases dramatically — precision shots from the hip become reliable. This mirrors The Last Word’s hip-fire identity and rewards players who push close without slowing to ADS.
• Every shot applies Weaken — the Weaken debuff reduces enemy damage output and increases all incoming damage to them by 30%. This is the same Weaken magnitude as Fafnir and Tractor Cannon, but applied from your primary slot at no Heavy ammo cost.

Overwhelming Power — The Self-Damage Phase

After a short window of Unleashed Power, the state escalates into Overwhelming Power. At this point Turncoat begins dealing damage to you over time. The damage is not an instant kill but in high-end content where you are already taking incoming fire, the combined pressure can get you killed if you ignore it. The fix is simple — reload or stow the weapon. Either action cancels both Unleashed Power and Overwhelming Power immediately. There is no cooldown before you can rebuild Latent Power and enter the empowered state again.

The Stow Mechanic — The Most Important Thing to Know

This single mechanic separates players who enjoy Turncoat from those who find it frustrating. When you stow Turncoat while empowered, two things happen simultaneously. The self-damage stops immediately. And the Unleashed Power state is preserved and paused — not cancelled. When you pull Turncoat back out, the empowered window resumes exactly where it left off.

In practice this means: activate Unleashed Power, apply Weaken shots to a priority target, stow Turncoat, finish the fight with your Energy or Heavy weapon, then swap back to Turncoat for the next engagement with the buff still active. The self-damage of Overwhelming Power is almost entirely avoidable for attentive players. It only punishes you if you forget to swap out. Treat the Overwhelming Power transition as a reminder to rotate weapons, not a punishment for using the gun.

Power Surge — The Supporting Trait

Power Surge is the third trait that bridges normal and empowered play. Rapid hits charge your next shot into an explosive round that deals bonus damage and accelerates Latent Power buildup on hit. While empowered, every shot is already explosive automatically. Power Surge is most useful during the pre-empowerment phase — landing rapid hits on the same target charges the Latent Power bar faster and loads a harder-hitting explosive bullet at the same time. In PvP, the explosive rounds add flinch to opponents, disrupting their aim mid-duel and helping you land the follow-up headshot that wins the engagement.

Turncoat Catalyst — Void Mastery

The Catalyst adds Void Mastery — when empowerment ends (whether by stowing, reloading, or the timer expiring naturally) you gain a Void Overshield. The strength of the Overshield scales directly with how long you stayed in the empowered state before exiting. A short Unleashed Power window gives a small Overshield. Pushing further into Overwhelming Power before stowing gives a stronger one.

This changes the entire risk-reward calculation around Overwhelming Power. Without the Catalyst, holding Unleashed Power too long is purely punishing — damage with no benefit. With Void Mastery, every extra second in Overwhelming Power you choose to endure converts directly into a defensive buffer on exit. In PvE it means exiting an empowered window with absorption for the next group of enemies. In PvP it means contesting an objective or peeking a corner immediately after a Turncoat fight with more effective health than your opponents expect. The Catalyst is one of the more impactful upgrades across all three new Monument of Triumph Exotics. For the full list of every new Catalyst added in this update, see the Destiny 2 new catalysts Monument of Triumph guide.

Best PvE Use Cases for Turncoat

Void Builds Across All Classes

Turncoat’s highest value in PvE is as a Weaken applicator from the primary slot during Unleashed Power. In Void builds where Weaken is already applied through subclass abilities — Nightstalker’s On The Prowl, Voidwalker’s Nova Bomb, Sentinel’s shield throws — Turncoat adds a second independent Weaken source from the Kinetic slot, extending debuff coverage without sacrificing your Heavy or Special slot to maintain it.

The Phantom Surge Hunter is the most natural pairing. The Phantom Surge melee deals bonus damage to Weakened targets, and Turncoat’s Unleashed Power applies Weaken through primary fire alone. This means a Phantom Surge Hunter can keep Weaken active through shooting while saving Fafnir in the Heavy slot for boss damage phases where that slot’s output matters most. See the Phantom Surge Hunter build guide for how to slot Turncoat into that full setup, and the Fafnir guide for how the two weapons complement each other across slots.

Anti-Barrier Champions

Turncoat has Anti-Barrier as an intrinsic weapon property through Monument of Triumph’s universal anti-Champion frame system. It can pierce and stun Barrier Champions without any seasonal Artifact mod. In Grandmaster Nightfalls and Master raids where Barrier Champions appear, this frees both your Special and Heavy slots from Champion-coverage obligation. Running Turncoat as your primary means your loadout can be entirely built around damage and survivability rather than sacrificing a weapon slot for Champion control.

General PvE Add-Clear

Outside of Void builds, Turncoat still performs well as a 140 RPM Exotic primary in most PvE content. Monument of Triumph buffed all primaries by 30% versus minor enemies and Exotic primaries by 40%, which makes Turncoat’s base shots significantly stronger against standard combatants than in any previous era. With Unleashed Power active and explosive rounds from Power Surge hitting groups of adds, Turncoat clears patrol content, Strikes, and Lost Sectors effectively without needing specific subclass setup. Use the stow loop naturally and the self-damage mechanic almost never becomes an issue in lower-stakes content.

Best PvP Use Cases for Turncoat

Trials of Osiris and Competitive

Turncoat has already made a strong impression in Trials since Monument of Triumph launched. The key insight for PvP is that you do not need a kill to fill Latent Power — approximately six to seven headshots on any Guardian fills the bar. This means you can build Latent Power by winning a partial duel, losing the exchange and retreating, or sustaining pressure on one opponent over multiple peeks. The bar carries between engagements as long as you do not let the weapon sit idle.

During Unleashed Power in Crucible, the rate of fire increase and hip-fire accuracy make Turncoat feel like a close-range aggressive Hand Cannon — comparable to The Last Word in playstyle. The Weaken debuff on empowered shots is a team benefit as well — opponents you hit are taking 30% more damage from every source, including your teammates’ shots. In Trials rounds where your support player is finishing off a Guardian you have softened, Turncoat’s Weaken shortens the time-to-kill window significantly. The stow mechanic applies in PvP exactly as it does in PvE — bank the empowered state between engagements, resume it when the next Guardian appears.

6v6 Quickplay and Iron Banner

In 6v6 modes with frequent kill chains, Latent Power fills almost continuously and Unleashed Power windows are near-permanent during active fights. The Catalyst’s Void Overshield on empowerment exit makes Turncoat genuinely self-sustaining in objective modes — survive an Unleashed Power window, exit with a Void Overshield, contest the next flag, repeat. Explosive rounds from Power Surge hit multiple grouped opponents around objectives, and the Weaken application means your entire team benefits from any player running Turncoat in a coordinated push. Pair with Echo of Undermining (Void grenade Weaken Fragment) in Void builds for overlapping Weaken from two independent sources.

Turncoat vs Ace of Spades — Which Should You Run?

Both are Exotic 140 RPM Hand Cannons. The decision comes down to what your build requires.

Run Turncoat when you are in a Void build where Weaken from the primary slot amplifies your subclass loop, when you want Anti-Barrier coverage from your primary without using an Artifact slot, or when you enjoy an active perk management playstyle that rewards deliberate empowerment timing. The stow mechanic and Weaken application make Turncoat a more engaged primary weapon than almost anything else in the game right now.

Run Ace of Spades when you want a zero-management primary that performs consistently without perk activation requirements. Memento Mori is always available after a kill with no bar to fill and no empowerment timing to manage. For Solar and Arc builds where Weaken does not factor into your subclass loop, Ace of Spades is the cleaner choice.

Turncoat vs The Turncoat + Fafnir Loadout

The loadout most high-end players are running in 2026 pairs Turncoat in the Kinetic slot with Fafnir in the Heavy slot. Both apply Weaken from different slots. Turncoat applies it through primary fire during Unleashed Power. Fafnir applies it through the Quantum Nova alternate action in the Heavy slot. The two Weakens are independent sources — both can be active simultaneously in an encounter, ensuring near-zero downtime on the 30% damage debuff whether you are in the primary or heavy rotation at any given moment. For the full Fafnir breakdown, see the Destiny 2 Fafnir Exotic guide.

Tips for Using Turncoat Effectively

• Never activate Unleashed Power when you cannot stow safely. If enemies are actively shooting you when Overwhelming Power kicks in, combined incoming and self-damage can kill you. Enter Unleashed Power from cover or at the start of an engagement where you have a clear line of retreat.
• The empowered state persists when stowed — use it. Activate Unleashed Power, apply Weaken shots to the priority target, stow, finish the fight with your Energy weapon or Heavy, swap back to Turncoat with the buff still running. This rotation is the heart of Turncoat’s loop.
• In PvP, count your headshots. Six to seven headshots fills the bar without a kill. Knowing this lets you track the empowerment window mentally and time Unleashed Power for the decisive closing shots of a duel.
• Push slightly into Overwhelming Power before stowing after you have the Catalyst. Each extra second in Overwhelming Power increases the Void Overshield you receive on exit. A slightly longer window gives meaningfully more protection for the next engagement.
• Pair with Echo of Undermining in Void builds. Your grenades also Weaken targets with this Fragment equipped. Turncoat’s Unleashed Power Weaken and grenade Weaken stack independently, keeping the debuff active across your full ability and weapon rotation.
• Run it on Void Hunter with Phantom Surge for the best PvE synergy. Weaken from Turncoat feeds bonus Phantom Surge melee damage, On The Prowl refunds ability energy on marked target kills, and the loop sustains itself without external input. For the full rotation, see the Phantom Surge Hunter build guide.

Is Turncoat Worth Getting on the Free Track?

Yes. Rank 35 on the free Triumphant Rewards Pass requires no paid purchase and arrives naturally through normal play within one to two weeks. Turncoat is the only Exotic Void Hand Cannon in Destiny 2 and the last Exotic Hand Cannon ever added to the game. Even if you do not plan to run it immediately, claiming it from the free track permanently adds it to your collections for future builds. The pass XP accumulates passively from every activity, so the weapon arrives without any dedicated grind.

For everything else added alongside Turncoat in Monument of Triumph — Legendary Marks, Armor 3.0, Tenet vendors, Tier 5 weapons, and the full update overview — see the Destiny 2 Monument of Triumph complete guide. For the other two new Monument of Triumph Exotics, the Fafnir guide covers the best new Heavy weapon and the Cull’s Shadow guide walks through the secret Oblation mission chain. For full PvP weapon comparisons including where Turncoat sits against the current Trials meta, see the Destiny 2 best PvP weapons 2026 Crucible meta guide.