Destiny 2 Xur location and items, Jan. 11-14

If you played Destiny, you may be familiar with Xur, the weekly Exotic item merchant. In Destiny 2, he’s back, and now appears all over the map. This week, he’s on the Tower. You can find Xur hanging out in the Hangar just north of the Dead Orbit vendor, relaxing on the stairs.

Image: Bungie via Polygon

Xur’s inventory this week consists of the following:

• Merciless, exotic fusion rifle: 29 Legendary Shards
• Young Ahamkara’s Spine, Hunter gauntlets: 23 Legendary Shards
• Doom Fang Pauldrons, Titan gauntlets: 23 Legendary Shards
• Crown of Tempests, Warlock helmet: 23 Legendary Shards
• Isochronal Engram: 97 Legendary Shards

Xur’s inventory caps out at 631 if you’re at 650 power — one Light above your Collection. He also offers specific rolls on each armor piece each week, giving out different perks for the same pieces. We’ve highlighted any great rolls below.

Merciless

There was a time when the Merciless fusion rifle one of the best exotics in Destiny 2. Its exotic perk, Conserve Momentum, causes it to charge its fusion bursts faster for every non-lethal hit you strike. This still makes killing bosses very fast, but has been outclassed by quite a few other weapons. But Merciless can still be really fun to use in all kinds of content, especially the old-school stuff. It’s not any less powerful than it was in year one — in fact, it’s more so since it’s in your energy slot now — but there are plenty of better weapons to choose from. But if you have any interest in Nightfalls or the Leviathan raid, Merciless is still a must own.

YOUNG AHAMKARA’S SPINE

Young Ahamkara’s Spine is fairly unremarkable as far as exotics go. Its main perk, Wish-Dragon Teeth, increases the length and blast radius of your tripmine grenades and returns energy to your grenade slot when you damage enemies with abilities. This is situational at best in PvP and almost useless in PvE. A situational PvP exotic doesn’t cut it when Hunters already have very good PvP catchalls like the Foetracer helmet. If you’re trying collect all of the exotics and you’re missing these, Young Ahamkara’s Spine is for you. Otherwise, you’ve no reason to waste your Legendary Shards.

This week’s roll: This week’s roll has low resilience, mobility and recovery, with a choice between mobility and resilience. Slot one offers fusion rifle loader, hand cannon loader, and impact induction — melee damage reduces grenade cooldown. Slot two offers sniper rifle scavenger and machine gun scavenger. This roll is actually pretty great, especially if you don’t have any gauntlets with machine gun scavenger yet.

DOOM FANG PAULDRON

Doom Fang Pauldrons are pretty cool if you’re into the Sentinel Titan. Its exotic perk, Horns of Doom, causes shield bash kills to quickly recharge your shield throw while you’re using your Super. Additionally, melee ability kills give you extra super energy, and shield throw kills extend the duration of your super. If you like the top tree of Sentinel, this is a fun exotic that you can use in strikes. If you’re a regular Sentinel user, this is a must have.

This week’s roll: Medium resilience and low recovery, with a choice between resilience and recovery. Slot one offers fusion rifle loader, hand cannon loader, and impact induction — melee damage reduces grenade cooldown. Slot two offers sniper rifle scavenger and machine gun scavenger. This is a pretty awesome roll. If you want to run Sentinel in Strikes or public events, this is a perfect exotic.

CROWN OF TEMPESTS

Crown of Tempests is a pretty great Warlock Exotic, especially if you like Stormcaller. This helmet’s main perk, Conduction Tines, causes Arc ability kills to recharge your Arc abilities and increase the duration of your Super — this ability now stacks as well. The only bad news about this helmet is that it needs to be used with Stormcaller, which is a great PvP Super now and decent for enemy clear in strikes and raids. If you don’t have this helmet for your Warlock, you should definitely consider picking it up.

This week’s roll: This week’s roll has high mobility, low recovery, with a choice between mobility and recovery. Slot one offers fusion rifle targeting, hand cannon targeting, and hands-on — melee kills grant super energy. Slot two offers sniper rifle reserves and machine gun reserves. This roll is actually pretty great, especially if you don’t have any helmets with machine gun reserves yet.