History of Cloudstrike

Overview

Cloudstrike is an Exotic Arc Sniper Rifle with the Rapid-Fire archetype (140 RPM). Its intrinsic perk, Mortal Polarity, makes precision final blows generate a lightning bolt at the target's location; the Exotic trait Stormbringer creates a lightning storm at the point of impact after rapid precision hits. Its lore tells of a masked Guardian who wielded lightning to protect a village from raiders.

Acquisition

• It drops as a rare reward from higher-difficulty Empire Hunts, the Destiny 2: Beyond Light activity given by Variks. Higher difficulty improves the odds. It is not guaranteed on any run.
• Blueberries.gg also lists finishing the Beyond Light campaign, completing Variks' Sabotage challenges and the quest A Hard Rain Falls from the Exo Stranger as prerequisites. Destiny Game Wiki only mentions Empire Hunts, so treat these as unconfirmed; the campaign requirement is the one both agree on.
• If you have collected it once, the Exotic Kiosk can reissue it.
• Historically it arrived with Season 12 (Season of the Hunt era) per Destiny Game Wiki; check in game whether Empire Hunt rewards have been rotated since.

Catalyst

The catalyst drops at the end of core activities such as Strikes, Crucible, Gambit and Vanguard Ops (competitive playlists boost the rate, per Blueberries.gg). After you equip it, 400 kills with Cloudstrike complete it. It adds +25 Handling and the Triple Tap perk, which returns a round to the magazine after consecutive precision hits.