Forerunner — Sidearm Executioner (Hunter)

Weapon: Forerunner (Sidearm · Special · Kinetic) · Subclass: Prismatic Hunter · Role: Special-ammo precision deleter + Transcendence battery Sandbox: 9.7.0 · Created 2026-06-16

An oversized, heavy-caliber sidearm that fires full-auto and hits like a hand cannon to the head. Forerunner is Kinetic Special — every precision kill it lands feeds Facet of Grace Transcendence energy, Gunpowder Gamble charge, and (while you're hurt) Mechaneer's Tricksleeves damage. The fantasy is the opposite of "save the special for bosses": you live in this gun, delete majors at point-blank, and the kills pay for your whole kit. Half precision pistol, half ability engine.

The weapon

Full Stop (intrinsic): Oversized Sidearm with extended-range, heavy-caliber rounds. Fires full auto with increased rate of fire. Deals increased precision damage to unshielded targets.

Catalyst — The Rock: For several seconds after a final blow, [Alternate Weapon Action] to consume part of your ammo reserves, converting your next thrown grenade into a fragmentation grenade.

What it does: Forerunner is a 200-RPM full-auto Special-ammo sidearm with hand-cannon range and bonus precision damage to unshielded targets — so it shreds majors, minibosses, and any orange bar whose shield you've already popped. It is Kinetic, which matters for the subclass pairing (see Facet of Grace). The catalyst is a flex utility: after a kill, the alternate-fire converts your next grenade into a big frag — a free extra burst of add-clear that costs reserve ammo, not your grenade cooldown's identity. On Prismatic the converted frag still counts as a grenade kill for the kit.

Loadout

Slot	Pick	Why
Subclass	Prismatic Hunter	Kinetic-gun-agnostic; gives invis survivability + Transcendence fed by Forerunner's Kinetic kills.
Super	Golden Gun: Marksman (Solar) or Silence & Squall	GG for priority/champion deletion on-theme; either works — the gun is the damage.
Class ability	Gambler's Dodge	Melee energy on dodge (scaled by Melee stat) + reload, repositions you to point-blank range.
Movement	Triple Jump	Air control to peek-and-delete with a Special sidearm.
Melee	Combination Blow (Arc) or Threaded Spike	Combo Blow heals + ramps melee damage; an elemental melee debuff feeds Stylish Executioner.
Grenade	Grapple or Magnetic	Grapple repositions to range and (with the catalyst's frag conversion) is a flex; Magnetic if you want a sticky weaken-ish burst.
Aspect 1	Gunpowder Gamble	Any kills (Forerunner included) charge a free Solar explosive — add-clear + an elemental debuff source for Stylish.
Aspect 2	Stylish Executioner	Killing any elementally-debuffed target → Invisibility + Truesight. Survivability for an in-your-face Special build.

Exotic armour — Mechaneer's Tricksleeves (Gauntlets)

Spring-Loaded Mounting: Increases Sidearm airborne effectiveness, ready speed, and reload speed. While you're critically wounded, swapping to a Sidearm reloads it and increases its damage. While this effect is active, Sidearm final blows reload the weapon and extend the effect's duration.

This is the Hunter sidearm exotic and Forerunner is the best sidearm to put under it. The "critically wounded → swap → damage buff" trigger turns Forerunner into a panic-button deleter exactly when you're low, and sidearm final blows refresh the buff and the reload — so once you're in the window, a single Special sidearm with hand-cannon range never stops firing or buffing. The passive ready/reload/airborne boosts also fix Forerunner's one weakness (30 airborne effectiveness) for free.

Why this works (the mechanics)

• Forerunner is Kinetic Special, so its kills double-pay. Facet of Grace turns every Kinetic kill into Transcendence energy — Forerunner is a fast-firing precision gun, so it builds Transcendence faster than any ability could. You're trans-ready constantly, which arms Facet of Protection's bigger DR and Facet of Courage's ability bonus.
• "Bonus precision damage to unshielded targets" + Special ammo = major deleter. Pop a shield with anything, then Forerunner's head-shots delete the orange bar. It's a hand-cannon's range on a sidearm's fire rate, in the Special slot — the damage profile of a primary that hits like a secondary.
• Mechaneer's is a self-refreshing damage loop tied to the gun. Get low → swap to Forerunner → reload + damage buff → sidearm kills extend it indefinitely. The build wants you at close range (where you take chip damage), so the "critically wounded" trigger is reliable, not a gimmick.
• Stylish Executioner buys survivability off the same kills. Gunpowder Gamble's Solar explosive scorches (an elemental debuff); Combo Blow is an Arc melee. Kill a debuffed target → invis + Truesight → break line of sight, heal, re-engage. A Special-ammo close-range build needs an off-ramp, and this is it.
• The catalyst converts a kill into extra add-clear without spending your grenade identity. After any Forerunner kill, alt-fire → next grenade is a frag — reserve ammo paying for AoE, and the frag still counts as a grenade kill for Gunpowder Gamble charge and Facet stat feeds.
• Gambler's Dodge closes the ability loop. Dodge near enemies → big melee chunk (Melee stat) → Combo Blow → heal (Facet of Blessing) + debuff for Stylish. The gun reloads on dodge too, so repositioning and re-arming are one button.

Stats & mods

Weapons 200 → Health ~100 → Class. Weapons stat is a flat PvE damage multiplier on Forerunner vs minors/majors — the centerpiece wants it maxed. Health ~100 because you fight at close range under invis-only survivability; Class for dodge uptime (reload + melee + Stylish reset). Grenade/Super are dump-ish (catalyst frag and GG are flex, not the engine).

Mods:

• Helmet: Kinetic Siphon (Forerunner kills → Orbs) · Ashes to Assets (Super on grenade kills — frag conversions count).
• Gauntlets (Mechaneer's): Melee Font · Heavy Handed (melee kills → melee energy) — feeds Combo Blow / Stylish.
• Chest: triple elemental resist (one of each) under the invis off-ramp.
• Boots: Kinetic Weapon Surge ×2 (≈+17% straight onto Forerunner) · Orbs of Restoration.
• Class item: Powerful Attraction (dodge vacuums orbs) · Bomber/Reaper.
• Special Ammo Finisher if reserves run thin in long fights — Forerunner is Special, so ammo economy is the real constraint, not damage.

Where it shines

• Add-dense PvE, master/legend content: Forerunner's range + Special-slot damage + bonus-precision-vs-unshielded makes it a major/miniboss eraser; Stylish invis and Facet of Protection keep you alive at the range it wants.
• PvP / Gambit: the iconic home — heavy-caliber 200-RPM with hand-cannon range and Mechaneer's panic-swap is a duelling monster. Forerunner is a Crucible legend.
• Champion coverage — FLAG: Forerunner carries no bespoke anti-champion stun in the manifest, and a 200-RPM sidearm is not one of the Anti-Champion 2.0 archetypes that intrinsically stun (Aggressive/High-Impact → Unstoppable, Precision/Adaptive → Barrier, Lightweight/Rapid-Fire → Overload). Champions are handled off-weapon: Golden Gun staggers/deletes priority targets, Gunpowder Gamble + Solar scorch and the seasonal artifact supply stuns, and your other two slots must cover the Barrier/Unstoppable/Overload you bring (see below). Do not bring Forerunner expecting it to stun anything.

Other two weapon slots (complement Forerunner):

• Energy: a Special or Primary you'll barely fire — its only job is to pop shields (so Forerunner's unshielded-precision bonus applies) and to carry a champion stun Forerunner lacks. Pick the archetype that covers the champion type the activity throws at you.
• Heavy: a second champion-stun archetype + boss DPS (LMG, Rocket, or a Heavy GL) — the thing Forerunner's Special ammo and add-focus can't do. Between Energy + Heavy you must cover all three champion types; the subclass/artifact fill gaps.

Mod selection (masterworked — full allocation)

All 15 sockets used, 10 energy per masterworked piece; costs from the manifest. Core mods are the build's engine; fill mods are strong defaults — swap freely (chest resists should match the activity's damage types). Flex/loadout-dependent: so ammo economy is the real constraint; not damage.