With Monument of Triumph locking the sandbox in place, the temptation is to dismantle everything that isn’t in the top ten and free up Vault space. That would be a mistake. Plenty of perks and weapons sit outside the meta yet still solve real problems in endgame content, from skating across maps to breaking shields and topping up your ability energy.
Quick answer: Keep rolls with Eager Edge, Shoot to Loot, Heal Clip, Repulsor Brace, Attrition Orbs, Disruption Break, and the Demolitionist plus Pugilist combo, along with hard-earned raid weapons and any sunset gear you can no longer farm.
Off-meta perks worth a Vault slot
Each of these perks does something a meta damage number can’t. None of them will melt the Witness on their own, but they cover movement, survivability, ability uptime, and shield removal. Here is what each one does and why it stays in the Vault.
| Perk | What it does | Why keep it |
|---|---|---|
| Eager Edge | Increases sword lunge distance | Enables Well Skate and Shatter Skate movement tech |
| Shoot to Loot | Picks up Orbs and Ammo Bricks by shooting them, reloading from reserves | Recovers ammo and Orbs when pinned down or mid-DPS |
| Heal Clip | Grants Cure when you reload after a kill | Backup healing when your build’s sources run dry |
| Repulsor Brace | Grants an Overshield after killing a Void-debuffed target | Free damage buffer in Void builds |
| Attrition Orbs | Generates an Orb of Power from repeated hits on one target | Feeds Orb-dependent armor perks in Conquest activities |
| Disruption Break | Makes a shield-broken enemy 50% weaker to Kinetic for 5.5 seconds | Fast follow-up kills on shielded yellow-bars |
| Demolitionist + Pugilist | Grenade energy and melee energy on kills | Ability energy without leaning on Exotic armor |
Eager Edge swords for map skating
Eager Edge is one of the strongest perks a sword can roll, but it isn’t a combat perk. It won’t help against bosses or yellow-bar enemies, so judging it on damage misses the point.
The value is movement. Eager Edge boosts your lunge distance, which powers Well Skate on Solar Warlock and Shatter Skate on Stasis Hunter. Both let you skip large stretches of a map and cross terrain far faster than sprinting, making an Eager Edge sword a permanent keeper for anyone who cares about traversal.
Heal Clip and Repulsor Brace for backup survivability
Your health recovery should mostly come from your build’s Aspects and Fragments, not from chasing kills. Even so, a pocket source of healing bails you out when the natural loop stops working.
Heal Clip applies Cure when you reload after a kill, giving you a quick top-up between fights. Repulsor Brace grants an Overshield whenever you defeat a target affected by a Void debuff, which slots neatly into any Void build. Keeping at least one weapon with either perk gives you a safety net for the moments your usual healing runs out.
Perks that feed your ability economy
Ability energy drives most modern builds, and two categories of perk keep that engine running without extra Exotic armor.
Attrition Orbs for fast Orbs of Power
Land enough hits on the same target with Attrition Orbs and the weapon spawns an Orb of Power. That Orb only returns about 0.8% of your Super energy, so it is not a Super battery. Its real use is triggering the armor perks that react to picking up Orbs, feeding you ability energy, weapon surges, and other buffs you can’t easily get from sustained fire otherwise. That makes it a strong hold for Conquest activities where Orb generation matters.
Demolitionist and Pugilist for grenade and melee energy
Demolitionist refunds grenade energy on each kill, and Pugilist refunds melee energy on each kill. These two rarely appear together, with Zaouli’s Bane, the Hand Cannon from King’s Fall, being the notable exception. Since so many builds hinge on Exotic armor tied to grenade or melee energy, a weapon that generates both is an easy way to skip that dependency and keep your abilities charged.
Shoot to Loot scout rifles for ammo and Orb recovery
Scout rifles aren’t the strongest archetype, but they pair well with Shoot to Loot. The perk lets you shoot Orbs of Power and Ammo Bricks to pick them up instantly, and grabbing them also reloads your equipped weapons from reserves.
That reach is what makes it useful. Combine Shoot to Loot with Oryx’s Memory, the Armor Set Bonus from King’s Fall that increases ammo progress for defeating powerful combatants, and you get a reliable way to pull ammo and Orbs from a distance when you’re pinned down or scrambling to reload during a boss damage phase.
Disruption Break for shielded enemies in Ultimate Conquest
Ultimate Conquest leans heavily on shielded enemies, and that is exactly where Disruption Break earns its slot. Break an enemy’s shield with a weapon holding the perk and that target becomes 50% weaker to Kinetic damage for 5.5 seconds.
The play is simple. Strip a shield, swap to a Kinetic weapon, and delete a troublesome yellow-bar before the window closes. It’s situational, which keeps it out of the meta, but in shield-heavy endgame content it saves your fireteam a lot of grief.
Raid drops and sunset gear worth holding
Not every keeper is about utility. Some weapons are worth the Vault space simply because they are hard to get or can no longer be earned at all.
Raid loot pools were refreshed for Monument of Triumph, and many can now be upgraded to Tier 5. Some raid weapons are outright meta, like Submission, the SMG from Vow of the Disciple. Others are underwhelming, but they still take a coordinated fireteam to farm, which makes them endgame trophies worth keeping to show the content you’ve cleared.
Sunset content is the other reason to hold gear. Leviathan, Eater of Worlds, Spire of Stars, Scourge of the Past, and Crown of Sorrows are no longer accessible, so the weapons from their loot pools can’t be obtained anymore. They don’t fit the current meta and never received updated buffs, but once dismantled they are gone for good, which is reason enough to leave them in the Vault as proof of veteran status.
None of these picks are going to top a damage chart, and that’s fine. They cover the gaps the meta ignores, so before you clear space for the next roll, sort the keepers by what they actually do rather than by tier.
