Cold Front

For all possible perks, check out Cold Front over on d2gunsmith.com

Cold Front is a 750 RPM Aggressive Frame (“High damage, high recoil”) Kinetic Submachine Gun, first introduced long ago during the Season 9 Dawning event. It’s back once again with a whole new set of perks from Year 4. If you want to see the old perks, here’s a still from Aztec’s review in 2019.

Cold Front Is Back & BETTER Than Ever! (Best Destiny 2 Primary?) - Ehroar

I believe it’s one of the best primaries in the game for PvE – Ehroar, Dec. 2020

IF YOU HAVENT GOT THIS SMG, YOU NEED IT, Cold Front Dawning SMG God Roll Guide - Blyatnid

I have a reason to believe this is the new best primary in the game, full stop – Blyatnid, Dec. 2020

Ehroar and co. are excited for a couple of reasons. First, Cold Front has an (obviously) higher rate of fire than its 600 RPM counterpart without being all that much different stat-wise (save for Stability of course). It can also roll with the new damage-boosting perk One for All which we’ll get to down in the PvE section below.

If you remember the Cold Front from last year, you’ll recall its Stability is one of the lowest in the game at 16. Technically that’s “better” than Hard Truth’s 15 though not by much. This is less of an issue on PC than Console, though it’s still an issue. However, this time around we have two new tools at our disposal: Surplus and Dynamic Sway Reduction.

PvP/PvE Double Duty Rolls

The cornerstones of both PvE and PvP are Surplus and Dynamic Sway Reduction. The best PvE and PvP rolls center around having one of these perks in column three. If you end up with a “PvE roll” that also happens to have super high Stability, then you’ve got the Holy Grail of Cold Front rolls. Congrats! For an explanation of these rolls, please read further down towards the specific PvE and PvP sections.

These rolls are floored at 36 Stability (before Surplus) since that’s the base Stability of other similar SMGS (e.g. Ikelos).

Yes, these rolls are all based on quotes from the great Dr. Victor Fries.

“Endless Winter”

Surplus + One for All + all the Stability you can get.

  Barrels [ 22%]: Chambered Compensator
  Mags    [ 25%]: Steady Rounds
  Perks 1 [ 20%]: Surplus
  Perks 2 [ 16%]: One for All
  MWorks  [ 25%]: Stability MW

“Everything Freezes!”

Same as the above, replacing Surplus with Dynamic Sway Reduction.

  Barrels [ 22%]: Chambered Compensator
  Mags    [ 25%]: Steady Rounds
  Perks 1 [ 20%]: Dynamic Sway Reduction
  Perks 2 [ 16%]: One for All
  MWorks  [ 25%]: Stability MW

“Let’s Kick Some Ice!”

Same as the above, but we’ll take any damage perk.

  Barrels [ 22%]: Chambered Compensator
  Mags    [ 25%]: Steady Rounds
  Perks 1 [ 40%]: Surplus, Dynamic Sway Reduction
  Perks 2 [ 50%]: Dragonfly, Rampage, Surrounded
  MWorks  [ 25%]: Stability MW

PvP Rolls

You’ll notice I didn’t include any final column perks. Rampage doesn’t meaningfully realistically alter the TTK and Thresh adds so little to your super that it’s not worth calling out as the Collector’s Edition. Whatever you get in that final column is fine.

“Ice to See You/Surplus”

Cold Front needs a lot of help in the Stability department, which is the entire focus of this roll. At best, you’ll be able to get Stability up from 16 to 51 plus the benefits coming from Surplus. This puts you way above the base Stability on the vaunted Antiope-D and other Precision Frame SMGs. The Recoil is 92 so be sure to throw on a Counterbalance mod if you don’t end up with a +Recoil barrel.

  Barrels [ 22%]: Chambered Compensator
  Mags    [ 25%]: Steady Rounds
  Perks 1 [ 20%]: Surplus
  Perks 2 [100%]: *
  MWorks  [ 25%]: Stability MW

“Ice to See You/Dynamic Sway”

Same as the above, swapping DSR in for Surplus. These rolls are otherwise identical but Surplus is so much better than DSR I wanted to call it out 😀

  Barrels [ 22%]: Chambered Compensator
  Mags    [ 25%]: Steady Rounds
  Perks 1 [ 20%]: Dynamic Sway Reduction
  Perks 2 [100%]: *
  MWorks  [ 25%]: Stability MW

PvE Rolls

With the addition of Surplus and One for All to the Cold Front perk pool, we’re looking at a strong contender for one of the best kinetic weapons of all time. Surplus improves Stability and Reload (two big Cold Front drawbacks) and One for All provides a tremendous damage boost and leaves your mod slot free for Minor, Major or Boss Spec.

Dragonfly is going to be replaced by Swashbuckler so when you see Dragonfly below, you know what it means. The wishlist will be updated after Destiny is updated.

“Blizzard”

While Surplus will be boosting Stability, the Stability is so low and difficult to manage on console that we’ll continue to crave it as a backstop for when we’re at lower tiers of Surplus benefits.

  Barrels [ 22%]: Chambered Compensator
  Mags    [ 25%]: Extended Mag
  Perks 1 [ 20%]: Surplus
  Perks 2 [ 16%]: One for All
  MWorks  [ 25%]: Stability MW

“Snowstorm”

Same as the above, swapping Dynamic Sway Reduction in for Surplus.

  Barrels [ 22%]: Chambered Compensator
  Mags    [ 25%]: Extended Mag
  Perks 1 [ 20%]: Dynamic Sway Reduction
  Perks 2 [ 16%]: One for All
  MWorks  [ 25%]: Stability MW

“Light Dusting”

We’ll take any combination of a handful of perks in the final columns for a super solid roll (recall that Dragonfly is being replaced by Swashbuckler shortly).

  Barrels [ 22%]: Chambered Compensator
  Mags    [ 25%]: Extended Mag
  Perks 1 [ 40%]: Surplus, Dynamic Sway Reduction
  Perks 2 [ 50%]: Dragonfly, Rampage, Surrounded
  MWorks  [ 25%]: Stability MW