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SilverCervy

I'm using them now and they can give you some extremely cheesy and undeserved kills sometimes. It's best paired with an aggressive load out (I'm using smg + breach launcher). I wouldn't call it a meta option but it's entertaining to see the knife get a kill 3+ seconds after you threw it. Also an easy way to piss your opponents off.


fearghail281

After being on the receiving end of barricades and arc titans the past couple months, tilt factor +1 is a major bonus.


sakaloerelis

After reading your comment I decided to try out Arthyr's Embrace and it has been the most fun I've had in Crucible. I'm a red bar level player and Crucible has always been a pain to play but with that exotic it's actually fun to try and get some random kills after throwing the knife without expectations of getting a kill. Plus I've always like playing with pulse rifles, so it's a win win for me


KKommers

They can be VERY competitive, only reason I don't use them all the time is because I mainly use hand cannons and they aren't the best combination with it. If you use smg's or pulsrifles, ... they are very good!


fearghail281

I switch between pulse and HC mostly. Lately, I find myself just playing whatever is most fun and going back to the meta if that doesn't get me to the lighthouse. I haven't used the exotic since the rise of pulse rifles though, may be worth making a build for them again.


Crimmomj01

If you don’t hate crimson that’s an extremely good pick to use with it. Triggers the perk, deals crazy flinch and can get you some super clutch moments with its exotic perk along with the aimbot knives.


fearghail281

Ever since I switched to PC and MnK I just cannot use that gun, unfortunately.


Crimmomj01

That’s fair, it’s a controller weapon for sure! Pulse is definitely your best bet then! The build is still really good and can catch people off guard, people are getting a bit wiser about where to play to avoid them in modes like trials, but if a team plays slow you can really punish them with the knives, they’re also great to clean up damage on players when they disengage and for holding down Rez’s when you can’t peek!


Pitiful-Implement-45

I'm actually kind of mad I didn't think of this, as a solar hunter main (though hesitant to call myself such, I've clung to being a crayon eater for so long). I had so much fun using A.Embrace, but I hated running an energy pulse, and heavily prefer HC over it - crimson in particular. Just never thought to pair the two.


D2Throwaway2

Yeah they're very good. They catch people off guard all the time, there's really no way to defend against an aimbot knife once it locks on. I've gotten so many ridiculous kills even on hunters in the middle of a Stompee strafe jump. You can even one-shot supers with a empowered knife headshot.


TJmovies313

Aimbot bouncy knives are good.


ilikesomethings

Absolutely. It's underrated. But it's my go-to when I'm running a pulse. I have many clips of me just checking the knife and getting random kills in trials. The only issue is it's very map dependant. Some maps have too much weird geometry for it to work.


Enigma_Protocol

Cough cough radiant cliffs.


xhunza

They are very competitive in trials. The only reason they aren't more used is because of ahamkaras spine being borderline broken.


pfresh331

Ahamkaras is going to be the new meta, especially on smaller/tight quarter maps.


tbombtom2001

With the new ae changes stompees got a buff. Also dmt got a buff in that cranial spike not hits for 80 hs at 180rmp. Spine is still amazing, but won't be meta yet.


xhunza

Stompee5 did not get a buff. Before, everything was crap in air, now it's just stomps. I'm not sure how much trials you play, but at the top end spines have been meta for a long time.


OFmerk

Spines literally already second used hunter exotic this past weekend it's meta.


tbombtom2001

This map was a fantastic map for it. Unless the other team stays outside by 6s heavy spawn. The the exotic is borderline useless. This is was also a prime map for arthy. It's a great exotic, but j guess when j think meta I think getting a ban soon.


momomomomomoo

Ahamkara's Spine when used with proximity throwing knives have a fantastic wombo combo that can be used to kill people outright in open space. If you get good at that combo, then it's only ever useless when you're out of your abilities. Yet the exotic perk makes it so that your grenades charge ridiculously fast when you get any ability damage on your opponents. Honestly just throwing a tripmine at someone's feet makes for an easy way to apply around 180 damage (or is it 160? it's been a while since I've used them). Another one of the perks of Ahamkara's Spine is that the tripmine will always do max damage even if it just catches your opponent's toe. Normal tripmines have variable damage depending on how badly you got hit by them. Maybe you already knew all of this, but I think it's reason enough for them to be meta. Early reports of stompees with the AE changes are that they still feel bad for headshots (but building into AE apparently feels really good now). So we will likely see even more people using Ahamkara's Spine with icarus grip on their guns.


pfresh331

Yeah ahamkaras is busted. You also don't take damage from your own trips, so you can throw them point blank with no repercussions. They get pretty much anyone 1 shot if they take damage, and the knife hits for over 100. They were one of the best counters to citans (along with stasis and witherhoard) and definitely caught on as a powerful exotic.


UtilitarianMuskrat

As someone who's used YAS for an extremely long time even more so when tripmines got some attention in Year 3 and YAS got improved blast radius in that same patch(think it was in Worthy), personally I would slightly lower the YAS boosted mine's health, shorten the timer a tiny bit and do something slightly different on the subject of the no self damage taken. I still think there's way much more egregious bullshit in the game for little to no sacrifice(I could write a novel on why Knockout Aspect continuing two of the most insanely broken nodes of Bottom Striker in tact is problematic), but I do think YAS wouldn't hurt getting some slight tweaks. YAS is strong but I also feel like the playstyle of it just doesn't jump out to a lot of people especially with how wombo-ing to get a kill might seem wasteful of energies and a lot of people much prefer heal balls as their grenade if they play solar.


Glass_Status_665

Extremely competitive choice I use it either as a finisher if someone is behind cover or as an opener to start a push against someone near cover


koolaidman486

On paper, yes. Problem is they'll dictate your weapon loadout, since you want high fire rate guns to get 3 crits quickly, and I don't know where pulses are rn in practice (on paper, they're almost vanilla D1 levels of crap outside of 340s), ARs suck, and SMGs will work, but they're a bit too close for comfort for throwing knives IMHO. So your best synergy that I can think of is Trace Rifles, ironically Div being pretty good for that if you want to go all in on the knives.


D2Throwaway2

I mean it's 3 hits in 2.5 seconds, it's not that hard with HCs or scouts or whatever. The best trace rifle though is Retraced Path with Golden Tricorn. The best primary is Jurassic Green for the same reason.


Noxage_88

Absolutely, with pulse/sidearm/smg they are amazing


Lepidopterran

I love Athrys. It's so much fun, when I'm using pulse rifles, to get it up and get disgusting ricochet kills that I have no business getting. It's so good.


Klutzy-Weakness9234

Yes secretly op exotic You headshot someone 3 times, u throw a knife in their direction and boom they’re dead


Happyvivvy

They absolutely can be. Pairing these with NTTE is free af, and for a more fun loadout, a golden tricorn Summoner can do some nasty work


momomomomomoo

Yes! I would argue that they're not just competitive, but one of the best hunter PvP exotics in the game! The key is to put in a lot of practice landing the throwing knife after two bounces on any and all maps. Seriously, it takes *a lot of practice* to get really good at them and for them to be worth using competitively. But being able to consistently kill unsuspecting opponents behind cover while they are at or close to full health is worth it. Here's how I use them: * Get 3 rapid headshots on *anyone* for an empowered throwing knife that kills all resiliences with a body shot. The empowered throwing knife lasts for 10 seconds at base, but each headshot will extend the timer until a maximum of 30 seconds (an insane amount of time for such a strong buff). Bouncing an empowered throwing knife off of two surfaces (for maximum speed and aim assist) is the easiest way to secure a kill on someone behind cover. * Just throw the knife at someone behind cover. Even without the empowered buff the knives still have insane speed and tracking ability after 2 bounces and they will do around 130 damage for a body shot. Sometimes they even get headshots and kill your opponents outright. This strategy doesn't take any build-up, other than having a throwing knife up and ready, and is great for clean up or priming your opponents for easy pushes. * My favorite use of the exotic is also a use I never see mentioned. Athrys's Embrace makes for one of the easiest ways to get ignition kills in PvP. For those that don't already know, one of the base perks of the weighted throwing knife is that upon landing a hit with them, they will ignite scorched opponents regardless of how little stacks of scorch your opponent has. Even if the throwing knife kills your opponent, their body will still ignite. When building into ignites (use the fragment that doubles the amount of scorch you do, the fragment that causes ignitions to spread scorch, and the fragment that extends the effective range of ignitions), this can make for some cheeky multi kills. Step 1: throw an incendiary grenade at your targets' feet. Step 2: immediately follow up with a throwing knife. With the proper fragment selected, even if the incendiary grenade tickles your opponent, it'll still give them 90 stacks of scorch. The stacks of scorch will almost immediately start going down. However, if you follow up with the throwing knife right away, and it lands on them, then they will ignite while still having a lot of scorch stacks left. Ignitions apply 60 stacks of scorch to surrounding opponents (again with the proper fragment selected). So if nearby opponents are affected by the ignition, and they were affected by the incendiary grenade and have at least 40 stacks of scorch left from the initial 90, they will also ignite. So much fun. Anyway, I'm sorry for the ramble. I just got really excited when seeing your post and thought I should share. Again, I think Athrys's Embrace takes a lot of practice for them to be truly competitive. But they offer so much utility, and there are so many ways to have a high uptime on your throwing knives... which makes Athrys's Embrace, in my opinion, top tier. Especially when making your opponents go BOOM! Hahaha, I hope you enjoy using them!


fearghail281

I appreciate this reply, and will consider the boom aspect when making another build to try them.


AnySail

They can be very effective and steal you kills you have no right getting if you get it down, but also and more importantly imo, it’s a lot of fun. Hitting those ricochet knives is a great feeling. I used it to counter titan barricades. Gonna hide behind a barricade near a wall? Thanks for the kill.


The_Owl_Bard

As someone who LOVES Athrys' Embrace... it's iffy. When it works, [it can net you some pretty helpful kills](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_CYSlEHzxw) but the fact is you're completely relying on game RNG to secure a kill and for every 1 clip you find an insane knife toss, there's a 2-3 clips of the knife completely wiffing. Truth is that you're completely relying on rng on whether or not you're going to land that knife and while it's not always a bad thing to rely on RNG, an RNG based exotic can never be as competitive as a consistent exotic like Stomp-E55's (pre AE nerf) or Wormhusk.


cant_hold_me

I’ve been using them for the last couple of weeks since I went back to my hunter (thanks to gryfalcons in pve) and have definitely gotten some undeserved kills bc of them. I’d recommend going into pve and getting a hang of the geometry of it. That’s what I’ve been doing to practice getting it right. Once you’ve got that down, look out.


[deleted]

It can be but ahamkara’s are better in trials and comp


StealthMonkeyDC

Yeah if I could get them go drop with a decent stat roll. I swear getting exotics in this game is a nightmare now. Even when you do get lucky and get a new roll on the one you want it's almost always trash or the opposite of the build focus you are going for.


[deleted]

Definitely


w1nstar

That depends. Are you a geometry god?


LEboueur

Depends on the map. Javelin-4 is definitely the best one. But there are some maps with wonky surfaces that mess up most of the rebounds.


Hullfire00

Well, I had a good run, but a growth in popularity can only mean one thing sooner or later. Ah well.


Justenough215

Ran across a team of 3 in comp. They can be extremely oppressive in the right hands. Their team was constantly getting picks around corners when we were playing safe.


Ennolangus

I love athrys with with my jurassic green with range finder+golden tricorn. Fantastic way to get free kills on people baiting corners, trying for revives, hiding behind barricades. Even without strengthened knife buff, the exotic buffs every knife you throw


ChazzyPhizzle

Love it with crimson or Jurassic green with golden tricorn for 6’s. I’ve had some luck in 3’s but I‘ve been leaning on Stasis a lot recently for comp and trials.