Touch of Malice

Touch of Malice
Production overview
Manufacturer:	Eris Morn
Style:	Hive
Rarity class:	Exotic
Weapon type:	Scout Rifle
Required level:	30
Min-max accuracy:	Moderate
Min-max stability:	Moderate
Min-max handling:	Moderate
Min-max magazine:	11
Specifications
Fire mode:	Full-automatic
Rate of fire:	240 RPM
Damage:	Kinetic
Effective range:	Good
Service history
In service:	Yes
Affiliation:	Guardians

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Touch of Malice is an exotic scout rifle obtained through collecting Calcified Fragments and fighting bosses in King's Fall.

Lore

"Let them feel every lash, every curse, every touch of malice that they first dealt to me." —Eris Morn

Here am I, with the power to craft from my enemy's darkest secrets a weapon that could wound them at their core!

So what stays my hand?

When I behold the interiority of these cold, cold fragments, I see blind, squirming creatures. Every wound they give, they feel also upon themselves. Every bite they tear from the Light only deepens, never fills, the raging emptiness behind their terrible mouths.

The voices are as loud as ever. My nightmares just as bitter. My coal-black hatred burns as hot. But I feel something else now. Could it be…

No! I refuse it.

I will build this weapon.

Acquisition

Destiny 1

This weapon is difficult to acquire, as the questline is long and broken up.

Complete The Deep Lore - find 5 Calcified Fragments
Complete The Old Hunger by killing bosses in King's Fall
Give Eris Morn 25 Wormspore, 50 Weapon Parts, and 50 Hadium Flakes
Collect 35 Calcified Fragments
Enter The Undying Mind and kill Morgath, Lore-Keeper at the end of the strike.
Collect 45 Calcified Fragments
Enter Fear's Embrace and kill Mar-Zik, the Blightcaller
Pick up Touch of Malice from Eris

Destiny 2

This weapon randomly drops at a low rate after defeating Oryx, the Taken King in the reprised King's Fall.

Gameplay

Destiny 1

The Touch of Malice is a high RoF-lower Impact archetype of Scout Rifle. This means that one would be tempted to repeatedly press the trigger to quickly fire off rounds, but there's a hidden perk: Full Auto. This makes it so that the player can simply hold down the trigger and reduce the stress on their finger. The Instrinsic Perk is the weapon's namesake: the last round in the magazine instantly regenerates and deals double damage at the cost of the wielder's life force. Even with your health slowly going down, the potentially endless stream of bullets allows this weapon to open up a niche in doing high, uninterrupted DPS against PvE bosses. And if one can take advantage of the Touch of Mercy perk, where three rapid kills instantly start health regeneration, then the wielder will be able to keep up on DPS on the boss. Even with the massive questline required to obtain it, as well as the fact that you can kill yourself while using this weapon, the reward is well worth it.

The weapon's perk perfectly fits the raid that is needed to obtain it. During the final fight against Oryx, many strategies have the player stand in the an Aura of Immortality to deal damage to Oryx. Thus, using the double damage perk of the final round coupled with the Aura allow for massive damage to be dealt. Other strategies involved using player controlled health bonuses to use Touch of Malice outside of the Raid. For example, one could use the Titan super Ward of Dawn to have Blessing of Light and have increased health.

Destiny 2

The Touch of Malice has remained mostly unchanged from the original in both function and gameplay dynamic. However, with increased access to healing and damage resistance by all classes, users will typically be able to take advantage of the intrinsic perk (merged with Touch of Mercy) for longer than in Destiny 1, and can do so without staying in place if necessary.

New to the Destiny 2 version of Touch of Malice is the perk Charged with Blight, which uses precision hits to charge up a secondary attack. Once fully charged with ten hits, holding reload chambers in a Darkness Bolt that poisons and blinds enemies for a brief period of time when fired. Additionally, while not explicitly mentioned in the perk description, enemies poisoned by the Darkness Bolt take 50% more damage from all Weapons of Sorrow, i.e. Touch of Malice itself, Thorn, and Osteo Striga. This further empowers the weapon's already-high DPS and makes returning strategies for team use of the weapon even more effective.

Touch of Malice also has a new Exotic Catalyst obtained from a puzzle in King's Fall. It grants Rapid Hit; if used correctly, this allows the user to cancel its intrinsic perk faster if necessary while also reducing the kick from Charged with Blight, making the weapon easier to control and more comfortable to use over long periods of firing.

Trivia

The Touch of Malice itself is considered one of the Weapons of Sorrow^[1].
According to the Books of Sorrow, Oryx intended for the weapon to be built, and since it was, he was able to maintain his immortality, continuing to feed off the victims of the weapon. The Hive Worm God, Xol, Will of the Thousands, also used this technique, becoming the Sniper Rifle Whisper of the Worm upon his defeat at the hands of The Guardian.
During the Quest to build the Ruinous Effigy, a transmission excerpt from Eris states that the Touch of Malice was used as a blueprint for the Ruinous Effigy. She comments that, while the Touch of Malice was "crude, vicious", the Ruinous Effigy "is a thing of beauty".
The perk "Charged with Blight" is a pun on the "Charged with Light" mechanic introduced in Season of Dawn.