Tarrabah

"We walk where our ancestors once walked."

- Weapon description

Tarrabah is a Exotic Submachine Gun. Previously the Raid exotic for Crown of Sorrow, it was originally a random drop from the final chest. As of Beyond Light, it is obtained through the Monument To Lost Lights. Its signature perk Ravenous Beast allows it to output high (and potentially sustained) burst DPS in both PVP and PVE.

Perks

 * Intrinsic Perk: Ravenous Beast
 * This weapon stores power when dealing or receiving damage. Once full, hold reload to unleash the beast.
 * Extended Barrel - Weighty barrel extension.
 * Increases range
 * Decreases handling speed
 * Moderately controls recoil
 * Armor-Piercing Rounds - Rounds cause extra damage to combatants' shields and overpenetrate targets.
 * Slightly increases range
 * Bottomless Appetite - Dealing continuous damage extends the duration of Ravenous Beast.
 * Hand-Laid Stock - This weapon is optimized for recoil control.
 * Increases stability

Basic overview
Tarrabah is an Armor-Piercing Aggressive Frame SMG with a good magazine size, high zoom, extended stability and range, and with Solar elemental synergies to top it off. It is relatively easy to handle, and Extended Barrel with Hand-Laid Stock allows it to engage at solid distances — but it can be rivaled or outclassed by legendary SMGs in its base form, and has a relatively sluggish neutral game by default. Using it effectively requires getting the most out of its signature perk Ravenous Beast, bringing it into a class of its own, and making it an effective replacement for many Special Weapons.

Ravenous Beast
Ravenous Beast is a complex perk with subtle gameplay interactions; understanding them is required to get the most out of the gun, otherwise it is merely average. The below description is intended to be as authoritative as possible.

Charging
Contrary to what the description might imply, Ravenous Beast is charged by bullets making contact with an opponent, or from bullets hitting you. Every single bullet that makes contact will provide exactly the same amount of charge, and so charge is not proportional to damage output or input, but accumulates simply from bullets making contact. The charge coefficients are different for incoming and outgoing damage, and also vary in both PVE and PVP; read on.

In PVE, Ravenous Beast charges 2% for every bullet landed on an opponent, regardless of range, damage output, or precision contact, requiring 50 shots total for full charge. Thus, it is normally "easier" to build up charge on larger, bulkier enemies with large hitboxes that you can simply mag dump into easily. Doing so allows you to fully charge in just under 2 magazines, allowing you to "Unleash the Beast" for the 3rd magazine. In contrast, while minor enemies are easily shredded and over-penetrated thanks to Armor Piercing Rounds, a consequence is that you might find yourself "overshooting" and wasting a few bullets occasionally due to enemies dying quickly.

PVP functions identically, except the charge rate is 5% per bullet landed on an opponent, requiring 20 rounds total to charge — in theory making it possible to acquire off a single magazine, though common sense engagement rules might suggest earlier reloads after a skirmish. Due to its low magazine size and nature as an Aggressive Frame with high recoil, it's not advised to rely on "pot shots" for charge, as this often exposes you for near minimal gain. The ideal charge mechanism in PVP is simple — winning gunfights, and nothing more. As a general rule of thumb, two unassisted guardian kills are necessary to charge to 100% (assuming a normal game of Control with light advantages disabled.)

The over-penetration effect of AP rounds stacks as expected with the charge rate: if you over-penetrate a target and hit a target behind them, that single bullet charges twice as much as a normal hit. In PVE if you can align or group up weaker targets this can help negate the "overshooting" effect described above.

The charge rate for enemies hitting you in PVE while holding Tarrabah is currently unknown. In contrast, incoming PVP damage is constant for any hit (e.g. a sniper is the same as a sidearm), just the same way outgoing hits have constant charge. It requires 36 rounds to charge up from incoming damage alone in PVP; i.e. without making any shots of your own, coming out to 2.7% per incoming bullet.

Stowing Tarrabah removes a flat 50% of the total charge, regardless of what level it was at when it was stowed, in all modes. Full charge becomes 50%, 85% becomes 35%, 45% becomes 0%, et cetera. Using your Super does not count against this, but pulling out your ghost or sparrow currently does (this may in fact be a bug as of The Witch Queen.)

Unleashing
When procced, the Ravenous Beast perk begins ticking with 0:07 seconds — once the clip is inserted into the gun during the normal reload animation. When active, Tarrabah's RPM is increased by 30% (relative to base) making it fire at 900 RPM. Reload speed is maximized i.e. the Reload stat is 100 for every reload while active. Damage is increased across the board in all modes: the damage multiplier for PVE precision damage is set to 2x, while non-precision damage is roughly 3x. PVP precision/non-precision damage is multiplied by roughly 1.5x/2.3x, respectively.

At 900 RPM, with a 30 round magazine, a full mag dump in takes exactly 0:02 seconds (assuming you simply shoot a wall or the sky, and do not damage any enemies.)

PVP TTK in is understood to be approximately 0.4 seconds (or less) with Ravenous Beast, when light level advantages are disabled, at "mid-close range" i.e. ideal engagement distance. As a separate example, in the PVP mode Momentum Control, TTK is nearly instant; a single bodyshot will do over 100 damage, and as a result 2 body shots can kill any guardian at almost any viable engagement distance; at 900RPM this effectively results in a TTK of approximately 0.13 seconds (though for perspective it is worth noting Tarrabah's base damage in Momentum grants a kill in just under 5 bullets, effectively yielding a ~0.6s TTK, so the base TTK is already close to an ordinary Ravenous Beast.)

In PVE, Ravenous Beast is very reliant on the included Bottomless Appetite perk to maximize its effects and DPS:


 * Slows the rate of Ravenous Beast ticking down as long as continuous damage is being done to any enemy.
 * This means that if you are mag dumping into a large opponent (i.e. a miniboss), the effective duration of Ravenous Beast is extended. A solid rule of thumb is that a single magazine being dumped a single enemy such as a miniboss will extend the duration by roughly 1 second. PVE example: assuming you have 0:05 seconds left and dump an entire magazine into a boss, you will reload and be ready to fire with approximately 0:04 seconds left, and the 0:03 seconds left the next time, et cetera.
 * These numbers are not exact; but given the fact a normal mag dump at 900 RPM takes 0:02 seconds, you can think of this as effectively doubling the duration of Ravenous Beast, but only as long as damage is being done. In practice, this means with even a little bit of training, Ravenous Beast will often last 10 to 13 seconds in PVE.
 * When less than 0:03 seconds remain, Bottomless Appetite will then extend Ravenous Beast, back up-to 0:03 seconds at maximum, by dealing continuous damage to minor or elite enemies only.
 * This restriction prevents Tarrabah from being able to mag dump infinitely into (mini-)bosses at no cost.
 * Conceptually, this means you must "feed" the beast with weak enemies if you wish to continue doing damage to strong ones.

This second effect of Ravenous Beast, time extension, is currently not well understood; it is unclear if the Ravenous Beast timer is extended on kill, or by a fixed amount per shot (similar to how the the charging mechanic works.) Regardless, spraying into a set of enemies, or "sweeping" across a group of Minors and Elites, can extend the duration significantly, enough for another reload, a full 180 turn to find new enemies, turning back to the miniboss for some more damage, et cetera. AP Rounds stack as expected here too, meaning a small group of Minors can easily feed the entire 0:03 seconds with just a single magazine, provided you overpenetrate and hit more than one target.

Capitalizing effectively on Ravenous Beast, along with maintaining it, requires situational awareness in both PVE and PVP: so that no time is wasted "finding" an enemy to target, and that any time needed to acquire new targets is offset properly. Thus, practice is required: for map timings (crossings, distance engagements), spawn point predictions, and honing in on your particular build, both in PVE and PVP.

When combined carefully, these can allow you to have extended sessions of Ravenous Beast active for well over 35 seconds in PVE. In PVP, a 1v1 engagement with Ravenous Beast active is almost always a guaranteed win, and even many 1v2 situations become easily winnable; as an example a single clip of Ravenous Beast can not only shred a full-HP Tower Barricade — you will also have enough ammo left to shred the Titan standing behind it.

Lore
The world is very big again.

It used to be small. I know because I was born inside its commwire-satellite-datawave skeleton.

But even before that, before the Traveler wove us into a tapestry of peculiar threads, this was a planet of big, big worlds.

Many of those worlds were lost in a collapse, but not the one you're thinking of. Before the great Collapse, there was another. A longer, slower, bitterer collapse.

Some things survive. Names upon rusted signs, phrases in impervious microfiche. As other Guardians save humans, I save words. I save stories.

That is my mission, here on the shores of the Hawkesbury Sea. I surface the survivors. The sweet-voiced koodelong. The swift gangurru. The sharp-fanged tarrabah.

It's a mission the Traveler started. After all, she surfaced me.

Trivia

 * "Tarrabah" is a Blackfulla word for the Tasmanian Devil; "gangurru" the name of the Kangaroo; and "koodelong" the name of the Grey Shrikethrush.
 * With the default skin or Voracious ornament equipped, the design of Tarrabah is designed to mimic the face of an actual Tasmanian Devil: the angled foregrip mimics the mouth of a beast with fangs at either end, and the barrel reflects the snout — while the eyes are located under the iron sights, or on the small red dot just above the grip, respectively.
 * Furthermore, the Voracious ornament directly depicts a Tasmanian Devil with two tails on the side of the gun; upon full charge, and while Ravenous Beast is active, it is lit up bright red.
 * The "Hawkesbury Sea" is (presumably) a reference to the current day Hawkesbury River on the east coast of Australia.
 * The Woomera B-5 description states that a clan of Warlocks, the Fighting Dharug, inhabit and guard the Hawkesbury Sea, perhaps suggesting that the person speaking in the Lore may be among their rank.
 * Tarrabah is the only Raid Exotic that seems to have no lore or story relationship to the Raid which it comes from, instead referencing our own world and history.

List of appearances

 * Destiny 2: Season of Opulence