Gjallarhorn

In the video game Destiny, which enjoyed a lengthy tenure as the Dudes' game of choice, one weapon was famously unbalanced to the point of being universally acknowledged as the best weapon in the game: the Exotic rocket launcher Gjallarhorn.

For months following Destiny 's release, Exotic weapons or gear couldn't simply be purchased. You had to receive them as an RNG drop, whether via a treasure chest or as a reward following a mission. Exotics were very rare drops in general, meaning one had to be very lucky to receive Gjallarhorn. Worse, when Bungie arranged for Exotics to become purchaseable in a certain way, Gjallarhorn famously went on sale for one weekend, and never again after that, by design. This was before most of the playerbase had begun to see it for what it was.

One fateful evening, some of the Dudes were running the raid Vault of Glass. Mike had brought his Xbox over to the Thistleleaf house, allowing the participants to be in the same room. When the treasure chest roughly a third of the way through the raid was reached, Mike opened it and received Gjallarhorn.

He had no idea what it was. He hadn't been playing the game much, and hadn't been following the playerbase's understanding of the weapon. Chris lost his shit. The random pubbie playing with the group lost his shit. Mike cackled about it for the rest of the night to bug Chris, but really didn't see the big deal.

Gjallarhorn was a status symbol, a pass to get you into the most elite of Destiny circles. When the Crota raid was in its heyday, Mike could instantly get into any group of Reddit pubs simply by mentioning that he had a fully-leveled Gjallarhorn. Chris was treated like the pauper that he is, begging to be allowed to take part.

Eventually, many of the other dudes received a Gjallarhorn of their own via drops. It remained such an overpowered weapon throughout much of Destiny 's time that strategy for bosses was planned almost solely based around how many Gjallarhorns the party had. Chris never had one drop, despite deliberately receiving more chances than anyone.

For his part, Mike received two more Gjallarhorns via drops. There is no item trading in Destiny, Bungie explaining that they want players to have their own unique story for how they received a weapon. So Mike's two Gjallarhorns sat there on the shelf collecting dust. Upon getting his second Gjallarhorn, Graham sharded it - destroying it for raw materials - and recorded the clip to show Chris, an unprecedented act of cruelty.

Finally, Gjallarhorn went on sale via the Exotic-selling method offered by Bungie. Chris, defeated, his spirit long broken, bought one and finally owned a Gjallarhorn. To this day, he will complain bitterly about his unique story for how he received the fabled weapon: "I BOUGHT it."

Soon afterwards, Gjallarhorn was nerfed into oblivion and was essentially unusable. We stopped playing Destiny shortly after that. Chris had received his prize, only to have it turn to dust in his hands.