As the title reads above, I believe Dragons Breath is better than many of you may think. Better than Gjallahorn in many cases.
[i]I am not saying it replaces Ghorn in every encounter, just in some situations.[/i]
I run DB in Crota's End in every phase except for the Crota fight with extreme success.
Lamps - Drop a huge blast with the Flare at a lamp and let your fireteam recover breifly.
Dropping a blast in your path will cause the thrall to disperse all over the place, often killing themselves falling into holes.
And lastly, firing it at the base of the bridge, keeps thrall back, while you wait for it to build and while you sprint across the bridge.
Bridge- If you know the lanes where the mobs spawn, you can spam them with DB, dealing significant damage to them as soon as they exit.
Hallway - 1 DB rocket at 331 kills a shrieker. Also, firing the rockets into the hallway, clears it of thralls for your runner to make the 2nd chest.
Ir Yut- This encounter is where the Rocket Launcher really shines. After killing both wizards, and clearing the shriekers on both sides, rush left and dump 5 remaining DB's shells into her and she literally melts. She barely moves, and basically sits in the AOE damage the whole time. Not to mention it deals TONS of damage to the adds around her.
[i]Also, most of the strike bosses hardly move, which makes DB extremely effective for them. Such as the devil walker, valas, phogoth, sepikis, the templar in VOG and the nexus. The list goes on and on.[/i]
[b]Edit: I'll get some guardians together today, and use our DB's to show just how effective they are. Stand by for youtube links. Give me a day or so, I am a parent so I get about 1-2 hours a day tops. [/b]
[b]Oh wow, this is trending. Apparently people don't believe me.[/b]
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You are correct situationally Dragon's Breath can be very good. I especially agree on the IR Yut Encounter. Wolfpack rounds can be mitigated by mobs in the room but dragons breath can get the job done, this of course assume she has started singing. I do keep Dragon's Breath around for these instance. I do disagree with you though Dragon's Breath is not better than I think because I would only pull it out in a niche situation meaning it sits on the sidelines the most of the time. I don't really agree with the idea of using it to clear thralls, most of the time they are mitigated by a variety of different strategies. Even in comparison a weapon like Gjallahorn will kill the thralls with a blast and then the wolfpack rounds will hunt down the other close thralls giving your team breathing room. I have never personally seen the solar flare as an effective deterrant. The biggest problem with dragon's breath is the solar burn makes enemies move. This really hurts it for boss fights making it really only viable on super immobile targets like you point out. Bottom line I use my heavy weapon when I either need to kill mobs as fast as possible or on boss fights. Dragon's Breath doesn't fit with my playstyle for the majority of these encounters.