In Destiny 2, builds can vary greatly depending on the activities and the player’s goals.
However, after running Grand Masters for three consecutive days, I’ve come to believe that the Prismatic Warlock build is potentially the best build in Destiny 2.
This article explains the specifics of the build, showing why it stands out in both solo and group play, and diverse activities ranging from easy to the most challenging.
Key Components of the Prismatic Warlock Build
1). Super and Abilities:
Super: Song of Flame: Song of Flame, arguably the best super in the game right now, can be activated in under a minute.
- Why It’s Key: The Song of Flame super is crucial because it has an incredibly short cooldown of just under a minute. This means you can frequently enter your super state, which offers devastating offensive capabilities and utility.
- Effects: When activated, your melee attacks and grenades are significantly enhanced. This super allows for an aggressive playstyle and contributes to high damage output in all types of content.
Grenade: An enhanced Dust Field Grenade, perfect for endgame content as it can stun Overloads and Unstoppables, and control Champions and areas for your team.
- Why It’s Key: This grenade is particularly effective in endgame content due to its crowd-control abilities.
- Effects: It can stun Overload and Unstoppable Champions, effectively control larger groups of enemies, and provide significant area denial for your team. The enhanced version has a faster recharge rate and can pull in enemies more effectively.
Melee: Three melee charges at the base when Transcendent, allowing for quick recharges and infinite melees in the super state. The beefed-up incinerator snap acts like a projectile.
- Why It’s Key: Having three melee charges allows for continuous use in combat scenarios, maintaining high damage and utility.
- Effects: These charges help quickly recharge your abilities. When in the superstate, you have infinite melees, which means consistent high damage and crowd control.
2). Exotic Weapon and Synergy:
Exotic Weapon: Base exotic works well, but a god roll exotic class item can enhance the build further.
- Why It’s Key: Optimal for maximizing damage output and ability recharge rate.
- Effects: Using a god roll class item can further enhance your abilities, providing more synergy and better overall performance.
Thorn: Acts as the kinetic weapon of choice, providing overload capabilities and rapid Transcendence recharge. It pairs perfectly with Necrotic Grips for poison damage synergy.
- Why It’s Key: Acts as an excellent kinetic weapon, pairing well with Necrotic Grips for additional poison damage.
- Effects: The Thorn’s perk allows it to deal with poison over time. This poison spreads to nearby enemies when targets are defeated, making it excellent for crowd control.
Hand Cannons: They refill Transcendence quicker due to higher damage per bullet.
- Why They’re Key: Hand Cannons have higher damage per bullet, aiding fast recharge.
- Effects: These weapons help rapidly refill Transcendence, maintaining the high uptime of your melee and grenade abilities.
3). Passive Damage and Buffs:
Arcane Needle Melee Ability: Activates the unravel debuff, spreading damage to nearby enemies.
- Why It’s Key: Activates the unravel debuff, which spreads damage.
- Effects: When you hit an enemy with Arcane Needle, they become debuffed, causing additional damage and weakening them for follow-up attacks.
Phoenix Dive: Paired with the Helen aspect, creating a solar mortar for massive damage and Scorches.
- Why It’s Key: This ability is versatile, providing both offense and defense.
- Effects: When paired with the Helen aspect, Phoenix Dive launches a solar mortar that deals massive damage and causes Scorch damage to enemies, leading to Ignitions (explosions).
Storm Grenade: Amplifies user and pairs with the facet of dominance for jolting targets.
- Why It’s Key: Useful for crowd control and sustained damage.
- Effects: The Storm Grenade creates a sustained area-of-effect damage zone, jolting and dealing continuous damage to enemies within the radius.
Facets and Fragments: Facet of Grace, Facet of Ruin, Facet of Dawn, and Facet of Protection provide various combat benefits and enhancements to abilities and super.
Detailed Ability Rotation and Usage
- Melee Rotation:
- Arcane Needle: Activates the unravel debuff for passive damage.
- Phoenix Dive: Launches solar mortars, causing Scorch and ignitions.
- Storm Grenade: Jolts enemies and adds passive damage from the melee and Helen aspect.
- Transcendent Form:
- Frequent activation due to outgoing damage and damage received from kinetic weapons.
- Adds infinite melee and grenade uses, significantly boosting damage output.
- Super Rotation:
- Use Song of Flame for high-damage melee and grenade attacks.
- Melees cause poison spreading and enhance damage significantly.
- Phoenix Dive enhances damage with Helion projectiles during the super.
Passive Damage Mechanisms
These mechanisms allow you to deal continuous damage without constantly engaging or using primary abilities.
- Poison Damage: From the combination of Thorn and Necrotic Grips, spreading poison to nearby enemies.
- Separate Damage: From the Arcane Needle melee ability, causing enemies to take additional damage over time.
- Helen Aspect Damage: Ignitions and Scorch damage from Phoenix Dive.
Jolt Damage: From the Storm Grenade, creating continuous lightning damage to enemies.
Utility and Modifications
- Necrotic Grips:
- Infinite melees cause poison damage, ensuring mob control and significant damage over time.
- Synergies with Thorn for enhanced poison spread.
- Artifact Mod and Gear Synergies:
- Pairing with specific mods enhances build performance, such as adding a Facet of Ruin for increased burst and ignition damage, and a Facet of Dawn for radiance on powered melee hits.
Build Enhancements
- Class Item Options: If lucky with god rolls, use Spirit of Necrotic for persistent poison ticks or Spirit of Star Eaters to enhance Song of Flame damage.
- Artifact Mods: Enhance playstyle and abilities. Choose mods that fit your playstyle and enhance this build’s core aspects. Check out the build page for specific recommendations.
Final Thoughts
The Prismatic Warlock build’s strength lies in its layered passive damage, high mobility, and versatile combat capabilities.
It annihilates enemies in various scenarios, from easy content to the hardest Grandmasters.
Remember, while this build is potent, personal playstyle and preferences may lead to different choices. Keep discussions respectful and enjoy the power of the Prismatic Warlock!
