Best Destiny 2 Warlock Builds: Strand Necrotic Grips and Solar Sunbracers loadouts

With Season of the Deep well underway, Guardians have been doing their best to figure out which Warlock build excels in Destiny 2. Thankfully, we’ve got a couple of suggestions for the best loadouts and including an incredible Solar build that puts everything else to shame.

Buildcrafting has seen an upgrade in Destiny’s most recent expansion, Lightfall with there being plenty of rebalances to mods for you to get your head around.

While it’s much friendlier now, it’s still a lot to learn. It’s understandable if you’re feeling a little lost with what is currently doing best in Destiny 2 for Season 21.

If you’re a Warlock, we’ve got a couple of build recommendations for you to check out. While Warlocks have felt a little weaker over the last year, in Lightfall, the class is arguably the strongest.

Contents

• Warlock Necrotic Grips Strand Build
• Warlock Strand abilities, Aspects, and Fragments
• Warlock Strand Weapons and Exotic
• Warlock Strand Armor Mods
• Warlock Strand Stat Priority
• Warlock Strand Build: How to use
• Warlock Solar Sunbracers Build
• Warlock Solar Abilities, Aspects, and Fragments
• Warlock Solar Weapons and Exotic
• Warlock Solar Armor Mods
• Warlock Solar Stat Priority
• Warlock Solar Build: How to use

Warlock Necrotic Grips Strand Build

Like Hunter and Titan classes, Warlocks have a very strong Strand build that is excellent at dealing with most combat situations. You’ll want to use what’s new and exciting, and luckily this Strand build is one of the strongest in the game currently.

Unfortunately, while Threadlings are the major focus for many of the Warlock’s abilities with Strand, including a new Exotic to make them better, they are inconsistent, unpredictable, and you have to play around them in different ways.

Instead, this new build is all about suspending, unraveling, and poisoning enemies, giving you complete control of any room. Here’s how to make the Warlock Necrotic Grips Strand build in Destiny 2, from the Aspects and Fragments to the armor mods and weapons to use. 

Warlock Strand abilities, Aspects, and Fragments

• Super: Needlestorm
• Class ability: Healing Rift
• Jump: Strafe Glide
• Melee: Arcane Needle
• Grenade: Shackle Grenade

Aspects

• Weaver’s Call: Your Grapple, Shackle Grenade, and Threadling Grenade have enhanced functionality. Your grapple melee spawns three Threadling eggs. Consume your Shackle Grenade and activate Weaver’s Trance. Final blows while Weaver’s Trance is active create a suspending detonation. Consume your Threadling Grenade and immediately generate five perched Threadlings.
• Mindspun Invocation: Cast your Rift to weave three Threadlings and deploy any Threadlings you have perched.

Fragments

• Thread of Mind: Defeating suspended targets grants class ability energy.
• Thread of Warding: Dealing damage generates grenade energy (-10 Discipline).
• Thread of Generation: Dealing damage generates grenade energy (-10 Discipline).
• Thread of Continuity: Suspend, unravel, and sever effects applied to targets have increased duration (+10 Strength).

Warlock Strand Weapons and Exotic

• Kinetic: Osteo Striga is the best Exotic to use with Necrotic Grips. Its intrinsic ability to poison enemies is extremely effective and can even spread to large groups of enemies with this combination.
• Energy: A flexible slot that should be adjusted based on what content you are completing. Realistically, just about any strong or meta Energy weapon can work here so feel free to try out different options.
• Heavy: Similarly to Energy, this build doesn’t require a specific Heavy weapon. Although we recommend either a Rocket Launcher or Linear Fusion Rifle to improve boss damage as that is one area that this build doesn’t necessarily excel in.

Warlock Strand Armor Mods

Helmet

• +10 Stat Mod of choice (3-4)
• Kinetic Siphon x2 (4)
• Radiant Light (1)

Note: Consider trading one Kinetic Siphon for a Heavy Ammo Finder in content where you need more ammo.

Gauntlets

• +10 Stat Mod of choice (3-4)
• Focusing Strike (2)
• Font of Vigor (3)
• Impact Induction (1)

Chest

• +10 Stat Mod of choice (3-4)
• Font of Endurance (3)
• Charged Up (3)

Legs

• +10 Stat Mod of choice (3-4)
• Kinetic Weapon Surge x2 (6)

Note: If you can get away with not using a Stat Armor Mod here, you may find more value in swapping it out for Stacks on Stacks, which will make many of your other armor mods more consistent.

Class Item

• +10 Stat Mod of choice (3-4)
• Time Dilation (3)
• Reaper (3)

Warlock Strand Stat Priority

Resilience, despite getting nerfed in Lightfall still remains a very important stat. Your Woven Armor will help here too, but it never hurts to have more tanky and harder to kill. Especially in higher-level content.

After that, Recovery is the next most important stat for Warlocks. It helps your Rift get off cooldown quicker which will make greatly improves survivability. On top of that, Discipline is also important as you will want to eat your grenades on cooldown to activate Weaver’s Trance, which strings up enemies.

Warlock Strand Build: How to use

There is a fairly simple rotation here, and once you’ve got it going, it will chew through enemies largely without your input. In order to maximize this, the rotation looks like this:

• Press and hold your grenade to consume it to trigger Weaver’s Trance.
• Use Weaver’s Trance for a whopping 25 seconds, during which enemies nearby defeated combatants will be automatically suspended.
• Use Melee Ability on a low-level enemy to start Unravelling, which spreads on kills.
• Shoot your Osteo Striga to spread the poison.

As things die, everything will start to cascade. The Poison from your Necrotic Grips, the Unravelling from your Melee, and the Weaver’s Trance will deal immense damage to surrounding enemies and string them. Just keep all of these abilities procced and you will bring rooms of enemies crashing down.

Warlock Solar Sunbracers build

Season of the Deep saw the fan favorite Starfire Protocol nerfed taking it from by far the best Warlock Exotic in Destiny 2 to an okay but altogether underwhelming choice. In its absence, Warlock players have been searching for an alternative and this build might just be it.

Much like Starfire, this Sunbracers build is all about spamming grenades for both high DPS and sensational ad clear. Just like Starfire, it’s a Solar build too so you won’t have to relearn a new subclass from scratch.

There are some key differences though with the most notable being that Empowering Rift does not feature on this build. Instead, it’s a rare case of Phoenix Dive being the best option making this a unique yet extremely effective Warlock build.

Warlock Solar Abilities, Aspects, and Fragments

Abilities

• Super: Well of Radiance
• Class ability: Phoenix Dive
• Jump: Burst Glide
• Melee: Incinerator Snap
• Grenade: Solar Grenade

Aspects

Touch of Flame: Your Healing, Solar, Firebolt, and Fusion Grenades have enhanced functionality.

• Solar Grenade: Increases linger duration. Periodically emits blobs of lava around its perimeter.
• Healing Grenade: Improves the strength of cure and restoration effects applied.
• Firebolt Grenade: Increases target search radius and maximum target count.
• Fusion Grenade: Explodes twice.

Icarus Dash: Dodge quickly while airborne. While Heat Rises is active, you have an additional dodge. While airborne, rapidly defeating targets with your Super or weapon grants Cure to you.

Fragments

• Ember of Searing: Defeating scorched targets grants melee energy and creates a Firesprite (+10 Recovery).
• Ember of Ashes: You apply more scorch stacks to targets.
• Ember of Singeing: Your class ability recharges faster when you scorch targets.
• Ember of Empyrean: Solar weapon or ability final blows extend the duration for restoration and radiant effects applied to you (-10 Resilience).

Warlock Solar Weapons and Exotic

• Kinetic: If you don’t mind using up your Exotic slot then both Arbalest and Wish Ender offer great options as arguably the two best anti-barrier weapons in Destiny 2. For Legendaries, feel free to use anything meta like Rufus’s Fury, Riptide, Heritage, etc.
• Energy: Technically speaking, just about any strong Solar weapon can work here. Although one with Incandescent definitely provides more value. Some great choices include Acasia’s Dejection, Retraced Path, BxR-55 Battler, Judgment of Kelgorath, & Ammit AR2.
• Heavy: A flexible slot for the most part but if you still have your Exotic free then Gjallarhorn works excellently here. Feel free to test out different options though as just about any meta Heavy weapon is effective with this build.

Warlock Solar Armor Mods

Helmet

• +10 Stat Mod of choice (3-4)
• Harmonic Siphon (1)
• Ashes to Assets (3)
• Kinetic Siphon (2)

Gauntlets

• +10 Stat Mod of choice (3-4)
• Firepower (3)
• Bolstering Detonation (2)
• Momentum Transfer (1)

Chest

• +10 Stat Mod of choice (3-4)
• Arc Resistance (2)
• Solar Resistance (2)
• Void Resistance (2)

Legs

• +10 Stat Mod of choice (3-4)
• Solar Weapon Surge (3)
• Recuperation (1)
• Invigoration (1)

Class Item

• +10 Stat Mod of choice (3-4)
• Reaper (3)
• Time Dilation (3)

Warlock Solar Stat Priority

Unsurprisingly, Recovery and Discipline are both incredibly important to this build. Recovery speeds up how fast we get Phoenix Dive back while Discipline makes sure our Grenade is ready to be used when the opportunity arises.

Resilience is the next most important stat as the extra tankiness it provides is impactful, especially in high-level content. The three remaining stats aren’t overly important and don’t need to be prioritized much at all.

Warlock Solar build: How to use

Sunbracers are triggered by getting a Powered Melee final blow. This activates the Sunbracers Ready buff which provides 20,000% grenade regeneration for five seconds. Effectively, this lets you throw out five Solar Grenades in quick succession.

To make the most of Sunbracers you’ll want to use the following rotation:

• Consume one Solar Grenade to activate Heat Rises Aspect.
• Kill any enemy while airborne with Powered Melee to refund Solar Grenade thanks to Sunbracers’ effect.
• Throw as many Solar Grenades as possible while Sunbracers are active.

At its core that’s all there is to this build. However, those looking to get the most out of it should also take advantage of these additional tips:

• Phoenix Dive triggers restoration. This is your main source of healing with this build. Its duration can be extended by securing Solar weapon kills.
• The Well of Radiance Super also offers a fantastic source of healing when available so use it as often as possible.
• To make the most of Heat Rises, you’ll want to be airborne as often as possible. Make it a habit to jump around while using abilities and dealing damage.
• Scorching targets will trigger the Ember of Singeing Fragment. This is the fastest way to consistently get cooldowns back.

So, there you have it — those are the best Warlock builds you should be using right now for Lightfall in Destiny 2. For more great Destiny 2 content check out the following guides:

Deepsight Harmonizers: How to farm, use, and what weapons to convert | How to fish in Destiny 2 | Best Exotic weapons | Best PvP Weapons | Best PvE Weapons | How to get Infinite Prismatic Pride emblem | Season of the Deep Season Pass: Rewards & ranks | How to get Epochal Integration | Best Titan Builds | Best Hunter Builds | Best Arc 3.0 Builds | Best Solar 3.0 Builds | Best Stasis Builds | Best Void 3.0 Builds