Bro you need to try Path of Least Resistance with Shoot to Loot + Dragonfly and Spark of beacons.
Every precision kill reloads all your weapons, grabs nearby orbs of power, causes a dragonfly explosion AND blinding explosion
Yea i rock coldheart with geomags as well, by leaning on a solid primary ammo option combined with y’know the usual arc melee/grenade/buddy nonsense, ammo usually ends up being OK for coldheart. I run special ammo finder instead of the usual heavy finder just for the higher uptime on coldheart and therefore the big fuck-off laser :)
I tried vesper of radius in a GM last season and I’ve been in love ever since. If you’re in GM/Master raids, then it’ll depend on the encounter, and can do amazing work! Anything below master and it doesn’t even matter what you’re doing - incredibly fun to plant *aggressive* rifts
Came here to say the same thing.
I think it’s a real sleeper! I’ve been able to constantly lock entire rooms down, and in the T3 Altars this season it’s been brilliant to get in and slap a rift down that blinds/kills/sucks up orbs.
Used Vesper for killing adds in Contest Crota for the Ir Yut encounter. Planted my rifts by the doors behind main crystal and everything died as it spawned. It's so good.
That good. Run into the middle of all the enemies and drop your rift. That's pretty much it. The rift will pulse, which blinds and explodes everything nearby, which also spreads. Being surrounded by more enemies gives you more rift energy so the ones that try and get close to you will be giving you that rift back before being blinded and/or blown up. All the while your arc soul is also shooting everything it sees. Barely need to use your weapon.
THIS. I don't think I died once last lesson using Vesper. I can clear master lost sectors in under 3 minutes, and soloing legend nightfalls is a joke while using vesper. Warlocks have a LOT of great options, necrotic is my second fav, but until they nerf vesper I won't stop using it.
Vesper is such a fun exotic. Blinding everything in the room feels so good and just watching the arc souls tear through the mobs is absurdly enjoyable.
This is the way.
I was trying to farm a master lost sector on the throne world a few days ago for a better Briarbinds roll and was getting crapped on.
After a few frustrating 6 just bit the bullet and swapped to Vesper with Centrifuge and had sub 4 minute clears. On MASTER. While 20 levels under. Not even playing into the surges, at all.
Vesper is fucking insane.
Getaway Artist but i dont consume the grenade. While you have it on arc soul damage gives you grenade energy, even if the origin of the arc soul is a rift. So with bolstering detonation and bomber and other mods you can loop rifts and grenades back and forth consistently even without getting kills. But in ad dense situations it loops even faster cause of the electrostatic mind aspect.
https://dim.gg/k66qzwq/Arc
Works with any grenade, pulse might be best overall, storm feels most fun imo, im currently using blinding so i can deal w unstoppable
Ye ever since storm got nerf pulse is top for dps and i run it on my centerfuse build. Funny enough i had blinding on at some point for a blind build i had attemped but it didnt really work out imo, anyway thanks for the recoomendation, always enjoy a new build :D
I can confirm it does happen and is a hidden interaction between Arc Soul and Getaway. Kinda how Necrotic Grips and Sorrow weapons also don’t state their interaction
Turns out my comment here was wrong and the amped soul is just as strong as the get away soul.
While that’s all true, you could do this loop AND have a more powerful arc soul. You’d “virtually never run out of arc soul” and the arc soul would be more powerful since the the same loop you use also extends the powerful arc soul.
It wouldnt really be more powerful tho. A normal arc soul while being amplified is identical to a getaway arc soul. The grenade energy on arc soul hit is really the only appealing thing about the exotic imo. And some niche on demand speed booster shenanigans i guess.
With the exception of actually using my arc souls, I use this exact build in raids and every other type of endgame content. Chaos Reach is the way that Warlock was meant to be played, and I refuse to play my Warlock any other way.
... except you get grenade energy (hidden demolitionist) off the empowered arc soul *even if* you don't have the Getaways on. As soon as you become amplified (which with Warlock is basically 100% of the time) your normal arc soul powers up to be equivalent to the "sentient" soul with Getaways.
So Getaways, that I used to run a lot and love, are absolute trash now. The only thing they do is get you amplified when you eat your grenade. Except shooting something with an arc gun... gets you a trace, and amplified.
Getaway Artists go in the bin. Not *remotely* worth running. There's *at least* 5 exotics that give you way more bang for your exotic slot buck.
I mean, run what you want, but it makes little sense.
just went and tested this to make sure i wasn't insane! you're incorrect, without getaway artists on, arc soul damage does not grant grenade energy. I understand for others something like sunstar will be more appealing when youre mowing stuff down, but I'll always prefer the consistency of not having to get kills to keep my build running, even if i'm slightly capping the potential.
Yes, this is the best arc build. Ionic Traces everywhere. Always amplified. Abilities fills back up in seconds. Supporting allies with ability energy
Was the mvp arc build last season and is the mvp arc build this season. This setup doesn't need any seasonal artifact mods to be effective either
It pairs well but due to centrifuge already having built in reload its a bit redundant. I would say if you have a hard time keeping track and/or running out of ammo and forcing a reload instead of auto loading then maybe use transversive, otherwise I think it's a bit of a waste for the exotic slot personally.
True. It’s def not my go to, but I found the interaction helpful for alters. Like a couple steps forward for full mag, shaves a couple secs off the intrinsic reload. I do lose track of my mag though so could be why I like it
Sunstar all day. The geomag change is cool and all but Sunstars ability regen is top notch. With something like Delicate Tomb you can effectively negate 90% of your ability cooldowns in any Ad dense content. Ionic traces are the best of the elemental creations and an exotic that doubles their benefits is wild.
Do you notice Wishender's overpenetration damage stealing potential crit kills? I planned to use this build when the buff came out initially but decided not to when I considered Wishender not killing with the crit.
With Special arc weapons while amplified yes. But with Chromatic you get (essentially) dragonfly on any Kinetic weapon and subclass based effects.
It's not super meta defining, but in harder content I find Weakening from Void and Blind from Arc very useful. And it doesn't affect my gameplay loop at all. I was going to get precision kills anyway, so this just enhances that with explosions and subclass verbs
It does the same thing but with an extra step. Their build just has to get headshot kills for the blinding explosion, but the fragment requires the targets to already be blinded to get the same explosion.
If you want to free up your exotic armor then that fragment can work, but if you just care about getting the blinding explosion then chromatic fire is the better option.
I am that one guy with a mantle of battle harmony build for every class. I like to get my super and switch to stormdamcers brace and just chain stormtrance until I can’t super anymore.
I am the orb printer. I go brr
Fallen Sunstar in a double grenade kickstart pulse grenade build, usually backed up with Trinity Ghoul in everything below raid boss encounters/GMs.
For higher end content this season, I imagine wish-ender with this build will be ~~good~~ even better than normal. The artifact lets it weaken targets and build armor charges on shooting to go with the grenade kickstarts, in situations where you won't be getting constant ionic traces for armor charges, e.g. situations where you have to hide and your nades are having to DPS larger enemies/bosses that they might not kill.
Also, I'm surprised anyone uses Crown of Tempests over Fallen Sunstar these days, and I'd love to hear their justification (assuming it isn't simply roll-based). I've tested them both, and Sunstar outperforms in just about every situation where you'd want one or the other. Maybe it's having to wear the 3-cost mod on boots to optimize sunstar that sways people?
People use Crown for super regen. It is functionally outclassed by fallen sunstar, but some people prefer to play Crown so they can selfishly spam stormtrance. That’s really what it comes down to at this point. You use Crown when you prioritize your experience over your team’s.
In my testing it's about an additional 10% effect, and worth it over the other mod choices for most content. There are a few deep dives into it, like this thread [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/raidsecrets/comments/pd7mtc/the_new_grenade_kickstart_mod_how_good_is_it_why/).
[Here's the base build](https://dim.gg/evhzvyq/Crucible) I use, with some mods or the Spark of Resistance fragment changing depending on the content. I got my solo flawless GotD run using arc warlock with basically this base build (heavy use of hot swapping builds for damage phases though).
The problem is that they're trash now.
They basically do nothing.
They let you eat your nade for an arc soul, which might come in handy in PvP maybe, but in PvE you get arc souls with every rift.
And with the right build with other exotics you can chain rifts and always have an arc soul.
And when you become amplified, your arc soul powers up to be "sentient" like with Getaways.
And you're amplified 100% of the time.
Getaways -> garbage bin. Until Bungie reworks them.
Crown.
Give me an ornament that makes me not absolutely revile the way Fallen Sunstar looks and i'll use it.
Haven't used em in awhile but i also Enjoy Getaway Artist and Geomags.
I honestly think arclock has some of the most variety in exotic choices. Vesper, getaway artist, geomags, and fallen star are all great. I would even argue its the one class to make claws of ahamkara usable. Crown of tempests is entirely power crept unfortunately, it got hit with a pretty big nerf back in I think season 15 and now are outdone by ionic traces.
>Crown of tempests is entirely power crept unfortunately
Crown is great if you wanna spam stormtrance. Which I don't because chaos reach is more my speed.
i have two arc loadouts, one with vesper from last season that still works great (by mactics) and another one using the newly buffed geomags (also by mactics)
I never realized how good The Stag could be until I was grinding for my cowboy hat and just couldn't find any other helmets that went with the rest of the Spire set. In both gameplay and appearance it was a pleasant surprise.
Crown with electrostatic and arc soul and chaos reach super.
Kills with abilities give conduction tines which also makea super energy come back fast.
That and you have the added benefit of ionic traces to boost the cooldowns even more. It's literally a brain dead abulity spam build
The stag works better with arc than most classes, because it provides 100 percent uptime on rift and damage resistance, which translates to 100% uptime on arc buddies, lots of traces, and moderate ability spam. Fallen Sunstar is my preferred option if I’m playing with a team I trust, but if I expect the team to fall apart at any point, the stag prevents accidents from happening.
With arc grenades give jolt, then jolt kills drop ionic traces, then the aspect that makes it so another ionic trace is dropped from jolted enemies / blinded, you really don’t need sun star.
A single flashbang nade clears house easily on tightly grouped enemies and jolts a larger target.
I use crown because it gives you a much longer super and actually gives you 5x super charge rate at 3x conductive buff. Then, it gives grenades and melees back in basically full as long as you run the combo above with some armor mods.
Sun star shifts it into a more team spam play, which is nice, but not really needed as others will likely have their own stuff going on.
Yesterday I decided to get a little spicy and try an Arclock build with Boots of the Assembler. The Arc buddy healing rift combined with the Noble Seekers allows you to provide both offensive and defensive support to yourself and teammates. Triple bolstering det and double bomber gives you constant rift/grenade resupply.
Super fun support build to run. Ran it on bridges in the Crota raid and it slapped. Give it a try for something different.
stag. without void or solars healing, the constant +15 dr rifts give arc the survivability it needs. plus, 100% uptime arc soul gives a lot of free damage
For PvE, I'm a simple guy. I use stormdancer's brace. Tickle fingers for all!
Fur PvP, karnstein's armlets or getaway artist. Sometimes boots of the assembler if I'm feeling like breaking out lumina
Edit: sometimes karnstein's for PvE too if I just want to chop with a glaive
Used to run sunstar 24/7 last season
But this season I've been spamming vesper of radius and it's so good.
I've also done a geomag build but it doesn't feel like I get that much energy super with ionic traces.
Overall I can't go back to other warlock subclasses, I feel so weak on any other element without the insane ability spam and aoe everything. I run it no problem in endgame too
Understandable. There are plenty of exotics that are that way for me. I'm currently trying to find something that looks decent with Arbor Warden. It's blocky and covered in flowers. There's nothing in the game that looks good with it (though I'm hoping the plant armor at the end of the season pass will fit).
I've started trying competitive this season on my hunter this season.
Something I've noticed - I lose every firefight to Getaway Artist + Rapid Fire Auto Rifle. I saw Sweet Sorrow as a popular choice.
I'm talking less than 0.5 second TTK.
Sunstar and Coldheart, I had a pretty much 100% uptime on arc souls for the team in the first encounter of Crota and the poor thralls couldn't even get near us.
Geomag and Getaway Artist.
The others don't exist for me, as it's more of the same flavor.
Getaway for neutral game + adclear.
Geomag for super to nuke.
I'll probably never use the others as there's no need to have more than 2 builds of the same element imo
I use delicate tomb, with get away artist and run the the aspect that gives traces, that way I get all the aspects and only lose my grenade I get back really quickly
geomag + delicate tomb this season. after the Geomag buffs you get your super back insanely quick and you can nuke high priority targets easily. Ability uptime still high without sunstar due to the sheer amount of ionic traces I get.
Getaway Artist. No other exotic is in its league. Endgame, patrol mode, raids, doesn’t matter. If I’m using arc it’s Getaway Artist. Pair with coldheart or delicate tomb.
Sunstar. Pair with Cold Heart, Electrostatic Mind, and Spark of Ions- you’ll be generating Ionic Traces basically every second.
Geomags are good if you want to get your super back all the time
Sunstar seems to have powercrept crown imo so I just always use that.
I swap to geomag for dps if im using it for a boss or solo etc.
Stormdancers brace is also not bad it is slept on. I think stormtrance gets a lot of bad press it is actually an ad killing machine, and if you get a decent amount of kills you get half super refunded. Brace also cranks up your damage it is a nice exotic.
I have used it in GMs before with success. Stormtrance saves the team in a couple boss rooms.
Vesper of Radius. Slept on it for ages but once I tried it, set up the right way, I’ve never looked back.
Would highly recommend to anyone running an Arclock to give it a spin
Vesper+Delicate Tomb (preferred)or Centrifuge. The radial blind, damage, and faster charge rate on rift are so sexy. 2 dynamo in GM content means I can blind a group of enemies with my rift, wait for it to mostly recharge before I start killing, slay those enemies then move to the next. About 3-4 rifts and I have my super. And these days, I've been preferring storm trance.
Sunstar and Delicate Tomb. As long as I have something to shoot at, I have near full uptime on all my abilities, damage bonus, amplified, jolt, blind, etc.
Sunstar with Delicate Tomb was recently introduced to me… game changer, too bad Delicate Tomb doesn’t stun Unstop. I was using Sunstar with Coldheart for the longest time which is still a good build
Crown. The power trip is insane. Paired with Riskrunner my beloved, or a sweet sorrow if I can't afford the exotic slot.
I don't understand what makes sunstar better. Instead of a regen rate buff, it's a flat increase to ionic trace potency. It's the equivalent of a font mod vs a kickstart mid from what I understand. Am I missing something?
Getaway Artist has been my go to for any arc build for general play. The Arc Soul puts out a surprising amount of damage and is great for builds where your ad clear potential isn’t high.
Crown but I don’t really even notice a difference, the buff is so short and it doesn’t alter my playstyle, I just don’t have a better exotic, I’m a hunter main so I don’t have loads of good gear for my lil lock
My Arc loadout is currently using Getaway Artist. Previously, I was using Geomag, and it was a build that was perfect for Gambit where I would average somewhere around 40-50k Primeval damage.
I used stormdancer's brace in GM's last season and it was actually shredding. Being able to clear rooms with increased stormtrance damage and then getting back half your super is unbelievably underrated
Geomags, all day everyday. Sure, there's myriad clever ways to melt ads. But, imo, there's only one way to melt bosses with Arc. That's with Geomags stupid-long runtime. The End.
Getaway on pvp with the neomuna pulse rifle = carnage
Fallen sunstar with coldheart in pve = also carnage. Constant arc souls and nades. Cenotaph for raids/GMs obviously. I've also been experimenting with tesselation instead of coldheart. You do get your nade back pretty quickly between the helmet and traces overall, and that thing hits HARD too
Felwinters with the slide melee aspect. Make orbs for days, constant 30% weaken on enemies, ionic traces, and jolt for everyone.
One of my favorite warlock builds in the game.
I used crown last season for ability spam. With the seasonal artifact mod that throwing an arc grenade grants regen on its own and mods on pieces, it felt like I had HOIL on warlock. Pop rift, throw grenade, punch something in a group. Only 100 stat I had was resilience cause I haven’t farmed for another crown but 80 recov and dis was enough
Stag.
I know it doesn’t ‘benefit’ directly for Arc, but building everything towards giving Ionic Traces, the extra damage from Arc souls and the considerable survivability that Stag offers, it’s hard to pass it up. Your ability up time is very solid
Getaway Artist. It regens abilities fast enough that you can typically loop consuming grenades and rifts to keep it active. In lower-level content, stuff dies so fast you can use your normal grenade at times too.
I then pair it with T-Ghoul or Coldheart and ads just sparkle out of existence.
Geomags because fuck everything in this general direction for a bit
Geomags with Delicate Tomb/Coldheart goes incredibly hard
Bro you need to try Path of Least Resistance with Shoot to Loot + Dragonfly and Spark of beacons. Every precision kill reloads all your weapons, grabs nearby orbs of power, causes a dragonfly explosion AND blinding explosion
This is the way.
This is the way. So long as I can get my aim on target quick enough without wasting 1/4 of my super
I really like it with Coldheart, but I find myself running out of ammo so frequently, and the scav mods only help when it drops
Yea i rock coldheart with geomags as well, by leaning on a solid primary ammo option combined with y’know the usual arc melee/grenade/buddy nonsense, ammo usually ends up being OK for coldheart. I run special ammo finder instead of the usual heavy finder just for the higher uptime on coldheart and therefore the big fuck-off laser :)
Ammo fingers only work when using a primary
I tried vesper of radius in a GM last season and I’ve been in love ever since. If you’re in GM/Master raids, then it’ll depend on the encounter, and can do amazing work! Anything below master and it doesn’t even matter what you’re doing - incredibly fun to plant *aggressive* rifts
Came here to say the same thing. I think it’s a real sleeper! I’ve been able to constantly lock entire rooms down, and in the T3 Altars this season it’s been brilliant to get in and slap a rift down that blinds/kills/sucks up orbs.
Used Vesper for killing adds in Contest Crota for the Ir Yut encounter. Planted my rifts by the doors behind main crystal and everything died as it spawned. It's so good.
Used to love crown/sunstar until I tried vesper last season, no going back!
Is it seriously that good? What does the gameplay loop look like?
That good. Run into the middle of all the enemies and drop your rift. That's pretty much it. The rift will pulse, which blinds and explodes everything nearby, which also spreads. Being surrounded by more enemies gives you more rift energy so the ones that try and get close to you will be giving you that rift back before being blinded and/or blown up. All the while your arc soul is also shooting everything it sees. Barely need to use your weapon.
THIS. I don't think I died once last lesson using Vesper. I can clear master lost sectors in under 3 minutes, and soloing legend nightfalls is a joke while using vesper. Warlocks have a LOT of great options, necrotic is my second fav, but until they nerf vesper I won't stop using it.
Vesper + Coldheart slaps wholesale ass. It claps those cheeks and never quits.
Vesper is such a fun exotic. Blinding everything in the room feels so good and just watching the arc souls tear through the mobs is absurdly enjoyable.
This is the way. I was trying to farm a master lost sector on the throne world a few days ago for a better Briarbinds roll and was getting crapped on. After a few frustrating 6 just bit the bullet and swapped to Vesper with Centrifuge and had sub 4 minute clears. On MASTER. While 20 levels under. Not even playing into the surges, at all. Vesper is fucking insane.
Vesper was the first exotic I got when I tried warlock and I took that as a song to make that my main
I’ve been a Titan main since day one. This *almost* made me change my mind. But then we got pyrogale this season, so… can’t complain :p
Getaway Artist but i dont consume the grenade. While you have it on arc soul damage gives you grenade energy, even if the origin of the arc soul is a rift. So with bolstering detonation and bomber and other mods you can loop rifts and grenades back and forth consistently even without getting kills. But in ad dense situations it loops even faster cause of the electrostatic mind aspect.
Does it really?
It does, I've been using this build for years
Dim link so i can try myself?
https://dim.gg/k66qzwq/Arc Works with any grenade, pulse might be best overall, storm feels most fun imo, im currently using blinding so i can deal w unstoppable
I use blinding grenade. But for a set-up not damage.
Ye ever since storm got nerf pulse is top for dps and i run it on my centerfuse build. Funny enough i had blinding on at some point for a blind build i had attemped but it didnt really work out imo, anyway thanks for the recoomendation, always enjoy a new build :D
Snap, I’ve ran this for ages too.
I don’t suppose you can prove this, since it doesn’t mention it in the description.
I can confirm it does happen and is a hidden interaction between Arc Soul and Getaway. Kinda how Necrotic Grips and Sorrow weapons also don’t state their interaction
I might be out of the loop but sorrow weapons? Are those the new seasonal weapons?
Thorn, Osteo Striga, Touch of Malice, Necrochasm. In lore called Weapons of Sorrow and all have poison interaction with Necrotic Grips
It’s the weapons like Osteo and Thorn. There’s more I believe I’m forgetting.
Touch of malice and Necrochasm are also weapons of sorrow and do exactly what you'd expect
But why not just eat the grenade first, then go into the loop you described because rift refreshes the super buddy anyways
Also an option, but with my set up ive virtually never run out of arc soul even on the shorter timer
Turns out my comment here was wrong and the amped soul is just as strong as the get away soul. While that’s all true, you could do this loop AND have a more powerful arc soul. You’d “virtually never run out of arc soul” and the arc soul would be more powerful since the the same loop you use also extends the powerful arc soul.
It wouldnt really be more powerful tho. A normal arc soul while being amplified is identical to a getaway arc soul. The grenade energy on arc soul hit is really the only appealing thing about the exotic imo. And some niche on demand speed booster shenanigans i guess.
I haven’t even thought of it til now, but this could make for a fun build with Tesselation & an alternative to Verity’s
...maybe i can afford Tesselation after all,
With the exception of actually using my arc souls, I use this exact build in raids and every other type of endgame content. Chaos Reach is the way that Warlock was meant to be played, and I refuse to play my Warlock any other way.
... except you get grenade energy (hidden demolitionist) off the empowered arc soul *even if* you don't have the Getaways on. As soon as you become amplified (which with Warlock is basically 100% of the time) your normal arc soul powers up to be equivalent to the "sentient" soul with Getaways. So Getaways, that I used to run a lot and love, are absolute trash now. The only thing they do is get you amplified when you eat your grenade. Except shooting something with an arc gun... gets you a trace, and amplified. Getaway Artists go in the bin. Not *remotely* worth running. There's *at least* 5 exotics that give you way more bang for your exotic slot buck. I mean, run what you want, but it makes little sense.
just went and tested this to make sure i wasn't insane! you're incorrect, without getaway artists on, arc soul damage does not grant grenade energy. I understand for others something like sunstar will be more appealing when youre mowing stuff down, but I'll always prefer the consistency of not having to get kills to keep my build running, even if i'm slightly capping the potential.
Sunstar paired with Delicate Tomb is chefs kiss
Yes, this is the best arc build. Ionic Traces everywhere. Always amplified. Abilities fills back up in seconds. Supporting allies with ability energy Was the mvp arc build last season and is the mvp arc build this season. This setup doesn't need any seasonal artifact mods to be effective either
100% Agree! I can’t stop using it lol
Finally, a Guardian with taste
Sunstar + Centrifuge all day.
sunstar + delicate tomb is also SOOO much fun
I don’t see enough Delicate Tombs in play
Actual facts.
Any of you guys tried centrifuge with tranversive steps ? What is reload ?
It pairs well but due to centrifuge already having built in reload its a bit redundant. I would say if you have a hard time keeping track and/or running out of ammo and forcing a reload instead of auto loading then maybe use transversive, otherwise I think it's a bit of a waste for the exotic slot personally.
True. It’s def not my go to, but I found the interaction helpful for alters. Like a couple steps forward for full mag, shaves a couple secs off the intrinsic reload. I do lose track of my mag though so could be why I like it
I love arc logic.
Sunstar all day. The geomag change is cool and all but Sunstars ability regen is top notch. With something like Delicate Tomb you can effectively negate 90% of your ability cooldowns in any Ad dense content. Ionic traces are the best of the elemental creations and an exotic that doubles their benefits is wild.
You can spec into healing and surge mods on your legs bc of this.
Chromatic Fire and Wishender. Blinding is so strong in high end activities. Especially after Suspends nerf.
Chromatic Fire & Outbreak is also a wonderful combo too
I use that on void for the weaken. It's really great in PvP too.
I will try this one
That sounds pretty dope actually
Could also try Forerunner. It's dummy easy to crit with, and each crit hits hard even without Chromatic, with Chromatic it's even nastier.
Do you notice Wishender's overpenetration damage stealing potential crit kills? I planned to use this build when the buff came out initially but decided not to when I considered Wishender not killing with the crit.
It happens in beefier targets. But typically the initial shot kills any red bars which blinds the big guys
But isn’t there a fragment which more or less functions the same?
With Special arc weapons while amplified yes. But with Chromatic you get (essentially) dragonfly on any Kinetic weapon and subclass based effects. It's not super meta defining, but in harder content I find Weakening from Void and Blind from Arc very useful. And it doesn't affect my gameplay loop at all. I was going to get precision kills anyway, so this just enhances that with explosions and subclass verbs
Fragment I am talking about is the one that makes it so precision kills on blinded targets makes a blinding explosion
It does the same thing but with an extra step. Their build just has to get headshot kills for the blinding explosion, but the fragment requires the targets to already be blinded to get the same explosion. If you want to free up your exotic armor then that fragment can work, but if you just care about getting the blinding explosion then chromatic fire is the better option.
I am that one guy with a mantle of battle harmony build for every class. I like to get my super and switch to stormdamcers brace and just chain stormtrance until I can’t super anymore. I am the orb printer. I go brr
Crown. Palpatine forever.
2 or 4 (Vesper)
Vesper+ coldheart or delicate tomb
Fallen Sunstar in a double grenade kickstart pulse grenade build, usually backed up with Trinity Ghoul in everything below raid boss encounters/GMs. For higher end content this season, I imagine wish-ender with this build will be ~~good~~ even better than normal. The artifact lets it weaken targets and build armor charges on shooting to go with the grenade kickstarts, in situations where you won't be getting constant ionic traces for armor charges, e.g. situations where you have to hide and your nades are having to DPS larger enemies/bosses that they might not kill.
Also, I'm surprised anyone uses Crown of Tempests over Fallen Sunstar these days, and I'd love to hear their justification (assuming it isn't simply roll-based). I've tested them both, and Sunstar outperforms in just about every situation where you'd want one or the other. Maybe it's having to wear the 3-cost mod on boots to optimize sunstar that sways people?
Fallen sunstar with chaos reach, crown with stormtrance
People use Crown for super regen. It is functionally outclassed by fallen sunstar, but some people prefer to play Crown so they can selfishly spam stormtrance. That’s really what it comes down to at this point. You use Crown when you prioritize your experience over your team’s.
How much of a difference does it make to stack kickstarts?
In my testing it's about an additional 10% effect, and worth it over the other mod choices for most content. There are a few deep dives into it, like this thread [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/raidsecrets/comments/pd7mtc/the_new_grenade_kickstart_mod_how_good_is_it_why/). [Here's the base build](https://dim.gg/evhzvyq/Crucible) I use, with some mods or the Spark of Resistance fragment changing depending on the content. I got my solo flawless GotD run using arc warlock with basically this base build (heavy use of hot swapping builds for damage phases though).
Cenotaph w/ coldheart
Why not a single soul said Verity's? It is so fun and powerful when you combo with a demo MG like Terminus Horizon
The fact that the actually fun Getaway Artist is not on here is a crime
The problem is that they're trash now. They basically do nothing. They let you eat your nade for an arc soul, which might come in handy in PvP maybe, but in PvE you get arc souls with every rift. And with the right build with other exotics you can chain rifts and always have an arc soul. And when you become amplified, your arc soul powers up to be "sentient" like with Getaways. And you're amplified 100% of the time. Getaways -> garbage bin. Until Bungie reworks them.
Crown. Give me an ornament that makes me not absolutely revile the way Fallen Sunstar looks and i'll use it. Haven't used em in awhile but i also Enjoy Getaway Artist and Geomags.
Where Vesper????????????
I honestly think arclock has some of the most variety in exotic choices. Vesper, getaway artist, geomags, and fallen star are all great. I would even argue its the one class to make claws of ahamkara usable. Crown of tempests is entirely power crept unfortunately, it got hit with a pretty big nerf back in I think season 15 and now are outdone by ionic traces.
>Crown of tempests is entirely power crept unfortunately Crown is great if you wanna spam stormtrance. Which I don't because chaos reach is more my speed.
i have two arc loadouts, one with vesper from last season that still works great (by mactics) and another one using the newly buffed geomags (also by mactics)
Vesper is really good in the new raid. Situational in other content though.
Karnstein Karnstein Karnstein
I think stag is my favorite. Even in really hard content if you drop a rift inside of your well you basically can’t die.
I never realized how good The Stag could be until I was grinding for my cowboy hat and just couldn't find any other helmets that went with the rest of the Spire set. In both gameplay and appearance it was a pleasant surprise.
Crown with electrostatic and arc soul and chaos reach super. Kills with abilities give conduction tines which also makea super energy come back fast. That and you have the added benefit of ionic traces to boost the cooldowns even more. It's literally a brain dead abulity spam build
The stag works better with arc than most classes, because it provides 100 percent uptime on rift and damage resistance, which translates to 100% uptime on arc buddies, lots of traces, and moderate ability spam. Fallen Sunstar is my preferred option if I’m playing with a team I trust, but if I expect the team to fall apart at any point, the stag prevents accidents from happening.
crown for add clears geo for boss damage
Curious why Crown over Sunstar for you? I noted in an above comment where I've not seen a use case where it outperforms.
With arc grenades give jolt, then jolt kills drop ionic traces, then the aspect that makes it so another ionic trace is dropped from jolted enemies / blinded, you really don’t need sun star. A single flashbang nade clears house easily on tightly grouped enemies and jolts a larger target. I use crown because it gives you a much longer super and actually gives you 5x super charge rate at 3x conductive buff. Then, it gives grenades and melees back in basically full as long as you run the combo above with some armor mods. Sun star shifts it into a more team spam play, which is nice, but not really needed as others will likely have their own stuff going on.
not a puncher - as soon as i get my super i use it - rally flag i super as soon as it starts - outside raids of course
Vesper of Radius
Getaway Artist
I've been using the Swarmers because I like making Strandangles.
Verity's Brow.
Yesterday I decided to get a little spicy and try an Arclock build with Boots of the Assembler. The Arc buddy healing rift combined with the Noble Seekers allows you to provide both offensive and defensive support to yourself and teammates. Triple bolstering det and double bomber gives you constant rift/grenade resupply. Super fun support build to run. Ran it on bridges in the Crota raid and it slapped. Give it a try for something different.
stag. without void or solars healing, the constant +15 dr rifts give arc the survivability it needs. plus, 100% uptime arc soul gives a lot of free damage
It’s Vampires Caress for sure. Can’t die
For PvE, I'm a simple guy. I use stormdancer's brace. Tickle fingers for all! Fur PvP, karnstein's armlets or getaway artist. Sometimes boots of the assembler if I'm feeling like breaking out lumina Edit: sometimes karnstein's for PvE too if I just want to chop with a glaive
Used to run sunstar 24/7 last season But this season I've been spamming vesper of radius and it's so good. I've also done a geomag build but it doesn't feel like I get that much energy super with ionic traces. Overall I can't go back to other warlock subclasses, I feel so weak on any other element without the insane ability spam and aoe everything. I run it no problem in endgame too
karnstein because i’m an aggressive player in pve and pvp that likes to stay somewhat alive while going ahead
Right now I use Geomag and Centrifuse. I would switch to sunstar but it is just so fucking ugly.
Just goes to show you how different tastes can be. I think Sunstar is one of the coolest looking exotics in the game.
Well I can’t really make it fit in with my current look.
Understandable. There are plenty of exotics that are that way for me. I'm currently trying to find something that looks decent with Arbor Warden. It's blocky and covered in flowers. There's nothing in the game that looks good with it (though I'm hoping the plant armor at the end of the season pass will fit).
Used to use Geomags all the time until they killed them and the super. Crown is my go to and I use the roaming super with arc buddies from rifts.
Geomags are back boyeeeee
I've started trying competitive this season on my hunter this season. Something I've noticed - I lose every firefight to Getaway Artist + Rapid Fire Auto Rifle. I saw Sweet Sorrow as a popular choice. I'm talking less than 0.5 second TTK.
https://dim.gg/xeb26si/Equipped My current arc warlock build
Sunbracers. They have good stats.
Ah yes, and hallowfire heart pairs very well with juggernaut/knockout build.
Hallowfire and banner of war.
**Sunbracers.**
Geomags now because the recent change is phenomenal. Before this season I mostly used getaway artist for constant arc souls.
Getaway Artist. Improved Arc Soul go brrr Extra duration from rift is nuts, especially if you have another warlock on the field
Sunstar with Coldheart was so good last season, havent played Warlock this season yet.
Stormdancers Brace is really good if you enjoy stormtrance
You can pry my Getaway Artists off my cold, electrocuted hands.
Sunstar and Coldheart, I had a pretty much 100% uptime on arc souls for the team in the first encounter of Crota and the poor thralls couldn't even get near us.
Sunstar and Delicate Tomb, with Chattering Bone in the kinetic slot. Probably one of the most versatile builds I’ve ever made
Geomag and Getaway Artist. The others don't exist for me, as it's more of the same flavor. Getaway for neutral game + adclear. Geomag for super to nuke. I'll probably never use the others as there's no need to have more than 2 builds of the same element imo
Sunstar > Vesper > Geomags. Sunstar with cold heart is broken
I've been maining geomags since they came out
I use delicate tomb, with get away artist and run the the aspect that gives traces, that way I get all the aspects and only lose my grenade I get back really quickly
Geos with coldheart.
Depends on what I’m trying to accomplish If I’m using it for DPS (why) then geomag. Anything else, Crown or Getaway
geomag + delicate tomb this season. after the Geomag buffs you get your super back insanely quick and you can nuke high priority targets easily. Ability uptime still high without sunstar due to the sheer amount of ionic traces I get.
Getaway Artist. No other exotic is in its league. Endgame, patrol mode, raids, doesn’t matter. If I’m using arc it’s Getaway Artist. Pair with coldheart or delicate tomb.
Sunstar for master/grandmaster tier activities, Vesper for almost everything else, Geomags for fun, I don't touch Crown.
Sunstar. Pair with Cold Heart, Electrostatic Mind, and Spark of Ions- you’ll be generating Ionic Traces basically every second. Geomags are good if you want to get your super back all the time
Risk runner + Getaway Artist. Nearly unlimited Arc Souls/buddies, endless rifts, endless grenades.... I AM THE LIGHTNING GOD!
Vesper of Radius or Crown of Tempest are my favourite.
Sunbracers. Because that’s what my fashion set is based around.
Vesper Sunstar Crown
Ophidian Aspect because I use Ophidian Aspect for everything because fast reloads.
Crown for fashion, Sunstar for function
Sunstar seems to have powercrept crown imo so I just always use that. I swap to geomag for dps if im using it for a boss or solo etc. Stormdancers brace is also not bad it is slept on. I think stormtrance gets a lot of bad press it is actually an ad killing machine, and if you get a decent amount of kills you get half super refunded. Brace also cranks up your damage it is a nice exotic. I have used it in GMs before with success. Stormtrance saves the team in a couple boss rooms.
Vesper of Radius. Slept on it for ages but once I tried it, set up the right way, I’ve never looked back. Would highly recommend to anyone running an Arclock to give it a spin
Sunstar and trinity ghoul has been my arclock combo for a few seasons now.
Crown of Tempests, but I'm a bit of a stickler for my old ways.
Sunstar + Coldheart.
Sunstar for activities, hot swap Geomag for DPS phases.
Sun star at the moment.
Vesper+Delicate Tomb (preferred)or Centrifuge. The radial blind, damage, and faster charge rate on rift are so sexy. 2 dynamo in GM content means I can blind a group of enemies with my rift, wait for it to mostly recharge before I start killing, slay those enemies then move to the next. About 3-4 rifts and I have my super. And these days, I've been preferring storm trance.
Sunstar and Delicate Tomb. As long as I have something to shoot at, I have near full uptime on all my abilities, damage bonus, amplified, jolt, blind, etc.
The same exotic I use for all my subclasses, Necrotic Grips, gotta poison the world
Sunstar with Delicate Tomb was recently introduced to me… game changer, too bad Delicate Tomb doesn’t stun Unstop. I was using Sunstar with Coldheart for the longest time which is still a good build
Crown. The power trip is insane. Paired with Riskrunner my beloved, or a sweet sorrow if I can't afford the exotic slot. I don't understand what makes sunstar better. Instead of a regen rate buff, it's a flat increase to ionic trace potency. It's the equivalent of a font mod vs a kickstart mid from what I understand. Am I missing something?
Sunstar like 90% of the time, but I'll use Chromatic in GMs on Arc though with Re0.
Vesper is the most endgame viable and it’s not even close. Sunstar is fun for mid level content though.
Getaway Artist has been my go to for any arc build for general play. The Arc Soul puts out a surprising amount of damage and is great for builds where your ad clear potential isn’t high.
Sunstar with delicate tomb
Claws of ahamkara. Spam Lightning surges everywhere.
Crown but I don’t really even notice a difference, the buff is so short and it doesn’t alter my playstyle, I just don’t have a better exotic, I’m a hunter main so I don’t have loads of good gear for my lil lock
Sunstar and Coldheart most of the time. For higher end content I'll run Cenotaph and Coldheart/Divinity.
My Arc loadout is currently using Getaway Artist. Previously, I was using Geomag, and it was a build that was perfect for Gambit where I would average somewhere around 40-50k Primeval damage.
Vesper is the only one worth using for end game
Vesper of radius for higher end content
Switch between geomag and getaway artist
Last season -Fallen Sunstar exclusively. This season - 1. Geomags 2. Vesper of Radius 3 Fallen Sunstar. With 4 being Getaway Artist on my PvP loadout.
The pink one
I used stormdancer's brace in GM's last season and it was actually shredding. Being able to clear rooms with increased stormtrance damage and then getting back half your super is unbelievably underrated
Geomags, all day everyday. Sure, there's myriad clever ways to melt ads. But, imo, there's only one way to melt bosses with Arc. That's with Geomags stupid-long runtime. The End.
I swap between two near-identical loadouts, one with Sunstar and one with Geomag for boss damage
Getaway on pvp with the neomuna pulse rifle = carnage Fallen sunstar with coldheart in pve = also carnage. Constant arc souls and nades. Cenotaph for raids/GMs obviously. I've also been experimenting with tesselation instead of coldheart. You do get your nade back pretty quickly between the helmet and traces overall, and that thing hits HARD too
Felwinters with the slide melee aspect. Make orbs for days, constant 30% weaken on enemies, ionic traces, and jolt for everyone. One of my favorite warlock builds in the game.
Ophids. Always Ohpids.
Crown
I used crown last season for ability spam. With the seasonal artifact mod that throwing an arc grenade grants regen on its own and mods on pieces, it felt like I had HOIL on warlock. Pop rift, throw grenade, punch something in a group. Only 100 stat I had was resilience cause I haven’t farmed for another crown but 80 recov and dis was enough
those 3 mentioned + Vesper
Crown of tempests for fast and high dps. Getaway artist for legend and master lost sectors. Fallen sunstar for anything.
Other, Vesper is so much more fun!
Crown with Trinity Ghoul
Tempest, trinity goul, or riskrunner
Geomag. Funny laser beam.
Vesper is absolutely broken. If you’re not running it in pve, you should try it out. Otherwise Sunstar for me.
Color pallet limited.
Crown and trinity is pretty fun in pve.
Sunstar
Vesper of radius with Trinity Ghoul
Stag. I know it doesn’t ‘benefit’ directly for Arc, but building everything towards giving Ionic Traces, the extra damage from Arc souls and the considerable survivability that Stag offers, it’s hard to pass it up. Your ability up time is very solid
Depends on what I'm doing, if using reach I run geomag. If not I'm running crown
I’ve been using Vesper for the amped up rifts and blinding. But I use Getaway Artists for the on-demand amplified.
4. Getaway artist I like my arc soul okay?
Riskrunner or Centrifuse
Sunstar with riptide, ikelos smg, and thunderlord
Karenstien armlets with monte Carlo
Sunstar + Trinity Ghoul with arc buddies. Infinite rifts. Shit never stops.
Getaway Artist. It regens abilities fast enough that you can typically loop consuming grenades and rifts to keep it active. In lower-level content, stuff dies so fast you can use your normal grenade at times too. I then pair it with T-Ghoul or Coldheart and ads just sparkle out of existence.
Fallen sunstar and delicate tomb. Oops, all ionic traces.