Shadowkeep was a major turning point for Destiny 2. Its introduction of the seasonal model and radical changes to build crafting have laid the foundation for the new Stasis classes and items introduced in Destiny 2: Beyond Light.
With multiple weapon rolls, armor mods, Exotics, Aspects, Fragments, and subclasses to go over, the number of ways to make a good build is endless. Fortunately, most of these builds are easy to replicate once you understand a few must-know tips relating to armor and abilities. From Fragments to ability usage, here are 15 tips to making an overpowered character in Destiny 2: Beyond Light.
Updated February 27th, 2021 by Charles Burgar: Season of the Chosen has added further ways for Guardians to enhance their power. A new Seasonal Artifact, Fragments, and weapons have given players new avenues of creating an overpowered character build. We've replaced a few entries with these new methods of creating the most overpowered Guardian imaginable.
15 Raise Your Power Level
Before you begin to theorycraft a mix-maxed build for yourself, make sure that your Guardian is at the current Power Level cap for that season. Power Level directly correlates to the amount of damage you can dish out and take. Participating in activities you are underleveled for will make your life much harder. Get your Power Level to the hard cap before you start focusing on making a build.
14 Farm The New Exotic Weapons And Armor
Year 4's suite of new Exotics are some of the strongest, most unique additions in the Destiny franchise. Every class got two new armor pieces to play with alongside a small variety of new Exotic weapons.
Hunters should get their hands on the Mask of Bakris and Athrysis' Embrace armor pieces as soon as possible, the former granting unparalleled mobility while the latter grants free melee kills. Warlocks might be surprised to hear that Dawn Chorus makes Daybreak's damage comparable to bottom tree Golden Gun, making this a decent item to chase. The Mantle of Battle Harmony is also fantastic for most builds focused on spamming Supers in PvE. Titans will want Cuirass of the Falling Star to make their Thundercrash one-shot most bosses.
As for weapons, Guardians should focus on obtaining The Lament, Cloudstrike, and Hawkmoon if they own Season of the Hunt. These weapons are absurdly powerful and can take down tougher foes in a matter of seconds. Salvation's Grip is also a must-own since it unlocks your Stasis subclass' Aspects.
13 Acquire Artifact Mods
Every season in Destiny 2 comes with a new Artifact for players to level. This Artifact grants both account-wide Power Level and unique mods that rival Exotics in terms of strength. Season of the Chosen has some particularly powerful choices.
Anti-Barrier Sniper Rifle and Disrupting Blade are fantastic Anti-Champion mods. Borealis, Falling Guillotine, and Black Talon are great for pinnacle PvE content due to these mods.
If you're a fan of Swords, you need to get Passive Guard this season. This mod grants a 50% damage reduction boost whenever you're near an enemy while your Sword is equipped. Those more interested in spamming Stasis Supers will want GLacial Inheritance, effectively giving Super energy for every enemy you kill with your Stasis Super. Sundering Glare allows Scout and Sniper Rifles to output fantastic damage in Master-tier Nightfalls and Lost Sectors. Finally, Thundercrash mains will want to grab Volatile Conduction to make their Super deal 30% increased damage while they're critically wounded.
12 Obtain Aspects
Stasis classes don't turn into true powerhouses until you obtain Aspects and Fragments for them. These items act as subclass nodes that grant powerful passive effects or entirely new abilities.
Each class can obtain their first Aspect by completing the Aspect of Control quest provided by the Exo Stranger after the campaign. To finish this quest, you will need to destroy Entropic Shards that can only be harmed through the use of Salvation's Grip, a unique Exotic Grenade Launcher tied to its own questline. Season of the Chosen also introduced a third Aspect you can obtain once you've obtained your first two. Speak to the Exo Stranger to start this third quest.
Once you have your class Aspects, you will have a few new ways of dominating the battlefield. Hunters can slow targets more easily, Titans can slide further and shatter Stasis crystals much easier, and Warlocks can spread freezes and even spawn turrets.
11 Obtain Fragments ASAP
Every week, the Exo Stranger will give you two quests that will grant Fragments upon quest completion. These quests tie with one of three core activities: strikes, Gambit, or the Crucible. Complete the campaign as soon as possible to start earning these Fragments.
There are ten Fragments to choose from currently. Here is what each Fragment provides:
- Whisper of Bonds: Defeating frozen enemies with weapons grants you 2.5% Super energy. -10 Intellect and Discipline while equipped.
- Whisper of Chains: Gain a 25% damage resistance buff while standing near a friendly Stasis crystal or frozen combatant. +10 Recovery while equipped.
- Whisper of Durance: Slows from your abilities last longer. Slow abilities that linger last longer. +10 Strength while equipped.
- Whisper of Fissures: Increase the area and damage of Stasis crystal or opponent detonations by 50%.
- Whisper of Fractures: Your melee energy recharges faster when you are near two or more combatants.
- Whisper of Hedrons: Gain a 25% bonus to weapon damage after freezing a target. -10 Strength while equipped.
- Whisper of Impetus: Damaging targets with your Stasis melee reloads your stowed weapons and grants a five-second handling boost to all of your weapons.
- Whisper of Refraction: Gain 10% class ability energy upon defeating a slowed or frozen enemy.
- Whisper of Shards: Shattering Stasis crystals temporarily boosts your grenade recharge rate. The more crystals you shatter, the greater the duration. The duration cannot exceed ten seconds. +10 Resilience while equipped.
- Whisper of Torment: You gain grenade energy each time you take damage from combatants.
10 Use Whisper Of Hedrons
While recommending a specific Mod or weapon is generally a bad idea, this is a rare case where one option is so powerful that it's downright detrimental not to use it. For those unaware, the Stasis Fragment Whisper of Hedrons is one of the strongest passive buffs in Destiny 2.
Whisper of Hedrons provides a 25% damage boost for ten seconds after you freeze a target. Grenades, melee abilities, your Super, and Salvation's Grip can all proc this effect. Coldsnap Grenades are especially handy for freezing opponents in a hurry. Get this buff to make your Aggressive Frame Snipers one-tap to the body and cause your 120 RPM Hand Cannons to two-tap. There's little reason not to use this Fragment.
9 Farm For Well-Rolled Guns
A well-rolled weapon can make a world of difference in PvE and PvP. In general, most weapons want some sort of damage-boosting perk in PvE, while PvP rolls focus more on consistency.
Rampage, Kill Clip, Explosive Payload, Dragonfly, and similar perks are great in PvE on Primary weapons to help their lethality against tankier fodder opponents. PvP players will want to consider perks such as Rangefinder, Opening Shot, Moving Target, and Quickdraw when looking for good weapons. Obtain a great suite of weapons to make pinnacle content easier to beat.
8 Use Armor Mods
Armor mods are the difference between good and great builds. Besides Combat Style mods—previously known as Seasonal mods—Armor mods allow you to use Special or Heavy weapons more frequently, have higher aim assist on weapons, or take reduced damage from combatants.
Make sure you have mods installed on all of your armor to suit your playstyle. Targeting mods are great in PvP, scavenger Mods are great in every mode, and damage resistance perks are incredibly strong in PvE.
7 Focus Umbral Engrams
Season of the Chosen brought Umbral Engrams back to Destiny 2. Unlike standard Legendary Engrams, Umbral Engrams can be focused to drop specific gear. All Umbral Engrams can be focused at the H.E.L.M.
To focus an Umbral Engram, you will need Hammer Charges. These can be obtained from Battleground games by smashing Tribute Chests at the end of a mission. Three charges are enough to obtain a specific armor piece or one of two weapons, but you'll preferably want to use the five charge focus options. These allow you to obtain weapons with selectable perks and armor with at least 15 in a chosen stat. If you want to min-max your Guardian, Umbral Engrams are a great shortcut.
6 Perfect Your Stat Allocation
Character stats play a large role in making the best character builds. There are six stats to consider:
- Mobility: Grants increased strafe speed and jump height. Shortens Hunter dodge cooldowns.
- Resilience: Increases your shield capacity slightly and reduces damage taken from breaking free of Stasis. Shortens Titan Barricade cooldowns.
- Recovery: Speeds up health and shield regeneration while decreasing shield recharge delay. Shortens Warlock Rift cooldowns.
- Discipline: Shortens grenade cooldowns. The bonus gets smaller with higher tiers.
- Intellect: Shortens Super cooldowns. The bonus gets smaller with higher tiers.
- Strength: Shortens melee ability cooldowns. The bonus gets smaller with higher tiers.
Figure out which stats you want to maximize and obtain gear that specializes in those stats. Intellect is great for PvP, Discipline and Strength are great in any mode, and both Mobility and Recovery are essential for high-end play. Resilience is usually considered a dump stat and not worth investing in since the shield increase is minuscule.
5 Farm High-Stat Armor
If you want to get the most out of your Guardian, you'll need to obtain some good armor for them. Decide on which stats you want to focus on for your build, then keep an eye out for armor that has a bias in the stats you're looking for.
An armor's stat total is mostly irrelevant, despite what many Destiny players will tell you. The difference between four items with a 58 stat total and four items with a 65 stat total is 28 points. That sounds significant until you realize that Masterworking your armor or adding three stat mods will make up for this.
Instead, you should be focusing on the stat distribution on an armor piece. For example, if you want to make a Discipline build, aim for armor pieces with at least 15 points (preferably 20) in Discipline before mods or Masterwork bonuses.
Here are a few ways of obtaining high-stat gear:
- Dungeons: Shattered Throne, Pit of Heresy, and the Prophecy dungeons all have a chance of dropping armor with high stat totals and biases.
- Raids: Raids have a significantly higher chance of providing armor with high stats than most activities.
- Trials of Osiris: Similar to raids and dungeons, Trials has a high chance of granting armor with high stats.
- Iron Banner: All Iron Banner armor can drop with higher stats than normal.
- Focusing Umbral Engrams: Tier-three focused Umbral Engrams guarantee +15 in a specified stat.
- Legend/Master Lost Sectors: If you want to farm high-stat Exotic armor, Lost Sectors are your best bet. We go into more detail on this in the "Farm Lost Sectors" section.
4 Masterwork Your Gear
Masterworking weapons and armor is key to making your builds even stronger. Weapons that are Masterworked gain +10 to a particular stat and can generate Orbs of Power on double kills, a resource that can be turned into Charged with Light stacks with the Taking Charge mod.
Armor that is Masterworked will grant +2 to all armor-related stats such as recovery and intellect. This will also grant that armor piece ten total energy to use, allowing you to fit three to four mods on that piece. A fully Masterworked set of armor allows you to make Charged with Light or Warmind Cell builds with ease.
3 Farm Lost Sectors
Every build in Destiny 2 uses some sort of Exotic armor. Now that Exotics can use Combat Style mods, there is no reason not to obtain the best Exotic possible.
If you don't have every Exotic or wish to farm the best rolls possible, consider farming Master Lost Sectors introduced in Beyond Light. This new difficulty of Lost Sector can be found in the Cosmodrome, Europa, and the Moon. Each Lost Sector has a high chance of granting a slot-specific armor piece if done solo. Those that need a perfectly-rolled Transversive Steps can farm a Lost Sector that grants only leg armor, for example. Consider farming these Lost Sectors to obtain perfectly-rolled armor for your next build.
We have guides covering every Master Lost Sector in Destiny 2. You can find them in our Complete Guide and Walkthrough article.
2 Charged With Light Builds
Charged with Light is one of the strongest mechanics Bungie has introduced in recent memory. These mods, which are slotted in the Combat Style mod slot on armor, grant powerful bonuses at the cost of Charged with Light stacks.
Some of the best Charged with Light mods include Taking Charge, Protective Light, High-Energy Fire, Surprise Attack, and Powerful Friends. For PvE, pairing Taking Charge with Protective Light will make you nigh-impervious to damage when your shields break. Surprise Attack is also fantastic as it grants a 35% damage increase to Sidearms, and it stacks with damage perks such as Rampage. As for PvP, Powerful Friends is a great option as it grants you an extra 20 mobility for little investment.
1 Warmind Cell Builds
Warmind Cells are arguably stronger than Charged with Light mods. As long as you have compatible Seventh Seraph weapons, Warmind Cells can be spawned frequently enough to clear out rooms of enemies in mere seconds. As long as you have a Warmind Cell mod from Season of the Worthy, all Seventh Seraph and Year 3 IKELOS weapons can spawn Warmind Cells on kill. These orange balls explode when shot at, dealing massive damage in a wide area.
To maximize this effect, couple the Rage of the Warmind mod with the Wrath of Rasputin mod. This will cause Solar splash damage to spawn Warmind Cells, which now includes Warmind detonations since they deal Solar damage. Both mods also allow the likes of Xenophage and Sunshot to generate Warmind Cells.