Grandmaster Nightfalls has returned toDestiny 2in Season of Defiance. This time around, a new element has been introduced to shift the balance of the game, Strand. Strand has permanently changed how the game is played, and this new Titan build takes full advantage of it, especially in endgame content. Here’s how Titans can build around Strand for Grandmaster Nightfalls inDestiny 2.
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Abilities
This build revolves around suspending enemies non-stop, and to do that, players will be utilizing the brand-newExotic leg piece, Abyeant Leap. Using the barricade will send out three waves of Strand that will suspend any enemies caught by them. This means the player should focus on mods and abilities that can help regenerate their abilities, allowing them to constantly suspend all enemies in their path.
Starting with abilities, this build utilizes the Rally Barricade for faster regeneration and the Shackle Grenade, which suspends enemies on impact. For Fragments, the player should use Thread of Generation, Thread of Mind, Thread of Warding, and Thread of Continuity.
Thread of Generation generates Grenade Energy when dealing damage—Thread of Mind grants Class Ability energy when defeating suspended targets—Thread of Warding grants Woven Mail (50% damage reduction shield) when the player picks up an Orb of Power—and finally, Thread of Continuity increases the duration effects of suspend, unravel, and sever, keeping enemies in the air for much longer.
Currently, there are only two Aspects to choose from, but with the upcoming arrival of Season 21, otherwise known asSeason of the Deep, the Strand subclass is set to receive a new Aspect for all classes, so this build may change next Season depending on the new Aspects potency.
Mod Selection
Moving onto the mods, the player should focus their armor on getting up to one hundred Resilience, as when it reaches one hundred, the player receives 30% less damage in PvE activities. Afterward, Discipline would be the next stat to focus on, so the player may use their Grenade more often, thus suspending more enemies in the process.
Starting with the Helmet armor mods, this build uses Heavy Ammo Finder and Heavy Ammo Scout, which helps players find more Heavy Ammo for themselves and their teammates. Finally, the setup also uses a Void Siphon mod, which creates Orbs of Power when killing an enemy with a Void weapon.
Running the Fastball mod would be ideal for the Arms, as it increases the Grenade throw distance, allowing the user to throw their Shackle Grenade from farther distances and then suspend the enemies a lot safer. The rest of the mods can be situational, like running a loader mod for a weapon of choice, but nothing is required other than Fastball.
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The Chest piece is another situational choice, as the only mod needed is Charged Up, which increases the number of stacks of Armor Charge a player can hold by one. The rest can be resist mods for the activity they are playing in. The Leg mods are a much different story. First, running Absolution will be ideal, as when the player picks up an Orb of Power, it will reduce the cooldown for all of their abilities, thus allowing them to use them more often.
Next, they should run Void Surge, which grants an 11% damage boost to any player’s Void weapon. If two or more are used, the buff will increase to 22%, and then 33% if all three slots are used, but realistically, one or two will suffice.
Next up are the Class item mods. The player should run two Bomber mods and one Reaper for this build. Bomber will reduce the player’s Grenade cooldown using their class ability. At the same time, Reaper will generate an Orb of Power when defeating a target after the class ability is used. More ability energy, more Orbs of Power – it’s a win for everyone.
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Finally, the Artifact Mods are much more demanding than the others, starting with Shatter Orbs, which generate Orbs of Power when breaking a combatant’s shield matching the damage type (for example, breaking a Void shield with a Void weapon will create an Orb).
Untangler is fantastic, as when the player destroys a Tanglewith a Strand weapon, nearby enemies become suspended, thus creating more ways to suspend targets. Threaded Blast will create a large explosion when destroying a Tangle with a Strand weapon, which does benefit Untangler. Last but not least is Volatile Flow, arguably one of the most powerful Artifact mods the game has ever seen, where picking up an Orb of Power makes the user’s Void Weapons gain Volatile rounds. Volatile Rounds make enemies become debuffed when shot at, and if they are hit enough, they eventually explode, even before their health reaches zero.
Luckily, this setup also utilizes all three Champion mods, Anti-Barrier, Unstoppable, and Overload, without needing to change mods. Thanks to the subclass changes with the arrival of the Lightfall DLC, picking up an Orb of Power will give the player Volatile Rounds, and shooting a Volatile weapon counts as an Anti-Barrier mod.
Suspending enemies with Strand abilities counts as Unstoppable. If the player is using an Auto Rifle, like the Quicksilver Storm as shown above, Auto Rifles and SMGs shoot Overload rounds this Season, thus, covering all three Champion types in one fell swoop.
Weapon Selection
Weapons can be boiled down to “pick what’s available” rather than “use this, or the build falls apart.” Ideally, using the Quicksilver Storm Exotic Auto Rifle will be great for this build. Itrecently got a massive buffin PvE activities and can easily shred down anything in its sights, unlike before. That said, any other Strand Weapon will work just as effectively.
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As mentioned above, several mods work well with Void weapons, so while the player doesn’t need to run the exact same ones shown in the image above (Truth Teller Grenade Launcher and Commemoration LMG), running Void weapons, in general, will be required based off what the player has in their inventory. Ideally, an LMG such as the Commemoration or the Corrective Measure from the Vault of Glass raid would be great, but a Rocket Launcher, Sword, or even a Grenade Launcher would do fine as well.
Many Titans were skeptical of receiving another “Melee-based” subclass with Strand; thankfully, it defied everyone’s expectations. Now, this build is arguably one of, if not the most potent,Grandmaster Nightfallsetup ever. Season of the Deep will change how the build works when it arrives next month, but until then, Titans should take full advantage of this powerful setup before it’s gone.
Destiny 2is currently available for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
