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Try these Destiny 2 Strand builds for Warlocks, Hunters, and Titans, allowing you to cause chaos with Threadlings, grapple all over, and suspend every enemy in sight. The three Strand Subclasses new with Destiny 2 Lightfall – Broodweaver, Threadrunner, and Berserker – are quite unique from each other, focusing on various keywords, such as suspend and unravel. Thanks to all the Strand Fragments, Exotic gear, and armor mods available in Destiny 2, there’s plenty of room for experimentation, so you can freely adjust these Strand builds to your preferred playstyle – with loadouts, you can even create builds for different activities! I’ve laid out one Destiny 2 Strand build each for Warlocks, Hunters, and Titans below to help you get your loadouts in order
Destiny 2 Strand explained and how to unlock it
Strand is the latest Subclass to be added to Destiny 2 and it’s got plenty of unique keywords and powers that allow you to create some varied builds for your Destiny 2 Classes. These unique ‘verbs’ – buffs, debuffs, and other effects – are key to shaping your build, and you’ll find that some Strand Subclasses can spec into some keywords very easily but others less so. These Strand verbs are:
- Suspend: Lift enemies off the ground and immobilize them, preventing them from doing pretty much anything (in PvP, suspended players can still use weapons and have slowed movement).
- Unravel: Affecting an enemy with Unravel and then attacking them further causes seeking Strand projectiles to explode out and hit other targets, unravelling them too.
- Sever: Severed enemies deal reduced damage.
- Tangle: Defeating any enemy affected by one of the above Strand debuffs creates a Strand orb known as a Tangle. Tangles can be shot or picked up and thrown, causing them to explode and deal damage to nearby enemies. Grappling a Tangle also fully refunds your grapple.
- Woven Mail: Gain significant damage resistance with a protective mesh of Strand. In PvP, Woven Mail’s damage reduction only applies to body damage – headshots and melee attacks deal full damage.
- Threadlings: A small Strand creature that seeks nearby enemies and explodes.
To unlock Strand in Destiny 2, you must own the Lightfall expansion and complete the campaign. However, that’ll only get you the most basic Strand Subclass abilities, and you’ll need to earn Strand Meditations to unlock all the Aspects and Fragments and bolster your Strand powers even further. The Hunter, Warlock, and Titan Strand Subclasses can also unlock two other grenade abilities to go with the default grapple: the Threadling Grenade, which is a Strand orb that explodes into three Threadlings, or the Shackle Grenade, which suspends any enemies it hits.
Destiny 2 Strand Warlock build
In short, the Destiny 2 Strand Warlock Subclass, Broodweaver, is mostly focused on creating little Threadling minions to seek and destroy foes. The Broodweaver is also the only Strand Subclass that gets Threadlings that can return to them and become ‘perched’, sticking around to seek out a target later. However, while Threadling spam is good, you want to spec into some of the other benefits of Strand too, such as Woven Mail and unravel, so this is a more generalist Warlock Strand build that should suit a variety of activities. Here’s the Strand Subclass arrangement you’ll need and some suggested gear and mods:
- Super Ability: Needlestorm
- Class Ability: Healing or Empowering Rift
- Melee Ability: Arcane Needle
- Grenade Ability: Grapple or Shackle Grenade
- Aspects: Weaver’s Call and Mindspun Invocation
- Fragments: Thread of Warding, Thread of Finality, Thread of Evolution, and Thread of Generation.
- Swarmers Exotic Boots: Your Threadlings can unravel enemies. Destroying a Tangle also spawns Threadlings.
- At least one Strand weapon with the Hatchling perk: Allows you to create more Threadlings.
- Suggested Armor Mods: Ashes to Assets, Harmonic Siphon, Grenade Kickstart, Charged Up, Innervation, and Bomber.
- Suggested Armor Stats: High Discipline to help get your grapple/grenade back fast. High Recovery to get your Rift back quickly for plenty of Threadlings.
With this Strand Warlock build, you’ll be able to create plenty of Threadlings with your Rift, finishers, and grapple. Paired with Swarmers, you’ll also be make even more Tangles, and unravel enemies for extra damage. For high-difficulty activities, swap the grapple for the Shackle Grenade and the Thread of Finality and Evolution Fragments for Threads of Wisdom and Continuity – suspending enemies is such a powerful ability that you should really spec into it of you want to use Broodweaver in endgame activities!
Destiny 2 Strand Hunter build
The Destiny 2 Strand Subclass for Hunters, called Threadrunner, allows players to fly around using the grapple with ease. Thanks to some Aspects, Fragments, and the Star-Eater Scales Exotic Boots, you can also add in some incredibly powerful Strand suspending capabilities and make Silkstrike one of the most powerful Supers in the game. Try this Strand Subclass setup and gear loadout:
- Suggested Armor Stats: High Mobility for maximum Dodge uptime. High Discipline to get your grapple back quickly.
- Super Ability: Silkstrike – for maximum single-target damage, use the light attack at the rope dart’s maximum range.
- Class Ability: Gambler’s Dodge
- Melee Ability: Threaded Spike
- Grenade Ability: Grapple
- Aspects: Ensnaring Slam and Widow’s Silk
- Fragments: Thread of Warding, Thread of Wisdom, Thread of Generation, and Thread of Continuity.
- Star-Eater Scales Exotic Boots: Picking up additional Orbs of Power buffs the damage of your next Super.
- Suggested Armor Mods: Dynamo, an appropriate Siphon mod to generate Orbs of Power from weapon multikills, Grenade Kickstart, Charged Up, Absolution, Bomber, Reaper.
Having high Dodge uptime means you can use the Ensnaring Slam’s suspending ability a lot to immobilize nearby enemies. Combined with severing effects from Threaded Spike, the high mobility and escape opportunities with two grapples, and Woven Mail from Orbs of Power, you should be one tough Hunter to kill. Skilled use of your powered-up Silkstrike will also destroy large clusters of enemies or melt bosses. If you want to focus more on suspending enemies with Ensnaring Slam, switch out Star-Eater Scales for either Radiant Dance Machines Exotic Boots or The Sixth Coyote Exotic Chest.
Destiny 2 Strand Titan build
Despite being yet another melee-focused Titan Subclass, the Strand Berserker is actually incredibly powerful. It combines survivability through Woven Mail and Barricades with frequent suspending blasts, so you’ll be an expert in crowd-control and defense. These abilities are incredibly helpful for your teammates too, so you’ll be a valuable asset in pretty much any activity, even high-difficulty stuff. Here’s what you need to become an unstoppable Berserker:
- Super Ability: Bladefury
- Class Ability: Rally Barricade
- Melee Ability: Frenzied Blade
- Grenade Ability: Grapple or Shackle Grenade
- Aspects: Into the Fray and Drengr’s Lash
- Fragments: Thread of Mind, Thread of Fury, Thread of Wisdom, and Thread of Continuity.
- Abeyant Leap Exotic Boots: Casting your Barricade with Drengr’s Lash releases three suspending waves instead of one and they have more aggressive tracking. You also gain Woven Mail when you suspend enemies.
- Suggested Armor Mods: Dynamo, Heavy Handed, Focusing Strike, Charged Up, Absolution, Outreach.
- Suggested Armor Stats: High Resilience to tank even more damage and have your Rally Barricades ready often. High Strength to regenerate your Frenzied Blade strikes quickly. Also, moderate Disciple will help make sure you’re never far off a backup Shackle Grenade.
The Abeyant Leap Exotic Boots are quite central to this build and are what really allow you to suspend everything in your path and have near-constant Woven Mail. Make sure you’re destroying any Tangles you spot too so that you provide Woven Mail for your allies, and any Tangle damage will also contribute to recharging your Frenzied Blade.
