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Destiny 2's The Witch Queen brought many changes to existing features and systems, which contributed to reshaping the game's meta when it comes to the best DPS picks for the endgame and Raids. The fact that Season of the Risen doesn't have powerhouse seasonal mods helped broaden the options for the various loadouts, which translated into a more varied approach to endgame or Raid DPS phases, especially for Heavy weapons. This guide explores the best options and combinations for Destiny 2's Stasis Hunters in Season of the Risen, taking into consideration weapon crafting and other options.
Best Endgame DPS Build for Stasis Hunter - Setup and Exotics
Stasis Hunters saw a resurgence in numbers with The Witch Queen, which is likely because of the Void 3.0 update making Hunters revolve almost exclusively around the niche ability that is invisibility, but another factor may be the release of the Renewal Grasps Exotic gloves.
While this Exotic doesn't directly do anything to increase the damage players deal, it's the first viable and consistent battlefield control item for Hunters, and it also allows players to support their teammates. However, it's worth noting that a decent Renewal Grasps Stasis Hunter build will focus on Discipline to cap it at 100, leading to Duskfield Grenades becoming spammable.
With a combination of 100 Discipline, Whisper of Durance, Whisper of Shards, Grim Harvest, and the Elemental Shards mod, Hunters can throw a Duskfield and then destroy the crystal to reap the benefits of a Stasis Elemental Well.
Stasis Elemental Wells are incredibly powerful for this build because players will be using mostly Stasis weapons and the Font of Might mod, which will increase the damage of all Stasis weapons for a short duration.
While Renewal Grasps are not the best fit for boss DPS per se, players can still use the shard generation strategy with Elemental Shards and Font of Might, also taking advantage of Duskfield Grenades' newfound ability to reduce the damage inflicted by enemies within their radius.
This damage reduction buff also applies to all Destiny 2 players within the radius, stacking with the former and other damage reduction sources, such as Whisper of Chains.
The other Exotic that Stasis Hunters can use for DPS is Mask of Bakris, which does increase the damage players deal with Arc weapons and to targets affected by Stasis. While this build revolves around Stasis weapons, Revenant Hunters can cast their Super on bosses to keep them slowed or frozen, increasing the damage dealt by all weapons by 10% after shifting with Mask of Bakris.
In order to generate Stasis Elemental Wells in boss damage phases, players can use a mod called Supreme Wellmaker, which is exclusive to the helmet slot and takes three Stasis energy to use. The benefit is that Stasis Hunters will be able to generate three Stasis Elemental Wells upon casting their Super, which can then be picked up one at a time for a few seconds to have Font of Might up at all times, as well as the Mask of Bakris 10% damage buff.
Best Endgame DPS Build for Stasis Hunter - Weapons and Combos
As far as weapons go, Season of the Risen added a new Stasis sniper rifle called Thoughtless, which quickly became one of Destiny 2's best DPS weapons overall. The reason is that the current meta loadout for DPS consists of Izanagi's Burden and the new Palmyra-B Stasis rocket launcher, which can be crafted with Enhanced Auto-Loading Holster for a quicker time to proc the perk.
This takes Auto-Loading Holster's activation down from 2.5 seconds to 2.3 seconds, which is just enough for players to shoot their Izanagi's Burden and reload it, then swap back to Palmyra-B to shoot a rocket, and then back to the sniper.
Although the Izanagi's Burden plus Palmyra-B combo outperforms the Thoughtless god roll in terms of total damage by around 40k damage over 20 seconds, even with Font of Might active, Thoughtless is far less punishing for missing shots, and it frees an Exotic slot.
As such, using a Thoughtless with, Extended Mag, Enhanced Overflow, Firing Line, and Backup Mag, will lead to 17 rounds in the magazine before players have to reload even once.
This means that players can rapidly fire their Thoughtless around four times before swapping to their Palmyra-B rocket launcher, then rinse and repeat for the duration of the boss damage phase.
With the help of a player using Divinity, and with the buffs granted by Font of Might and possibly even Mask of Bakris, Stasis Hunters are capable of the game's highest sustained DPS in Raids. The problem is that not all bosses are good to use rocket launchers on, which leads to another option.
Another fantastic Stasis weapon to pair with this build is Reed's Regret, a linear fusion rifle from Trials of Osiris that can roll with both Triple Tap and Firing Line, making it a fantastic pick. This weapon too is capable of sustained DPS, albeit it doesn't help in hot-swapping builds, and it's now even better than before thanks to the addition of foundry perks in Destiny 2.
In fact, Reed's Regret is a Veist weapon, which means it received the Veist Stinger origin trait. Veist Stinger provides players with a small chance of their weapon refilling its magazine immediately upon shooting the gun, which can lead to even more DPS with Reed's Regret when rolled with Triple Tap.
The choice of using rocket launchers or linear fusion rifles depends entirely on the encounter. For example, players dabbling in the Vow of the Disciple Raid might want to use linear fusion rifles in the Caretaker encounter in order not to blow themselves up by accident in the initial DPS phases, where the boss stands closer to players.
This also applies to the Rhulk boss fight, mainly because Rhulk moves around the room continuously, and it's easy to either miss rockets or have them hit players as well.
It's worth noting that mods like Argent Ordnance won't be scaling with Font of Might and other buffs like Weapons of Light from the Titans' Ward of Dawn or the Warlocks' Well of Radiance, but Font of Might will. As such, this build works in any party and against any boss, but players will have to adjust to a different Heavy weapon when needed.
Still, it's also useful to have the relevant Reserve mods for either linear fusion rifles or rocket launchers equipped, as they will increase the amount of ammo Destiny 2 players can carry at all times for that specific weapon.
Destiny 2 is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
