Destiny 2's The Witch Queen expansion brought a lot of new gear into the mix, and with the game being a looter shooter, weapons and armor pieces are often sought-after by players in the form of "god rolls," for example. As customary with every new expansion, The Witch Queen is packed with the upcoming Vow of the Disciple Raid, for which many players will compete in the day one race.
Despite the Void 3.0 update making Light subclasses more relevant than before, and despite Hunters having a great Super for DPS with Moebius Quiver, Hunter players can use a very powerful build in Destiny 2's new Raid or in endgame content. This guide explains how it works and what options to choose from.
Exotic, Class, Aspects, and Fragments
This build utilizes Stasis over Void and other Light subclasses, and the reason for it is tied to the Exotic item that defines the build and its playstyle. The Renewal Grasps Exotic gauntlets allow Hunters to have a bigger radius for their Duskfield Grenade, spawn a Stasis crystal on impact, and reduce the damage taken for allies within the grenade's radius, as well as the damage dealt by enemies within the radius.
The Touch of Winter Aspect is mandatory in this build because it opens up two Fragment slots, and it boosts the Duskfield Grenade's radius more, as well as provides an additional Stasis crystal on impact.
The Second Aspect players want to use is Grim Harvest, which provides three Fragment slots, and it allows Destiny 2 Hunters to create Stasis shards when defeating slowed or frozen targets, granting melee energy to the user for each shard.
The grenade of choice is obviously the Duskfield Grenade, which slows and eventually freezes all enemies caught within its radius, and it's what works with the Renewal Grasps Exotic.
As for the class ability, Stasis Hunters too can choose between Gambler's Dodge and Marksman's Dodge, with the former providing melee energy back when dodging near enemies, and the latter having a shorter cooldown and reloading the equipped weapon. Both are good, but to make the build more reliable, Gambler's Dodge is the better choice for non-boss encounters.
As for the Fragments, there are many combinations that work here, but there are four Fragments in the build that shouldn't be swapped out. The first is Whisper of Chains, which reduces the damage taken by the player when standing near a frozen enemy or a Stasis crystal, and it also applies +10 to the player's Recovery stat. This damage reduction buff stacks with both effects of the Renewal Grasps Exotic.
The second Fragment Destiny 2 players shouldn't remove is Whisper of Durance, which provides a +10 bonus to Strength, and makes slow effects last longer. The Fragment also increases the duration of abilities that linger, such as the Duskfield Grenade and the Silence and Squall Super.
The third most important Fragment is Whisper of Conduction, which increases the player's Resilience and Intellect by 10, both of which are valuable to this build. Furthermore, Stasis shards created with Grim Harvest now track to the player's position.
The final Fragment that makes this build work is Whisper of Shards, which boosts the players' grenade recharge rate after destroying a Stasis crystal. It also provides a +10 bonus to Resilience, and shattering more crystals increases the duration of the buff. This Fragment makes it so destroying the Stasis crystal created by the Duskfield Grenade immediately boosts the grenade's recharge rate, creating the fundamental gameplay loop used by this build.
For their fifth Fragment, players can choose between Whisper of Fissures, Whisper of Refraction, Whisper of Bonds, Whisper of Torment, Whisper of Impetus, or Whisper of Rending. All these Fragments serve different purposes, and the build works perfectly even without them, making each of them a nice addition.
It's worth noting that the Discipline and Recovery stats are the most important to the build and the survivability of the Hunter, with the remaining stats all being useful. Ideally, Destiny 2 players trying to use this build should look for 90 to 100 Discipline and Recovery, 50+ Mobility, 40+ Resilience, and 40+ Strength. Furthermore, the Duskfield Grenade has a cooldown of 24 seconds at tier 10, making it incredibly fast to recharge without other mechanics.
Best Stasis Weapons to Use
One of the most powerful weapons to use with this build is Destiny 2's new Stasis auto rifle, Krait. Krait comes with the Veist Stinger Origin Trait, which can refill the gun's magazine upon firing it. Additionally, Krait can roll with either Subsistence or Overflow, both of which are amazing perks that make the gun shoot for longer, providing even more chances to proc Veist Stinger. Lastly, the most important perk on this gun is Headstone, as it creates a Stasis crystal at the target's location when it dies to a precision final blow.
Again, shattering Stasis crystals provides more grenade energy over time, and keeping them in place offers both cover and defensive bonuses through Whisper of Chains.
Other great options for the kinetic slot include Vulpecula, Perses-D, Syncopation-53, Eyasluna, and Forensic Nightmare, all of which can roll Headstone to keep the build running at all times. It's worth noting that these guns are less useful and powerful than Krait across the board, especially so in boss encounters, where Krait can still be used when out of Special or Heavy ammo thanks to the Veist Stinger perk.
A great weapon to use for the Heavy slot is Palmyra-B, a Stasis rocket launcher that can be crafted with both Auto-Loading Holster and a damage perk between Frenzy, Lasting Impression, or Explosive Light. This is a very effective DPS weapon, and even more so in this build if players use Font of Might as a mod.
Best Mods to Use
Speaking of mods, there are several great mods to use with this build, but the only truly mandatory one is Melee Wellmaker. This mod normally has a cost of 4 energy on any piece of armor, but in Season of the Risen, players can unlock its cheaper version in the seasonal artifact, which makes it cost only 1 energy. Both versions work, but having the cheaper one is a nice extra.
This mod allows players to generate a Stasis Elemental Well (or two, if paired with Bountiful Wells) when defeating an enemy with a charged melee attack, which will be quite often if players use Gambler's Dodge.
Another powerful mod is Elemental Shards, which makes Stasis shards count as Stasis Elemental Wells when players pick them up, which is going to happen quite frequently thanks to Grim Harvest and Whisper of Conduction. It's worth noting that this mod has an internal cooldown, but it's still worth picking up.
Because Elemental Shards costs Stasis energy, it's recommended that Destiny 2 players set their Renewal Grasps gauntlets' affinity to Stasis. This is important because another fantastic mod to use in this build is Grenade Kickstart, which only rolls on Stasis gauntlets. Grenade Kickstart provides players with grenade energy when their grenade energy is fully spent, meaning that essentially they get some grenade energy back when using Duskfield Grenades.
This mod takes up a slot for Champion mods, however, and players should only use it when in an organized fireteam. Furthermore, with the full gameplay loop going on, Hunters can regenerate their Duskfield Grenade in around 6 to 9 seconds with Grenade Kickstart versus the 11 to 14 seconds without it. As such, this mod is very nice to have, but not essential.
As mentioned above, Font of Might is a good mod to pair with this build because it utilizes Kinetic Stasis weapons to proc Headstone, and possibly a Stasis Heavy weapon for DPS. Font of Might increases the damage dealt by both, which is nice to have.
Bountiful Wells is a decent addition to the build because it provides players with an extra Elemental Well whenever they generate one, meaning that Melee Wellmaker grants two of them at a time. It's also worth mentioning that Elemental Wells grant ability energy, meaning that the Hunter's Dodge, grenade, and melee attack will all be available faster the more Elemental Wells are picked up.
There are three great two-mod combos that players can use with this build. The first is made of Explosive Wellmaker and Well of Life, which allows players to generate Solar Elemental Wells on explosive kills (such as those from killing enemies by shattering Stasis crystals or defeating frozen targets) in order to get a constant stream of uninterruptible healing.
The second combo consists of one of Destiny 2's most popular sets at the moment - Reaping Wellmaker and Well of Tenacity. With the nerf to Protective Light, many builds started using these two mods to generate Void Elemental Wells and proc a damage resistance effect when picking them up. The damage resistance buff provided by Well of Tenacity stacks with Whisper of Chains and both effects from the Renewal Grasps Exotic, making Hunters using it near immortal.
The final combo players can use is made of Explosive Wellmaker and Well of Ordnance, with the former activating the same way as before, and the latter providing players with extra grenade energy for each Solar Elemental Well they pick up.
Destiny 2 is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
