Destiny 2 – Stronghold Sword PVE Titan Build

Stronghold was a lacklustre exotic when it was introduced to the game in Season 6 of Destiny 2. That has somewhat changed in Season of the Worthy as the Titan Exotic arms have been buffed, now making them much more viable in the game. When paired together with a sword you like you can now run around as a Titan with a huge blade and cause havoc. The following is a guide for a Stronghold Sword PVE Titan build in Destiny 2.

Swords have always been a bit of an afterthought in the game and a massive rework came in Season of the Worthywith the aim to boost them up and make them a reasonable choice for activities. These allow for a different playstyle that your regular run and gun options. When you’re wielding a sword you switch up the view into 3rd person, so it feels like a very different game and a nice change of pace.

There’s a couple of elements to this build and I’ll demonstrate why I like it.

• Class: Code of the protector (Top tree Sentinel)
• Exotic: Stronghold
• Weapon: Sword (Throne-cleaver)
• Mods: Taking Charge, High Fire Energy, Recuperation, Heavy ammo scavenger

First of all, let’s look at the class.

Code of the protector (Top tree Sentinel)

Defensive Strike – Kill an enemy with this melee ability to create an overshield around you and nearby allies.

Rallying Force – Melee kills restore health for you and nearby allies.

Turn the Tide – Your overshield from Defensive Strike lasts longer and increases melee damage and reload speed.

Ward of Dawn – When super energy is full, hold R1/RB + L1/LB to create a shielding dome to protect you and your allies.

This all adds up to a nice close-range build as getting the overshield and helping other regenerate health on melee kills will come in handy. As well as guarding with your sword, you can also pop a bubble giving your teammates further protection from incoming attacks.

Stronghold

Back in update 2.8.0, Bungie buffed Stronghold by saying:

“Stronghold now maximizes sword defence stats, resulting in a high Defense guard that does not lose guard energy on taking hits or decay over time. The armour retains its existing healing functionality.”

This is great as it means you can essentially have unlimited guard when you wear these titan gloves. This provides protection to you, your teammates allowing you to run around slicing and chopping your enemies at will.

Let’s check out the perks.

Clenched Fist – Maximizes Guard stats on equipped Swords. Shots blocked immediately after guarding will heal you.

Plasteel Reinforcement Mod – Increased Resilience.

Throne-cleaver

This is the Titan Menagerie Sword that drops from a heroic version of the six-person activity and has quickly become my favourite sword in the game. You could probably use something like Worldline Zero or Black Talon too if you wanted to go down the exotic weapon route. However, I’m into my Throne-cleaver as it gives off big Game of Thrones vibes.

Aggressive Frame – Use to launch a heavy slam attack. Heavy attacks are stronger with full energy. Attacks partially bypass elemental shields.

Enduring blade – Get more ammo at the cost of damage. I chose this to keep using the sword for longer.

Heavy Guard – Sword Guard has high overall defences, but charges at a lower rate. When using this with Stronghold, you don’t have to worry about the lower charge rate as you won’t lose guard charge – allowing you to guard all the time if you want to.

Tireless Blade – Sword ammo granted for every other powered sword kill. This is going to help top up that sword ammo, keeping you using it for longer.

Counterattack – Blocking an attack immediately after guarding increases damage for a short duration. Thronecleaver already has great impact stats, however, this perk is going to further increase that damage.

Mods

• Taking Charge – Become Charged with Light by picking up Orbs
• High Fire Energy – While Charged with Light gain bonus weapon damage. Each defeated enemy consumes one stack of Charged with Light
• Recuperation – Replenishes health each time you pick up an orb of light
• Heavy ammo Scavenger – Get more
• High resilience

The focus of these mods is health regeneration through picking up orbs, getting that Charged with Light buff and then using it to focus more damage into your attacks allowing you to easily take down groups of trash mobs or bigger enemies too.

Season of the Worthy sword mods definitely come into play here. These can be found on the seasonal artifact and good ones to look out for if you’re a sword user would be:

• Passive Guard – Receive less damage from combatants that are close to you while you are wielding a sword.
• Disrupting Blade – Overload disruption via sword hits
• Flourishing Blade – A large amount of glimmer via sword kills

Once you’ve put the build together then load up your favourite PVE activity and give it a try. I was able to run through an entire Menagerie and only was looking for sword ammo once, and that was towards the end. The rest of the time I was running around, chopping, punching, defending. It’s like your a Titan of the round table, so if you want that old school knight feel and want to switch things up a bit, then I recommend this build.

Let me know down in the comments what you think of this PVE Titan build. Do you have any additions to make the build better and what’s your recommendations for other Titan builds?

That’s it for this guide for a Stronghold Sword PVE Titan build. For more Destiny 2 content like this check out the Shadowkeep Guide or check out the YouTube Channel.