Destiny 2 – Top five best exotic armour for Warlocks in PVE

Warlock’s have great variety on Destiny 2, they are deadly in PVP and PVE. Today I’m going to be focusing on PVE Warlock armour and run down the top 5 exotic armour pieces you should care about whether you’re a new player or a seasoned veteran.

What I’m going to do today is run down the armour pieces that are available in the game right now. We’re just about to go into a new expansion with Beyond Light dropping on November 10th, so keep your eyes glued to the channel for any updates as I’ll be sure to let you know. Today though I am going to be focusing on what the armour piece is and what subclass it pairs with.

Veritys Brow

This was introduced during season 3 of Destiny 2 and comes with the intrinsic perk called The Fourth Magic. Energy Weapon kills grant Death Throes, which provide a bonus to the damage of your grenades and grants grenade energy. When you have death throes and throw a grenade, nearby allies gain greatly increased grenade recuperation for a short time.

We’re going to be utilising Death Throes to charge up the damage for our grenades, which we’re going to be getting back more often thanks to Arc Web from our subclass, plus the additional recharge rate from Death Throes itself. This also offers the bonus to fireteam members offering up buffs to their grenade recharge rate too, so everyone’s going to be throwing grenades left, right and centre.

For an added bonus this one also comes with Pulse Rifle targeting and special ammo finder. We’re going to use this in conjunction with Blast Furnace in our Kinetic slot.

For the subclass I am using Attunement of Conduction (Top tree Stormcaller)

• Chain Lightning – This electrocuting melee ability chains lightning from the struck target to nearby enemies.
• Transcendence – When cast with full grenade and melee energy, Stormtrance lasts longer and fully restores health.
• Ionic Blink – Activate to teleport during Stormtrance.
• Arc Web – Enemies damaged by your Grandes chain deadly lightning to nearby enemies. Each grenade or melee chain returns grenade energy.

As this build is focused on grenades we’re going to be using that Arc Web to our advantage, not only does it chain electricity to nearby enemies by we also get the added bonus of returning grenade ability too. This can be used in conjunction with Ashes to Assets to charge our super ability faster.

Geomag Stabilizers

Next up I’m going to be looking at Geomag Stabilizers – Exotic Warlock Leg Armor.

Close Enough – When Chaos Reach Super energy is almost full, sprinting tops it off. Damaging enemies with Chaos Reach extends its duration.
Mobility Enhancement Mod – Increased mobility.

The key to the build if going to be Close Enough here on the Geomag Stabilizers, as we’re going to want to get that super back as quickly as we can. Sprinting is going to help us get our super energy back a little faster when we’re nearly there, but also damaging enemies with Chaos Reach is going to extend that super, which is ideal.

Next up, let’s have a look at the subclass. For this build we’re going to be using Attunement of Control (Middle-tree Stormcaller).

• Ionic Trace – Defeating enemies have a chance to create Ionic Traces. Collecting Ionic Traces grants energy to all your abilities.
• Ball Lightning – Fire an Arc projectile that travels forward and releases a perpendicular bolt of lightning.
• Pulsewave – Being critically wounded triggers an energy wave that boosts yours and allies’ speed.
• Chaos Reach – Unleash a long-range channelled beam of concentrated Arc energy. While active, press [Super] again to deactivate Chaos Reach early and save Super energy.

There’s a couple of perks and benefits here which are going to be useful. The main one is Chaos Reach, as pairing that up with Geomag Stabilizers is going to allow us to extend that super. Ionic Traces are going to be useful too in helping us get our abilities back faster, and that is going to pair up nicely with using Traveler’s Chosen helping us have our abilities almost constantly throughout the PVE activities.

Felwinter’s Helm

Felwinter’s Helm is an Exotic Warlock Helmet originally released in Season 10. Much like many exotics you can pick this one up from Xur if he’s selling it, or pick up his exotic engram to get something from the loot pool. You can also get this from random world exotic drops. Let’s check out the perks on this one.

Warlord’s End – Arc, Solar, and Void melee kills create a burst of energy that weakens nearby enemies. Finishers and kills against more powerful enemies increase the radius of the burst and the length of the weakening effect.

I’m going to be using Warlord’s End in conjunction with my grenade and melee abilities when paired up with our subclass, weapons and mods this is going to turn me into a walking thunderbolt with added Warmind Cells.

Let’s have a look at our subclass. The Attunement of Control is the middle ability tree for the Stormcaller. We’re going to be using a few of the abilities here to maximise our damage output in PVE.

• Ionic Trace – Defeating enemies have a chance to create Ionic Traces. Collecting Ionic Traces grants energy to all your abilities.
• Ball Lightning – Fire an Arc projectile that travels forward and releases a perpendicular bolt of lightning.
• Pulsewave – Being critically wounded triggers an energy wave that boosts yours and allies’ speed.
• Chaos Reach – Unleash a long-range channelled beam of concentrated Arc energy. While active, press [Super] again to deactivate Chaos Reach early and save Super energy. Replaces Stormtrance as subclass Super.

The main benefit here is Ionic Trace which gives you a boost to all abilities. This is going to allow us to have our grenade and melee up much more frequently in PVE, allowing you to dish out the big damage with both. I’m going to be using weapons and mods to both increase damage and help get our abilities back nice and fast so we can keep dishing out that pain to our enemies.

Phoenix Protocol

Phoenix Protocol is an Exotic Warlock Chest Armor. It was originally introduced in Season 4 of Destiny 2 along with Forsaken, and it’s easy to see why as this one is going to go perfectly with our subclass, but more on that in a minute.

Battle-Hearth – Kills and assists you make while standing in your Well of Radiance return Super energy.

Mobility Enhancement Mod – Increased mobility.

What we want to do here is build up our super and then drop down a well. Ideally, then you want to kill as many enemies as possible while standing in the well to get back your super very fast. Testing this out I consistently managed to get back 70-80% of my super energy each time, then it’s just a simple matter of picking up a few orbs and going again.

Let’s check out the subclass that’s going to go with our armour. The Attunement of Grace is the middle ability tree for the Dawnblade subclass of Warlock class.

• Divine Protection — Convert your grenade into a Blessing that heals ally targets and drops over shields you and your allies can pick up. Activate Divine Protection while Gliding to hover in midair.
• Guiding Flame — Strike an enemy with this melee ability to inflict burn damage and empower yourself and nearby allies.
• Benevolent Dawn — Healing or empowering your allies regenerates your grenade, melee and Rift energy.
• Well of Radiance — Thrusts your Daybreak sword into the ground. The sword continuously projects a powerful aura that heals and empowers nearby allies. Replaces Daybreak as subclass Super.

The main benefit we’re going to be using here if the Well of Radiance, and by using this in combination with our exotic armour and a handy rapid-fire weapon, we’re going to be getting back that well of radiance very quickly.

In combination with this Divine Protection goes really well with this as you can turn your grenade into a Blessing, which you can throw like a grenade and heal teammates. You melee also empowers those around you. You may be sacrificing your damage output on this subclass, but by empowering and supporting others it’s really going to help you tear through PVE, especially if your teammates are kitted out for max damage.

Nezarec’s Sin

Nezarec’s Sin was introduced in season 1 of Destiny 2 and you can get it from random exotic drops or purchase from Xur on the weekend. The main intrinsic perk is Abyssal Extractors – Void-damage kills increase ability energy recharge rate.

Pairing up with Void weapons is going to be great here. We’re going to be using this with void weapons to help regenerate our grenades and melee abilities faster specifically for the grenades which are going to pair with Ashes to Assets for super ability regeneration.

For the subclass here we’re using Attunement of Hunger (Bottom tree Voidwalker).

• Feed the Void – Consume your grenade energy to regenerate your health. Grants the Devour effect.
• Devour – Kills with this melee ability fully regenerates your health. For a short time afterwards, kills restore additional health.
• Insatiable – While the Devour effect is active, killing enemies extends it’s duration and recharges your grenade.
• Vortex – Nova Bomb creates a singularity which continually damages enemies trapped inside. Kills with Nova Bomb grant Devour.

For the weapons & mods for the builds you can pretty much mix and match in terms of what’s good in the meta when you watch this video. At the time of release I like using Ace of Spades (Hand Cannon) or Traveler’s Chosen (Sidearm) for the Kinetic slot. Dire promise, Cold Denial (Pulse Rifle) or Nightwatch (Scout Rifle) are also good options too.

For the Energy slot I’m looking Sunshot (Hand Cannon), Gnawing Hunger (Auto) or the Ikelos Sniper would be good. In the power slot I’m using Falling Guillotine. This is by far the best legendary power weapon in the game right now, but Anarchy and Xenophage are also good choices.

Mods are going to change as the seasons progress plus in Beyond Light things are goign to change up with Stasis… but for now I am using something like Opressive Darkness and Lucent Blade. I’ll run through some updated guides in Season of the Hunt and beyond for mods and weapon combos with exotic armour and subclasses, so keep an eye out on those.

Let me know down in the comments your favourite Warlock PVE builds and if you would swap out anything here in the top 5 list.

That’s it for this guide for the top five best Exotic Armour for Warlocks in PVE. For more Destiny 2 content like this check out the Shadowkeep Guide or check out the YouTube Channel.