Season of the Chosen

Destiny 2 – How To Create A ‘Charged With Light’ Build To Become An Over-Powered Guardian

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Charged with Light mods are going to make your Guardian much more powerful in Destiny 2, allowing you to inflict more damage, empower your teammates and even heal yourself faster. Today I am going to look into how Charged with Light mods work, plus some of the best mods you can use to empower your Guardian so you can cause as much damage as possible in Destiny 2.

Charged with Light mods were introduced in Season 9 of Destiny 2, however, there’s not really any tutorials in-game on how to use them. The Charged with Light mods work by gaining Charged with Light stacks, which you can see in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen, and once you’ve gained Charged with Light then you can consume Charged with Light stacks that give you a bunch of benefits including more damage to certain weapons, get an over shield, heal faster and more.

Charged with Light mods can be found in the director under the Combat Mods section, and here you can see all the ones available to you. To get these mods you’ll need to keep an eye on Banshee-44 in the Tower and he sells mods everyday. He doesn’t always sell Charged with Light mods, as he only sells two per day, but if you haven’t got any of these mods then check in daily and start building out your collection.

Charged with Light builds are good for all kinds of PVE content like Strikes, Nightfalls, Battlegrounds, Legend/Master Lost Sectors, Grandmaster Nightfalls and Raids.

How Charged with Light mods work

Once you have Charged with Light mods you want to add them to your armour, and they can be placed on the mod socket to the right of your armour screen when you inspect the individual armour piece. Each mod costs a certain amount of ‘energy points’ to clot into your armour and you’re going to need Glimmer and Legendary Shards to add these mods.

There are a couple of types of Charged with Light mods – some are used for gaining Charged with Light stacks. For example Taking Charge, where you gain stacks of Charged with Light by picking up Orbs of Power. Empowering Finish allows you to get Charged with Light by using your finisher.

The other type of Charged with Light mod consumes stacks of Charged with Light. For example, Lucent Blade gives you more sword damage output while Charged with Light, Powerful Friends on the other hand allows your fireteam to also get Charged with Light when you do, and you get a +20 mobility stat boost. There are various benefits to the Charged with Light mods, it’s just a matter of picking and choosing the ones you want to use.

The new Elemental Well mods also allow you to get Charged with Light through something called Elemental Charged. You gain stacks of Charged with Light when you pick up an Elemental Well. These are new mods found in Season of the Chosen, and you can check out a guide for those here.

The Best Charged With Light Mods

Here’s some of the best mods that help you gain Charged with Light.

  • Taking Charge – Become Charged with Light by picking up Orbs of Power.
  • Empowered Finish – Become Charged with Light by finishing a combatant, consuming one-tenth of your Super energy.
  • Sustained Charge – Become Charged with Light by rapidly defeating combatants with Auto Rifles, Trace Rifles, or Machine Guns.
  • Swift Charge – Become Charged with Light by rapidly defeating combatants with Pulse Rifles, Sidearms, or Submachine Guns. Defeating combatants with a Pulse Rifle grants a chance to drop Special ammo for your allies.
  • Precision Charge – Become Charged with Light by rapidly defeating combatants with precision kills from Bows, Hand Cannons, and Scout Rifles. -10 Strength.
  • Charge Harvester – While you are not Charged with Light, any kill or assist has a small cumulative chance to cause you to become Charged with Light. Stat Penalty -10 to the stat that governs your class ability recharge rate

Here’s some of the best mods for consuming Charged with Light

  • Argent Ordnance – While Charged with Light, readying or firing a Rocket Launcher grants it increased damage and reload speed. Damaging a combatant with a rocket consumes one stack of Charged with Light.
  • Lucent Blade – While Charged with Light, dealing damage with a Sword gives you bonus Sword damage for 5 seconds, consuming one stack of Charged with Light.Replenishing Guard, Greatly increases the charge rate for your equipped Swords.
  • Surprise Attack – While Charged with Light, reloading or readying a Sidearm will consume all stacks of Charged with Light and convert them into stacks of a major damage buff, which are depleted as you damage combatants with that Sidearm. Stat Penalty, -10 Intellect.
  • Powerful Friends – When you become Charged with Light, nearby allies also become Charged with Light, if they are not already. +20 Mobility.
  • Protective Light – While Charged with Light, you gain significant damage resistance against combatants when your shields are destroyed. This effect consumes all stacks of Charged with Light. The more stacks consumed, the longer the damage resistance lasts. -10 Strength.
  • Stacks on Stacks – Gain an extra stack of Charged with Light for every stack you gain. -10 Recovery.
  • High-Energy Fire – While Charged with Light, gain a bonus to weapon damage. Each defeated enemy consumes one stack of Charged with Light.
  • Firepower – While Charged with Light, regain a portion of your grenade energy when you use your grenade, consuming one stack of Charged with Light.

These are just some that I’ve picked out, there are more and you can check them out here.

Builds

Here’s some example builds, but you can mix and match to find our own that fits your play style:

  • High Damage (Rockets/Sidearms/Swords) Build – Taking Charge, Argent Ordnance, Stacks on Stacks
  • Good all-round build – Taking Charge, Protective Light, High-Energy Fire, Super Charged
  • Support Build – Empowered Finish, Powerful Friends, Kindling the Flame

The one I am using a lot at the moment is Argent Ordnance, as Rockets are flavour of the month when it comes to the sandbox right now. This could change in the future, as the sandbox ebbs and flows. Swords used to be the thing for damage when Falling Guillotine first came out, and Lucent Blade was everywhere. But if you’re using Swords, Rockets or Sidearms then it’s definitely worth checking out the damage boost you can get from these mods. Argent Ordanance gives you about a 20% buff to rocket damage, when paired with the recent 30% buff in the season of the chosen sandbox update.

Charged with Light mods can also be combined with Warmind Cell mods for an improvement in damage. Charged with Light mods on their own aren’t going to be THE difference maker, but when combined with Exotic armour and weapons they compliment and often make builds even better.

Let me know what you think down in the comments, and also share your favourite Charged with Light builds.

That’s it for this guide on how to create a ‘Charged with Light’ build in Destiny 2.