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Season of the Plunder 

Warlock Arc 3.0 and Glaive Build with Karnstein Armlets in Destiny 2

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Glaives got an update this season so they work with some exotic armour, and today I’m going to run through a Warlock Arc 3.0 build with one of those, and that’s Karnstein Armlets. Glaive’s are very strong this season in both PVE and PVP, and now you can get on-demand health regeneration, this build is great for going into endgame content. Today I’ll run through the Arc 3.0 setup, plus the weapons, mods and armour, so you can stab your way through endgame content in Destiny 2.

Without further delay, let’s dive into the build.

Arc 3.0 Setup

Super: Chaos Reach
Grenade: Skip Grenade
Melee: Chain Lightning
Class Ability: Healing Rift

Aspects

Arc Soul – Cast your Rift to create an Arc Soul that fires at targets in front of you. Allies can pass through your Rift to get an Arc Soul. Your Rift charges faster when allies are near. While amplified, your Arc Souls are supercharged and gain an increased fire rate.

Electrostatic Mind – Defeating targets with Arc abilities or defeating jolted or blinded targets creates an Ionic Trace. Collecting an Ionic Trace makes you amplified.

Fragments

Spark of Amplitude – Rapidly defeating targets while you are amplified creates an Orb of Power.
Spark of Shock – Your arc grenade jolts targets.
Spark of Recharge – While critically wounded, your melee and grenade energy regenerate more quickly.
Spark of Resistance – When surrounded by enemies, the player has increased damage resistance.

Exotic Armor – Karnstein Armlets

Karnstein Armlets are Exotic Warlock Gauntlets with the perk Vampire’s Caress.

  • Vampire’s Caress – Melee kills instantly to restore a large amount of health and continues to restore health afterwards for a short duration.
  • Mobility Enhancement Mod – Increased mobility.

I’m pairing these exotic gloves with a Glaive, given the sandbox update from Bungie which reads

Glaives – Their interactions with some Exotic armour pieces can be confusing, so we’ve explicitly made some changes to align better with our stated goals. Glaive melee attacks can now activate the Exotic armour perks on ACD/0 Feedback Fence, Karnstein Armlets, and Necrotic Grip.

Now the Glaive kill is going to proc the perk Vampire’s Caress, which is going to give you that health back whenever you get a glaive kill, which is going to be very useful in all kinds of content. We don’t have glaive champion mods this season, but we can work around that with our kinetic and power weapons. Let’s go through the weapons now.

Weapons

Kinetic – Hung Jury (Scout Rifle)

Hung Jury SR4 is a Legendary Kinetic Scout Rifle. This one is a Precision Frame meaning this weapon’s recoil pattern is more predictably vertical. For PVE Rapid Hit and Firefly is a good roll to look out for as also Surplus and Explosive Payload.

Hung Jury isn’t available in-game at the moment, but it can be swapped out for any Kinetic Scout Rifle.

Energy – Nezarec’s Whisper

Nezarec’s Whisper is a Legendary Energy Adaptive Glaive which is a hybrid melee/ranged polearm with a frontal shield. Generates energy on dealing ranged damage. Aim Down Sights Raise shield, depleting energy over time. Melee, Kinetic melee combo.

Nezarec’s Whisper is a beast in PVE content. It has some great perks, and they are going to help you tear through enemies in seconds. For PVE Impulse Amplifier and Frenzy would be a decent roll. Impulse Amplifier – Massively increases projectile velocity, increases reload speed. Frenzy – Being in combat for an extended time increases damage, handling, and reload for this weapon until you are out of combat.

Power – Thunderlord

This is an exotic heavy machine gun, which delivers arc damage, and has the perks:

Reign Havoc – Kills with this weapon generate lightning strikes from above.
Feeding Frenzy – Each rapid kill with this weapon progressively increases reload speed for a short time.

Thunderlord is great for Arc builds, plus you have that intrinsic Overload.

Mods

  • Elemental Ordnance – Defeating a combatant with a grenade spawns an elemental well that matches your subclass energy type.
  • Bountiful Wells – Elemental well mods that cause you to spawn elemental wells can now stack, spawning additional wells for each additional copy of the mod you have equipped.
  • Font of Might – Picking up an elemental well that matches your subclass energy type grants a temporary bonus to weapon damage
  • Anti-Barrier Scout
  • 100 Resilience for 40% damage reduction

For additional health benefits, you can throw in Elemental Charge and Protective Light. I’m going with Bountiful Wells and additional Elemental Ordnance mods, because I want more Wells, however, Elemental Charge and Protective Light is useful if you want more damage resistance.

The Kinetic and Power weapons can be swapped out depending on which champions are present in the end-game activity you are playing. At the time of creating this guide I was facing Barrier and Overload Champs in nightfall, so I used Anti-Barrier Scout and intrinsic Overload on Thunderlord.

Gameplay loop

  • Kill enemies with Glaives
  • Pick enemies off at a distance with your kinetic weapon
  • Kill Champions as required
  • Throw grenades and generate Elemental Wells to power up damage output with Font of Might
  • Throw more grenades to jolt targets and chain lightning attacks through Electrostatic Mind
  • Get health if you need it through glaive kills

This build is all about Glaive’s and Karnstein Armlets, given the update to Glaive’s being able to proc that Vampire’s Caress perk. Health regen isn’t an easy thing to come by. We had Classy Restoration last season, which was a very useful tool for any player. This is similar to that, not exactly the same, but getting that health back very quickly and easily, and pretty much on demand is a useful tool for Warlocks this season, and in the seasons ahead.

Regarding Arc 3.0 here I am using Spark of Shock for Arc grenade jolting targets. For this build, I’m using the Glaive as my main attack method, but that’s being backed up with grenades, to help generate Elemental Wells for that additional damage through Font of Might, which is about a 20% damage increase. Spark of Shock also Jolts targets. Then with Electrostatic Mind defeating targets with Arc abilities or defeating jolted or blinded targets creates an Ionic Trace. Collecting an Ionic Trace makes you amplified. While the Glaive and health regeneration is the focus, defeating jolted targets and getting amplified is always good.

An amplified Guardian is faster—both in terms of movement speed and in terms of their weapon handling—and more agile, able to perform long slides that can function as a devastating setup for some of the attacks that follow. Also, Guardians gain a sizable PvE damage resistance buff, so there are plenty of benefits of becoming amplified.

Let me know in the comments what you think of the build and let me know if you have any improvements.

That’s it for this guide for Warlock Arc 3.0 and Glaive Build with Karnstein Armlets in Destiny 2. For more Destiny content like this check out This Week In Video Games on YouTube and subscribe today.