Unleash the Power of the Fallen Sunstar Arc Build! [Destiny 2 Warlock Build]
The Arc 3.0 rework brought a seismic shift to the Warlock class in Destiny 2, cracking open build crafting potential that has long been dormant. While Void and Solar builds continue to dominate as player favorites, one criminally underused Arc build has risen from the ashes – ready to unleash a storm of ability destruction. Enter the Fallen Sunstar Arc build.
Centered around the Exotic helmet Fallen Sunstar, this build taps into the raw power of the Arc subclass to enables near constant uptime of your abilities. Paired with the right aspects, fragments, mods, and stats – it unlocks a gameplay loop of chaining Ionic Traces into more abilities into more Ionic Traces for unlimited power.
The result is a scoring machine in PvE, add clearing majesty in lower tier content, and even success in higher difficulty activities. In this extensive guide, we‘ll break down exactly how this build achieves S-tier potential. From the basics of how it works, to synergies with abilities, weapons, and stats, to advanced optimization and mod setups – you‘ll have all the tools needed to prepare for battle.
Time to strap on your Fallen Sunstar and storm the battlefield, Guardian. Eyes up – this is your time to unleash the true devastating power of the Arc Warlock.
Understanding The Core Mechanics
The foundation of this build lies in the Exotic helmet Fallen Sunstar. Unlocked via the Lost Sector rotation or Xur, this helmet carries the perk Ionic Conductor – refunding a portion of your Rift energy when critically wounding an enemy with an Arc ability.
The refund returned is significant, averaging around 20-25% per critical hit depending on your stacks of Harmonic Siphon. This can quickly accelerate your Rift cooldown for near constant uptime.
Pair this with the Chaos Reach super, Pulse grenade, and Ball Lightning melee abilities and you have a triangular synergy of regenerating energy. Damaging enemies with your abilities generates Ionic Traces thanks to the Spark of Shock fragment. Picking these up further reduces your Rift cooldown by 10-15% per trace collected.
This loop results in near 100% uptime of your abilities – chaining Chaos Reach beams, Pulse grenade spreads, empowered Ball Lightning strikes, and healing/damage boosting Rifts.
| Exotic Perk | Description |
|---|---|
| Ionic Conductor | Refunds 20-25% rift energy on ability crit hits |
The enhanced potency of Arc abilities in Season of Plunder and the chaining potential is why this subclass shines so brightly with the Fallen Sunstar exotic. Building into ability regen and ability damage boosting perks takes this combo to even greater heights.
Ability Synergy and Gameplay Loop
To maximize effectiveness of the Fallen Sunstar exotic perk, the key is selecting abilities that allow you to frequently and easily critically wound targets at range. The ideal setup includes:
Super: Chaos Reach
- Long range beam perfect for enabling Ionic Conductor refunds
- Geomag Stabilizers exotic boots boost duration and damage
Class Ability: Healing/Empowering Rift
- Use rift off cooldown to boost damage/regen
- Ionic traces refund rift energy
Grenade: Pulse Grenade
- Strong AoE pulse damage crits groups of enemies
- Spark of Beacons boosts duration and jolt
Melee: Ball Lightning
- Quickly chains lightning Crits between packed enemies
- Spark of Shock spreads jolt
The gameplay loop then comes down to chaining all your abilities together, capitalizing on your amplified state and jolting enemies to spawn ionic traces, which feed into your next rotation of abilities.
Here is the ideal damage rotation flow:
- Toss Pulse Grenade to crit wound clustered targets
- Ball Lightning melee to spread chain lightning and jolt
- Collect Ionic Traces to regenerate grenade and melee
- Activate Rift for empowered weapon damage
- Repeat loop – tossing more grenades and chaining melees
- When Super is charged, launch Chaos Reach beam
- Rinse and repeat chaining abilities and collecting Ionic Traces
By constantly crit wounding with your abilities and chaining Ionic Trace collection, you‘ll have extremely strong uptime of amplified weapon damage, jolted enemies, and activated abilities. This builds your damage potential exponentially – allowing you to clear rooms with ease.
Arc Warlock ability chaining potential with Fallen Sunstar exotic
Alternative Ability Options
While Pulse Grenade is the highest damage Arc grenade option, alternatives like Storm Grenade and Arcbolt Grenade can also enable the Fallen Sunstar loop.
Storm Grenades last longer with Spark of Beacons equipped, allowing more uptime for dealing damage. Arcbolt Grenades rapidly chain Arc bolts between groups of adds, allowing easy critical hits to proc Ionic Conductor refunds. This makes them a great option as well for lower tier PvE content.
For solo flawless dungeon runs or situations requiring more survival, Healing Rift can be swapped out for Empowering Rift as well. This still activates the exotic perk loop while providing damage reduction instead. The key is balancing offense and defense as required.
Stats and Mod Distribution
To push the capabilities of this build even further, you need to maximize your stats and mod energy focusing on several key areas:
Stats:
- Resilience: 7-8+ (80-90)
- Unlocks access to helpful combat style mods
- Boosts shield strength and regeneration rate
- Each tier above 70 adds incremental HP and regen boost
- Discipline: 9-10 (90-100)
- Reduces Pulse grenade cooldown by 1s per tier
- Tier 9 = 41s, Tier 10 = 40s cooldown
- Intellect: 7-8+ (80-90+)
- Accelerates Super regen speed
- Tier 7 = 5:12, Tier 8 = 4:46, Tier 9 = 4:12 (minutes:seconds)
- Strength: 6+ (60+)
- Minor investment to regen melee ability faster
- Tier 6 = 1:04, Tier 7 = 0:58, Tier 8 = 0:52
Mods:
- Helmet: Hands On, Ashes to Assets
- Super energy on melee kills and grenade kills
- Arms: Outreach, Fastball
- Increased melee lunge range, grenade throw distance
- Chest: 2x Resist Mods
- Sniper, Concussive Dampener
- Legs: Distribution, Dynamo
- Faster rift regen while critical, super energy on dodge
- Class Item: Elemental Charge, Powerful Friends, Radiant Light
- Become charged with light on elemental well pickup, +20 mobility, +20 strength
The stats focus on maxing discipline for maximum grenade uptime, with solid investments into resilience for survival, intellect for super regen, and strength for melee builds.
The mods center around accelerating ability regeneration, capitalizing on ionic trace and elemental well energy, and boosting overall uptime of amplified damage states.
This distribution leads to extremely strong ability chains, near constant uptime, and very fast ultimate regen – compounding the power of the core exotic perk loop.
Weapons and Damage Type Synergy
While abilities are the spotlight of this Fallen Sunstar build, you can sync weapon and damage types to further accentuate its strengths.
The Season of Plunder Arc weapon Delicate Tomb perfectly encapsulates this synergy. Featuring the perk Traitor‘s Vessel, final blows with this Aggressive Burst sidearm generate Ionic Traces – fueling your abilities.
Pairing Delicate Tomb with an Arc special weapon like Hollow Denial fusion rifle provides a solid mix of Voltshot powered add clear, Ionic Trace generation, and jolt spreads.
For heavy weapons, Stormchaser, Cataclysmic, or Reed‘s Regret offer high DPS while also producing Ionic Traces against tougher targets. An Arc Rocket Launcher like Palmyra-B can also generate Orbs of Power with the Explosive Light perk.
The key is matching your weapon‘s damage type and perks to take advantage of jolt spreads, amplified damage, orb energy, and Ionic Trace generation. This keeps your abilities primed and ready as you battle enemies.
Delicate Tomb as an always-on Ionic Trace generator keeps this gameplay loop spinning at a furious rate.
Recommended Weapons
- Kinetic: Delicate Tomb (Ionic Traces)
- Special: Hollow Denial (Voltshot chains)
- Power: Stormchaser (Ionic Traces)
Alternative Weapons
- Arsenic Bite (Dragonfly spec)
- Trinity Ghoul (Catalyst)
- Thunderlord (Lightning strikes)
Weapons like Arsenic Bite bow, Trinity Ghoul, and Thunderlord also have innate Arc chaining potential. While not as synergistic, they can still take advantage of Amplified damage.
Advanced Mod and Exotic Options
Looking to push this build to its absolute limits? You have a few advanced options when it comes to exotic armors and combat style mods.
For Exotics, options like Crown of Tempests or Stormdancer‘s Brace offer ability regeneration bonuses. However, Geomag Stabilizers remains the top choice for pure damage thanks to extending your Chaos Reach beam which also generates more Ionic Traces.
Mod wise, Power Preservation and Protective Light offer a major benefit – constantly collecting orbs of power keeps your chaos reach beam extended even longer while Protective Light helps survive lethal damage when low health.
Additionally, Melee Wellmaker spawns Arc Wells to make you Amplified, while Reaping Wellmaker creates Void wells for Devour healing. Well of Life also offers backup healing if needed.
Useful Combat Style Mods
- Power Preservation
- Protective Light
- Melee Wellmaker
- Reaping Wellmaker
- Well of Life
This array of mods ensures your Chaos Reach damage and lethality remains high, while still having backup survival capabilities if things get hairy.
Comparing To Other Warlock Builds
How does this chaotic Fallen Sunstar build compare against the meta Void and Solar favorites? Let‘s break it down.
Voidwalker
| Fallen Sunstar | Voidwalker |
|---|---|
| Higher damage output | Lower damage potential |
| All offense focused | Mix of offense and defense |
| Constant amplified uptime | Devour healing from kills |
| Fragile without rift healing | More tanky via overshields |
Voidwalker builds are anchored by near constant Devour healing and protective overshields that Sacred Dawn Solar cannot match. However, the Fallen Sunstar build brings drastically higher damage potential.
Dawnblade
| Fallen Sunstar | Dawnblade |
|---|---|
| Medium-short range | Long distance aerial game |
| Ability spam focused | Air Accuracy dependent |
| Constant Amplified + Jolt | Radiant melee knife loops |
| Chaos Reach single target | Great add clear super |
Dawnblade has superior range and flexibility with aerial play. Fallen Sunstar brings superior adds control and higher damage in close quarters. Both are very solid choices catering to different preferred playstyles.
Mastering The Ability Economy
The key to unlocking this build‘s full potential lies in effectively mastering your ability regeneration economy through chaining Ionic Traces into grenade and melee spam. This opens up a highly rewarding gameplay loop unmatched within the Arc Warlock kit.
Managing this cycle requires learning precise ability timing windows, balancing your stats to desired tiers, and tactically collecting traces mid firefights. Get these basics down however, and you‘ll have some of Destiny 2‘s most potent add clear tools at your fingertips.
While many Warlock mains flock towards the slow safety of healing grenades or aerial superiority – this build offers an entirely different kind of power for those seeking pure ability fueled destruction. It represents the pinnacle of Arc Warlock crafting potential.
So for all you underappreciated Arc faithful out there – the time is now. Strap on your Fallen Sunstar, grab your Ionic sidearm, and never stop chaining that glorious storm of electric energy carnage. Let the true power of Arc 3.0 run rampant across the battlefield!
In Summary
- Fallen Sunstar exotic refunds rift energy on arc ability crits
- Maximize discipline for pulse grenade uptime
- Use Chaos Reach, pulse grenade, ball lightning together
- Collect Ionic Traces to chain more ability spam
- Loop rift bonus damage into more powerful abilities
- Achieve near 100% amplified and jolt uptime
- Master the ability regeneration economy
- Embrace the full power of Arc 3.0
Time to get out there and start unleashing this lightning fueled mayhem, Guardian. Go show those Void and Solar loyalists what they‘ve been missing from the Arc side of the crafting game!