Whether you are looking to protect yourself (and others) or deal some damage, you're in the right place.
The subclass 3.0 system brought reworked subclasses for each class and also added new buff and debuff keywords. Learning what each Solar keyword means is important as it will shape our builds from here on out.
Buff Keywords:
Cure: You are healed in a burst of mending Solar Light.
Restoration: You continuously regenerate health and shields over time. Cannot be interrupted by taking damage.
Radiant: Your weapons are enhanced by the power of the Traveler and deal increased damage to foes.
Debuff Keywords:
Scorch: The target is singed by destructive Solar Light, taking damage over time. Scorch damage increases as the target accumulates more Scorch stacks. After 100 Scorch stacks are applied to the target, they will Ignite.
Ignite: A large, damaging Solar explosion in an area around the target.
Solar warlocks are designed to be a versatile class in Destiny. Not fully a healer class yet able to deal some significant damage, the Solar Warlock is a jack-of-all-trades. Solar 3.0 has only added to the possibilities of many builds with new abilities and fragments to choose from. Here are a few of our favorite builds updated for the Season of Plunder:
Radiant Fusion
This build is focused on staying Radiant and generating grenades constantly. Weapons deal increased damage to enemies while Radiant and since we will also be using Starfire Protocol, if we damage enemies in our empowering rift, we will continue to generate grenades. Adding in Solar weapons can further our damage output as we will use elemental wells that will activate Font of Might and increase Solar weapons damage more. We will also activate Radiant for our fireteam.
Subclass: Dawnblade - Well of Radiance
Class Ability: Empowering Rift
Movement Ability: Burst Glide
Melee: Incinerator Snap
Grenade: Fusion Grenade
Aspects: Touch of Flame and Heat Rises (use Icarus Dash for more mobility over Heat Rises, we use Heat Rises for the panic healing grenade consumption and melee generation)
Fragments: Ember of Torches, Ember of Solace, Ember of Wonder, and Ember of Searing (swap Wonder for Eruption for larger ignitions, we use Wonder for the added Resilience and Orb generation)
Exotic Armor: Starfire Protocol
Ideal Stats: 10 Resilience, 10 Recovery, then Discipline
Exotic Weapon Choices: Witherhoard, Dead Messenger, Gjallarhorn, Parasite or Lament all excel with this build
Legendary Weapon Choices: Any Solar weapon with the Incandescent perk such as Calus Mini-Tool, BXR-55 Battler, or Ammit AR2 and any Power weapon with Auto-Loading Holster such as Palmyra-B
Mods: Harmonic Siphon, Momentum Transfer, Absolution, Distribution, Elemental Ordnance, Font of Might, Bountiful Wells, Explosive Wellmaker, and for added survivability, Well of Life
As stated above, our goal with this build is to remain radiant and generate as many solar wells as we can by throwing Fusion Grenades from our Well of Radiance or empowering rift.
Witherhoard paired with an Auto-Loading Rocket Launcher assures that you will constantly be damaging an enemy.
Our gameplay loop starts off in our empowering rift. We will generate Fusion grenades if we continue to damage enemies while standing in an empowering rift or Well of Radiance. Ideally, we are trying to weave a Witherhoard shot into a grenade toss into a rocket followed by consistent Calus Mini-Tool Solar damage and grenade tosses as they generate. By the time we get to our Calus Mini-Tool, Witherhoard should have reloaded automatically, if you have the catalyst, followed by the Auto-Loading rocket launcher.
When we have any rank-and-file enemies surrounding us, we can clear them all out in one use of an Incinerator Snap melee. This will instantly make us radiant and increase our damage by 25% in PvE.
The best part of this build is that every Fusion grenade explodes twice, scorching any targets in its radius. Once we apply enough scorch stacks to targets, we will trigger an ignition. Whenever we run out of grenade energy, all we have to do is start damaging a target from within our empowering rift or Well of Radiance and we will have another in no time.
This build is highly modifiable depending on what content you are doing. The main fragments that we swap between are Embers of Torches, Char, Eruption, Ashes, Searing, Solace, and Wonder.
Flame On
While Radiant Fusion focuses on remaining Radiant, this build focuses on scorching absolutely everything in sight. The Warlock exotic arms Sunbracers increase the duration of Solar Grenades and after defeating a target with our Incinerator Snap melee, we will have unlimited grenades for a short period of time. Because we can throw unlimited grenades for a few seconds, we will be able to lock down significant territory wherever we are.
Subclass: Daybreak
Class Ability: Healing Rift for more survivability
Movement Ability: Burst Glide
Melee: Incinerator Snap
Grenade: Solar Grenade
Aspects: Touch of Flame and Heat Rises (again Icarus Dash can be used for mobility purposes, however we chose Heat Rises because of the ability to melee and throw grenades while airborne)
Fragments: Ember of Torches, Ember of Char, Ember of Ashes, and Ember of Eruption
Exotic Armor: Sunbracers
Ideal Stats: 10 Resilience, 10 Recovery, then Discipline or Strength
Exotic Weapon Choices: Jotunn, Ticuu's Divination, Sunshot, and Polaris Lance all help cause solar explosions, but nothing is required
Legendary Weapon Choices: any solar weapon with the Incandescent perk such as Ammit AR2, BXR-55 Battler, or even Retraced Path
Mods: Harmonic Siphon, Focusing Strike x2 (due to Artifact) or Momentum Transfer, Bomber or Outreach, Elemental Armaments, Elemental Ordnance, Font of Might, Bountiful Wells, and Explosive Wellmaker
Our goal while using this build is to throw as many grenades as we can before our unlimited grenade timer runs out. Because we are using Solar grenades and have the Touch of Flame Aspect active, we will also have our Solar grenades linger longer while spouting out blobs of lava. Not only does this look amazing, but it will significantly increase the radius of which we are dealing damage. And we get to watch it all while floating high above.
We will start off by jumping and throwing out our Incinerator Snap melee at a rank-and-file enemy. This will cause them to explode, make us radiant (increasing our damage output by 25%), and activate our Sunbracers. From here we can jump into the sky again and start tossing as many nades as we can at additional enemies or repeatedly at a boss. If we are airborne and defeating targets, we should regenerate our melee quickly to do it all over again. However, this is also why we are using elemental wells as any target defeated by our grenades will be scorched and eventually ignite, creating more Solar wells. This will get our melee, grenade, and rift abilities up in no time as each well gives energy to our abilities.
We will also be able deal more Solar weapon damage after collecting Solar wells due to Font of Might. This will make our Retraced Path or Ammit AR2 deal even more damage while scorching nearby targets.
Raining Death
Our final build in our Warlock Solar 3.0 PvE Build Guide revolves around an attempt to utilize airborne gameplay. While we are not convinced it is the most useful for PvE, we had fun imagining a build revolving around raining death from above.
Subclass: Daybreak
Class Ability: Phoenix Dive
Movement Ability: Burst Glide
Melee: Celestial Fire
Grenade: Firebolt Grenade
Aspects: Heat Rises and Icarus Dash
Fragments: Ember of Torches, Ember of Solace, Ember of Ashes, and Ember of Searing
Exotic Armor: Necrotic Grip
Ideal Stats: 10 Resilience, 10 Recovery, then Discipline or Strength
Exotic Weapon Choices: Osteo Striga
Legendary Weapon Choices: any solar weapon with the Incandescent perk such as Ammit AR2, BXR-55 Battler, or even Retraced Path
Mods: Focusing Strike, Momentum Transfer, Distribution, Radiant Light (for added Strength), Heavy Handed, Elemental Charge, Melee Wellmaker, and Bountiful Wells
With Necrotic Grip and Osteo Striga, we will be able to spread poison to our enemies much like we do with our Void 3.0 Necrolock build. This powerful combination works well while airborne because poison damage after infecting a target, will count as airborne damage while we are floating. Doing damage while airborne, helps us regenerate our melee quicker with Heat Rises and increases the duration of Heat Rises after we consume our grenade.
Our goal is to start combat by consuming a grenade before leaping into the air and floating above the battlefield. Sounds heroic, right? Then we can send Celestial Fire at a minor enemy which will activate our poison ability which should spread to others as each target is defeated. We can continue to float as defeating enemies while airborne will increase Heat Rises.
From here, we can either use Osteo Striga, which gains increased airborne effectiveness thanks to another perk of using Necrotic Grip, or slam to the ground with Phoenix Dive and scorch targets when we land. This will help us to regenerate our melee ability and repeat the cycle.
If we run out of Osteo Striga ammunition while airborne, we can quickly swap to either Retraced Path or Ammit AR2 for additional Incandescent fun which should help us regenerate our melee quicker so that we can continue poisoning enemies with it.
Thanks for reading our Warlock Solar 3.0 PvE Build Guide. We have a lot of fun testing and messing around with different weapons and exotics. Like our socials for more content updates and subscribe to our emails to know whenever another build guide is published! Enjoy!
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