The dust has settled a bit following the release of Lightfall, Destiny 2's latest expansion. Now that it's been out for some time, we can finally take a look at the revamped mod system and put together what we consider to be top-tier Meta builds.
What makes a build good? It all depends on what you want to do. If you're a PVE fanatic, you might find more value in builds that are better for burst damage and survivability. PVP players might need faster recovery and snappier movement options. Things that don't necessarily hit hard, but certainly hit fast. Let's get down to brass tacks and take a look at the best PVE and PVP builds for Stasis Hunters in Destiny 2.
Table of Contents
Best Stasis Hunter PVE Build: Freeze-POP!
Stasis Hunters have some decent choices when it comes to putting together a great monster-killing machine. This build is going to be all about Add-clear and helping your allies stay alive by freezing everything in sight. We're also going to take advantage of Frost-EE5 as our Exotic of choice, just to keep our ability uptime nice and high.
Required Gear
- Exotic Armor: Frost-EE5 (Legs)
These boots grant a boost to all of your ability recharge rates when sprinting around and a boost to your sprint speed after dodging. Think of them as the OG Geomag Stabilizers for Warlocks. These will help us keep our ability uptime at a decent click.
Class Setup
- Super: Silence and Squall
- Grenade: Duskfield Grenades
- Class Ability: Marksman Dodge
- Melee: Withering Blade
- Jump: Triple Jump
Aspects
- Touch of Winter: enhances the functionality of your Stasis grenades. For our Duskfield, it creates a small Stasis crystal on impact and increases its AOE
- Grim Harvest: Defeating slowed or frozen combatants creates Stasis Shards.
Fragments
- Whisper of Shards destroying a Stasis Crystal grants grenade energy
- Whisper of Rime grants a small amount of Overshield when collecting Stasis Shards that lasts 10 seconds. Collecting more Shards extends its duration and adds to the Overshield
- Whisper of Chains reduces incoming damage when you're near frozen targets or friendly Stasis Crystals
- Whisper of Conduction makes Stasis Shards tract to you
- Whisper of Impetus reloads stowed weapons when damaging targets with a Stasis melee
Armor Mods
Outside of Stat Mods, you'll want to min/max for ability uptime to further lean into the Grenade, Melee, and Class Ability spam that this build is all about.
- Head Mods: I recommend Ashes to Assets, Harmonic Siphon, and Heavy Ammo Finder for more orbs, more super energy, and heavy ammo
- Arm Mods: I recommend Grenade Kickstart, Momentum Transfer, and Bolstering Detonation for additional ability energy when using and damaging targets with abilities
- Chest Mods: I recommend Emergency Reinforcement and whatever damage reduction mods of your choosing. Emergency Reinforcement is crazy strong right now and a requirement for high-end content.
- Leg Mods: I recommend Stasis Weapon Surge, Recuperation, and Innervation. These will grant you additional Stasis weapon damage as well as additional health and ability energy.
- Cloak Mods: I recommend Time Dilation, Bomber, and Outreach for longer Armor Charge duration and increased cooldowns on grenades and melee charges.
Weapons
- Kinetic Slot: A rare Non-Witherhoard recommendation, but Ager's Scepter is a fantastic Kinetic slot option. This Exotic Trace Rifle causes final blows to generate a slowing burst around defeated targets that will freeze them and spread similarly to the poison of Necrotic Grips when killing frozen or slowed targets. It's a ton of fun to use in mid- to high-end PVE.
- Energy Slot: The choice here is yours, but I recommend using something like a crafted Forbearance Grenade Launcher or an SMG or Pulse Rifle! Something that balances a bit more against your Ager's Scepter. I love the Insidious Pulse Rifle from Vow of the Disciple but go crazy here.
- Heavy Slot: Again, this is completely up to you. I do recommend at least a Stand heavy weapon again. Something like Bump In The Night that has Chill Clip is going to lean into the build synergy really well, but I would also challenge you to use a Heavy Machine Gun like Chain of Command with Demolitionist and Adrenaline Junkie.
Stat Distribution
For these, you'll want to focus on as much Resilience and Recovery as possible for survivability. Next would be a minimum of 60 Mobility for your Dodge recharge, but anything higher is obviously better. The rest of the stats are entirely up to you, but Discipline as a sort of mild focus is always a good idea.
Conclusion
Stasis can be a good time just about anywhere. If you're going to take this into some endgame content, I recommend hanging back just a little bit and thinking about it almost more as a support class than an offensive one. That being said, it is a fun build to run around and hit some Nightfalls with!
Best Stasis Hunter PVP Build: Windchill
Welcome to your PVP build, Stasis Hunters! This build is going to look extremely familiar if you just worked on building out the Solar Hunter PVE build above because it's virtually the exact same thing! The only thing we're going to change is our Exotic. We're opting for the Wormhusk Crown for some free health regen in combat, but we're keeping everything else for the same reason we have it in PVE: help your allies stay alive! Let's take a look.
Required Gear
- Exotic Armor: Wormhusk Crown (Helmet)
While this helmet isn't quite as powerful as it once was, Wormhusk Crown is still going to be key to getting you out of trouble or even giving you the leg up in a gunfight. Play around with it a bit, but I'd recommend Wormhusk for all of the crusty little worms out there looking for a free health regen!
Class Setup
- Super: Silence and Squall
- Grenade: Duskfield Grenades
- Class Ability: Marksman Dodge
- Melee: Withering Blade
- Jump: Triple Jump
Aspects
- Touch of Winter: enhances the functionality of your Stasis grenades. For our Duskfield, it creates a small Stasis crystal on impact and increases its AOE
- Grim Harvest: Defeating slowed or frozen combatants creates Stasis Shards.
Fragments
- Whisper of Shards destroying a Stasis Crystal grants grenade energy
- Whisper of Rime grants a small amount of Overshield when collecting Stasis Shards that lasts 10 seconds. Collecting more Shards extends its duration and adds to the Overshield
- Whisper of Chains reduces incoming damage when you're near frozen targets or friendly Stasis Crystals
- Whisper of Conduction makes Stasis Shards tract to you
- Whisper of Impetus reloads stowed weapons when damaging targets with a Stasis melee
Armor Mods
Outside of Stat Mods, you'll want to min/max for weapon steadiness and handling. These are all pretty straightforward and grant bonus weapon stats and ability recovery.
- Head Mods: I recommend Kinetic OR Energy Targeting
- Arm Mods: I recommend Grenade Kickstart and Reloaders of your choice
- Chest Mods: I recommend Unflinching mods of your choice
- Leg Mods: I recommend Absolution, Better Already, Orbs of Restoration
- Cloak Mods: I recommend Reaper, Bomber, Outreach
Weapons
- Kinetic Slot: I recommend something with some range like the No Time To Explain, Dead Man's Tale, or a similarly ranged Primary of your choice. Pulse Rifles continue to absolutely dominate in PVP and DMT is just fun to use. You can try to swap for a Hand Cannon too if you're finding yourself in close range, as you should be in this build!
- Energy Slot: All Shotgun, all the time. I use a Mindbender's Ambition that I love. Auto-Loading Holster is going to make you very happy when you're sprinting and swinging over Special Ammo and you have to switch to a CQB weapon in a pinch.
- Heavy Slot: This is completely up to you. Personally, Rockets are always a go-to in PVP due to their wide blast radius, making it tough to miss an opponent, but I have been a bit partial to Heavy Machine Guns recently, too!
Stat Distribution
For these, you'll want to focus on Mobility, Resilience, and Recovery for survivability and class ability uptime. Next would either be Strength, to maximize your Melee recharge rate, or Discipline to maximize your Grenade recharge!
Conclusion
This build is almost purpose-built to frustrate your opponents. Try this out next time you're running Trials of Osiris or dipping your toes in the Iron Banner!
These are the best Stasis Hunter builds for PVE and PVP in Destiny 2. Make sure you save them in your new Loadout slots before you start moving on to your next build!