Destiny 2 Dawnblade: Best Builds, Exotics & Fragments

by | Jan 13, 2024

Dawnblade is one of the four Warlock subclasses available in Destiny 2. And as of Season of the Wish (S23), Dawnblade is one of the strongest subclasses in the entire game.

This guide covers the best Dawnblade Warlock builds and top Exotics that make the Dawnblade such an exceptionally powerful subclass.

What is Dawnblade in Destiny 2?

Dawnblade is the name of the Solar-based subclass available to Warlocks in Destiny 2. Offering outstanding Aerial mobility, strong healing potential, and a powerful Super, Dawnblade is an excellent subclass.

Best Dawnblade Fragments & Exotics

Warlock Solar 3.0 featured

Dawnblade (Solar 3.0)

  • Ranking: S Best

A subclass primarily used for support, Dawnblade fills its lack of ad clear and boss damage with some of the most powerful buffs in the game. Radiant provides a whopping 25% increase to damage, and Restoration provides continuous health regeneration even through damage.

While these buffs are inherently powerful, Dawnblade lost much of its power through the Starfire Protocol nerf that came with Season of the Deep. Other Exotics like Boots of the Assembler and Sunbracers have filled the role nicely, but nothing quite matches the absurdity of pre-nerf Starfire.

All that said, Dawnblade is still excellent at what it does. Well of Radiance continues to be the best PvE Super in the game, while the potent buffs Solar offers have kept Dawnblade popular through its decline.

Preferred Exotic: Now that Starfire Protocol was nerfed into the ground, we’d recommend Sunbracers, Boots of the Assembler, or Lunafaction Boots.

ArmorClassTypeRequirementsSourceReleasedRequiresExotic Perk
Boots of the Assembler Destiny 2 art

Boots of the Assembler

WarlockLegsBeyond LightLost SectorsSeason 14Beyond Light Destiny 2 icon
Beyond Light
Exotic Perk: "Standing in a healing rift creates Noble Seekers that seek out allies that are not in a rift and heal them. Noble Seekers from Empowering rift grant both you and your ally a damage bonus. Each time a Noble Seeker finds one of your allies, the duration of your rift is briefly extended."
Lunafaction Boots Warlock Exotic Destiny 2 art

Lunafaction Boots

WarlockLegsFree-to-PlayExotic EngramsSeason 1Free to Play Destiny 2 icon
Free-to-Play
Exotic Perk: "Your Rifts gain the additional ability to increase weapon reload speeds. Empowering Rift makes weapons effective over longer ranges."
Sunbracers Warlock Exotic Destiny 2 art

Sunbracers

WarlockArmsFree-to-PlayExotic EngramsSeason 1Free to Play Destiny 2 icon
Free-to-Play
Exotic Perk: "Increases the duration of Solar Grenades. Solar melee kills grant unlimited Solar Grenade energy for a brief time."

Preferred Aspects and Fragments:

  • Aspects: All three Dawnblade Aspects are strong in their own ways. While Touch of Flame and Heat Rises are generally the most useful, using one of your two slots on Icarus Dash is a no-brainer for many high-level players.
  • Fragments: Ember of Empyrean, Ember of Solace, Ember of Ashes, Ember of Torches.

Preferred Abilities and Stats:

  • Stats: Recovery, Resilience, Discipline.
  • Abilities: Well of Radiance is arguably the strongest Super in the entire game, so running it is a no-brainer. Fusion Grenades, Solar Grenades, and Celestial Fire are generally the best picks beyond the Super.

 

Dawnblade Warlock builds for PvE

These are some of the best Destiny 2 Dawnblade builds right now, you can find more excellent Warlock builds here:

Solar Warlock

Sun Wizard

Excels In: Casual Content (Seasonal Activities, Strikes, etc.)

Goal of the Build: While it’s simple at its core, this build allows you to rain terror from above by throwing an infinite amount of Solar Grenades. It provides excellent ad-clear and can give you a seemingly infinite damage buff via surge mods. P.S. This build is heavily inspired by one of Imagine’s amazing build videos.

Mandatory Gear: Any solar weapons can be helpful here, but we recommend a CALUS Mini-Tool with Incandescent. Sunbracers is the exotic we’ll be using here, as it grants you tons of Solar Grenades and has unmatched synergy with Heat Rises.

ArmorClassTypeRequirementsSourceReleasedRequiresExotic Perk
Sunbracers Warlock Exotic Destiny 2 art

Sunbracers

WarlockArmsFree-to-PlayExotic EngramsSeason 1Free to Play Destiny 2 icon
Free-to-Play
Exotic Perk: "Increases the duration of Solar Grenades. Solar melee kills grant unlimited Solar Grenade energy for a brief time."
  • AspectsTouch of Flame and Heat Rises.
  • Fragments: Ember of Ashes, Ember of Searing, Ember of Empyrean, & Ember of Resolve
  • Abilities & Stats: Solar Grenade, Phoenix Dive, and Incinerator Snap are the required abilities for this build.
  • Stats: Resilience and Recovery are the only two stats you might want to spec into here. Since you’ll be in the air for most of the time here, you might be taking more fire than usual, meaning anything to help you survive is a great choice.
  • Mods: The only mods you’ll need are:
    • Helmet: Ashes to Assets x2, Harmonic Siphon
    • Arms: Firepower, Bolstering Detonation, Momentum Transfer
    • Chest: Resist and reserve mods
    • Legs: Solar Weapon Surge x2
    • Class Item: Stat mods

Gameplay Loop

Get a kill with your charged melee ability to start the gameplay loop. If you’re struggling with this step, try binding your charged melee to a unique button so you can send it off at a more specific time.

Getting that powered melee kill will proc Sunbracers, granting you five seconds of ‘infinite’ Solar Grenades. Realistically, you can only fire a maximum of five in this time due to the time it takes to execute the animation. Swallow your first grenade to get Heat Rises, then take to the skies and watch everything below burn via your other Solar Grenades. Any kills in the air (including those from the grenades) will give you 30% of your melee energy, allowing you to repeat this loop infinitely.

If you ever fail to kill something with your melee, just get kills in the air with your weapons—you’ll get it back soon after due to Heat Rises. As a nice bonus, casting Phoenix Dive while Heat Rises is active grants Restoration, which you can extend with Solar kills via Ember of Empyrean.

This build was already strong before Solar 3.0, but with the new aspects and fragments, it has gotten even more powerful. While it doesn’t excel much in higher-level content, this is a great build to run in seasonal activities and other lower-end content if you want to mix it up.

 

Boots of the Assembler Warlock

Noble Assembler

Excels In: Casual and Endgame content

Goal of the Build: Empower yourself and allies using support exotics and abilities such as Healing Grenade and Lumina.

Mandatory Gear: The two main pieces of equipment we’ll use here are Lumina and Boots of the Assembler.

ArmorClassTypeRequirementsSourceReleasedRequiresExotic Perk
Boots of the Assembler Destiny 2 art

Boots of the Assembler

WarlockLegsBeyond LightLost SectorsSeason 14Beyond Light Destiny 2 icon
Beyond Light
Exotic Perk: "Standing in a healing rift creates Noble Seekers that seek out allies that are not in a rift and heal them. Noble Seekers from Empowering rift grant both you and your ally a damage bonus. Each time a Noble Seeker finds one of your allies, the duration of your rift is briefly extended."

Both will empower allies and you, making this build a fantastic option for team play.

ArtWeaponTypeArchetypeRarityAmmoElementRequirementsIn loot pool?Ammo?Element?TierExcelsSourceCraftable?RequiresReleasedSlotCan be Crafted?Best of?Top Perk?
Destiny 2 Lumina artLuminaHand CannonExoticExoticPrimaryKineticForsaken PackYesPrimary ammo Destiny 2 PrimaryKinetic symbol Destiny 2 Kinetic
Best

S

PvE + PvPExotic KioskError icon V2 NoForsaken Destiny 2 icon
Forsaken Pack
Season 7KineticNoTop-tier
  • Aspects: Heat Rises and Touch of Flame.
  • Fragments: This build only requires three fragments: Ember of Benevolence, Torches, and Solace. The fourth slot is entirely up to you.
  • Abilities: Healing Grenade is best here to build into the support identity even more.
  • Stats: Discipline is excellent to get your Healing Grenade back quicker. Beyond that, Resilience and Recovery are the clear options here, as always.
  • Mods:
    • Helmet: Kinetic Siphon
    • Arms: Impact Induction, Focusing Strike
    • Chest: Resist mods
    • Legs: Innervation, Insulation
    • Class Item: Bomber

Gameplay Loop

While there isn’t a specific gameplay ‘loop’ for this build, everything works in conjunction, and understanding all the moving parts is vital to your success.

Kills with Lumina will drop Noble Rounds, which you can shoot at allies to give both you and them a damage buff. This will also proc Ember of Benevolence, giving you more ability energy. This ability energy will give you your melee back, which, when used, will provide you and your nearby allies Radiant (which, once again, procs Benevolence). Throwing or swallowing your grenade will also grant Restoration, giving you even more ability energy.

Lastly, placing down your rift will activate Boots of the Assembler’s perk, spawning Noble Seekers and empowering allies while giving you the Ember of Benevolence buff. As you can see, everything has a place in this build, allowing you to chain support ability after support ability. Even better, you’ll receive buffs from most of these sources, making you more potent while also helping allies.

 

Dawnblade Subclass in PvP (Solar 3.0)

Dawnblade (Solar 3.0)

  • Ranking: S Best

Solar Subclass Destiny 2 iconWith unique movement abilities and absurd health regeneration, it’s no wonder Dawnblade is such a menace in PVP.

Icarus Dash and Heat Rises allow you to utilize vertical movement while not bogged down by airborne effectiveness. Movement in Daybreak is similar, allowing you to fly across the map raining death from above.

Dawnblade (and Solar as a whole) also provides excellent support opportunities in the form of Restoration. This buff goes through damage, meaning you’ll restore health while taking damage. Radiant is also an irreplaceable buff in PVP, allowing for significantly more consistent kills.

Dawnblade is simply unmatched in general utility, movement, and support, making it one of the best subclasses for PVP.

Preferred Exotic: Rain of Fire can grant easy reloads and damage increases, while Transversive Steps and Ophidian Aspect are timeless favorites.

ArmorClassTypeRequirementsSourceReleasedRequiresExotic Perk
Ophidian Aspect Warlock Exotic Destiny 2 art

Ophidian Aspect

WarlockArmsFree-to-PlayExotic EngramsSeason 2Free to Play Destiny 2 icon
Free-to-Play
Exotic Perk: "Weapons ready and reload very quickly. Provides a small benefit to the airborne effectiveness stat of all weapons."
Rain of Fire Warlock Destiny 2 art

Rain of Fire

WarlockLegsThe Witch QueenLost SectorsSeason 17The Witch Queen Destiny 2 icon
The Witch Queen
Exotic Perk: "Air dodge reloads all of your weapons and improves the airborne effectiveness of Fusion Rifles and Linear Fusion Rifles; final blows with these weapons make you radiant."
Transversive Steps Warlock Exotic Destiny 2 art

Transversive Steps

WarlockLegsFree-to-PlayExotic EngramsSeason 1Free to Play Destiny 2 icon
Free-to-Play
Exotic Perk: "Sprint speed increased. After a short time sprinting, your currently equipped weapon is automatically reloaded."

Preferred Aspects and Fragments:

  • Aspects: Heat Rises and Icarus Dash’s movement bonuses are hard to resist, but Touch of Flame could be used in rare situations.
  • Fragments: Ember of Solace, Ember of Torches, Ember of Empyrean, Ember of Benevolence.

Preferred Abilities and Stats:

  • Stats: Recovery, Discipline.
  • Abilities: Daybreak is great for both its movement and killing capabilities, and Celestial Fire’s range and tracking is usually preferred. Solar Grenade is excellent here, but unique grenades like Healing can excel just as much.

 

Before you go…

We cover all the best Solar builds here. If you’re interested in exploring other Warlock Subclasses, don’t miss our Destiny 2 Shadinder Subclass guide.

About The Author

Ric Molina
Ric Molina
I've been covering gaming since 2012, and some of my work has been featured by large brands, including MSN.com, Forbes, Rock Paper Shotgun, and more. I've been obsessed with Destiny 2 (and now Diablo 4) for years now, and I hope to provide new and returning players with the guides and resources I wish I had when I first started.
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