Best Destiny 2 Hunter Builds for PvE & PvP (Renegades)

Are you a Hunter main and want to take your game to the next level? These are the best Hunter builds in Destiny 2 for PvE and PvP. As with all of our Destiny 2 builds, these will guide you every step of the way, including essential Exotics, Mods, and more.

Updated as of the release of the Renegades DLC. See Updates.

Best Hunter PvE builds

--	Name	Subclass	Rank	Excels in	Gear	Area	Class	Status
	Gift of the Tempest	Arc	1 🥇	Endgame		PvE	Hunter
	The Transcendent Tank	Prismatic	2 🥈	Grandmasters		PvE	Hunter	Top 3
	One-Two Grapple	Prismatic	3 🥉	Endgame		PvE	Hunter	Top 3
	Stealthed Gyrfalcon	Void	4	Endgame		PvE	Hunter
	Jolting Resolve	Prismatic	5	Endgame		PvE	Hunter	Top 3
	Gunpowder Guru	Prismatic	6	Endgame		PvE	Hunter
	Radiant Assassin	Solar	7	Solo Content		PvE	Hunter
	Temporal Teleporter	Prismatic	8	Endgame		PvE	Hunter
	Grasp of Duskfield	Stasis	9	Grandmasters		PvE	Hunter	Best in Class
	Threaded Maelstrom	Strand	10	Endgame		PvE	Hunter	Best in Class

Top 10 Hunter Builds (Ranked)

Gift of the Tempest

Excels In: Endgame

Goal of the Build: Stack up Combination Blow by using Tempest Strike and unleash deadly waves of Arc while retaining damage resistance through Amplified and Gifted Conviction Resist.

Mandatory  Gear: Gifted Conviction, Arc Weapons are nice, Praxic Blade works well.

Name: Gifted Conviction	Class: Hunter Slot: Chest	Source: Master Rahool Requires: The Final Shape	Exotic Perk: Activating Ascension or Tempest Strike throws bouncing explosives at nearby targets that jolt and damage them. Jolting nearby targets grants you damage resistance.
Name: Stoicism	Class: Titan Slot: Class Item	Source: Master Rahool Requires: The Final Shape	Exotic Perk: Can randomly roll with two of the following Stoicism Exotic Traits.

Praxic Blade

Sword

Special

Kinetic

Exotic Quest

Renegades DLC

• Aspects: Tempest Strike and Ascension.
• Fragments: Spark of Resistance, Spark of Shock, Spark of Amplitude, Spark of Frequency, and Spark of Ions.
• Abilities: Arc Staff, Combination Blow, Pulse or Flux Grenade.
• Stats Priority: Melee → Class → Health/Super/Weapons
• Mods:
  • Helmet: Special Ammo Finder, Hands-On, Harmonic Siphon (if using Arc weapon).
  • Arms: 2x Heavy Handed and Melee Font.
  • Chest: Resistance Mods based on your enemies.
  • Legs: 1x Weapon Surge matching Special weapon, Absolution, and Recuperation.
  • Class Item: Powerful Attraction, Time Dilation, and Special Finisher.

Gameplay Loop

The gameplay loop of this build operates entirely off the Tempest Strike and Gambler’s Dodge abilities. Functioning like a classic Combination Blow setup, you will rotate between using your melee and dodge, except this time, your melee is now Tempest Strike, a much more powerful attack that can take out waves of enemies with ease, stacking Combination Blow instantly.

By utilising Ascension with this, you also have even more AoE and mobility, as well as more access to the defensive benefits provided by Gifted Conviction. Jolting as often as possible is important with this build, as you are going to be up close and personal with the enemy, so having as high ‘Resist’ stacks as possible from Gifted Conviction is ideal.

The Transcendent Tank

Excels in: Endgame

Goal of the Build: Combo your abilities to maintain high levels of damage resistance while leveraging your ability regeneration in Transcendence as often as possible.

Mandatory Gear: Relativism with Spirit of Inmost Light and Spirit of Cyrtarachne.

Name: Relativism

Class: Hunter Slot: Class Item

Source: Master Rahool Requires: The Final Shape

Exotic Perk: Can randomly roll with two of the following Relativism Exotic Traits.

• Aspects: Stylish Executioner and Ascension.
• Fragments: Facet of Purpose, Facet of Hope, Facet of Courage, and Facet of Protection.
• Abilities: Golden Gun or Silkstrike, Grapple, Threaded Spike, and Gambler’s Dodge.
• Stats: Grenade → Melee → Class → Health/Super.
• Mods:
  • Helmet: Siphon matching your weapons, Heavy Ammo Finder, and Super Font.
  • Arms: Heavy Handed, Grenade or Melee Font, and Focusing Strike.
  • Chest: Resistance Mods based on your enemies.
  • Legs: Recuperation, Absolution, and a Scavenger Mod matching your Special or Heavy.
  • Class Item: Powerful Attraction, Class Font, and Special Finisher.

Gameplay Loop

This build focuses on using your abilities to maintain a high level of damage resistance, leveraging damage debuff effects such as Sever and the powerful bonus of Woven Mail and other damage resistance sources. Combined, it is nearly impossible to die, even in the most challenging content, such as Grandmaster Nightfalls.

Generally, you will want to take advantage of Tangles and maximize uptime on the Empowered Abilities buff, as this massively boosts your ability regeneration rate, improving your Woven Mail and Sever uptime. On top of this, you can weave in Ascension dodges to give yourself Amplified and jolt enemies. Alternatively, Winter’s Shroud can be used to slow enemies, providing excellent utility in certain situations.

What makes this build incredibly special is the fact that it is entirely flexible in weapon choice. You can run any weapon you like, and the build will still function as usual, making this setup even better in content containing Champions as you can tailor your loadout for them rather than the build. This build will also let you run more generally powerful weapons, such as a double Special Ammo Weapon setup involving weapons like VS Velocity Baton to generate Orbs of Power with Attrition Orbs. Weapons that build your Transcendence bar quickly are ideal so that you can gain 32% damage resistance from Facet of Protection and Transcendence’s base damage resistance buff. Festival Flight with Blast Disruptor and Attrition Orbs is perfect for this, as you can get approximately +60 to your grenade stat when Blast Disruptor is active, and it builds your Darkness Transcendence meter very quickly.

Overall, look to maintain your defensive buffs like Woven Mail and Ascension, and spam your abilities as often as possible to ensure you keep Empowered Abilities x2 to continue the loop of damage resistance.

One-Two Grapple

Excels In: Endgame

Goal of the build: Use Combination Blow x3 combined with Grapple Grenade to deal absurd damage to every enemy, taking down anything in sight.

Mandatory Gear: Liar’s Handshake or Relativism with Spirit of the Liar and a One-Two Punch Shotgun. The Navigator with its catalyst is recommended.

Name: Liar's Handshake	Class: Hunter Slot: Arms	Source: Exotic Engrams Requires: Forsaken Pack	Exotic Perk: Using your Arc melee ability or being hit by a melee attack will allow you to follow up with an extremely powerful melee counterpunch that will heal you.
Name: Relativism	Class: Hunter Slot: Class Item	Source: Master Rahool Requires: The Final Shape	Exotic Perk: Can randomly roll with two of the following Relativism Exotic Traits.

The Navigator

Trace Rifle

Special

Strand

Ghost of the Deep Dungeon

Monument of Triumph

• Aspects: Stylish Executioner and Winter’s Shroud or Ascension
• Fragments: Facet of Purpose, Facet of Protection, Facet of Hope, Facet of Courage.
• Abilities: Golden Gun, Grapple, Combination Blow, Gambler’s Dodge.
• Stats: Grenade → Melee → Super.
• Mods:
  • Helmet: Hands-On, Dynamo, and Heavy Ammo Finder.
  • Arms: Grenade or Melee Fonts (depending on lower stat)
  • Chest: Resist Mods matching your enemies.
  • Legs: Harmonic Scavenger, Recuperation, and Absolution
  • Class Item: Powerful Attraction, Bomber, and Special Finisher.

Gameplay Loop

The overall goal of this build is to bring your Combination Blow stacks up to x3 so your Grapple Grenade does as much damage as possible. Stacking on other things like Liar’s Handshake, One-Two Punch, and even the Navigator Catalyst, you can have a setup that is infinite damage and deals ridiculous amounts of damage to bosses, even to the point where you can comfortably solo Raid Bosses (should you have the skill to do so).

On top of that, this build takes advantage of the already powerful classic melee setup of Liar’s Handshake. While opting for Ascension makes this combo harder, Winter’s Shroud can still work for this build, as the crux of the setup is simply stacking Combination Blow to x3, and then wreaking havoc with your Grapple.

Overall, this build is simply overpowered, and while it can be awkward to set up at times, you are well rewarded for your efforts.

Stealthed Gyrfalcon

Excels In: Endgame

Goal of the Build: Chain Invisibility to retain Volatile Rounds and synergize as much as possible with your Void 3.0 kit and weapons.

Mandatory Gear: Gyrfalcon’s Hauberk and a Void weapon. Weapons with Repulsor Brace are recommended (Collective Obligation, Graviton Lance, and The Manticore are acceptable choices).

Name: Gyrfalcon's Hauberk

Class: Hunter Slot: Chest

Source: Lost Sectors Requires: The Witch Queen

Exotic Perk: Your weapons gain a bonus to damage briefly after you emerge from being invisible. When you are invisible and defeat a combatant using a finisher, you and your nearby allies gain a reserve overshield and improved class ability regen. These reserve overshields can be deployed by using a class ability.

	Collective Obligation	Pulse Rifle	Primary	Void	Vow of the Disciple Raid	Monument of Triumph
	Graviton Lance	Pulse Rifle	Primary	Void	Exotic Engram	Season 1

• Aspects: Stylish Executioner and Vanishing Step.
• Fragments: Echo of Starvation, Echo of Persistence, Echo of Remnants, and Echo of Obscurity.
• Abilities: Moebius Quiver and Vortex Grenades. Either Dodge works.
• Stats: Weapons → Grenade → Class/Super.
• Mods:
  • Helmet: Void Siphon, Heavy Ammo Finder, and Super Font.
  • Arms: Grenade Font, Harmonic Reloader, Bolstering Detonation.
  • Chest: Concussive Dampener and Resistance Mods based on your enemies.
  • Legs: x2 Weapon Font and Void Surge.
  • Class Item: Reaper, Bomber, Powerful Attraction.

Gameplay Loop

Gyrfalcon’s Hauberk does practically everything. Essentially, the goal is to go Invisible through your dodge, exit Invisibility, gain Volatile Rounds, kill a Volatile enemy, and thus, re-enter Invisibility through Stylish Executioner and continue the cycle of exiting invisibility, getting a kill on a Volatile enemy, and repeating.

Adding in Devour grants you both Healing and Invisibility on kill. Then, once you add a Repulsor Brace weapon on top of this (which provides an overshield when defeating a Void-debuffed target), you become practically unkillable, weaving in and out of Invisibility with a tanky overshield and full health on kill.

By investing in our Weapons stat, we can manage ammo easier while also speeding up the loop of this build, as the quicker things die, the faster we go back into invisibility. Grenade is the next choice, as our Vortex Grenade is a good source of AoE damage, and finally, Class or Super is best as a final dump stat.

Jolting Resolve

Excels In: Grandmaster Content

Goal of the Build: Use your Prismatic abilities to take down enemies and fuel your damage resistance while also using your weapons to get kills.

Mandatory Gear: Gifted Conviction. A strong Kinetic weapon, such as the Multimach CCX, is also recommended.

Name: Gifted Conviction

Class: Hunter Slot: Chest

Source: Master Rahool Requires: The Final Shape

Exotic Perk: Activating Ascension or Tempest Strike throws bouncing explosives at nearby targets that jolt and damage them. Jolting nearby targets grants you damage resistance.

Multimach CCX

Submachine Gun

Primary

Kinetic

Iron Banner

Monument of Triumph

• Aspects: Ascension and Stylish Executioner.
• Fragments: Facet of Hope, Facet of Purpose, Facet of Protection, and Facet of Solitude.
• Abilities: Silktrike or Silence and Squall, Grapple, Threaded Spike, Gambler’s Dodge.
• Stats: Weapons → Class → Grenade → Melee.
• Mods:
  • Helmet: Siphon matching Primary ammo weapon, Heavy Ammo Finder, and Special Ammo Finder.
  • Arms: Loader matching Primary ammo weapon, Focusing Strike, and Bolstering Detonation.
  • Chest: Stat mod and damage resistance mods matching your enemy’s damage type.
  • Legs: Weapon Font x2 and Recuperation.
  • Class Item: Stat mod, Time Dilation, and Font of Class.

Gameplay Loop

As evidenced by the name of the build, the primary function of this build is to Jolt enemies using Gifted Conviction and gain damage resistance from it while also using your Threaded Spike to Sever combatants on top of your Facet of Solitude Sever.

Typically, pairing a good Kinetic weapon such as Multimach, Midnight Coup, or Unloved with this build is best, but you can choose anything. This allows you to complement your ability kills with standard weapon kills to help build your Transcendence bar, granting you even more damage resistance and some bonus damage.

Collecting Orbs of Power is crucial, so ensure to generate as many as possible; an Attrition Orbs + Kinetic Tremors Multimach is incredible for this, as with a Kinetic Siphon, you can generate a ton of Orbs. This allows you to activate Facet of Purpose as often as possible, granting either Woven Mail or Frost Armor for a short duration, which massively boosts your survivability, especially when paired with Recuperation and Better Already.

This build is perfect in endgame scenarios where there isn’t a boss to defeat, allowing you to run mini-boss-killing weapons such as a Fusion Rifle and a Machine Gun or even options such as Ergo Sum to build your Transcendence bar further.

Gunpowder Guru

Excels In: Endgame

Goal of the build: Use a weapon that matches your Grenade to stack Spirit of Verity to unleash a massive Gunpowder Gamble when ready.

Mandatory Gear: Relativism with Spirit of Verity for more damage and a weapon that matches your chosen Grenade.

Name: Relativism

Class: Hunter Slot: Class Item

Source: Master Rahool Requires: The Final Shape

Exotic Perk: Can randomly roll with two of the following Relativism Exotic Traits.

• Aspects: Gunpowder Gamble and Threaded Specter.
• Fragments: Facet of Ruin, Facet of Purpose, Facet of Protection, Facet of Balance, Facet of Courage, and Facet of Mending.
• Abilities: Silence and Squall, Gambler’s Dodge, Threaded Spike, and Swarm Grenade.
• Stats: Grenade → Weapons → Health or Melee.
• Mods:
  • Helmet: Siphon matching your weapon, Heavy Ammo Finder, and Super Font.
  • Arms: 2x Grenade Font and Heavy Handed
  • Chest: Resist Mods matching your enemies.
  • Legs: 2x Elemental Surge matching your Primary weapon and Invigoration.
  • Class Item: Time Dilation, Powerful Attraction, and Distribution.

Gameplay Loop

This loop centres around the Death Throes timer and how often you can get Gunpowder Gamble. With our setup, we are able to use any elemental weapon to obtain stacks, as long as it matches the element of our grenade (for example, an Arc Weapon can only be used alongside Arcbolt Grenade). Getting kills with the weapon will grant stacks of Death Throes up to x5, doubling our Grenade damage (and our Gunpowder Gamble damage).

Once this is stacked to x5, you have to get Gunpowder Gamble ready. Thanks to the changes made to Gunpowder Gamble, this is incredibly easy, so simply use whatever weapon you like, so long as it matches your base grenade type, so you can stack Death Throes.

Once you have fully stacked Gunpowder Gamble and your Death Throes stacks are at x5, chuck your Gunpowder Gamble at the nearest clump of enemies or miniboss and watch them ignite in a massive explosion. This build holds up in higher-level content thanks to the massive damage potential, survivability due to Facet of Mending and Purpose, and anti-Unstoppable Champion properties of Gunpowder Gamble’s ignition, making this build an absolute blast everywhere in the game.

By investing primarily in Grenade, we can increase our Gunpowder Gamble damage to new heights. Next, Weapons should be our focus as you want it to be as easy as possible to stack Spirit of Verity. Finally, Health and Melee can be your final focus. The only stats you need are Grenade and Weapons, so Health can be a nice cherry on top, and Melee is always a solid option as Threaded Spike’s Sever is great.

 Radiant Assassin

Excels in: Solo Content

Goal of the Build: Have infinite survivability through invisibility and a constant source of healing by having access to unlimited throwing knives.

Mandatory Gear: Assassin's Cowl. A Solar Primary, such as Yeartide Apex, is also recommended.

Name: Assassin's Cowl

Class: Hunter Slot: Helm

Source: Exotic Engrams Requires: Shadowkeep

Exotic Perk: Powered melee final blows grant invisibility and restore a portion of health and shields. Finishers and final blows against more powerful targets increase the duration of the invisibility and the amount of health and shields.

Yeartide Apex

Submachine Gun

Primary

Solar

Solstice Engram

Edge of Fate DLC

• Aspects: Knock ‘em Down and On Your Mark (to equip 5 Fragments).
• Fragments: Ember of Mercy, Ember of Torches, Ember of Empyrean, Ember of Singeing, and Ember of Searing.
• Abilities: Blade Barrage, Gambler’s Dodge, Knife Trick, and Healing Grenade.
• Stats: Melee → Class → Weapons → Health.
• Mods:
  • Helmet: Hands-On, Heavy Ammo Finder, and Harmonic Siphon.
  • Arms: Heavy Handed, Focusing Strike, and Melee Font.
  • Chest: Concussive Dampener and Resistance Mods based on your enemies.
  • Legs: Stacks on Stacks and Solar Surge.
  • Class Item: Time Dilation, Reaper, Powerful Attraction.

Gameplay Loop

The gameplay loop is quite simple with Assassin’s Cowl. The goal is to chain Knife Trick kills together to ensure maximum uptime on your invisibility and to have as much healing as possible. If you miss, Gambler’s Dodge is there to pick up the slack and provide you with another melee. Gambler’s Dodge and your melee will also recharge faster by scorching enemies with your Knife Trick.

You also have options like Healing Grenade if you find yourself out of a dodge and a melee ability. This can help fill in the gaps where you may miss your abilities on a target and need some survivability.

You always want to land the final blow with your knives, so if you can’t outright one-shot an enemy, prime them first with your weapon and finish them with the knife. Constantly getting kills with your knives will spam Orbs of Power for yourself and for your team.

By investing in Melee, we can massively increase our Throwing Knives damage, making it much easier to take down tankier targets, something that this build can struggle with at times. Choosing to next invest in Class and Weapons ensures that we will always have our Throwing Knives available, but in the rare situations where we have to use our guns, they’ll deal solid damage.

Temporal Teleporter

Excels In: Grandmaster Content

Goal of the Build: Take advantage of the synergy between Graviton Spike and Mask of Bakris to teleport around the battlefield, dealing high damage with your Primary Weapon.

Mandatory Gear: Mask of Bakris and Graviton Spike.

Name: Mask of Bakris

Class: Hunter Slot: Helm

Source: Lost Sectors Requires: Beyond Light

Exotic Perk: Replaces your Stasis subclass Dodge ability with a longer range, faster moving shift that partially cloaks you during use. After shifting, your Stasis and Arc weapons deal increased damage for a short time.

Graviton Spike

Hand Cannon

Primary

Arc

Exotic Quest

Edge of Fate DLC

• Aspects: Threaded Spectre + Winter’s Shroud or Ascension.
• Fragments: Facet of Purpose, Facet of Protection, Facet of Dawn, Facet of Balance, and Facet of Blessing.
• Abilities: Silence and Squall, Duskfield Grenade, Threaded Spike, and Gambler’s Dodge.
• Stats: Weapons → Class → Melee.
• Mods:
  • Helmet: x2 Heavy Ammo Finder and Harmonic Siphon.
  • Arms: x2 Momentum Transfer and Heavy Handed.
  • Chest: Concussive Dampener and Resistance Mods based on your enemies.
  • Legs: x2 Weapon Font and Recuperation.
  • Class Item: Reaper, Powerful Attraction, and Bomber.

Gameplay Loop

The gameplay loop of this build is incredibly simple. You will be killing enemies, jumping between forms on Graviton Spike, and activating Light Shift by using your Mask of Bakris dodge. Light Shift also gives you a bonus to your Arc and Stasis damage, and while that buff is present, kills will grant you a large amount of dodge energy, allowing you to continue the loop with ease.

By prioritising the weapons stat, you can ensure that your Graviton Spike is generating plenty of ammo while also dealing a good amount of damage. However, you will want to make sure that you have at least around 80 Class and 80 Melee in order for your dodge and melee to be up as often as possible.

Grasps of Duskfield

Excels in: Grandmaster Content

Goal of the Build: Keep areas locked down and protect your Fireteam with infinite Duskfield Grenades.

Mandatory Gear: Renewal Grasps. Weapons with Headstone are recommended (Buried Bloodline and Devour can help with Grenade regen).

Name: Renewal Grasps

Class: Hunter Slot: Arms

Source: Lost Sectors Requires: The Witch Queen

Exotic Perk: Your Duskfield grenades have a much larger effect radius. Allies inside the Duskfield take reduced damage and targets inside the area deal reduced damage.

Buried Bloodline

Sidearm

Special

Void

Warlord's Ruin Dungeon

Monument of Triumph

• Aspects: Touch of Winter and Grim Harvest.
• Fragments: Whisper of Torment, Whisper of Conduction, Whisper of Rime, Whisper of Chains, and Whisper of Shards.
• Abilities: Gambler’s Dodge and Duskfield Grenades.
• Stats: Weapons → Grenade → Health or Melee.
• Mods:
  • Helmet: Harmonic Siphon (or Void Siphon if you use Buried Bloodline), Heavy Ammo Finder, and Special Ammo Finder.
  • Arms: Impact Induction, Grenade Font, and Harmonic Loader.
  • Chest: Resistance Mods based on your enemies.
  • Legs: Innervation, Recuperation, and Weapon Font.
  • Class Item: Bomber, Reaper, and Powerful Attraction.

Gameplay Loop

The gameplay loop for the Renewal Grasp build can be altered and changed depending on your needs and playstyle. But, despite the versatility, the core ‘needs’ of the build remain the same.

Whisper of Shards is the engine that keeps the train going, granting Grenade energy upon shattering a Stasis crystal. Forming crystals is easy with Headstone weapons or through Touch of Winter Grenades. Making sure you destroy every Stasis crystal you see is paramount to keeping the Duskfield spam going.

Despite saying this, Whisper of Chains also provides damage resistance when near a Stasis crystal, so timing is essential. Try to destroy Stasis crystals when you have gotten good use out of them, as they can not only provide damage resistance but also deal solid AoE damage.

Overall, the aim is to lock down large groups of enemies and make them deal less damage while spamming Duskfields. This will help protect you and your Fireteam, regardless of difficulty.

By focusing on the Weapons stat, we can ensure that our Heavy and Special weapons are always full on ammo, and that our guns deal good damage. We can choose to prioritise Weapons over Grenade as the actual damage of our Grenade doesn’t matter much as we are using Duskfield Grenades. Finally, this build aims to be tanky, so Health isn’t a bad option, but boosting our Melee stat is also nice to have a backup damage option.

The Threaded Maelstrom

Excels in: Endgame

Goal of the Build:  Utilise your Strand Weapons and Abilities to generate Tangles and weaponize the Maelstroms to add to your DPS or help in ad-clear.

Mandatory Gear: Cyrtarachne's Facade. Strand weapons are recommended (such as the Quicksilver Storm).

Name: Cyrtarachne's Facade

Class: Hunter Slot: Helm

Source: Lost Sectors Requires: Lightfall

Exotic Perk: Gain Woven Mail when activating grapple. Increased flinch resistance while Woven Mail is active.

Quicksilver Storm

Auto Rifle

Primary

Strand

Exotic Kiosk

Lightfall DLC

• Aspects: Widow’s Silk and Whirling Maelstrom.
• Fragments: Thread of Ascent, Thread of Generation, Thread of Transmutation, and either Thread of Isolation or Thread of Binding​.
• Abilities: Gambler’s Dodge and Shackle Grenade or Grapple Grenade. Shackle is better in higher-level content, but Grapple is more fun.
• Stats: Weapons → Grenade → Melee.
• Mods:
  • Helmet: Harmonic Siphon, Hands-On, and Heavy Ammo Finder.
  • Arms: Impact Induction, Focusing Strike, and Harmonic Loader.
  • Chest: Resistance Mods based on your enemies.
  • Legs: Recuperation, 2x Strand Weapon Surge.
  • Class Item:  Powerful Attraction, Bomber, and Proximity Ward.

Gameplay Loop

The loop for this build revolves around Woven Mail. Keeping Woven Mail active is necessary for your survivability, as well as generating Tangles, as Thread of Transmutation is one of your primary sources of Tangle generation.

Grappling from place to place, keeping your Woven Mail active will allow you to stay on the move while also continuously spawning the Threaded Maelstrom Tangles. These maelstroms, on top of the damage from Quicksilver Storm or a Grapple Melee, allow you to wipe any non-boss enemy off the map with ridiculous speed.

Overall, look to keep Woven Mail active through your Grapple, generate as many Tangles as possible, and let your Threaded Maelstroms roam the battlefield while you pummel enemies with your weapon of choice and Grapple melees.

Best Hunter PvP builds

PvP Essentials

Step one to playing Hunter in PvP is understanding that your Dodge is the strongest ability in your kit. Because of this, maximizing Mobility is a very standard choice for the shortest cooldown on your Dodge. Making sure that you have maximum Recovery is also recommended.

Hunters come with the benefit of being able to completely ignore the Strength stat, as using Gambler’s Dodge allows you to completely refund your melee ability when dodging near an enemy. This lets you dump the rest of your stat points into Discipline and Resilience. Personally, I choose to run 100 Mobility, Recovery, and Discipline; however, feel free to adapt some stats to your own preference.

Hunter Subclasses: Ranked

There will always be a ‘meta’ option for PvP, but every Hunter subclass is viable in its own way, with its own set of pros and cons.

Gunslinger

Gunslinger can be set up in numerous ways. You can focus on making your allies Radiant with Acrobat’s Dodge, you can go for maximum explosions with Proximity Knives and Tripmine Grenades, or you can play more passively and utilize your agility to survive combined with Healing Grenades. The choice is entirely yours.

Pros:

• Wide variety of melee options
• Has excellent teamplay with On Your Mark and Acrobat’s Dodge
• Powerful Supers in Golden Gun and Blade Barrage

Cons:

• Only has two truly viable aspects. Gunpowder Gamble is too niche for consistent use.
• Aspects don’t overly alter gameplay in an incredibly potent manner compared to Invisibility on Nightstalker.
• Lack of map control/area control capabilities that Smoke Bomb and Stasis both bring.

Arcstrider

Arcstrider has quite a few unique parts of its kit, built-in damage resistance, blink, and some blinding potential with Disorienting Blow; it makes Arcstrider quite the all-rounder.

Pros:

• Excellent super. Lasts long and can outduel any other melee supers with skill and timing.
• High Jolt potential with Disorienting Blow.
• Solid neutral game with high mobility.

Cons:

• No game-changing qualities that the other 3 subclasses have (Freezing, Invisibility, Radiant, or Restoration)
• Super can be outmaneuvered by ranged supers such as Golden Gun, Dawnblade, or Hammer of Sol.
• The All-rounder kit makes it a bit of a ‘jack of all trades master of none.’

Nightstalker

Nightstalker remains one of the most powerful kits in the game, even despite the nerfs that it has received. Invisibility is still incredible, and the map control and radar manipulation possible is not something to ignore.

Pros:

• Invisibility and Smoke Bombs allow you to fool your opponents and catch them off guard completely.
• It synergizes incredibly well with certain meta-picks such as Omnioculus or Wormhusk Crown.
• Invisibility makes you incredibly hard to see with the changes to Invisibility’s ‘visibility’ that came with Void 3.0.

Cons:

• Weak super choices. Spectral Blades is often outclassed and takes incredibly long to charge, and Tether is too inconsistent to warrant use.
• The kit relies heavily on Invisibility as much of the kit’s strength is placed on Invisibility.
• One-dimensional fragment choices. All grant Invisibility and provide little else, perhaps making the subclass slightly boring to play.

Revenant

Despite falling off in use, Revenant is still an excellent option for all hunters, as it can have such an influence on the game by merely throwing your abilities in the general direction of your opponent.

Pros:

• High utility. It can be used to help win gunfights solo or pick targets off with your teammates.
• Slowing enemies can massively help you win a fight, but freezing enemies gives your opponent a free kill.
• Strong Aspects across the board and even stronger Fragments that allow for some potent builds.

Cons:

• Poor super. Cast time is incredibly long, and there are better options if you are looking for a ‘shutdown’ super.
• Very limited kit, with only one Melee option and 3 Grenade options.
• Lack of potent freeze potential when compared to Shadebinder Warlock and lack of high movement compared with Behemoth Titan.

Strand

The brand-new subclass released with Lightfall, Strand provides unprecedented mobility, which can wreak havoc when used right. You can single-handedly initiate plays with your Grapple-Dive combo like no other class can and lead from the front in all game modes.

Pros:

• Super high level of mobility.
• High skill ceiling.
• Grappling into an Ensnaring Slam dive is a combo that, when mastered, is hard to deal with.

Cons:

• Long cooldowns.
• High-skill floor (hard to use effectively and easy to die with).
• Woefully poor super.

Best PvP Hunter Exotics

General Exotics

Armor	Class	Type	Requirements	Source	Released	Requires	Exotic Perk
Fr0st-EE5	Hunter	Legs	Free-to-Play	Exotic Engrams	Season 3	Free-to-Play	Increased grenade, melee, and dodge regeneration while sprinting. Dodging increases your sprint speed.
St0mp-EE5	Hunter	Legs	Free-to-Play	Exotic Engrams	Season 1	Free-to-Play	Increases sprint speed and slide distance while your dodge energy is full and improves High Jump, Strafe Jump, and Triple Jump.
Wormhusk Crown	Hunter	Helm	Free-to-Play	Exotic Engrams	Season 3	Free-to-Play	We strive to know infinity, and sharpen our minds on the whetstone of the impossible.

Due to a lack of prerequisites, neutral and more passive Exotics are often favored in PvP. Therefore, Stompees, Wormhusk, and Frostees always find a place in the meta for Hunters as they provide benefits while requiring nothing/very little to receive benefits from.

Stompees are still one of the most enjoyable Hunter exotics for PvP. The nerfs it received have affected viability quite a lot; however, they are still my pick if I’m playing PvP as they are just so fun to use.

Wormhusk Crown has been in the meta since it was released back in the Warmind DLC. Wormhusk provides unmatched instant value as it gives around a third of your health back for simply dodging. This allows you to take riskier engagements and get out with ease. Dodging is already a ‘get out of jail free card’, and Wormhusk takes this to another level.

Frostees are the pick for players who want high-ability uptime but don’t want to commit to a full-on build. By merely sprinting, you can increase your ability recharge rate by 100% and increase your Sprint Speed by 6.25% by simply dodging. Frostees will always serve players well when they want to maybe switch it up from the Stompees, but want to retain some movement speed and have high ability uptime.

Subclass-specific Exotics

Armor	Class	Type	Requirements	Source	Released	Requires	Exotic Perk
Cyrtarachne's Facade	Hunter	Helm	Lightfall	Lost Sectors	Season 20	Lightfall	Gain Woven Mail when activating grapple. Increased flinch resistance while Woven Mail is active.
Mask of Bakris	Hunter	Helm	Beyond Light	Lost Sectors	Season 12	Beyond Light	Replaces your Stasis subclass Dodge ability with a longer range, faster moving shift that partially cloaks you during use. After shifting, your Stasis and Arc weapons deal increased damage for a short time.

Subclass-specific Exotics normally see less use overall as they have more requirements to satisfy to reach their full potential. However, their raw strength often makes up for it.

Cyrtarachne’s Facade is a powerful option for Threadrunners. Woven Mail is solid damage resistance. Mastering the Threadrunner playstyle with Cyrtarachne’s can make you hyper-mobile and tanky.

Mask of Bakris may be one of the most fun exotics in the game. Replacing your Dodge with an extended ‘Shift’ allows you to get the drop on your opponents and completely break their ankles. Mastering this exotic can help you see incredible success as you can weave in and out of dangerous situations like nobody’s business.

Young Ahamkara’s Spine is very simple on paper. However, this simplicity shouldn’t be seen as a weakness. Ahamkara’s Spine increases Tripmine Grenade damage massively to the point where it will leave your opponent at death’s door, requiring a single shot from any weapon in the game to finish them off. Furthermore, Ahamkara’s Spine also grants Tripmine energy on Ability damage, allowing you to further abuse your explosive power.

There are plenty of other exotics that can find success, such as Athrys’s Embrace or Gemini Jester, and I recommend you experiment and find what build clicks with your playstyle the most.

Before you go…

The new Hunter Exotic is definitely worth chasing this season. We cover how to get the Mothkeeper’s Wraps in Destiny 2 here.