Best Destiny 2 Hunter Strand Builds for PvE and PvP

Are you a Hunter main and want to take your game to the next level? These are the best Hunter Strand builds in Destiny 2, including builds for endgame and Solo players. And by the way, as any top-tier Hunter build, these will guide you every step of the way, including essential Exotics, Mods, and more.

Top Strand Hunter builds

--	Name	Class	Area	Subclass	Excels in	Element	Status
	Diving Suspender	Hunter	PvE	Strand	Grandmaster Content	Strand	Best in Class
	Threaded Maelstrom	Hunter	PvE	Strand	Endgame	Strand

Best Hunter Strand builds for PvE

Diving Suspender

Excels in: Grandmaster Content

Goal of the Build: Utilise the Strand keywords, especially Suspend, to take down groups of enemies and crowd-control everything.

Mandatory Gear:  The Exotic The Sixth Coyote is mandatory here. Regarding weapons, Strand weapons such as Rufus’s Fury or The Immortal can work well, but any weapon works.

Armor	Class	Type	Requirements	Source	Released	Requires	Exotic Perk
The Sixth Coyote	Hunter	Chest	Forsaken Pack	Exotic Engrams	Season 4	Forsaken Pack	Exotic Perk: "Gain a second dodge charge."

• Aspects: Widow’s Silk and Ensnaring Slam are required for this build.
• Fragments: Thread of Continuity, Thread of Generation, and Thread of Warding. The last Fragment is a personal choice. Thread of Isolation is solid for general survivability, but Thread of Wisdom increases your Orb of Power generation.
• Abilities: Shackle Grenade and Threaded Spike. Both Marksman’s and Gambler’s Dodge can work, but Marksman’s is better due to its lower cooldown.
• Stats: Maximum Resilience, Discipline, and Mobility are best for this build. Dumping any leftover stats into Recovery is good for survivability.
• Mods:
  • Helmet: Harmonic Siphon, Heavy Ammo Finder, Heavy Ammo Scout.
  • Arms: Impact Induction, Grenade Kickstart, Fastball.
  • Chest: Charged Up and one damage resistance mod
  • Legs: Resistance Mods.
  • Class Item: Time Dilation and 2x Bomber.

Gameplay Loop

The gameplay loop of this build is focused on rotating your Grenade and Dodge cooldowns to always have a method of Suspending a target available. Using your Armor Charge stacks with Grenade Kickstart, alongside Thread of Generation, will allow you to have your Shackle Grenade on a low cooldown.

Orbs of Power are also vital as they are your source of Woven Mail, granting 58% damage resistance to all attacks. Players can use this build to crowd-control a large group of weaker enemies or constantly Suspend a tankier enemy, like a Champion in a Nightfall. Having four different avenues to Suspend a target allows for incredible flexibility in your abilities.

Overall, you must keep track of your cooldowns and abuse the duration of Suspend to ensure that your cooldown rotation can fully complete.

The Threaded Maelstrom

Excels in: Endgame (Dungeons, Raids, Legend content)

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 add-clear.

Mandatory Gear: Strand weapons are preferred. Quicksilver Storm (with its catalyst), Rufus’s Fury, or even Tessellation paired with a Kinetic Slot Strand Weapon will do great. For the Exotic, you'll definitely need the Sixth Coyote:

Armor	Class	Type	Requirements	Source	Released	Requires	Exotic Perk
The Sixth Coyote	Hunter	Chest	Forsaken Pack	Exotic Engrams	Season 4	Forsaken Pack	Exotic Perk: "Gain a second dodge charge."

• Aspects: Threaded Specter and Whirling Maelstrom.
• Fragments: Thread of Warding is excellent for survivability and Thread of Transmutation pairs excellently with it. Thread of Generation is good for general Grenade uptime, and the final Fragment is your choice.
• Abilities: Shackle Grenade or Grapple are best. Shackle is better in higher-level content, but Grapple is more fun. Gambler’s Dodge is the best pick for your Dodge ability.
• Stats: Resilience, Mobility, and Discipline.
• Mods:
  • Helmet: Siphon mod matching your weapons and Heavy Ammo Finder
  • Arms: Impact Induction, Focusing Strike, and Firepower
  • Chest: Damage resistance mod
  • Legs: 2x Surge matching your weapons and Recuperation
  • Class Item: Powerful Attraction and Bomber

Gameplay Loop

The most important thing to know with this build is how to create Tangles. If an enemy is debuffed by a Strand effect (Suspend, Unravel, or Sever), they turn into a Tangle upon death. Using your Melee, Grapple Melee, or Shackle Grenade will all affect your enemy with a debuff. Starting the fight, or securing the kill, with one of these abilities is the main step to getting this build going. Shooting or picking up and throwing the Tangle will activate Whirling Maelstrom

Using the Tangle on a boss while you are damaging them with your heavy weapon can add slightly to your damage, or you can throw it at a clump of enemies and have it take care of them while you handle another group.

Using your dodge as a survival tool is important as your Threaded Specter will draw aggro from every enemy around you, but also make sure to use your dodge to recharge your Threaded Spike as this deals solid damage and is a primary method of obtaining Tangles.

Don’t miss our: Top Destiny 2 Hunter Stasis Builds

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.

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

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 very tanky.

Before you go…

You can find all the best builds in Destiny 2 here.