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 discovered so far. And by the way, as any top-tier Strand build, these builds will guide you every step of the way, including essential Exotics, Mods, and more.

Top Hunter Strand builds

--	Name	Class	Area	Subclass	Excels in	Element	Status
	Silky Feast	Hunter	PvE	Strand	Mid to Endgame PvE content	Strand
	The Woven Widow	Hunter	PvE	Strand	Mid to Endgame PvE content	Strand
	Strand	Hunter	PvP	Strand	Extremely high level of mobility but long cooldowns.	Strand

Best Hunter Strand PvE builds

The Woven Widow

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

Goal of the Build: Constantly swing to your refunding Grapple point and rain death from above while keeping yourself safe with Woven Mail.

Any weapon that has a single shot in the magazine, options like Blinding Breech Grenade Launchers or Witherhoard are great. Demolitionist weapons are also good picks. For the Exotic, you’ll definitely need Cyrtarachne’s Facade:

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."

• Aspects: Widow’s Silk and Ensaring Slam are the only two options currently.
• Fragments: Thread of Ascent, Thread of Generation, Thread of Transmutation, and Thread of Continuity.
• Abilities: Grapple is necessary; either dodge is fine.
• Stats: Maximum Resilience and Discipline are best.
• Mods:
  • Helmet: 2x Siphon mods matching your weapons
  • Arms: 3x Grenade Kickstart
  • Chest: Charged Up and one damage resistance mod
  • Legs: Surge matching your weapons
  • Cloak: 2x Bomber and 1x Distribution

Gameplay Loop

This build is focused on fun more than anything else. There may be niche areas of viability, but the loop is simply finding a good spot to ‘center’ your grappling around and constantly swing around using the grapple point you placed. Through Thread of Ascent, you will constantly be reloading with every single grapple, allowing you to spam shots from above with a Blinding Grenade Launcher, for example, allowing your teammates to clear up for you.

You will also be constantly gaining Woven Mail which will give you a 60% damage resistance by simply grappling. Keeping track of your grapple points and finding angles to stay away from enemies but still providing utility to your team is paramount to finding success with this build.

If you see an opportunity, you can dive into the enemies and suspend them, use your melee, get out as fast as possible, and go back to grappling.
Pro tip: You can effectively fly with triple Grenade Kickstart, simply swing around your grapple point a few times until your grenade is fully refunded and keep moving forward.

Silky Feast

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

Goal of the Build: Build your Super and utilize your abilities to unleash Silkstrike and take down bosses in a single Super.

Mandatory Gear: For weapons, Bad Juju is an option for improved super regeneration but is not needed/not worth it. For the Exotic, you’ll definitely need Star-Eater Scales:

Armor	Class	Type	Requirements	Source	Released	Requires	Exotic Perk
Star-Eater Scales	Hunter	Legs	Beyond Light	Lost Sectors	Season 14	Beyond Light	Exotic Perk: "You gain additional Super energy from Orbs of Power you pick up. While your Super energy is full, picking up an Orb of Power overcharges your Super, causing you to gain a burst of healing when cast and a bonus to your Super damage. At maximum overcharge, you also gain an overshield."

• Aspects: Widow’s Silk and Ensaring Slam are the only two options currently.
• Fragments: Thread of Wisdom, Thread of Warding, Thread of Propagation and Thread of Mind. Thread of Continuity also works.
• Abilities: When unlocked, Shackle Grenade will be best. Threaded Spike is the only melee option. Gambler’s Dodge is best for your dodge.
• Stats: Maximum Resilience and intellect are best. High Mobility is also good.
• Mods: The mods you’ll need are Siphon and Surge mods matching your weapons, plus:

Art	Mod Name	Slot	Cost	Requirements	Effects	Type
	Font of Wisdom	Helmet	3	Rank 7	You gain a bonus to intellect while you have any Armor Charge. Armor Charges decay over time.	Passive
	Melee Kickstart	Arms	4	Rank 7	When your melee energy is fully expended, you gain melee energy. Additionally, your Armor Charge is consumed and you gain additional melee energy for each stack.	Passive
	Heavy Handed	Arms	1	Rank 5	Your powered melee final blows create Orbs of Power.	General
	Charged Up	Chest	3	Rank 7	Increases the maximum number of stacks of Armor Charge you can carry by 1.	Generator
	Time Dilation	Class Item	3	Rank 7	Your decaying Armor Charge has a longer duration.	Generator
	Reaper	Class Item	3	Rank 6	After using your class ability, your next weapon final blow spawns an Orb of Power.	General

Gameplay Loop

The gameplay loop for this build is similar to that of the Star-Eating Barrage. Simply aim to build your super as fast as possible by collecting as many orbs as possible and utilizing your melee and dodge to maximize Super uptime.

During your super, you will be able to spam the light attack to deal considerable damage, taking down certain bosses with complete ease at maximum stacks, as Feast of Light x4 is a 70% Super damage bonus, making it viable for dealing with high health targets in endgame content. In a single attempt, I managed to get 80% of Phalanx Echo’s health down from the Prophecy Dungeon, and that’s without hitting all max damage shots with the super, as hitting enemies with the tip of the dart will guarantee the most damage.

The downside of this build is the lackluster neutral game; however, if you can play around that and passively build your super, you can do some big damage while looking stylish doing it.$

Don’t miss our: Best Destiny 2 Hunter Void Builds for PvE and PvP

Hunter Strand PvP build

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.

Subclasses

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.
• igh skill ceiling.
• Grappling into an Ensnaring Slam dive is a combo that, when mastered, is hard to deal with.

Cons:

• Long cooldowns.
• Low skill floor (hard to use effectively and easy to die with).
• Can be countered by players focusing on you.

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."
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."
St0mp-EE5	Hunter	Legs	Free-to-Play	Exotic Engrams	Season 1	Free-to-Play	Exotic Perk: "Increases sprint speed and slide distance. Improves High Jump, Strafe Jump, and Triple Jump."

Due to a lack of prerequisites, neutral and more passive Exotics are often favored in PvP. 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, despite the nerfs, is still an excellent pick. It allows you to rotate around the map quicker and also feels brilliant to use, which is always a bonus. People like moving fast regardless of the downside, and Stompees provides this in abundance.

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.

Before you go…

You can find all the top builds for Titans, Warlocks, and Hunters here.