Once a joke of an Exotic, Foetracer has seen the best glow-up of any exotic to date. While its old functionality of marking targets sticks around, the added benefit of a massive damage boost just for dealing Ability damage is why everyone’s talking about it once more.
Today, we’ll go through how to acquire this Exotic Hunter helmet and the best ways to utilize it to the fullest.
How to get the Foetracer Exotic arms
As Foetracer is an Exotic from all the way back in vanilla Destiny 2, most Hunters should have this already, collections or otherwise. If not, you have a few options to acquire at your disposal:
- Random Exotic drops from any event
- Legend or Master Lost Sectors (Head Armor days only)
- Vex Strike Force Event
- Xur (Fated Engram)
While the first option requires the least effort, the other three are much more efficient as they work on a knockout system. Legend or Master Lost Sectors will be your most straightforward path as the exotic drops will only be of that day’s slot, thereby having the smallest pool to pull from. Vex Strike Force and Xur’s Fated Engram pull from the entire Exotic pool for that Class, so you may have to wait a while to snag a drop from there.
Whatever way you get Foetracer to drop for the first time, once it does, you can focus for more at Rahool or get it from any Exotic drop moving forward.
Foetracer Hunter Exotic, Destiny 2
Foetracer: How to master it
Foetracer is about as simple of an exotic as one can get: simply damage your target using any ability, and you will get a damage buff to weapons that match your subclass energy.
| Armor | Class | Type | Requirements | Source | Released | Requires | Exotic Perk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Foetracer | Hunter | Helm | Free-to-Play | Exotic Engrams | Season 1 |  Free-to-Play | Exotic Perk: "Damaging a powerful combatant or Guardian with an ability grants you a temporary bonus to weapon damage matching your subclass type. Defeating that target with a weapon matching the damage type of your subclass creates an elemental pickup." |
The buff itself increases matching weapons by a whopping 25% and lasts for 10 seconds. However, this buff can only activate off of the following enemy types:
- Majors (Identified by name in all caps/yellow health bar on default colorblind settings)
- Bosses (Skull next to name in health bar)
All that is needed to activate the perk is dealing damage with any Ability. Once you do, the target will be marked (glowing and orange ‘x’ placed over them) and you will have an “X Weapon Surge x4” buff for 10 seconds.
This buff cannot be refreshed while it is up, requiring a second ability hit to re-activate it. As such, our Best Builds will go over how to take the most advantage of this very simple exotic.
Best Foetracer Builds
There are two builds out there I would personally recommend for Foetracer, both focusing on quick burst DPS, but done in slightly different ways. The end result is the same, however: massive damage in a very short window.
Gjallarhorn, a top-tier Solar Heavy weapon
Worm’s Wrath
Excels In: Total Boss Damage
Mandatory Gear: A Solar Heavy weapon and Foetracer. A Solar Fusion rifle (optional) can really help too.
- Aspects: Knock Em’ Down and On Your Mark.
- Fragments: Ember of Empyrean, Ember of Solace, Ember of Mercy, Ember of Torches, and Ember of Searing.
- Abilities: Healing Grenades are fine depending on the situation, but a damage-dealing grenade will get the buff back up if needed. Dealer’s choice for the Super and Melee.
- Stats: Resilience and either discipline or strength, depending on what you will be using to deal damage to the boss
- Mods:
- Helmet: Harmonic Siphon x2 (if not using Solar Fusion), Ashes to Assets/Hands On x1
- Arms: Grenade/Melee Kickstart x2, Impact Induction/Momentum Transfer x1
- Chest: Charged Up x2
- Legs: Innervation/Invigoration x2, Elemental Charge x1
- Cloak: Bomber/Outreach x2, Reaper x1
Strand Supreme
Excels In: Burst Boss DPS
Mandatory Gear: Cataphract or Koraxi’s Distress and Foetracer.
| Art | Weapon | Type | Archetype | Rarity | Ammo? | Element? | Requirements | In loot pool? | Ammo | Element | Tier | Excels | Source | Craftable? | Requires | Released | Slot | Can be Crafted? | Best of? | Top Perk? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Koraxis's Distress | Grenade Launcher | Rapid-Fire | Legendary | Heavy | Strand | Lightfall | Yes |  Heavy |  Strand | Average ❘ B | - | Root of Nightmares Raid |  Yes |  Lightfall | Season 20 | Heavy | Craftable | Reconstruction | |
 | Cataphract GL3 | Grenade Launcher | Adaptive | Legendary | Heavy | Strand | Lightfall | Yes | Heavy | Strand | Strong ❘ A | PvP | Trials of Osiris |  No | Lightfall | Season 22 | Heavy | No | Top-tier | Bait and Switch |
- Aspects: Widow’s Silk for double grenade charges. Dealer’s choice on the second Aspect.
- Fragments: Thread of Fury, Generation, and Mind are the only mandatory choices here for ability regeneration.
- Abilities: Shackle or Grapple Grenade. Threadlings are usable, but take too long to reach the target in most cases.
- Stats: Resilience, disciple, and mobility
- Mods:
- Helmet: Harmonic Siphon x2 (if not using Pressurized Precision), Ashes to Assets/Hands On x1
- Arms: Grenade Kickstart x2, Impact Induction x1
- Chest: Charged Up x2
- Legs: Innervation x3
- Cloak: Bomber x2, Reaper x1
Gameplay Loop (for both builds)
The loop is very simple: once you have found a Major or Boss target, toss your grenade or melee at it, wait until it is marked and the “X Weapon Surge x4” buff appears in the bottom left, and proceed to lay into the target with your weapon of choice. If you are using the Solar build, Radiant dodge will add an extra 25% buff on top of the surges you get from Foetracer, letting you dish out very heavy burst DPS without the aid of any teammates.
When there is downtime between damage phases, use your dodge to help speed up the recovery of the abilities, and the kickstarts should help recover some of the energy as well. Foetracer’s buff practically negates the need to use Armor Charges on surges, so those can go into said kickstart mods.
The key difference between the Solar and Strand builds here is how long the DPS phase is. The Strand build is best utilized in short phases, such as Caretaker or Explicator. The Solar one is more of a general use case and will see higher overall numbers, though the Burst Damage per Second might not be on the same scale, unless you use something like Parasite. And as always, builds like these are best done in groups, as there is a potential for 1-2 phases on some bosses if pulled off correctly.
Before you go…
That’s all, folks! With an extremely easy activation, Foetracer is one of, if not the, best damage Exotics in the game. And the builds listed above only scratch the surface of what is possible. This could very nicely pair with a Stasis special weapon and Cold Comfort for longer damage phases, as Stasis Hunter gets double melee charges. The possibilities are endless!
If you’re looking for other worthy Hunter Exotics, don’t miss the new Mothkeeper’s Wraps Hunter Exotic.
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