Best Destiny 2 Warlock Solar Builds for PvE and PvP

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

Top Stasis Warlock builds

--	Name	Class	Area	Subclass	Excels in	Element	Status
	Sun Wizard	Warlock	PvE	Solar	Casual Content	Solar	Best in Class
	Noble Assembler	Warlock	PvE	Solar	Solo Content	Solar

Best Warlock Solar builds for PvE

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.

Armor	Class	Type	Requirements	Source	Released	Requires	Exotic Perk
Sunbracers	Warlock	Arms	Free-to-Play	Exotic Engrams	Season 1	Free-to-Play	Exotic Perk: "Increases the duration of Solar Grenades. Solar melee kills grant unlimited Solar Grenade energy for a brief time."

• Aspects: Touch 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.

Noble Assembler

Excels In: Solo 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.

Armor	Class	Type	Requirements	Source	Released	Requires	Exotic Perk
Boots of the Assembler	Warlock	Legs	Beyond Light	Lost Sectors	Season 14	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.

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?
	Lumina	Hand Cannon	Exotic	Exotic	Primary	Kinetic	Forsaken Pack	Yes	Primary	Kinetic	Best ❘ S	PvE + PvP	Exotic Kiosk		Forsaken Pack	Season 7	Kinetic	No	Top-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.

Don’t miss our: Best Destiny 2 Warlock Void Builds

Warlock Solar PvP build

Because of its competitive nature, stats are significantly more critical in the Crucible than in PVE. For Warlocks, high Recovery is a must as it is tied to your health and rift regeneration speeds. Additionally, because of Destiny’s ability-focused nature, high Discipline is irreplaceable too. Lastly, while it’s more important on Titan, mid-high Resilience can also be helpful. Some things (such as two-shot kills with Thorn) depend on the enemy’s Resilience stat, so having around Tier 6 or 7 is always useful.

Generally speaking, the most potent PvP mods come in the form of stat, unflinching, targeting, and dexterity mods. These all provide passive buffs that are strong enough to notice in moment-to-moment gameplay.

Subclasses

While there is usually a meta Warlock subclass or general setup to run for the Crucible, every element has unique strengths and weaknesses.

Dawnblade

Beginning with Solar, Dawnblade primarily focuses on giving you and your allies various buffs. Radiant, a 10% damage bonus, can be easily activated using something like Ember of Torches. Restoration is the second primary Solar buff, giving you constant regeneration—even while taking damage. There are various ways to activate this, including Healing Grenade and  the combination of Phoenix Dive and Heat Rises.

These buffs can be enhanced using fragments such as Ember of Solace and Ember of Empyrean. You can also use Ember of Benevolence to boost ability regeneration when benefitting your allies.

Pros: 

• Great healing/support potential
• Various movement options
• Numerous choices for all abilities

Cons:

• Generally weaker abilities compared to Voidwalker/Shadebinder
• Weaker debuffs
• Less desirable fragment options

Best PvP Warlock Exotics

General Exotics

Armor	Class	Type	Requirements	Source	Released	Requires	Exotic Perk
Ophidian Aspect	Warlock	Arms	Free-to-Play	Exotic Engrams	Season 2	Free-to-Play	Exotic Perk: "Weapons ready and reload very quickly. Provides a small benefit to the airborne effectiveness stat of all weapons."
Transversive Steps	Warlock	Legs	Free-to-Play	Exotic Engrams	Season 1	Free-to-Play	Exotic Perk: "Sprint speed increased. After a short time sprinting, your currently equipped weapon is automatically reloaded."

Because of their ease of use and 24/7 activation, neutral exotics are the most common for general PVP. Ophidian Aspect has always been an S-Tier pick, passively boosting the snappiness of your weapons. Transversive Steps excels for a similar reason, providing quicker and more fluid movement (plus the ability to get a free reload).

Solar-specific Exotics

Armor	Class	Type	Requirements	Source	Released	Requires	Exotic Perk
Boots of the Assembler	Warlock	Legs	Beyond Light	Lost Sectors	Season 14	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."
Rain of Fire	Warlock	Legs	The Witch Queen	Lost Sectors	Season 17	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."

Rain of Fire, the Season of the Haunted exotic, is highly beneficial when using a Solar subclass and a fusion rifle (especially Vex Mythoclast). Boots of the Assembler also isn’t a terrible option to run on Dawnblade, allowing you to embrace the support role.

Before you go…

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