Destiny 2 The Lightblade Grandmaster Guide (S22)

Widely considered one of the hardest Grandmaster Nightfalls to date, The Lightblade is unforgiving at every turn. Even for the most skilled fireteams, this Grandmaster proves to be an extreme combat challenge that offers little to no room for error.

Today, we’ll cover everything you’ll need to know to conquer The Lightblade GM: the best loadouts, preferred strategies, and more.

Updated as of Season of the Witch (S22).

Heist Battleground Mars GM: Loadouts & Subclasses

Because most of The Lightblade’s challenge comes from combat, running the right loadout is vital to your fireteam’s success. Let’s take a look at the best options for each member of your team.

Subclasses and Exotics

To start, you’ll want at least one Hunter on an Omnioculus Void Invisibility build. This makes multiple sections of the strike significantly easier and can come in clutch when trying to revive allies.

For Titans, a Strand Banner of War build is the way to go. While you probably won’t be meleeing all that much, the health bumps Banner of War provides are insanely powerful. Suspend is also a strong tool here, allowing you to stagger Unstoppable champions with ease. If you have two Titans, have the second one run a Void build that specializes in suppressing combatants; this will be extremely helpful when dealing with Hive Lightbearers.

Lastly, Warlocks have the option between a Vesper of Radius Arc build and a Collective Obligation Void build. If you have the tools to run our Commander of Chaos build, that’ll be best. If not, run Vesper of Radius to blind as many combatants as possible.

Armor	Class	Type	Requirements	Source	Released	Requires	Exotic Perk
Vesper of Radius	Warlock	Chest	Free-to-Play	Exotic Engrams	Season 2	Free-to-Play	Exotic Perk: "Rifts periodically release Arc shockwaves. Final blows with these shockwaves create an Arc explosion. While an Arc subclass is equipped, the shockwaves and subsequent explosions blind nearby targets. Rift energy recharges faster when you are surrounded by targets."
Omnioculus	Hunter	Chest	Beyond Light	Lost Sectors	Season 13	Beyond Light	Exotic Perk: "You gain a second Smoke Bomb charge and have damage resistance while invisible. When you make an ally invisible, they gain damage resistance while invisible and you gain melee energy."

Loadout

The Lightblade features Barrier and Unstoppable champions, in addition to Hive Lightbearers. Because of this, we recommend Wish-Ender, an Unstoppable weapon of your choice, and the subclasses above to deal with those pesky Lucent Hive.

Linear fusion rifles are our favorite heavy weapons here for their high damage output, but machine guns aren’t a bad option either. Special weapons are up to you, but make sure your fireteam has a good variety of ad clear and DPS.

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?
	Wish-Ender	Combat Bow	Exotic	Exotic	Primary	Kinetic	Forsaken Pack	Yes	Primary	Kinetic	Best ❘ S	PvE	Exotic Quest	No	Forsaken Pack	Season 4	Kinetic	No	Top-tier
	Conditional Finality	Shotgun	Exotic	Exotic	Special	Stasis	Lightfall	Yes	Special	Stasis	Best ❘ S	PvE + PvP	Root of Nightmares Raid	No	Lightfall	Season 20	Kinetic	No	Top-tier
	Stormchaser	Linear Fusion Rifle	Aggressive	Legendary	Heavy	Arc	Deluxe Edition	Yes	Heavy	Arc	Average ❘ B	PvE	Duality Dungeon	No	Deluxe Edition	Season 17	Heavy	No

GM Power Level Requirements

If you’re interested in running a GM, you need to have a proper Power Level (including your Artifact’s bonus Power):

For the record, Power Level requirements were drastically reduced this season to allow more players to experience Grandmaster Nightfalls.

The Lightblade GM rotation

The Lightblade GM Guide

Courtyard and Beginning Room

The Lightblade, Opening

The courtyard you begin the strike in is relatively easy if you play it slow. Damaging Alak-Hul enough will get him to teleport away, opening up a wide variety of angles for you to kill Barrier champions from. After all the champions are clear, have your Void Hunter guide you to the next room with invisibility.

The next room is packed with Hive Lightbearers and Barrier champions. Use any suppression abilities you have to your advantage here, and remember that you can move backward through the hallway you came from if you need a second to breathe. Every time you kill a Hive Lightbearer, have your Invis Hunter run in to finish the Ghost.

Hive Boat and Bog Sequences

The next portion of the strike consists of your fireteam riding atop a Hive Tomb Ship. After boarding the vehicle, kill everything surrounding you until the boat comes to a halt at the chained-off barrier. At this point, retrieve the Void charges one at a time, taking great care when dealing with the Hive Lightbearers. These Lightbearers tend to pop their Supers immediately when they see someone on your fireteam, so have suppressing abilities ready.

The Lightblade, Void Charges

Have your Hunter constantly make your fireteam invisible during the next boat ride section; doing so is both easier and quicker than attempting to defeat all the Wizards and Shriekers here. Kill the Thrall when the boat stops again, and you’ll be done with this section.

For the bog portion, use your Hunter’s invisibility to your advantage, but don’t rely on it. If you mess up a cycle, moths and Screeb can easily wipe your entire fireteam in an instant. Kill any enemies you see, use your abilities to your advantage, and watch out for moths!

Outside the Temple and Alak-Hul Boss Fight

In the final outer room before entering the temple, don’t drop down to where all the enemies are; instead, keep your high ground in the cave, watching out for Screeb and other enemies who can and will jump up to you. In this room, defeating both Shriekers will trigger Alak-Hul to teleport away, so focus them. Then, slowly work your way through the rest of the enemies from above until everything is dead.

The Lightblade, Temple

The Alak-Hul boss fight is one of the hardest sequences in the entire strike. To make it easier, assign one member of your fireteam to constantly jump between the center platform and the upper side platforms to keep Alak-Hul’s attention. This should, in theory, allow the other two members of your fireteam to damage him with relative ease.

When you get Alak-Hul to an immunity threshold, a Hive Lightbearer will spawn (among a bunch of other enemies). Prioritize it first, then focus on the powerful sword-bearing knights that spawn with it. Once you kill all three powerful knights, Alak-Hul will mobilize again and Barrier champions will spawn. Stick as a team as best you can while bursting down champions whenever you get the chance. These waves of Barrier champions also spawn more frequently later in the fight, midway through damage phases.

The Lightblade, Final Boss

As a final bit of general advice, if you ever see yourself getting crowded by enemies, just run. Continuously moving is the easiest and most reliable way to stay alive, even if you’re not doing any damage to combatants shooting at you. From here, you can find a safe space to catch your breath, regroup with your team to focus on a champion or Lightbearer, or quickly get over to an ally’s revive.

Before you go

If you’re interested in tackling the Conqueror title, and clearing all GMs this season, we have a guide for next week’s GM here.