This page details the classes and sub-classes of Guardians. For other characters, head back here for the character index.
Beware of unmarked spoilers.
Hunters
The "Masters of the Frontier," Hunters make extensive use of guns and knives. They have the highest Agility of the classes, and their bonuses amplify that, and reward an accurate shot.
Their unique class ability is the Dodge; on a short cooldownnote , the Hunter can execute an evasive maneuver in any direction. The Dodge can also be enhanced with one of two perks; Marksman's Dodge causes the Dodge to instantly reload your equipped weapon. Gambler's Dodge causes the Hunter to instantly recharge their melee ability when using it near an enemy.
- Action Fashionista: According to the description for the Dynamo Cloak, Hunters have two missions: protect the City and look better than Warlocks (but they shouldn't look like they are actively trying to do so). To quote one of the Queen's Guard on the Reef;"Did you see that Hunter? How many times can you adjust a cloak until it's right?"
- Animal Motifs: A lot of exotic armor pieces, particularly a few helmets, give the impression of spiders. In Destiny 2, the motif is shifted over to snakes, presumably to let the Fallen keep most of the spider focus. That being said. however, Nightstalkers can use their Shadowshot bow to make a very tight web.
- Badass Cape: One that also functions as a hood.
- Badass Normal: Comparatively to the other classes. Hunters have a simple knife for their melee attacks, while Titans augment their fists, and Warlocks use a Light-infused open palm strike. Their classes are also based around more mundane features of gameplay such as precision shooting and throwing knives, with only their Supers standing out as evidence of their Light. Emphasized in the aftermath of the City's capture by the Cabal in Destiny 2. Titans get by on punching without Light-empowered strikes. Warlocks, who normally use the Light to make waves of energy to 'melee', get by with weak punches. Hunters still have a knife to fall back on.
- Battle Trophy: They tend to take tokens from particularly dangerous enemies they've slain. Exemplified by their Ahamkara armor. While Warlocks wear Ahamkara bones and fossils because they're fascinated by the power they can offer, Hunters wear them to show off and look awesome, even if they themselves didn't kill the Ahamkara in question. The fact that the trophies grant the Hunter extra magical power is just icing on the cake.
- Blood Knight: Not as overt as some Titans, but Hunters very clearly enjoy what they do. Best shown in their relationship with Ahamkara. Warlocks see Hunters as foolish and ignorant when it comes to the great space dragons. The Warlock sees the Ahamkara as untapped knowledge and answers to arcane mysteries. The Hunter sees it as the ultimate test, and the perfect prey to stalk.
- Bounty Hunter: The key influence on their design.
- Cold Sniper: Many Hunters in the background seem to fit either this or Friendly Sniper, and the player has the option of doing the same. Alternately, you could just decide to rush into a group of enemies with a shotgun in hand.
- Crutch Character: Used to be this way, with Hunters never bringing much utility to a group setting. Changed in Destiny 2 with a creative workaround; Hunters were always 'better' at PvP naturally compared to other classes, so every one of their subclasses in Destiny are pretty much entirely PvE focused with only a few perks that are overly helpful in PvP compared to other classes.
- Elemental Embodiment: The most Downplayed out of the three classes. Destiny 2 plays up their unique skill with the Light more than the original game did, but not much. Throwing Knife can explode in Solar Light, Arcstrider use martial-arts strikes empowered by Arc Light, and Nightstalker throws a simple Smoke Bomb.
- Fragile Speedster: Downplayed. None of the classes fit a perfect stat archetype, because stats are customized through armor to your preferred playstylenote . That being said, the classes have different buffs that imply these, with the Hunter having a Dodge and certain perks that increase sprinting speed. They are known to be best at platforming challenges for having a Triple Jump option and they interact with gravity more consistently, compared to the hover jumping of the Titan and Warlock.
- Hand Cannon: They either use Hand Cannons or Sidearms. Unlike the original game, Sniper Rifles have actually fallen to the wayside in the thematics, with Sidearms taking their place and Hunters debating amongst themselves whether Hand Cannons or Sidearms are better. Lore from one of the cloaks references that Hunters frequently play a game that involves this. See Ten Paces and Turn.
- I Work Alone: Hunters are loners; they like to be in the field, alone, where no one else can get in the way either literally or figuratively. This is only subverted around other Hunters. Hunters actually enjoy talking to one another, and a Lounge in the hangar of the Tower, built into a decommissioned ship, is heavily implied to be a haven for Hunters. Also emphasized through their gameplay, where they are the least group-focused and any group utility they have doesn't require foresight or teamplay; they help the group by doing things they'd do normally, like precision shoot or debuff enemies.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: This applies more to the Hunter Guardians as a whole than individually, but while they’re more self-serving than the other Guardian Classes, this does not stop them from being valiant and loyal defenders of the Last City all the same.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Their Exclusive Sword in Destiny 2 is the VEIST-made Quickfang, which plays more into their ninja/assassin motif. It's also the first sword with the Lightweight Frame Intrinsic Perk, which has a dash attack for the heavy melee, and makes the Hunter do a Ninja Run while sprinting with it. It also helps that its light attacks do more damage as soon as it's unsheathed. On the other hand, it turns the Hunter into a Glass Cannon.
- Loners Are Freaks: Happens to some Hunters. Their isolation from essentially living in the field can make some of them a bit... Off. One notable Hunter of this nature is Pahanin, who was only a little weird before being a Sole Survivor of a Fireteam delving into the Vault of Glass, only to come out crazy in the head.
- In the Hood: Hunters take to wearing hoods to protect the sensitive tracking devices in their masks from the elements.
- Quick Draw: Two Exotics exemplify this. The Lucky Pants cause Hunters to ready Hand Cannons instantly and gain accuracy when first drawn. Mechaneer's Tricksleeves make you ready Sidearms instantly and reload them faster.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: Inverted. The position of Class Vanguard is a well respected and regarded role, but Hunters are so opposed to what the job entailsnote that finding someone to do the job can be difficult. The current Hunter representative, Cayde-6, only took the job because of his Vanguard Dare with his predecessor Andal Brask and is quite vocal about how he dislikes it. When he died, most senior Hunters proceeded to flee the Tower rather than risk getting tapped for the position and there hasn't been a Hunter Vanguard for 4-5 years because no one qualified enough is willing to assume the mantle.
- The Rival: Some of the Flavour Text on their gear suggests they see themselves as this to Warlocks. At least one Hunter participated in the writing of a secret guidebook on how to anger Warlocks. That, and a piece of gear states that no Hunter is ever to admit that they learned how to "Blink" from Warlocks.
- Rummage Sale Reject: Hunters are intended to look like they are piecing together their outfit from whatever they can find, also leading to Fashionable Asymmetry. This is in contrast to the Titans being completely armored and Warlocks wearing tailored robes.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Part of the reason Cayde's position as the Hunter representative of the Vanguard has yet to be replaced post-Forsaken is that almost all of the qualifying Hunters chose to quickly skip town when it became clear one of them would have to take up a leadership position.
- Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Hunters are not the only class able to forge weapons for themselves out of their subclass element, but they are by far the most prolific users of this trope. Examples being: The Golden Gun and the exploding throwing knives that constitute the Blade Barrage being formed out of Solar Light, the Arc Staff made out of Arc Light, the Spectral Blades and Dusk Bow used for firing Shadowshot being made of Void Light, and the Revenant’s throwing stars along with the Silence & Squall sickles used both in the Shatterdive move and the eponymous Super being made from condensed Stasis energy.
- Space Western: While the game as a whole is Science Fantasy, this motif shows up in the Hunter class. They have a Gunslinger subclass and Bungie specifically lists Han Solo and the Man with No Name as inspirations for them. To hammer the point home, the Hunter class leader, Cayde-6, is Malcolm Reynolds himself. In robot form.
- Scarily Competent Tracker: Nightstalker Hunters seem to have an innate affinity in this thanks to the Keen Scout and Flawless Execution abilities, but even Gunslingers and Arcstriders can get in on this with the class-exclusive exotic Foetracer.
- Ten Paces and Turn: Said to be a game Hunters play. Since Guardians can't dienote , they play a game where they walk ten paces and see who can shoot first. Hand Cannons and Sidearms only.
- Unnecessary Combat Roll: Downplayed, in Destiny 1, this ability (known as Shadestep) is only available to Nightstalkers, and allows them to perform a dodge roll in any direction, but have a brief cooldown. In Destiny 2, it becomes an intrinsic ability for Hunters as a whole, but now have longer cooldowns, this trait is applied to the Gambler's Dodge, while Marksman's Dodge takes the form of a strafe jump.
- Walking Armory: Guns and knives galore. A lot of Hunter armor sticks sheathed knives or bullets on prominent display. This is also notable due to the fact that every subclass is focused entirely around a weapon; Gunslingers have their Golden Gun and Blade Barrage, Arcstriders their Arc Staff, Nightstalkers their Dusk Bow or Spectral Blades and Revenants their Strife And Squall sickles. The only other classes that can claim such are Sunbreaker Titans with their Hammer of Sol, Sentinel Titans with their Sentinel Shields, and Dawnblade Warlocks with their Daybreak swords. Other classes focus mostly on wielding the Light directly, while Hunters take the Light and focus it through a Light-forged weapon instead.
- Wolverine Publicity: You might notice how often, though Titans got The Taken King and Destiny 2, the covers of the games and major expansions put a Hunter front and center.
Gunslingers — A lone wolf who lives for the perfect shot.
Gunslinger Hunters are masters of the firearm, amplifying their skills with Solar Light. Their iconic super, Golden Gun, allows them to draw a revolver loaded with bullets of sunfire, and has two variants, both enhanced when the user is Radiant; Deadshot allows the user to rapidly fire up to six shots that can be refunded by Igniting enemies, and Marksman increases its precision damage and causes critical hits to generate orbs of light. Alternatively, they can instead unleash a volley of Solar-charged explosive knives with their Blade Barrage.
Gunslingers employ a variety of throwing knives for their melee attacks, which are the only melee attacks capable of precision damage. The Lightweight Knife is a quick throw that makes the user Radiant on precision hits, increasing their weapon damage for a short time. The Weighted Throwing Knife has a short wind-up but deals extra precision damage, ignites scorched enemies, and recharges the user's Dodge ability on precision kill. The Proximity Explosive Knife can attach to surfaces to act as a proxmity mine, exploding when an enemy wanders too close. Knife Trick throws a fan of flaming knives that scorch any targets hit.
Gunslingers inherently have access to the Swarm, Solar, Tripmine, and Thermite grenades, and can learn any used by the other classes. The Solar Grenade creates a solar flare that scorches any enemies in its radius. The Swarm Grenade spawns small, explosive drones that float over an area, and fly after anything that comes close. The Tripmine Grenade sets a small, easily overlooked mine that explodes on a laser trigger when enemies approach. The Thermite Grenade sends forth three lines of solar fire. Gunslingers also have access to a unique Dodge ability, the Acrobat's Dodge, which makes the Hunter and any nearby allies Radiant when they land.
Gunslingers have three Aspects they can use to enhance their gameplay. Knock 'Em Down enhances their supers and causes any of their throwing knives to reset themselves on a precision kill. On Your Mark causes precision kills to grant increased reload speed and weapon handling to the Hunter and nearby players, stacking up to three times; using their dodge immediately grants full stacks. Gunpowder Gamble causes ability kills, Solar weapon kills, and kills to Solar debuffed targets to charge up a powerful Solar explosive that can be thrown then shot midair to cause a large explosion.
- Boring, but Practical: Simple perks that increase your reload speed on precision kills don't seem like much, but seeing as it stacks up to three times and also benefits allies, Gunslingers can easily end up maxing out these stats for their weapons (even if only temporarily) by simply being a good shot.
- Call-Back: In Destiny 2, the Golden Gun variants take on the forms of three iconic Hand Cannons. The western-style Deadshot has a Golden Gun that appears like The Last Word, complete with fan firing. The super accuracy-focused Marksman features the Eyasluna, and if you wear the Celestial Nighthawk exotic helmet, the Golden Gun takes the form of The First Curse.
- Critical Hit Class: The Gunslinger Hunter can set themselves up like this, with perks that promote taking your time and being as precise as possible. They can grant reload speed and create Orbs of Light for allies, and the Weighted Knife resets itself on a precision kill.
- Friendless Background: All Hunters are considered loners out in the field, but even Bladedancers like to show off their knife skills and Nightstalkers focus on supporting allies. Gunslingers, however, are the truest loners out of the Hunters; their only friend is their loyal gun. This is sort of exemplified with their playstyle, which focuses completely on precision shooting and watching out for yourself with no real way to assist allies, whereas Bladedancers can use invisibility to run support and Nightstalkers are all about debuffing enemies to make them easy for allies to shoot. Destiny 2 mitigates the solo act, but the playstyle is still solo-emphasized; they don't directly assist allies by making them invisible or granting them healing, and their group benefits are centered around what a good Gunslinger would be doing either way — precision shooting. To drive this point home, one of the Gunslinger's unique triumphs is called "Lone Hero" and involves completing Heroic Public Events where you're the only Hunter in your Fireteam. The Solar 3.0 update moves them even further from this trope, giving them more supportive tools to buff their fireteams.Ikora Ray: There's nothing more conspicuous than a Gunslinger alone and out in the open. Sometimes their gaze gives away a lurking Tripmine, sometimes not.
- Glass Cannon: Gunslingers have gained quite the notoriety for this, especially in PvP. Golden Gun can kill other players with a single shot in almost any circumstance. But in return, they don't receive any defense bonus while it's in use, and are left especially vulnerable on activation. The Celestial Nighthawk exotic headgear turns this up a notch, as their defenses aren't improved even by a little, but your Golden Gun ability is changed to fire a single, supercharged shot that can tear bosses a new one if combined with Marksman, and any Guardian on the receiving end of such a blast is sent to the great hereafter, headshot or otherwise and regardless of any damage-reducing Supers they may use to try and save themselves.
- Grenade Spam:
- The Scavenger talent from the original Destiny allowed Gunslingers to reduce the cooldown on their grenades and throwing knives upon picking up ammo bricks. In the Destiny 2 beta, Way of the Outlaw had a perk called Bombs for Bullseyes that reduced their grenade cooldown when getting precision hits, but it was removed, replaced by Deadshotnote .
- The Gunslinger exotic gauntlets called Young Ahamkara's Spine accomplish this with the Tripmine Grenade, causing hits with Solar abilities to cut 33% of the grenade's cooldown away, including the grenade's explosion itself. When used with Deadshot, it results in very high burst damage; throw a Tripmine, and two shots, and the cooldown is reset. You can do this 3 times.
- The Gunslinger: Well, yeah. Many Gunslinger perks provide bonuses to basic gunplay, making them best suited for those who just plain want to shoot at the bad guys. Their Golden Gun lets the user wield a powerful Hand Cannon that is manually aimed to kill enemies in a single shot or two. They even take a page out of Cayde-6's book in Destiny 2, learning how to rapidly fan fire the Golden Gun to dispatch enemies even faster.
- More Dakka: Deadshot Golden Gun gets twice as many shots as the other variant, with more shots added if the Gunslinger manages to cause Ignitions with it. You can have any number of shots, in theory, but the timer will run out eventually so you need to make your shots count.
- One-Hit Polykill: The Celestial Nighthawk exotic causes enemies killed by Golden Gun to explode, spreading damage to other enemies.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: Hello Golden Gun. The super takes the form of a fiery revolver. Outlaw Gunslingers even fan fire it.
- Storm of Blades: The Blade Barrage super in a nutshell; the Gunslinger creates blades of Solar light in their hands, and flings them at the target. Said blades then explode.
- Trap Master: To an extent. Swarm Grenades effectively act as proximity attack drones. Tripmine is exactly how it sounds: an explosive set to obliterate whatever crosses into its cone of detection.
Nightstalkers — Draw from the Void. Light the way.
Nightstalker Hunters are masters of the shadows, featuring skills in evasion, espionage, and misdirection, which they use to confuse and weaken enemies. Their iconic super, Shadowshot, has them draw a bow crafted of Void Light, and fire Void arrows that tether enemies to the impact point, weakening and suppressing tethered enemies. The Shadowshot itself has two variants: Deadfall creates a trap that pulls enemies towards the impact point, marks targets for your allies, and has an increased duration and radius; and Moebius Quiver fires two volleys of three arrows that seek enemies, deals increased damage to tethered enemies, makes them volatile, and generates additional Orbs of Power when killing tethered enemies. Alternatively, Nightstalkers can employ the Spectral Blades super, which equips them with a pair of Void blades and allows them to go in and out of invisibility, stalking the battlefield in a veil of shadows. Their single melee attack is the Snare Bomb, a thrown smoke bomb that can attach to surfaces and ping an enemy player's radar. Any enemy hit by its detonation is slowed and weakened, increasing the damage they take. Their grenades offer the most territory control. The Spike Grenade releases a conical torrent of Void Light that damages any foes near or above it. The Voidwall Grenade spouts a line of purple fire outwards from the impact point, making a wall that damages foes. The Vortex Grenade creates a localized singularity that damages foes inside. The Nightstalker has all the tools to confuse a foe; they can keep track of an enemy by marking them, employ a sight-blocking smoke bomb, and use the Void to go invisible.
In The Witch Queen, Nightstalkers can choose between three Aspects to modify their gameplay. Trapper's Ambush gives the Hunter the ability to use their melee to dive to the ground and create a smoke cloud on impact, weakening enemies and making allies invisible if they're inside. Additionally, the smoke bomb can also grant allies invisibility on its own. Vanishing Step allows the dodge to grant invisibility, and increases its range. Stylish Executioner grants both invisibility and truesight when you kill a weakened, suppressed, or volatile target, and causes your next melee attack while invisible to weaken the target.
- A Handful for an Eye: Nightstalker Smoke Bombs interfere with their victims' vision and abilities, making it good for weakening enemies before they're picked off.
- Casting a Shadow: Any Guardian that can use Void Light has the potential for this, but a Nightstalker using the Spectral Blades uses this more overtly, as it explicitly says they “stalk the battlefield in a veil of shadows” when they activate their super and go to carve up their enemies.
- Combat Pragmatist: Whereas Gunslingers and Arcstriders are focused on killing your enemies outright, Nightstalkers are all about playing dirty with the most utilities and crowd control to make killing them easy for you and your team. Either Shadowshot debilitates enemies hit, with Deadfall marking targets so they can't hide, and Moebius Quiver generating huge sums of Orbs for the rest of the team, and the aspects can be mixed and matched to help your team hide in shadows or exploit your enemies weaknesses
- Difficult, but Awesome: Both in gameplay and lore:
- According to Tevis, not many Hunters actually have the stomach to master the Void. For Warlocks, it's easy; they hunger for power, no matter the source. And for Titans, it's even easier; they would do anything, go anywhere, to protect the City. Hunters are self-serving, always looking out for themselves first, so not many want to risk falling to nothingness by reaching into the Void, and pulling a bow from the nothingness. And then, the Nightstalker reaches back into that Void every time they draw an arrow. Being a Nightstalker is not for the faint of heart, and Cayde-6 comments on you when you first pick up the bow in Destiny 1, saying he's surprised at how quickly you take to it because, "it's always a challenge." note "I've had a dozen Hunters ask me why it's so hard to summon a Dusk Bow. I asked 'em what they thought of the Void, and their eyes told me everything. You can't be afraid. That's the secret. No fear."
Tevis, Log Entry 19338 - In gameplay, Nightstalkers have no straight-up kill-tools, and even their Super isn't meant for actually killing enemies. Instead of using their abilities for damage, it's all about screwing over the enemy and setting up easy kills. A good Nightstalker can get the jump on enemies and leave them helpless for the kill, whether at their own hands or their allies, and leave the fight with an empty mag and nary a scratch. But a bad Nightstalker will only piss off their enemies after exhausting their tools, and just make the enemy that much more determined to kill them.
- According to Tevis, not many Hunters actually have the stomach to master the Void. For Warlocks, it's easy; they hunger for power, no matter the source. And for Titans, it's even easier; they would do anything, go anywhere, to protect the City. Hunters are self-serving, always looking out for themselves first, so not many want to risk falling to nothingness by reaching into the Void, and pulling a bow from the nothingness. And then, the Nightstalker reaches back into that Void every time they draw an arrow. Being a Nightstalker is not for the faint of heart, and Cayde-6 comments on you when you first pick up the bow in Destiny 1, saying he's surprised at how quickly you take to it because, "it's always a challenge." note
- Energy Bow: Nightstalkers are known for using the Dusk Bow, a bow that is in itself comprised of void energy, to shoot void arrows at their targets to either kill them or deploy a Void Anchor which tethers your foe in place and causes any damage inflicted upon them to be a Critical Hit, ensuring your foes don’t live long after being restrained.
- Invisibility: Had an option in Destiny 1, and fully inherits the trait in Destiny 2. Nightstalkers are capable of vanishing from sight with their smoke bombs, dodges, and even the Spectral Blades super.
- Lightning Bruiser: While a Nightstalker Hunter with Shadowshot is more of a Fragile Speedster with the fact that the Dusk Bow’s use is so short that it’s unreliable for soaking up damage, Spectral Blades turns the Hunter into a semi-transparent nightmare that can take a vicious beating before keeling over and outmaneuver their foes with terrifying speed. To make things worse, anything or anyone that gets within striking distance ends up sliced to oblivion in a storm of void-enhanced death in short order.
- Smoke Out: You can throw your Smoke Bombs at your and your allies' feet to render yourselves invisible at the cost of damage potential.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Enemies killed by the Moebius Quiver Shadowshot explode in a torrent of Void Light, allowing the super to rapidly clear out a room.
- Super-Senses: The Stylish Execution perk will, upon killing a debuffednote target, grant you (along with Invisibility) True Sight, which allows you to see your enemies as purplish outlines behind walls, enabling you to track and ambush your quarry at your relative leisure. Activating Spectral Blades will also grant the same results, though light attacks will cancel that out until you perform a heavy uppercut and go back to being invisible.
- Synchronization: Shadowshot has the extra ability of linking tethered opponents to each other, so if you catch a group of enemies and you kill one of them, anyone who is still snagged by the trap will also drop dead.
- Trap Master: The Deadfall Shadowshot can linger in an area if no enemies are within its detonation range, making it perfect if you're anticipating anyone to cross an area, as can the smoke bomb.
- Unnecessary Combat Roll: Nightstalkers had Shadestep in the original Destiny, but every Hunter can Dodge in Destiny 2.
- You Will Not Evade Me: On top of their crowd control, the Deadfall super marks enemies affected by Shadowshot so you can track them down if they manage to escape. Stylish Executioner grants the Hunter True Sight if they kill a debuffed target, allowing them to track enemies behind cover or through walls.
Arcstrider — Flow like lightning. Strike like thunder.
No.
Become the staff, they said.
No.
Become a weapon, they said.
The Arcstrider replaces the Bladedancer Subclass in Destiny 2. While inheriting a majority of the Bladedancer's traits and abilities, Arcstriders trade in their knives for a staff of lightning. Arcstriders move with greater agility than before, weaving through the battlefield while striking with the force of storm. Their main super, Arc Staff causes them to whip out a staff imbued with electricity that they can spin to reflect incoming projectiles. While Arc Staff is active, their Dodge ability has no cooldown, allowing them to evasively dance around enemies, while different button combinations allow the Arcstrider to execute Combos. Arcstriders also have access to the Gathering Storm super, which overcharges their staff before flinging it like a spear, embedding itself into the enemy or environment and emitting a large jolting field around it. These Hunters have access to either the Combination Blow melee, which on kill immediately starts health regeneration, recharges your class ability, and empowers all their melees for a short time, or the Disorienting Blow, which blinds enemies hit and Amplifies the user. Their grenades of choice are the The Flux Grenade which sticks to targets, dealing a large amount of damage, the Skip Grenade that spawns four drones that bounce across the ground tracking nearby enemies, and the Arcbolt Grenade that scans the area after landing, sending lightning to any enemies nearby that then chains further to other enemies. Arcstriders can choose between three different Aspects to answer their needs. Flow State amplifies the hunter whenever they kill a jolted target. Tempest Strike converts a charged melee into an uppercut with the Arc Staff after sliding, sending out a wave of lightning that jolts targets hit. Lethal Current gives your melee increased lunge range, creates a damaging aftershock, and jolts the target; additionally, it causes you to blind any jolted target with melee attacks. Arcstriders also have access to Blink as a jump option.
- Attack Reflector: Whirwind Guard sends any projectiles it blocks- including bullets- back at the attacker.
- Close-Range Combatant: Arcstrider does away with the Bladedancer's stealth mechanics, focusing on fighting up-close and personal with the minions of the Darkness as much as possible. They get tools to help them in this endeavor, such as a heal on melee kills, or a blinding strike that leaves enemies disoriented.
- Combos: The Arc Staff features multiple attacks of varying effects, depending on command input.
- Melee: Basic Slash
- Primary Fire: Razor's Edge
- Melee + Primary Fire: Uppercut
- Melee + Melee + Melee: Ground Pole Slam
- Melee + Melee + Primary Fire: Arc Palm Blast
- (Mid-Air) Primary Fire: Aerial Ground Slam
- Dodge the Bullet: The Hunter's intrinsic dodge roll is amplified while the Arc Staff is active, allowing you to constantly dance around enemy fire; this includes rival Guardian powers like the Nova Bomb, Shield Throw and Golden Gun. The Arc Staff gives you more room for error by decreasing the amount of damage taken if hit while dodging.
- Fragile Speedster: With several abilities that increase your sprint speed and lunge range, clever Arcstriders can tag in and out of combat before your enemies can react. As a bonus, Arc Staff both grants an effectively zero cooldown on dodge along with a generous damage reduction, allowing you to more easily close the gap between you and your enemies.
- Heal Thyself: Combination Blow, which causes an Arcstrider's health and shields to immediately begin regenerating when it triggers.
- Herd-Hitting Attack: Arcstriders can hit multiple enemies per attack with their staves, granting them far greater strength against crowds than Bladedancers originally had.
- Invisibility: Subverted. Nope, this iconic feature of the Bladedancer is nowhere to be found here, with all invisibility effects inherited by the Nightstalker.
- Implacable Man: An Arcstrider becomes this if they use Whirlwind Guard, as a user can lightly jog into a shower of enemy munitions and emerge none the worse for wear as they pelt the opposition with their own ordnance, and as of the Supers only Fists of Havoc, Chaos Reach, Nova Warp and Burning Maul can hope to bypass a spinning ‘strider’s protection in a head-on fight.
- Lightning Bruiser: Puns aside, An Arcstrider can give a Striker Titan a run for their money. Combination Blow causes their health to begin regenerating when it activates, on top of granting a generous melee damage boost. Gambler's Dodge and the aforementioned melee feed into each other, resetting one whenever the other triggers, with Lethal Current giving enough range to make up for the roll they just did. The end result is an Arcstrider flipping around constantly in a fight, dealing more damage with a punch than they could with most guns and healing themselves for each enemy killed.
- Magic Staff: A staff doesn't seem like much, but imbued with the force of lightning, it does a lot.
- Remember the New Guy?: According to the lore tab, Arcstriders have been around since the Dark Age.
- Shock and Awe: Arcstriders ditch the Hunter's traditional knife melee to blast an opponent with a bolt of lightning by punching them, similar to the Titan and Warlock's own Arc melees.
- Spin to Deflect Stuff: Whirlwind Guard allows Arcstriders to spin their Arc Staff and block incoming fire, as well as gaining a damage boost afterwards.
- Sword Beam: Or rather Staff Beam. Razor's Edge makes a return as one of the Arc Staff's attacks. The Way of the Current’s Tempest Strike is effectively channelling the Arc Staff for a moment to unleash a vertical wave of arc energy at your opponent.
- Warrior Monk: With their staff, graceful dodging, use of melee strikes over the regular knife, and several skills referring to meditation, Arcstriders definitely give off this vibe.
Revenant — From a whisper to a roar, be the calm and the storm.
A subclass introduced in Beyond Light, guardians are introduced to a Darkness power called Stasis which allows them to generate ice and freeze enemies.
Revenants are walking blizzards, slowing the battlefield to a crawl and leaving their victims easy prey. Their Super, Silence and Squall, throws a pair of ice kamas; one detonates and freezes enemies in its blast radius, while the other spawns a tornado that slows and damages anything nearby. Their Withering Blade melee throws a shuriken that bounces off surfaces and ricochets between enemies, slowing any hit. Their first Aspect, Shatterdive, lets you dive to the ground, generating a slow field upon landing and shattering any nearby Stasis crystals. Winter's Shroud causes their Dodge to slow nearby enemies. Grim Harvest spawns Stasis shards that regenerate melee energy whenever you kill any slowed or frozen enemy. Touch of Winter modifies and enhances the effects of their Stasis grenades: Glacier Grenades form an circle to make it easier to trap and freeze enemies, Duskfield Grenades gain a wider radius, and Coldsnap Grenades can chain an additional seeker after freezing an enemy.
All Stasis subclasses share the same three grenades. The Glacier Grenade generates a wall of Stasis crystals that can be used as platforms, instantly freeze enemies caught inside, or be shattered for a burst of damage. The Duskfield Grenade spawns a field of Stasis energy that slowly freezes enemies inside over time. The Coldsnap Grenade spawns a seeker that tracks to nearby enemies, instantly freezing them.
- An Ice Person: As with all Stasis subclasses, Revenants use their abilities to see that their enemies perish in the biting cold.
- A Taste of Power: Unlike previous light subclasses where progression starts from the bottom and grows in power over time, learning how to wield darkness with the revamped abilities (class, melee, super) is available instantly upon interacting with a Darkness shard, and at that point your abilities are supercharged to a negligible cooldown. Once the campaign is finished the official Revenant subclass is unlocked with normal power balancing, but more versatility in stat control.
- Combo: One particularly effective trick Revenants have up their sleeve is to toss a Glacier in midair, then immediately Shatterdive where it lands to deal massive area damage.
- Dynamic Entry: The Shatterdive Aspect lets them do this with a button press, hitting the ground and summoning a slowing aura around themselves on impact.
- Flash Step: Not an inherent ability of the subclass, but the exotic helmet, Mask of Bakris, converts the Dodge into a short-range teleport, and only works with the Revenant subclass equipped.
- Named Weapons: Silence and Squall isn't just the name of the super; it's the names of the respective kamas.
- Ninja: More than even the Nightstalker with Spectral Blades, the Revenant has an emphasis on bladed weapons as part of their arsenal. The melee ability uses stasis-infused throwing stars and the super throws sickles that cause an ice storm.
- Stock Ninja Weaponry: To go with their ninja theme, the Revenant's ice-made weapons include shurikens for melee, and sickles for their Super and Shatterdive Aspect.
- Tornado Move: The Revenant's Super, Silence and Squall, does a variant. The first thrown sickle freezes all enemies around the impact zone, while the second one produces a large, freezing tornado that travels around the area and approaches nearby enemies, freezing and dealing damage.
Threadrunner — The plucked string, the sharpest song. Freedom, infinitely promised.
The second Darkness subclass introduced in Lightfall, Strand allows guardians to grasp the psychic threads that connect all life and weave them to their benefit.
Threadrunners are master acrobatics capable of covering distance and closing gaps in short order. Their Silkstrike super creates a rope dart that they can use to tear through enemies with precision or by swinging it around to deal damage in a large area. The Threaded Spike melee throws out a dart that bounces between and severs enemies before returning to the Hunter, refunding melee energy for each hit and refunding additional energy if the melee button is pressed to catch the dart right as it returns.
Threadrunners currently only have two Aspects. Ensnaring Slam gives Hunters the ability to dive down to the ground from the air, emitting a shockwave that suspends all enemies near the impact point. Widow's Silk grants an additional grenade and also causes the Hunter's grapple to leave behind a consistent grapple point that refunds all grenade energy when grappled to.
All Strand subclasses have three shared grenades. The Grapple creates a grappling hook that pulls a guardian a certain distance or latches onto the targeted ally, enemy or tangle, pulling them towards it. Additionally, meleeing after a grapple performs a special melee that deals area of effect damage and unravels damaged enemies. Shackle Grenades suspend enemies on impact and split into smaller projectiles that also suspend. Threadling Grenades split into multiple threadlings after being thrown.
- Fragile Speedster: At base they get more use out of their grapple than Broodweavers or Berserkers, but they have no access to the survivability tools those two have either. Averted when used in conjunction with the Cyrtarachne’s Facade exotic helmet, which gives them woven mail whenever they use their grapple and may as well turn them into a Lightning Bruiser.
- "Just Frame" Bonus: Using melee again right as the projectile from Threaded Spike returns will give them extra melee energy on top of the flat energy gained from the targets hit.
- Knows the Ropes: Hunters get access to Strand and can become Threadrunners. They embrace the freedom granted by this new power, acrobatically traversing any and all obstacles and drawing closer to strike at the enemy's weakpoints, while also making it harder for them to fight back.
- Ninja: Similar to the Revenant, the Threadrunner uses weaponry associated with ninjas to fight. In their case, they use kunai and rope darts.
- Situational Damage Attack: Silkstrike's light attack deals more damage if you hit with the tip of the attack, on top of making enemies explode if said tipper kills them.
Warlocks
The "mage" class, Warlocks gain their powers from the Traveler and improve them through study. While many Warlocks are content in their libraries and offices, many go out into the field and use what seems like Magic to quell the enemies of the Light.
Their unique class ability is the Rift; they create a well of light on the ground that empowers themselves and nearby allies, depending on which Rift they choose. A Healing Rift, as the name implies, causes allies to constantly regenerate health while inside the Rift, and overhealing is converted into an overshield (But it only lasts while the benefactor is within the Rift). Empowering Rift will instead boost the weapon damage of allies standing in the Rift.
- Badass Bookworm: The Flavor Text of their items and Grimoire entries on Bungie.Net show the Warlocks are as interested in learning humanity's past as they are defending the present, and they are just as devoted to protecting humanity as Titans and Hunters.
- Badass Longcoat: Warlocks can be recognized by their long coats and rounded helmets. The coat gets longer as you get better and higher leveled gear. The highest-level coats come close to trailing across the ground.
- Battle Trophy: Downplayed. Warlocks wear the bones of slain Ahamkara not as a show of glory or strength, unlike Hunters, but because the trophies grant them power in some form.
- Combat Medic: They’re the only Guardian class that can actively heal others on their own, deploying either a Healing Rift or a Well Of Radiance to bring their allies back from the brink of death and back into the fight.
- Cool Sword: While its Adaptive Frame and Whirlwind Blade Perks makes it mundane compared to the other class-exclusive swords, the Eternity's Edge is the first sword to have the Infinite Guard Perk, allowing the Warlock more swings while retaining a good defense.
- Energy Ball: Warlock grenades are energy based rather than projectile based. This is even reflected in their grenade animation, where they fling it out with their fingers pointed rather than pitch something. They even behave like a magical spell rather than a traditional grenade. Where as a Titan or a Hunter grenade might be on a short fuse once they hit the ground a Warlock's immediately detonates on contact.
- Grenade Spam: All three Light subclasses allow Warlocks to regain their grenades quickly in one way or another.
- The Voidwalker's Energy Drain melee ability greatly reduces the cooldown of your grenade, depending on your Discipline. Additionally, you can equip Embrace the Void to allow kills with grenades and Nova Bomb to activate Energy Drain, as well as The Hunger to double the potential of all Energy Drain effects.
This changed somewhat with Destiny 2 with the arrival of the Attunement of Hunger skill tree in a way that actually promotes both conservation and spamming of grenades. The Devour buff this entire skill set relies on can be triggered by the Warlock killing with the melee ability or actively consuming their grenade to force the buff but once active any kill significantly recharges the grenade, restores life, and refreshes Devour meaning if the Warlock can keep the buff up their grenades are almost bottomless. The end result is that the Warlock is encouraged to grenade spam under the influence of Devour, but not so much that it won't be ready when a new fight breaks out and they need to eat it to start the cycle over. - The Sunsinger's Gift of the Sun perk allows them to have two grenades at the ready, though the second one will have double the cooldown until the first is used. On top of that, their super, Radiance, greatly reduces the cooldown of your grenades to the point where. depending on your equipment, you may end up recharging grenades faster than you can throw them!
- The Stormcaller's Perpetual Charge allows kills with Thunderstrike to instantly put your grenade off cooldown and vice-versa. With good aim and a steady rhythm, you can keep up a constant one-two punch of grenades and thunderbolts to wipe enemies out. Additonally, the Rising Storm modifier for Thunderstrike can immediately reduce all cooldown (including its own) by a flat amount.
- The Voidwalker's Energy Drain melee ability greatly reduces the cooldown of your grenade, depending on your Discipline. Additionally, you can equip Embrace the Void to allow kills with grenades and Nova Bomb to activate Energy Drain, as well as The Hunger to double the potential of all Energy Drain effects.
- Jack of All Stats: Warlocks begin the game with all of their stats fairly even and balanced, especially compared to the other two. One you finished leveling them up, however, you can customize them to be anything from a Fragile Speedster to a Mighty Glacier.
- Lightning Bruiser: While they start on the game on an even keel, Warlocks who keep a relatively good balance on almost all their stats but max out in their recovery stat can soak up a significant degree of punishment, possess a potent Healing Factor that can ensure that they return to full strength within as little as four to six seconds, and the destructive potential of their Supers is almost similar to, if not tied in power to those of a Titan.
- Magical Guardian: Bungie states that their design is largely based on characters like Obi-Wan or Gandalf. They further resemble the Jedi and Sith as of The Taken King, as their Stormcaller subclass effectively gives them the ability to use Force Lightning while levitating.
- Mad Scientist: The other Guardians consider Warlocks to be, at best, scholars and scientists who immerse themselves in dangerous technologies and secrets. At worst, they're thought to be as bad as Fallen Devil Splicers.
- Mage Marksman: They use both magic and guns.
- Master of None: Weapon-wise, they don't get any skill-bonuses to gunsnote , so if you favour weapons over your own skills, you probably shouldn't be a Warlock.
- Power Floats: Using their supers has a tendency to make them rise in the air, either literally flying with a flaming sword as the Dawnblade or simply levitating over the ground as the Stormcaller, Voidwalker or Shadebinder.
- Power Palms: Unlike the knife of the Hunter or the fist of the Titan, the Warlock uses a palm strike accompanied with a short-ranged blast of energy as their average melee attack.
- Robe and Wizard Hat: They evoke a Wizard Classic appearance with a long robe, and a number of exotic head pieces give them either massive ornamental crowns or an otherworldly look.
- Squishy Wizard: Inverted, if anything. Despite being the game's mage class, Warlocks have average defense and in fact generally have the highest recovery stat of any class, meaning that they will heal far faster than normal. They also come intuitively with more overshield buffs, for themselves AND allies.
- Support Party Member: In Destiny 2, the Warlocks' Class ability lets them summon supportive Rifts. Healing Rift heals allies who stand inside it, while Empowering Rift strengthens those inside it.
Voidwalkers — Those who have stared into the Void are not bound by the laws of space and time.
The Voidwalker Warlock wields the power of the endless vacuum of space, destroying enemies in Void Light. Their iconic super, Nova Bomb, fires a concentrated orb of Void energy that decimates any foe in the vicinity of the impact. The Nova Bomb itself has two variants: Vortex causes Nova Bomb to create a singularity pulls targets inward and continually damages those inside after detonation; Cataclysm turns the Nova Bomb into a massive, slow-moving projectile that tracks enemies and explodes into multiple seeking projectiles. Voidwalkers can also use the Nova Warp super, turning themselves into a mobile Void bomb that can teleport around the battlefield and unleash deadly Void explosions. Their Grenades all focus on facets of Void destruction. The Vortex Grenade creates a localized singularity that pulls enemies in and damages foes within it. The Scatter Grenade creates a flurry of tiny explosives that detonate after a short delay. The Axion Bolt seeks enemies when fired, creating slow but highly damaging bolts of Void Light that home in on enemies. The Voidwalker's melee attack is Pocket Singularity, which fires an unstable ball of Void energy that detonates when it nears a target, knocking them back and making them volatile.
Voidwalkers can choose between three Aspects. Feed the Void causes Void ability kills to grant the Warlock Devour, a buff that causes kills to restore health and extend the duration of Devour. Child of the Old Gods causes a Rift to generate a Void Soul on cast. This Void Soul flies to a target you damage with your weapons, weakening and damaging the target over time, and returning a particular resource depending on the chosen rift; melee and grenade energy for Healing, health for Empowering. Killing targets being drained by a Void Soul returns class energy. Chaos Accelerant allows the Voidwalker to overcharge certain grenades to improve their damage and effects: Vortex grenades gain increased size and duration, Axion bolts gain an extra seeker, Scatter grenades get improved tracking, and the Magnetic grenade turns into a short-ranged Void blast.
- Action Bomb: The Nova Warp Super, although perfectly harmless to the user, transforms the Warlock into a walking bomb which can detonate themselves repeatedly and at will to attack their opponents for the duration of the Super.
- Boring, but Practical: Voidwalker perks and modifiers are the simplest out of the Warlocks. But because of that, they're the quickest to make the most out of the situation.
- Creepy Good: Voidwalker's ability to drain the life from their enemies, and to wield the otherworldly power of the Void lead them to be regarded as unnerving and dangerous by some of their fellow Guardians. Ultimately, however, they're no less dedicated to protecting humanity from the Darkness.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Their abilities have been likened to those of the Hive's Wizards, and can be seen by some as being related to the Darkness. Voidwalkers, however, are just as heroic as their fellow Guardians, and seek to use their powers to protect humanity. Void Light is Light, after all, not Darkness. Indeed, there are hints that the Void itself may even had been the origin point for the Traveler.
- Energy Ball: The Voidwalker's new melee in The Witch Queen, Pocket Singularity, fits the bill to a tee, even being projected with both hands.
- Difficult, but Awesome: The Cataclysm Nova Bomb can be difficult to use to its full potential. Since it only detonates when it comes in contact with an enemy, you might need to shoot it to detonate it early and get multiple foes in the blast.
- The Voidwalker-exclusive Blink jump is a short-range teleport; it's much harder to control than either of the glide options and poor awareness during any sort of platforming activity can result you falling to your death.
- Grenade Spam: Devour can be triggered off of any grenade kill, and returns grenade energy for every kill while active. Put a Vortex grenade down in the right spot and you can have it back off cooldown before the first one even vanishes.
- Having a Blast: All Guardians are capable of this given the right subclass or exotics, but the Voidwalker is this par excellence, as all the subclass trees in it involve or allow one or more of the following: Grenade Spam, making anybody you kill with void abilities explode, planting a Void bomb inside your enemy with a melee attack, tossing a homing ball of explosive Void Light that makes their target Volatile, or shooting a small swarm of Void pellets at your foe. And that’s not getting into the Supers, where you either toss a massive concentrated blast of Void Light that nukes the targeted area and will, if using Cataclysm, release smaller exploding projectiles upon detonating to seek out any survivors, or become the bomb and charge into the fray as a repeatedly detonating human warhead with the Nova Warp.
- Heal Thyself: Feed The Void is based entirely around this concept, with the ability to regenerate your entire health pool on a single ability kill. It's not just a regeneration trigger, either; it's instantaneous healing. Landing any kills with an active "Devour" buff will then recover a chunk of health while refreshing the duration, making Voidwalkers highly tenacious.
- Homing Projectile: Cataclysm causes Nova Bomb to move extremely slow but endlessly seek its nearest enemy. Upon detonation it will release a group of smaller seeking projectiles that will target anything that survives the blast or gets too close. The Pocket Singularity melee will also seek out targets after a short delay upon use.
- Life Drinker: They possess a variant of this power. While they don’t need the lifeforce of others to live and can go on just fine indefinitely without needing to drain someone, the majority of all their innate abilities involve sucking the life from their foes to empower themselves or boost their Healing Factor, which can prove very useful in times where they sorely need it.
- Kamehame Hadouken: The Voidwalker Super is Nova Bomb, a simple yet very effective blast of Void energy. With the right perks and equipment, you can recharge your Nova Bomb in no time compared to the other classes.
- Lightning Bruiser: Voidwalkers built right can obliterate enemies and be gone the next moment with surprising efficiency. But on top of that, they can display some scary tenacity thanks to their regeneration enhancements, despite being the standard "mage" class for the game. Balanced roughly by their shorter range compared to the other subclasses. The Nova Warp Super allows them to flit all over the place to avoid injury and close ground quickly, and if they get close enough, it’s already too late for you.
- Power of the Void: Goes without saying. Void Light is described by Warlocks as the faintest light that exists in the darkness between the stars. It's the sort of endless light that causes men stranded in space to go mad, and is supposedly how it's touched certain Warlocks like Toland and Osiris. Other lore indicates that the Void is itself a place that one can draw power from, and is hinted to be where the Nine and the Traveler originate, and may have some connection to life and death.
- Power Floats: Nova Warp and Nova Bomb suspend the Warlock using them in mid-air for their duration.
- Sphere of Destruction: A Cataclysm Nova Bomb is less of a fist sized glob of void energy than a larger, slowly travelling sphere that utterly obliterates anything it happens to detonate upon.
- Teleport Spam: Voidwalkers can learn Blink, which replaces the Glide ability, to more effectively close in on enemies. Weaponized in the Warlock's Nova Warp, trading out their Nova Bomb for a series of teleports that culminates in the Warlock releasing a powerful Void explosion.
Stormcaller — Harmony within, hurricane without.
The Stormcaller Warlock wields the raw, primal power of lightning and thunder, electrocuting all in their path. Their main super, Stormtrance, allows them to float around the battlefield like a wraith, raining lightning down upon foes that chains to other foes, spreading the decimation; upon cast they emit a powerful shockwave that spawns five projectiles, and while their super is active, they can use a small bit of energy to do a short-range teleport. Alternatively, they can focus destructive power into the Chaos Reach a powerful long-range beam. The Super can be cancelled early, allowing the Warlock to kill a target and retain some of their Super energy. Their grenades all focus on delayed damage that can spread to multiple enemies. The Pulse Grenade releases an orb of electricity at the impact point, damaging foes who get close; the pulse continues to shock enemies for a few moments after landing. Their Storm Grenade summons a localized storm cloud, summoning lightning that strikes the ground, and any nearby foes, after a short delay. The Arcbolt Grenade scans the area after landing, sending lightning to any enemies nearby that then chains further to other enemies. Stormcallers have two melee attacks; Chain Lightning does, well, exactly that: shock additional enemies within range of your target. Ball Lightning creates an orb of electricity that travels forward a sort distance before blasting the ground below with a lightning bolt. Both have enhanced effects while the user is Amplified. Stormcallers can choose between three aspects to bring the havoc. Arc Soul enhances Warlock Rifts by granting an Arc Soul to you and allies who use it, granting a small orb of Arc energy that freely shoots enemies near to its benefactor, becoming supercharged if its partner is amplified. Lightning Surge consumes a charged melee while sliding to blink forward, calling down jolting lightning when the Warlock rematerializes. Elecrostatic Mind generates an Ionic Trace whenever the Warlock kills an arc-debuffed target; collecting a Trace amplifies the Warlock.
- Chain Lightning: Wouldn't be a proper Arc-Subclass for Warlock if it didn't have this.
- Close-Range Combatant: Not as much as Voidwalker, but moreso than Dawnblade; 'Close-Range' is a bit longer for Stormcallers, since their melee abilities boast increased range by default.
- Critical Status Buff: The Arc Soul boosts the Rift to give any ally that stands in it a small familiar that shoots lightning bolts at enemies. There's no way to control what it shoots, but it follows you and its damage is extremely helpful.
- Defeat Equals Explosion: Not the Warlock themselves, but anything killed by their Chaos Reach Super will explode in a high voltage burst upon death, to make the situation for their comrades all the more dire.
- Evolving Attack: Stormtrance's chain lightning grows stronger the longer its channeled.
- Flash Step: The Ionic Blink modifier for Stormtrance allows Stormcallers using their Super to teleport short distances even on the ground, at the cost of some of Stormtrance's lifespan.
- Energy Ball: The Ball Lightning melee attack allows Stormcallers to shoot a blast of ball lightning at their foes. However, despite being a melee move, it’s got a surprisingly good range behind it even compared to other Stormcaller melee attacks and does not need close proximity to a foe to be used, allowing it to be freely fired as a stand-alone projectile.
- Ground Punch: Without actually punching the ground, at that. Stormtrance allows you to cast an extremely powerful thunderbolt downward on activation, akin to a smaller area Fist of Havoc. This is reflected with the Stormcaller throwing a hand downward upon activating Stormtrance.
- Kamehame Hadouken: Chaos Reach, the Stormcaller's alternative Super , fires a massive beam of pure Arc energy from their hand.
- Lightning Bruiser: Regardless of the obvious pun, while they do err on the “hard-hitting speedster” side due to not possessing recovery abilities to the degree that Voidwalkers possess, a well-built Stormcaller can unleash literal torrents of arc energy upon the battlefield and regenerate their abilities at a frightening pace. Their Supers also make them all the more stronger, as with Stormtrance they become harder to kill and can close in on their opponents with Ionic Blink along with giving entire groups of enemies a vicious case of High-Voltage Death, while Chaos Reach allows them to blast their foes to bits before cutting the juice and escaping with only the smell of ozone to tell of their presence.
- Mighty Glacier: Stormcallers using Chaos Reach can move, but are very, very slow and can't turn so easily, leaving them open to attacks from behind. However, they receive a spike in durability and their beam is powerful enough to turn anything in sight, from groups of enemies or teams of Guardians to clouds of water vapour with terrifying swiftness and ferocity.
- Power Floats: Anyone using Chaos Reach or Stormtrance will hover off the ground while they blast everything in the area to oblivion.
- Shock and Awe: The most literal example of all three classes. Rather than channeling Arc energy through a weapon like Hunters or creating shockwaves like Titans, Stormcallers let out their inner Palpatine and unleash a torrent of lightning from their hands.
- Tranquil Fury: Ikora Rey describes the Stormtrance as a state of this; the Warlock must maintain calm and understanding while in the trance in order to conduct the lighting through their body without being destroyed by the sheer concentration of Arc Light. The Chaos Reach Super perfectly embodies this, as it channels a deadly arc beam that is precise, focused, and surpasses the Stormtrance in sheer killing power.
Dawnblade — Spread your wings and set the sky ablaze.
The Dawnblade replaces the Sunsinger Subclass in Destiny 2. While inheriting a majority of the Sunsinger's traits and abilities, the Dawnblade gives the Warlock aerial superiority with the ability to rise and dive from the skies or to glide through the air, raining bullets and hellfire from above. Their primary Super is Daybreak, allowing the Warlock to take to the sky and wield a sword forged of Solar Light, slashing through the air to send waves of flame on enemies below. For a more supportive option, Dawnblades can choose the Well of Radiance, planting their sword in the ground to create a supercharged Rift that greatly buffs and heals any allies standing in it, particularly resisting the freezing effects of Stasis. Dawnblades inherently know the Solar, Swarm, and Firebolt grenades, and can learn many others from Ikora. The Solar Grenade spawns a solar flare that continuously burns enemies inside. The Firebolt Grenade is a bit more direct, shooting blasts of fire at any enemy caught with in its radius. The Swarm Grenade spawns drones that hang in the air for a short time and track any enemies that wander too close. Dawnblades can choose between two melee abilities. The Celestial Fire melee fires a spiral of three explosive energy blasts, while the Incinerator Snap sends out a fan of burning sparks that scorch their targets. Dawnblades can also choose a third option for their class ability, Phoenix Dive, which allows them to quickly descend from the air and restore health to themselves and nearby allies.
Dawnblades can choose between three Aspects to suit their needs. Heat Rises allows the warlock to consume their grenade to allow them to fire weapons, cast melee abilities, and throw grenades while gliding; final blows while airborne generate melee energy and extend the duration of Heat Rises. While Heat Rises is active, Phoenix Dive also triggers health regeneration while diving, and scorches enemies near the landing zone. Icarus Dash allows them to dodge in mid-air on a short cooldown, twice in succession if Heat Rises is active. Touch of Flame enhances several of the Dawnblade's grenades: Healing Grenades gain increased potency, Solar Grenades get increased duration and periodically spawn blobs of lava, Firebolt Grenades have their search radius and maximum target count increased, and Fusion Grenades explode twice.
- Badass Fingersnap: As if taken from Roy Mustang himself, the Incinerator Snap is capable of turning groups of enemies into little more than explosive residue.
- Death from Above: The Dawnblade takes the crown of aerial ace, as their Aspects focus on their ability to fight while airborne. This aspect completely replaces the 'Support' playstyle that Sunsinger was known for. Heat Rises takes this trope and runs with it.
- Fragile Speedster: The Dawnblade's various aspects have the potential to make Warlocks annoylingly hard to kill with their combination of evasive and aerial combat abilities, especially while Daybreak is active. However, they'll have few methods for quickly recovering health.
- Flying Firepower: In Daybreak they gain a glide boost that lasts so long they may as well be flying, and a Flaming Sword to toss waves of fire at their enemies.
- Hand Blast: The Celestial Fire melee attack allows the Dawnblade to throw a potent, spiraling cluster of Solar energy bolts at their foes.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: Daybreak features them brandishing a Sword forged of Solar Light, similar to the Solar forged Hammer that Sunbreakers wield and the Solar forged Revolver that Gunslingers wield.
- Kill It with Fire: This Warlock subclass deals with Solar Light, so it’s only a matter of course that the enemies of said Warlock meet their death in a roiling inferno.
- Knockback Evasion: Phoenix Dive can be used for this, as it instantly nullifies your momentum and causes you to drop on the spot. This can potentially save you from being tossed into a wall, over a bottomless pit, or away from an important objective.
- Magic Knight: Their signature Daybreak lets the Warlock cast waves of destructive power at their enemies from above.
- Not the Intended Use: Casting Daybreak is usually done for launching fiery projectiles at enemies, but can also be unexpectedly used for movement purposes thanks to the sheer glide boost it provides. Indeed, you can outrun all other Guardians by lightly tapping Burst Glide over and over again while in Daybreak, and in some cases you can go faster than Sparrows.
- Playing with Fire: All about raining fiery death from above.
- Power Gives You Wings: They sprout fiery wings during Daybreak, and if levitating while using a certain exotic.
- Sword Beam: Their main method of attack in their Daybreak Super is to use their sword to hurl slashes of fire at their enemies that explode on impact.
- Sword Plant: Well Of Radiance allows the Warlock to stick their Daybreak sword into the ground to create a super-Rift that heals and empowers anyone within to new heights of strength and durability. Also functions as a Shockwave Stomp in that any foes within the soon-to-be radius of the sword will either take a ton of damage or be several flavours of dead when it’s planted.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Almost every Dawnblade ability explodes in one way or another.
- Support Party Member: Well of Radiance trades the Dawnblade's destructive potential for the ability to buff and protect their allies.
Shadebinder — Reality is chaotic and unruly; bind it and bring order.
A subclass introduced in Beyond Light, guardians are introduced to a Darkness power called Stasis which allows them to generate ice and freeze enemies.
Shadebinders harness the raw power of Stasis, freezing their enemies in place before shattering them like glass. The Winter's Wrath Super summons an icy staff that they can use to fire bolts of Stasis to instantly freeze enemies, or raise to shatter any frozen targets nearby. Their Umbral Blast Melee throws a single bolt of Stasis to freeze a target. Their first Aspect is Iceflare Bolts, which causes freezing seekers to spawn whenever a frozen target is shattered. Frostpulse causes the Warlock's Rift to emit a freezing pulse. Bleak Watcher allows the Warlock to consume their grenade to convert it into a turret that fires stasis bolts at nearby targets. Glacial Harvest spawns Stasis shards upon freezing an enemy that regenerate their melee energy, with more powerful combatants providing more shards when they are frozen.
All Stasis subclasses share the same three grenades. The Glacier Grenade generates a wall of Stasis crystals that can be used as platforms, instantly freeze enemies caught inside, or be shattered for a burst of damage. The Duskfield Grenade spawns a field of Stasis energy that slowly freezes enemies inside over time. The Coldsnap Grenade spawns a seeker that tracks to nearby enemies, instantly freezing them.
- An Ice Person: Shadebinders use the power of the Darkness to destroy their enemies with the deathly cold.
- A Taste of Power: Unlike previous light subclasses where progression starts from the bottom and grows in power over time, learning how to wield darkness with the revamped abilities (class, melee, super) is available instantly upon interacting with a Darkness shard, and at that point your abilities are supercharged to a negligible cooldown. Once the campaign is finished the official Shadebinder subclass is unlocked with normal power balancing, but more versatility in stat control.
- Lightning Bruiser: While a properly built Shadebinder can become a deceptively durable killing machine, using Winter’s Wrath not only makes them tougher and grants them the ability to immobilise and annihilate their foes with a devastating one-two punch from their staff, but the potent boost to their glide also makes it one of the most agile roaming Supers in the game while airborne, combining fluid movement with aerial manoeuvrability for a surprisingly graceful result.
- Magic Missile Storm: When using Winter’s Wrath, a Shadebinder unleashes 4 homing Stasis shards from their staff per attack, which can easily lead to them freezing and shattering entire groups of foes in a hailstorm of icy projectiles.
- Magic Staff: To go with their theme of Wizard Classic, the Shadebinder's weapon of choice is a staff made of ice. It serves as both their melee and Super.
- Not Quite Flight: A Shadebinder using Winter’s Wrath can glide through the air significantly longer than usual, as well as fall at a much slower speed.
- The Turret Master: A downplayed case. The Bleak Watcher Stasis Aspect allows the Shadebinder to supercharge their grenade and toss it to summon a stasis turret at the point of impact. This turret fires bursts of stasis shards that inflict low damage but seek out, slow and eventually freeze anybody that can’t escape its range fast enough.
- Wizard Classic: Warlocks have always evoked a more traditional magical use of their light powers, but both the super and the melee generate a crystalline wizards staff to fire ice shards. The super emits a damaging and freezing aura around them in a "raise the staff and energy is released" pose.
Broodweaver — From the confines of your mind, reality bends, and fate you bind.
The second Darkness subclass introduced in Lightfall, Strand allows guardians to grasp the psychic threads that connect all life and weave them to their benefit.
Broodweavers are capable of creating armies from nothing with a multitude of ways to create threadlings with their abilities. Their Needlestorm Super sends out a wave of strand projectiles that embed themselves into surfaces and enemies before detonating and reforming into threadlings. Arcane Needle is a melee ability with three charges that unravels enemies on impact, causing them to shoot out additional Strand projectiles when damaged. Broodweavers additionally get enhanced funtionality from their threadlings that Threadrunners and Berserkers don't; if their threadlings can't find any enemies to attack, they'll eventually return to the Warlock and perch on them, up to five at a time, before attacking the next enemy the Warlock engages.
Broodweavers currently only have two Aspects. The Weaver's Call Aspect instantly creates three threadlings whenever the Warlock casts their Rift. Mindspun Invocation enhances the Warlock's grenades with additional effects; the Grapple melee spawns three threadlings upon hitting an enemy, their Shackle Grenades can be consumed to grant Weaver's Trance, allowing them to create detonations that suspend enemies on kills, and likewise they can consume their Threadling Grenades to instantly create five perched threadlings.
All Strand subclasses have three shared grenades. The Grapple creates a grappling hook that pulls a guardian a certain distance or latches onto the targeted ally, enemy or tangle, pulling them towards it. Additionally, meleeing after a grapple performs a special melee that deals area of effect damage and unravels damaged enemies. Shackle Grenades suspend enemies on impact and split into smaller projectiles that also suspend. Threadling Grenades split into multiple threadlings after being thrown.
- Beat Them at Their Own Game: Despite suspension being a major strength of a Broodweaver with Mindspun Invocation, it's also one of the three things that can be used to knock them out of Weavewalk, possibly fatally.
- Knows the Ropes: Warlocks get access to Strand and can become Broodweavers. Their specialty is summoning Threadlings while debilitating targets, overwhelming them with swarms of minions while the Warlock stands back and annihilates them from afar.
- Magic Missile Storm: Needlestorm throws out a bunch of seeking projectiles in one fell swoop, but this also extends to their melee. With the right build a Broodweaver can chuck out Arcane Needles at a pretty impressive speed.
- The Minion Master: Leans harder into the threadling creation aspect of Strand than the other two classes do. It's not uncommon to have dozens of the little guys scurrying around the battlefield.
- Stone Wall: Weavewalk, which allows a Broodweaver to air dodge and enter a state of 90% damage reduction fuelled by their three melee charges. However, they can't sprint, attack, or interact with objects, and any attack that cancels abilities can still end it early. They also can't exit Weavewalk themselves without performing the lengthy cast animation again or using a Rift.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Suppression, suspension, or freezing will immediately knock a Broodweaver out of Weavewalk while also making them take full damage from whatever inflicted the debuff.
- Zerg Rush: With the right build, a Broodweaver can summon tons of Threadlings and have them tearing enemies to pieces with huge swarms.
Titans
The most durable class, Titans focus on armor and defense, with an emphasis on close-combat. As members of many orders, Titans are the frontline of the Tower, tackling any foes head on with the honor and manner of an ancient Knight.
Their unique class ability is Barricade, allowing them to create a wall of solid light that provides cover, blocking enemy fire. Towering Barricade is a tall wall that covers a standing Guardian, able to take a considerable amount of punishment. Rally Barricade is shorter, and needs to be crouched behind, but grants those behind it a range bonus, max reload speed, and flinch resistance.
- BFS: Their class-exclusive sword Crown-Splitter is a rather large longsword. It's the only known sword with the Aggressive Frame, which enables the user to do a slam. It boasts a high impact, efficiency and defensive value, and sword ammo upon heavy melee kills. The caveat to this is that it turns the Titan into a Mighty Glacier.
- Big Book of War: The Titan Codices, tomes containing wisdom and techniques of Titans past which become the basis for various schools of martial arts among modern Titans.
- The Big Guy: The largest and most imposing Guardian.
- Blood Knight: All of the Titan orders exalt valor in combat, but some of them take the ideal to its extreme. The Firebreak Order, for example, is known for being intentionally extremely aggressive.
- Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: Not as ingrained as hand cannons and sniper rifles are to Hunters, but Titans are very associated with brute force weapons like auto rifles and shotguns.
- Following the weapon-type's introduction in The Taken King, Titans have gained a preference for swords, fully going for the Knight in Shining Armor motif by frequently being shown wielding swords in official promotional art. This is made especially apparent with the introduction of the exotic gauntlets Stronghold in Joker's Wild, which has bonuses specifically for swords note .
- Deployable Cover: The Titans' Class Ability in Destiny 2 lets them place Barricades. Towering Barricade erects a tall barrier that block incoming shots, protecting allies and sealing off passages from gunfire. Rally Barricade places a shorter, waist-high barrier that allies can aim to peek over while instantly reloading weapons when taking cover.
- Dissonant Serenity: Some Titans find combat exhilarating, while others find it strangely calming. To quote the Ahiharnt greaves flavor-text:Some Titans speak of a transcendent state found only in battlefield success.
- Good Old Ways: Titan armor and mark designs are heavily bound in tradition. In fact many models of Titan armor are built in imitation of Golden Age designs even if they lack the same materials and manufacturing techniques. As the price of error could be fatal, proven designs tend to dominate.
- HP to One: The Barricade ability introduced in Destiny 2 can damage any enemy passing through it and will send them into their stunned animation for a few seconds, but it will never outright kill them, only leaving them with a sliver of health.
- Knight In Shining Armour: There are high level sets of armour for the Titan (at least 4 of them) called Knight# which have a silver colour scheme by default. In Destiny 2, they have a set called "Mimetic Savior" meant to evoke this.
- Last Stand: The Titans have several notable examples, usually of great individuals, but the fall of the City in Destiny 2 showed the most examples. The Stoneborn order was totally wiped out, fighting to the last, while the Firebreak order, to their shame, survived the battle and didn't get to have a Last Stand. And the Sunbreakers were also wiped out to the last when defending the Forge on Mercury when the Cabal came to consume the planet for fuel for the Almighty.
- Magic Knight: The most knightly of all Guardians, they have just as much paracausal "magic" as Warlocks despite the name.
- Mighty Glacier: Titans are often portrayed with low mobility, low attack speed and high damaging attacks, since most of their class specific things are something heavy and hard hitting. This is very clear with their class specific Aggressive Frame swords, as it has the highest impact damage of all swords in the game but the lowest swing speed. The middle tree arc super, the Thundercrash also doesn't move abnormally fast but it packs a massive punch, especially when wearing the exotic Cuirass of the Falling Star, making it the hardest hitting attack in the game.
- Mildly Military: More than the other classes. When they aren't The Order, Titans do the best at pretending to be the closest thing to the City's official military with actual ranks and structure.
- The Order: The Titans are arranged into a variety of orders depending on what philosophy and preferred aspect of war they embody.
- The Pilgrim Guard is the oldest Titan order, pre-dating the City itself. In addition to escorting refugees to the City, they are also the most Pro Human Trans Human of the Titan Orders.
- The Stoneborn Order are the Titans who serve as a Home Guard, being garrisoned at the Wall. In the words of Commander Zavala, "They don't break". According to their armor pieces in Destiny 2, they were wiped out to the last defending the City against the Cabal, proving Zavala's words.
- The First Pillar is dedicated to achieving important strategic victories over the minions of the Darkness, but often at the cost of their lives.
- The Firebreak Order is an Order that believes in taking the fight to the Darkness. People think they are mindless berserkers, but that's wrong—they put a lot of thought into where they direct their aggression. They also maintain eternal flame for fallen members, and in Destiny 2, one of their order managed to extract the Flame from the City before it fell. And, to their shame, many of them survived the battle.
- The Sunbreakers are a Mercenary order who works beyond the Last City, helping whoever they sell their services to. In Destiny 2, the last of the Sunbreakers are killed by the Cabal while defending the Forge on Mercury.
- The Sun Legion... exists. They provide a helmet to new Titans, but otherwise that is all we know about them.
- Powered Armor: Technically all the Guardians have advanced armor, but the Titans are designed to look and be like a humanoid tank. This is in contrast to the flowing robes of Warlocks and the strapped together outfit of Hunters.
- Power Fist: Their primary melee weaponry is built into their gauntlets and triggered by impact, either shocking opponents with crackling arc energy, disintegrating them with volatile void energy, or incinerating them with searing solar energy.
- Shoulders of Doom: A lot of Titan gauntlets come with pretty good shoulders.
- Space Marine: Bungie based the designs of this class on the modern Space Marine.
- Vertical Mecha Fins: Several makes of Titan armor involve fins or struts mounted on one side of the back and pointing upward. According to item descriptions, these originally served as heat sinks or mountings for external power units for their armor. The pace of technological advancement has rendered these fins obsolete, but they are often maintained for reasons of tradition or are components of an Ancestral Armor set.
- You Shall Not Pass!: It's implied in item descriptions and the Grimoire that the Titans are the Guardians primarily responsible for holding the line at the Wall, and were the majority of fighters during the brutal Battle of Twilight Gap.
Striker — At close quarters a fist is better than any gun.
The Striker Titan is the most devastating in close quarters, augmenting strikes with electrical energy. In addition to close range, Strikers focus on zone control. The Flashbang Grenade blinds all enemies close to its detonation. The Pulse Grenade releases an orb of electricity at the impact point, damaging foes who get close. The Lightning Grenade sticks to a surface, releasing bolts of lightning that zap approaching foes.
Their main super ability, Fists of Havoc, causes them to dramatically slam the ground in a hammerfist of falling thunder, and empowers them with greater speed. For a duration, they can rampage around a battlefield, repeatedly either slamming the ground and leaving behind damaging energy fields or unleashing devastating charges to crush their foes. Alternatively, Thundercrash, sees the Titan take off into the air like a cruise missile, flying wherever they're pointed for a short time before smashing back into the ground with terrifying power.
In close quarters, these Titans have three options to bring the pain. Seismic Strike allows you to slam into an enemy after sprinting for a short time, releasing a blinding Arc wave on impact. Ballistic Slam is an aerial melee that causes the Titan to crash down with extreme force, dealing damage in an area. Thunderclap allows the Titan to charge their melee to unleash a devastating blast of Arc energy. Additionally, Striker titans have a unique class ability, Thruster, which moves them in their current vector on the ground.
Strikers can choose between three aspects. Touch of Thunder enhances the functionality of certain grenades. Flashbang grenades emit an additional flash on bounce, Pulse grenades increase in damage over time and generate Ionic Traces as they damage targets, Lightning Grenades gain an additional charge and jolt targets hit by the initial blast, and Storm grenades become a roaming thundercloud after detonating. Knockout infuses your melee with increased range and arc damage when critically damaging a target or breaking its shield; defeating targets with melee attacks kickstarts health regeneration and amplifies the user. Juggernaut grants the Titan a frontal shield while sprinting with full class ability energy; class ability energy is consumed if the shield is broken.
- Dynamic Entry: Need to make an entrance? The Striker's got that covered. Seismic Strike allows sprinting Titans to slam headlong into enemies, dealing major damage to nearby foes on impact. A moving Fist of Havoc prompts the player to leap a good distance before smashing the ground, and for the moments after, you have increased movement speed to freely rampage across one battlefield to another if you so choose. Ballistic Slam takes it further by transforming your melee charge into a flying leap that ends with a sickening crash of thunder, dealing very high splash damage to anyone in the vicinity; the Thundercrash Super in particular lets you become a literal Arc-infused ICBM, and woe betide anyone who sees you zipping through the air in their direction.
- Ground Punch: Their Fists of Havoc involves leaping into the air and hammering their fists into the ground, causing heavy damage to nearby enemies. The Thundercrash Super takes it up a notch by literally nuking the the area surrounding the point of impact.
- Heal Thyself: Knockout allows melee kills to heal the Striker.
- Lightning Bruiser: Pun completely, and absolutely intended. While they initially start out quite slow, they are capable of moving around just as fast as their Hunter and Warlock counterparts. The Striker even gains abilities that only activate when sprinting.
- Never Bring a Gun to a Knife Fight: Not to say that guns are worthless; they'll still see the majority use out of your game. The Striker's schtick is to dominate when the fight goes close quarters, where most others lack without certain perks and equipment. Unless your opponent has a shotgun, a sniper with a lot of distance, or their Super ready, the Striker's gonna pound them flat.
- Shockwave Stomp: Fists of Havoc leaves damaging shockwaves in their wake that repeatedly threaten enemies who try to follow in the warpath. This damage increases when slamming from the air.
- Arguably, the easiest way to use Thundercrash; once you are airborne, you need only to aim down at your targets.
- Simple, yet Awesome: Flashbang, one of their very first grenades they unlock, has some of the greatest utility out of all grenades. Minions of Darkness affected by the flashbang also can't fight back in any form, making them easy pickings for you and your team. Its usefulness is a little more subdued in PvP, as the blinding effect's strength varies with how close its victims were to the blast, but hey, it also knocks out their HUD regardless, which can throw unskilled players into a loop.
- Super-Strength: The Striker is based on punching things with tremendous force. This is most obvious with the Thundercrash super, where the Titan simply charges the enemy fist-first and the impact is comparable to a meteor. With the Cuirass of the Falling Star exotic it dishes out some of the highest burst damage in the game.
Sunbreaker — Forge the fury of undying suns.
The Sunbreaker Titan is the epitome of destruction, forging the power of suns to burn enemies at any range. The Sunbreaker's iconic Super, Hammer of Sol, summons a flaming hammer that the Titan can throw to wreak destruction upon their enemies, dealing damage and shattering into additional shards that deal even more damage. Alternatively, Sunbreakers can summon the Burning Maul, a massive warhammer that can summon waves of flame by striking the ground or swung repeatedly into any unfortunate target nearby.
Sunbreakers inherently know the Fusion, Thermite, and Incediary grenades, and can learn more from Ikora. The Fusion Grenade sticks to foes before releasing a powerful eruption. The Thermite Grenade releases a line of fire from the impact point that pulses three times. The Incendiary Grenade, after exploding, leaves a nasty burn on anything that survived the detonation. Sunbreakers also incorporate their hammer into their melee attacks. Hammer Strike is a sprinting hammer swing that scorches the target, deals damage in a cone behind them, and causes enemies killed by it to explode. Throwing Hammer throws a hammer at a target then falls to the ground; picking up a hammer instantly recharges the ability and heals the user if it struck a target.
Sunbreakers have three Aspects that add to their considerable arsenal. Sol Invictus causes Solar ability kills, Hammer of Sol impacts, and defeating scorched enemies to create deadly Sunspots that scorch enemies. Walking into a Sunspot grants health restoration, increases ability regeneration, and causes your super to drain more slowly. Roaring Flames increases the damage of the Titan's Solar abilities whenever they get a kill with a Solar ability or Ignition, stacking up to three times. Consecration grants an alternate melee that can be activated by sliding, which launches a wave of scorching solar energy forward as the user leaps into the air. While airborne, you can reactivate your melee to slam the ground with two hammers, sending an even more devastating wave of solar energy that ignites any scorched foes.
- Expy: With all the hammers they throw, they're effectively a fire-based version of The Mighty Thor. This is especially notable as their alternate melee ability enables them to throw the Hammer of Sol, keeping it a solid object after using it to kill a target. Normally, the hammer should return to the owner's hand, but sometimes it deflects elsewhere. Getting the hammer back instantly resets the melee cooldown.
- Heal Thyself: Sun Warrior allows Sunbreakers to jumpstart their regen upon killing an enemy with a Solar ability. This also inherent in their Hammer Throw, only it requires the Titan to find their hammer.
- Herd-Hitting Attack: Both their Supers are built for hitting anything and everything in the room.
- Kill It with Fire: And not just because the Sunbreaker's Solar theme. Sol Invictus particularly rewards the Sunbreaker to use Sunspots to set the world ablaze, granting them bonuses when standing in Sunspots.
- Mighty Glacier: Sunbreakers lack the mobility of the Striker, but are still more mobility focused than Sentinel.
- Odd Name Out: A minor example in the original game. The name "Sunbreaker" was somewhat out of place with "Striker" and "Defender", especially when one compared how well the other two Taken King-introduced subclasses' names fit.note In Destiny 2, however, this does not apply as the names of subclasses are less similar to each other.
- Spin Attack: With the Burning Maul, the Sunbreaker can swing their hammer in a full circle to spin like a top, allowing them to either knock around multiple low-health enemies in their path, or to put on a lot of damage over time onto a boss.
- Sword Beam: Or "hammer beam" as the case may be. The Burning Maul 'heavy attack' makes the Sunbreaker slam their hammer, sending a wave of Solar Light across the ground and detonating upon hitting a target.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: In fact, it's the only way Hammer of Sol works, unless you're using Hammer Strike or the Burning Maul.
- Also applies to the Throwing Hammer melee.
Sentinel — Valiant heart, unwavering resolve.
The Sentinel replaces the Defender Subclass in Destiny 2. While inheriting a majority of the Defender's traits and abilities, they now possess far greater offensive power and skills. They have the Suppressor Grenade, which prevents enemies in the explosion radius from using any special abilities for a short duration. With the Voidwall Grenade, they make a wall of burning Void Light that draws a line in the sand, dealing damage to any enemies that attempt to cross. Lastly, they have the Magnetic Grenade, which attaches to enemies and detonates twice, with the first sucking enemies into an implosion before dealing higher damage in a second explosion. Their Super is the Sentinel Shield, which summons a shield of Void energy that they can raise to erect a barrier that enemies can't shoot through, but allies can, or they can bash with and hurl at their enemies to remind them that shield is not just armor — it's a weapon. For a more defensive option, Sentinels can instead choose the classic Ward of Dawn, summoning a protective dome around you that grants anyone inside a Void Overshield and the damage-increasing Weapons of Light buff. Titans have two melee attacks to choose from: Shield Throw throws the Titan's void shield at a target, ricocheting off of enemies and surfaces and granting a small amount of Overshield for any enemy hit; the Shield Bash melee allows the Titan to slam their shields into enemies after a short wind-up sprint, suppressing enemies hit by the attack and gaining Overshield on kills.
Sentinels have three Aspects to modify their toolkit. Offensive Bulwark rewards Overshield uptime, increasing melee damage, range, grenade cooldown speed, and extending the Overshield's duration on melee kills. Additionally, Sentinel Shield gains an extra shield throw. Controlled Demolition causes all Void ability hits or Volatile explosions to make a target Volatile; Volatile enemies explode with Void energy upon receiving a certain amount of extra damage or upon death, and nearby explosions grant health to you and your allies. Bastion causes your super activations to grant allies a Void Overshield, and empowers your barricades to grant Void Overshields to any allies that hunker down behind it.
- Anti-Magic: The Suppressor Grenade may be lacking in damage, but it has the ability to disable special abilities of its victims for a short time. While this varies for minions of Darkness (Captains can't teleport for example), this actually works best against other players in the the Crucible, as it disables all of their abilities. Meaning: they can't double-jump, they can't grenade, they can't melee ability, they can't go Super, and if they were in the middle of using their own Super it'll get canceled!
- Barrier Warrior: Even moreso than the first game's Defender subclass. Between the Barricade class skill, overshields, and the mobile-yet-sturdy Sentinel Shield, Sentinel Titans can make assaulting a location into a suicide mission for the enemy. Get two or three together on a Control point and watch it become an unassailable fortress.
- Combat Medic: More so than before.
- Bastion allows the Sentinel to give all their allies an overshield by either plopping down a barricade or casting a super.
- Controlled Demolition heals all nearby Guardians the moment Volatile enemies explode.
- Expy: If the Sunbreaker is pretty much Thor, then the Sentinel is Captain America.
- Lightning Bruiser: The Sentinel Shield turns Sentinels into an outright bruiser, especially as Shield Bash lets them more easily close the gap to their enemies.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Sentinels can raise their shield to protect their allies, or they can use the Defenders' Ward of Dawn.
- No-Sell: Sentinel Shield's defensive powers are so great that they can stop even melee supers like Fists of Havoc dead in their tracks before counter-attacking with a shield throw or smashing their attacker's face in.
- Shield Bash: Titans have apparently learned from Kabr's Aegis, and can now smash enemies to bits with their new Shield, complete with mirroring the Aegis' attack animations.
- Throwing Your Shield Always Works: The Sentinel can also throw their Shield at enemies. Though slow, it makes up by also being able to ricochet and hit multiple targets. The Shield Throw melee works the same way, just weaker.
- Why Am I Ticking?: Controlled Demolition can inflict this on enemies; any void ability damage will make them Volatile, and the explosions can chain off of themselves.
Behemoth — Particle or planet, it all shatters with enough force.
A subclass introduced in Beyond Light, guardians are introduced to a Darkness power called Stasis which allows them to generate ice and freeze enemies.
Behemoths are masters of creation and destruction, building Stasis crystals to radically alter the battlefield before shattering them with the force of an avalanche. Their Super, Glacial Quake, encases their fist in an icy gauntlet that can be slammed into the ground to create a wave of Stasis crystals. While the Super lasts, they can send themselves flying at enemies with their melee and shatter crystals by mere proximity. Their Melee, Shiver Strike, launches them at nearby enemies, slowing, knocking back, and shattering any nearby Stasis crystals. Their first Aspect is Cryoclasm, which empowers their knee-slide to shatter Stasis crystals and frozen targets. Tectonic Harvest synergizes with the Behemoth's smashy tendencies by spawning shards from destroyed Stasis crystals that restore melee energy. Howl of the Storm allows the Titan to use a charged melee while sliding to launch a wave of stasis energy that freezes enemies and forms Stasis crystals. Diamond Lance spawns a spear of Stasis energy upon killing an enemy with Stasis abilities. This spear can be thrown at enemies for a ranged freezing attack, or slammed into the ground for an area-of-effect freeze around the Titan.
All Stasis subclasses share the same three grenades. The Glacier Grenade generates a wall of Stasis crystals that can be used as platforms, instantly freeze enemies caught inside, or be shattered for a burst of damage. The Duskfield Grenade spawns a field of Stasis energy that slowly freezes enemies inside over time. The Coldsnap Grenade spawns a seeker that tracks to nearby enemies, instantly freezing them.
- An Ice Person: Behemoths use their power over the Darkness to smash their enemies to pieces with frost-coated fists.
- Dynamic Entry: The Behemoth's melee ability sends them flying towards the nearest target, or makes for a good movement utility; unlike the other three shoulder-charge melees, it is consumed regardless of whether or not you hit something.
- Dishing Out Dirt: While still having the ice-based powers seen in the other stasis subclasses, the Behemoth is described more like an avalanche in being able to warp the terrain in front of them.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: Compared to the Revenant's Stock Ninja Weaponry and the Shadebinder's staff, the weapon generated for the Behemoth is simply a hunk of ice around their fist. Which, considering the class, is all they need.
- Mighty Glacier: Pun aside, the Behemoth Super had the highest damage resistance of all roaming Supers at a whopping 60% at the start of Beyond Light, though it has been nerfed down to 47% with Hotfix 3.2.0.3 during Season of the Splicer.
- Right Hand of Doom: The super focuses on a large chunk of ice forming on their hand and jumping into enemies with a Ground Pound.
- A Taste of Power: Unlike previous light subclasses where progression starts from the bottom and grows in power over time, learning how to wield darkness with the revamped abilities (class, melee, super) is available instantly upon interacting with a Darkness shard, and at that point your abilities are supercharged to a negligible cooldown. Once the campaign is finished the official Behemoth subclass is unlocked with normal power balancing, but more versatility in stat control.
Berserker — The flash of a drawn blade in their eyes, the flash of fury in yours.
The second Darkness subclass introduced in Lightfall, Strand allows guardians to grasp the psychic threads that connect all life and weave them to their benefit.
Berserkers are unstoppable juggernauts capable of both increasing the hardiness of themselves and their allies while handicapping their enemies. The Bladefury super gives them bladed gauntlets that can slash at enemies to sever them or send out two waves that suspend anything they come into contact with. Their Frenzied Blade is a three charge melee that makes the Titan lunge forward and slash with a woven blade, severing the target.
Berserkers currently only have two Aspects. Their Into the Fray Aspect grants them and their allies Woven Mail whenever they destroy a Tangle, reducing all non-precision damage and boosting the recharge rate of the Titan's melee as long as they have Woven Mail. Drengr’s Lash shoots out a wave of Strand whenever the Titan places their barricade, suspending any enemies in it's path.
All Strand subclasses have three shared grenades. The Grapple creates a grappling hook that pulls a guardian a certain distance or latches onto the targeted ally, enemy or tangle, pulling them towards it. Additionally, meleeing after a grapple performs a special melee that deals area of effect damage and unravels damaged enemies. Shackle Grenades suspend enemies on impact and split into smaller projectiles that also suspend. Threadling Grenades split into multiple threadlings after being thrown.
- The Berserker: It's in the name. Titan Berserkers bolster their defenses while kneecapping targets, so that they falter under the Berserker's relentless assault.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: Bladefury and Frenzied Blade manifest as large blades made of Strand matter to slash and dice their enemies to shreds.
- Expy: Given their class name, and the fact that they're running around with a pair of bladed gauntlets as per their aggressive playstyle, the Berserker is effectively Wolverine in all but name.
- Killed Off for Real: One of the blurbs for the Berserker states that they "sever their targets from the Weave", implying heavily that this is what happens to any enemy that gets taken down by them.
- Knows the Ropes: Titans get access to Strand and can become Berserkers. With it, they manifest threads from the Weave to form claws to tear their enemies to pieces.
- Lightning Bruiser: Their easy access to Woven mail compared to Warlocks or Hunters means that Berserkers will almost always have the benefit of it's whopping 60% non-precision damage reduction, and that's before any other factors such as resilience, without suffering any penalty to their mobility or damage for it.
- Situational Damage Attack: Bladefury's light attack deals bonus damage to anything debuffed by the suspend effect, allowing it to work well in tandem with the heavy attack that suspends anything it hits.
- Support Party Member: Berserkers don't just smash through crowds, they can also bolster themselves and teammates' defenses via destroying Tangles to grant everyone Woven Mail.
- The War Banner aspect has greatly increased this, sending out pulses that heal and buff the melee of nearby allies. The berserker needs to get a melee kill to start it and then they need to keep meleeing or their allies need to kill while standing in range of the banner to keep it going and power it up. Done right the berserker is, ironically, the best healer in the game. Done wrong, which is easier than other healers, and nobody really benefits.
Universal
Prismatic
Introduced in The Final Shape, the Prismatic subclass allows the use of all five Light and Dark elements (including grenades, Aspects, Fragments, and Supers) at the same time, and requires both element types to make full use of its potential. Dealing Light and Dark damage charges two separate meters in addition to the current super; when both are full, the new ability Transcendence can be activated that supercharges all equipped weapons and unlocks specialized grenades that use two elements at once.
Prismatic Guardians also have access to a unique Exotic class item that randomly takes on partial traits from two other Exotic armor pieces in the game. These perks are class-agnostic, meaning any class now has access to part of the Exotic arsenal of the other two classes.
- 11th-Hour Superpower: The class makes its debut in the final leg of the Saga of Light and Dark, only manifesting as the Young Wolf moves into the Pale Heart to confront the Witness and avert the Final Shape. Crow's comments in the gameplay trailer for The Final Shape indicate this is a result of being within the Heart of the Traveler, where the Light is at its strongest.
- All Your Powers Combined: It is the perfect harmony of all five elements, allowing their constituent abilities to be used in tandem. The gameplay reveal for The Final Shape shows a Warlock juggling perks to have Radiant, Devour, and Amplified triggered all at once while solo.
- Made of Explodium: A Spirit of Caliban class item will cause every thrown melee to ignite on kill, regardless of element.
- Megaton Punch: A number of Exotic perks that buff melee damage have been shown in the gameplay reveal to be capable of rolling on Prismatic class items.
- Yin-Yang Bomb: Trailers show that both Light and Dark abilities can be slotted into a Prismatic loadout at the same time.
Retired
When Destiny originally launched, it did so with three certain subclasses — the Bladedancer (for Hunters), the Sunsinger (for Warlocks), and the Defender (for Titans). With the release of Destiny 2, and Bungie's essential re-imagining of the franchise, certain things were left behind. These three subclasses were removed in Destiny 2, but we keep them here; while the new subclasses are an advancement, these classes still exist in the game's lore, and the newer ones are an 'evolution' of these styles.
Read on to see how they existed in the original game.
Defender — The wall against which the Darkness breaks.
The Defender Titan is a shield for his allies, protecting and supporting them from foes, while using Void Light to absorb attacks from enemies. Their super, Ward of Dawn, shapes an overshield out of Void Light that prevents fire from passing through, giving the Titan and allies a safe haven. Their melee attack can Disintegrate foes, turning the energy into a personal shield for the Titan that absorbs damage. Their Grenades keep with the utility; the Magnetic Grenade sticks to foes before releasing two explosions, the second of which pulls enemies to the center. The Spike Grenade releases a torrent of Void Light, continuously damaging enemies around and above the grenade. The Suppressor Grenade disables special abilities and shields of enemies caught in the explosion. To support allies, the Defender and his allies in the Ward of Dawn can gain Weapons of Light, increasing the damage of their weapons. The Defender can also support by releasing Orbs of Light by kills either with heavy weapons, or by melee attacks while Disintegrate's shield is active.
The Defender Titan was only featured in the original Destiny, and is replaced by the Sentinel in Destiny 2.
- Achilles' Heel: The Defender's Ward of Dawn is indestructable to anything short of another Guardian's Super. That said, another Guardian's Super can make extremely short work of that bubble shield, meaning that spotting a Warlock about to throw a Nova Bomb, a Bladedancer about to charge with Arc Blade, or a Striker about to land a Fist of Havoc may as well spell the Defender's death.
- Anti-Magic: The Suppressor Grenade may be lacking in damage, but it has the ability to disable special abilities of its victims for a short time. While this varies for minions of Darkness (Captains can't teleport for example), this actually works best against other players in the Crucible, as it disables all of their abilities. Meaning: they can't double-jump, they can't grenade, they can't melee ability, they can't go Super, and if they were in the middle of using their own Super it'll get canceled!
- Barrier Warrior: Whereas the Striker and Sunbreaker focus on destruction, the Defender focuses on the protection of allies through their Ward of Dawn.
- Combat Medic: Defender Titans that do not use the "Weapons of Light" mod for Ward of Dawn can be seen as this. In addition to granting their teammates some time to recover, Defender Titans that pop the Ward of Dawn with:
- "Blessings of Light" pretty much grant their teammates more time to fight with a 10-second overshield whenever they pass through the bubble.
- "Armor of Light" will grant a powerful, regenerating shield as long as their teammates stay in the bubble.
- More Dakka: Iron Harvest is great for Defenders loaded with Heavy Weapon ammo, particularly Machine Guns, as it can produce Orbs of Light on Heavy kills. Combine it with the Ruin Wings exotic, which increases the chance of Heavy Ammo drops and the amount of ammo they give, and you can turn a firefight into an Orb farm.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Out of all the Supers, screwing up a Ward of Dawn has the biggest potential consequences. It blocks all incoming fire, friendly and hostile, inside and out; meaning that a badly placed barrier can completely negate your shooter's sightline. Ward of Dawn's temporary bonuses also have big tradeoffs: Blessing provides a decent shield, it's not gonna stop a rocket or a torrent of enemies that just simply too strong; while Weapons lacks the shield bonus altogether, meaning that you might not even survive long enough to make use of the damage boost. Also, if you use it over a bottomless pit, you'll go straight down, meaning you've screwed yourself over.
- No Ontological Inertia: If a Defender goes down, so does their Ward of Dawn, making it imperative that they stay alive in order to protect their teammates.
- Stone Wall: What Defenders lack in offensive capabilities, they make up for in the potential to be really freaking hard to kill. Their Disintegrate's shield can be enhanced to greatly hasten reloads or constantly regenerate on top of an extended duration and shield health. To add to it, a Defender with their favorite shotgun and Armor of Light can become an immovable object, killing anything that ventures within their territory, short of someone using their Super.
Sunsingers — There are flames that even the Darkness cannot extinguish.
The Sunsinger Warlock summons the power of suns and stars, burning enemies in glorious fires and flares. Their super, Radiance, turns the Warlock into the avatar of the sun, setting fire to their form and allowing them to rapidly toss out their powerful grenades. Scorch allows them to burn away at foes who venture too close, dealing consistent fire damage. The Flare Grenade summons a ball of fire at the impact point, continuously burning away at enemies. The Firebolt Grenade fires a small bolt of flame at enemies unlucky enough to be caught in the initial blast. The Fusion Grenade sticks to foes like napalm, before erupting in a brilliant explosion. The Sunsinger has multiple ways not just to kill enemies, but to support allies; Continuous fire damage, granted by a perk, ensures enemy shields never regenerate, and Radiance can be upgraded to spread its cooldown reduction to the Warlock's allies.
Sunsingers were only featured in the original Destiny, and are replaced by Dawnblade in Destiny 2. Although Radiance returns in The Final Shape with significant reworks, it is folded into Dawnblade's kit and is therefore not considered part of the subclass.
- Back from the Dead: Radiance's Fireborn upgrade allows a Guardian to resurrect themselves on the spot after dying rather than having to wait for a member of their Fireteam. This can even save them from a Total Party Kill.
- Critical Status Buff: The Sunsinger's signature Super. Your grenades recharge waaaay faster, you have a small defense buff, and to top it all, you can have varying special effects to your Super, which are either actions or passives:
- Song Of Flame: Gives your teammates a cooldown reduction to their grenades when using your Super.
- Radiant Will: Reduces damage when using your Super, making you able to survive things that could otherwise kill you.
- Fireborn: Be reborn after dying, without having to respawn.
- Damage Over Time: The biggest inflictor of this, next to
Thorn. With Touch of Flame, Sunsinger grenades can set enemies on fire to deal a bit of extra damage with the added bonus of making sure their shields don't regenerate. Additionally, Viking Funeral weakens enemies set on fire a bit, making them take a bit more damage while ignited.- Sunsingers in PvP were notorious for the "Superburn" build, consisting of Firebolt grenades, Touch of Flame, and Viking Funeral, which previously extended the time victims were ignited. Firebolt grenades activated very quickly, dealt harsh damage despite not being lethal, and well-aimed, could set half the enemy team on fire. Combine that with the extended burn effect, and getting hit quickly became a death sentence: you either slowly burned away or get cheaply killed shortly after.
- Finishing Move: The Brimstone modifier for the melee ability works like this, killing enemies in an explosion of fire.
- Kill It with Fire:These are dark times. Humanity stands on the brink of extinction. We will carry fire into that darkness — a beacon to guide the way, and a pyre to consume our great enemy.
- Not Quite Flight: Along with the Warlock glide, Sunsingers can use Angel of Light to hover mid-jump by aiming down their weapon's sights. This is affected by inertia; do so while moving, and you'll move as well. Do so when jumping in place and you're a sitting, er, floating duck.
- Power Gives You Wings: When Radiance is activated, a pair of wings made of pure light appear on the Guardian's back. They're only there to look cool.
- Super Mode: More blatantly than any other Super. Popping Sunsinger does nothing more than pump up your resilience and overcharge the regen of your abilities. But while simplistic, not at all ineffective as those precious seconds you have it on can turn the tide of a fight.
- Why Won't You Die?: The Sunsinger's Flame Shield is known for this, creating an overshield on strike to absorb some damage, often long enough for the user to survive and/or kill the assailant.
Bladedancers — Beautiful lethality, relentless style.
Bladedancer Hunters are masters of the blade. While still skilled with a firearm, they're very adept at sneaking throughout the battlefield to down prey with a quiet stab in the back. Their super, Arc Blade, places them in a Light-induced trance, during which they and their knife are charged with electrical energy, allowing the Hunter to swiftly dispatch foes within close range. To help them close in on enemies, their Blink Strike allows them to melee attack at an extended range, while also closing the gap with enemies. Their grenades all focus on pure damage. The Flux Grenade sticks to targets, dealing bonus damage if it does stick. The Scatter Grenade spawns four drones that fly into the air, and seek out enemies to explode beside. The Arcbolt Grenade scans the area after landing, sending lightning to any enemies nearby that then chains further to other enemies. Bladedancers have a big focus on stealth and flanking; Special perks allow the Hunter to go invisible after crouching in place a short time, landing a Blink Strike or upon activating Arc Blade, allowing them to sneak up on foes for a clean kill or escape a sticky situation.
The Bladedancer subclass is only featured in the original Destiny, with the Arcstrider replacing it in Destiny 2. Vestiges of this subclass's stealth theme can be found in the Way of the Wraith for the Nightstalker, specifically the Spectral Blades super that wields elemental knives and can turn invisible.
- Awesome Ego: Often implied by a number of Bladedancer perks and Exotics, like Encore, which extends the duration of Arc Blade on kill, or Showstopper, which has the Bladedancer spin and unleash Arc Light in all directions. Bladedancers, for all their focus on invisibility, are very flashy and dramatic.
- Disaster Scavengers: Though lore suggests that all Hunters wear this as their hat, Bladedancers are the clearest example of this philosophy in gameplay. Their super puts them in a trance like that of Stormcallers, but plays more similarly to that of Strikers. They Blink like Warlocks, their Flux grenade is similar to the Defender Titan’s magnetic grenade, they outright share the Arcbolt grenade wit Stormcallers, and their Scatter grenade is a straight linear progression of the Gunslingers’ Swarm grenade. And their biggest innovation, camouflage technology, is scavenged from Rasputin but modified to resemble Fallen Vandal camo tech. And unlike Nightstalkers (whose invisibility is Light–based), Bladedancer invisibility, like all Hunters' melee attacks, requires no light whatsoever.
- In the Back: The first modifier for Blink Strike greatly increases its damage if you pull it on someone from behind. This is more likely done in the Crucible, as it wouldn't be rare to catch a player from behind. However, to properly pull in it PvE, you'd have to cloak yourself first or have a friend distract the enemy as the minions of Darkness will do everything they can to keep sight of you.
- Invisibility: The Bladedancers main hat, which allows them useful escape options and flanking tools.
- Escape Artists can briefly vanish upon landing their Blink Strike.
- Vanish allows users to, well, vanish upon activating and at will during Arc Blade.
- Stalker activates by crouching in place for a short time.
- Shadowjack doubles the duration of all these invisibility methods.
- Lightning Bruiser: No pun intended. Bladedancers can be specced out to be surprisingly tenacious despite the Hunters usual fragility. Arc Blade offers a small defense boost while active, and the Hungering Blade perk allows kills with Blink Strike and Arc Blade to restore health. Of course, the tradeoff is that you're relegated to melee combat unless you use the Razor's Edge modifer to gain a ranged lightning attack.
- Not the Intended Use: Bladedancers have gained a reputation as a sort of "reviver" character due to their cloaking causing enemies to ignore them. It's not rare to see someone use Arc Blade with the invisibility modifier exclusively for reviving because they can vanish at a drop of a hat.
- Sword Beam: Razor's Edge allows Hunters going Arc Blade to shoot an Arc wave along the ground at the cost of some energy, allowing some measure of ranged attack for Bladedancers.
- Teleport Spam: Bladedancers get the ability to "Blink", same as Warlocks.
