Destiny 2 Best Warlock Armor Tier List (PVP)

Welcome to our PVP Destiny 2 exotic armor tier list for Warlock!

The armor will be organized by S/A/B/C tiers with specific categories for Helmet, Gauntlets, Chest, and Legs.

To learn more about our methodology, head to the bottom of the article.

Note: White represents Witch Queen Exotic, teal represents Arc subclass, red represents Solar subclass, purple represents Void subclass, and blue represents Stasis subclass.

Now live in Destiny 2, The Final Shape expansion brings a new Prismatic Subclass. Discover our meta Prismatic Hunter builds, Prismatic Warlock builds, and Prismatic Titan builds.

If you’re looking for our other armor tier lists, check them out here:

destiny 2 warlock exotic armor tier list pvp

Destiny 2 Warlock Armor Tier List for PVP

S-Tier
- Helmet
  - The Stag
- Gauntlet
  - Ophidian Aspect
  - Osmiomancy Gloves
- Legs
  - Transversive Steps
A-Tier
- Helmet
  - Verity’s Brow
    Nezarec’s Sin
- Gauntlet
  - Getaway Artist
  - Karnstein Armlets
  - Claws of Ahamkara
- Chest
  - Wings of Sacred Dawn
- Legs
  - Rain of Fire
  - Boots of the Assembler
B-Tier
- Helmet
  - Crown of Tempests
  - Eye of Another World
- Gauntlets
  - Contraverse Hold
  - Sunbracers
  - Nothing Manacles
  - Necrotic Grip
- Chest
  - Mantle of Battle Harmony
  - Starfire Protocol
  - Stormdancer’s Brace
  - Sanguine Alchemy
  - Chromatic Fire
- Legs
  - Secant Filaments
C-Tier
- Helmet
  - Dawn Chorus
  - Felwinter’s Helm
  - Skull of Dire Ahamkara
  - Astrocyte Verse
  - Apotheosis Veil
- Gauntlets
  - Winter’s Guile
  - Aeon Soul
- Chest
  - Phoenix Protocol
  - Vesper of Radius
- Legs
  - Promethium Spur
  - Geomag Stabilizers
  - Lunafaction Boots

S-Tier Helmet

The Stag

This exotic can be very annoying to play against. If multiple people have this, they can spam rifts with damage resistance such that a sniper headshot is the only counterplay.

S-Tier Gauntlet

Ophidian Aspect

The ultimate neutral game exotic. Helps weapon handling. Helps reload speed. Helps melee range. And helps in air accuracy for some reason. These are a top option and are usable by any subclass.

Osmiomancy Gloves

These are quite slept on. They are fantastic for freezing targets and make coldsnap grenades extremely oppressive for enemies.

S-Tier Legs

Transversive Steps

The Warlock version of St0mp-EEs, except these, don’t hurt in air accuracy and have an added bonus of reloading weapons on sprint which is great for re-engaging or to reload special ammo that was once out of ammo after a green ammo brick is picked up.

A-Tier Helmet

Verity’s Brow

Can be solid with empowered void grenades and palindrome. A little restrictive in how you have to play around the element, but can let you have a lot of grenade value if you find the right combination for you.

Nezarec’s Sin

If using a void primary these can be quite strong and feed you a lot of ability energy for uptime of your grenade and quicker supers.

A-Tier Gauntlet

Getaway Artist

It’s tough giving up your grenade, but the arc buddy can really make the difference in a lot of gun fights. Very fun to use this and No Time to Explain for double buddies.

Karnstein Armlets

These are a good close-quarter exotic. These allow you to be sustainable to fight multiple enemies if you prefer short-range weapons.

Claws of Ahamkara

Some melees are quite good on warlock in PvP, most notably on Solar. This exotic allows you to have 2 of them to use more frequently.

A-Tier Chest

Wings of Sacred Dawn

The airborne effectiveness is huge at 50. Definitely worth considering if you play in air a lot. The bonuses work nicely with heat rises and icarus dash if you like to engage fights at high up, obscure angles to fight enemies off guard.

A-Tier Legs

Rain of Fire

Work well with Vex Mythoclast. Can be paired with empowering rift to get a 1 hit sniper body shot after a Vex kill due to the radiant buff+empowering rift buffs.

Boots of the Assembler

Works the same as in PvE where you can be the healer. Restoration is strong in PvP right now, this really lets you and your team take care of it. Also pairs well with and buffs Lumina which is in a good archetype, but isn’t the top option for a hand cannon.

B-Tier Helmet

Crown of Tempests

Arc ability kills do not come all to often in PvP, but this is a good hot swap exotic for stormtrance usage as you can make it last a while with this exotic.

Eye of Another World

This gives slightly faster ability regeneration speed and airborne effectiveness for all guns. Which is nice but nothing to go crazy over.

B-Tier Gauntlet

Contraverse Hold

Not as strong as they once were with the Handheld Supernova changes as these used to be very strong. There is no one shot grenade ability so exposing yourself while charging a grenade despite having damage resistance isn’t worth it for the most part.

Sunbracers

Solar grenades are decent in PvP, this exotic improves them, but by no means makes them fantastic.

Nothing Manacles

Scatter grenades aren’t strong enough to justify these being a very highly rated exotic. If you like them for area denial this exotic does definitely improve them, but by no means makes them overpowered.

Necrotic Grip

The poison damage doesn’t have much of an effect in PvP except if using celestial fire as you can deal a lot of damage from the multiple hits. Otherwise the only real benefit is the airborne effectiveness when using Thorn or Osteo Striga.

B-Tier Chest

Mantle of Battle Harmony

The super gain is minimal, but the damage bonus of 20% is nice once your super is full. The issue is that you rarely get super in PvP and the better perk requires you to hold off on using your super.

Starfire Protocol

You can get a lot of grenades with this exotic, but Fusion Grenades are one of the weaker solar grenades in PvP at the moment.

Stormdancer’s Brace

Another option for a stormtrance hot swap exotic for super use. The refund is nice and the damage buff does make a difference as fewer ticks will be required to kill an enemy.

Sanguine Alchemy

The amount of kills in a rift aren’t enough to justify this once broken exotic after its changes. Most higher level players will not try to actively fight you when you have the advantage of being in a rift, so kills will be restricted when in rift.

Chromatic Fire

There is minimal value in here. You can chain the damage to another target and that is really the only true benefit this exotic brings.

B-Tier Legs

Secant Filaments

In PvP where getting devour is harder these boots have more of a role. Problem is you need empowering rift which is definitely weaker in PvP when compared to healing rift.

C-Tier Helmet

Dawn Chorus

The super damage bonus is essentially useless in PvP. The scorch damage bonus is small such that it isn’t too impactful as scorch cannot deliver the killing blow.

Felwinter’s Helm

This is very hard to set up and get value out of. Getting a melee kill on one enemy and then being able to get a second kill on a near by enemy is very difficult, let alone the weaken effect only being on a powered melee kill so it is tied to melee cooldown.

Skull of Dire Ahamkara

The health bump is unlikely to make the difference in getting a nova bomb off or not.

Astrocyte Verse

This makes blink somewhat usable, but still not worth using an exotic just to use blink.

Apotheosis Veil

You’re only getting a super once, maybe twice a game. Hard to justify the use of this when other exotics can give ability energy throughout an entire game.

C-Tier Gauntlet

Winter’s Guile

A melee is 2 hits to kill. Unless you kill 2 enemies within 5 seconds of one another, only then the 3rd target can be killed with 1 melee in a 5 second window. This is nearly impossible to get off, and even if you do the only benefit is one less melee attack to kill 1 target.

Aeon Soul

No. Just don’t use them. Almost worthless in PVP.

C-Tier Chest

Phoenix Protocol

In game types in which you use Well of Radiance, you will most likely only get 1 super regardless.

Vesper of Radius

Can be fun to knock someone off the map but that’s about it. The damage is the same as a melee, but the animation time of a rift is so long you really expose yourself to be killed right after your rift is casted.

C-Tier Legs

Promethium Spur

These don’t quite work well with the nature of PvP fights. After a kill you should not blindly be running towards the person you just killed to get the effect of the new rifts as enemies will most likely be grouped. This will waste your rift energy more than getting actual benefit from it.

Geomag Stabilizers

These used to be extremely good, but with the change to them they only extend super duration of a shutdown super. The super kills so quickly the extended duration gets so little value as you either killed the target(s) or the target(s) ran away and the extended duration won’t make any difference.

Lunafaction Boots

The reload speed in a rift is not very useful whatsoever in PvP. Won’t make a difference in getting a kill or not.

Exotic Armor Tier List Methodology

When ranking exotics the following criteria are taken into account:

Is the effect the exotic brings strong?
If the exotic is class, weapon, or element specific, is that respective class, weapon, or element strong that it is worth building around or does this exotic make that otherwise weak aspect strong?
Will the exotic have a lot of uptime in which the effect is active or usable?
- If an exotic solely buffs a super it is taken into account that it can be swapped to for just a super, but is not rated as if the exotic is only used when super is casted due to the convenience of a hot swap to a certain exotic for a super and then a swap back.
Do other exotics perform a similar function or role better?
Is the exotic good in content that is both low and high difficulty?

S Tier

Not necessarily a must use, but these exotics are the strongest and applicable to most if not all situations.

A Tier

Slightly less strength and or use cases than S Tier. Some of these exotics are top options for particular situations and are good exotics for most situations.

B Tier

Typically only fairly good unless a build solely revolves around the exotic, and even if that is done, the build is less than optimal or is only a good option in a very specific situation. These exotics are worth using if you have limited options otherwise.

C Tier

These exotics are typically not worth the slot and their effect is either minimal or extremely niche.

For more meta analysis, check out our other Destiny tier lists.

Destiny Armor Meta Tier Lists