Destiny 2 Warlock BuildAerial Supremacy Prismatic Warlock

oday, we're diving into a Warlock build that offers a completely unique playstyle, unlike anything you've used before.

We'll be combining the strengths of the Prismatic Subclass with the Wings of Sacred Dawn Exotic Chestpiece and the Manticore Exotic SMG, creating a powerful synergy that enhances damage output, survivability, and team support.

Wings of Sacred Dawn The Wings of Sacred Dawn feature the Tome of Dawn intrinsic trait, providing a unique combat maneuver. When you jump into the air and aim down sights, you'll remain levitating for up to 3 seconds, and by landing additional hits on enemies, you can extend that time to as much as 7 seconds. This ability allows you to engage enemies in mid-air with the same effectiveness as on the ground, making it a game-changing advantage in many situations—especially since there’s no cooldown for this ability.

While in the air, you'll also gain a 15% damage resistance, which stacks with your resilience. For example, if you have Tier 10 Resilience, you’ll receive a total of 45% damage resistance. Additionally, you'll benefit from 25% flinch resistance, which makes it easier to land accurate shots even when under heavy fire.

Since this exotic also grants +50 airborne weapon efficiency, you'll find it much easier to land consecutive precision shots. This combination of damage resistance, flinch resistance, and airborne efficiency can make you incredibly hard to hit while boosting your damage output—particularly useful in activities like the final boss encounter of the Vespers Host Dungeon or against aggressive enemies like Cabal Gladiators.

The Wings of Sacred Dawn also has a nice perk: final blows with Solar weapons reload your weapon. For instance, if you're using a heavy grenade launcher like Marsillion C or Cry Mutiny, you won't need to manually reload after each kill.

The Manticore SMG The Manticore adds another layer of aerial supremacy. This exotic SMG comes with two unique traits: Soaring Fang and Swooping Talons. The Manticore is a lightweight frame, offering better handling and faster movement speed. When you land hits with the Manticore on the ground, you build Angrgrave Repulsors Charge—up to 100%. Once charged, you can activate hover mode by firing the weapon in mid-air.

In hover mode, enemies are less accurate when targeting you, and airborne weapon penalties are completely negated. With the Wings of Sacred Dawn's airborne efficiency bonus, the Manticore becomes extremely precise in the air. You can stay in hover mode for up to 6 seconds, and consecutive hits with the Manticore increase your damage output, capping at 100% bonus damage.

You can also transition from the Manticore’s hover mode into the levitation from the Wings of Sacred Dawn to stay airborne even longer, seamlessly extending your time in the air and maximizing both your survivability and damage output.

When you have the Manticore’s catalyst unlocked, it grants subsistence while hovering, replenishing ammo with each final blow. Additionally, any final blows while airborne generate a Void Overshield (15 extra health points, plus 70% bonus damage resistance), stacking with the damage resistance from Wings of Sacred Dawn. This synergy gives you unmatched survivability while dealing damage from above.

Synergy and Playstyle Together, these exotics allow you to stay in the air for extended periods, with increased accuracy, damage, and survivability. This is an incredibly versatile build, ideal for a variety of activities. For example, Hover Mode and Levitating not only help you avoid ground-based damage but also let you distract enemies, making it easier for your teammates to flank without putting themselves at risk.

Subclass and Abilities To make the most of these exotics, we’re pairing them with the Prismatic Subclass and focusing on abilities that enhance survivability and ability regeneration.

Song of Flame: This roaming Super grants a massive bonus to damage resistance, making it perfect for when you're engaging enemies in mid-air.

Phoenix Dive: We’ll focus on Phoenix Dive for quick repositioning, allowing us to get back to the ground safely and stay in the air longer.

Weaver's Call and Hellion Buddies: These Prismatic aspects work with our class abilities. Weaver's Call generates Strand Threadlings, which seek out enemies and deal bonus damage, while Hellion Buddies summons a Solar buddy that scorches enemies with projectiles.

We’ll also leverage Power from Pain to activate Devour, ensuring we keep healing when we defeat weakened enemies. This provides a constant source of health regeneration, especially when airborne, as we take out enemies quickly from above.

Grenades and Fragments Using Vortex Grenades with Facet of Dominance will weaken enemies and increase the damage they take by 15%. This synergizes well with the Devour effect and will help you stay topped up on health while causing significant damage to targets.

For Fragments, we have:

Facet of Dawn: Grants Radiance after a powered melee, boosting your weapon damage by 25%. This stacks with the damage from the Manticore and Wings of Sacred Dawn.

Facet of Courage: Increases all Light-based ability damage by 10% against enemies affected by debuffs like Sever, Unravel, or Freeze.

Facet of Hope: Boosts class ability regeneration by 60% when any elemental buff is active, ensuring Phoenix Dive is available often to keep you in the air.

Facet of Protection: Increases damage resistance by 15% when surrounded by enemies and up to 32% when in Transcendence (your aerial state).

Facet of Purpose: Triggers Restoration when you pick up an Orb, providing continuous health regeneration.

If durability is already sufficient, Facet of Bravery can be used instead, giving your Void weapons, like the Manticore, Volatile Rounds after defeating enemies with Vortex Grenades.

Artifacts and Mods Key artifact mods for this build include:

Power from Pain: Activates Devour when rapidly defeating weakened enemies. Supernova and Debilitating Wave: Both help trigger the Weakening effect, boosting your damage and giving more chances to trigger Devour. For weapon synergy, we recommend using Void Surge to increase the damage of your Manticore and other Void weapons, alongside Firepower, Reaper, and Siphon mods to generate orbs and fuel your class abilities.

Armor and Stats Resilience is crucial, especially for endgame content, providing that extra 30% damage resistance at Tier 10. Recovery should be prioritized to ensure Phoenix Dive is ready when you need it most, and Discipline will increase the uptime of your grenades. By focusing on creating orbs and generating class ability energy, we can maximize the effectiveness of Facet of Purpose and other armor mods that enhance weapon damage and ability uptime.

Final Thoughts While Wings of Sacred Dawn may not be the go-to for Grandmaster Nightfalls, it shines in many other scenarios, offering unparalleled aerial mobility, defensive buffs, and damage potential. With Manticore and a carefully chosen subclass, this build gives you the tools to adapt to a variety of situations and become a powerhouse in the air.