Destiny 2 Warlock BuildStarfire for Endgame PVE

When entering an engagement, use the following gameplay loop for survival and ability spam:

1. Spam abilities

• Melee is best for red bars
• Fusion grenades are pocket nukes and should be utilized to burst down yellow bars or a group of enemies

2. Pheonix Dive to activate Hellion and Ember of Benevolence
3. Use solar weapons to activate Restoration x2
4. Use abilities and solar weapons to extend Restoration x2

Many people will initially dismiss this build because Starfire was nerfed and they still think that it is trash. This needs to be clarified because it was nerfed from a DPS standpoint, not a neutral game one. Would it be nice to still spam fusion grenades at a boss like the old days? Of course it would, but we can still swap to Apotheosis Veil for DPS and get a similar effect. So now that Apotheosis Veil has been reworked the Starfire nerf is not as harsh from a DPS perspective.

Most people do not look at a Starfire build and think of how similar it is to the endgame Sunbracers build, but they are essentially the same build even down to the armor mods. Swap the solar grenade for a fusion, and swap the armor mods that regenerate melee ability for grenade regen and you are left with two builds that:

• Have quick ability regeneration for high uptime and ability spam
• Use those abilities and solar weapons to extended restoration x2 for high survivability

Sunbracers is better at crowd control because you can cover more of the battlefield / spawn points with solar grenades, while Starfire is better at bursting down majors and champs with four fusion grenades thanks to Touch of Flame.

There are many misconceptions about Starfire thanks to the misleading way Fusion Harness is worded. For those not aware, Starfire provides four benefits stated in the description, while also giving one background benefit not stated in the exotic description.

Here is a breakdown of the five benefits that Starfire Protocol provides:

1. Gain an additional Fusion Grenade charge.
2. Gain increased Fusion Grenade energy regeneration (2.5%) on weapon hits while in a Well of Radiance or Empowering Rift.
3. Gain increased Fusion Grenade energy regeneration (20%) on weapon kills while in a Well of Radiance or Empowering Rift.
4. Defeating targets with Fusion Grenades grant rift energy (100%).
5. Passively grants 20% increased Fusion Grenade regeneration rate.

The first misconception is that you must run Empowering Rift to take advantage of most of these benefits, this is not the case.

While it is true that we will not be taking advantage of #2 & #3, this is partially supplemented by benefit #5. In addition to that, there are many other ways that we will increase our grenade energy regeneration:

• Ember of Benevolence
• Grenade Kickstart
• Impact Induction
• Absolution
• Innervation
• Distribution
• Bomber

When you add up all of these supplements to grenade energy regeneration, upgrading to Pheonix Dive for more frequent Hellion and Ember of Benevolence activations is well worth it.

Lastly, #4 explicitly states Rift Energy, however this 100% increased energy regeneration not only works with both Empowering Rift and Healing Rift, but with Pheonix Dive as well.

As you can see, we really are not missing out on benefits 2-4 in a material way. It is worth noting that of all the Starfire benefits, #1 is by far the most important, and we will be capitalizing on that no matter how the subclass or mods are set up.