Destiny 2 Hunter BuildUnkillable Nuclear Melee Spam

CLASS ITEM DISPLAYED IS BUGGED, IT IS SPIRIT OF CALIBAN / SPIRIT OF CYRTARACHNE, NOT SPIRIT OF THE DRAGON

The build focuses around a buffed melee damage loop, fantastic utility uptime, constant ignitions and enormous survivability from Woven Mail, Frost Armor, fragments and Transcendence.

1. Always start your loop with a grapple melee.

   As soon as you start the Grapple you will get the 45% DR before you get anywhere near targets - with Facet of Protection providing an extra 15% DR (stacks multiplicitavely) on top of that to keep you extremely safe.

2. Any enemies killed by the Grapple melee will ignite, which can clear huge groups out very easily.

The Heavy Handed mods on your gauntlets will help provide you with plenty of orbs during the loop to provide you with Radiant from the artifact as well as Frost Armor from Facet of Purpose, aswell as topping up your health from Recuperation and giving some ability energy back to all three due to Absolution.

3. Shieldcrush is invaluable in this build.

The constant Frost Armor from orbs and Woven Mail from Grapples helps to keep it active at all times, which gives a huge +25% melee dmg + recharge rate, turning your spammable Spike into a series of hard-hitting Solar nukes that can be caught and spammed to clear out rooms easily. Furthermore, due to getting free Radiant from the artifact when picking up orbs, you also get a +25% dmg + recharge rate buff to your grenades, which luckily also buffs Grapple melees AND Gunpowder Gamble (just damage) thanks to Shieldcrush.

4. I recommend running at minimum one Strand weapon in this build to utilise Threaded Blast from the artifact.

At first it might not seem like the type of perk you should be particularly bothered about proccing constantly, but take it off your artifact and shoot some Tangles, the difference is insane. With the amount of Tangles this build makes, being able to put a single bullet into one to drop another nuke on all nearby targets ensures that nothing will survive your gameplay loop.

5. If you get the opportunity to catch and throw your Threaded Spike out whilst invisible, do so.

Stylish Executioner will make your next Spike weaken targets on hit, priming any survivors to be a near guaranteed kill with whatever you choose to follow up with. It's also nice to have for teamplay, as this isn't the most supportive build out there and any debuffs you can provide for your fireteam will always be appreciated.

6. Pop Transcendence as much as you can.

This build revolves entirely around chaining abilities - which is what Transcendence is made for. You'll find yourself tossing out plenty of mini nukes and buffed tripmines that are great for stunning both Overload and Unstoppable champions, buffing a part of the build that is admittably slightly weaker than others. The 20% DR gained during Transcendence stacks with Facet of Protection, Frost Armor and Woven Mail to make you borderline unkillable as you throw out Hailfire Spikes and Threaded Spikes everywhere. Thanks to Transference from the artifact, you'll also receive +10% grenade and melee damage during Transcendence, as well as refunded Light and Dark energy from weapon kills that returns to you when it ends. Speaking of which, your weapons should also be juiced due to Radiant Orbs, the innate +5% dmg buff from Transcendence aswell as any Surge mods on your boots (if you choose to keep them on), so go crazy with your guns when you get the chance. With Facet of Bravery equipped, your Void and Strand weapons inherit free damage buffs and anti-champ capabilities through access to Volatile and Unraveling Rounds from grenade and powered melee final blows respectively. I'm not a huge fan of builds that give you great utility power but leave your weapons trailing behind, so this is a really nice buff to have up almost constantly.

7. Weapons and exotic choice.

I love Breachlight in the Kinetic slot. It's Strand, which gives access to Threaded Blast from the artifact, Unraveling Rounds from Facet of Bravery and provides a safe source of Darkness Energy. It's arguably the best non Rocket-Frame sidearm in the game currently and, as a sidearm, works perfectly inside an up-close-and-personal melee build. To enhance it even further, I have a roll of enhanced Pugilist / Swashbuckler for 11% melee energy on kills and a huge +33.3% damage buff for 6.5 seconds on any melee kill which feed into each other seamlessly. It also gets access to anti-champ capabilities from Unstoppable Sidearm in the artifact, which is great. As for your choice of Exotic, the floor is yours. I wanted to take advantage of the Volatile Rounds uptime granted by FoB and I'm not too keen on a lot of Exotic heavies, so an Exotic Void Special was the clear choice. I went with Wavesplitter as I love the versatility and reserves of Trace Rifles and it's a very viable option for those of us who still have not gotten Buried Bloodline to drop as this would be my go to choice if I had it for access to Devour and more Weaken. Other options include the recently juiced Graviton Lance or Collective Obligation - you may want to run a Special in your Kinetic slot if so, The Call is an obvious option there. As for your Heavy I went with my beloved Auto-Loading / Explosive Light Regnant to get more utility from my Void Surge mod - Edge Transit is a one-for-one swap but any Void heavy should do the trick. Red and yellow bars don't cause this build too much stress, so a MG isn't really necessary. To improve your boss DMG I would highly recommend taking a GL or Rocket.

6. As for things that can be tweaked - the single weapon Surge mod on the boots can be replaced if you would rather maximise your ability utility or survivability over additional weapon damage. Change the Siphon mod on the helmet to whatever the element of your main ad-clear weapon is (I have a Strand siphon for my Pug/Swash Breachlight). As always, resist mods on the chest can be swapped around to suit activities. Your survivability should be great, but if you find yourself getting into trouble up close, a Melee Damage Resist mod might be worth trying.

If the survivability and weaken you get from invis doesn't seem worth it / overkill, feel free to try out another aspect in place of Stylish Executioner. You are guaranteed an extra fragment slot by selecting Ascension, Threaded Specter or Winter's Shroud instead, so if there is a fragment you think would play nicely into the build feel free to tweak it to add it in. An example I could think of could be swapping out Stylish for Ascension to get access to Amplified to take advantage of Galvanic Armor from the artifact - a huge +30% bonus DR that stacks multiplicatively with other sources for even more survivability. You'd also get access to another source of close-range damage, ad-clear and anti-Overload through its innate Jolt. As for how to spend the extra fragment slot, Facet of Courage can provide a 10% increase in damage from any light ability source against anything debuffed by Darkness through things like Sever and Unravel, as well as giving a free +10 Discipline, which is always nice. Facet of Sacrifice, Hope and Blessing all look like solid options as well, so mix and match to find your optimal setup.

If you really don't like Silence & Squall... feel free to swap to another Super from the Prismatic set. I chose it mainly for Frost Armor from Facet of Purpose but you could swap it out for Golden Gun for Restoration x1, Tether for more utility and Overshield or whatever you see fit. Personally I think S&S gives great damage, utility, anti-champ, the second best DR (after WM) on a relatively low cooldown, but Supers are meant to be fun, so use the one you enjoy most :)

7. That's it! To summarise the build you will get:

Infinite igniting weakening Threaded Spikes that deal huge damage through artifact buffs

Hard hitting Grapple melees that ignite and give you WM

A +25% boosted GPG in your back pocket whenever you need it (with larger ignitions from FoR)

Four different sources of stacking DR, with most of them being up constantly from a very simple loop

Free Volatile and Unraveling rounds for additional damage, ad-clear and Champion stunning capabilities

Free Radiant for bonus weapon damage and fragment uptime

Fantastic Orb generation through armor mods

A very fun time watching everything in front of you explode :)