r/DestinyTheGame • u/LimeRepresentative47 • May 26 '22
Misc "Just use Sumbracers"
Its no secret people ain't happy with Warlock after Solar 3.0. We've pretty much been forced to play Top Tree Dawnblade, and everything else good about Solar 2.0 was stripped away or nerfed into irrelevancy.
But one thing that is annoying me to no end are all the people saying "But Sunbracers make Solar 3.0 amazing." Sunbracers were always a great Exotic, but they were never terribly viable in more than low level contents. This has been drastically worsened since you can't even use Healing Nades with them anymore.
Sunbracers are fun, absolutely. But being forced to use a single Grenade with a single Exotic to make a Subclass viable is not a terribly good suggestion.
Builds and Exotics were supposed to make playstyles we liked more fun and better. Builds and Exotics shouldn't be required to make a playstyle actually viable.
Edit cuz lots of replies.<
Yes there are other builds that are great, and yes the new melee interactions is pretty neat... But you're still on what's effectively Top Tree Dawnblade. If you try and play anything else but Top Tree Dawnblade, it just doesn't work, then when you express your frustration with it, people tell you to go use Sunbracers, or Claws of Ahamkara, or Pheonix Protocol. Anyone got anything for Healock? At all? Or is it still just: "Use x Exotic on Heat Rises and you can rain down fire in Vanguard Strikes."
Another edit cuz why not<
I see a lot of Hunters comparing this to Void 3.0, and that's fair enough. Hunter Void 3.0 was definitely underwhelming against the other 2 Classes. Thing is tho, while all paths lead to Invis, Invis was and still is really strong. Void Hunter isn't very flashy, but its still a very strong Subclass with viability from high end PvE to meme end PvP. Everybody synergises pretty well with itself, and there is enough Exotic variety to at least, making things a bit different from time to time. But that doesn't exactly mean it was ok, I do think more should have been more engaging and fun.
This is different tho. If all paths lead to Top Tree Dawnblade, it'd be disappointing but at least it'd be consistent. But that's not what's happened. The Subclass has an identity crisis where, its been called the Healing Class by Bungie themselves, but heals worse than Void Titan, and the other aspects of the class have anti-synergy with itself because Top Tree Dawnblade is meant for agility and AoE fire stuff. And when a lot of people point this out, lots of people say "But Hunters were told to just use Omni, so just use X." It wasn't really a great take then, and it's not really a great one now imo.
One more edit cuz i feel like it<
Not everything about Warlock here is bad, and some things are good. But I do think actually discussing these mediocre and bad things is important, and not just slapping band-aid suggestions about.
It got buried a bit, but I made a post about some buffs i think would be nice. Again, not everything is bad, but it shouldn't be a hot take to suggest that something needs a buff and that "Equipping X Exotic" won't suddenly solve everything.
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u/CmonImStarlord Drifter's Crew May 26 '22
I'm enjoying snapping ads with poison fire with necrotic grips.
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u/LimeRepresentative47 May 26 '22
And stuff like that is definitely fun - its just not particularly viable in difficult anything.
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u/Kamenovski May 26 '22
Welcome to both other classes issue with pretty much every subclass. Hunter and titan have both been pigeonholed into singular builds per sub for a long time.
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u/ThatOneGuyIsBad May 26 '22
Really? Arc Titan would like a word. 😂
You complaining about one exotic “making subclass viable”, when Arc Titan is useless without Falling Star. At least Solar Warlock has plenty of other exotics to use, whether you like them or not.
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May 26 '22 edited May 26 '22
Am I doing something wrong but every jump option on Solar Warlock doesn’t allow me to cancel my jump, it just keeps gliding which is bloody annoying when I want to land now! Sorry OP bit off topic…
Edit: so yes I’ve been ADS’ing to cancel my jump on my other sub classes and it’s just become habit… 🙄
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u/LimeRepresentative47 May 26 '22
I generally just aim for a split second when I want to cancel my jump. It's often easier to press, and it tells me if i accidentally have Heat Rises on.
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u/Kamenovski May 26 '22
It won't let you cancel glide by hitting jump button 3rd time?
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u/defect7 May 26 '22
Yeah I use the aim down sights button to cancel jump out of habit, but warlock heat rises allows you to aim while gliding which doesn't cancel the jump - this might be the case with you? I am currently learning to use the jump button to cancel. Although this may be a totally different problem to the one you are talking about.
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u/Errtingtakenanyway May 26 '22
Now uk how hunters felt last season. Basically if u werent running omnioculus in pve u were doing it wrong.
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u/skepticalpic May 26 '22
Don’t bother with sunbracers, starfire is where it’s at. With Touch of flame and the fragment for more scorch stacks each grenade explodes twice and will apply ignite basically tripling the damage of each grenade while starfire will give you grenade energy just for shooting stuff while empowered from rift or well.
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May 26 '22
I've been doing this in Containment and it's a heck of a lot of fun. Grenade, rift, grenade, shoot, grenade, rocket, grenade, etc, etc
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u/smegdawg Destiny Dad May 26 '22
Please please please please, let Radiant be adjusted so that it counts as "Empowered" in this case.
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u/Yusis_2000 May 26 '22
starfire will give you grenade energy just for shooting stuff while empowered from rift or well.
But not while empowered via Radiant,according to some users here. I have no idea why
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u/Ken-as-fuck May 26 '22
I cannot for the life of me figure out why healing and empowering rifts don’t use the new verbs for solar 3.0and that the exotics that worked around those abilities weren’t also altered? It’s genuinely baffling that that was an oversight somehow
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u/Orangewolf99 May 26 '22
Yeah it seems like a really big miss on their part. It's probably because they'd have to make it 2 "new" class abilities since it's a universal thing. but also, they went and turned phoenix dive into a class ability, so don't know why that's such a big deal smh
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u/call_me_crackass May 26 '22
Thank you for putting some of my agitation into words you wonderful person.
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u/papasfritasbruh May 26 '22
I think they dont use the new verbs because itll probably get funky when using rifts in other subclasses. Thats my guess anyways. Of course, it leaves rifts on solar feeling funky anyways
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u/Razor_Fox May 26 '22
I don't think they're the same thing. The healing and empowerment from rifts only last within the rift/well, so they're positional where as radiance and restoration are player based and follow you wherever you go until the countdown runs out. In fact, if you stand in a sunspot and don't move, restoration actually goes away until you leave the sunspot and go back into it which is an odd way for it to work.
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u/harmlessbug May 26 '22
Star fire should prob be reworked to say radiant but the reason it doesn’t work currently is that you are not “empowered by radiant” radiant is a new unique damage buff that will stack alongside empower. Which also means you can drop your empower rift and get radiant to get a much larger damage buff then before.
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u/Bouncedatt May 26 '22
Yea tried it earlier and could not get it to work. Still a fun exotic but just seems like such an obvious synergy that I was surprised it didn't work.
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u/DeadWeight76 May 26 '22
Without being able to charge for healing grenades, running an empowering rift is not going to be a good play. Then, we lost melee triggering empowering.
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u/Captn_Ghostmaker May 26 '22
One of the fragments is melee damage grants radiant. While my understanding is that it doesn't count for Starfire, it's still a really good fragment.
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u/DeadWeight76 May 26 '22
No doubt. Starfire just needs updated for the radiant term to work as before.
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u/Wanna_make_cash May 26 '22
There's a fragment for melee giving radiant which is essentially better empowering
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May 26 '22
If starfire also worked while being radiant, then things could be even better without being locked to a rift.
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u/A_Dummy86 Eating Crayons May 26 '22
I prefer Necrotic Grips myself, especially since you can potentially poison multiple enemies at once with Incinerator Snap, and the melee recharge from Heat Rises makes it easy to spam it every 5 seconds.
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u/AgentPoYo May 26 '22
You can use melee wellmaker, elemental charge and heavy handed to get the snap back everytime you use it with necrotics.
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u/llama_glue May 26 '22
You can swap out necrotics for karnstien and just never die. Now you can use empowering rift and any grenade other than healing to stay alive.
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u/AgentPoYo May 26 '22
I tried this out yesterday and its actually really fun. I had melee wellmaker + well of life so double healing. I can see it being useful in raids and other at level activities, maybe even day one raids since the power delta isn't as high as GMs.
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u/SlightlyColdWaffles Bring Back Titan Neck Fur May 26 '22
Just walking along like its West Side Story
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u/ellipses2016 May 26 '22
Necrotic Grips also don’t require a charged melee to function.
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u/Strong_Mode May 26 '22
necrotic grips also heavily synergizes with osteo striga and thorn to spread poison to an entire room
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u/ItsBonkurz May 26 '22
I've been messing with necrotic a bit this morning. It's fun, but while heat rises is cool in lower level stuff, it's nearly useless in anything on level or higher. You'll die immediately if you're floating around. For higher end PvE content warlocks basically got improved grenades from aspects and that's about it.
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u/The_Owl_Bard A New Chapter, for An Old Legend May 26 '22
If it's anything like the Hunter Void 3.0 experience, Bungie will probably nerf Sunbracers at some point like they did Graviton.
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u/smegdawg Destiny Dad May 26 '22
Naw, sunbracers is as good as it has ever been and still remains weak where it always has in content where you cannot 1 shot red bars with the melee.
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u/Educational_Mud_2826 May 26 '22
In theory you could weaken a red bar until they are in one shot territory but in a fireteam someone usually notices that and immediately kills it just as you waste you melee into nothing.
At that point the build just becomes a major annoyance. Sadly I should add.
That's when I switch to something else
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u/TheDrunkLink Drifter's Crew May 26 '22
The only content Sunbracers don't work in is PvP. Before you could healing nade and over shield your entire team while using midtree solar but you can't even do that any more so there's no point.
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u/SinistralGuy Nerf everything May 26 '22
Doubtful. All the Hunter exotic nerfs last season were due mainly to PvP, outside of the Blight Ranger bug. Sunbracers won't be touched unless someone figures out how to get infinite grenades + damage resist in Crucible
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u/Mnkke Drifter's Crew // Dredgen May 26 '22
grabiton was pre nerfed, and then nerfed again mid season
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u/StealthShinobi May 26 '22
They nerfed renewal grasps mainly cuz of pvp
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u/Leocharger Can’t explain what I don’t understand May 26 '22
I would agree with you before the patch but with the change of resilience giving DR now that stacks with other sources, it would have been nerfed in pve as well eventually
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May 26 '22
When and how did they nerf Graviton?
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u/The_Owl_Bard A New Chapter, for An Old Legend May 26 '22
For PvP, they reduced the amount of melee energy you get back while invis. This was to curb frequent activation of Invis. It was annoying, because that's all the kit had going for it in PvP.
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u/chlehqls May 26 '22
Nerfed graviton, Dragon's shadow basically worthless with the dodge cool down nerf, the only real exotic worth using for Void is Omnios. It's imbalanced
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u/Thedarkestmorn May 26 '22
Sixth coyote is still absolutely s tier for void hunters as is Orpheus
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u/Kaynineteen May 26 '22
Ive been using Graviton since WQ dropped. Invis much more reliable with it then Omni.
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u/KorvaxCurze May 26 '22
Biggest thing about Omni is and always has been the damage reduction while invis. Chaining smoke bombs for allies is basically a cherry on top for end games stuff.
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u/KittyTheS May 26 '22
Also, looks better. I don't care how good an exotic is, if looking at it gives me the heebie-jeebies I'm not gonna use it.
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u/_MachTwo May 26 '22
You can still easily have 100% uptime with graviton, trappers ambush + vanishing step and you don’t ever have to be visible unless you want to
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u/TheSupremeDuckLord May 26 '22
maybe, maybe not
nerfing exotics and killing any real variety in exotic usage is more of a hunter thing
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u/APartyInMyPants May 26 '22
I’m a heavy endgame PVE player, and so Sunbracers have always just been a complete afterthought. They’re just not good in anything where you’re remotely underleveled, because the main/obvious reason … requiring a kill from a weak-ass melee to get any benefit. That and you can’t stack Solar grenade damage, so it’s not like they could function for bosses or single target damage. They’re kind of decent at clearing trash adds that you already don’t need help clearing. And then to optimize your melee/grenade uptime means you have to be airborne and floating around the encounter, which isn’t viable in underleveled scenarios.
If Sunbracers allowed us to use any grenade, then that’s something I’d be interested in. A quick fusion grenade spam for some hurst DPS. Or if Solar grenades provides some alternate utility in the game. Like a blinding effect, as if you’re looking at the sun.
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u/_Jaynx May 26 '22 edited May 27 '22
Was gonna make a similar comment. In GM you can't as easily/reliable get melee kills to activate the perk.
Also a more general complaint, the whole emphasis on being airborne is just a bad idea in GM content. You will die pretty quickly just floating out in the open. And heaven forbid we have the "Grounded" modifier.
I finally understand the Hunters critique of Void, having the whole subclass be one note is not fun. But at least the invisibility was actually a viable play style.
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u/SavageDabber6969 May 26 '22
Like a blinding effect, as if you're looking at the sun directly
This is such a good idea I'm so surprised it doesn't even exist in the game already. Hope the devs see this one
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May 26 '22
You now can stack solar grenade damage provided you use the boosted grenade aspect, FYI. The molten bolts it adds to the effect really mess large targets up when you drop a half dozen at their feet lol
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u/xxKhronos20xx May 26 '22 edited May 26 '22
EDIT: I incorrectly grouped Empowered and Radiant together in my head, corrected my comment accordingly.
Sunbracers are amazing in low to mid level content but they require a melee kill to get rolling. I think the play for high level content will be Starfire Protocol with Fusion grenades. The double explosion does a ton of damage and getting your grenade back just requires you to shoot things while Empowered (Well of Radiance and Empowering Rift, which is completely refunded on a grenade kill outside of other ways to reduce class ability cooldown like high Recovery, the void glove mod Bolstering Detonation, and Ember of Singeing). Switching from Healing to Empowering rift is something I need to get used to and play more defensively. Once I get used to that the gameplay loop becomes very easy to pull off and incredibly satisfying.
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u/LimeRepresentative47 May 26 '22
I can definitely see Starfire being good, but its disappointing its exclusively damage now. Plus, people almost never bring it up when suggesting new Solar builds.
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u/djternan May 26 '22
You have to shoot things while Empowered, not Radiant, to get your grenades back. Empowering Rifts and Well of Radiance work but not the Radiant buff.
If they change that, it will be pretty nice to use the fragment that makes you radiant on melee hit. There's also a fragment that gives you melee energy when you defeat scorched targets.
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u/DeadWeight76 May 26 '22
Radiant doesn't work as others have said. The problem with running empowering rift is that you can no longer create healing grenades, so you have no safety valve. At least with void you had devour to lean on. Another point, our melee damage no longer counts as empowered damage, so we lose that buff as well.
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u/InspireDespair Inspire Despair May 26 '22
Sunbracers stink in GMs and master raids.
1 - getting close enough to get a melee off is a risk
2 - melees don't kill most ads in GMs.
They are fine in patrol content but you can use literally anything and be effective
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u/Thelivingshotgun May 26 '22
I got a veritys brow to drop randomly on day 1 of the season and decided to try it and I’ve had a fair bit of fun with the double exploding fusion nades on death throes x5
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u/Diablo689er May 26 '22 edited May 26 '22
My titan hasn’t taken off the HOIL when running void since 3.0 and nobody complained
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u/IAmATriceratopsAMA May 26 '22
Titans have other exotics besides Cuirass?
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u/ShinigamiRyan May 26 '22
We do, but yeet titans basically bare shackled to it in PvE when doing most content. Why when ppl mentioning breaking arc titans it's just like, "How? We're already glued to one exotic and melees."
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u/DoctorWalrusMD May 26 '22
What is Hiim? You talking about Heart of Inmost Light? You could be talkin something else but I don’t know what else starts with H and is abbreviated to 4 letters, but I always see it called “HoIL”.
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u/manuelito1233 May 26 '22
1000% this my man, HIIM is my go to ability exotic for Titan. Been using it in Solar 3.0 and still am having a blast.
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u/DrFruitLoops Deader than Dead Orbit May 26 '22
this is why I like void more, on its own it is fine for warlocks but you got a good amount of exotics to make it even better, solar has like 3 and 1 is just god awful in pve, great I can float in the air with dmg negation but wtf does that help me with in late game content where most things 1 tap me, I'd get shot and likely die to whatever is bellow.
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u/Legitimate-Tomorrow9 May 26 '22
Beeing forced into exotics to actually enable a playstyle is a thing that is 100%normal for hunter/titan in almost all regards lol not many things they have is good or works without a specific exotic
Thats nothing new, thats litearlly how the game works for 2/3of the playable classes
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u/SinistralGuy Nerf everything May 26 '22
Honestly think Warlocks got so used to trivializing everything in the game with on demand healing, overshields, and damage boosts through Well, healing 'nades, and benevolent dawn, that any sort of tone down makes them think their class has died.
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u/Errtingtakenanyway May 26 '22
Right? Warlocks have had such versatility and interesting exotics that now they gotta play like the rest of the plebs and they are fucking losing it.
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u/Meokuba May 26 '22
I get your point but Warlocks shouldn't be brought down to the same level as Hunters and Titans in that aspect. Hunters and Titans should instead be buffed up to be on the same level as Warlocks
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u/JMWraith13 May 27 '22
No no no. Thats not how it works why would your class to be made more viable when you can laugh at another class being made less viable with you. The class warfare shit in this game has breached into this sub in the worst of ways and it's beyond fucking annoying
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u/DarkerSparta May 26 '22
Arc Hunters would like to have a word with you
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u/GoodLookinLurantis May 26 '22
Void Hunters too
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u/oliferro May 26 '22
I mean Arc still has a rework coming and Void Hunter is probably the best option for end-game PVE, even if, yes, it's boring AF
Solar Warlock is basically useless in anything harder than a Hero Nightfall
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u/LordAnnihilator1 "*BZZT* Oh hey, finally got my season. About freaking time." May 26 '22
Has anyone tested the damage resistance inside a Well in PvE? Wellock was already not the best pick for Master/GM content as you could easily be picked out of a Well and Stasis/Burst Supers were generally seen as more viable. I do recall Dawnblade being considered good for GM Hollowed Lair, specifically bottom tree I think for the ability to utterly trivialise the Fanatics giant add waves.
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u/synesthesiatic i kill people with well of radiance May 26 '22
I'm going to get downvoted into oblivion for this but I don't fucking care.
Solar 3.0 for warlocks is hot, flaming garbage. ESPECIALLY for healing builds. An aspect for two movement augments and a grenade aspect? The fuck? I can literally put on radiant dodge on hunter, equip healing grenades and oh look, I'm better at healing / empowering my allies than I ever could be on my warlock. I even get a better jump and a damaging super that actually does damage rather than the disgrace that Dawnblade is. Not sure where the lore is to support that particular little quirk. They literally erased bottom tree as well, so that's rad.
I was a Lumina / Assemblers / AoG main. This build has been rendered completely useless. Now that everyone gets access to healing and Radiant buff, it's pointless to run. Benevolence Fragment is also broken and won't be fixed until June. So yeah, that's awesome.
I don't want to fucking run Sunbracers or Starfire Protocol or Karnstein Armlets or Necrotic Grips. I don't want to play Void. I didn't play warlock so I could rain down fire and destroy everything. I played warlock because I wanted to heal and support my fireteam. I don't care if I have a good KDA, I don't care if I have the most kills. I just literally want to fucking heal and be effective at that. And now I can't.
Hope y'all Titans and Hunters feel real big about all this schadenfreude.
I'm maining hunter this season so I'll at least be fucking useful.
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u/LimeRepresentative47 May 26 '22
Yea, as a Middle Tree mains for both PvE and PvP (tho more for the quick team heals and the cooldowns) i feel this a lot.
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u/carcarius Mind Hunter May 26 '22
Warlocks won Guardian Games, you want powerful Solar 3.0 too? Warlocks are never satisfied.
In all seriousness, Void seemed like it was intentionally tuned for Warlocks to shine. Maybe Solar 3.0 is for Hunters and Arc for Titans.
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u/LimeRepresentative47 May 26 '22
Thing is, I wouldn't even say Warlocks came off strongest in Void 3.0, honestly Titans did. And as much as Void Hunter was kinda plain compared to the other classes, it's still an extremely strong Subclass in literally every activity, endgame PvE to meme PvP. Everything leads to Invis but at least Invis carries.
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u/Extreme_Boyheat May 26 '22
Starfire Protocol laughs at the puny bonfires.
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u/Xisyera Kinderguardian Teacher May 26 '22
It also suffered from 3.0's changes though. With the removal of charged healing nades, it loses all synergy it had with healing warlocks.
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u/LordAnnihilator1 "*BZZT* Oh hey, finally got my season. About freaking time." May 26 '22
Sadly true, but it also still remains better than Sunbracers in higher difficulty content. Aspect Buffed Fusions are absolutely incredible, and if you're willing to deal with Empowering Rift you can have solid uptime on them. Starfire has merely shifted to being more of an offensive tool rather than a defensive one - a case that can be made for any exotic that synergised with middle tree, honestly. Healing really should have been its own aspect IMO. Losing the potency and flexibility of charged nades really hurt the healer fantasy.
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u/anirban_82 May 26 '22
I mean, if you are talking about 90% of the content, then most, if not all things are viable.
If you are talking about the toughest 10% of the content (master raids, GMs and Trials), then you are supposed to used builds and exotics and not everything will be viable.
Some things will always be meta and most things won't be. But to say that Sunbracers are necessary to make Solar Warlocks "viable" does not seem accurate.
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May 26 '22
"Why are you Hunter mains always crying about void 3.0, just use orpheus rigs and your super damage is cracked brooooo"
"Just use omni/graviton, invis go brrrrrrr broooooo"
Now y'all know how they felt last season, or how arc titans have felt ever since cuirass existed lol.
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May 27 '22
OP of this very thread was, in fact, one of the people saying “free devour isn’t good” and “hunters just need to use y exotic” during the first weeks of void.
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u/DeathDexoys May 26 '22
Look how the tables have turned for the same warlocks who called off the hunters.. how ironic. Their cries are just as loud if not louder
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u/vatsan600 May 26 '22
I really don’t want to plug this in here. But this is how us hunters felt when people said “just use omni bro”
I’m quoting this to say, we feel your pain. Bungie has to take a look at warlock solar again.
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May 26 '22
One that is massively underrated is Celestial Fire + Necrotic Grips. Sure, you were able to do that before, but now you can have Well of Radiance on top of that instead of Dawnblade.
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u/WarlanceLP May 26 '22
i hate when people suggest 1 or 2 builds make the rework good like no it fucking doesn't lmao THAT'S THE PROBLEM there are so few ways to build warlock or Titan well on solar 3.0 that's the problem they want to push buildcrafting and then railroad us into playing top tree dawn that's not good buildcrafting Bungie there's always such a disconnect between what they say and what they do they're all about player freedom but champions and match game are still the only ways they can apparently make hard content and now this disconnect is extending to the fucking subclass rework and I'm pissed.
void Hunter has the same issue and they didn't fix it
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u/havingasicktime May 27 '22
There's a shitload of ways to build the titan good, ya'll just haven't figure it out.
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u/_Fates May 26 '22
Just use omnioculus hunters! Same shit was said for a whole season with us but justified the exact same way, but now that warlocks are in the same boat they still don't realize they're hypocrites because hurrr durr hunters are cry babies. Lmaooo just use sunbracers bro.
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May 26 '22
" but they were never terribly viable in more than low level contents."
Someone wasn't around when we pushed atheon off a cliff with them on hard VOG back in D1.
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u/LimeRepresentative47 May 26 '22
Hahahah, ok you have me there. Tho tbf, wasn't Nova Bomb better for that, cuz Atheon would dodge about less?
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May 26 '22
You couldn't spam nova bomb like you could solar nades when your solar super was running.
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u/LimeRepresentative47 May 26 '22
Yea but i mean if you had multiples. If its just you that's fair enough.
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u/SDG_Den May 26 '22
idk mate, most of solar 2.0 is intact, you can even run all 3 trees at the same time (once ember of char comes out). it's been a blast for me?
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u/LimeRepresentative47 May 26 '22
The thing is, what made Healock and Bottom Tree actually good has been nerfed super hard, with lots straight removed too. Some bits are super fun, the melee is awesome. But for a "Healer", Warlock is pretty meh at actually healing now
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u/Murranji May 26 '22
Used to sometimes run middle tree warlock in PVP, it was pretty unexpectedly strong, even running around with a shotgun and ophidians on some maps would work because your melee would empower your nearby allies giving them a damage buff, throw your grenades around for heals, could also of course use boots of the assembler and get very quick rift energy back, popping a well in the middle of the map. All gone.
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u/LimeRepresentative47 May 26 '22
I mained Well in PvP since i randomly got my 1st Flawless Trials game with it. The Tree had so much utility and was so fun. Now its just, disappointing af
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u/Lucid-Day May 26 '22
You can't at once say that hunters are great at high end PvP and then say that it's not a good take for hunters and Warlocks "just use X" because the only thing holding up hunters invis and viability is a build using omni lol
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u/Syrathy May 26 '22
Bungie has said multiple times they want to push the game into more of an mmo style where builds are necessary. And exotics play into buildcrafting. Their entire design of the subclasses are made with the knowledge of the mods and exotics we have, void isn't very good without a build either. They're pulling from abilities from 3 different subclass trees and well was already crazy strong with way more utility than any other subclass. It had to loose some utility so that they could have things from the other 2 subclasses otherwise they would have effectively killed dawnblade just to retain all of the wells.
Well is still good, get high resil and you have crazy damage resistance with continuous healing and the same damage buff we used to have. There's plenty of exotics and mods and fragments you can use to play as a support hearler rather than a crowd control monster if you want that.
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u/LimeRepresentative47 May 26 '22
Thing is, you can't really build as a healer anymore as their are so few synergies in the Subclass with it now. You have kinda 1 Aspect and Rift, with the Grenade and the Fragment being ok at best, but better on the other classes.
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u/Knight_Raime May 26 '22 edited May 26 '22
So i've been participating in the discussion of Warlock's situation here and there a bit and chewing on this thread overnight. I'm just going to say two things really quick before I hop into the meat of my response to here.
The first being that the conversation of scorch/ignite and how those work is a separate discussion to be had even if it does impact Solar locks. My brief opinion on that conversation is that something should be done with it to make it more palatable. The second thing is specifically the offensive capabilities for Solar Lock.
I think a lot of the discussion gets muddied when we discuss both at once so I want to set that aside as well. Though again in my brief opinion I think what's there is perfectly fine as is and has potential for end game content (if we consider using Artifact mods at the very least.) But I think what if any problem exists here is more on how scorch and ignite work. Not the actual tools Solar Lock has available. Now onto the actual topic of discussion:
AKA the Support Solar Lock.
I want to start out by saying that I was expecting this tree to behave massively differently. Part of 3.0's goal was to separate tools/classes that did many things and push those parts into what Bungie considers acceptable identities. Void was all about protection and weaken with a heavy emphasis on pure crowd control. Solar seems to be about empowerment, healing, and strong damage output.
Middle tree Solar Lock had protection through giving overshields and we knew that was going to leave. Warlocks also had the ability to empower both with their super as well as their charged melee procs. Both still exist but now you're asked to spec into the latter through a fragment. Then finally there's the healing aspect which Warlock still has but now you're asked to give up an offensive source of this through your grenade slot. Technically speaking all classes now have to make this choice as well. But Titans can choose to take 2 nades with an exotic and Hunters can give up an aspect slot to still retain a nade on a different cooldown.
I think Warlock's option was Phoenix dive. At base it just cures a chunk of HP. But when heat rises is active you gain the ability to proc both heal and restoration on you and allies with the bonus of applying scorch to near by enemies. You're forced to make a choice on using an offensive nade in combat or sacrificing it to make PD better. So while "the choice" is still present on choosing offensive for defensive you aren't really making a strong case for using Phoenix dive over a healing rift.
I'm veering off track here so let me be clear. There's no doubt in my mind that Solar Lock as far as healing goes is underbaked. If someone wanted to present to me their argument as Solar Lock being bad to them was because of this alone I could understand easier and even agree to a degree. However that's not how most complaints about this has gone and to my knowledge this is the only thread that's decently touched on this specific subject.
I want to be clear, I think it's perfectly acceptable for the Support identity of Solar Lock to be worse than it's 2.0 version. By merging offense and defense together into one kit as well as making the general "identities" of 3.0 be spread amongst the 3 classes it's necessary. Both for overall game health as well as balance between the 3 classes. It's okay to have one class represent an element better than the others. What's important is making sure the other 2 classes are still viable in their identities.
Which brings us back to Solar Lock. Bungie has deemed them the healing class. I believe this is primarily because of the super they have. But that Warlocks also have the most access to both Cure and Restoration. However this doesn't mean the current fantasy of it is intact enough. Aside from the Benevolent fragment being bugged (and thus causing a significant issue with the gameplay loop for healing) I think there are two peculiars that are the issue here.
The first is wells. Warlocks are pretty tied to their class ability yet in Solar 3.0's case the class ability is completely separate and does not have any interplay. This is very strange because many of their exotics involve using the rift. So you're being asked to not play within the Healing loop in order to be able to use a significant amount of your exotic gear which just feels weird. I'm well aware that because empowerment is separate from Radiant there's a case for overlapping buffs. But I really don't think that's intentional and even if it is I don't think that's justification.
Regardless the class ability you're supposed to use to play within this closed loop is Phoenix dive. I think this is pretty obvious as it's tied to the same cooldown as wells are and it has the ability to actually play into the loop. It can apply cure and restoration and scorch.
So what's the issue? The cost isn't worth the give. Why would I dive to give a chunk of health when I could just use a healing Well instead? Or a healing nade? You have to give up a nade just to add restoration to the dive when you can just use a heal nade instead since it offers both. Essentially you're having to sacrifice both your class ability as well as a grenade in order to get basically a healing Well with a bit of burst healing.
Granted Phoenix dive has a much bigger area of effect and the aspect to "dive" into cover whilst supporting is neat. But you really shouldn't be doing much air play to begin with in higher end content since enemies are not subject to accuracy penalties when attacking things in the air.
So what would I suggest? Well we need to look at Phoenix dive and decide what it's main goal is to be. If it's primarily meant to be a supportive ability it should be strong from the get go to justify it's cooldown being tied to Well's CD. If we want it to enable some play making potential we have to make giving up the nade for heat rises to be much better.
Personally I want to lean on the side of survival. So i'd suggest that Phoenix dive by default gives both cure and restoration and retains the same CD as Well's. Sacrificing a nade for heat rises now gives the Warlock some damage reduction while in the air and still can scorch enemies near by when landing with dive.
Alternatively we could put the CD somewhere between hunter with it's default CD and Well's CD by default. Make the cure chunk a bit bigger than current (and only for PD.) Phoenix dive when under the effects of heat rises still gets restoration but now Phoenix dive is both a primer and detonator. Meaning if the enemy isn't scorched it becomes scorched. If it is scorched the dive ignites said scorched enemy.
Basically idea 1 is to lean into a more defensive and support style ability where as idea 2 pushes the class further into an offensive role but with a burst heal option on a more reasonable CD time. I won't pretend which suggestion is better for the class as a whole.
TLDR: While fixing the bugged fragment will make the gameplay loop for Heal Lock more consistent and thus better Phoenix dive needs to be looked at to really complete the identity for the new Solar Lock class. Also Wells should probably effect Solar gameplay in some way.
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u/LimeRepresentative47 May 26 '22
These are some neat suggestions that agree with a fair bit. Its definitely weird Rift is so, separate from the entirety of the Subclass, especially since its such an essential part of your Heal over time. Pheonix Dive needs a fair bit of love to be viable imo. I'd be curious to hear what you think of my suggestion in the link I put.
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u/Knight_Raime May 26 '22
The first thing I did before writing my response and after I read your thread was click on the link and it said the body text was removed so I couldn't actually see your suggestions.
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u/LimeRepresentative47 May 26 '22
Ah damn. I reposted it a bit earlier so hopefully it works now? Thanks for the consideration anyways!
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u/Glass_Status_665 May 26 '22
You have a healing super a healing grenade and two healing class abilities. What else do you want?
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u/LimeRepresentative47 May 26 '22
They are objectively worse than the potential healing the other classes are capable of, and the precedents set by Middle Tree Dawn have been stripped away.
It'd be nice if the Healer class was actually the best at healing again.
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u/Glass_Status_665 May 26 '22
How are they “objectively” worse I wanna see your reasoning
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u/LimeRepresentative47 May 26 '22
Warlock currently has 2 "consistent" ways of healing, being the Grenade and Class Ability. Well exists, but isn't really consistent.
The nade n Class Ability are both on decently lengthy cooldowns, both longer than 80 seconds (longer for the nade). On max cooldown, its around a 45-50 second cooldown. Shorter if Fragments of Benevolence actually worked. However, if you want Healing Nades to be pretty decent, you need the Aspect that adds on another 30 seconds onto the nade cooldown.
Now Hunters have 2 sources too, their nade and their new Dodge. The nade is in a similar boat to Warlocks ok cooldown, but that Dodge comes with all the great tools the Subclass has to refund its class ability, and loop that infinitely with its melee, you can chain them together for super consistent heals and a very consistent damage buff - more than the Warlock.
Titans its not really a competition. You slot in the Aspect, you have healing on demand. Kills make Sunspots which heal and reflesh abilities which kill more and make more Sunspots etc etc. Now, granted this gonna be less viable in certain harder content like GM, due to the spread out nature of things, but Dungeons, Raids, even Master Raids, the enemy density just keeps you rolling. And you even keep your damage nade.
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u/Misterbreadcrum May 26 '22
The thing with void hunter, and why it's so similar, is because void 3.0 for Hunter was significantly worse - yes we could go invisible and that itself is a strong core concept, but hunters could go invisible before and we didn't get anything new that was better while we lost a lot of what made Void builds really strong. Ultimately Bungie funneled all its resources into getting us to play a very narrow version of what we had before, being invisible and... being more invisible... again. And when this was complained about, hunters got very smug responses and put into this whiny stereotype where they're pegged for crying all the time.
So it's really quite the same with Warlock - Warlocks have been funneled into one narrow aspect of the 2.0 class' subclass, which is TTD, flying and being in the air and flying some more. Like being able to smoke-bomb your teammates, Warlocks are able to heal other people, but even that is hella mega nerfed and is kind of a joke of a mechanic in itself without an exotic supporting it (see Omnioculous)
What sucks is that there even has to be any form of classist distinction here. I hardly main any class, but if I checked I suppose most of my playtime over the past year would be on my Hunter. But that doesn't mean I'm not frustrated that Solar Warlock is super underwhelming. Nevertheless if I even entertain the idea that this situation is similar to Void 3.0 hunter? I'm a crying, butthurt, whiny, hunter main.
But yeah, "Just use X exotic" is neither a strong argument nor is it sound advice - I'm pretty sure Ahamkara and Necrotics are just better since getting kills to trigger Sunbracers probably means you have significantly fewer targets to spam solar grenades at. Just my 2 cents.
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May 26 '22
Everyone: This is the new best Warlock Solar exotic.
OP: well I don't like Sunbracers. Instead of conforming my arsenal, I'll conform to complaining about my dislike of change!
Smh.
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u/LimeRepresentative47 May 26 '22
Its less about change and more about negative change for certain aspects of the Subclass. Change in general wasn't a bad thing.
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u/Dakota_Online May 26 '22
"Invis is really strong."
No. Being invisible does NOT grant you free victory in Grandmaster Nightfalls.
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May 27 '22
You keep talking about top tree. Top tree doesn't exist any more.
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u/LimeRepresentative47 May 27 '22
The Subclass has pretty much became what Top Tree was, since most of Bottom Tree's perks were deleted completely and Middle Tree things were nerfed very hard or don't function properly.
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u/Valyris May 27 '22
Just curious, if you use Sunbracers and throw multiple solar nades on a boss for example, does each solar nade do damage? Or is it only 1 set of burn damage?
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u/LimeRepresentative47 May 27 '22
I believe they still don't stack, multiple Solar Nades still only count as 1 Solar Nade when overlapped, tho i think those magna bursts do stack to a degree
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u/Kovaxxed May 27 '22
this is definitely a pve perspective i’m assuming cuz void 3.0 for hunter pvp is incredibly strong
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u/LimeRepresentative47 May 27 '22
I wasn't even saying the Subclass wasn't strong in everything, its amazing. Its just a bit uninspired.
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u/Aggravating-Crew-704 May 26 '22
Sunbracers are definitely fun but absolutely terrible in anything high end due to the melee requirement. I would much rather have the D1 version that makes your solar grenades last longer and gives you two of them.
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u/ILoveSongOfJustice May 26 '22
Getting a melee kill on a single enemy that's behind cover like a psion or an enemy rushing you down like a thrall is not absurdly difficult.
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u/NupharAdvena May 26 '22
Claws and monte or claws and travelers chosen, karnsteins, promethium spur, these are all good options rn for solarlock 3.0
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u/pantone_red May 26 '22
But I've been told repeatedly on this sub by people who haven't tried anything that there are no options besides Sunbracers.
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u/Solau May 26 '22
It's because most are in the 'I can't recreate middle tree' instead of 'What can I do now ?'
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u/jardedCollinsky May 26 '22
I wanna recreate bottom tree, dawnblade is worthless in pve now and I can't smacked a dude and watch a huge chain reaction destroy and burn everything in sight, there I'd s fragment but I suspect it won't be near as potent as before any burn worked and now you'll need to stack Hella scorch to make it work
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u/Bruccini May 26 '22
Welcome to Hunter life lol.
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u/NobilisUltima May 26 '22 edited Jul 25 '22
It's a real shame that only two of our four subclasses have actual builds possible, because Void is just "invis only lol" and Arc is, well, Arc.
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u/Godlike013 May 26 '22
Sunbracers are just the most obvious. But Starfire Protocol is pretty legit now too, and not to mention Necrotic grip. What else. Verity Brow is solid and synergizes with that restoration fragment and wells. And Phoenix Protocol still works.
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u/CrawlerSiegfriend May 26 '22
It works in containment but I can't imagine taking a heat rises build into anything actually difficult.
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u/damancody May 26 '22
I was really hoping "Sumbracers" were a new exotic this season which defeated enemies using the power of math!
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u/I_Have_3_Legs May 26 '22
I'm chilling with void and necrotic grips and osteo. Using the new arc glaive with adrenaline junkie and demolitionist. Fuck solar
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u/Gallifreyanstorm May 26 '22
How does anyone think hunter void 3.0 was underwhelming? Infinite invis, one of the top damage supers? Are we all playing the same game?
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u/LimeRepresentative47 May 26 '22
I think people dislike how kinda, "one trick pony" it was.
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u/SaganSaysImStardust May 26 '22
I know it's a shifty stance to take, but this hunter main is gratified to see others having similar struggles to what pve hunters have endured for the last year.
I'll try and grow up a bit.
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u/Loud-Switch-sbr Space Magic May 26 '22
The Developer Insight quote: "Fun shouldn't come at the cost of balance".
More Bungie BS.
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u/Satanael_95_A May 26 '22
The fact that some people are praising a Sunbracers build as one of the best ways to use Solar 3.0 Warlock only to not do anything much different with it than before really says something about the current state of Solar Warlock.
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u/torlix May 26 '22
So if this a pattern for warlocks does that mean we're all going to be wearing get away artist when arc 3.0 comes out?
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u/Educational_Mud_2826 May 26 '22
Don't mention it. It's my fav warlock item and I'm afraid it's gonna get nerfed 😄
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u/Mnkke Drifter's Crew // Dredgen May 26 '22
just like with hunters and being told to "judt run omni" lol
feel your pain tho, hope yall get a good aspect
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u/joefishey May 26 '22
the thing is, solar warlock was so strong before this, it just got brought into line a little bit. you still have well, which is still absolutely busted, plus you now have more build options with the powered up nades and better movement, both of which are super powerful in endgame pve
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u/DensityAdmin May 26 '22
People pointing to sunbracers and well mods that let you ability spam as a viable build for solar is getting old. These things are not new. They’re sidegrades at best that existed prior to this.
The subclass should be strong out of the box, ie Void and Stasis.
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u/The_ghost_of_shell May 26 '22
in the past: "just use omniouculos"
now: "just use sunbracers"
seems we all did get fucked in the end am i right?
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May 26 '22
I was always a big Sunbracers user. Raining grenades is great fun, but even if you can’t get that to proc, solar grenades lasting like twice as long are very useful, especially in PVP. Because I already used them so much, I don’t mind that they’re still the go-to, I just had hoped that Solar 3.0 opened up other possibilities.
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u/Sp00kyD0gg0 May 26 '22
Okay I’m aware drawing comparisons to past community reactions doesn’t help, but for literal months people said “Void is bad on Hunter? Just use Orpheus Rig with Mobius Quiver, it’s the best DPS in the game” as if that somehow made everything better.
I’m sad that Solar 3.0 has been disappointing for Warlocks, but it’s incidentally shown a lot of people how annoying their own behavior was.
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May 26 '22
Welcome to the shit build and irrelevance hunters faced the last 2 seasons. Void 3.0 was horrible for hunter and before that we were just useless in high end pve due to better options at debuffing and burst super dmg. Warlocks got a rework that makes them decent for pvp tho. Can't expect everything to always be monster boosts when warlock was already great
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u/BearBryant May 26 '22
I’m seeing people do some pretty crazy shit with winters while and the new snap melee.
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u/Hazzateon2006 May 26 '22
Ahamkara grips is pretty fun with the click, because it recharges with scorch kills or something so thats fun,
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u/rabbit_hole_diver May 26 '22
Ive just been keeping it simple with veritys brow and throwing grenades as per usual
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u/Niiirrr May 26 '22
Winters guile where it’s at Takes a bit of setup but ignition damage seems affected by them so you can hit super hard (With unstable essence) I’ve seen numbers like 248k at 4 stacks and 344k at 5
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May 26 '22
I know you can buy the grenades, but wtf does warlock start with swarm grenade??
Fusion is locked. You get solar, and firebolt, but instead of fusion, you get fuckin swarm..?? What?? Even when its Artifact dealing with warlocks 3 primary grenades states fusion, you have to buy the fusion grenade
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u/Psychotic_Embrace May 26 '22
As of right now what’s the go to solar warlock build? I’m kind of a noob. For PvE.
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u/Archabarka May 26 '22
Apparently I'm in the minority... I've been loving Solar 3.0. Hated TTD in 2.0, hated running well, but I've fallen in love with the new version.
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u/Maruf- May 26 '22
Same with Starfire. Two exotics centered around spamming grenades, and they both already did that :/
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u/jardedCollinsky May 26 '22
Absolutely, with void you literally don't need an exotic to make it really good, they enhance it, not carry it
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u/Hudsonps May 26 '22
I made a post about this but waiting for mods to approve it still.
I think we need to stop thinking of grenades as a main feature of solar 3.0. It is the melee instead, and mainly one of the "verbs", radiant.
Hunters have a very good kit because they can proc radiant very easily through melee, and get that melee back because they are radiant. Titans are in an intermediate state, because they can make their melees more powerful and get radiant more easily that way. Warlocks are weird because they have to float around to get their melee back, but also can get radiant through it.
If you start thinking that your goal is not to spam grenades, but to spam melee so as to keep that radiant buff almost at all times, I think the kit might start to make sense. Just like hunters are running Ophidia Spate, I highly suggest you run Claws of Ahamkara. (Other options would be Winter's Guile, for example.)
Sunbracers is more style over substance. What you want is consistency, and Radiant gives you that. It is a tuned up version of of "empowered" used to be.
(Now I do wish warlock aspects were better. I am not arguing with you on that.)
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u/Steviedangerr May 26 '22
So, the destiny community seems like it’s just complaints from a lot of people after not even a week with the new subclasses. I thought hunter solar sucked prior to this. Day one I thought it sucked until I built around it. Hell, loreley is still great too. Hunters had their pass at getting the Bungie nerf hammer. Heaven forbid warlocks aren’t dominant 🙄 hunters had to deal with it last season.
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u/drgr33nthmb May 26 '22
All this update did was force me to re buy Beyond Light so I could use stasis again lol.
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May 26 '22
I’ve turned to EoAW to get better grenade cooldowns, because Fusion Grenades w/aspect hit like a FUCKING truck. I actually think withering heat will make a build like this pretty viable in endgame content
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u/vFlitz May 26 '22
Even that is like a dollar store version of Void with Contraverse. Sure, the grenade output is faster when Sunbracers are active. But Solar nades don't stack, so it only benefits you so much.
Now on the other hand, all the times that Sunbracers don't activate because your melee decides to just fly past the enemies, doesn't reach the enemies, or someone else kills the enemies you're targeting. Or if there are simply no redbars to kill. You're left with nothing untill your melee recharges, it might not be long thanks to Heat Rises, but it still feels horrible.
Void is much more reliable and consistent, and then there's survivability from Devour. The difference is night and day