Destiny 2: The Best Arc 3.0 Warlock PvE Build (2024)

Bungie via Adam Watkins

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Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

Season 21 of Destiny 2; Season of the Deep has introduced multiple changes to the stats and values of the Arc subclass and its many exotics. This season also features the Arc Surge buff and multiple Artifact mods that give a greater boost to the Arc sub-classes’ effectiveness. If your looking to try Arc Warlock out then look no further. We here at High Ground Gaming have put together this guide about the best Warlock 3.0 Arc build. Keep in mind this is a PvE build, one that’s powerful enough to carry you and your fireteam through the toughest endgame activities.

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Required Exotics for Warlock Arc 3.0 Build

This build makes use of two Exotics, one armor, and one weapon. Both Exotics work together with each other and the Fragments and Aspects in this build to help clear multiple mobs at a time while also protecting your fire team.

Vesper of Radius (Chest Exotic)

Vesper of Radius is an Exotic Chest Piece for Warlocks. This Exotic will cause your Rifts to release a burst of Arc energy that damages enemies in the area every five seconds. While the Acr subclass is equipped, these shockwaves and explosions Blind targets. 

While you are surrounded by enemies your class energy recharges faster. This recharge bonus increases based on the number of enemies nearby. At three enemies your class ability will recharge at a rate of 250%, at four you’ll get a 660% increase, and at 6 or more enemies you’ll receive a 1500% increase. 

Coldheart (Exotic Special Weapon)

Coldheart is an Exotic Trace Rifle that fires an Arc energy beam. This weapon’s beam deals more damage the longer it remains focused on targets. This exotic’s basic trait is called Longest Winter and it causes the weapon to generate an Ionic Trace periodically while dealing damage to targets in its high damage state. 

If you don’t have the Catalyst for this weapon don’t worry, you aren’t missing out on much. Coldheart’s Catalyst only provides the weapon with a boost to stability and reload speed. These aren’t bad things by any means but they are definitely underwhelming when compared to the buffs other Exotic Catalysts give their weapons.

Arc Aspects and Fragments for Warlock Arc 3.0 Build

Season 21 of Destiny 2 brings some much-needed changes to Arc Aspects and Fragments. All of the Arc Warlock Aspects grant 2 fragment slots. Our chosen Aspects and Fragments for this build are centered around generating Ionic Traces, making us Amplified, and creating crazy powerful Arc explosions.

Aspects

Our first Arc Aspect is Arc Soul. This Aspect spawns an Arc Soul whenever you cast a Rift. Allies who pass through your Rift will also be granted an Arc Soul. Arc Souls are floating balls of Arc light that will fire at any enemies in front of you. 

Arc Souls become enhanced while you are Amplified, granting them a massive increase to their fire rate. This Aspect also grants you an increase to your Rift ability recharge rate while your allies are nearby.

Our second Aspect is called Electrostatic Mind. This Aspect allows you to generate Ionic Traces whenever you kill enemies with Arc abilities or whenever you defeat targets affected by the Blind or Jolt status effect. 

Ionic Traces restore Class Ability energy on pickup. This aspect also makes you Amplified whenever you collect an Ionic Trace. Amplification increases your Guardian’s movement and weapon handling speed, it also allows you to run faster after sprinting for a short period of time.

Fragments

Our first Fragment is called Spark of Shock. This fragment makes all of your grenades apply the Jolt effect to targets. Jolted targets take additional damage while Jolted and chain lighting effects to nearby targets. Jolt damage causes Overload Champions to be stunned. This Fragment lowers your Discipline stat by 10.

Our second Fragment is Spark of Discharge. This Fragment grants Arc weapons a chance to create Ionic Trances on kills. This Fragment reduces your Strength stat by 10. Spark of Beacons is our third Fragment and it allows your Arc special weapon final blows to create a Blinding explosion while you Amplified. 

The Blinding status effect disorients combatants and prevents them from firing their weapons. This effect removes the hud for opposing Guardians and stuns Unstoppable Champions. Defeating Blinded targets with this build will also generate an Ionic Trace.

Our final Fragment is Spark of Brilliance. This fragment triggers by defeating Blinded targets with precision damage. On death, targets explode in a Blinding explosion. This fragment grants plus 10 to your Intelligence stat.

Best Abilities for Warlock Arc 3.0 Build

Arc Super: This build uses the Choas Reach super but feel free to swap this with Storm Trance if that’s what you prefer. We find that Chaos Reach works best for bosses thanks to its long range. Storm Trance works best as a mob clearing super but it can still deal good damage against certain bosses. Both supers Jolt targets, hence why you should probably save them for champions or bosses.

Arc Class Ability: Players can run either Empowering Rift or Healing Rift. We prefer Healing Rift since Arc Warlocks don’t really have many healing options available for themselves or their team. Another thing to consider is that your Rifts spawn Arc Souls and our Exotic armor deals damage with its shockwaves. So we really don’t need the extra damage provided by the Empowering Rift, still, feel free to run by preference.

Arc Melee Ability: This build is using the Ball Lightning melee ability. This attack sends out a ball of Arc energy that shocks nearby targets. While Amplified, this attack will hit a greater number of targets before disappearing. We run Ball Lightning because it has range and it can hit a large number of enemies with a single use.

Arc Grenade Ability: Unlike the other abilities in this build our grenade isn’t up to player preference. The Flashbang Grenade applies the Blind status effect to enemies hit by its explosion and is essential to the build’s gameplay loop. 

Killing Blinded targets will spawn an Ionic Trace so every grenade kill spawns one. On top of that the Blinding effect is really strong against mini-bosses and champions since they hit super hard. Now add the additional benefits provided by Jolting targets and our grenades become our best subclass ability.

Best Armor Mods for Warlock Arc 3.0 Build

No build is complete without some proper armor mods. Our mods are focused on increasing our stats and ability regen rate while we have armor charge, generating armor charge, increasing the amount of ammo our Arc weapons can hold, and increasing the damage of our kinetic and Arc weapons. Some of these mods can be swapped out for other mods if you have more or less available armor energy or maxed-out stats in Recovery and Resilience, the two most important stats for PvE.

Helmet Mods

Our three helmet mods of choice are Harmonic Siphon, Dynamo, and Hands-on. Harmonic Siphon will generate an Orb of Power whenever we get multiple kills in a row with an Arc weapon while using the Arc sub-class. This is a really easy condition to fill thanks to our exotic special weapon, ColdHeart. 

Dynamo generates super energy each time we use our Class Ability near targets. Hands-on grant super energy each time we get a kill with our Melee Ability. While our super isn’t the focus of this build, our Rift and Melee are, so these mods fit right into the build’s gameplay loop.

Gauntlet Mods

The three gauntlet mods chosen for this build all allow us to gain some benefits from using our Melee Ability. These mods are currently discounted thanks to a Seasonal Perk in the Seasonal Artifact. The two most important mods are Impact Induction and Font of Vigor.

Impact Induction reduces your grenade cool-down when you cause damage with your Melee super. Considering Ball Lightning specializes in hitting multiple targets at once, it isn’t uncommon for you to instantly get your grenade back by using a single-powered melee attack on a horde of enemies. It’s for this same reason that we run the Focusing Strike armor mod as well. Focusing Strike reduces the cooldown of your Class Ability energy whenever you cause damage with your Melee.

Font of Viger boosts your Strength stat by 30 points while you have armor charge. We make use of another Font mod in this build so we might as well grab the bonus to Strength while we are at it. If you don’t need the extra Strength stat and aren’t running any other blue armor mods feel free to swap this out for the Melee Kickstart instead. 

Chest Armor Mod

Our two chest mods of choice are Charged Up and Arc Reserves. If your Resilience stat is 70 or less feel free to swap one of these mods out with the Font of Endurance mod for a 30-point boost to our Resilience stat. The Charged Up armor mod increases the max number of armor charge stacks our Guardian can hold by 1. Considering how often we generate Ionic Traces and Orbs of Power, this extra armor charge slot definitely comes in handy.

Arc Reserves increases the maximum amount of ammo we can carry for our Arc weapons. This is perfect for getting the most out of Cold Heart and whatever Arc Heavy Weapon you decide to run. Run multiple copies if you have enough available energy. Harmonic Resistance is also a great pick if tackling Nightfalls or other endgame content.

Leg Mods

Our first leg mod is actually a new mod introduced in Season 21: Season of the Deep. Elemental Charge allows you to gain a stack of armor charge when picking up Ionic Traces, FireSprites, Stasis Shards, or Void Breaches. It doesn’t trigger every time but it’s still a great source of armor charge for this build.

Arc Weapon Surge and Harmonic Holster are the other two mods used in this build. Arc Weapon Surge increases the damage of all your Arc weapons while you have at least one stack of armor charge. Harmonic Holster reloads your stowed Arc weapons over time. Kinetic Weapon Surge is also a great option if you have the available energy for it.

Class Item Mod

Bomber is the most important armor mod for our class item. It reduces our grenade cooldown each time we use our Class Ability near targets. Given how essential both our Class Ability and grenade are to this build, this mod is a must-run. Powerful Attraction is another new mod from Season 21. It pulls in Orbs of Power whenever you use your class ability. It’s great for keeping up armor charge. Our final armor mod is Font of Recovery which gives us a 30-point bonus to our Recovery stat while we have armor charge.

Join the High Ground!

While using this build you will constantly be generating orbs of power, providing healing for your team through Healing Rifts, granting Arc Souls to yourself and members of your fireteam, and generating plenty of Ionic Traces. If you want more powerful build guides consider signing up for our newsletter today and lead your fire team to the high ground!

Happy gaming!