Every Destiny 2 Warlock Subclass Ranked From Worst to Best

Human Made

Penned by Kody Wirth

Kody is our expert Destiny 2 and shooter genre writer. He lives in Oregon.

Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

Warlocks serve as the perfect middle-ground between offense and defense in Destiny 2. They’re known for quick healing, swift lateral movements, and a slew of more traditionally magic-based abilities. In short, they’re built to be the happy-medium of the brutal Titan class and more elusive Hunter class.

Being the anchor for a Fireteam is a stressful but rewarding role. This makes your subclass choice all the more important for keeping you and your team in the fight. But which is the Destiny 2 best Warlock subclass? 

Popular Destinations..

Destiny 2 Waystone | Navigation Page

Destiny 2 Events Calendar: PvE, PvP, Lost Sectors, Weekly Loot, Xur (The Final Shape, Episode II)

Every Warlock Subclass Ranked

This versatile Guardian wields various excellent sub-classes that take advantage of your ability to get up high and soar over long distances. They may be some of the most diverse abilities available, meaning that a few easily stand out and others that should be avoided at all costs. So, let’s get you attuned to what subclasses you should be using with this list of every Warlock subclass ranked from worst to best.

10. Attunement of the Elements — Stormcaller Subclass

Abilities

• Rising Storm: Kills with this electrically charged melee ability, recharges your Super, grenade, and melee energy.
• Landfall: Casting Stormtrance fires a bolt of lightning into the ground, creating a devastating AOE shockwave.
• Electrostatic Surge: Your Rift lasts longer and charges faster when near allies.
• Arc Soul: Your Rift grants you and any ally that uses it an Arc Soul to use in battle.

Like the No Time to Explain scout rifle, the real benefit of the Attunement of Elements specialty is the ability to generate additional projectiles. But unlike that excellent weapon — which continuously grants turret-like round generation — you need to build around Arc Soul generation to get the same effect. To do that, you either need to focus on specific armor acquisition or, more commonly, always stay near your Fireteam.

This can be a frustrating subclass to wield in encounters that require disparate but coordinated movements from you and your Fireteam. Because at any point, where you have to split off, your ability can become almost useless. So, unless you and your squad run a very specific strategy where you operate as a very close unit, it’s best to avoid this subclass.

What’s it best for? Gambit and Battlegrounds. Anytime you plan on running closely with your Fireteam and need to continuously damage or eliminate weaker enemies. 

9. Attunement of Flame — Dawnblade Subclass

Abilities

• Igniting Touch: Burn and cause enemies to explode when killed with this melee ability.
• Fated for the Flame: Daybreak projectiles seek targets as they travel and launch an explosive frame once they hit.
• Everlasting Fire: Killing an enemy with Daybreak increases its duration.
• Phoenix Dive: Activate while midair to quickly descend and restore your health. It will cause explosive damage if Daybreak is active.

Attunement of Flame acts as the most direct iteration of the Dawnblade subclass. It emphasizes the damage, power, and midair positioning that makes this subclass so popular but interjects it with a slam attack that can bring back health. In many ways, this serves as the epitome of what it means to be a Warlock, balancing ranged attacks with riskier in-your-face abilities that can reward you with prolonged ability use.

The only drawback is that the buffs in combat abilities hamper your passive traits. This means this is another subclass that requires you to build around it to make it useful. And even then, the lack of non-super uses makes this a difficult option to choose for longer encounters, where behind the scene perks can be more crucial throughout.

What’s it best for? Crucible and Gambit. This super is incredibly powerful but sacrifices any passive benefits, making it only useful for game modes with limited super execution.

8. Attunement of Fission — Voidwalker Subclass

Abilities

• Atomic Breach: Create a Void explosion with successful melee hits.
• Handheld Supernova: Converts your grenade into a short-range Void blast.
• Dark Matter: Void ability kills grant health, melee, grenade, and class ability energy.
• Nova Warp: Replaces Nova Bomb as subclass Super. Sprint to teleport a short distance and hold to unleash a deadly Void eruption.

Forsaken brought in a few alternate supers within current subclasses, and the Nova Warp may have been the most broken and powerful. This means it’s seen plenty of nerfs over the last few years, and that’s left it as an unfortunately busted option to play with. While teleportation is still useful, your final burst attack’s length of use and range is severely lacking compared to other Void options.

Thankfully, the benefits of your melee and grenade buffs do balance out the downgraded super. It’s still not enough to beat out the other Voidwalker subclasses, but it’s still useful as a generalist Void option.

What’s it best for? Raids and Strikes. If you need a more elusive subclass option and have a Void tinge to leverage, this subclass is the Destiny 2 best Warlock subclass for raids.

7. Attunement of Conduction — Stormcaller Subclass

Abilities

• Chain Lightning: This electrically charged melee ability chains lightning from your target to nearby enemies.
• Transcendence: If used with a full grenade and melee energy, Stormtrance lasts longer and fully restores health.
• Arc Web: Enemies damaged by your grenades chain lightning between nearby enemies. 
• Ionic Blink: This allows you to teleport during Stormtrance.

Conduction is spot on in describing this ability. Its core benefit involves chaining electricity between your targets through both melee and grenade attacks. Successful chains then restore ability and health energy, allowing you to keep a continuous chain of lightning pouring out onto your enemies.

The issue is that the inherent perks, Ionic Blink and Transcendence, don’t augment the benefits of your other abilities. Teleporting is still useful, and if you happen to have full energy, and health regeneration is also useful. Both abilities either work against or inconsequentially with your grenade and melee abilities, making this a decent choice that could be far better.

What’s it best for? PvE and Gambit. The lightning chain abilities are handy for crowd control and taking out lesser enemies. 

6. Attunement of Chaos — Voidwalker Subclass

Abilities

• Entropic Pull: Drain your enemy’s life force and use it to recharge your grenade.
• Chaos Accelerant: Overcharge your grenade damage.
• Bloom: Void ability kills cause enemies to explode.
• Cataclysm: Nova Bomb travels slowly and seeks out enemies. Detonations shatter into smaller seeker projectiles and can be detonated early by being shot.

Attunement of Chaos is all about impending doom. Your melee ability slowly drains the life from your enemies and recharges your grenade, which can then be overcharged. If any of these bring about a kill, your enemies then explode, further expanding your ability to execute AOE damage.

However, it’s the changes to the super that really pushes this one over the edge. Now a slow-moving, heat-seeking missile that explodes into smaller projectiles, it can be a great long-range weapon to take on enemies you can’t visibly see. And while it may not have some of the passive buffs that make Voidwalker such a well-balanced subclass, these excellent damage buffs do make up for it.

What’s it best for? Crucible, PvE, and Gambit. An excellent subclass choice if you like to play more offensive and in any game mode.

5. Attunement of Control — Stormcaller Subclass

Abilities

• Ionic Trace: Defeating enemies provides the chance to create Ionic Traces, which in turn refills all ability energy.
• Ball Lightning: Fire an Arc projectile that releases a bolt of lightning.
• Pulsewave: When critical, you trigger an energy blast that boosts you and your Fireteam’s speed.
• Chaos Reach: Unleash a long-range channeled beam of concentrated Arc energy. Has the option to cancel early and recoup super energy.

Tired of using an electric staff and just want to go Super Saiyan? Use the Attunement of Control to send a devastating blast of arcing electric energy forward, and you just might accomplish that dream. And rather than being disappointed that your super has ended, keep using melee kills to potentially regenerate abilities, or turn off your super to salvage some energy.

And since these abilities encourage you to be in the thick of it, the Pulsewave perk ability provides a much-needed speed boost to quickly get out of harm’s way. Again, it may be lacking some of the better passive abilities, but the accurate, powerful, and manageable skills make it a far more intricate subclass to hone as a Warlock.

What’s it best for? PvE and Gambit. Anytime you can consistently activate supers, this can be an excellent option for managing large groups of lesser enemies. 

4. Attunement of Hunger — Voidwalker Subclass

Abilities

• Devour: Melee kills fully regenerate your health and allow other kills to regenerate small amounts of health for a short time after.
• Feed the Void: Consumes your grenade energy to regenerate health. 
• Insatiable: Extends the duration of Devour and recharges your grenade.
• Vortex: Nova Bomb creates a singularity that traps and continually damages enemies. Successful kills activate the Devour ability.

Every aspect of the Attunement of Hunger works cohesively to keep your Guardian in a damage, kill, and regenerate loop. And this loop is firmly rooted in the Devour ability, which activates upon successful melee ability kills before extending to other elements of your ability set. Weapons, grenades, and even your super have the chance to trigger health regeneration if you stack them around your initial Devour activation.

This is one of the first subclasses to truly build around a core concept, and it works beautifully. It encourages precision and timing, providing a truly rewarding benefit if you succeed.  

What’s it best for? PvE, Crucible, and Gambit. The health regeneration abilities make this a top-tier subclass for any encounter, but it’s particularly ideal for long PvE runs. Quite possibly the Destiny 2 best Warlock subclass for PvE.

3. Attunement of Grace — Dawnblade Subclass

Abilities

• Divine Protection: Convert your grenade into a Blessing to heal allies and create overshield pick-ups for your Fireteam. Allows you to hover if activated while in midair.
• Guiding Flame: Inflict burn damage upon successful hits that buffs you and surrounding players.
• Benevolent Dawn: Healing or boosting your allies regenerates your grenade, melee, and Rift energy.
• Well of Radiance: Pierce the ground with your Daybreak sword. And continuously radiate a powerful aura that heals and empowers nearby allies. 

Similar to the Attunement of Hunger, this subclass is based around one core concept. Everything can regenerate and boost you and your allies. Your grenade can convert to a Blessing that provides health and overshield regeneration. Your melee ability can buff you and other nearby allies. And anytime this occurs, you regenerate your abilities.

This is all encapsulated in your super alternative, which creates a health and damage boost for you and your Fireteam. Seriously, there’s a reason that this has been a fan favorite for any and all PvE content for years. Everything about it connects your abilities and rewards you for working with your team.

What’s it best for? PvE, PvP, and Gambit. The ability, health, and damage boosting super make this an ideal choice for any game mode you’re running with a coordinated Fireteam. 

2. Shadebinder — Stasis Subclass

Abilities

• Winter’s Wrath: Create projectiles with a Stasis staff that instantly freezes foes. Detonate the staff’s crystal to send a shockwave that shatters any enemy affected by Stasis.
• Penumbral Blast: Fire Stasis energy from your staff that freezes opponents.
• Glacier Grenade: A wall of Stasis crystals will burst from the ground, freezing nearby enemies.

Stasis has been a gamechanger for every class. The ability to quickly freeze and detonate enemies almost on a whim makes Shadebinder perfect for any encounter. Like Attunement of Grace, this subclass is all about keeping your abilities rolling, but in favor of executing significant damage.

Once Aspects and Fragments are unlocked, you can build around ability regeneration. Just don’t expect to be strafing around the map or healing allies with this one. It heavily favors direct combat over agility and support but more than makes up for it thanks to the constant use of abilities to freeze and shatter opponents.

What’s it best for? PvE, PvP, and Gambit. For Warlocks that like to play a more active role, Stasis is a welcome new addition.

1. Attunement of Sky — Dawnblade Subclass

Abilities

• Celestial Fire: Send out three explosive Solar energy blasts.
• Winged Sun: Fire weapons, use Celestial Fire, and throw grenades while gliding. Airborne final blows extend Heat Rises and regenerate melee energy.
• Heat Rises: Consume your grenade energy to extend Glide time and improve in-air accuracy.
• Icarus Dash: Dodge twice while in midair.

The introduction of Stasis still couldn’t dethrone one of the most powerful subclasses of any class in Destiny 2. That’s thanks to the combination of regenerative, offensive, and agility-based abilities that Attunement of Sky perfectly blends. And once again, it’s all focused around one core trait, but in this case, it’s not regeneration but air time.

The more you’re in the air getting kills, the more your abilities regenerate. And if you want to keep that height advantage, simply use your grenade energy and keep that cycle going. Honestly, the only thing this subclass lacks is health regeneration, but the ability to take on enemies from a distance sort of makes it unnecessary. All in all, Attunement of Sky is the best Warlock subclass in Destiny 2 and will likely remain that way unless some new Stasis abilities truly shake the core meta.

What’s it best for? Crucible, Gambit, and PvE. The well-mixed ability set makes this the Destiny 2 best Warlock subclass for PvP activities. It can also make you a room clearing savant in mid-level PvE encounters. 

Destiny 2 Best Warlock Subclass: The Space Wizard

Playing as a Warlock can make you feel like you’re the punching bag of the Destiny universe, but it plays a vital support role (as long as you’re running the Destiny 2 best Warlock subclass for your situation). 

Be sure to share this article on your favorite social platforms to help the Warlock players you know to find the right subclass for them. And for the latest guides covering Destiny 2, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.

Related Reading

• Best Destiny 2 Settings
• Best Destiny 2 Titan Subclasses Ranked
• Best Destiny 2 Raids Ranked
• Best PvE Weapons in Destiny 2
• Best PvP Weapons in Destiny 2