Extensive guide on how to beat Grandmaster Nightfall and get your Gilded Conqueror Seal. Even for solo players with random LFG teammates! Created after Witch Queen Expansion. Season of the Risen Edition.

The Basics & Target Audience

Here I am again with another guide for Grandmaster Nightfall(from here and now will be referred to as GM NF) for Season of the Risen.

I believed my last guide, (OUTDATED) Guide to Grandmaster Nightfall – [steamcommunity.com] , would be timeless, but then Bungie started handing out nerfs left and right *cough* ANARCHY *cough*, and reworked the very core of our subclasses, so I thought the guide needs to be updated to v2.0. And I will try my best to make newer guides for each subclass reworks every season.

Before you go into the guide, you may ask, who iz dis scrub and why I listen to him? I play destiny 2 solo, so I rely on LFG for teammates to tackle some of the most challenging activities in the game. I have been gilding conqueror every season. So I know a thing or two about the ordeal of coordinating with two people I have never met before, and has no mic.

Now I shall shamelessly copy pasta elements from my previous guide which are essential for a complete guide and people will overlook anyways. To jump to sections use the right panel.

WARNING

This guide contains lot of information and is quite long. So… have fun.

—-ACTUAL GUIDE BEGINS—-

Grandmaster Nightfall is one of the most challenging activities Destiny 2 has to offer and becomes considerably tougher when you solo queue with random teammates from LFG websites and without a mic.

So this guide will help you, the solo queuing guy to tackle this ordeal. If you are playing as a clan/friends you will have way more coordination but feel free to go through the guide as well, maybe you will learn something!

If you are a new player about to take on GM NF you will get some ideas about the meta weapons, loadouts used by most players out there.

Before starting, if you are new to Destiny 2 and about to try out Grandmaster Nightfall for the first time, here are few things to note.

• Strike power level will be set considerably above the capped power level.
• Even if you have very high light level it will be capped. This season it is 1575. So even if you grind 1575+ you will be capped at 1575. So PLEASE don’t be a **** and make LFG posts requiring people to be absurdly high power levels, since it will NOT matter. Below 1575, you cannot enter a grandmaster nightfall, levels above 1575 will not matter. To reiterate, person with maybe 1600 power level will do EXACTLY the same damage as the person at 1575.
• Champions are the main challenges of this NF and boy o boy there is a LOT of them.
• No automatic revive, you have to revive your teammate.
• Limited revives, more earned by defeating champions. If you hit zero revives, kill champions to get more revive tokens
• You can’t take forever to do the NF. There is a time limit. You will see notifications -“Darkness encroaching in X minutes”. After that you are out of revives. If you die after that you die permanently.

More information is available in Destiny: This Week at Bungie article – Grandmaster Nightfall Information – [bungie.net]

With that out of the way, now come the classes and subclasses.

Class and Subclass Introduction

You would want to choose subclass based on the super they provide and the perks they have. I would recommend not to choose a subclass which requires you to rush the enemy with your super, and is one time pop from a distance or is a roaming super with ranged capabilities.

For each character, my list goes from highly recommended at the top to unusable subclass at the bottom.

This list is tailored to Stasis and Void 3.0, with fragments and aspects.

Hunter Subclass : Void 3.0

Being a hunter is tough for PVE. Over the past few seasons 1 out of every 3 LFG posts are “No Hunters”. Being a hunter main, it just breaks my heart.

As a rule of every list, I start with the most recommended and end with stuff you should not use.

[TL;DR at the end this section]

Bungie specifically created the hunter kit to achieve ONE primary objective: INVISIBILITY

Now, going invisible and reviving teammates/relocating entire fireteam when getting overwhelmed is a great. Specially for an LFG team, where everyone dies very often. But in my opinion, invisibility shouldn’t be the main focus of a hunter. So I built my kit around grenades. Lord Shaxx personally requests you to THROW MORE GRENADES.

Why? you ask, since there are 5 fragments specifically built to empower your grenade and at the same time turn your Void weapons into ad-clearing monsters. And as a Hunter main, Warlock enthusiast, I have a Warlock fantasy.

SUPER

Moebius Quiver: Has high single target damage and great ad clear. Perfect utility and DPS super. Has base cooldown of 8:20. Recommended.

Deadfall: Best for ad clear. Lacks single target damage. Best utility super. But not recommended over Moebius as it is lacking in one area. Has base cooldown of 7:35.

Spectral Blades: No.

GRENADE

Vortex Grenade: Best grenade. No further questions.

ASPECTS

Trappers Ambush: The previous invisibility on smoke bomb just got a new name. And got a new gimmick! Shatterdive invisibility! Be right back, gonna bonk a champ in the head with smoke bomb. Jokes aside, this would be your go-to fragment when reviving your teammates. It weakens enemies in smoke cloud as well, but lets face it, we wont throw it to weaken enemies in high end content, but save it to go invisible more often. Only downside is that it has only 1 fragment slot, which prevents us from using most of the 5 grenade/weapon enhancing fragments. But the utility of invisible smoke bomb outweighs the need of an extra fragment.

Vanishing Step: The previous invisibility on dodge. Nothing to special here, almost underwhelming to be a “fragment”. Does allow 2 fragments though, and more invisibility options in case smoke is not recharged.

Stylish Executioner: Allows you to go invisible and gain truesight, on defeating any enemy containing ANY void debuff(volatile, weaken, suppress). Next melee attack weakens enemies. While it is quite fun to use in low end content phasing in and out of reality with every kill, not good enough for GM NF. Only thing going for it is that it has 2 fragment slots.

FRAGMENTS

 

• As stated at the start, I will focus on grenade build. So I will put more emphasis on only those fragments. You are free to experiment with other fragments which suits your build.

Echo of Undermining: Most important fragment in my opinion. Has a heavy penalty as well, of -20 discipline, the stat which governs grenade recharge rate. Enemies affected by this, take more damage, become slowed, and has reduced accuracy. Not sure whether accuracy debuff applies to MLG 360 no scoping Vandals. You must pair this with Vortex Grenade for maximum effect. It pulls broad radius of enemies inwards, debuffs and damages them constantly. In short, must have fragment for grenade builds.

Echo of Remnants: A normal vortex grenade lasts around 4 seconds, with this fragment. it last 6 seconds. More time to debuff, damage enemies. In short, must have fragment for grenade builds.

• From this point onwards, it comes down to personal preference, whether you want to empower your ability, or your weapon or you grenade even further.

Echo of Expulsion: Void ability final blows cause enemies to explode. With this and above 3 fragments, its just beautiful to watch everything engulfed in purple haze. *Chef’s Kiss*. However this fragment relies on final blows to cause explosion.

Echo of Instability: Defeating targets with grenades grants Volatile Rounds to your Void weapons. A worthy competitor for Echo of Expulsion. The volatile rounds last for a decent amount of time, and every enemy you damage gets volatile debuff. Defeating volatile enemies causes them to explode.

Echo of Persistence: Adds to the invisibility timer.

Echo of Harvest: Defeating weakened targets with precision final blows will create an Orb of Power. Your grenade weaken targets with Echo of Undermining fragment. Defeating them with precision hits creates orbs. Useful if you are creating orbs of light for super regeneration, Echo of Starvation fragment or explosive light weapons.

Echo of Starvation: Devour is great. But enemies at grandmaster are quite beefy, so I takes a while to chew through them, and your timer can expire in the meantime. Also with the nerf to orb creation, it is hard to activate devour for a hunter without the proper loadout. But feel free to experiment with orb generating helmet mods.

Echo of Provision, Echo of Exchange, Echo of Leeching: Melee focused fragments. Feel free to read about them, I would advise not to use them in a grenade focused build.

Echo of Reprisal: Gives more super when defeating enemies,while surrounded by combatants. I cannot accurately comment on what “surrounded” means and how close you have to be to the enemy. In low end content the changes are quite noticeable. But other fragments triumph over this in utility, so I would recommend to use the better ones.

Echo of Dilation, Echo of Domineering: PVP fragments.

Echo of Obscurity: No

EXOTICS

 

• Unfortunately there are no grenade focused exotic which we can take advantage of, so we enhance our other aspect, invisibility.

Omnioculus: Focused around keeping you and your team alive, with two smoke bombs and increased damage resistance. Also gives back melee energy for every ally your make invisible. Perfect exotic for survival.

Graviton Forfeit: Focused on keeping you alive. Substantially increases invisibility timer. Buffs melee recharge, recovery and weapon reload when invisible.

The Sixth Coyote: Two dodges, so basically two invisibility charges.

Orpheus Rig: Great damage increasing super, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Why you ask. Firstly, it enhances our super. which is once every 4 minutes perhaps, maybe 3. While extra shot is useful, it does not affect our abilities which have much higher uptime, namely grenades and invisibility. On top of this, most GM have boss phases, so you cannot melt it. You will have to go through multiple phases. Glassway GM punishes you for over damaging the boss, by triggering the next wave of enemies.

Wormhusk Crown: If nothing floats your boat, you always have wormhusk. Dodge for heal and invisibility(from aspect).

TL;DR-

Grenade Focused build, so focus on-

• Discipline 100 : Grenade Cooldown = 0:47
• Mobility 100 : Decreases Dodge Cooldown

SUPER: Moebius Quiver

GRENADE: Vortex Grenade

ASPECTS:

• Trappers Ambush : Invisibility Smoke Bombs
• Vanishing Step : Invisible on Dodge

FRAGMENTS:

• Echo of Undermining : Grenade Weaken enemies
• Echo of Remnants : Increased Grenade duration
• Echo of <X>: Based on your preference/playstyle

EXOTIC:

• Omnioculus : Extra invisibility smoke bomb for team
• Graviton Forfeit : More invisibility for you

 

Hunter Subclass : Stasis

Stasis needs no introduction. Great class for crowd control. I won’t go into details of each and every point, since by now you should have an idea about all of them. And again, I focus on throwing grenades. Gotta impress Lord Shaxx.

As a rule of every list, I start with the most recommended and end with stuff you should not use.

[TL;DR at the end this section]

 

SUPER

Silence and Squall: Ever used master level blizzard spell in Skyrim? This is it. For the uninitiated, it is a Stasis Storm which damages and freezes enemies in it.

ASPECTS

Touch of WInter: Enhances our Grenade, and being a grenade focused build, it fits perfectly with out requirement.

Grim Harvest: Creates stasis shards when defeating combatants slowed/frozen by stasis. These shards provide melee energy. While melee energy doesn’t sound too encouraging, if you pair it Elemental Shards stasis mod, the stasis shards count as stasis elemental wells for you. And with that you have an elemental well build. Pair it with other elemental well mods for get more super energy/weapon damage/grenade regeneration.

Winter’s Shroud: Goto Triumph screen in D2 > Click Medals > Click Combat > Hover over “Dodge This” medal > Give it to the enemy who killed you 🙂

Shatterdive: BONK.

GRENADE

Duskfield: Best grenade for area control. Sucks enemies to the centre and slows and freezes them.

• I will not discuss or use other grenades, since the best exotic to pair it(more below) with specifically requires you to use Duskfield.

 

MELEE

Withering Blade: Just FYI, one blade slows enemy, two freezes them. Works on everything except for bosses, who cannot be frozen.

FRAGMENTS

 

• You should have 5 fragment slots if you are using the recommended aspects. This opens up wide variety of buffs and regens. The ones I use You are free to experiment with other fragments which suits your build.

Whisper Of Shards: Reduces cooldown of your grenades, when shattering stasis crystals. This is quite significant, and almost allows you to chain grenades one after another, essentially freezing the entire battlefield.

Whisper Of Conduction: Running into the crossfire to collect stasis crystals is not fun. This makes the crystals come to you if you are near them, without having to walk over it.

Whisper Of Rime: The stasis crystals you collect gives you overshield for 10 seconds. More surviability.

• So you can see that stasis shards has a lot of benefits, and on top of that you can use elemental well mods for even more benefits.
   

  From this point onwards, it comes down to personal preference.

Whisper Of Bonds: Since you will be freezing almost everything, bonus super energy from frozen targets is always helpful.

Whisper Of Fissures: Increases damage dealt by shattering of stasis crystals or frozen targets. Since we are freezing everything and destroying the crystal, it pairs well with our setup.

Whisper of Chains: Provides damage reduction when you are near stasis crystal or near frozen target. Since we are going to make multiple duskfield domes and freeze multiple targets, this fragment’s effects will be quite noticeable.

Whisper of Torment: You gain grenade energy each time you take damage from targets. Become Swiss cheese, get grenade energy.

Whisper Of Durance: Slow debuff to enemies last longer. Unfortunately the increase is quite low.

Whisper of Hunger: Too much of a penalty in stats.

Rest: Not recommended, feel free to experiment.

EXOTICS

Renewal Grasps: Newest addition in Witch Queen. You want to create a duskfield dome the size of the moon? Pair this exotic and Touch of Winter aspect, you got it. Along with area increase, it reduces damage of combatants inside this dome. You can use it defensively as well, since it improves damage reduction to allies in the dome. Best exotic for hunter for stasis build. No other exotic comes close in comparison to the utility this exotic provides.

TL;DR-

Grenade Focused build, so focus on-

• Discipline 100 : Grenade Cooldown = 0:24!!!
• Other stats don’t provide any bonus to our setup. Feel free to experiment.

SUPER: Silence and Squall

ASPECTS:

• Touch of WInter : Bigger Duskfields
• Grim Harvest : Stasis Crystals

FRAGMENTS:

• Whisper Of Shards : Grenade Cooldown
• Whisper Of Conduction : Stasis shards have legs
• Whisper Of Rime : Overshield from stasis shards
• Whisper Of <X> : Based on your preference/playstyle

EXOTIC:

• Renewal Grasps : Even bigger duskfields

 

Hunter Subclass : Solar and Arc

The information below is from my previous guide, and there has been no significant changes to them. Expect updated one next season when Solar 3.0 and Arc 3.0 comes out.

Gunslinger

Bottom Tree (Way of the Sharpshooter): Chaining precision headshots with super, you probably can chip health of the boss. Using Celestial Nighthawk Exotic hunter helmet, you can hit one precision shot with will obliterate one champion(while stunned) with “knock em’ down” activated and get back 1/3 of your super provided he dies. But there will be over 20+ champions, is it really worth it? You can remove a major chunk of health from the boss. Other than that its utility is limited. Grenades are meh, throwing knife is good if you can kill ads with precision hits.

Recommended Exotics: Celestial Nighthawk

Top Tree (Way of the Outlaw): PVP class not worth it.

Middle Tree (Way of a Thousand Cuts): Ehhh, ignore.

Recommended-

Arcstrider

You will get destroyed even before you can approach champions even with super active. Mostly for ad clear. Highly unrecommended class.

Warlock Subclass : Void 3.0

Warlock is the most versatile class, and probably the best class to start with if you are a new player. Every subclass has its own identity and use in high end content.

I have marked “Same description” in areas which have same description as ones in “Class and Subclass : Hunter Void 3.0”, so you can skip them, instead of reading the same thing twice. But I will write them anyways for people who only play warlock/didn’t read the above.

As a rule of every list, I start with the most recommended and end with stuff you should not use.

[TL;DR at the end this section]

Warlock’s kit has everything which hunters and titans can do. Most powerful grenades out of all the classes, debuffing and overshield with just a simple rift cast, devour… warlocks have it all.

Grenade focused build… again.

SUPER

Nova Bomb – Cataclysm: Giant void ball of death with great tracking. It tracks the nearest enemy, so you may not always hit your target. Recommended.

Nova Bomb – Vortex: Basically super version of vortex grenade.

Nova Warp: Nova Warp got a buff in PVE recently, and it does some good damage. But this super requires you to be on top of the enemy, so not work the risk in GM.

GRENADE

Vortex Grenade: Best grenade. No further questions.

ASPECTS

Chaos Accelerant: Allows you to overcharge your grenade, while holding your grenade button. Increases radius of vortex grenade and duration by 1 second.

Child of the Old Gods: On rift cast, it creates a void soul, which tracks the first enemy you shoot. On reaching its destination it does AOE weaken debuff and damage to every enemy in that radius. While enemy is getting weakened, you get back energy for your other abilities. Defeating weakened targets gives you class ability energy. All in all an absolutely fantastic aspect. For GM this would be better than devour, so you and your team can deal more damage to the target.

• This is what aspects should be like rather than the hunter ones which seem like an afterthought

Feed the Void: Devour on any ability kills, which includes grenades. Absolutely fantastic for low end content, where you get almost infinite healing, while massacring ads. For high end content, I would recommend focusing on teamplay aspects. But it comes down to preference.

FRAGMENTS

 

• Focused on fragments empowering grenade. Feel free to experiment with other fragments.

Echo of Undermining(Same description): Most important fragment in my opinion. Has a heavy penalty as well, of -20 discipline, the stat which governs grenade recharge rate. Enemies affected by this, take more damage, become slowed, and has reduced accuracy. You must pair this with Vortex Grenade for maximum effect. It pulls broad radius of enemies inwards, debuffs and damages them constantly. In short, must have fragment for grenade builds.

Echo of Remnants: A normal vortex grenade lasts around 4 seconds, with this fragment. it last 6 seconds. With the aspect, it increases to 7 seconds. More time to debuff, damage enemies and a wider radius with aspect. In short, must have fragment for grenade builds.

• From this point onwards, it comes down to personal preference, whether you want to empower your ability, or your weapon or you grenade even further.

Echo of Expulsion(Same description): Void ability final blows cause enemies to explode. With this and above 3 fragments, its just beautiful to watch everything engulfed in purple haze. *Chef’s Kiss*. However this fragment relies on final blows to cause explosion.

Echo of Instability(Same description): Defeating targets with grenades grants Volatile Rounds to your Void weapons. A worthy competitor for Echo of Expulsion. The volatile rounds last for a decent amount of time, and every enemy you damage gets volatile debuff. Defeating volatile enemies causes them to explode.

Echo of Harvest(Same description): Defeating weakened targets with precision final blows will create an Orb of Power. Your grenade weaken targets with Echo of Undermining fragment. Defeating them with precision hits creates orbs. Useful if you are creating orbs of light for super regeneration, Echo of Starvation fragment or explosive light weapons.

Echo of Persistence: Adds to the devour timer. Not recommended unless you have devour build.

Echo of Provision, Echo of Exchange, Echo of Leeching(Same description): Melee focused fragments. Feel free to read about them, I would advise not to use them in a grenade focused build.

Echo of Reprisal(Same description): Gives more super when defeating enemies,while surrounded by combatants. I cannot accurately comment on what “surrounded” means and how close you have to be to the enemy. In low end content the changes are quite noticeable. But other fragments triumph over this in utility, so I would recommend to use the better ones.

Echo of Starvation: Devour is easy to activate for warlock. Unnecessary waste of slot.

Echo of Dilation, Echo of Domineering: PVP fragments.

Echo of Obscurity: No

EXOTICS

Contraverse Hold: Charged void grenades return grenade energy on hit. Returns anywhere between 0-50%(don’t quote me on this, just from experience), essentially cutting down cooldown by almost half. Perfect for grenade builds.

Nezarec’s Sin: Void damage kills, gives lesser cooldown to your abilities. For monochromatic builds, this is perfect, since every void kill feeds into your ability.

Verity’s Brow: Kills with void weapon gives you grenade energy and increase grenade damage. Good for monochromatic builds, but require you to get kills with void weapons to activate this perk.

Mantle of Battle Harmony: Focuses on super. Kills with void weapons gives bonus super energy. With super full, you get bonus weapon damage. Pretty decent.

TL;DR-

Grenade Focused build, so focus on-

• Discipline 100 : Grenade Cooldown = 0:47
• Recovery 100 : Decreases rift cooldwon and increased health regeneration

SUPER: Nova Bomb Cataclysm

GRENADE: Vortex Grenade

ASPECTS:

• Chaos Accelerant : Stronger Grenades
• Child of the old Gods : Weaken on rift cast

FRAGMENTS:

• Echo of Undermining : Grenade Weaken enemies
• Echo of Remnants : Increased Grenade duration
• Echo of Expulsion : Ability kills make enemies go boom
• Echo of Instability : Volatile Rounds for weapons

EXOTIC:

• Contraverse Hold : Reduce grenade cooldown

 

Warlock Subclass : Solar

Not Solar 3.0, but it is important enough to get its own section.

Dawnblade

 

Middle Tree (Attunement of Grace):

There is always someone that goes “wHeRe weLL?” And then you are forced to switch from your favourite subclass to Well of Radiance. By this time you should know how good and necessary well of radiance is. For newcomers-

One of the best supers in the entire game. Provides healing an overshield at an amazing rate. Powerful enough to tank through most damage.

However a word of caution. You are NOT invincible in the well. Few instances where you will die in a well-

• Keep an eye on the health bar, and take cover if you see that enemies, specially champions are able to chew through health and overshields.
• Wyverns don’t give a **** about wells. They will obliterate you even in a well.
• 2-3 Screebs and mini screebs are powerful enough to kill you in well.
• The well of radiance sword can be destroyed, essentially destroying the well. Make sure the sword is behind cover.

Other than that you should be fine with most content.

EXOTICS

Phoenix Protocol

With this exotic you regenerate super energy at an amazing rate for every kill you or your fireteam does inside the well. This actually got buffed with the super mechanic changes, since both damage to an enemy by YOU only and kills by you and your fireteam, feed into the super regeneration. With 2 warlocks having well of radiance and phoenix protocol, you can almost chain wells one after another. Most powerful setup you can have for GM.

The Stag

Phoenix Protocol builds into super. This exotic builds into your rift. Gives damage reduction to allies in rift, and gives almost instant rift energy on being critically wounded. This allows you to chain rifts one after another.

Boots of Assembler

Noble seekers track allies and heal them. For every ally healed, extends rift timer. Quite decent.

Bottom Tree (Attunement of Flame)

Has dive ability similar to shatterdive, which heals you. Paired with Dawn Chorus exotic, you have a decent grenade build.

Top Tree (Attunement of Sky)

PVP class, not recommended.

Warlock Subclass : Stasis

Great class for crowd control. Guess what I am focusing on? If you thought grenades you would be right.

As a rule of every list, I start with the most recommended and end with stuff you should not use.

[TL;DR at the end this section]

 

SUPER

Winters Wrath: Become Elsa from Frozen. Shoot seeking projectiles from staff, shatter them for damage. Useful when you are getting overwhelmed by ads or when you need to revive teammates from a tough spot.

ASPECTS

Bleak Watcher: Charging converts our grenade into an automated Stasis turret, which lingers for around 30 seconds and shoot stasis crystals, slowing and freezing enemies. Downside is that it substantially increases the grenade cooldown. So having high discipline is recommended. It also brings all types of grenades to an equal cooldown period. So running duskfield having base cooldown of 1:04 is same as having a glacier grenade having cooldown of 2:32.

Iceflare Bolts: Destroying a frozen target creates seekers that freeze the nearby target. Allows you to chain freeze targets one after another

Glacial Harvest: Used for creating stasis shards. Required if you are going for stasis shard/elemental well build.

Winter’s Shroud: Goto Triumph screen in D2 > Click Medals > Click Combat > Hover over “Rift Breaker” medal > Give it to the enemy who killed you 🙂

GRENADE

Coldsnap: While not duskfield, we choose this to pair with an exotic, discussed later

• I will not discuss or use other grenades, since the best exotic to pair it(more below) with specifically requires you to use Coldsnap.

 

FRAGMENTS

 

• You should have 4 fragment slots if you are using the recommended aspects.

Whisper Of Fissures: Increases damage dealt by shattering of stasis crystals or frozen targets. Our setup is built around freezing targets one after another. So this helps immensely.

Whisper Of Bonds: Since you will be freezing almost everything and the fragment allows to chain one freeze after another, you get a lot of super energy.

Whisper of Chains: Provides damage reduction when you are near stasis crystal or frozen target. Since our turret can freeze everything near or far from us, this fragment has high uptime.

• From this point onwards, it comes down to personal preference.

Whisper of Torment: You gain grenade energy each time you take damage from targets. Become Swiss cheese, get grenade energy.

Whisper Of Durance: Slow debuff to enemies last longer. Unfortunately the increase is quite low.

Whisper Of Shards: We aren’t creating stasis crystal, so this fragment has absolutely no effect.

Whisper of <X>: You can use the fragments which build into stasis shards and elemental wells.

Rest: Not recommended, feel free to experiment.

EXOTICS

Osmiomancy Gloves: Newest addition in Witch Queen. You stasis turret’s long lost brother. Allows you to have two coldsnap grenades, which you can convert to stasis turrets. More frozen and slowed targets. Coldsnap grenades without bleak watcher have improved effects.

Eye of another world: Reduces cooldown of abilities across the board.

TL;DR-

Grenade Focused build, so focus on-

• Discipline 100 : Grenade Cooldown = 0:58
• Other stats don’t provide any bonus to our setup. Feel free to experiment.

SUPER: Winter’s Wrath

ASPECTS:

• TBleak Watcher : Automated Stasis Turret
• Iceflare Bolts : Tracking seekers freezes nearby target

FRAGMENTS:

• Whisper Of Fissures : Increased shatter damage of frozen targets
• Whisper Of Bond : Bonus super energy
• Whisper Of Chains : Damage Reduction
• Whisper Of <X> : Based on your preference/playstyle

EXOTIC:

• Osmiomancy Gloves : 2 stasis turrets
• Eye of another world : Reduced Cooldown

 

Warlock Subclass : Arc

Copied from previous guide with few edits, based on buffs/nerfs.

Stormcaller

Middle Tree (Attunement of Control): Decent subclass, due to the fact its super is shocking, literally. Shoot a handheld laser and obliterate any ads it touches. Works wonders for single target damage as well, be it champs or boss. If your target dies you can stop your super early and get back some super energy. Geomag Stabilizers were nerfed and no longer provides bonus super energy for the last stretch. But it must be used to make super DPS relevant.

Recommended Exotics: Geomag Stabilizers

Top Tree (Attunement of Elements): This got a buff recently, but still not at par with other supers. Useful in PVP.

Bottom Tree (Attunement of the Conduction): Not at par with other subclass.

Titan Subclass : Void 3.0

By this point I guess you are tired of reading or decided to skip everything ;-; …

I have marked “Same description” in areas which have same description as ones in “Class and Subclass : Hunter Void 3.0”, so you can skip them, instead of reading the same thing twice. But I will write them anyways for people who only play titan/didn’t read the above.

As a rule of every list, I start with the most recommended and end with stuff you should not use.

[TL;DR at the end this section]

Main focus is Barricades and… grenades.

SUPER

Sentinel Shield: Banner Shield from previous sandbox. Large protective shield which you can shoot through. Allies shooting behind the shield gets bonus damage. With proper exotics and setup, and 2 titans it is possible to chain shields one after another.

Ward of Dawn: (Almost) Invincible, impenetrable dome. Get 25%(nerfed from 35%) damage bonus from weapons of light buff. Can be used as a safe area in case you are wounded or need bonus weapon damage.

CLASS ABILITY

Rally Barricade: Why not towering barricade? Later down in the guide, I will show you a way to chain abilities one after another, which will let you put down a barricade even BEFORE last barricade has run out. Having giant walls infront of you you can’t shoot through makes it annoying for you and for your team.

MELEE

Shield Throw: Activated from a distance, rather than rushing into the crossfire.

GRENADE

Vortex Grenade: Best grenade. No further questions.

ASPECTS

Offensive Bulwark: We are specifically focused on the perk, having overshields reduces cooldown of grenades, and gives bonus damage to melee. This pairs extremely well with an exotic, discussed later.

Bastion: Overshield on barricade, and regenerates overshield if it runs out. Pairs well with the other fragment and exotic, discussed later.

Controlled Demolition: Weapon focused. Use based on your preference and playstyle.

FRAGMENTS

 

• Focused on fragments providing overshield.

Echo of Undermining(Same description): Most important fragment in my opinion. Has a heavy penalty as well, of -20 discipline, the stat which governs grenade recharge rate. Enemies affected by this, take more damage, become slowed, and has reduced accuracy. Not sure whether accuracy debuff applies to MLG 360 no scoping Vandals. You must pair this with Vortex Grenade for maximum effect. It pulls broad radius of enemies inwards, debuffs and damages them constantly. In short, must have fragment for grenade builds.

Echo of Remnants(Same description): A normal vortex grenade lasts around 4 seconds, with this fragment. it last 6 seconds. In short, must have fragment for grenade builds.

• From this point onwards, it comes down to personal preference, whether you want to empower your ability, or your weapon or you grenade even further.

Echo of Expulsion(Same description): Void ability final blows cause enemies to explode. With this and above 3 fragments, its just beautiful to watch everything engulfed in purple haze. *Chef’s Kiss*. However this fragment relies on final blows to cause explosion.

Echo of Instability(Same description): Defeating targets with grenades grants Volatile Rounds to your Void weapons. A worthy competitor for Echo of Expulsion. The volatile rounds last for a decent amount of time, and every enemy you damage gets volatile debuff. Defeating volatile enemies causes them to explode.

Echo of Harvest(Same description): Defeating weakened targets with precision final blows will create an Orb of Power. Your grenade weaken targets with Echo of Undermining fragment. Defeating them with precision hits creates orbs. Useful if you are creating orbs of light for super regeneration, Echo of Starvation fragment or explosive light weapons.

Echo of Persistence: Adds to the overshield timer. Not useful, since we will be chaining overshield barricades.

Echo of Provision, Echo of Exchange, Echo of Leeching(Same description): Melee focused fragments. Feel free to read about them, I would advise not to use them in a grenade focused build.

Echo of Reprisal(Same description): Gives more super when defeating enemies,while surrounded by combatants. I cannot accurately comment on what “surrounded” means and how close you have to be to the enemy. In low end content the changes are quite noticeable. But other fragments triumph over this in utility, so I would recommend to use the better ones.

Echo of Starvation(Same description): Devour is difficult to activate and requires orb creating setup.

Echo of Dilation, Echo of Domineering: PVP fragments.

Echo of Obscurity: No

EXOTICS

Heart of Inmost Light: The cycle goes like this-

• Put down your rally barricade. This empowers your grenadeto 1x and melee to 1x.
• Throw your shield. This empowers your grenade to 2x and barricade to 1x.
• Throw your grenade. This empowers your melee to 2x and barricade to 2x.
• Repeat.

Each empowerment has a 10 second timer, doing these actions in quick succession allows you to maintain the empowered state forever. The fragments applying overshield and giving increased grenade and melee stats is just a cherry on top.

• This is BY FAR the BEST class-armor synergy Bungie has ever created. Its almost a work of art. Compared to this hunter kit looks extremely underwhelming. I feel sad being a hunter main.

Ursa Furiosa: Returns super based on how many enemy hits you stop with the shield and creates constant stream of orbs of lights for allies. Pairs very well with sentinel shield

TL;DR-

Class ability Focused build, so focus on-

• Resilience 100 : Decreases grenade cooldown
• Grenade and melee stat will max out with the exotic loop, so focus on other stats.

SUPER: Sentinel Shield

GRENADE: Vortex Grenade

CLASS ABILITY: Rally Barricade

MELEE: Shield Throw

ASPECTS:

• Offensive Bulwark : Overshield empowers grenade and melee
• Bastion : Overshield on barricade

FRAGMENTS:

• Echo of Undermining : Grenade Weaken enemies
• Echo of Remnants : Increased Grenade duration
• Echo of <X>: Based on preference and playstyle

EXOTIC:

• Heart of inmost Light : Ability loop
• Ursa Furiosa : Returns super energy

 

Titan Subclass : Arc, Solar, Stasis

Most content is copied from previous guide. You should know most of the below. Feel free to skip them.

STRIKER

Code of the Missile (Middle Tree): With the Cuirass of the Falling Star titan exotic you can destroy champs and melt bosses. But involves literally throwing yourself into enemy line of fire. Can’t recommend unless you need to 1 phase boss.

Recommended Exotics: Cuirass of the Falling Star

Code of the Earthshaker(Top Tree):No.

Code of the Juggernaut(Bottom Tree):No.

SUNBREAKER

Code of the Devastator(Middle Tree): Can reach high damages when using one-two punch perk on shotgun and Throwing hammer. But requires you to hug the enemy.

Code of the Siegebreaker(Bottom Tree): Sunspots and hammer throw. PVP subclass

Code of the Fire-Forged(Top Tree): Wait, there is a top tree?

BEHEMOTH

No

Weapons

Unlike the previous sandbox, where Anarchy pretty much dominated the entire high end PVE content, we now have varied options. Below are a list of few noteworthy weapons which you will see pretty much everyone is using. If you don’t have them, I will provide replacement options which are easy to obtain and has been released recently(for newcomers).

The list below does NOT follow any order.

GJALLARHORN

Absolute beast of a rocket launcher. Gives wolfpack rounds to legendary rockets. I love this weapon.

Replacement option for Gjallarhorn : PALMYRA-B

Even if one teammate uses Gjallarhorn, you get advantage of wolfpack rounds.

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SLEEPER SIMULANT

Highest DPS linear fusion rifle in the game. Has lower ammo capacity than other almost equally good legendary fusion rifles.

Replacement option for Sleeper : CATACLYSMIC / THREADED NEEDLE / REED’S REGRET

The three in the list have different discrepancies.

• Cataclysmic is recent and raid only weapon. Landing the right roll is difficult.
• Threaded Needle “was” easy to obtain, not obtainable now.
• Reed’s Regret… Prepare to sell you soul, since this is a Trials only weapon. But with the right roll, it is the best out of the tree.

 

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IZANAGI’S BURDEN

Sniper whose one bullet that has the damage potential of 4+ sniper shots. Consumes more ammo to get the charged shot. MUST land a critical, or else damage becomes insignificant. High risk, high reward.

Teamplay Strategy-

Requires two Izanagi and one Divinity

Stun the champion. Bonus for overloads since divinity stuns then anyways.

Hit it with divinity until the sphere of critical hit pops up.

2 shots(you and your teammate) with Honed Edge x 4 with masterworked Izanagi defeats champions.

Has no replacement options. One of a kind.

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ARBALEST

Probably goto option for GM containing high number of Barrier Champions. Catalyst gives bonus damage to enemies whose shield is broken with this weapon. Breaks every shield type. At least one person in the fireteam should use this.

Replacement option for Arbalest : ERIANA’S VOW

This category of weapons are one of a kind. So replacement is also difficult to obtain and quite old.

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WITHERHOARD

Great weapon for Area of Effect damage and single target damage. Masterworked witherhoard has auto-loading holster.

Has no replacement options. One of a kind.

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LE MONARQUE

With anti-barrier bow, this has rose to the top. Causes poison damage continuously and spreads to nearby enemies. Being a primary exotic, it got a 40% buff recently.

Replacement option for Le Monarque : Under Your Skin

Its no Le Monarque, but it will do.

TICUU’S DIVINATION is another exotic bow with excellent ads clear and single target damage. I cannot end a section on bows without mentioning this beast of a weapon.

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ANY GRENADE LAUNCHER WITH BLINDING GRENADES

Blinding grenades got a nerf recently. But the utility provided by this category is unlike any other. Ultimate counter for Wyverns.

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DIVINITY

Has inherent overload stun mod. Creates a bubble of critical around the target, to land precision hits easily.

Where picture you ask? I don’t have divinity ;-;

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Thats about it for the list of weapons that are useful for GM NF. But as always use the weapon you are comfortable with, the ones above just give an extra edge compared to the other weapons in the sandbox.

General Mods

Mods are essential. Mods help turn the tide of battle. To equip mods you need upgrade armor energy. For which you need enhancement prisms and ascendant shard for the higher levels. You can get them consistently by completing master nightfall with platinum.

Apart from the basic mods to stun champions like overload, barrier and unstoppable, you need some more mods to help you during battle.

Starting with the basics-

• Ammo Finder Mods: Head mod, as the description says, increases chances to find ammo if you have that weapon equipped. Increase chances while using exotic primary weapon.
• Scavenger Mods: Legs mod, you get more ammo per brick. For reference, Gjallarhorn gets 1 rocket without any mods. With 1 scavenger mod, it can get 1-2 rockets per brick. With 2 scavenger mods, it can get 2-3 rocker per brick. Note that this value is random, and you may get lesser ammo with 2 mods or get more ammo with 1 mod.
• Damage Resistance Mods: Elemental resistances include arc, void, solar. AOE resistance, melee resistance, sniper resistance. I would recommend atleast one damage resistance mod based on elemental damage type since snipers will once shot you unless you have it equipped. this season has thermoshock plating mod, which gives resistance from 2 elements in one slot.

Now come the more advanced mods, specifically the elemental well mods. Note that these are more focused on void, and some on stasis.

• Reaping Wellmaker: Creates void well on defeating an enemy with your weapon right after using your class ability.
• Seeking Wells: Legs mod. In my opinion for any elemental well build, this is ESSENTIAL. The created elemental wells track to your position, and does not require you to run over them. Makes elemental well builds less annoying.
• Well of Tenacity: Increases damage resistance for a short time on picking up void elemental well.
• Font of Might: Bonus weapon damage to the weapon if element type matches your subclass.
• Font of Wisdom: Bonus super energy on picking up elemental well that matches your subclass element.
• Elemental Armament: Defeating enemies with weapon having same element as your subclass has a chance to produce elemental well.
• Elemental Ordnance: Defeating enemies with grenade produces elemental well having element of your subclass.
• Elemental Shards: Stasis shards become stasis elemental wells.
• Elemental Time Dilation: Allows you to stack effects of other elemental mods. For example, 2 x Well of tenacity becomes 10 seconds with this mod equipped.

These are what I believe are most used in the current Void 3.0 sandbox. Feel free to experiment.

Seasonal Mods

There are quite a few seasonal mods which adds to Void 3.0 kit, feel free to go over them and integrate to you build. I will discuss few of them.

• Overload Grenades: Must have for GM containing overload champions. The necessity is elevated by the fact that this season we have Auto Rifle/SMG overload mod, which in my opinion is the worst stun mod you can have. Champions are powerful enough to kill you few times over, before you “charge” your weapon to stun them. So having another stun option is always helpful.
• Lucent Finisher: Same mod from few seasons back. Finishing champs and light wielding hive, creates heavy bricks. Extremely useful in high end content so that you can constantly use heavy weapon and have a decent ammo feed as well. With an LFG team, try to communicate that you will finish them. This mod is great on a hunter with invisibility. You may think that this pairs well with Echo of Obscurity where finishers grant invisibility, but in my opinion using up a fragment slot for such a specific situation is not recommended. But hey, feel free to experiment.
• Font of Might: Requires Void weapon, and setup that is able to create void elemental wells. 25% damage increase for 10 seconds is always helpful.
• Volatile Flow: Requires Void weapon, and setup that is able to create void elemental wells. This pairs very well with font of might. Both abilities are activated at the same time on picking up one void elemental well. More explosions with damage increase from Font of might.
• Thermoshock Plating: More damage resistance? Sign me up.
• Devouring Depths: Require you to have devour active. Increases super damage to about 30%.
• Glaive mods: Glaives are questionable in GM NF. Maybe with the right setup you can get away with it, but in case you get killed in the middle of a battlefield, it puts the entire team at risk of wiping.
• Psionic Forging mods: Pair them with the correct weapons.

 

Tips and Tricks

• You will die. You will die a lot. You will fail a lot. But you must not give up hope and not get frustrated. Try and try again. Getting the seal is worth the pain. This activity challenges the elite of the elitest. If you succeed in your first try, you are more powerful than the Architects.
• Always play from cover, unless absolutely necessary to stand out in the open.
• Do not rush. Champions hit hard and will kill you. Think of risk vs reward. Risk is you run out, you some how die to enemy crossfire just to kill one champ. Your ghost is stranded in the middle of nowhere, and your teammates cant revive you. Reward is one champion less.
• Overload champions can’t be stunned when they are glowing.
• Make sure your fireteam covers all elemental shield types. Modifier match shields will is present and unmatched type will take a lot of time to break through. If you are the only person running an elemental weapon matching shields of multiple enemies, try to break shields of all enemies instead of trying to kill one. This way your fireteam can damage all enemies with broken shields.
• Equip damage resistance mods on chest armor. Snipers, even ads will one shot you. You will hear a distinct charging up sound of their rifle before they take the shot.
• Scorn snipers are a pain. They WILL one shot you even with sniper resistance. Always focus on bringing them down first.
• If you are solo queuing without mic you need to have epic keyboard skills. You need to get some info across to your teammates somehow. And you have to do it in chat. And you need to do that while there are champs breathing down you neck.
• If you are a invisible void hunter, make sure the enemies aren’t shooting the remains of your downed teammate. If they have no target to shoot they will keep firing at the dead teammates ghost. And even if you are invisible while reviving, AOE damage will kill you.
• Focus fire on one champion. There will be a lot of champions, and everyone trying to kill their own champs, in most cases won’t work.
• Champions (overload, barrier) regenerate health very fast. Make sure you stun when they aren’t stunned them otherwise all effort you put in to bring them low is in vain. Then again don’t rush a low health champion alone unless you are certain you can kill him.
• Equip proper mods. Have scavenger for the best weapon, to get lot of ammo per brick, and ammo finder to increase drop rate of brick.

Well these are some tricks I learnt after dying countless number of times. Guides for each specific GM NFs are usually available on youtube, for detailed loadout ideas and builds.

Different modifiers from seasonal artifacts, combat mods will drastically change the gameplay and associated strategies. Feel free to browse different loadouts, you might be the forerunner for a new meta.

Some madlads even attempt and beat GM NF solo. Hats off to them.

Thank You

If you have reached to this point, thank you for reading.

If this helps atleast one guardian to get the seal, I will consider the guide a success.

You are ready to take on Grandmaster Nightfall with people you have never met before.

Go forth, guardian. May the RNG be with you.

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