Destiny 2 Season of the Witch – Foe Tracer Build Guide
With the day one raid now a memory, it’s high time we delve into the sandbox changes that ushered in the start of this season. An exotic that has captivated my attention is none other than the Foe Tracer helmet, which has undergone a significant transformation from its previous functionality.
This headpiece now stands atop the hierarchy for endgame content, offering exceptional utility in neutral game scenarios and exceptional boss damage potential. It’s a cornerstone of what might be one of the most adaptable and invincible Hunter builds I’ve ever had the pleasure of using.
The Exotic Perk of Foe Tracer
At the commencement of the Season of the Witch, Foe Tracer shed its previous exotic attributes and embraced a completely new role, one that revolves around acquiring substantial damage bonuses and increasing ability uptime. This exotic now dictates that dealing damage to a formidable adversary with an ability temporarily enhances your weapons that match your subclass type. To add to this, eliminating the said adversary with a weapon that matches your subclass creates an elemental pickup, catapulting your damage output to impressive heights.
Amplifying Your Damage Potential
As demonstrated, Apex Predator inflicts a base damage of 34,326. However, when we employ our throwing knives to activate Foe Tracer’s exotic perk, the helmet promptly grants us a solar weapon boost that multiplies by four, elevating our damage output to 42,907. That’s an astonishing 25% damage boost just for tossing our knives at the target. The beauty of this lies in the fact that it doesn’t hinge on surge mods or other external factors; it’s an inherent feature.
Apex Predator
In scenarios where Apex Predator is your choice for boss damage, you can allocate your resources towards kinetic surges instead. This strategic move empowers weapons like Izanagi’s Burden, a key player in damage rotations that incorporate bait-and-switch techniques with Rockets. Consequently, at the baseline, our kinetic damage is amplified by 22, and the Foe Tracer grants a formidable 25% damage bonus to our Rockets, leading to a substantially higher total damage output.
Radiant
But there’s more. By introducing Radiant into the equation, we attain an additional 25% damage boost when using solar abilities against enemies. Thus, when we utilize our knives (which are already a prerequisite for activating Foe Tracer’s exotic perk), we garner a 25% damage increase from the helmet and an identical 25% damage augmentation from Radiant. This catapults our rocket damage from 42,907 to a staggering 53,634.
Harnessing the Power of Artifact Mods
To push our boundaries even further, we can harness one of the most popular artifact mods of this season. Monochromatic Maestro stipulates that dealing elemental ability damage further enhances weapon damage, matching your subclass type by an extra 10%. Pairing this mod with Foe Tracer, you’ll witness a quintuple solar weapon boost notification on your screen. This pushes your rocket damage from 53,634 to a jaw-dropping 58,997.
Synergizing Abilities for Optimal Results
What’s truly remarkable is that we can activate this chain reaction with a simple melee ability. This action not only triggers Foe Tracer but also activates Radiant and Monochromatic Maestro simultaneously. Although the perk description indicates a mere five-second duration, any ability that leaves a lingering effect on the target, like Scorch, continuously reactivates this perk as long as the target continues to burn. The effect persists for a full five seconds after the burn expires.
You’ll notice that this enhancement remains active for roughly 12 seconds, making it more than viable for integration into real-world damage phases. This versatility extends to solo players and can be reapplied at any moment. Furthermore, these calculations don’t even account for additional damage perks or debuffs like the ever-present Tractor Cannon, commonly utilized in team settings.
Crafting the Invincible Foe Tracer Build
With your undivided attention, let’s construct a build that not only excels in DPS but also offers top-tier survivability and general utility in endgame content.
Super: Blade Barrage – Unleashing Solar Fury
First and foremost, we embrace the Blade Barrage super, a choice that needs little explanation due to its reputation as one of the game’s most potent DPS supers.
Notably, Blade Barrage boasts swift casting, allowing us to seamlessly incorporate Star Eaters during the super’s activation and then swiftly switch to Foe Tracer for elevated weapon damage. This combination provides the ideal balance for achieving outstanding solar-based DPS.
Abilities – Mastering the Hunter’s Arsenal
Shifting our focus to abilities, we kick off with Gambler’s Dodge, a pivotal selection that refunds our melee ability upon dodging near an adversary. This guarantees a steady stream of Radiant procs and bestows an extra set of throwing knives for engaging high-priority targets with Foe Tracer.
As for our melee ability, Knife Trick emerges as the standout choice, delivering substantial damage with a generous margin for error, ensuring effective strikes on your intended targets. Lastly, the Healing Grenade proves to be a game-changer, elevating our survivability and transforming our damage-centric build into an indomitable force.
Restoration abilities hold a central role in endgame content, and this build assures their constant availability.
Aspects and Fragments – Customizing Your Arsenal
Venturing into the realm of aspects, On Your Mark takes the lead, enhancing weapon handling and reload speed for both you and nearby allies. This ensures not only responsive gameplay but also unlocks three fragment slots, providing extensive room for customizing your build as you progress.
Our second aspect, Knock Em Down, not only grants Blade Barrage additional projectiles for intensified damage output but also refunds our melee ability while Radiant, ensuring sustained offensive capabilities.
Ember of Torches: Amplifying Melee Strikes
First in the lineup is Ember of Torches, an aspect that amplifies damage output by 25% for you and nearby allies when powered melee attacks are unleashed. This is crucial for boosting our add-clear capabilities and comes with built-in anti-barrier functionality.
Ember of Solus: Extending Radiant and Restoration
Next, Ember of Solus extends the duration of Radiant and Restoration effects by 50%. This elongates the base Restoration timer from 4 seconds to 6 seconds and the base Radiant timer from 8 seconds to 12 seconds, providing greater flexibility in maintaining these buffs.
Ember of Imperium: Empowering Radiant Flames
Ember of Imperium represents our next pivotal fragment, further extending the duration of Radiant and Restoration effects through final blows achieved with solar weapons and abilities.
Picture this scenario: you throw a healing grenade to the ground, swiftly follow it up with a precision knife throw to activate Radiant, and now your solar weapons come into play, prolonging these beneficial buffs to an impressive 12 seconds. These buffs can be refreshed with every kill, akin to the Devour mechanic, ensuring their continuous presence.
This exceptional capability makes the build exceptionally potent, particularly in content that may challenge your power level. Furthermore, it grants access to wield top-tier primary weapons like Sunshot, which has become a true powerhouse following the Hand Cannon buffs this season.
Ember of Imperium: Empowering Radiant Flames
Ember of Imperium represents our next pivotal fragment, extending the duration of Radiant and Restoration effects through final blows achieved with solar weapons and abilities.
Imagine the scenario: you throw a healing grenade to the ground and then swiftly follow it up with a precision knife throw to activate Radiant. Now, your solar weapons come into play, lengthening these beneficial buffs to an impressive 12 seconds.
These buffs are refreshable with every kill, reminiscent of the Devour mechanic, ensuring their perpetual presence. This remarkable capability renders the build exceptionally potent, especially in content that might challenge your power level. Furthermore, it opens the door to wield top-tier primary weapons like Sunshot, which has become a true powerhouse following the Hand Cannon buffs this season.
Ember of Singeing: Igniting Swift Regeneration
Continuing our exploration of fragment choices, we arrive at Ember of Singeing, a fragment that accelerates the regeneration of your class ability when scorching targets. Considering that our throwing knives can reliably apply the Scorch effect to ignite a target, this effect becomes a constant presence in your gameplay. If you’re keen to expedite your ability regeneration even further, you can even opt for weapons equipped with the Incandescent trait, ensuring that your abilities are always at your fingertips, ready to be unleashed.
Ember of Searing
Last but not least, we encounter Ember of Searing, a fragment that rewards defeating Scorch targets with melee energy and produces a Fire Sprite upon kill. This acts as a failsafe should we lose our charged melee ability, guaranteeing a continuous cycle of abilities.
Armor Mods
Venturing into the realm of armor mods, we have several options to further enhance this formidable Foe Tracer build. These mods will allow you to fine-tune your Guardian’s abilities and resilience in various challenging scenarios. Let’s delve into the possibilities.
Helmet
For the helmet, my choice is Harmonic Siphon, generating orbs of power on solar weapon kills. This enables weapons like Sunshot to produce an abundance of orbs while also boosting the substantial super gains associated with exotic primaries. Additionally, Heavy Ammo Finder and Scout are invaluable for ensuring a steady supply of heavy ammo, whether you’re tackling challenges solo or with a fireteam. If desired, you can consider alternatives like Hands-On for additional super energy, although this may not be necessary due to the rapid super acquisition rate.
Gauntlets
Moving to gauntlets, the Harmonic Loader takes center stage. Paired with Impact Induction and Focusing Strike, this choice reduces grenade and class ability cooldowns when dealing damage with melee attacks. This rapid ability cycling proves invaluable for refreshing our buffs should they ever lapse.
Chest
The choice of resist mods for the chest should be tailored to the specific activity you’re undertaking. Depending on the challenges you face, selecting the appropriate resist mods can significantly enhance your survivability and effectiveness in various encounters.
Boots
For the boots, a Solar Scavenger and two Solar Surges are my recommendations for solo play. While this setup doesn’t directly benefit against marked Foe Tracer targets, it provides a substantial 17% damage bonus against all enemies when picking up an orb of power. In situations demanding maximum DPS, consider swapping these for Kinetic Surges to optimize your bait-and-switch damage rotations, as previously highlighted in the video.
Class Item
Finally, on the class item, Bomber takes precedence. This mod reduces grenade cooldowns when using your class ability, bolstering your overall utility. Powerful Attraction proves invaluable for collecting all nearby orbs of power when dodging, while Time Dilation extends weapon surge timers, ensuring even greater uptime.
Conclusion
This invincible Foe Tracer build has rapidly become the highlight of my gaming experience this season. It takes what was already a formidable neutral game and elevates it to new heights. For Tracer excels in swiftly eliminating high-profile enemies in solo play and emerges as a top-tier choice for DPS in team activities. It is unquestionably one of the most versatile and well-rounded builds I’ve ever shared on this channel. I sincerely hope you find as much joy in using it as I have.
Thanks for reading this interesting guide! Please check our Destiny 2 boosting services. We have plenty of excellent boosts.