Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Librarian Husky! Warlocks got some insane options with their Prismatic kit, and I figured out an Ability Loop that’s some of the most fun I’ve ever had. This build also gives you insane damage resistance, making it practically impossible to die. After a ton of testing to nail down the specifics, I’ve genuinely fallen in love with this build. Since you unlock what’s necessary soon after the campaign, anyone can pretty much jump right on it now.

Objective and Core Strategy

At the heart of this build is your objective, which is threefold: you’re going to have some glorious ability spam, get Prismatic extremely often, and have reliable survivability. First, we’ll cover some core items that feed into that, like some fragments and aspects, and the Exotic.

Core Items and Fragments

We’ll start with core items that support this build. The fragments and aspects play a significant role in making the build effective. Feed the Void aspect is essential. Simply getting an ability kill activates a buff called Devour, a 10-second timer where every kill gives you instant full health and refreshes the timer. This makes you feel invincible because when there are a lot of ads, it never goes away.

Abilities and Grenade Energy

If that wasn’t enough, Devour gives you a ton of grenade energy on each kill. When I say a ton, I’m talking about 15% from a single kill. For larger enemies, it can give you nearly half of that energy back because it scales by enemy type. This creates a very strong loop, and since you get it back so easily, it enhances the build’s effectiveness even more.

Starting Your Activation

I often recommend starting your activation with a grenade. You just throw one out there, which is going to be Threadlings, by the way. You’ll see why in a bit. It will proc Devour when it kills something, and then you just jump into action. That alone can make you feel like you’ll never die, and later on, you’ll see it get even better.

Getting Prismatic Quickly

Let’s talk about how you’re going to get your Prismatic so fast on this build. For a quick refresher, getting Prismatic happens from filling up the light and dark bars under your super. Then it goes bright pink once you’re ready to activate Transcendence. To do that, you need to deal light damage (Void, Solar, or Arc) and dark damage (Stasis or Strand) to equally fill them up. Kinetic damage can fill both.

Balancing Light and Dark Bars

What I’ve learned from people in my community is that a lot of builds struggle to fill both sides equally. For example, if I kill an enemy with Strand damage, I only fill my Darkness bar. Many people get tunnel vision, only filling one bar. But we are going to fix this problem with the Facet of Devotion fragment.

Facet of Devotion Fragment

This fragment makes it so that killing any Darkness-debuffed target will give you light energy as well. Darkness debuffs are things like Slow and Freeze or Sever and Unravel, which I’ll explain more in a moment. If we go back to that example and look at the enemy now, he has a Darkness debuff. When I kill him with that same Strand damage, the dark bar fills up because it was Darkness damage. But then I also get some light progress thanks to this fragment. This becomes integral to everything we select on the build. So, I wanted to open with that.

Applying Unravel Debuffs

You’re going to be applying Unravel using your Arcane Needle for melee. That’s one way of applying it, but if we go back to that other example, you’ll see flying green things. When you kill something that was debuffed, it sends out Unraveling Seekers to debuff others. Because of this, almost everything you kill during regular gameplay is debuffed, meaning regardless of weapon choice, you’re filling both Prismatic bars.

Using Grenades for Unravel

The issue is that people end up relying on their melee for debuffing, but I wanted to do it with my grenade because of how fast it recharges thanks to the Devour effect. This is where the Exotic leg armor called The Swarmers comes in. They are a lot of fun and do two things: first, they make Threadlings apply Unravel. Normally, if you throw a grenade, it would just deal damage, but now those will also spawn green flying things that seek out enemies and apply Unravel to others.

Benefits of The Swarmers

The beauty of The Swarmers is that both of your abilities can readily apply Unravel to groups of enemies, whether it’s your melee or your Threadling Grenade. The second benefit is that Tangles spit out two Threadlings. When these Threadlings hit enemies, they also send out the Unravel Debuff. This exotic was somewhat overlooked before, but now you have three methods of applying Unravel to crowds of enemies. Since your Devour fills up your grenades so fast, it can feel infinite.

Creating an Endless Loop

You can throw out a grenade, get Devour from it, and apply the Unravel Debuff to enemies. Killing those Unraveled enemies not only fills both your Prismatic bars because of the Facet of Devotion fragment but also spawns a Tangle. Destroying that Tangle will spawn more Threadlings, which then create more Unraveling Seekers. It’s endless fun.

Filling Prismatic Bars Faster

The last thing I’ll mention for this section is how you can fill up those Prismatic bars even faster. Combining Facet of Awakening and Honor is something special.

Perfect Fragment Combination

I swear these two fragments were made for each other. Starting with Awakening, getting multi-kills of a specific elemental type will drop a matching elemental pickup. For example, if I get some Arc kills here, I’ll make some ionic traces that come back to me. But if I do it with Strand damage, it’ll drop a Tangle. These are examples of elemental pickups, and each one does something specific.

Elemental Pickups

Ionic traces are sweet because when they come back to you, you get a chunk of your Rift energy back. Tangles are sweet because when you destroy them, you can enjoy everything I just explained. This is where the harmony comes in with Facet of Honor. Anytime you pick up an elemental pickup, you get a huge matching chunk on your Transcendence meter. Those ionic traces are Arc, so they fill your light bar. Even the Tangles count; when I destroy one, it fills the darkness bar.

Synergy and Speed

The combination of ability spam with all the debuffs going around while you’re getting your kills, and the synergy around these two fragments, gets you Prismatic so fast. Words honestly can’t do it justice. Moving on to the second section, let’s talk about your subclass.

Subclass and Grenade Choice

Starting with the grenade, I’ve kind of made that obvious: you’re going to be using the Threadling Grenade. The synergy with the Swarmers Exotic and having Devour is just too good to pass up. If you’ve never used these before, they can take a little time to get used to. At first glance, they can feel weak, but they’re not; they’re actually quite strong.

Using the Threadling Grenade

The key is knowing that when you throw it out there, it takes a bit of time to break off into the actual Threadlings. Sometimes hitting enemies right at their feet will work, but you can also just throw it strategically to maximize its effectiveness.

Utilizing Threadling Grenades

Throw them in the air and let the Threadlings drop down and do the rest for you. They even climb around walls. If you throw a grenade and there are no enemies for them to hit, they actually come back to you and collect charges on the left-hand side. These will sit there and wait for the next time you shoot someone, then they’ll jump out and seek them.

Melee and Arcane Needle

For your melee, you’re using the Arcane Needle. It’s not just for those Unravel Debuffs; it’s because you get three charges. You see, you’re going to have the Lightning Surge aspect that combines very well with this. Whenever you’re in the middle of a slide, it changes that Strand Arcane symbol to an Arc lightning symbol. This allows you to thrust out this Arc Mega melee, which clears entire waves of ads and even applies Jolt to them.

Lightning Surge Aspect

Arcane Needle has a base of three melees from the subclass screen, which translates over to the aspect, giving you three of these Mega melees. It’s so much fun, and because it’s Arc, it’ll also fill up your light bar for Prismatic. Having an option for both a light and dark melee is awesome. This will also proc Devour because it just needs an ability kill, making it like a full health button.

Amplified State and Benefits

Another cool Prismatic feature is having anything Arc on your subclass screen. In this case, the Arc aspect gives you access to becoming Amplified. All you need to do is get Arc kills, which can be from your melee or an Arc weapon. Being Amplified provides many benefits: +50 Mobility, quicker sprint, higher jump, longer slide, and it even buffs all your weapons’ handling. It’s a very run-and-gun style of gameplay and makes survival easier.

Prismatic Transcendence

Let’s break down the Prismatic Transcendence. We’ve talked a lot about how to get it really fast, but why do we care about that? First of all, you get a blanket 20% damage resistance right away, making it easier to survive. It also immediately refills your grenade charge and two full melee charges as soon as you activate it.

Prismatic Grenade Mechanics

I burn my grenade and melees, and then when I do activate it, I get it right back. The Prismatic Grenade on Warlock is called Freezing Singularity. It’s basically a mix of Vortex and Duskfield. When you throw it, it’ll pull enemies in, apply a slowing debuff to them, and then implode for big damage after 5 seconds. Prismatic is also sweet because your abilities charge really fast, and using one juices the other. Throwing a grenade will buff your melee and vice versa. It’s kind of like button smashing in a fighter game. Prismatic is just fun.

Transcendence and Ability Recharge

What’s cool too is that when your Transcendence ends, you get your normal grenade back. It will always be ready, which means you can start your whole cycle again with Devour. The last thing I’ll probably say about this is that you also get a 5% damage buff to your weapons. It may seem small, but it’s not zero. You’re literally just better with it now.

Choosing a Super: Song of Flame

The final thing for your subclass is choosing a super, and that’s going to be Song of Flame. It’s positively busted. Right off the bat, you get an extra 90% damage resistance while in the super. To put that in perspective, a Well of Radiance gives you 20%. Not only that, when you pop your Song of Flame, your teammates get an extra 30% damage resistance, so it’s not just you.

Super Benefits and Synergy

Once you’re in it, you’re basically a grenade and melee throwing machine. You throw a heat-seeking solar grenade and then a souped-up Incinerator Snap one after the other, over and over. Because they’re abilities, they still trigger Devour too. Most people like to just spam those because it’s fun, but remember, the super also gives you Radiant, which means if you use your weapons, they deal 25% more damage. A fun bonus is that your kinetic bullets will also apply Scorch on every hit. Last but not least, when your Song of Flame super ends, you get all of your abilities back.

Ability Reset and Gameplay Flow

Your abilities during gameplay and then popping your super is kind of like a reset button. Moving on, with all the ability hallmarks covered, let’s go to some mods that close out cooldown loops and some extra fragment synergies.

Helmet Mods

Starting out with the mods, let’s talk about your helmet. You’re going to want a Siphon mod for whatever weapon you’re using the most. These make you orbs on multi-kills, and I recommend using Arc since you’re going to want to create those ionic traces as well. For the last two slots, I’ve tested other mods, and they aren’t worth it for this particular build. So the good news is you can use whatever you want—maybe that’s an ammo finder or a scout mod to help your teammates.

Gauntlet Mods

Moving on to your gauntlets, you’re going to want to run Firepower to make orbs on grenade kills. Since Devour gives you so many of these, it’s an orb printing machine. The second one is going to be Momentum Transfer to give you melee energy from dealing grenade damage. This helps you get that Lightning Surge back much quicker. Because of that, you’re also going to be running Heavy Handed to make orbs whenever you use that. We’ll talk about what these orbs are going to do for you in a moment.

Chest Piece Mods

I have intentionally left this blank. Like I said in the beginning, I’ve done a lot of testing on which mods give you a good bang for their buck and which ones aren’t, and honestly, it’s good where it’s at. So you can run anything you want here, probably some resistance mods depending on the activity.

Leg Mods

Moving on to our legs, we’ve got Invigoration for the first mod. Every time you pick up an orb, you’re going to get more melee energy. The second one is a Weapon Surge. In this case, when you pick up an orb, it’s going to give you an armor charge that’s on a 10-second timer. This will boost the damage of your weapon matching the Surge that you’ve selected.

Managing Armor Charges

If I walk over three orbs, for example, I’ll get three armor charges, each with a 10-second timer, totaling 30 seconds. Walking over any other orbs immediately refreshes the timer, so it can feel like you’ve got it on all the time. I use Arc here to match my siphon, which I’ll explain in the weapon section. For your third mod, you could use another Weapon Surge, but I found in my testing that one is all you need based on some weapon recommendations. So, I actually recommend running Recuperation, which gives you extra health on every orb pickup. It helps bridge the gap for when you might not have Devour.

Class Item Mods

With that wrapped up, let’s move over to your class item. Powerful Attraction is one of my favorites. Every time you pop your Rift, it’s going to pick up all nearby orbs, so all those benefits I just mentioned will proc without having to worry about finding orbs. The second mod is Proximity Ward, which gives you an overshield during your finisher animation. If I’m ever weak, there’s usually an enemy within finisher range that can save me. Thirdly, we’ve got the Outreach mod. Popping your Rift will give you melee energy. If you’re noticing a theme here, it’s because Devour gets you your grenade so fast that a lot of these mods are geared towards your melee.

Final Fragment Slot

Now, if we move over to the subclass section, there is one final fragment slot. I’m going to give you two options. The first is Facet of Balance, which gives you melee energy whenever dealing light damage and grenade energy whenever dealing dark damage. It’s like the cherry on top for the entire Ability Loop—a strong contender. The second option is Facet of Bravery. This one’s amazing but does put some restrictions on your weapon selection. If you want to use any weapon you like and never really have to think about that, the other fragment is a great choice. If you do want to dive into weapon synergies, though, this fragment could be beneficial.

Weapon Synergies

This is pretty cool: getting a melee kill will give your Strand weapons unraveling rounds, and getting grenade kills will give your Void weapons volatile rounds. To be clear, that means the bullets from your Strand weapons will apply that debuff I explained earlier. A Void weapon will hit enemies with a purple debuff that makes them explode and cause chain reactions. It’s very powerful, but I know that a lot of activities already restrict what weapons you can choose. If you have Strand and Void options you love, this is incredible, but if you don’t or feel restricted, then just use the other option.

Top Slot Weapon

Earlier I mentioned how you could run a second surge, but you really only need one to achieve this. In your top slot, I recommend a Darkness element, so Strand or Stasis. The Agers Scepter exotic is particularly special in this build because it can apply Darkness debuffs as well. I showed how all of your abilities are going to be applying that Strand debuff called Unraveling, right? But this thing applies a Stasis debuff, which can also proc that devotion fragment—the one that gives you light energy from killing dark debuffs.

Fun and Effective Exotic Weapons

It’s also just a really fun exotic. You can kill one enemy, and it’ll freeze a bunch of others around it; they all shatter, and it’s just a blast. Another option is using a Strand weapon to benefit from that Bravery fragment I mentioned. With a melee kill, bam, your weapon now has unraveling rounds.

Heavy Weapon Choice

For your heavy weapon, this can truly be anything you want. However, if you do run that Bravery fragment in the final slot, then a Void machine gun with volatile rounds is pretty special. You just start shooting it, and things go boom. The one overarching thing I would say about weapon selection in general is that Bungie has been leaning into making us hit precision shots. A perfect example is tormentors, so having a good crit damage option is often important. This can be a linear fusion, a reliable kinetic, the new Microcosm exotic, really anything you want. Just don’t trap yourself running small weapons like scouts or SMGs just to match an element.

Artifact Synergies

Moving on to the final part of the cycle: artifacts. This build works fine without them, but it feels wrong not to include them when you have the option, right? The first is Galvanic Armor. While you’re Amplified, you’re going to get a 30% damage resist. Just a reminder, that’s whenever you get Arc multi-kills with a weapon or ability, like the slide melee.

Combining Damage Resistances

I also thought this would be a funny moment to demonstrate just how intense damage resistance can get. Let’s say you’re running 100 resilience; that’s 30% damage resistance right there. Add on this artifact while you’re Amplified, and that’s another 30%. Since you get Transcendent so often on the build, that’s an additional 20% with the protection fragment.

Enhanced Damage Resistance

It’s another 15%, and the way the math works on this is that if an enemy were to send a 200 damage shot at you, which would normally kill you, it’ll only hit for 67. If you popped your Song of Flame super for an additional 90% damage resistance, that 200 damage shot is only going to hit you for seven. They literally have to deal 3,000% more damage to you just to try and kill you while you’ve got these buffs active. You’re literally stronger than a walking Well of Radiance.

Artifact Mods for Additional Synergy

Moving on, we’ve got the second artifact mod that juices things, which is Transference. Right out of the gate, that gives you 10% higher grenade and melee damage. It also tracks how many weapon kills you get during your Transcendence, so when it runs out, it refills your light and dark bars based on how many kills there were. It caps out at 20 kills, giving you 50%, but either way, it’s sweet.

Additional Boosts and Effects

Next would be Shield Crush, which gives you an additional 25% boost to your grenade regen and damage while Amplified or Radiant, which feels like always on this build. Finally, we’ve got Threaded Blast. Destroying a Tangle with a Strand weapon makes the explosion from it even bigger, so why not?

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