It’s common knowledge that the Arc subclass is often overlooked in PvE, but with the introduction of Season 21 in Destiny 2, the Arc Surge buff and Seasonal Artifact mods have made building an Arc Hunter more appealing. Whether you’re delving into standard or high-end PvE content, our team at High Ground Gaming has created a shockingly fun Arc Hunter build for Season of the Deep.
Exotic Recommendations for PvE Arc Hunter
While not essential, the following Exotics greatly enhance the gameplay loop and complement this PvE Arc Hunter build. If you don’t have access to these Exotics, you can always sub them out with your preferred Legendary gear.
Exotic Armor
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Our top recommended Exotic armor is The Dragon’s Shadow. While this Exotic is integral to the build, you can replace it with a melee or dodge-focused Exotic like Assassin’s Cowl. The Dragon’s Shadow reloads all weapons after using your class ability dodge and improves your movement and weapon handling speed for a limited time.
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Another Exotic armor option is Assassin’s Cowl. This helmet grants invisibility, health restoration, and shield regeneration upon killing enemies with a powered melee attack. Defeating tougher foes with a powered melee or finisher increases the duration of these buffs, making it perfect for survivability and solo activities.
Exotic Weapons
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For Exotic weapons, we suggest three options. First is Thunderlord, an Exotic Arc Machine Gun. Its Reign of Havoc Intrinsic Trait generates stunning lightning strikes from above with final blows and can also stun Overload Champions. This weapon is great for clearing rooms full of enemies or dealing continuous damage to bosses.
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Our second recommendation is the Monte Carlo, an Exotic Auto Rifle. It grants Melee energy with every weapon damage dealt and has a chance to fully restore Melee energy upon killing enemies. This weapon’s ability comes in handy when your melee and class ability are on cooldown simultaneously. Additionally, it complements the Arc build for Season 21 since Arc subclasses lack the ability to stun Barrier Champions on their own.
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Lastly, we have Coldheart, an Exotic Arc Trace Rifle. Its basic trait, Longest Winter, periodically generates an Ionic Trace while dealing damage to high-priority targets. Although Ionic Traces aren’t particularly useful for this build since they don’t grant the amplified state when collected, they serve as an excellent source of armor charge with the right armor mod.
Aspects, Fragments, and Abilities for PvE Arc Hunter
Aspects and Fragments are vital components of any successful Destiny 2 build. For this PvE Arc Hunter, our Aspects and Fragments revolve around jolting targets and maximizing the utility of our Melee ability. All Arc Aspects for Hunters offer two Fragment slots.
Arc Aspects
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Our first Aspect is Flow State, which grants the Amplified status whenever you kill a jolted target. It also improves recharge on your Dodge ability, provides added resistance while dodging, and increases reload speed while Amplified.
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The second Aspect we recommend is Lethal Current. This Aspect triggers after using your dodge ability, enhancing your next charged Melee attack with increased lunge range, the ability to apply jolt to targets, and a damaging aftershock at the target’s location. It also applies the Blind status to enemies hit by any of your melee attacks.
Arc Fragments
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Our first Fragment is Spark of Resistance, which grants increased resilience when surrounded by combatants and boosts your Strength stat by 10.
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Next, we have Spark of Instinct, a Fragment triggered when you take damage while critically wounded. It emits a burst of damaging Arc energy, dealing damage and jolting targets within range.
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Our third Fragment is Spark of Volts, which grants the Amplified status whenever you perform a finisher on an opponent. This Fragment maximizes the build’s melee focus and class item mods while also increasing your Recovery stat by 10.
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The final Fragment used in this build is Spark of Feedback, which increases your outgoing melee damage briefly whenever you take melee damage. It also boosts your Resilience stat by 10, proving incredibly useful given the build’s close-quarters combat focus.
Arc Abilities
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Arc Super: Either super works well with this build, so choose your preferred option. We recommend Gathering Storm due to its ranged nature, making it effective against bosses and providing excellent damage over time. This is particularly useful when certain bosses are challenging to reach with melee attacks.
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Arc Class Ability: Our class ability of choice is Gambler’s Dodge. This dodge enables quick evasion of enemy attacks and fully recharges your Melee attack when used near enemies. Pairing this ability with our Melee ability allows us to loop our Melee and Class abilities indefinitely while defeating enemies.
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Arc Melee Ability: This build utilizes the Combination Blow Melee ability, which boosts melee damage after successfully killing a target with a charged melee attack. This effect can stack up to three times, fully recharges your class ability, and grants a small amount of health upon killing enemies with your charged Melee ability.
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Arc Grenade Ability: Our recommended grenade is the Flashbang, which blinds targets and deals damage. While you can opt for other Arc grenades, having the ability to blind enemies on demand makes it easier to close the distance and utilize our Melee ability effectively.
Best Armor Mods for PvE Arc Hunter
This PvE Arc Hunter build focuses on melee-oriented armor mods. Since Melee ability usage is frequent, we want mods that accelerate ability recharge rates when Melee is used. Additionally, consider mods that buff Arc weapons and stats.
Helmet Mods
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Our first helmet mod recommendation is the classic Harmonic Siphon, which generates Orbs of Power from rapid Arc weapon kills. If you prefer to use Kinetic weapons instead, you can opt for Kinetic Siphon, which serves the same purpose. We also suggest Hands-On, a mod that grants Super energy upon killing enemies with your Melee ability.
Gauntlet Mods
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For gauntlets, we recommend Heavy Handed, a mod that generates an Orb of Power when you kill enemies with a charged Melee ability. Another option is Impact Induction, which reduces grenade ability cooldown each time you damage enemies with your Melee ability. Lastly, Font of Focus increases your Discipline stat by 30 while holding at least one stack of armor charge.
Chest Armor Mod
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You have a few choices for your chest mods, depending on your stat distribution. If your Resilience isn’t maxed out at 100, consider running Font of Endurance to gain an extra 30 points while holding armor charge. If your stats are already satisfactory, we recommend using Arc Reserves mods to increase the ammo capacity of your Arc weapons, enhancing the reliability of your Heavy and Special weapons.
Leg Mods
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For legs, we recommend two main mods: Arc Weapon Surge and Kinetic Weapon Surge. Both mods increase weapon damage when you have at least one stack of armor charge. If you have additional energy to spare, feel free to experiment with other mods or duplicate one of the Surge mods.
Class Item Mod
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Our Class Item utilizes two essential mods. Distribution grants ability energy to all your abilities when you use your class ability near targets, while Font of Recovery increases your Recovery stat by 30 as long as you have at least one stack of armor charge. Consider using the Time Dilation mod if you have spare energy or maxed-out Recovery.
Join the High Ground!
And that concludes our guide to the best Arc 3.0 Hunter build for PvE! Despite being a Hunter build, it allows you to channel your inner Titan by constantly engaging enemies up close. Shotguns and SMGs are excellent weapon choices since you’ll be in close quarters often. However, we recommend bringing an Auto or Trace Rifle for reliable long-range damage against enemies.
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Happy gaming!
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