Destiny 2 How to Beat Grandmaster Nightfall 1 - steamsplay.com

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 Haunted Edition.

The Basics & Target Audience

It is that time of the year again. Birds are dying, roses are withering in the extreme heat, and you are sitting at home playing Destiny 2 with your PC gasping for air. And here I am, sitting near the A/C trying to prevent myself from getting spontaneously combusted, writing another guide for Grandmaster Nightfall(from here and now will be referred to as GM NF) for Season of the Haunted.

My last guide, Conquer the Grandmaster Nightfall (Witch Queen : Season of the Risen) – [steamcommunity.com] , covered builds for Void 3.0 update. This time I will be covering viable builds for Solar 3.0.

Note that builds from my previous guides are also included this guide, with updates wherever necessary.

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 silent people I have never met before.

My conqueror till now 4 x Conqueror-

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 a 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 1585. So even if you grind 1585+ you will be capped at 1585. So PLEASE don’t be a **** and make LFG posts requiring people to be absurdly high power levels, since it will NOT matter. Below 1585, you cannot enter a grandmaster nightfall, levels above 1585 will not matter. To reiterate, person with maybe 1600 power level will do EXACTLY the same damage as the person at 1585.
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 –

https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/51511 – [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 Solar 3.0. It also includes builds for Stasis and Void 3.0, with fragments and aspects.

Resilisnce

Before we go any further, there is something you must know and build into.

R E S I L I E N C E

Yes this is the useless stat which no one cared about. This season onward it is hands down the most important stat.

Damage Reduction at each Resilience tiers [Source : Reddit]-

1 : 1%

2 : 2%

3 : 3%

4 : 4%

5 : 8%

6 : 14%

7 : 20%

8 : 26%

9 : 32%

10 : 40%

At tier 10 resilience you get a flat out, permanent, whooping 40% damage reduction against ALL sources.

Whatever you are building into, always focus on 100+ resilience.

Hunter Subclass : Void 3.0

For difficult GM NFs hunters are a must. They fill a void which no other class can fill. Invisibility. Invisibility is the most powerful tool in a tough GM, and becomes even more essential for LFG.

[TL;DR at the end this section]

As said before, invisibility is the most powerful tool for GM. With proper setup you have almost 100% uptime on invisibility. Along with invisibility I would recommend building up into your grenade, since there are powerful fragments which empower your grenade.

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.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 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

The recommended fragments/exotics revolve around high uptime of invisibility and powerful grenades. 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. You must pair this with Vortex Grenade for maximum effect. It pulls a 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.

Echo of Persistence: Adds to the invisibility timer, giving more time to use your class ability to refresh your smoke bomb.

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. 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 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 invisbility/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 Obscurity: While useful, when paired with aeon gauntlets to generate more heavy for team, I don’t find this to be necessary.

Echo of Dilation, Echo of Domineering: PVP fragments.

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 when invisible. 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 5 minutes perhaps, maybe 4. 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-

Invisibility Focused build, so focus on-

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 Persistence: Increased invisibility timer
Echo of Undermining : Grenade Weaken enemies
Echo of Remnants : Increased Grenade duration

EXOTIC:

Omnioculus : Extra invisibility smoke bomb for team, and damage resistance
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. Focuses on grenade.

[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: Not at all useful.

Shatterdive: BONK.

GRENADE

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

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. First few are recommended. 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

There are absolutely no exotics which pair well with stasis. Renewal grasps, which was the perfect exotic to pair with this build was absolutely butchered in PVE because it was too powerful in PVP.

Assassin’s Cowl: Kills with Withering Blade provide invisibility and healing. Withering blades alone are too weak to kill an enemy in GM, so it becomes tough to use. But provides good benefits nonetheless.

Renewal Grasps: Recent update increased the cooldown for duskfield while using this grenade from 24 seconds to a whooping 58 seconds. That is almost 2.4 times more. What would you prefer? Throwing 2 moderate size grenades or 1 comparatively larger grenade. The answer is simple. Let this exotic rot in your vault.

TL;DR-

Grenade Focused build, so focus on-

Discipline 100 : Grenade Cooldown = 0:24

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 track to you
Whisper Of Rime : Overshield from stasis shards
Whisper Of <X> : Based on your preference/playstyle

EXOTIC:

<X> : Whatever you prefer

Hunter Subclass : Solar

Solar hunters are the best at applying scorch and triggering ignition. Their kit is powerful has good synergy with exotics. But 9 times out of 10, i would choose to take a void hunter to a GM. It comes down to preference.

[TL;DR at the end this section]

There are two ways to build up a hunter. The first focuses on teamplay and working up scorch stacks, while refreshing all your abilities, and empowering weapon damage/reload/handling of both yours and your allies. The second focuses on triggering ignition left and right, and dealing massive amounts of damage through chaining ignition. Based on which playstyle you want to go for, you have to choose the proper aspect and fragments.

SUPER

Blade Barrage: Overall best super(in the game). High single target damage and potential ad clear abilities. Base cooldown of 7:35. Recommended.

Golden Gun-Marksman: Enables precision damage with golden gun. Pretty decent if you can consistently land critical hits. Base cooldown of 9:16.

Golden Gun-Deadshot: Primarily a PVP super.

GRENADE

Tripmine Grenade: Pairs well with an exotic(discussed below), which allows us to spam tripmines consistently.

Solar Grenade: Big ball of fire dealing scorch damage to whatever it touches.

Fusion Grenade: High damage sticky grenade. Has second lowest cooldown. Since it charges faster than most other grenades, it is worth it to run this in case your build does not require you to run a specific grenade.

Healing Grenade: Free heals are always welcome.

ASPECTS

On your mark: Nothing too special about this fragment. Increased weapon handling and reload speed on precision kills, stacking upto 3 times. Gives max stacks on dodge. However it has 3 fragment slots, which is necessary for buildcrafting.

Knock em down: Enhances all your supers. However the secondary perk is much more useful affecting our neutral game. While radiant any knife kill refreshes your knife. Essentially with a fragment, you can spam knives as long as you get a kill.

Gunpowder Gamble: Throw a makeshift pipe bomb which deals massive damage through ignition. Useful for ignition focused builds. Better if paired with solar weapons. Note that on using the pipe bomb, you get a cooldown until you can begin charging your pipe bomb again.

FRAGMENTS

Unlike void, all the fragments in solar can be used if you are going for a specific build. So instead of going from best to worst fragment I will state which fragment buffs which “verb”.

Ember of Torches: [RADIANT] For a hunter almost a necessary fragment. “Damaging” an enemy using your melee provides radiant. With the Knock em down aspect equipped along with this, getting a kill refreshes your knife instantly. Along with this, being radiant buffs your weapon damage.

Ember of Ashes: [SCORCH] Increases scorch stacks. The amount of increase varies depending on the source. Very good fragment if you want to build up scorch effectively.

Ember of Singeing: Class ability energy recharges faster when you scorch targets. Since you will be applying scorch almost all the time, this fragment makes sure you almost always have your class ability.

Ember of Char: [IGNITION][SCORCH] Triggering ignition spreads scorch to nearby targets. More ways to spread scorch, leading upto another ignition.

Ember of Blistering: [IGNITION] Triggering ignition provides grenade energy. Same logic as above. More ways to recharge your grenade, which you can throw to spread more scorch and lead up to another ignition.

Ember of Eruption: [IGNITION] Ignitions have increased area of effect, thus dealing damage over a larger area.

Ember of Wonder: [IGNITION] Multiple kills using ignition creates orbs of power. Useful if you are running charged with light build or collecting orbs for super.

Ember of Empyrean: Solar weapon and ability final blows increase timer of your buffs. I believe that since you can refresh your buffs, there is no point of increasing the timer.

Ember of Solace: Same logic as above.

Ember of Benevolence: Team focused fragment. Applying buffs to allies grants faster recharge for your abilities.

Ember of Beams/Combustion: [SUPER] Buffs your super.

Ember of Searing: Defeating scorched targets provide melee energy.

EXOTICS

Young Ahamkara’s Spine: Great exotic to pair with solar 3.0. Ability damage gives tripmine energy. It also gives increased tripmine duration and blast radius. Hitting an enemy with one knife trick and tripmine causes ignition.

Athry’s Embrace Pair this with weighted throwing knife. Consecutive precision hits gives strengthened throwing knife, which deals roughly 2x – 3x more precision damage. And inherently hits against scorched targets trigger ignition, so even more damage on top of it.

Assassins’s Cowl: Provides invisibility and healing on kills with melee. Pair with any knife of your choice, and on getting kills, your get free healing and invisibility.

Shards of Galanor: With blade barrage being so powerful, this exotic has become more prominent. Refunds upto 50% of super provided you don’t miss most of your knives.

TL;DR-

The choice is yours. Hunters have the most versatile kit and all fragments help some way or the other. For GM I would recommend a single build, which requires you to use the following-

SUPER: Blade Barrage

GRENADE: Tripmine Grenade

CLASS ABILITY: Gambler’s Dodge : Refresh knife trick, in case you miss

MELEE: Knife Trick

ASPECTS:

On you mark : Buffs reload, handling of weapons
Knock em down : Almost infinite knives, buffs super

FRAGMENTS:

Ember of Torches: Become radiant on knife hit
Ember of Ashes: Build up scorch faster
Ember of Searing: Defeating scorched targets provide melee energy
Ember of Char: Ignitions spread scorch
Ember of Singeing: Faster class ability recharge

EXOTIC:

Young Ahamkara’s Spine: Spam tripmines

Hunter Subclass : Arc

Just wait for Arc 3.0. Using arcstrider in GM will get you kicked form fireteams.

Warlock Subclass : Solar

What is synonymous with Warlock?… Grenade

[TL;DR at the end this section]

Warlocks have one build. One build that can potentially end all builds.

There is no choice is this build, you have to run the following-

SUPER

Well of Radiance: You know what it is. Overshield has been removed, damage resistance has been increased. Provides restoration and radiance buffs.

CLASS ABILITY

Empowering Rift: The build forces us to use this.

GRENADE

Fusion Grenade: High damage sticky grenade. With the proper aspect this becomes twice as powerful.

ASPECTS

Touch of Flame : Enhances grenades. Fusion grenades explodes twice, dealing nearly twice the damage.

Icarus Dash: Not a necessary aspect. This is only being used since warlocks have no other fragments which support/enhance our build. Has 2 fragment slots.

Heat Rises: Not a necessary aspect. This is only being used since warlocks have no other fragments which support/enhance our build. On the downside it relies you to hover in the air, out in the open for enemies to shred you. Has 2 fragment slots.

FRAGMENTS

None of the fragments are required by our build. But they do enhance it. We will be spamming fusion grenades, and this will allow us to build up the scorch stack pretty quick, leading upto ignition.

Ember of Char: [IGNITION][SCORCH] Triggering ignition spreads scorch to nearby targets. More ways to spread scorch, leading upto another ignition.

Ember of Ashes: [SCORCH] Increases scorch stacks. The amount of increase varies depending on the source. Very good fragment if you want to build up scorch effectively.

Ember of Eruption: [IGNITION] Ignitions have increased area of effect, thus dealing damage over a larger area.

Beyond this, the choice is yours.

Ember of Singeing: Class ability energy recharges faster when you scorch targets. Our exotic refreshes our class ability on every kill. However for single (boss/champion) target damage this is useful.

Ember of Torches: [RADIANT] “Damaging” an enemy using your melee provides radiant. Increased weapon damage is always welcome.

Ember of Blistering: [IGNITION] Triggering ignition provides grenade energy. Unnecessary fragment since our exotic will recharge our grenade easily.

Ember of Wonder: [IGNITION] Multiple kills using ignition creates orbs of power. Useful if you are running charged with light build or collecting orbs for super.

Ember of Empyrean: Solar weapon and ability final blows increase timer of your buffs. I believe that since you can refresh your buffs, there is no point of increasing the timer.

Ember of Solace: Same logic as above.

Ember of Benevolence: Team focused fragment. Applying buffs to allies grants faster recharge for your abilities.

Ember of Beams/Combustion: [SUPER] Buffs your super.

Ember of Searing: Defeating scorched targets provide melee energy.

EXOTICS

Starfire Protocol: The only exotic to pair with our build. 2 fusion grenades. “Damaging” enemy while in a empowering rift provides grenade energy. This amount it quite significant, allowing you to spam grenades every two seconds. Best exotic weapon to pair it with is the witherhoard. It deals tick damage over time, and that damage recharges your grenade with every tick.

TL;DR-

SUPER: Well of Radiance

GRENADE: Fusion Grenade

CLASS ABILITY: Empowering Rift : Required for the build.

MELEE: Your Choice

ASPECTS:

Touch of Flame : Enhances Fusion Grenade
Your Choice

FRAGMENTS:

Ember of Ashes: Build up scorch faster
Ember of Char: Ignitions spread scorch
Ember of Eruption: Greater AOE of ignitions
Ember of <X>: Your Choice

EXOTIC:

Starfire Protocol: Spam fusion grenades

Warlock Subclass : Stasis

Great class for crowd control. Grenade focused build.

[TL;DR at the end this section]

SUPER

Winters Wrath: 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. The cold never bothered me anyways.

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: Not at all useful.

GRENADE

Coldsnap: The exotic forces us to use this grenade.

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 : Void 3.0

Another grenade focused build revolving around weakening the enemy for your fireteam and dealing massive damage at the same time.

[TL;DR at the end this section]

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.

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

Echo of Dilation, Echo of Domineering: PVP fragments.

Echo of Obscurity: Not useful.

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.

TL;DR-

Grenade Focused build, so focus on-

Discipline 100 : Grenade Cooldown = 0:47

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 : Arc

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

Extremely great subclass focused around teamplay. Perfect for survival and recommended for GM.

[TL;DR at the end this section]

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: 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. 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 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 Starvation: Devour is difficult to activate and requires orb creating setup.

Echo of Dilation, Echo of Domineering: PVP fragments.

Echo of Obscurity: Not at all useful.

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.

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 barricade cooldown

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 discussed above
Ursa Furiosa : Returns super energy

Titan Subclass : Solar 3.0

Become Tank or become Bonk.

[TL;DR at the end this section]

Titans have two builds, one build which allows them to be almost unkillable, hence the Tank, another which allow them to do massive damage by repeatedly hitting enemies with a hammer, hence the Bonk. The choice is yours.

Note that as a titan building up scorch or ignition shouldn’t be your primary concern, since unlike hunters and warlocks titans have very limited options in this regard.

SUPER

Hammer of Sol: Throwing Hammers. Whooping cooldown of 10:25. But being a ranged super it is recommended.

Burning Maul: Giant hammer. Light attack turns you into a helicopter, heavy attack sends a line of fire. Has lower cooldown of 8:20. You can use this, but don’t rush into the enemy.

MELEE ABILITY

Throwing Hammer: Self explanatory. Throws a Hammer. Necessary for Bonk build.

GRENADE

Solar Grenade: Big ball of fire dealing scorch damage to whatever it touches.

Healing Grenade: Free heals are always welcome.

ASPECTS

Sol Invictus : Ability to create Sunspots. Sunspots provide restoration to you, recharges your abilities faster, and deals scorch to enemies if they pass it. Necessary for tank build.

Roaring Flames: Solar abilities final blows increase damage of solar abilities, stacking upto 3 times. Necessary for Bonk build.

Consecration: Extremely fun new ability.Use at your discretion.

FRAGMENTS

None of the fragments are required by our build. But they do enhance it.

Ember of Solace: You will get restoration with every sunspot, and having increased timer for every sunspot is always welcome.

Ember of Torches: [RADIANT] “Damaging” an enemy using your melee provides radiant. While not necessary for bonk build, radiant is always welcome.

Ember of Searing: Defeating scorched targets provide melee energy. Useful when you lose your hammer.

Beyond this, the choice is yours.

Ember of Char: [IGNITION][SCORCH] Triggering ignition spreads scorch to nearby targets. More ways to spread scorch, leading upto another ignition.

Ember of Ashes: [SCORCH] Increases scorch stacks. The amount of increase varies depending on the source. Very good fragment if you want to build up scorch effectively.

Ember of Eruption: [IGNITION] Ignitions have increased area of effect, thus dealing damage over a larger area.

Ember of Singeing: Class ability energy recharges faster when you scorch targets.

Ember of Blistering: [IGNITION] Triggering ignition provides grenade energy. Unnecessary fragment since our exotic will recharge our grenade easily.

Ember of Wonder: [IGNITION] Multiple kills using ignition creates orbs of power. Useful if you are running charged with light build or collecting orbs for super.

Ember of Empyrean: Solar weapon and ability final blows increase timer of your buffs. I believe that since you can refresh your buffs, there is no point of increasing the timer.

Ember of Benevolence: Team focused fragment. Applying buffs to allies grants faster recharge for your abilities.

Ember of Beams/Combustion: [SUPER] Buffs your super.

EXOTICS

Lorely Splendor Helm: Become Tank. Deploying barricade or being critically wounded creates an instant sunspot which provides increased restoration on top whatever Sol Invictus provides. This literally turns you immortal in low level content. In GM, maybe you won’t be immortal but you definitely can tank way more hits than normal.

Synthoceps: Become Bonk. Being surrounded by 3 or more enemies provide Biotic Enhancements which exponentially increases your melee damage. Can delete champions, however requires you to be literally in the middle of the action to have your perk activate, and pick up your throwing hammer. Use at your discretion.

TL;DR-

SUPER: Hammer of Sol

GRENADE: Your Choice

CLASS ABILITY : Your Choice.

MELEE: Throwing Hammer

ASPECTS:

Sol Invictus : Become Tank
Roaring Flames : Become Bonk

FRAGMENTS:

Ember of Solace : Increased timer of buffs
Ember of Torches : Radiant on melee hit
Ember of Searing : In case you lose your hammer
Ember of <X> : Your Choice

EXOTIC:

Lorely Splendor Helm : Become Tank
Synthoceps : Become Bonk

Titan Subclass : Arc, Stasis

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.

BEHEMOTH

Average subclass. Have no special benefits other than a powerful super which takes ages to charge.

Weapons

Below are some of the best weapons in the game which you will often see being used by others. If you have it, you may want to use it to get an edge over the non-meta weapons.

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.

Non-Exotic Option : HOTHEAD

Even if one teammate uses Gjallarhorn, you get advantage of wolfpack rounds. Aggressive frames are recommended for more damage output. Hothead adept version, gets tracking perk.

STORMCHASER

Highest DPS linear fusion rifle in the game.

Has no replacement options. One of a kind.

SLEEPER SIMULANT

Good weapon to use for burst damage, if you didn’t do the dungeon or don’t have a good roll yet.

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.

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.

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.

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.

LE MONARQUE

Causes high poison damage continuously and spreads to nearby enemies.

Has no replacement options. One of a kind.

TICUU’S DIVINATION

Beast of a weapon for both ad clear and single target damage. Requires some practice to get used to.

Has no replacement options. One of a kind.

OSTEO STRIGA

Newest Witch Queen weapon. Extremely good weapon for ad-clear, dealing poison damage every tick.

Thorn is a potential competitor, but it requires much more setup.

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.

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 ;-;

That is about it for the list of weapons that are powerful in GM NF. Seasonal anti champion mods dictate you to use certain weapon archetype.

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 2-3 rocker per brick. Note that this value is random, and varies for different weapons archetypes. The mods does not stack.
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.

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

Reaping Wellmaker: Creates void well on defeating an enemy with your weapon right after using your class ability.
Well of Ordnance: Picking up solar elemental wells provide bonus grenade energy.
Well of Life: Picking up solar elemental wells slowly heals you.
Explosive Wellmaker: Any explosive weapon multi-kill spawns solar well.
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.
Melee Wellmaker: Defeating enemies with melee ability produces elemental well having element of your subclass.
Elemental Charge: Provide charged with light buff on picking up elemental wells matching your subclass. Allows you to use mods which take advantage of charged with light.
High Energy Fire: Substantially increases damage of weapons when charged with light. Killing an enemy consumes one stack. Extremely good for damaging high health targets.
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 sandbox. Feel free to experiment.

Seasonal Mods

We get a few some very good/borderline broken mods every season, which goes away at the end of the season. This season we have the following almost necessary mods-

Classy Restoration: Just equip it. You can rest peacefully knowing that this mod will save your life in even the most dire situation. Unless your build dictates that you run a different mod, you must equip this mod.
Molten Overload: Extremely useful to have for GM containing overload champions.
Solar Fulmination: Useful to have if you are going for ignitions.
Rays of Precision: Causing enemies to ignite on kills with weapon(while it is being buffed by radiant) is quite good.
Withering Heat: Extremely useful when paired with molten overload.
Armour of the Dying Star: More damage resistance is always welcome.
Revitalising Blast: I have no idea what this does.

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.

Leave a comment and give it a thumbs up!

Written by STORMBREAKER

Hope you enjoy the post for Destiny 2 How to Beat Grandmaster Nightfall, If you think we should update the post or something is wrong please let us know via comment and we will fix it how fast as possible! Thank you and have a great day!

Recommended for You:

Check All Destiny 2 Posts List

0share
0
0
0
0
0
Share