Elemental Mechanics

Ionic Traces are Arc's Elemental Pickup, they are highly unique among the rest of them.

• They generate a solid chunk of Grenade, Melee, AND Class Ability Energy once collected.
• Unlike all other Elemental Pickups, Traces don't have a cooldown - they can be generated extremely often in specific circumstances.
• Ionic Traces automatically track their creator, traveling across the ground. No need to go out of your way to actually pick them up.

• Like most Elemental Pickups, generated Ionic Traces can only be collected and seen by their creator.

Creating Ionic Traces

Warlock's Electrostatic Mind, the Spark of Discharge Fragment, and Coldheart are among the more common ways to create Ionic Traces.

Blind is Arc's only defensive mechanic, though sources of it are lackluster and it is nearly identical in function to the more common non-elemental Disorienting debuff.

• Combatants affected by Disorient or Blind that are a weaker Combatant Type than Champions - with limited exceptions - are unable to use their attacks or abilities for a variable duration.
  • For Combatant Type information, check out Court's lovely infographic spreadsheet.

• Blind synergizes with Arc Subclass Fragments and Stuns Unstoppable Champions.

The almost-duration-less Cure heals a chunk of lost health and shields over the course of a 1/10th of a second. Like Restoration, this buff has different tiers with different levels of strength.

• Each stack of Cure restores 60 total lost health and shields.
  • For reference, in PvE, a Guardian with 100 Resilience has 200 total health and shields.

• Cure has a short cooldown before it can be gained again.

Gaining Cure

• Cure's buff tier is dependent on the source, though x2 is almost entirely exclusive to Warlock's Solar Subclass and Heal Clip. Outside of that Healing Grenades and certain Fragments are the easiest ways to get the basic version of this buff.

Solar's Radiant buff enhances your Weapons, granting them a 25% global damage boost. Its duration is variable, depending on the source. Certain Fragments modify this - allowing near infinite uptime of this buff in certain circumstances.

• Global damage boost buffs don't stack, only the most powerful one active is used. For example, Radiant's 25% Weapon-specific global damage boost is overwritten by Lumina's 35% global damage boost.

• While Radiant, your Weapons without inherent Anti-Champion effects gain the ability to over-penetrate, allowing them to damage and eventually break Barrier Champion's shields, stunning them.

• Radiant does NOT affect Abilities (with the sole exception of Golden Gun).

Becoming Radiant

• The most common way to obtain Radiant is through the Solar Ember of Torches Fragment or the Prismatic Facet of Dawn Fragment.

Firesprites are Solar's Elemental Pickup and are relatively simple.

• Collecting a Firesprite grants a chunk of Grenade Ability energy.

• The ability to Generate a Firesprite has a short cooldown.
  • Certain Exotics bypass this.

• Firesprites are only visible to you and cannot be collected by allies.

Generating Firesprites

• Firesprites are primarily generated by and interact with specific Solar and Prismatic Subclass Fragments.

The Ignition debuff causes enemies to detonate after a short delay, causing a massive explosion that damages all nearby combatants. In PvE, this has no damage falloff and easily annihilates hordes.

• Enemies can be Ignited by applying 100 stacks of Scorch to them, or directly through specific Weapons and Abilities.
  • Once Ignited, enemies lose all stacks of Scorch and cannot become Scorched or Ignited for a few seconds.

• Through Solar and Prismatic Subclasses, Ignitions are modifiable to have an increased blast radius or to apply stacks of Scorch to other combatants caught in the blast - potentially causing Ignition chain reactions.

• Unstoppable Champions damaged by an Ignition are Stunned.

• Ignitions have complex scaling. If created through stacking 100 stacks of Scorch, the damage is considered to be whatever type of damage applied by the initial source of Scorch. This is also true for certain sources of Scorch-less Ignitions.
  • For example, enemies initially Scorched by Knife Trick that are Ignited through Scorch proc Heavy Handed if the detonation kills them.
• This mechanic also applies to damage scaling in an extremely complex and inconsistent way. See the Debuff Scaling tab for more information.

The damage dealt by Scorch and Ignitions uniquely takes on the qualities of whatever source applied them, and because of this it means that damage boosters that'd only apply to the source's impact damage also apply to their applied solar debuffs... Most of the time - this is an extremely inconsistent mechanic.

If all that sounded confusing, that's because it is - here's some examples of this.

Functional Debuff Scaling

• Hunter's Ophidia Spathe stacks to enable a double damage boost to their Solar Melee Abilities. With that buff, throwing Knife Trick at an enemy causes Scorch that deals doubled damage, using the Ability again causes an Ignition that also deals double damage.

• A similar interaction occurs with Titan's Consecration paired with Synthoceps, Warlock's Incinerator Snap paired with Winter's Guile, and Hunter's Gunpowder Gamble paired with Spirit of Verity.

• Tommy's Matchbook's Catalyst allows it to rapidly Scorch targets. This debuff and resulting Ignitions are affected by Solar Weapon Surge.

Non-Functional Debuff Scaling

• Stacking One-Two Punch onto the Knife Trick example above results in increased impact damage without influencing either Debuff's damage.

• Pairing Solipsism's Spirit of the Star-Eater with Song of Flame raises the impact damage of that Super's Scorching Abilities, but doesn't modify Scorch or Ignition damage.

• Weighted Throwing Knife's Ignition isn't influenced by Melee Damage Boosters like Ophidia Spathe or Athrys's Embrace, nor is it modified by boosting the initial Scorch source.

If you're wondering why all this is important, it's because some builds are reliant on this mechanic, in spite of its inconsistencies.

Devour is core to Voidwalker and Prismatic Warlocks, with their Feed the Void Aspect massively improving this already powerful Buff. Its duration uniquely partially refreshes when killing combatants, and is increased with Void's Echo of Persistence Fragment.

• Obtaining Devour or killing a combatant while it is active instantly restores 10% Grenade Ability Energy (values reduced based on Ability Tier - more on that in the Destiny Data Compendium) and 100 total health or shields - this is half of a 100 Resilience Guardian's total health and shields.
  • With Warlock's Feed the Void Aspect, the Buff's duration is increased while Health and Ability restoration is doubled and decoupled from previously mentioned Ability Tier penalties.

Gaining Devour

• Void's extremely popular Echo of Starvation Fragment is the best way to get the Buff outside of Feed the Void's built-in trigger. It also comes with the appreciated side effect of effectively giving you Innervation and an improved Recuperation.

• There's also Buried Bloodline if you'd like Devour on Subclasses normally not intended to have it.

Void Overshields are core to Sentinel Titans, with their Aspects granting and improving them. This Buff's duration is increased with Void's Echo of Persistence Fragment.

• Void Overshields have up to 45 health with 70% damage resistance in PvE. Basically, they protect you by giving you an additional 150 max health. That's increasing a 100 Resilience Guardian's total health and shields by 75%.
  • Only sources that generate Void Overshields restore them, the shield doesn't repair itself nor does it come back once depleted.
  • All forms of Overshield protect your normal health pool and prevent damage from interrupting your natural Recovery.
  • Not all sources of Void Overshield grant one with the full 45 health.

Gaining Void Overshields

• Beyond Titan's myriad of Void Abilities, Aspects, and Exotics, Void Subclasses have access to the Echo of Vigilance Fragment.

• There's also the ever-popular Destabilizing Rounds Repulsor Brace combo available on many Void Weapons, as well as the Exotic Vexcalibur.

The Volatile Rounds Buff causes your Void Elemental Weapons to instantly apply Volatile on hit. Learn more about Volatile in the Void Debuffs section below.

• Volatile triggers upon meeting a damage threshold and damage dealt by the hit that applies the Debuff doesn't count towards that. Because of this, Volatile Rounds is most effective on Weapons with a high fire rate or multi-hit capabilities.

• While Volatile Rounds is active, your Void Weapons without inherent Anti-Champion effects gain the ability to over-penetrate, allowing them to damage and eventually break Barrier Champion's shields, stunning them.

Getting Volatile Rounds

• This Buff exclusively comes from Void's Echo of Instability Fragment, Prismatic's Facet of Bravery Fragment, and Hunter Exotic Armor via Gyrfalcon's Hauberk and Spirit of the Gyrfalcon.

Void Breaches are Void's Elemental Pickup and are relatively simple.

• Collecting a Void Breach grants a chunk of Class Ability energy.

• The ability to Generate a Void Breach has a short cooldown.

• Void Breaches are only visible to you and cannot be collected by allies.

Generating Void Breaches

• Void Breaches are primarily generated by and interact with specific Void and Prismatic Subclass Fragments.

Void's Volatile Debuff makes enemies... volatile. Afflicted enemies violently explode after taking damage, damaging the Debuffed target as well as enemies in very close proximity.

• Afflicted targets that detonate lose the Volatile Debuff, it must be reapplied before another detonation can occur.
  • Volatile has a cooldown, it can't be applied to enemies who've detonated until 1 second has passed.

• Volatile targets only detonate after passing a threshold of damage taken, or dying.
  • The damage of the hit that applies the Debuff does NOT count towards the damage threshold.
  • When applying Volatile to a group of enemies, note that a single detonation's damage isn't enough to trigger additional detonations from nearby Volatile enemies. Though, in practice Volatile chain reactions occur very often.

Various Void Abilities, Aspects, and Fragments allow you to make enemies Volatile.

Void's uncommon Suppression Debuff is nearly identical in function to the more common non-elemental Disorienting Debuff. It has some added bonuses against Hive Guardians or other combatants with active abilities that you should remember for when Dread Tormentors suppress YOU.

• Combatants affected by Disorient or Suppression that are a weaker Combatant Type than Champions - with limited exceptions - are unable to use their attacks or abilities for a variable duration.
  • For Combatant Type information, check out Court's lovely infographic spreadsheet.

• Suppression synergizes with Void Subclass Fragments, Stuns Overload Champions, and prevents Guardians (that includes you!) from using ALL of their Abilities for the Debuff's duration, it even forces them out of their Super Abilities!

• The aptly named Suppressor Grenade is the easiest way to Suppress enemies.

Stasis Crystals are extremely unique physical objects that Guardians can place onto the battlefield. They can Freeze combatants, Shatter to deal damage, work as makeshift barricades, and are handy as deployable platforms.

• Stasis Crystals have a health pool, emptying it causes them to Shatter, dealing damage to nearby combatants - this has damage falloff.
  • You deal full damage to your own Stasis Crystals. Your allies deal slightly less damage and your enemies deal significantly less. Shattering Abilities instantly destroy them, while damage towards Stasis Crystals is modifiable through certain buildcrafting elements.
  • Stasis's Whisper of Fissures and Prismatic's Facet of Ruin Fragments add a secondary weaker instance of damage to all Shatter effects.

• When Stasis Crystals form, combatants close to them are instantly Frozen. Afterwards, their presence physically blocks gunfire and movement until they are Shattered or naturally expire after 15 seconds.

Creating Stasis Crystals

• Stasis Crystals are easily created with Glacier Grenades and the Headstone Perk available on many Stasis Weapons.
  • Beyond these, there are certain Subclass options and Exotic Weapons that get the job done.

Shatter Damage Scaling

• Stasis Crystal Shatter damage is scalable, since the damage has the same typing of whatever created the Crystal.
  • For example, Spirit of Verity allows the Stasis Crystals spawned by Prismatic Titan's Glacier Grenades to deal doubled Shatter damage.
  • More commonly, Stasis Crystals made through Headstone scale with Stasis Weapon Surge while potentially proccing Stasis Siphon and other perks on the Weapon once Shattered.

Stasis Shards are Stasis's Elemental Pickup and are highly involved. There are two tiers of Stasis Shard, with larger Shards having extremely limited generation sources. All Stasis Subclasses have access to Harvest Aspects, granting a means to generate this Elemental Pickup while granting them additional effects.

• Stasis Shards are uniquely shared to your whole fireteam, everyone can collect them.

• Collecting a Stasis Shard grants a chunk of Melee Ability energy.
  • Large Stasis Shards grant massively increased energy.
  • Stasis's Whisper of Hunger Fragment massively increases this effect, though it is not shared with allies.

• When using a Harvest Aspect, collecting Stasis Shards grants stacks of Frost Armor and heals a small amount of health. This effect is not shared with allies.

• The ability to generate Stasis Shards goes on cooldown after multiple are quickly generated across your whole Fireteam.
  • Having multiple Guardians on Stasis Subclasses is made disadvantageous due to this.

• Using the Whisper of Conduction Fragment, Stasis Shards gain the ability to automatically home in on you if you are nearby. This effect is not shared with allies.

Generating Stasis Shards

• Outside of Harvest Aspects which each have a unique way of generating Stasis Shards, certain Stasis and Prismatic Subclass Fragments allow you to create them.

Freeze is an extremely complex Debuff, with varying effects for Boss and non-Boss combatants. What they have in common is that Frozen enemies can be Shattered, dealing damage to them and nearby enemies and unfreezing them. Enemies can be Frozen through the accumulation of Slow, being near Stasis Crystals as they form, and through a variety of Abilities and Weapons.

Freeze Mechanics Common for all Combatants

• Frozen targets are immune to Slow, it's impossible to keep an enemy permanently Frozen.

• In PvE, Frozen targets take 10% increased damage from Special and Heavy Ammo Weapons, 5% reduced damage from Primary Ammo Weapons, and 5% increased damage from Arc Solar and Void Abilities.
  • Stasis's Whisper of Rending Fragment changes the Primary Ammo Weapon penalty into a potent increase.

• Dealing significant damage to or defeating any Frozen enemy causes them to Shatter.

Freeze Mechanics for non-Boss Combatants

These mechanics do NOT apply to Boss combatants. Champions are not Boss combatants.

• Frozen enemies are unable to move, attack, or do much of anything really - they are literally encased in Ice. Combatants are freed when the Debuff expires, leaving them unharmed.
  • This effect is handy for nullifying the threat of non-boss Wyverns, Hive Guardians, Tormentors, Subjugators, and all Champions.

• Frozen enemies take significantly more Melee damage. This effect is similar to One-Two Punch meaning that many Melee Abilities are incompatible. These two effects do not stack, the most potent buff overrides the other and in most cases that is Freeze.
  • Refer to Destiny Data Compendium's Weapon Perk entry for One-Two Punch for more information about compatible Melee Abilities.
  • Yes, Conditional Finality is effectively a One-Two Punch shotgun.

Freeze Mechanics for Boss Combatants

These mechanics ONLY apply to Boss combatants.

• Frozen Bosses are not at all hindered, despite being encased in Ice. The Debuff has a reduced duration here, and if they are not manually Shattered, an Auto-Shatter occurs when the Debuff expires. While Auto-Shatter damage is scalable, damage-triggered Shatters are not.
  • Thanks to this mechanic, there are some circumstances where you'd deal more damage to a Boss by NOT damaging it.

• Auto-Shatter damage is scalable, and the damage has the same typing of whatever Instantly-Froze or initially Slowed the target.
  • All Weapons capable of Slow and Freezing as well as specific Abilities inherently have greatly increased Auto-Shatter damage, even without further buffs.
  • Auto-Shatter is further scaled through damage boosting effects like Stasis Weapon Surge, Spirit of Verity for Grenades, and Spirit of Synthoceps for Melee Abilities.

Of all the Elemental Pickups, Tangles are the only ones you actually pick up. Whether you shoot them, throw them, or Grapple to them, they're always appreciated.

• Tangles can be held as a relic and have a small health pool, destroying them or throwing them causes them to detonate, dealing damage to nearby combatants.
  • Tangles dissipate after a long duration if not collected, destroyed, or thrown.
  • Your allies can also interact with your Tangles, potentially to your detriment.

• Using Grapple on a Tangle fully refunds the Grenade's Ability Charge, allowing you to swing yourself around very quickly for little investment.
  • Made a Tangle that's some distance away? You can Grapple to it and pick it up, then throw it into the air to Grapple onto it again as it flies to cover absurd distances very quickly, all without putting an Ability on cooldown!
  • Grapple-Tangles are a special form of Tangle spawned from Widow's Silk and Navigator's Catalyst. These can be freely Grappled to, but can't be picked up or detonated.

• Each Strand Subclass has Aspects that add additional effects to Tangle detonations. For more information, check out our Class and Subclasses Guide!

Generating Tangles

Tangles cannot be generated without having a Strand Ability or Aspect equipped - not a concern for Strand Subclasses, but you do need to go out of your way a bit to get them on Prismatic.

• Killing any enemy afflicted with Unravel, Sever, or Suspend creates a Tangle at their point of death.
  • Creating Tangles has a long cooldown that cannot be reduced.

The Unraveling Rounds Buff causes your Strand Elemental Weapons to instantly apply Unravel on hit. Learn more about Unravel in the Strand Debuffs section below.

• While Unraveling Rounds is active, your Strand Weapons without inherent Anti-Champion effects gain the ability to over-penetrate, allowing them to damage and eventually break Barrier Champion's shields, stunning them.

Getting Unraveling Rounds

• This Buff exclusively comes from Strand's Thread of Propagation Fragment and Prismatic's Facet of Bravery Fragment.

Sever is an extremely simple yet highly impactful Debuff to help keep you alive while in the fray.

• In PvE, Severed combatants deal 40% less damage for a long duration, further extended by Strand's Thread of Continuity Fragment.
  • That's it. There's nothing else to this.

• Hunter and Titan's Strand Melee Abilities apply Sever.
  • There's also the extremely useful Fragments from Strand and Prismatic Subclasses that allow your Weapons to Sever by hitting rapid precision hits.

Suspend is Strand's dedicated crowd control Debuff, with varying effects for Boss and non-Boss combatants.

• Using Strand's Shackle Grenade is the easiest way to Suspend enemies, though there are also some Aspects available to each Strand Subclass if you'd like to use another grenade.

Suspend Mechanics for non-Boss Combatants

These mechanics do NOT apply to Boss combatants. Champions are not Boss combatants.

• Targets affected by Suspend are... suspended in the air and are unable to move, attack, or do much of anything really. Miniboss and Champion combatants break free of this effect faster than other enemies.
  • This effect is handy for nullifying the threat of non-Boss Wyverns, Hive Guardians, Tormentors, Subjugators, and all Champions.
  • Raising Suspend's duration through Strand's Thread of Continuity Fragment massively increases its effectiveness.

Suspend Mechanics for Boss Combatants

• Suspended Bosses are not at all hindered, the Debuff's Suspending Threads instead snap after a few seconds, dealing notable single-target damage to the Boss.

• Suspend-Snap damage is scalable, and the damage has the same typing of whatever Suspended the target.
  • Suspend-Snap scales through damage boosting effects applicable to Suspend's source. For example, Strand Weapon Surge applies to Wish-Keeper's Snare, while Warlock's Verity's Brow enhances Shackle Grenade.

WARNING: Suspend-Snap damage scaling has not been explored as thoroughly as other Elemental Mechanics. The above interactions have been tested, but you may run into inconsistencies. If you do, join our Discord and report them by pinging the author in Destiny-2-Maxroll-Feedback.

Strand's Threadlings are summoned isopod-like creatures made entirely out of Strand-Matter explosives. They have no quarrels with the task of hunting down your enemies to achieve mutually assured destruction.

• Broodweaver and Prismatic Warlocks with at least one Strand Aspect or Ability have exclusive access to the Threadling Perch mechanic.
  • With this, Threadlings that fail to reach an enemy return to you and Perch onto you instead of exploding for nought. Perched threadlings are redeployed when you deal damage to an enemy, and aren't shy to return again if they miss their mark.

• Summoned Threadling's explosive damage is scalable and inherits the properties of whatever spawned it. Strand's Thread of Evolution Fragment also improves their damage and makes them faster.
  • For example, a Weapon with Hatchling and Demolitionist is able to spawn Threadlings that grant bonus Grenade Ability Energy when they kill combatants. If Strand Weapon Surges were active, those would increase the spawned Threadling's damage as well.
  • WARNING: Perched Threadlings lose their inherited properties and their ability to scale.

• Beyond Hatchling, the aptly named Threadling Grenade is a great way to summon green isopods. Broodweaver Warlocks have numerous Aspects dedicated to Threadling generation, learn more in our Class and Subclasses Guide!