Onslaught is taking Destiny 2 by storm. Especially for those tackling its 50-wave variation, Into The Light’s new activity tests every part of your build from crowd control to boss damage. As a Hunter, it’s more important than ever to make sure you’re bringing the right gear with you.
Fortunately for the Hunters out there, there are a lot of great Exotics in PvE at the moment, which are perfectly suited to the gameplay loops on offer in Onslaught. Even better, there aren’t any equipment restriction modifiers in place as you start to play the harder versions of the activity—you can save multiple builds and hotswap to them on the fly to be prepared for every scenario. The best Hunter builds here aren’t going to carry you through the whole activity but instead should be treated as the best on offer for either ADU defense or the boss wave.
Here are our recommendations on where to start with your Hunter’s setup when taking on Onslaught in Destiny 2.
What’s the best Hunter build for Onslaught in Destiny 2?
Solar + Celestial Nighthawk
One of the best Hunter builds to keep in your back pocket for Destiny 2’s Onslaught mode is Golden Gun paired with the Celestial Nighthawk Exotic helmet. If you’ve been running endgame PvE content at all in the past year, this will come as no surprise—after its buff, Celestial Nighthawk offers some of the best single-target damage in the game again.
The Celestial Nighthawk build should be left exclusively for the boss wave at the end of each set. Since you’re given a free rally banner before the boss room, you can quickly swap from a crowd control-focused build to this one prior to heading inside at no expense to your ability energy. You’ll want to do that, too, as it’s often the boss room that can make or break an Onslaught run at the higher waves—simply sticking to a low-damage Arc or Stasis build isn’t going to cut it.
While there aren’t any specific guns to keep in mind to make this build work, it’s best to equip two Solar weapons in order to benefit from synergistic armor mods like Solar Weapon Surge and fragments such as Ember of Empyrean. Considering that this build is primed for boss damage, Solar weapons such as the Cataclysmic linear fusion rifle, Gjallarhorn and Whisper of the Worm are high on the recommendation list.
Void + Gyrfalcon’s Hauberk
No matter what class you play, Void remains one of the best builds for high-density PvE encounters like Onslaught in Destiny 2. Despite nerfs, Gyrfalcon’s Hauberk is also still the best Exotic for Hunters to get the most out of the Void subclass, granting easy access to Volatile Rounds, which can handily take down most groups of enemies.
This is the go-to build for the wave defense component of Onslaught. Either Shadowshot Super provides great damage and debuffs to slow down the enemies’ advance during chaotic rounds, and the near-permanent availability of Volatile Rounds enables any Void weapons to pull off significant amounts of vital area-of-effect damage. Combined with the Stylish Executioner Aspect, you can rival the output of any Arc Warlock or Strand Titan.
Weapons might be less important for the Celestial Nighthawk build, but the right guns are vital to making the Void Hunter build the best it can be. Into The Light has brought The Recluse back from its untimely grave, and you can’t find a more perfect Void submachine gun to pair with this build anywhere in Destiny 2. A lot of the BRAVE arsenal is catering towards Void mains, in fact, with Elsie’s Rifle and Edge Transit packaged with just as many amazing perks like Destabilizing Rounds and Repulsor Brace to synergize with your subclass.
Arc + Liar’s Handshake
Thanks to the prominence of crowd-control kings like Trinity Ghoul and almost any Primary weapon with Voltshot, the Arc subclass is still one of the best Hunter build routes to go down for activities like Onslaught when paired up with the Liar’s Handshake Exotic.
Little compares to the destructive area-of-effect capabilities of Jolt. Combine the Lethal Current Aspect with Liar’s Handshake, and you have constant access to Jolt procs on top of the high single target damage Liar’s Handshake can dish out to begin with. Add one or two copies of the Focusing Strike armor mod, and the loop becomes even easier. Like the Void build, the Arc Hunter loadout is ideal for handling anything the regular wave rounds in Onslaught throw at you.
You can keep it simple by running it with the aforementioned Trinity Ghoul Exotic bow or branch out into weapons such as Indebted Kindness with Voltshot in order to be able to run Thunderlord in the Heavy slot. The key is to lean into guns that further increase your capacity to get Jolt procs on your enemies. Onslaught is dense enough with combatants that Jolt is always going to be getting massive value.
