Destiny 2’s Lightfall expansion is less than a month away, and when Guardians descend on the neon-soaked city of Neomuna, they’ll be wielding a brand new power torn from the ether in the form of Strand. We’ve known about the key aspects of the Strand subclass surrounding its mobility since the first trailers, but thanks to a new in-depth blog, we now have key information about its vocabulary and its buildcrafting.
The Strand subclass centers itself on the Guardian’s ability to create physical tools of destruction from nothing, and the vocabulary reflects that. The act of creating an object with Strand is called weaving, and killing enemies with Strand is to unravel them and leave behind a Tangle.
Through the wielding of Strand, players will be able to make use of a new buff and three new debuffs that can be further enhanced or utilized via the subclass’s Aspects and Fragments.
The buff is Woven Mail, an additional layer of armor woven by Strand that improves your damage resistance. As for the debuffs, Suspend lifts enemies off the ground and disables them, and Sever reduces the damage output of an enemy. The final one, Unravel, means that enemies leave behind a Tangle when killed by Strand as mentioned before.
Each class—Hunter, Warlock, and Titan—interacts with and focuses in on each of these tools in Strand’s armory differently. This is thanks to their unique Aspects and Fragments that, like Stasis before it in Beyond Light, brand each of the three classes as masters of a different element of the power.
All Strand subclasses in Destiny 2
Hunter
The Strand Hunter subclass is called Threadrunner. As is the norm for Hunters, Threadrunner focuses most of all on enhancing the movement and speed already key to Strand’s identity. Being able to attack multiple enemies mid-air, wielding a weapon made of Strand that improves with greater agility, all play into this fantasy.
Warlock
The Strand subclass for Warlocks is called Broodweaver. Warlocks continue to develop their identity as summoners with a new Strand summon called Threadlings. All classes will be able to summon and utilize Threadlings, which are explosive minions that track and detonate on enemies, but Warlocks will be able to have greater control of these tools than others.
Titan
For Titans, the Strand subclass is known as Berserker. The Berserker is all about devastating close-range combat, which includes a melee ability that comes with three charges by default to provide the ability to chain attacks against large groups of enemies that make use of the Sever debuff.
All Strand Aspects in Destiny 2
Hunter
- Ensnaring Slam: While in the air, press the air-move input to slam downward, suspending all nearby enemies.
- Widow’s Silk: This Aspect grants an additional grenade charge. The Hunter’s grapple ability creates a persistent grapple Tangle when it latches, which fully refunds grenade energy when grappled to. This allows Hunters to set up chains of grapple points that the entire team can utilize for maximum mobility through an environment.
Warlock
- Weaver’s Call: After summoning a Rift the Warlock generates three Threadling eggs, which hatch into Threadlings when they hit a surface. Any perched Threadlings are converted into additional eggs.
- Mindspun Invocation: This Aspect improves the Warlock’s Grapple, Threadling Grenade and Shackle Grenade abilities to provide additional benefits.
Titan
- Into The Fray: Destroying a Tangle provides the Titan and nearby allies with Woven Mail. This Aspect also increases the Titan’s melee energy regeneration while wearing Woven Mail.
- Drengr’s Lash: When the Titan uses their class ability, a wave of Strand blasts forward from it. Enemies caught in the wave are then suspended.
All Strand Fragments in Destiny 2
Fragments are a universal tool that all three classes can utilize regardless of their Aspects. Fragments often provide additional ways of generating Strand buffs, debuffs, or Threadlings to better enable classes that might otherwise struggle due to their Aspects. Fragments can also give additional bonuses to those elements of the Strand subclass, such as providing ability energy when you utilize the subclass’s vocabulary.
Here are the Fragments that we know of as of right now.
- Thread of Ascent: Activating your grenade ability reloads your weapon and provides bonuses to weapon handling and airborne effectiveness for a short time.
- Thread of Fury: Damaging targets by detonating a Tangle now grants melee energy.
- Thread of Finality: Finishers now generate Threadlings.
- Thread of Warding: Picking up an orb of power now grants Woven Mail.
