The Beyond Light expansion began a process of revamping the way subclasses work in Destiny 2. Stasis added a system of Aspects and Fragments which enabled players to mix-and-match perks and abilities from a large toolkit. For the Witch Queen, Bungie is extending this concept—taking the old Light-based subclasses and their fixed perks, and reworking them to use Stasis’s more customisable system. Over the next year, all Light subclasses will be updated to use Aspects and Fragments, starting with this season’s Void 3.0, which is live in the game now and free to all players.
ABOUT THIS CONTENT
For the launch of The Witch Queen we’ve partnered with Bungie to create a series of guides and explainer videos. These are being made by some of the best known Destiny 2 content creators and experts. This particular piece comes from CoolGuy, whose gaming channel specializes in weapon and perk analysis to help make you a better player. For full disclosure anything published as part of this program will include this panel.
Each subclass retains its own identity and flavor, but this rework better lays out what Void functionally means in Destiny 2. The core tenets are going invisible, generating overshields, and draining energy from opponents. There’s more too, like using gravity to suck opponents out of position and suppressing their abilities, but you get the gist. These ideas are now shared across Sentinel Titan, Voidwalker Warlock and Nightstalker Hunter, though each subclass specializes in a specific concept. Speaking of shared stuff, all Void grenade types are now available to all Void classes. It’s a chocolate box of purple munitions.
Void 3.0 enables you to dive deeper into the fantasy of each class. You want to tank as a Titan? They’re even more resilient, leaning hard into overshields. Warlocks devour everything in their path, leeching health and ability energy from foes. And Hunters are… Well, it’s hard to say, because they’re invisible the whole time.
There are three main components to the new Void 3.0 system:
- All Void subclasses have had their old abilities tweaked and new ones added.
- Each now has access to three unique class-specific Aspects that customizes their playstyle substantially.
- The subclasses can all pick three to four Fragments, which are passive bonuses that are the same across every class.
If you’re a buildcrafter like me, you’re getting really excited about the possibilities. There are so many combinations to explore that I can’t possibly cover them all in a single article and video. But I have got three great builds to showcase based on what I’ve been having a ton of success with over the past week. For the full experience, watch the video embedded at the top of this page.
Side note: If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend you visit Ikora at the tower and pay Glimmer to unlock any grenades you don’t have. You’ll also need to unlock them by meditating—you’ll find this option to the right of Ikora.
For each of the builds, I’ll highlight the Aspects that form the basis of the playstyle, and then augment them with the pool of Fragment enhancements that are shared by all Void subclasses. From there, we’ll tune further through Exotic choices and armor mods.
Sentinel Titan: Ultimate Tank Build
| Exotic: | Heart of Inmost Light |
| Melee: | Shield Throw |
| Grenade: | Vortex |
| Aspects: | Controlled Demolition & Bastion |
| Fragments: | Remnants, Expulsion, Undermining |
| Mods: | Well Of Tenacity (Void), Reaping Wellmaker (Void), Elemental Ordnance, Volatile Flow, Explosive Wellmaker (Solar) or Font Of Might |
| Recommend Weapon: | Void Energy (Gnawing Hunger with Demolitionist) |
| Alternative exotics: | Precious Scars for extra healing or Armamentarium for a second grenade |
Fragment List
Expulsion: Void ability final blows cause targets to explode
(+10 Intellect)
Provision: Damage targets with grenades grants melee energy
(-10 Strength)
Exchange: Melee final blows grant grenade energy
Remnants: Your lingering grenade effects (Vortex, Void Wall, Void Spike, and Axion Bolt) have increased duration.
Reprisal: Final blows when surrounded by combatants grant super energy
Undermining: Your void grenades weaken targets
(-20 Discipline)
Persistence: Void buffs applied to you (Invisibility, Overshield, and Devour) have increased duration.
(-10 Resilience)
Leeching: Melee final blows start health regeneration for you and your nearby allies
(+10 Resilience)
Domineering: After suppressing a target, you gain greatly increased mobility for a short duration and your equipped weapon is released from reserves
(+10 Discipline)
Dilation – While crouched, you sneak faster and gain enhanced radar resolution.
(+10 Mobility and +10 Strength)
Instability: Defeating targets with grenades grants volatile rounds to your void weapons.
(+10 strength, unlocked after raid race)
Harvest: Defeating weakened targets with precision final blows will create an orb of power
(-10 Intellect, unlocked after raid race)
Obscurity: Finishers will grant invisibility
(+10 recovery, unlocked after raid race)
Starvation: Picking up an orb of power grants Devour
(-10 recovery, unlocked after raid race)
I believe this is one of the best builds in the game today. It’s pure damage and chaos.
The Controlled Demolition Aspect ensures that any target hit with a Void ability will become ‘volatile’, which will make them explode in a Void detonation after taking enough additional damage. In addition, you and nearby allies are granted additional health when volatile targets explode nearby.
Pair that with the Bastion Aspect, and we can lean hard into tanking. Bastion grants an overshield to your allies when you cast your super. It also grants you and your nearby allies an overshield whenever you cast your barricade.
These two Aspects will grant you three fragment slots. Remnants increases the duration of your lingering effects, meaning the Vortex grenade will get more kills and generate more Void Wells. Expulsion will cause enemies killed by Void abilities to explode. And Undermining will give your grenades the weakening effect, meaning it’s quicker to take out tougher enemies.
For your armor mods, the recently buffed Well of Tenacity grants a 50% damage reduction when you pick up a Void Well. Tank. Reaping Wellmaker means that, after using your barricade, your next weapon kill will spawn a Void Well. Constant tank. And Elemental Ordinance causes grenade kills to also spawn Void Wells. Unstoppable tank.
As for weapons, the Volatile Flow seasonal mod grants Void weapons Volatile Rounds when picking up a Void Well. Remember, the Controlled Demolitionist Aspect grants health and makes enemies explode when shooting volatile targets.
Our build is completed with the Heart of Inmost Light chestpiece. Using one ability will empower the other two. You’ll have a faster regen on those empowered abilities, your melees and grenades will do more damage, and your barricade can take more hits. Heart of Inmost Light allows you to chain abilities while spawning those Void Wells.
It’s an absolute blast to play with.
Voidwalker Warlock: Grenades Everywhere
| Exotic: | Contraverse Hold |
| Melee: | Pocket Singularity |
| Grenade: | Vortex |
| Aspects: | Chaos Accelerant & Feed the Void |
| Fragments: | Expulsion, Remnants, Persistence |
| Mods: | Ashes to Assets and Bountiful Wells (Solar), Well Of Tenacity (Void), Explosive Wellmaker (solar), Elemental Ordnance, Volatile Flow, Devouring Depths (Class Item) |
| Recommended Weapon: | Void Energy (Gnawing Hunger with Demolitionist or Funnelweb with Adrenaline Junkie) |
| Alternative exotics: | Nothing Manacles (use with Scatter grenades), Nezerac’s Sin, Verity’s Brow |
The Voidlock’s kit got a lot better with 3.0, as evidenced by this build, which fully commits to the Chaos Accelerant and Feed the Void Aspects. Chaos Accelerant makes charged Vortex grenades bigger and longer lasting, while Feed the Void means that Void ability kills will trigger the Devour effect.
While Devour is active, each final blow not only fully restores your health but also grants grenade energy and increases the Devour timer—letting you keep the perk active for as long as you can chain kills. The fragments paired are Expulsion, Remnants, and Persistence. These feed the combat loop with Void ability kills making targets explode, Votex ‘nades lasting even longer, and Devour having increased duration.
Since the Voidwalker has some of the best grenade synergy in the game, it’s worth running the Ashes to Assets helmet mod, so that your grenade kills are also giving you Super energy. This means you want a Solar helmet, which also lets you slot in Bountiful Wells to create additional Elemental Wells. Elemental Ordnance also generates Wells, this time on grenade kills. And Well of Tenacity will give you a 50% damage reduction when you pick up a Void Well.
On another Solar armor piece, you should also slot Explosive Wellmaker. This will create Solar Wells on the side as all the explosions are happening. On your Bond, pair the Seasonal Mods Volatile Rounds and Devouring Depths. Volatile Rounds turns any Void energy weapon into a monster, and is particularly nuts with the new Funnelweb SMG. Devouring Depths causes your Super to do more damage when you have Devour active, which you always will!
Several exotics complement this Voidwalker build by granting fast cooldowns and powerful grenades. My favorite is the Contraverse Hold, which returns grenade energy when you hit enemies with a charged Void grenade. Vortex grenades last so long with Remnants and Chaos Accelerant combined that Contraverse Hold can potentially proc a second time if you catch enough enemies—or a yellow-bar Major—in its blast.
Thanks to your armor mods, Vortex final blows will send Void and Solar wells shooting into the sky. The Volatile Rounds granted after picking up a Void Well will make collaterals easier and keep maximum uptime on Devour. You can also use the same build setup with Nothing Manacles, switching out Vortex with Scatter grenades and juggling the two grenade cooldowns. The third exotic would be Nezarec’s Sin, as its Abyssal Extractors perk accelerates all Void ability cooldowns, including your super. Finally, you can also try Verity’s Brow, which further improves grenade damage and grants grenade energy when you land kills with weapons of matching elements. Perfect for our Void build.
If you want to tweak the build, don’t sleep on the Warlock’s third Aspect, Child Of The Old Gods. With it, a void soul appears when you cast your rift. Shoot a target with your Void Soul active, and it will fly over to them and start draining any enemies in the surrounding area. Drained targets grant grenade and melee energy if you’re using Healing Rifts, or health if you’re using Empowering Rifts. Pairing Child of the Old Gods with Feed the Void also gives you four Fragment slots, letting you add in Undermining so that your Vortex grenades also weaken targets.
The new Exotic armor piece Secant Filaments are perfect for Child of the Old Gods, granting Devour when you kill enemies inside your Empowering Rift. If you don’t yet have those, The Stag is also great, and means you’ll be gaining Healing Rift energy both from your Void Soul and when you’re taken down to critical health. This ensures high uptime on The Stag’s intrinsic damage reduction when you’re stood inside your Rift.
NightStalker Hunter: Invisibility Forever
| Exotic: | Graviton Forfeit |
| Melee: | Snare Bomb |
| Grenade: | Vortex |
| Aspects: | Stylish Executioner & Trapper’s Ambush |
| Fragments: | Expulsion, Provision, Persistence |
| Mods: | Reaping Wellmaker (Void), Well Of Tenacity (Void), Melee Wellmaker, Elemental Ordnance, Volatile Flow, Devouring Depths (Class Item) |
| Weapon: | Void Energy (Graviton Lance or Le Monarque are powerful exotics) |
| Alternative exotics: | Bombardiers to suppress enemies, Omnioculus for group play, Orpheus Rig with Moebius Quiver for boss dps |
Nightstalker is all about invisibility and high damage, and there are several ways to build into the sneaky assassin playstyle.
Void Terminology
Suppress: The target is taken out of any active ability. While suppressed, the target cannot activate any abilities or movement modes. Combatants are disoriented.
Weaken: The target takes increased damage, has slowed movement, and is disoriented.
Volatile: The target will explode in a Void detonation upon taking additional damage. If the target dies before volatile has taken enough damage to detonate, the detonation happens anyway.
Invisibility: The player vanishes from sight and does not appear on radar.
Overshield: The player gains a protective barrier that immediately stacks on top of their existing health and shields and intercepts incoming damage. Overshield reduces the damage taken from PvE combatants.
Devour: Final blows restore you to full health, grant grenade energy and extend Devour.
For our build, we’re using the incredibly strong Stylish Executioner Aspect. Defeating a weakened, suppressed, or volatile target grants invisibility and Truesight. And after performing a Stylish Execution, your next melee attack while invisible weakens targets.
Paired with the Trappers Ambush, which is basically a Void version of the Shatterdive animation, you will leave a cloud of smoke when you hit the ground. Enemies caught in that cloud are weakened, and you and any allies that are in or near the smoke gain invisibility.
For your Fragments, Provision, Expulsion, and Persistence will help your invisibility last longer.
For your armor mods, throw on Reaping Wellmaker, Elemental Ordinance, Volatile Flow, and Well of Tenacity, but also add in Melee Wellmaker. You’ll find it on the artifact and it costs just one energy. Your smoke bomb has a lot of utility, so you might as well be making wells with it.
Another change to the Nightstalker is that the Tether trigger now fires faster, and the new Mobius Quiver shoots two volleys of three arrows each. It does great damage now, making the Orpheus Rigs a top option by giving you a third volley for serious damage. Quiver also makes the targets volatile on hits! Here’s the absurd part: for all those volatile kills, each final blow will grant you invisibility. It’s all about stealth and debuffs from there.
The Graviton Forfeit is perfect for playing solo, because it grants longer invisible times and stacks with the Persistence fragment. Another low-key great option is the Bombardiers. When you defeat enemies that are suppressed by the bomb, you become invisible. This creates a total of four ways to become invisible in Nightstalker.
Final Thoughts:
Witch Queen has provided each subclass the ability to embrace the Void in new and incredible ways. It doesn’t matter who you main, you’re going to have a great time tinkering with your builds and expressing those abilities in style. Eyes up, Guardians. Void 3.0 is here, and it’s brought a million purple possibilities with it. If you enjoyed this breakdown, please check out more of my content at CoolGuyGames on YouTube and Twitter.