Destiny 2 Getaway Artist Warlock Build: The Buddy Build for the Final Sandbox
My fully up-to-date buddy Warlock Prismatic build for the Monument of Triumph sandbox, with the best subclass, armor, stat, weapon and mod configuration for maximum output.
Bungie shipped Monument of Triumph on June 9, 2026, and with it Update 9.7.0, the last live-service content update Destiny 2 will get. The game stays online. The sandbox does not change again.
That makes this a strange and useful moment for buildcrafting. Every hour you spend farming armor for a loadout now pays out forever, because nothing is going to get nerfed out from under you next season. The Prismatic Warlock buddy build, built around Getaway Artist and an Arc Soul that follows you around jolting everything it touches, is one of the best places to spend those hours.
The Arc Soul did take a hit in 9.7.0. It is not the hit most people think it was, and it is not the change that actually matters most. Here is the full build, what the patch did to it, and how to put it together.
What this build actually is
The full loadout. Both weapon slots are special ammo, which is why the ammo economy matters so much later on.
You throw a Storm Grenade, consume it with Getaway Artist, and get an Arc Soul that fights alongside you. Bleak Watcher turns that same grenade consumption into a Stasis turret. Feed the Void keeps Devour running so you never stop healing. The artifact layers a Strand sever-and-unravel engine on top that spawns Threadlings, which sever more enemies, which feed the loop again.
The result is a Warlock who is almost never fighting alone. You have an Arc Soul, a Stasis turret, a pack of Threadlings and a pile of Strand hotspots on the ground, and you are sitting in Devour and Woven Mail while all of it works.
At a glance:
Subclass - Prismatic Warlock
Exotic - Getaway Artist
Super - Needlestorm (Song of Flame for roaming)
Aspects - Feed the Void, Bleak Watcher
Grenade - Storm Grenade
Class ability - Phoenix Dive
Melee - Arcane Needle
Artifact - Tablet of Ruin
Weapons - Mint Retrograde and Choir of One (double special)
What Monument of Triumph changed, honestly
Facet of Dominance is what lets the Arc Soul jolt at all. Everything else in the fragment row is flexible.
Three changes in 9.7.0 touch this build. Most coverage only mentions the first.
The Arc Soul jolt cooldown
Facet of Dominance now applies a four-second internal cooldown before an Arc Soul can jolt again. The same cooldown was added to Spark of Shock for Arc Souls and Ionic Sentries.
Arc Soul damage itself was untouched. In practice the build still clears adds about as fast as it did, because the Soul's damage was always doing most of the work and the jolt was gravy. If you are coming back after a long break and have read that the buddy build "got nerfed," this is the nerf, and it is the smallest of the three.
The ability uptime nerf nobody talks about
This is the one that matters. Bungie cut the maximum passive ability cooldown bonus from ability stats by roughly 20%, and dropped the maximum active ability cooldown bonus from 190% down to 125%.
Bungie's stated reasoning was that combat had tilted too far toward resolving encounters with abilities instead of weapons, so the ceiling came down while the floor stayed where it was. For a build whose entire engine is "throw grenade, consume grenade, repeat," that ceiling was exactly where you lived. You will notice slightly longer gaps between Arc Souls at the top end than you did pre-patch.
The build absorbs this better than most ability builds do, for one reason: Feed the Void returns a large chunk of grenade energy on every Enhanced Devour proc, and Devour procs constantly. Your grenade regeneration is not purely passive, so the passive cap mattering less is a real advantage here. But go in expecting the loop to breathe rather than run completely uninterrupted.
Champions work completely differently now
Grenade at 150 before fonts. Because Warlock constructs scale off this stat, it is doing more for your damage than Weapons is.
Anti-Champion mods were removed from artifacts. Every weapon now carries an intrinsic anti-Champion effect based on its frame or archetype, applied the moment a valid shot lands. No mod slot, no wind-up, no aiming requirement.
Two specific knock-on effects for this build:
Volatile Rounds no longer stun Barrier Champions. Neither does Radiant. Both now give 10% increased weapon damage against Champions instead. If your mental model was "Choir of One plus Volatile Marksman equals Barrier coverage," that model is dead.
Check your weapons individually. Exotics get individual anti-Champion assignments that may not follow their frame's normal rule. Inspect Choir of One and confirm what it actually stuns before you take this into a Conquest.
Subclass setup
Exotic: Getaway Artist. Consuming an Arc grenade converts it into a sentient Arc Soul that fights with you. The whole build hangs off this one interaction.
Grenade: Storm Grenade. It is the Arc grenade you throw and immediately consume. You are not throwing it for its own damage.
Class ability: Phoenix Dive. Use it aggressively. Dive into a pack, trigger the healing, then immediately follow with Mint Retrograde to start severing. It is your engage button, not your escape button.
Melee: Arcane Needle. Mostly here for stat alignment and incidental damage. You are not building around it.
Super: Needlestorm by default. Swap to Song of Flame for roaming and casual content if you prefer a more ability-led playstyle.
One caveat on Needlestorm for boss damage: 9.7.0 reduced Super energy generation from damaging bosses by 60%. Bungie did this deliberately, because it had become possible to cast six or more Supers in a single damage phase. Needlestorm is still strong, you will just cast it less often in a phase than you used to, and you should plan weapon damage accordingly rather than counting on Super spam.
Aspects
Feed the Void. Any ability kill grants Enhanced Devour, which fully heals you and returns a large chunk of grenade energy. This is the defensive backbone and a meaningful part of your grenade economy.
Bleak Watcher. Consuming a grenade creates a Stasis turret. You are already consuming grenades for Getaway Artist, so you get the turret for free on the same input. Slow and freeze give you crowd control the Arc Soul cannot provide.
Alternatives worth trying, since nothing is going to be rebalanced: Hellion for a Solar buddy focus, or Weaver's Call for a Threadling-centric version with an extra fragment slot.
Seven slots, two of which have to be Tier 1. Screenshot your own grid after confirming the tiers in-game.
Fragments
Facet of Dominance. The key fragment. It lets the Arc Soul apply jolt, now on the four-second cooldown. It also makes the Transcendent grenade apply Weaken through its Void component.
Facet of Courage. Arc, Solar and Void abilities deal increased damage to targets with Darkness debuffs. Your Bleak Watcher turret slows everything, so your Arc Soul is almost always hitting a debuffed target.
Facet of Protection. Damage resistance when surrounded, which is where this build wants to be.
Facet of Ruin. Larger Stasis bursts, plus a weapon stat bonus. Taken mostly for the stat.
Facet of Dominance and Facet of Courage are the two doing real work. The other two are flexible.
Stats and armor
The targets
Aim for roughly 180 Weapons, 150 Grenade, 100 Super, 50 Class, then push Weapons and Grenade toward 200 with fonts in combat.
Why Grenade is the damage stat
This is the part most Warlocks get wrong. Bungie confirmed with Monument of Triumph that class-ability Aspects which deal damage now scale with the Class stat, with one explicit exception: Warlock construct damage continues to scale with the Grenade stat.
Your Arc Soul and your Bleak Watcher turret are constructs. Their damage scales with Grenade, not with Class, not with Weapons. And the Grenade stat's second band (100 to 200) grants up to 65% increased grenade ability damage. Every point of Grenade above 100 is a direct damage increase on both of your buddies.
That is why 150 base plus two Grenade Fonts is the spine of this build rather than a nice-to-have.
Why Weapons matters
The Weapons stat's second band grants increased damage against bosses (0 to 15% for primary and special, 0 to 10% for heavy) and a chance for ammo bricks to contain more ammo than normal, with that chance scaling up as you approach 200. On a double-special loadout with no primary, brick size is not a luxury. It is whether you can keep shooting.
The build working as intended. Four separate damage sources on screen, none of which is your weapon.
Armor archetypes, including the new ones
9.7.0 added six new armor archetypes. Two of them are better fits for this build than anything that existed before, and most guides have not caught up:
Demolitionist (Grenade primary, Class secondary) - the best single archetype for this build. Grenade is your damage stat and Class drives Phoenix Dive.
Siegebreaker (Health primary, Grenade secondary) - Grenade investment without giving up survivability, for harder content.
Powerhouse (Weapons primary, Super secondary) - for the slot where you want Weapons toward 200.
Gunner (Weapons primary, Grenade secondary) - still excellent here, and you may already own the rolls.
A sample spread that hits the targets:
Helmet: Powerhouse, tertiary Grenade, tuned Grenade
Gauntlets (Getaway Artist): Grenade-leaning, tuned Weapons
Chest: Powerhouse or Siegebreaker, tertiary Grenade, tuned Weapons
Boots: Gunner, tertiary Super, tuned Grenade
Class item: Gunner, tertiary Class, tuned Grenadier
Ghost Armorer mods now improve the odds of your chosen archetype dropping to one in two, up from one in three, so this is a far shorter grind than the equivalent chase was a year ago.
You do not need to refarm your Exotic
All Armor 3.0 Exotic armor now has Tier 5 stats and access to every tuning mod, applied retroactively. The only exception is Collections rolls. If you have a Getaway Artist you like, it is already Tier 5. Do not spend engrams chasing a replacement.
Armor set bonuses
Two-piece bonuses are where you cap your stats and fix your ammo economy. The pairing this build wants is one set that improves special and heavy ammo generation alongside one set that pushes your Grenade stat the last stretch to the cap during combat. Monument of Triumph refreshed set bonuses across a large amount of gear, so there are more workable combinations now than there were at Edge of Fate launch, and several raid and destination sets will do the job.
One thing to know before you commit: Armor 3.0 versions of raid armor cannot use raid mods, which are an Armor 2.0 feature. If a specific raid mod is more valuable to you than a set bonus, Armor 2.0 for every available raid is focusable at Hawthorne for ten Spoils of Conquest each. That is a genuine either-or choice, not an oversight.
The build works without any raid set at all. Sets refine ammo flow and cap stats; they are not the engine.
Weapons
This is a double-special loadout. Your Arc Soul, turret and Threadlings do the primary-weapon job, so both weapon slots go to things that hit hard.
Mint Retrograde. A Strand Special Pulse Rifle on the Micro-Missile Frame, from the Pinnacle Ops loot pool. It is your sever engine.
The perk that matters is Slice, a fourth-column trait: casting your class ability lets the weapon sever targets on hit for a brief duration, up to a maximum number of targets. Read that carefully, because two details change how you play:
It is your class ability, not any ability. Phoenix Dive is the trigger. Grenades and melees do nothing for it.
It is capped in both duration and target count. You are not severing a whole room off one dive. Dive, sever the cluster in front of you, then dive again when it comes back.
Beacon Rounds sits in the third column, so you can run both on one roll. Final blows grant your projectiles tracking and increase reload speed, and further damage extends it. On a weapon that fires slow micro-missiles, tracking is worth more than it sounds.
One warning before you farm. Two versions of Mint Retrograde are in circulation with different perk pools, and only one of them rolls Slice. The version you want has Slice, One for All and Chain Reaction in the fourth column, and Beacon Rounds, Recycled Energy and Stats for All in the third. The other version runs Frenzy and Cascade Point in the fourth column and cannot roll Slice at all. Check the perk pool on the roll in front of you before you invest.
For the origin trait, Vanguard Determination is the one to take: final blows with the weapon after using your class ability grant bonus damage resistance. You are already casting Phoenix Dive to turn Slice on, so the damage resistance is free. Problem Solver is the alternative, exhausting Champions and bosses under sustained damage.
Choir of One. Void damage, volatile procs, and consistent ability energy return. Prefer an Onslaught-style refit over locking your volatile access behind Destabilizing Rounds, because volatile is readily available from artifact and armor sources now and you can spend the perk slot on something else.
Inspect both weapons' anti-Champion assignments before taking them into Champion content. That is now a property of the weapon, not something the artifact gives you. Broadly, Aggressive and High-Impact frames stagger Unstoppables, Precision and Adaptive frames break Barriers, and Lightweight and Rapid-Fire frames disrupt Overloads, but Exotics get individual assignments, so check the weapon itself.
Artifact: Tablet of Ruin
Monument of Triumph replaced the seasonal artifact with Artifacts 2.0: seven legacy artifacts, reworked for the current sandbox, and you choose one. Artifact selections save directly into loadouts, so you can swap builds without rebuilding your perk grid every time.
Read this before you plan a perk set. Each artifact gives you seven perk slots, and the slots have rules:
Tier 1 perks can go in any of the seven slots
Tier 2 perks are restricted to the last five slots
Tier 3 perks are hard-capped at two
In practice that means at least two of your seven picks have to be Tier 1. Anti-Champion mods are gone from artifacts entirely, so if you built a wishlist from a pre-June guide, it will not slot.
One more thing worth knowing before you build around any of this: artifact perks are disabled in Competitive Crucible and Trials of Osiris. Keep a separate loadout for those two modes that does not lean on them.
Tablet of Ruin is the pick here because its reworked pool carries the Arc and Bolt Charge perks, the Strand unravel perks, and a set of payoffs for severed targets. The seven perks:
Unraveling Orbs - picking up an Orb of Power or a Tangle grants Strand weapons Unraveling Rounds. This is your unravel source and the reason the Threadling chain starts. The Tangle trigger is new to this version of the perk.
Horde Shuttle - damaging unraveled targets occasionally spawns a Threadling. Threadlings do more damage and keep pressure on while you reposition.
Dielectric - defeating Arc-debuffed targets grants Bolt Charge, and rapid defeats spawn an Orb of Power and restore health. Your Arc Soul debuffs constantly, so this feeds both the Bolt Charge chain and the Orb economy that keeps Unraveling Orbs live.
Flashover - reaching maximum Bolt Charge makes you Amplified and increases lightning bolt damage.
Defibrillating Blast - stunning a Champion grants maximum Bolt Charge and fires a healing Arc bolt that jolts nearby combatants.
Photonic Flare - defeating an exhausted or severed target with Arc damage releases a blinding burst. Your Arc Soul is Arc damage and Slice is doing the severing, so this fires on its own. Blind is also an Unstoppable Champion counter.
Volatile Marksman - rapid Void precision hits or final blows grant Volatile Rounds, and the detonations grant class ability energy. More class ability energy means more Phoenix Dives, which means more Slice uptime.
Note how that loop closes: Phoenix Dive turns on Slice, Slice severs, Arc Soul kills severed targets, Photonic Flare blinds, Choir of One's volatile detonations refund class ability energy, and you dive again.
Two optional swaps worth knowing about. Disruptor Spike makes Exhaust and Sever stronger outright, and Elemental Supercharger grants Super energy for defeating exhausted or severed targets, which partly offsets the reduced Super generation from boss damage.
One perk to check in-game: To Shreds. It deals sustained damage to severed targets to unravel them, and defeating a severed target creates a hotspot of Strand energy that grants Woven Mail to nearby allies. It was a Tablet of Ruin perk in its original Heresy form and it would be the single best addition to this build, bridging Slice's sever directly into unravel. I could not confirm it survived the Artifacts 2.0 rework. If it is in the grid, run it in place of Photonic Flare. If it is not, the setup above still works, because Unraveling Orbs supplies the unravel on its own. While you are looking: the perk is called To Shreds, not "Two Shreds," which is a common misspelling in community guides.
Confirm the tier placement of all seven in-game and reorder to fit the slot rules before you commit.
Mods
Helmet: Special Ammo Finder and Special Ammo Scout for brick generation on a double-special setup, plus Void Siphon so Choir of One kills make Orbs.
Gauntlets: Two copies of Grenade Font, which is the single highest-value mod choice in the build given how Grenade scales construct damage. Add Firepower for extra Orb generation on grenade kills.
Chest: Damage resistance mods matched to the activity.
Boots: Stacks on Stacks to double Armor Charge from Orbs, Weapon Font to push Weapons toward 200, and a Strand Scavenger for Mint Retrograde. Drop the Scavenger for more Orb generation if ammo feels comfortable.
Class item: Time Dilation to extend font duration, Class Font for Phoenix Dive cadence, and Powerful Attraction to pull Orbs to you on class ability cast so you can hold Armor Charge without leaving cover.
The whole mod loadout serves one goal: keep Grenade and Weapons near their caps for as much of the fight as possible, and keep Orbs flowing so the fonts never lapse.
The gameplay loop
Throw Storm Grenade, immediately consume it with Getaway Artist. You get an Arc Soul and, via Bleak Watcher, a Stasis turret.
Let the Arc Soul jolt and the turret slow. Slowed targets take extra damage from your Arc abilities thanks to Facet of Courage.
Get ability kills to trigger Feed the Void. Enhanced Devour heals you fully and returns grenade energy.
Phoenix Dive into the pack. That turns on Slice, so your next Mint Retrograde hits sever the cluster in front of you.
Let the Arc Soul finish severed targets. Photonic Flare blinds on those kills, and Dielectric turns them into Bolt Charge and Orbs.
Swap to Choir of One for Void damage and volatile procs. The detonations refund class ability energy, which pulls Phoenix Dive back for the next Slice window.
Collect Orbs and Tangles. They keep your fonts live, which keeps Grenade and Weapons near cap, and Unraveling Orbs puts Unraveling Rounds on Mint Retrograde so Horde Shuttle starts spawning Threadlings.
Then back to step one. The loop is self-feeding once it starts, which is why the slightly longer grenade gaps post-patch are survivable: Devour, Orb pickup and the class ability refund carry you through them.
Should you build this now?
If you are back for Monument of Triumph and deciding where to spend your time, this is a reasonable place to spend it, for reasons that have nothing to do with it being meta.
Builds do not get patched out anymore. The gear you assemble is the gear you will have. A build that is self-sufficient, survives on its own healing, clears adds without a primary weapon and works in solo and group content is worth more in a frozen sandbox than a build that posts a bigger damage number in one specific encounter.
If you want a hand assembling the gear side of it, our Destiny 2 services cover the raid, dungeon and Pantheon runs these set bonuses and weapons come from.
Frequently asked questions
Is Getaway Artist still good after the jolt nerf?
Yes. The 9.7.0 change added a four-second internal cooldown to Arc Soul jolt application via Facet of Dominance. Arc Soul damage was not reduced. The broader ability cooldown changes in the same patch affect the build more than the jolt change does.
What actually changed for abilities in Monument of Triumph?
The maximum passive ability cooldown bonus from ability stats was cut by about 20%, and the maximum active ability cooldown bonus dropped from 190% to 125%. Bungie's stated goal was to shift combat back toward weapons without lowering the floor for ability uptime.
Which artifact should a Prismatic Warlock buddy build use?
Tablet of Ruin. It is the one that carries both the Bolt Charge perks and the Strand sever-and-unravel perks the build depends on. You can only have one artifact active at a time out of the seven available.
How many artifact perks can I equip?
Seven, on whichever artifact you have active. Tier 1 perks can go in any slot, Tier 2 perks are restricted to the last five slots, and Tier 3 is capped at two. Artifact perks are disabled in Competitive Crucible and Trials of Osiris.
What does Slice do on Mint Retrograde?
Casting your class ability lets the weapon sever targets on hit for a brief duration, up to a maximum number of targets. It triggers off Phoenix Dive specifically, not grenades or melees, and both the duration and the target count are limited.
Which Mint Retrograde rolls Slice?
Only one of the two versions in circulation. The one you want has Slice, One for All and Chain Reaction in the fourth column. The other rolls Frenzy and Cascade Point instead and cannot get Slice. Check the perk pool on the drop before you invest in it.
Does Grenade stat increase Arc Soul damage?
Yes. Warlock construct damage scales with the Grenade stat, and the stat's 100 to 200 band grants up to 65% increased grenade ability damage. It is the most important stat in the build.
Do I need to refarm Getaway Artist for Tier 5 stats?
No. All Armor 3.0 Exotic armor received Tier 5 stats and access to all tuning mods retroactively, with Collections rolls the only exception.
Do Volatile Rounds still stun Barrier Champions?
No. Volatile Rounds and Radiant now grant 10% increased weapon damage against Champions instead. Champion stuns come from weapon frame and archetype.
Will this build get nerfed?
Monument of Triumph was Destiny 2's final live-service content update. Bungie has said the game remains playable indefinitely, but no further balance content is planned.
Is it "To Shreds" or "Two Shreds"?
To Shreds. The misspelling is common in community write-ups.