Best Titan Arc Builds For Destiny 2 PvE and PvP (Season 23)

The dust has settled a bit following the release of Lightfall, Destiny 2's latest expansion. Now that it's been out for some time, we can finally take a look at the revamped mod system and put together what we consider to be top-tier Meta builds. 

What makes a build good? It all depends on what you want to do. If you're a PVE fanatic, you might find more value in builds that are better for burst damage and survivability. PVP players might need faster recovery and snappier movement options. Things that don't necessarily hit hard, but certainly hit fast. Let's get down to brass tacks and take a look at the best PVE and PVP builds for Arc Titans in Destiny 2.

Best Arc Titan PVE Build: Thunderstruck

This Arc Titan build is going to be all about utilizing the Heart of Inmost Light exotic chest piece to create a steady uptime on all of your abilities. This exotic makes it so that when you use one of your abilities, it empowers your other two abilities, granting faster recharge time on ability use. Spamming grenades, creating barricades, and getting your charging melee back often is the name of the game with this build, so we're going to lean hard into that with our aspects and fragments, too! 

Required Gear

• Exotic Armor: Heart of Inmost Light (Chest)

Again, the Heart of Inmost Light grants faster ability recharge rates to your other abilities after using one of them. It is the heart (no pun intended) of this build and is almost a requirement. You can also try mixing it up a bit by using Cuirass of the Falling Star as it grants a significant increase to Thundercrash damage, but it won't do much for those ability uptimes. Some players will swap to the Cuirass when they're ready to use their super and swap back to HOIL, so play around! 

Class Setup

• Super: Thundercrash
• Grenade: Pulse Grenades
• Class Ability: Thrusters. We're gonna go kinda off the beaten path here and use Thrusters to give us a bit more of a mobility option. 
• Melee: Thunderclap
• Jump: Catapult Lift

Thrusters, amplified, charging up a mega punch, and spamming pulse grenades will make this a fun and unique build. 

Aspects

• Knockout: Critically wounding a target or breaking their shield infuses your melee attacks with Arc energy and increases your melee range and damage for a short time. Basically baby's first ACD/0 Feedback Fence without the exotic slot. It also heals you and grants you Amplified when you get melee kills. 
• Touch of Thunder: This makes your grenades bigger and badder than ever. Your Pulse Grenades create ionic traces as it damages targets and it increases the time it stays active. 

Fragments

• Spark of Ions for Ionic Traces when defeating a Jolted target
• Spark of Magnitude even greater duration on lingering Arc grenades 
• Spark of Shock makes your Arc grenades Jolt targets 
• Spark of Amplitude causes enemies to drop Orbs of Power when you rapidly defeat them while Amplified 

Armor Mods

Outside of Stat Mods, you'll want to min/max for ability uptime to further lean into the Grenade, Melee, and Class Ability spam that this build is all about. 

• Head Mods: I recommend Ashes to Assets, Arc Siphon, and Heavy Ammo Finder for more orbs, more super energy, and heavy ammo
• Arm Mods: I recommend Grenade Kickstart and Impact Induction for more grenade energy
• Chest Mods: I recommend Emergency Reinforcement and whatever damage reduction mods of your choosing. Emergency Reinforcement is crazy strong right now and a requirement for high-end content
• Leg Mods: I recommend Arc Weapon Surge, Recuperation, and Orbs of Restoration. These will grant you additional arc weapon damage as well as additional health and ability recharge. 
• Mark Mods: I recommend Time Dilation, Bomber, and Outreach for longer Armor Charge duration and increased cooldowns on grenades and melee charges. 

Weapons

• Kinetic Slot: Witherhoard (recommended) While not required, Witherhoard is a kinetic slot grenade launcher that deals DOT (damage over time). It is a great way to apply constant DPS to enemies, keep your grenade uptime going consistently, and is just a fun weapon to use. 
• Energy Slot: The choice here is yours, but I do recommend my personal favorite, the Ikelos SMG with Voltshot. If you don't have an Ikelos SMG, you can run any arc weapon you like here, but since we're leaning into Jolt, I recommend having a weapon with Voltshot. 
• Heavy Slot: Again, this is completely up to you. Right now, Grenade Launchers and Rockets have become favorable, but Linear Fusion Rifles are still a great option. Regardless of what it is, I recommend an Arc Heavy weapon to lean into the synergy of the build. 

Stat Distribution 

For these, you'll want to focus on as much Resilience and Recovery as possible for both survivability, but also Thruster uptime. Next would be a minimum of 60 Discipline, but anything higher is obviously better. The rest of the stats are completely up to you. 

Conclusion

This is the best build for mid-tier to endgame activities for Arc Titans that I've ever used. I am constantly moving around and healing despite not being a Solar build and I am spamming abilities like it's going out of style. Make sure you play around with the cadence of ability usage, there is an optimal rotation, but everyone will find their groove with this in no time. 

Best Arc Titan PVP Build: Overcharged Ape

This Arc Titan PVP build is basically going to change very little from the Solar PVP Titan build. Really, we want to just keep leaning into being a fast, Shoulder Charging fiend here. Trying to keep some of the Arc buffs from PVE going to maximize how much damage we deal out is important, so we want to make sure that we're using our abilities if we have them! 

Required Gear

• Exotic Armor: Peregrine Greaves (legs)

Shoulder Charge like you've never Shoulder Charged before! With these boots, jumping just before a Shoulder Charge grants you extra damage which is the only way to one-hit-kill just about anyone in PVP with it. 

Class Setup

• Super: Thundercrash
• Grenade: Storm Grenade
• Class Ability: The choice is yours, but I go for Thrusters
• Melee: Seismic Strike
• Jump: Catapult Lift

This build is based around Shoulder Charge. Make sure you don't forget to switch if you were just running some PVE content!

Aspects

• Knockout: Critically wounding a target or breaking their shield infuses your melee attacks with Arc energy and increases your melee range and damage for a short time. Basically baby's first ACD/0 Feedback Fence without the exotic slot. It also heals you and grants you Amplified when you get melee kills. 
• Juggernaut: grants a frontal shield while sprinting. If it breaks, it will eat your class ability energy, so try not to rely on it too heavily in combat. 

Fragments

These won't have an enormous effect on your gameplay in PVP, but getting the extra protection while fighting or sprinting is nice to have. 

• Spark of Resistance for bonus resistance when surrounded by enemies
• Spark of Hast for increased resilience, recovery, and mobility while sprinting
• Spark of Frequency grants a buff to melee damage for a short time when taking melee damage 
• Spark of Feedback grants an increase to your reload speed briefly after getting melee hits 

Armor Mods

Outside of Stat Mods, you'll want to min/max for weapon steadiness and handling. These are all pretty straightforward and grant bonus weapon stats and ability recovery. 

• Head Mods: I recommend Kinetic OR Energy Targeting
• Arm Mods: I recommend Grenade Kickstart and Reloaders of your choice
• Chest Mods: I recommend Unflinching mods of your choice
• Leg Mods: I recommend Absolution, Better Already, Orbs of Restoration
• Mark Mods: I recommend Reaper, Bomber, Outreach

Weapons

• Kinetic Slot: I recommend a Shotgun or Sniper Rifle of your choice here. When leaning into an elemental build like this, even when it's based on ability usage, I still recommend a flavored primary weapon. 
• Energy Slot: The choice here is yours, but I do recommend either a Pulse Rifle or an SMG if you're using a Shotgun or Sniper Rifle, respectively. You really can't go wrong either way, but try mixing it up based on the map!
• Heavy Slot: Again, this is entirely up to you. Right now, Grenade Launchers and Rockets have become favorable, but Linear Fusion Rifles are still a great option. Personally, I've taken to using some Heavy Machine Guns! Regardless of what it is, I recommend an Arc Heavy weapon to lean into some build synergy. 

Stat Distribution 

For these, you'll want to focus on 100 Resilience and at least 90 Recovery for both survivability, but also Barricade uptime. Next would either be Strength, to maximize your Shoulder Charge recharge rate.  

Conclusion

This is a highly straightforward Ape build. Go fast, kick everything in sight, and don't forget that you do have guns other than your Shotgun to pull from. Try this out next time Trials of Osiris ends up on a smaller map! 

These are the best Arc Titan builds for PVE and PVP right now. Make sure you save them in your new Loadout slots before you start moving on to your next build!

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