Dominate any endgame activity in Destiny 2 with the “Gifted Conviction Build,” a powerhouse centered around the new exotic chest piece, Gifted Conviction. This build is engineered for unparalleled survivability and devastating offensive capabilities, ensuring you not only endure the harshest conditions but thrive in them. Prepare to become an unstoppable force, capable of soloing dungeons and conquering the toughest challenges the game throws your way.
The cornerstone of this build is the Gifted Conviction exotic chest piece, featuring the Gift of Certainty intrinsic trait. This trait is the key to unlocking a cascade of benefits, triggered by utilizing Tempest Strike and the Hunter’s Ascension aspect.
Whenever you unleash Tempest Strike or activate Ascension, Gifted Conviction releases three projectiles that seek out and strike nearby enemies. Each projectile deals a base damage of 200 points and, crucially, applies Jolt to any enemy within a 4-meter radius of detonation. This Jolt effect stacks with the inherent Jolt from Tempest Strike and Ascension, amplifying your ability to electrify multiple targets simultaneously. This is particularly potent against Overload Champions, rendering them vulnerable and disrupting their abilities.
Jolted enemies suffer continuous lightning damage over 8 seconds, and this damage arcs to nearby enemies, creating a chain reaction of devastation. Beyond offensive prowess, Gifted Conviction provides exceptional survivability. Applying Jolt to enemies within 15 meters grants you a 10-second damage resistance buff. This buff is stackable with subsequent Jolt applications, reaching up to a staggering 50% damage resistance at three stacks. This applies to Jolt from all sources – grenades, melee abilities, and even weapons, ensuring consistent uptime as long as you keep the Jolt flowing.
This constant damage resistance, fueled by relentless Jolt application, elevates your durability to god-mode levels, allowing you to face even the most challenging endgame content with confidence. While Gifted Conviction could be integrated into a Prismatic build, its synergy with a standard Arcstrider subclass is exceptionally stronger, maximizing the potential of fragments, aspects, and artifact mods. Moreover, this build leverages the Gathering Storm Super, a superior PvE option compared to Storm’s Edge, offering substantial damage output and multiple Jolt applications. While it may not reach the raw damage peaks of exotics like Star-Eater Scales for Gathering Storm, the consistent survivability and reliable damage make it a top-tier choice.
The Gifted Conviction build promotes aggressive, dynamic gameplay, encouraging swift transitions between close-quarters and mid-to-long-range engagements. For aspects, while Ascension and Tempest Strike offer dual Jolt-applying abilities, the build favors Flow State and Tempest Strike. Tempest Strike’s slide attack is deemed more reliable than Ascension’s aerial strike, which can leave you exposed. Flow State is crucial, amplifying you upon defeating Jolted targets. Amplification grants a 200% bonus to class ability regeneration, synergizing beautifully with Ascension if you opt to use it, and a 50-point boost to weapon reload speed.
Further enhancing survivability, the Galvanic Armor artifact mod provides a 30% damage resistance bonus when amplified, stacking multiplicatively with Gifted Conviction’s resistance. Flow State itself adds an additional 66% damage resistance during your dodge animation (excluding Ascension’s animation). The amplified class ability regeneration fuels more frequent Gambler’s Dodges, instantly replenishing melee energy when used near enemies. This creates a loop, feeding Tempest Strike and your standard melee.
For melee, Combination Blow is selected for its instant health regeneration (50 HP per final blow) and stacking melee damage buff, reaching up to a 309% increase at three stacks. The interplay between class ability and melee ensures constant Jolt application, electrifying everything you encounter. While Marksman’s Dodge could be considered for maximizing damage output, Gambler’s Dodge provides superior survivability and ability uptime.
Storm Grenades are the grenade of choice for their area-of-effect dominance, capable of Jolting enemies thanks to the Spark of Shock fragment. This fragment is essential for maintaining Gifted Conviction’s damage resistance buff. Spark of Ions further enhances ability uptime by creating Ionic Traces upon defeating Jolted targets, granting 12.5% grenade and melee energy, and 15% class ability energy. Complementing this, the Elemental Siphon artifact mod provides a secondary source of Ionic Traces when rapidly defeating enemies with Kinetic or Arc weapons, ensuring a deluge of ability energy.
Damage resistance is layered throughout this build: Galvanic Armor, Flow State, Gifted Conviction, and Spark of Resistance, which adds another 25% resistance when surrounded by enemies. This synergy makes you incredibly resilient, especially when amplified and facing multiple foes. Spark of Feedback directly boosts Tempest Strike and Combination Blow, granting a 75% melee damage increase after taking melee damage, encouraging aggressive, in-your-face play.
Shock and Awe further amplifies Jolt application. When amplified and defeating enemies with Arc weapons or abilities, a lightning strike is summoned, Jolting nearby targets. While it has a 5-second cooldown, it adds significant crowd control and reinforces damage resistance uptime. To enhance Storm Grenades, Shield Crush is utilized. When amplified, grenades gain 25% damage and regeneration rate increases, maximizing their effectiveness and availability.
For weapon loadouts, Arc Auto Rifles such as Shadow Price or Prosecutor with Voltshot are excellent choices, particularly with Auto Rifle-focused artifact mods. Consider Sustained Fire for 40% damage resistance while firing Auto Rifles and Targeting Autoloading for a 20% damage boost and automatic reloading. Heavy weapons like Line in the Sand, Sailspy Pitchglass, and Song of Ir Yut can also apply Jolt.
Exotic weapon options are plentiful. Centrifuse is outstanding, especially with Auto Rifle artifact mods. Delicate Tomb, an exotic Fusion Rifle, natively applies Jolt and fits seamlessly. Thunderlord and Cloudstrike both trigger lightning strikes, providing additional Jolt and crowd control. Ergo Sum, with either Arc Conductor (overshield on heavy attack) or Stormbringer (lightning strikes on rapid kills), adds further survivability or offensive pressure. Surprisingly, DARCI, the heavy sniper rifle, is a strong contender. It’s unique in applying Jolt without requiring a kill and offers a 35% precision damage bonus when locked onto a target. The optimal weapon choice depends on the specific activity, but Gifted Conviction build offers flexibility across various weapon types.
Armor stats prioritize Resilience and Mobility. Tier 10 Resilience reduces incoming damage by 30%, while high Mobility reduces dodge cooldown, enabling more frequent Tempest Strikes. Following Resilience and Mobility, focus on Recovery and Intellect to enhance health regeneration and Super uptime.
In conclusion, the Gifted Conviction build is a formidable force in Destiny 2, offering an exceptional balance of survivability and offensive power. By leveraging the Gift of Certainty trait, strategic aspect and fragment choices, and synergistic weapon and armor mods, you can create a Hunter build that excels in any activity. Embrace the Jolt, amplify your resilience, and dominate the battlefield with this electrifying build.
