Arc 3.0 Keywords, Aspects, And Fragments Explained – Destiny 2

Amplified is an Arc buff that grants 15% DR in PvE, +50 Mobility, increases sprint speed, slide distance, and grants improved weapon handling for 15 seconds. Amplified can be activated upon landing four rapid Arc kills against red bar combatants, tougher foes granting more progress.

Your overall movement is enhanced while Amplified. You slide 33% further—on par with St0mp-EE5

and Transversive Steps—and gain +50 Mobility, causing you to jump higher and strafe faster. Remember that Mobility does not affect sprint speed or your class-related jump.

While Amplified, you are also more difficult to hit for PvE enemies. This behaves similarly to The Manticore

‘s Exotic perk. It’s an invaluable effect in high-tier PvE content, although the exact accuracy debuff is hard to quantify. Amplify does not influence aim assist or reticle stickiness in PvP.

Sprinting for a few seconds while Amplified will activate the Speed Boost buff that increases your sprint speed by 12.5%, increases the slide distance buff from 33% to 50%, and you jump twice as high. These effects do not stack with Exotics or other sources of increased sprint speed/slide distance. Additionally, Speed Boost gives you 15% damage resistance against combatants in PvE; it does not provide any DR in the Crucible.

As for your weapons, Amplified gives your weapons a +40 handling bonus with a slight animation scalar of 0.96x (as showcased in the Destiny Data Compendium). In other words, your weapons swap substantially faster if you aren’t already at 100 handling, although weapons at capped handling will still notice a small bonus.

Notable sources of Amplified include Arc multikills and the Spark of Volts

Fragment.

Bolt Charge is technically a character buff, but it acts closer to Solar’s Ignition keyword. Sources of Bolt Charge will infuse your character with the “Bolt Charge” keyword, causing all subsequent damage to iterate Bolt Charge stacks. Each stack obtained grants 2.5% melee energy. Bolt Charge stacks have infinite duration; they don’t expire.

At x10 stacks, your next ability cast will spawn a lightning bolt at the target’s location, dealing 750 base damage in PvE, the same as a Solar Ignition. The blast radius is slightly smaller than an Ignition, but the high damage makes this a powerful keyword for ability-centric builds. If you’re playing a Titan, Storm’s Keep allows you to trigger Bolt Charge strikes from weapon damage and ability damage.

Notable sources of Bolt Charge include Disorienting Blow

, Tempest Strike

, and Storm’s Keep.

Blind is an Arc debuff that disorients your enemies. This effect differs in PvE and PvP:

• PvE: Combatants are unable to attack while blinded. Stuns Unstoppable Champions.
• PvP: Your screen flashes white, audio becomes distorted, and your HUD is temporarily disabled.

By default, Blind lasts for 10 seconds in PvE and 1.5-2 seconds in PvP. Notable sources of Blind include Flashbang Grenades

and the Hunter’s Disorienting Blow

.

Jolt is an Arc debuff that releases chain lightning when the target is damaged. In PvP, Jolted enemies will release chain lightning upon taking 50 damage, damaging all nearby enemies within 8 meters for 50 damage. The Jolted Guardian does not take any added damage in PvP.

Jolted combatants in PvE damage themselves and nearby foes when the chain lightning effect triggers, dealing enough damage to kill most red bar enemy types in playlist activities. Jolt lasts for 10 seconds in PvE and 5 seconds in PvP. Jolt’s chain lightning effect can only trigger once every 1.3 seconds.

Notable sources of Jolt include the Spark of Shock

Fragment, the Hunter’s Lethal Current

Aspect, and the Voltshot perk.

If you’ve used Jolt in PvE, you might have noticed that its damage output can vary wildly. This is because PvE Jolt is affected by combatant scalars. Destiny 2’s weapons all have base damage values, which are then adjusted through multipliers (called scalars).

For example, all Exotic Primary weapons get a 1.3x damage scalar against red bar enemies. This sort of scaling is tied to every weapon in the game against all combatant types—minor, elite, miniboss/ultra, boss, and vehicles. You can find a detailed breakdown of each PvE damage scalar through MossyMax’s Destiny 2 Outgoing Damage spreadsheet.

It’s important to mention these scalars because they directly impact Jolt’s damage output. Let’s give an example: Kalli is a Last Wish boss who takes 2,033 base Jolt damage. All Arc abilities (excluding Gathering Storm

) will deal 2,033 Jolt damage against her, regardless of damage output. Now let’s say we use Brigand’s Law with Voltshot. Sidearms get a 1.55x damage scalar against bosses. This gives us a damage value of:

Destiny always rounds up, so we deal 3,152 damage against Kalli with our Voltshot Sidearm. Damage buffs also seem to buff the strength of Voltshot Jolts, so it’s recommended you equip damage-boosting mods on your armor to enhance the strength of your weapon Jolts. Abilities do not benefit from stronger Jolts if you use damage-enhancing Exotics such as Verity’s Brow

. This is because abilities in Destiny 2 aren’t affected by scalars; therefore, all abilities deal the same base Jolt value.

Finally, it’s important to mention that only one instance of Jolt may affect the target at a time; stronger Jolts do not override the current Jolt debuff. We highly recommend using Voltshot weapons or the Gathering Storm

Super to inflict a stronger debuff.

Ionic Traces are bolts of energy that track to your location, granting 12.5% ability energy when grabbed (15% for your class ability). Traces only spawn for their creator and aggressively track to their location, curving around corners and other surfaces. Ionic Traces are grounded and cannot float.

Notable sources of Ionic Traces include the Warlock’s Electrostatic Mind

Aspect, the Coldheart

Exotic Trace Rifle, and the Spark of Ions

Fragment.

Arcbolt Grenades behave similarly to Firebolt Grenades on Solar. On impact, this grenade will sweep the surrounding area before releasing lightning bolts to nearby targets. Anyone damaged by the Arcbolt Grenade

will chain another lightning bolt to a nearby target. Up to three targets may be hit with a single Arcbolt Grenade, increased to four if the Hunter’s Lucky Raspberry

Exotic is equipped.

Targeting on Arcbolts is extremely inconsistent, so we recommend you use a different grenade against agile PvE enemies or enemy Guardians.

Lob a grenade that bounces once before exploding, Blinding anyone caught in the blast radius. In PvE, any enemies caught in the blast radius will be unable to fire their weapons for a few seconds. In PvP, the strength of the screen flash is dependent on how close you were to the explosion. The closer to the epicenter you are, the stronger the blinding effect will be.

Titans with the Touch of Thunder

Aspect will enhance the Flashbang Grenade’s

functionality. The Flashbang Grenade‘s initial bounce will release a pulse of Blinding energy, making this much more effective at disorienting enemy Guardians in the Crucible.

The Flux Grenade is one of Destiny 2’s hardest-hitting grenades. This grenade will stick onto enemy targets or surfaces before it detonates, dealing massive damage to anything caught in the blast radius. To compensate for the grenade’s minimal aim assist, Flux Grenades can one-tap Guardians in the Crucible.

In PvE, Flux Grenades can one-shot most yellow bar targets and heavily damage Champions. To compensate for its high damage, Flux Grenades has a lengthy ability cooldown.

Lightning Grenades behave similarly to Spike Grenades. This grenade will stick to a surface before detonation, releasing cone-shaped lightning bolts every 1.5 seconds. These lightning strikes deal massive damage and are an effective way of getting cleanup kills in PvP. If the Spark of Magnitude Fragment is equipped, the Lightning Grenade will last for two more seconds, releasing one more lightning blast.

Titans can use the Touch of Thunder

Aspect to buff Lightning Grenades even further, gaining a second grenade charge. Lightning Grenade blasts will also inflict Jolt with this Aspect equipped, greatly improving your add-clearing potential in PvE content.

Throw a grenade that explodes on contact, pulsing waves of damaging Arc lightning roughly every 0.75 seconds. By default, Pulse Grenades release five waves of energy before they dissipate, increased to seven pulses with the Spark of Magnitude

Fragment.

Titans can use the Touch of Thunder Aspect to buff Pulse Grenades further. Enhanced Pulse Grenades create Ionic Traces periodically when damaging targets—typically spawning three per grenade—and a damage ramp-up mechanic. Each pulse increases outgoing damage by roughly 4-6%, capping out at a 20% damage increase on the final pulse.

Skip Grenades split on contact with any surface, creating four projectiles that track nearby targets. These projectiles deal minimal damage, but they act as a great method of inflicting Jolt if the Spark of Shock Fragment is equipped. Hunters can buff this grenade through the Shinobu’s Vow

Exotic, spawning five highly aggressive projectiles on impact which refund 10% (3% in PvP) grenade energy per hit.

Storm Grenades form a cloud above the impact point, releasing a massive lightning bolt before creating a flurry of smaller bolts over the next two seconds. Only two lightning bolts can hit the same target per Storm Grenade. With Spark of Magnitude

equipped, the storm lasts for 2.75 seconds and can strike the same enemy three times.

This grenade is functionally different if the Touch of Thunder Aspect is equipped. With Touch of Thunder

equipped, Storm Grenades turn into roaming thunderclouds for roughly five seconds. The thundercloud will take 0.24 seconds to form before slowly gaining momentum for the next 1.3 seconds, capping out at a maximum speed of 3m/s.

The Touch of Thunder variant has no hit restrictions, so all lightning bolts can hit the same target. The bolts themselves are somewhat randomized, releasing sporadically during the grenade’s duration. Overall, Touch of Thunder greatly improves the single-target DPS of this grenade in PvE and makes Storm Grenades a hard counter to Barricades and Rifts in PvP.

Strike the target with a slightly stronger punch. Should this punch kill someone, you’ll gain the Combination Blow

buff for the next 20 seconds, increasing your melee damage by 60% per stack, which stacks multiplicatively. Combination Blow kills also partially heal you and fully refund your class ability energy.

This buff can stack up to three times, granting a 256% melee damage buff at max stacks. You can further increase your melee damage through the Lethal Current

Aspect, One-Two Punch Shotguns, and Tractor Cannon’s

Weaken effect. Stacking all of these buffs makes Combination Blow strong enough to one-shot Champions in Master content.

Punch the target with a vicious blow, dealing slightly more damage than a base melee. Hitting a target with Disorienting Blow

will grant Amplify for 15 seconds, grant x2 Bolt Charge, and inflict Blind on both the struck target and nearby targets. The benefits of Disorienting Blow can be replicated by using the Lethal Current

and Flow State

Aspects, making Combination Blow

an objectively better option for nearly all Arcstrider PvE builds.

While sprinting and in the air, using your melee ability will slam your Titan into the ground, dealing massive area damage. The slam radius is comparable to a Pulse Grenade

, and the damage is higher than your typical shoulder charge melee. Melee Exotics like Synthoceps

can greatly improve Ballistic Slam’s performance in endgame content.

Use your melee attack while sprinting to perform a shoulder charge. Striking a target will consume your melee charge and damage the target, inflicting Blind to all nearby foes. If you are Amplified, this blind radius is greatly increased, making Seismic Strike

a respectable crowd control ability for Legend-tier content.

Thunderclap

is Destiny 2’s first channeled melee skill. Pressing the melee key will commit your Titan to a wind-up animation. Releasing the key will unleash a bolt of lightning from your fist, dealing heavy damage to anyone caught in the blast.

You can increase the damage and reach of this blast by holding the melee key. If held for two seconds, Thunderclap will reach maximum strength and immediately activate. A fully charged Thunderclap deals immense damage in PvE and can instantly kill enemy Guardians in PvP.

Release a floating ball of Arc energy, releasing a lightning strike when it strikes a target or after traveling a certain distance. If you’re Amplified and cast Ball Lightning

, an additional lightning bolt spawns out of the projectile, making it a solid add-clearing skill for most PvE content.

Release chain lightning from your fingertips to a nearby enemy, Jolting them while chaining lightning between nearby targets. If you’re Amplified, Chain Lightning

will release another set of chain lightning. Only the initial target you hit will be Jolted, although the Jolt effect can trigger from the chain lightning melee itself, allowing you to clear an entire wave of enemies if the enemies are close enough.

Wield an electrified staff to perform a series of melee attacks. Light attacks weave multiple multi-hit combos, while your heavy attacks end your combo and deal much more damage. The damage potential of Arc Staff

is quite low, as with most roaming Supers, although you can greatly improve Arc Staff’s performance by using the Raiden Flux

Exotic.

Additionally, holding the block button will begin to spin your Arc Staff, reflecting all frontal projectiles. This includes weapons, grenades, melee abilities, and even Supers from enemy Guardians and Lucent Hive. Lingering effects you reflect are converted to your control until they disappear, including the ice tornado created by Silence and Squall

. You can further build into your Arc Staff’s block property by using the Raiju’s Harness

or Blight Ranger

Exotics.

Throw your Arc Staff at your reticle, embedding it into a surface (including enemies) and Jolting anything nearby. After a few seconds, the Arc Staff will explode, dealing massive damage while behaving like a tesla coil. Any enemies near the Arc Staff will take constant damage every second. This Super lasts for roughly ten seconds before it disappears.

Empower your knife with Arc energy and throw it forward. After it travels 30 meters or lands on a surface, you will teleport to your knife’s location and perform a circular slash, damaging all nearby foes. This deals lackluster damage in PvE and struggles to kill anything tougher than a major. In PvP, this is a one-hit kill that is incredibly difficult to escape.

After you cast your Super, you may recast Storm’s Edge two more times. This lets you perform three back-to-back slash teleports for some serious add clear or quick movement. As with Shadowshot: Moebius Quiver

, the Super bar will continue to drain once you cast Storm’s Edge, so you’ll want to recast your Super as soon as possible.

Infuse your body with Arc energy and obliterate your enemies with melee attacks. Light attacks in this Super behave similarly to Seismic Strike

, lunging you forward with a great deal of aim assist. Heavy attacks will slam your fists to the ground, dealing moderate damage to nearby targets. This is an effective Super in the Crucible, although its poor damage makes it a subpar choice in PvE content.

Turn into an Arc missile that flies through the air, creating a massive explosion on impact. You gain a massive boost in momentum while in Thundercrash, which slowly drops as the Super meter drains. Enemies you touch but don’t collide with will take a moderate amount of damage from your Arc trail, capable of one-tapping Guardians in PvP.

The shockwave itself deals mediocre damage in PvE but can be buffed with the Cuirass of the Falling Star

Exotic. After using this Super, the impact point will create an aftershock that’s similar to a Pulse Grenade

, releasing multiple waves of pulsing energy that damage targets caught within.

Manifest a torrent of Arc energy from your hand, destroying targets with a beam of pure lightning. The Super itself can be deactivated at any time by recasting Chaos Reach

, conserving a portion of your Super upon doing so. The damage is lackluster in PvE, although this can be increased by using the Geomag Stabilizers

Exotic. Chaos Reach is also a great shutdown Super in PvP.

Slam a lightning bolt into the ground before infusing yourself with Arc energy. Casting this Super creates a lightning landfall, releasing fissures of Arc energy along the ground that deal massive damage—capable of instantly killing Guardians in PvP.

Flow State

gives you easy access to Amplified by defeating any target affected by Jolt. The Amplified buff causes your Dodge to recharge 200% faster and grants 66% DR while in the animation. In PvP, this DR is reduced to 32%.

Amplified also grants a massive reload speed increase for all weapons. According to the Destiny Data Compendium, this value is +50 reload speed with a 0.8x duration scalar, meaning your weapons reload 20% faster than normal. This scalar applies regardless of your weapon’s reload speed stat.

Tempest Strike

returns from Middle Tree Arcstrider, this time acting as an alternate melee attack. While sliding, pressing the melee input will cause you to launch your Arc Staff forward, creating a wave of energy that travels a short distance in front of you. It deals heavy damage and inflicts Jolt to any survivors, which will usually trigger chain lightning immediately after the attack hits them.

Lethal Current

drastically increases your melee lunge range after you dodge, making it much easier to land your Combination or Disorienting Blow. Hitting a target with your charged melee will Jolt them and create an aftershock that’s similar to a Pulse Grenade

explosion. This Aspect affects your Arc Staff

Super as well, causing your attacks to strike twice after you dodge.

Finally, melee hits against jolted enemies inflict Blind. Combination Blow

can make great use of this to counter both Overload and Unstoppable Champions in PvE. This Aspect does not work with Tempest Strike

. You cannot refresh Lethal Current while it’s active.

Ascension gives you an aerial attack you can use by pressing the air move key. At the cost of your class ability, you twirl your Arc Staff and gain some altitude, releasing a wave of Arc energy under you. Enemies are damaged and debuffed with Jolt. In PvE, the Jolt effect is triggered immediately after you cast this ability, making this a powerful add-clearing tool.

You and any allies hit by the wave become Amplified. This gives the Arcstrider a way to become Amplified from neutral, a fairly powerful effect inside the Crucible. Casting this ability will also trigger your dodge’s intrinsic property—reloading your weapon for Marksman’s Dodge and refunding melee energy for Gambler’s Dodge.

Touch of Thunder

is similar to the Touch of Winter

Aspect for Revenant Hunters, improving the Titan’s grenades in various ways:

All other Arc grenades listed do not receive any benefits from Touch of Thunder.

Juggernaut returns from the original Destiny, granting you a frontal shield that absorbs damage while sprinting with full Barricade energy. Taking damage from the front will grant a stack of Bolt Charge, although a fully-broken shield will consume your Barricade. This does not trigger armor mods that are related to Barricade casts—Dynamo, Bomber, etc.

By default, Juggernaut absorbs 50 points of damage. While Amplified, Juggernaut absorbs 75 points of damage. Using another source of overshields with Juggernaut—Sentinel’s Bastion

effect or Mk. 44 Stand Asides

—will grant the overshield itself but won’t affect the Juggernaut frontal shield.

In PvE, Juggernaut also grants 33% damage resistance while active, stacking multiplicatively with other DR sources.

Knockout

is mostly the same as it was in Arc 2.0. All of your melee kills grant a chunk of HP and immediately trigger your passive health regeneration, affected by the Recovery stat. Taking damage immediately ends the health regeneration effect. Critically wounding an enemy grants a six-second buff that extends your melee range and increases melee damage.

While Knockout is active, your melee abilities are also empowered, granting more damage that stacks with the other melee buff provided by Knockout. In total, your melee attacks deal 50% more damage while Knockout is active—reduced to 20% more damage in PvP—uncharged or otherwise. Uncharged melee attacks deal 100% more damage (50% in PvP).

Additionally, Knockout causes your uncharged melees to count as charged Arc melees, allowing your punches to proc armor mods and certain melee Exotics like Severance Enclosure

.

Using your class ability will grant x4 stacks of Bolt Charge, increased to x6 if you cast Thruster. This lets you easily infuse your abilities with Bolt Charge explosions through aggressive play.

However, if you decide to use a Barricade in place of Thruster, you’ll passively build Bolt Charge while standing behind your Barricade. Allies get this benefit as well. Additionally, all weapon damage can proc Bolt Charge explosions while you’re behind your Barricade, drastically increasing your team’s DPS in raids and dungeons.

Arc Soul

should be familiar to Warlock players who used Stormtrance

before Arc 3.0. Creating a Rift will cause all affected allies to gain an Arc Soul, a floating turret that lasts for 15 seconds. This turret fires slow-moving Arc projectiles in short bursts.

You may only be affected by one Arc Soul at a time. Gaining an Arc Soul again will refresh your current Arc Soul’s duration instead. Arc Soul can be used alongside No Time to Explain’s Time Portal and similar turret effects.

Lightning Surge

is a new ability that allows the Warlock to teleport with their melee ability. Sliding and activating your melee ability will turn you into a lightning orb, teleporting a short distance forward. The end of the teleport will spawn multiple lightning bolts that deal moderate damage, functionally identical to a Storm Grenade

.

Using this ability consumes your melee charge, regardless of whether it hits anyone. Additionally, any enemies struck by Lightning Surge will grant x1 Bolt Charge.

Electrostatic Mind

allows you to create Ionic Traces by defeating enemies affected by Blind or Jolt. An Ionic Trace will spawn right after the enemy dies, acting as an Arc fissure that tracks to your location. Grabbing the Ionic Trace grants 12.5% ability energy and, thanks to the Aspect, makes you Amplified.

Ionic Sentry works similarly to Hunter’s Gunpowder Gamble Aspect, granting you stacks of Ionic Sentry as you land Kinetic and Arc weapon kills. At x6 stacks, your next grenade is replaced with a tesla coil grenade, spawning an Arc turret that zaps nearby targets with chain lightning. This damage does not Jolt, but it does grant stacks of Bolt Charge.

As of writing, Ionic Sentry does not have any synergies with the Stormcaller kit. It does not activate Electrostatic Mind

despite being an Arc ability, it does not proc Spark of Ions

, and is unaffected by grenade mods.