Best Destiny 2 Hunter Solar Builds for PvE and PvP (2024)

Are you a Hunter main and want to take your game to the next level? These are the best Hunter Solar builds in Destiny 2, including builds for endgame and Solo players. And by the way, as any top-tier Hunter build, these will guide you every step of the way, including essential Exotics, Mods, and more.

Top Solar Hunter builds

--	Name	Class	Area	Subclass	Excels in	Element	Status
	Radiant Assassin	Hunter	PvE	Solar	Solo Content	Solar	Top 3
	Galanor’s Propellant	Hunter	PvE	Solar	Endgame	Solar
	Caliban's Proximity	Hunter	PvE	Solar	Endgame	Solar

Best Hunter Solar builds for PvE

Updated as of Season of the Wish (S23).

Radiant Assassin

Excels in: Solo Content

Goal of the Build: Have infinite survivability through invisibility and a constant source of healing by having access to unlimited throwing knives.

Mandatory Gear:Assassin's Cowl

Shards of Galanor and Dragon’s Breath. A Solar Primary and close-range Special weapon are recommended.

Name: Assassin's Cowl

Class: Hunter Slot: Helm

Source: Exotic Engrams Requires: Shadowkeep

Exotic Perk: Powered melee final blows grant invisibility and restore a portion of health and shields. Finishers and final blows against more powerful targets increase the duration of the invisibility and the amount of health and shields.

	CALUS Mini-Tool	Submachine Gun	Primary	Solar	Presage
	Heritage	Shotgun	Special	Kinetic	Deep Stone Crypt Raid

• Aspects: Knock ‘em Dow and On Your Mark (to equip 5 Fragments).
• Fragments: Ember of Torches, Ember of Mercy, Ember of Torches, Ember of Empyrean, Ember of Singeing, and Ember of Searing.
• Abilities: Blade Barrage, Gambler’s Dodge, Knife Trick, and Healing Grenade.
• Stats Priority: Resilience 🡒 Discipline 🡒 Mobility.
• Mods:
  • Helmet: Hands-On, Harmonic Siphon, Powerful Friends.
  • Arms: Heavy Handed, Focusing Strike, Impact Induction.
  • Chest: Concussive Dampener and Resistance Mods based on your enemies.
  • Legs: Weapon Surge Mods matching your weapons.
  • Class Item: Time Dilation, Reaper, Powerful Attraction.

Gameplay Loop

The gameplay loop is quite simple with Assassin’s Cowl. The goal is to chain Knife Trick kills together to ensure maximum uptime on your invisibility and to have as much healing as possible. If you miss, Gambler’s Dodge is there to pick up the slack and provide you with another melee. Gambler’s Dodge and your melee will also recharge faster by scorching enemies with your Knife Trick.

You also have options like Healing Grenade if you find yourself out of a dodge and a melee ability. This can help fill in the gaps where you may miss your abilities on a target and need some survivability.

You always want to land the final blow with your knives, so if you can’t outright one-shot an enemy, prime them first with your weapon and finish them with the knife. Constantly getting kills with your knives will spam Orbs of Power for yourself and for your team.

Galanor’s Propellant

Excels in: Endgame (Dungeons, Raids, Legend content)

Goal of the Build: Combo your abilities to keep causing Ignitions to fuel Dragon’s Breath.

Mandatory Gear: Shards of Galanor and Dragon’s Breath. A Solar Primary and Kinetic slot Fusion Rifle are recommended.

Name: Shards of Galanor

Class: Hunter Slot: Arms

Source: Exotic Engrams Requires: Forsaken Pack

Exotic Perk: Hits and kills with Blade Barrage will return Super energy after the Super ends.

	Dragon's Breath	Rocket Launcher	Heavy	Solar	Season Pass
	CALUS Mini-Tool	Submachine Gun	Primary	Solar	Presage
	Riptide	Fusion Rifle	Special	Stasis	Playlist: Crucible

• Aspects: Knock 'em Down. Gunpowder Gamble or On Your Mark is up to you.
• Fragments: Ember of Empyrean, Ember of Torches, Ember of Ashes, and Ember of Singeing.
• Abilities: Blade Barrage, Gambler’s Dodge, Knife Trick, and Healing Grenade.
• Stats Priority: Resilience 🡒 Discipline 🡒 Intellect.
• Mods:
  • Helmet: Hands-On, Solar Siphon, and Heavy Ammo Finder.
  • Arms: Heavy Handed, Impact Induction, and Focusing Strike.
  • Chest: Resistance Mods based on your enemies.
  • Legs: 2x Solar Weapon Surge and 1x Weapon Surge Mod matching your Kinetic weapon.
  • Class Item: Time Dilation, Reaper, and Powerful Attraction.

Gameplay Loop

This build entirely revolves around building your Super as fast as possible. Thanks to Shards of Galanor’s ‘Sharp Edges’ perk, we can refund up to 50% of our Super if we hit all our Blade Barrage Knives. Additionally, killing enemies with our Knife Trick will net us between 2.5-5% Super energy. This, coupled with the Super energy gain from Hands-On, nets us our Super in no time at all.

Dragon’s Breath is one of the main sources of damage we have, and to fuel it (literally), we want to cause as many Ignitions as we can. This is possible thanks to Knife Trick’s high Scorch potential and Ember of Ashes and Focusing Strike refunding our Gambler’s Dodge as often as possible.

A Fusion Rifle like Scatter Signal or Riptide allows us to get our Super back even faster as these weapons generate Super energy incredibly fast. Super energy is generated through ‘instances of damage’, not the damage value itself, meaning that every single bolt from the Fusion Rifle will grant a small bit of Super energy.

Overall, look to spam your Knife Trick to build Super energy, make sure that you are getting the full 50% refund on Blade Barrage, and look to cause as many Ignitions as you can when damaging a boss, granting your Dragon’s Breath as much power as possible.

Caliban's Proximity

Excels in: Endgame (Dungeons, Raids, Legend content)

Goal of the Build: Chain Proximity Knives back to back with constant Radiant while causing Ignitions to clear waves of enemies.

Mandatory Gear: Caliban's Hand. A weapon with Swashbuckler is recommended (Dragon’s Breath can also help).

Name: Caliban's Hand

Class: Hunter Slot: Arms

Source: Lost Sectors Requires: The Witch Queen

Exotic Perk: Your Proximity Knife scorches targets it damages with its explosions, or ignites targets on a direct hit. After throwing a Proximity Knife, you gain increased melee regeneration until the knife explodes.

Dragon's Breath

Rocket Launcher

Heavy

Solar

Season Pass

• Aspects: Knock ‘em Down and Gunpowder Gamble for ad clear (or On Your Mark for an extra Fragment slot).
• Fragments: Ember of Torches, Ember of Empyrean, Ember of Eruption. The other Fragment is up to you.
• Abilities: Blade Barrage, Proximity Knife, and Healing Grenade for constant Restoration.
• Stats Priority: Max Mobility 🡒 Max Resilience 🡒 Discipline.
• Mods:
  • Helmet: Hands-On, Heavy Ammo Finder, Heavy Ammo Scout.
  • Arms: Heavy Handed, Impact Induction, and Focusing Strike.
  • Chest: Concussive Dampener and Resistance Mods based on your enemies.
  • Legs: Weapon Surge Mods matching your weapons.
  • Class Item: Time Dilation and x2 Outreach.

Gameplay Loop

The gameplay loop for this build is very simple. The only condition that you must always meet to keep the engine running is a kill with your Proximity Knife. That is it. The build is entirely dependent on your knives, which is why you are going to want to have your Gambler’s Dodge always ready as a backup option.

With your Fragment choices, you will be able to create constant orbs through Ember of Wonder, and with Ember of Blistering, you can have high uptime on your Grenades, allowing for either more survivability with Healing Grenade or even more burning with Solar Grenade.

Getting the final blow with the knife is key. The additional Scorch damage from the Proximity Knife does not count as a knife kill, thus not causing the Ignition.

Don’t miss our: Top Destiny 2 Hunter Void Builds

Best Hunter PvP builds

PvP Essentials

Step one to playing Hunter in PvP is understanding that your Dodge is the strongest ability in your kit. Because of this, maximizing Mobility is a very standard choice for the shortest cooldown on your Dodge. Making sure that you have maximum Recovery is also recommended.

Hunters come with the benefit of being able to completely ignore the Strength stat, as using Gambler’s Dodge allows you to completely refund your melee ability when dodging near an enemy. This lets you dump the rest of your stat points into Discipline and Resilience. Personally, I choose to run 100 Mobility, Recovery, and Discipline; however, feel free to adapt some stats to your own preference.

Hunter Subclasses: Ranked

There will always be a ‘meta’ option for PvP, but every Hunter subclass is viable in its own way, with its own set of pros and cons.

Gunslinger

Gunslinger can be set up in numerous ways. You can focus on making your allies Radiant with Acrobat’s Dodge, you can go for maximum explosions with Proximity Knives and Tripmine Grenades, or you can play more passively and utilize your agility to survive combined with Healing Grenades. The choice is entirely yours.

Pros:

• Wide variety of melee options
• Has excellent teamplay with On Your Mark and Acrobat’s Dodge
• Powerful Supers in Golden Gun and Blade Barrage

Cons:

• Only has two truly viable aspects. Gunpowder Gamble is too niche for consistent use.
• Aspects don’t overly alter gameplay in an incredibly potent manner compared to Invisibility on Nightstalker.
• Lack of map control/area control capabilities that Smoke Bomb and Stasis both bring.

Best PvP Hunter Exotics

General Exotics

Armor	Class	Type	Requirements	Source	Released	Requires	Exotic Perk
Fr0st-EE5	Hunter	Legs	Free-to-Play	Exotic Engrams	Season 3	Free-to-Play	Exotic Perk: "Increased grenade, melee, and dodge regeneration while sprinting. Dodging increases your sprint speed."
St0mp-EE5	Hunter	Legs	Free-to-Play	Exotic Engrams	Season 1	Free-to-Play	Exotic Perk: "Increases sprint speed and slide distance while your dodge energy is full and improves High Jump, Strafe Jump, and Triple Jump."
Wormhusk Crown	Hunter	Helm	Free-to-Play	Exotic Engrams	Season 3	Free-to-Play	Exotic Perk: "We strive to know infinity, and sharpen our minds on the whetstone of the impossible."

Due to a lack of prerequisites, neutral and more passive Exotics are often favored in PvP. Therefore, Stompees, Wormhusk, and Frostees always find a place in the meta for Hunters as they provide benefits while requiring nothing/very little to receive benefits from.

Stompees are still one of the most enjoyable Hunter exotics for PvP. The nerfs it received have affected viability quite a lot; however, they are still my pick if I’m playing PvP as they are just so fun to use.

Wormhusk Crown has been in the meta since it was released back in the Warmind DLC. Wormhusk provides unmatched instant value as it gives around a third of your health back for simply dodging. This allows you to take riskier engagements and get out with ease. Dodging is already a ‘get out of jail free card’, and Wormhusk takes this to another level.

Frostees are the pick for players who want high-ability uptime but don’t want to commit to a full-on build. By merely sprinting, you can increase your ability recharge rate by 100% and increase your Sprint Speed by 6.25% by simply dodging. Frostees will always serve players well when they want to maybe switch it up from the Stompees, but want to retain some movement speed and have high ability uptime.

Subclass-specific Exotics

Subclass-specific Exotics normally see less use overall as they have more requirements to satisfy to reach their full potential. However, their raw strength often makes up for it.

Young Ahamkara’s Spine is very simple on paper. However, this simplicity shouldn’t be seen as a weakness. Ahamkara’s Spine increases Tripmine Grenade damage massively to the point where it will leave your opponent at death’s door, requiring a single shot from any weapon in the game to finish them off. Furthermore, Ahamkara’s Spine also grants Tripmine energy on Ability damage, allowing you to further abuse your explosive power.

Before you go…

You can find all the best builds in Destiny 2here.