A new over-powered Warlock Exotic combo is taking over Destiny 2 in Beyond Light

A new combination of Exotics has led to a seriously overpowered build that is sure to carry you through PvE content and lead to some cheeky kill streaks in PvP.

This is done through the new Warlock Exotic Gauntlets, Necrotic Grip, and the Exotic Hand Cannon Thorn.

How to Get These Exotics

Necrotic Grip - These Exotic Gauntlets were released with Beyond Light and can be acquired through completing one of the new Master or Legend Lost Sectors on Europa and the Cosmodrome. These Lost Sectors must be completed solo in order to qualify for a chance at the Exotic dropping. The available Legend and Master Lost Sector will rotate daily with the type of Exotic armors drops available also rotating.

Thorn - Since Thorn's questline takes place on a vaulted destination the weapon can instead be obtained from the Exotic Archive which is next to the Vaults in the Tower. This will set you back an Ascendant Shard, an Exotic Cipher, some planetary materials, and a large sum of glimmer.

How the Combo Works

Necrotic Grip causes the user’s melee attacks to infect the target with a damage over time poison that will slowly ramp up in damage. If the target dies while it's poisoned it will spread this poison to those enemies around it. This chain of poison is able to spread infinitely as long as there are enough enemies close enough to maintain the effect. As an added effect, melee energy is restored whenever a target spreads the poison to another target.

The damage over time is substantial and so Necrotic Grip isn't just suited towards taking care of lesser enemies. A single hit against a Major enemy will normally be enough to kill it, unless it's an enemy with high health like an Ogre, so you are then able to take cover while it slowly dies or spend time dealing with other enemies.

This poison can also be activated by ranged melee attacks such as Dawn Blade’s Celestial Fire.

Now, the interaction that really brings this combo to the next level is that this spreading poison will also activate on any kills obtained on an enemy that is currently affected by Thorn’s own poison damage. At the moment it isn't totally clear if this interaction is intended by Bungie. It’s possible that the poison on Thorn is coded in a similar way to the poison on Necrotic Grips and so the game doesn't recognize the difference, causing this interesting interaction.

It goes without saying that this is extremely powerful in PvE content. Necrotic Grips by themselves are able to clear out entire areas of enemies with a single melee attack but combine this with Thorn to start the chain reaction, or restart it if enemies are too far from each other, this can trivialize most PvE content if you are anywhere near the recommended level.

This interaction lends itself quite nicely to PvP too. Killing a Guardian with Thorn will spread the poison from Necrotic Grip to other nearby Guardians although it will do significantly less damage over time than it does in PvE.

However, this reduced damage is still enough for a Thorn with Soul Devourer active to kill a Guardian already affected by Necrotic Grips in two body shots if they aren't running high Resilience. This spreading poison also has a few other benefits such as canceling health regeneration of affected Guardians and allowing you to track these Guardians through walls with the damage numbers.

Honestly, this interaction feels like it is not intended by Bungie and that it will possibly be fixed within the coming days or these Exotics might be disabled until a fix can be completed. Bungie was quick to disable Witherhoard when it was found it was doing more damage in PvP than intended so be sure to use this interaction to your advantage while you can.