New Season of Arrival mod 'Lucent Blade' is finally making Destiny 2 swords good

With the release of Season of Arrival, and its new Seasonal mods, one somewhat under-utilised Heavy weapon has gained some ways to significantly up its damage against Major and Boss enemies.

This new build has raised this weapon to the top end of the DPS charts and created fun new ways to deal with Destiny 2’s toughest enemies. This is the Lucent Blade Sword build.

Mods

Lucent Blade

This build heavily revolves around the new mod added in Season of Arrival named ‘Lucent Blade’ and the ‘Charged with Light’ mechanic that was introduced in Season of Dawn.

This mod has an Arc affinity and its description reads: “While Charged With Light, dealing damage with a Sword gives you bonus Sword damage for 5 seconds, consuming one stack of Charged with Light.”.

This mod also has a secondary effect where if another Arc mod is equipped onto the same armor item it greatly increases the charge rate of the equipped Sword.

This Lucent Blade mod gives a whopping 35% increase to Sword damage once it is activated. To activate it we first need to be Charged with Light which does require some more mods and a little bit of setup. The mod also takes 4 Energy to slot in.

Taking Charge

The fastest and easiest way to become Charge with Light is to use the Season of Dawn mod ‘Taking Charge’ which gives one stack of Charged with Light for every Orb of Light that is picked up.

This can be easily combined with a Primary Masterworked weapon to make a constant supply of Orbs to keep the Stacks of Light at their maximum.

Taking Charge has no elemental affinity or armor type so can be slotted into any piece of gear that can take a Season of Dawn mod. This is an essential mod for this build.

Supercharged

Another Season of Dawn armor mod that should be used is the mod ‘Supercharged’ which increases the maximum number of Charged with Light stacks from 3 to 5. This mod has a Solar affinity and costs 5 energy.

This increase in available stacks will essentially increase the uptime for the increased Sword damage and increase the overall DPS of the build. This mod is essential.

Oppressive Darkness

Oppressive Darkness is an Artifact mod that causes an enemy to take an extra 30% damage for a short time after it is damaged by a Void grenade.

While this mod is not essential for the build to work who can say no to an extra 30% damage?

The only downside to this mod is that it can only slot into a Class Item and costs 6 energy.

Stacks on Stacks

Another Dawn mod that isn't 100% necessary but will give you some breathing room with generating Orbs of Light is ‘Stacks on Stacks’. This mod gives you an extra stack of Charged with Light for every stack of Charged with Light. Essentially this mod doubles the value of each Orb of Light so can be of great use if you are struggling with consistently generating Orbs.

Stacks on Stacks has Void affinity, takes 4 energy and unfortunately comes with a drawback of giving a -10 Recovery stat debuff so just be aware of that.

Misc. Mods

That’s all of the necessary mods but to bring this build up to its full effectiveness be sure to add in more Sword mods such as the Enhanced Sword Scavenger from the Artifact, Sword Reserves and Sword Ammo Finder.

Weapons

One of the big reasons that this Sword build managed to take off was partly due to the introduction of two new Swords in Season of Arrival that have amazing DPS all by themselves.

Temptation’s Hook

Temptation’s Hook is an Arc damage Sword that can be obtained through Umbral Engrams or the Contact public event. This Sword has a special heavy attack that allows the player to launch a disc of Arc energy at enemies that deals large amounts of damage to them over a few seconds.

This type of attack directly counteracts the main drawback of using Swords and that is that usually you need to be up close and in the thick of combat in order to deal damage.

With this ranged attack you are able to safely use up all your Charged with Light stacks by constantly throwing empowered Arc discs at enemies. Just be sure to wait for the Sword energy to refill before firing again as otherwise the attack will deal hardly any damage.

Another big reason why this Sword can be the Sword of choice for this build is that it is one of the only Swords in the game that can roll with the Vorpal Weapon perk.

This perk gives a straight up damage buff to the weapon when it is used against Bosses, Vehicles and player Supers.

This damage buff is a meaty 15% increase which stacks on top of the extra damage granted by Lucent Blade. With Vorpal Weapon and Lucent Blade, Temptation’s Hook is a monster of a weapon that can make short work of even the toughest enemies the game has to offer.

Falling Guillotine

Falling Guillotine is another Sword that pairs nicely with the above build and can be acquired through reaching level 30 of the Season Pass.

Later in the Season Pass there are passive bonuses that can be acquired that allow this Sword to also drop from some of the core modes as well.

Falling Guillotine is a Void damage that also has a unique heavy attack like Temptation’s Hook but instead of a ranged attack this Sword can perform a powerful spin attack that deals damage in an area around the player.

This attack deals a crazy amount of damage that is able to easily deal with Major enemies before the Lucent Blade buff is even applied.

Unfortunately, Falling Guillotine cannot roll with Vorpal Weapon like Temptation’s Hook for an easy extra 15% damage.

However, Falling Guillotine can roll with Whirlwind Blade which increases its damage for each rapid hit that is landed up to a stack of five.

Five stacks of this buff give a 30% increase in damage although it does require some time to gain these stacks.

When DPSing a boss it’s a good idea to land a few rapid light attacks and then follow up with the high damage heavy attack to make great use of Whirlwind Blade.

Other Weapons

For this build the Primary and Secondary weapons don’t overly matter to a great degree, just be sure to use weapons that have been fully Masterworked and that you feel comfortable using to chain kills together in order to create Orbs of Light.