Destiny 2 Reactive Pulse – What it is and What it Does

Destiny 2’s Reactive Pulse mod is an odd one. It’s one of the strongest mods in all of Destiny 2, but not for the reason you might think. I’m going to break Reactive Pulse down for you and go over why it’s so popular. I’ll be looking at what Reactive Pulse is, what it does, and how you can get it. It’s one of the best mods for Grandmaster Nightfalls, of all things, so that speaks to just how powerful it is.

Destiny 2 Reactive Pulse – What it Does

Destiny 2’s Reactive Pulse is a Charged with Light (CWL) combat-style mod. Its element is Arc and it costs three energy to equip – so it’s relatively cheap compared to other CWL mods.

With Reactive Pulse equipped and at least one stack of CWL, being damaged while surrounded by enemies will emit an Arc shockwave from your body – dealing damage to any enemies caught in the blast. That sounds interesting, but the damage that it does is negligible. No, the reason people run Reactive Pulse in Destiny 2 is because of the mod’s second effect.

When Reactive Pulse is slotted into a piece of armor with another Arc mod, it grants you overshields any time you’re in a finisher animation. This has two high-tier use cases that make it incredible at high levels of gameplay.

First, is the fact that you can run it with Aeon Exotic armor. These armor pieces are popular at Grandmaster level for finishing Champions to keep your Fireteam stocked with heavy ammo. Generally, you’ll be finishing Champions in a controlled environment, but the added overshield from Reactive Pulse certainly does help.

The second use case is for any Void Hunter mains out there. Void Hunters, with the right equipment, can maintain 100% uptime on their invisibility. That, combined with the Gyrfalcon’s Hauberk exotic and Echo of Obscurity, is ludicrously powerful. Gyrfalcon’s Hauberk will give you and your Fireteam a reserve overshield whenever you finish an enemy while you’re invisible. It’ll also make all nearby enemies volatile. Echo of Obscurity makes you turn invisible by finishing targets. I’m sure you can see the synergy here.

Reactive Pulse is far better for Hunters than Warlocks or Titans, but all classes should consider running it if they find themselves using Aeon Cult at any point.

Destiny 2 Reactive Pulse – How to Get it

Like every mod, Reactive Pulse can only be obtained from Ada-1 in the Tower Annex. Ada only sells four mods daily – only two of which can be combat-style mods. On occasion, she may only actually have one combat-style mod to buy, and that’s randomly selected from a pool consisting of Well mods, Warmind mods, and Charged with Light mods.

These randomly selected mods rotate daily, so the only way to get Reactive Pulse in Destiny 2 is to check in with Ada each reset. If you’re lucky, you’ll catch it on a day when it’s for sale.

Related: What is the Destiny 2 Firepower Mod