Destiny 2 Season of the Risen Artifact Mods

We got a brand new season with the launch of Witch Queen, meaning we’ve got an entirely new artifact to run through and dissect. While it’s still early days, the community has already begun pointing out possible combinations and synergies to replace the fusion rifle dominance of last season. I’ve taken the liberty of running through the Destiny 2 Season of the Risen artifact mods myself, highlighting everything that I think will be important for the next three months. 

I’ve been playing Destiny since day one of Destiny 1, so I’ve got over seven years of experience to pull from with this commentary, although feel free to disagree with my assessments. Just don’t blame me when my META predictions come through.

Destiny 2 Season of the Risen Artifact Mods

Champion Mods

Let’s address the elephant in the room first. With the exception of Overload Grenades, the only Overload Champion weapons we have are auto rifles and submachine guns. I don’t know if any of you guys remember SMG Overload from before Season 15, but it’s a nightmare. It’s nearly impossible to stun Overloads with both ARs and SMGs, with Bungie itself admitting in a tweet that Overload champs are still bugged to high hell. 

There is a silver lining, though, and that’s the fact that we seem to be steering away from Champion-dominated activities. At least, partially. Lightbearing Hive take their place in The Witch Queen content, and the new Season 16 stuff seems to be pretty light on them, too. 

Aside from Overloads, the Champion mods we’ve got this season are pretty good. Scout Champion mods are always welcome regardless of category, in this case being Anti-Barrier, and Unstoppable hand cannon is also a welcome sight. 

Alternatively, bow Anit-Barrier and pulse rifle Unstoppable are also great picks, so hopefully, Champions aren’t too much of a pain for the next few months. 

On the utility side of things, we’ve got Solar Unstoppable melee, which is whatever, and Void Overload grenades. Given the new Void subclass and how terrible our Overload mod is this season, expect everyone and their grandma to be using this. 

Mid-Tier Mods

From the mid-tier mods, it’s clear that Bungie wants us all using Elemental Well mods this season. I wouldn’t have a problem with that, except that it’s near impossible to actually collect the wells you generate on Grandmaster difficulty. 

However, that’s clearly the way the META is going regardless, so everyone’s going to have to get in line. 

In particular, we’ve got both Font of Might and Melee Wellmaker as artifact mods, each only costing one energy as opposed to the default four. While Melee Wellmaker isn’t for every Well build, Font of Might is, especially at one energy. So, expect to see this mod on most builds for the rest of Season 16. 

That’s not to say that Melee Wellmaker doesn’t have its place, though. The most effective builds right now for both Titans and Hunters take advantage of melees, so it will also see some heavy use. 

Aside from those two, Thermoshock plating is something that will see universal play regardless of build, class, or ability. 

It’s a resist mod that doubles up on Solar and Arc, meaning it’s now possible to run resistance against all three regular energy types. There’s little to no reason to not be running this on every single one of your chest pieces, especially at two energy. 

Lastly, Glaive Scavenger is going to see a lot of play with Glaive builds, obviously, so that’s also worth an unlock.

End-Game Mods

Champion mods and mid-tier mods are great and important, but the real meat of the META lies in the last two columns. 

Anyone who’s played Destiny before would have been able to tell you that this season’s META will be revolving around Void and Glaives, given that they’re new. 

Of course, that’s exactly what’s after happening, with all five of the tier-five artifact mods being related to the new Void subclass debuffs. All five of them are worth using, too, so it’s a good thing we’re no longer limited on how many artifact mods we can unlock. 

Call me crazy (and my clanmates have done exactly that), but I’m telling you that Glaives are going to be META this season, especially on Hunters who can use them to maintain 100% uptime on their invisibility. 

Aside from that, there are two artifact mods that make me think we’ll see Glaives at all levels of content. The first is Suppressing Glaive. This mod Suppresses anything you hit with your Glaive, preventing them from using abilities for a short period of time. This is going to be the mod that powers the entire Glaive engine, and is great for dealing with Majors and Lightbearers. 

There are three different tier-five mods that benefit from enemies being suppressed. One of them is significantly better than the others, but all three will be worth using, especially as we know have extra mod slots thanks to the Grasp of Avarice Master armor. 

The first of the bunch is Suppression Mastery. This mod simply increases the duration of your Suppression effects. Out of all three, this is the one I think will see the second least amount of play. You should be constantly applying the Suppression debuff with your Glaive, so having increased duration won’t matter. However, for any non-Galive Suppression builds, this will be worth using.

The second mod is Energy Vampirism. This is the mod I see being used the least out of all of them, even on Glaive-based Suppression builds. 

It has the effect of giving you energy for your least charged ability whenever you Suppress a target. This might sound underwhelming, but it really isn’t. Consider just how many enemies you’re going to end up Suppressing with Void builds this season. If you play your cards right, literally every single enemy you fight should be Suppressed, meaning your uptime on Energy Vampirism is going to be through the roof. 

Last but certainly not least, we’ve got Suppressive Darkness. This is, by far, the most important artifact mod this season, and its seven energy cost reflects that. 

Its effect, on paper, is simple. Whenever you Suppress a target, you also Weaken it, causing it to take more damage for a short period of time. 

The synergy here is self-explanatory. If you’re Suppressing everything, then you’re Weakening everything, meaning you’re applying constant debuffs to whatever you hit. Not only will you be destroying minor enemies with this build, but bosses should also go down in seconds. 

I’m not talking about yellow-bar mini-bosses, either. I’m talking about full-fledged strike and mission bosses. Trust me, take this synergy into a fight against Legendary Savathun and watch the carnage. You’ll be able to one-phase her with time to spare, all while using a melee weapon. 

Hopefully, this power translates over into Grandmasters and the new raid. It should for Hunters, at the very least. 

Those are the highlights for the Destiny 2 Season of the Risen artifact mods. For more guides and related content, check out our website’s Destiny 2 section.