Assembler Well

A Warlock brings three things to a damage phase: the Well, raw damage, and the debuff. The mistake is trying to hold all three at once. This is the Well seat, built so the person sitting in it still puts up numbers instead of also carrying Tractor Cannon.

Well of Radiance is the easiest long-lasting 35% damage buff in the game and it is not going anywhere. Boots of the Assembler is what makes the seat worth a Warlock rather than a bystander: Blessing of Order spawns Noble Seekers out of your rift that fly to allies, and out of an empowering rift they carry the damage bonus to them. Every seeker that lands returns class ability energy, so the rift pays for itself.

Written for boss damage phases in a fireteam — it assumes somebody else is on the debuff.

How it plays

Place the Well, then run the swap loop. Four pieces of TM Custom give you High Noon, which makes a freshly drawn weapon deal increased precision damage for a few seconds and refreshes every single time you swap. It measures at about 7%, which is small, but nothing else in the game wants this rotation and it is free.

Hone Izanagi’s Burden, fire the Honed Edge shot, re-hone it, and put it away. Drawing the Refurbished A499 refreshes High Noon, and the window is long enough for two shots before you go back to Izanagi’s. Back and forth until Izanagi’s runs out of ammo, then dump the rest of the heavy sniper. Around 40 seconds of that is 4–5k DPS and roughly 200k total, which is a lot for a subclass with no damage Super.

Aspects are Hellion and Icarus Dash, fragments are Embers of Singeing, Benevolence, Ashes, Torches and Searing. None of it is load-bearing — it is ordinary Solar Warlock neutral game, and the DIM link carries it.

Why the gear

All the Refurbished A499 needs is Aggregate Charge plus Accelerated Assault in the shiny socket. Everything else on the roll is noise. Izanagi’s Burden is the other half of the loop and needs nothing said about it.

The Artifact is the Encrypted Data Disk, and it stays the Artifact for all three Warlock damage seats. Sniper’s Meditation is the damage; Kinetic Rupture, Kinetic Synthesis and Reload at Range are what keep a 40-second rotation from falling apart. The Hunter’s Journal also carries Sniper’s Meditation, but nothing else on it feeds a kinetic sniper.

Keraunios is the one piece of this Loadout with no argument behind it. In the source it is only ever a third thing to draw, and drawing anything refreshes High Noon. Treat the energy slot as free.

TM Custom is the Spire of the Watcher dungeon armour. Four pieces of it and Vault of Glass are the only two Armour sets worth wearing into a damage phase, and this is the one you never have to think about.

The spread

175 Weapons is where the source’s own armour lands; better tunings take it to 185 or 190. Super comes off the armour at 150 and reaches 200 with three Super fonts in the helmet, which stretches Well of Radiance from 30 seconds to 40 — the whole reason to chase the stat here. Class is the tertiary, because Hellion is a second source of damage you cast by using your class ability.