Highlights
- Strand Titans dominate endgame content in Destiny 2 with The Navigator Exotic, allowing for incredible DPS and solo boss clears.
- The Navigator’s Exotic Catalyst creates Grapple Tangles, enabling infinite uses of Strand Grapple Melees for maximum damage.
- While The Navigator may face potential nerfs in the future, current Destiny 2 players can benefit greatly from its OP abilities.
Destiny 2 sits as one of the best looter-shooters on the market, and a big reason why is that players have plenty of gear to find and options to choose from in every activity. Of course, guns are a huge part of the gameplay loop, and Destiny 2‘s Exotic weapons can be particularly interesting due to their unique and sometimes build-enabling perks, such as Ager’s Scepter for Stasis or Sunshot for Solar. While Destiny 2‘s Raid and Dungeon Exotics can be hit or miss and rarely key to a given build, a recent addition has skyrocketed to the very top of the meta – particularly for Strand subclasses and low-man PvE content, like Dungeons.
While Destiny 2‘s endgame activities vary in difficulty and player numbers, most of them have some encounters that act as survivability or DPS checks, and dealing as much damage as possible in each boss phase or to targets like Champions can make the difference. When it comes to Destiny 2‘s Strand subclasses, they can be great across the board at different roles, but one of the core conceits is that Grapple is one of the best abilities in the game thanks to its mobility and Grapple Melee. Enter The Navigator Exotic trace rifle, and now the endgame meta has some clear winners.
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Destiny 2’s The Navigator Takes Strand Melee Builds to The Next Level
How The Navigator’s Exotic Catalyst Changes Strand Gameplay
Destiny 2‘s Ghosts Of The Deep Dungeon wasn’t met with glaring opinions, and that’s mainly because of the exceedingly big health bar of the final boss, so that may be one of the reasons why The Navigator didn’t pick up in popularity from the get-go. Though its support functions are great, The Navigator is capable of incredible damage – not on its own, but rather thanks to its Exotic Catalyst. What the Catalyst does is allow Destiny 2 players to create a Strand Grapple Tangle, which can have multiple uses.
True to its name, The Navigator potentially allows multiple players to Grapple to any place they want, but since Strand Grapple charges are refunded when grappling a Tangle, this can virtually be used infinite times to use an infinite number of Strand Grapple Melees. When used by Destiny 2‘s Strand Titans, in particular, this Exotic can single-handedly allow players to melt all bosses, and it has been a highlight in speedruns of endgame content for a while now, including the more recent Warlord’s Ruin Dungeon. All classes can benefit from The Navigator, but Titans’ focus on melee abilities gives them a massive edge, to the point that one can potentially solo bosses and other encounters with this type of build.
Destiny 2’s The Navigator is an OP Exotic Ahead of The Final Shape
How Things May Change For The Navigator After The Final Shape and With Prismatic
Destiny 2‘s The Navigator will most likely remain as is for the foreseeable future, as creating Grapple Tangles is part of its identity. However, there is a chance that seeing how out-of-this-world a Strand Titan’s DPS can be when using a single Navigator Grapple Tangle, the ability to have one’s grenade charge refunded upon using Strand Grapples on existing Tangles may be nerfed in The Final Shape or future releases. Melee Titan builds have time and again caused similar issues in the past due to how much they can scale, and The Navigator takes this to the next level.
Still, for the time being, Strand melee builds in Destiny 2 can greatly benefit from The Navigator to spam Grapple Melees – be it for DPS or clearing adds. With the saga-ending expansion coming in just two months, it will be interesting to see if and how The Navigator will impact Destiny 2‘s Prismatic subclasses in The Final Shape, considering Strand abilities will still be available across the board, albeit with limited access.
Destiny 2
Bungie’s Destiny 2 is an online FPS that blends single-player and multiplayer content. Constantly evolving, the shooter has established a strong following since its 2017 debut.
- Released
- August 28, 2017
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer , Online Co-Op
- Engine
- Tiger Engine
- ESRB
- T For TEEN for Blood, Language, and Violence
- Expansions
- Destiny 2: Forsaken , Destiny 2: Shadowkeep , Destiny 2: Beyond Light , Destiny 2: The Witch Queen , Destiny 2: Lightfall
- How Long To Beat
- 100+
- Metascore
- 85
- Platforms That Support Crossplay
- PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S
- Number of Players
- 1-6 (Co-Op)
- PS Plus Availability
- Essential, Extra, & Premium (The Witch Queen)