Nothing Manacles got a huge glow-up in Destiny 2, going off an individual balance pass in tandem with some general buffs to Void. You may have missed this Exotic when it released, but there's still a way to get it.

Nothing Manacles released in Season of the Lost, when the main way of getting new Exotics was by running higher-difficulty Lost Sectors. The process has since changed drastically and is now much easier. Here's how you can snag this Exotic for your Warlock.

How to unlock Nothing Manacles in Destiny 2

You can get Nothing Manacles by focusing it with Master Rahool in the Tower. If you're looking for your first copy, go to the Novel Decryption tab in the Focused Decoding section of his inventory. This is where you can unlock the Exotic at the cost of one Exotic Engram and one Exotic Cipher.

That latter resource is slightly time-gated, but can be obtained from season passes, by exchanging Chronologs, and, of course, the classic way: by completing the Xenology quest from Xûr, who shows up at the Friday reset and flies off on Tuesday.

After you've unlocked Nothing Manacles, you can grab it from any suitable source of Exotic Engrams, including Master Rahool. He's the most reliable way to farm this, letting you choose to decode an Exotic Engram into Nothing Manacles as long as you're willing to pay 60,000 Glimmer and two Ascendant Shards. You can continue to use Novel Decryption if you'd rather save your golfballs, though.

What Nothing Manacles does (and why it's good)

• Scatter Charge: Gives you an extra Scatter Grenade charge, enables tracking for its submunitions, and final blows create more projectiles.

Nothing Manacles on its own can be quite strong, but it really shines with Chaos Accelerant and Feed the Void equipped. Feed the Void grants an enhanced version of Devour, which should be glued to any Void subclass—especially one based on grenades.

Chaos Accelerant, on the other hand, improves the tracking of your Scatter Grenades and grants you an extra grenade charge. With that combination, you're heading into an activity carrying three high-powered, tracking Scatter Grenades.

This is one of the best add-clear builds for Warlocks. Think of it as a turbocharged Graviton Lance in your pocket. Damage isn't this build's strongest suit, however, so this mostly excels at taking down smaller enemies.

The post How to get Nothing Manacles in Destiny 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

Destiny 2 got a bona fide lightsaber in Renegades. The Praxic Blade is one of the most exciting Exotics in the game, and you get it in the latter half of the expansion's main quest. Getting it, however, is just the beginning of your journey.

The Praxic Blade, like any good lightsaber, boasts a slew of customization options, both for gameplay and for cosmetics. While yes, some of them are indeed in the Eververse, the lion's share as of launch is unlocked through regular gameplay.

Here's how you get the Praxic Blade in Destiny 2 Renegades and how you can use it.

When do you get the Praxic Blade (Lightsaber) in Destiny 2 Renegades?

The Praxic Blade drops from the Fire and Ice mission, which is step 33 of the Renegades campaign. The game asks you to "Visit the Praxic Temple with Aunor," giving you your own version of the Jedi training. Completing Fire and Ice grants you the Praxic Blade with one colored crystal (blue or green), as well as the starting versions of each trait.

After getting your lightsaber and completing the campaign, Aunor will lead you into the Praxic's Path quest, essentially a tutorial on how to improve your Praxic Blade. This teaches you how to unlock more upgrades for your lightsaber and grants you an extra colored crystal (blue or green, depending on which one you didn't get at first).

What does the Praxic Blade do in Destiny 2 Renegades?

The Praxic Blade has a slew of unique traits. The more Exotic of them are:

• Cormorant Reversal: The Praxic Blade reflects incoming projectiles when blocking.
• Cormorant Combo: Using three light attacks and hitting the heavy attack does a high-damage hit that consumes no ammo.
• Ranged Throw: Pressing heavy attack throws your Praxic Blade. Attacking recalls it toward you. Holding the button sends a more powerful throw in a straight path and recalls the blade when releasing.

Like Wolfsbane, however, you can also unlock a litany of upgrades that touch on the weapon's stats, tie it into subclass verbs, and even apply catalysts to your lightsaber.

The post How to get the Praxic Blade (Lightsaber) in Destiny 2 Renegades appeared first on Destructoid.

Destiny 2's space wizards were in a good state in the Edge of Fate sandbox, and some Warlock builds will remain on top now that Renegades landed. A series of gradual tuning passes gave this class powerful options for every element.

Not all Warlock builds are created equal, however, and some of them easily rise to the top of the meta (yes, I am talking about Getaway Artist on Prismatic, how did you guess?). Here are the builds we're running in Destiny 2's Renegades expansion.

Why are these our best builds in Renegades?

The builds in this list don't account for any artifact mods and rarely rely on specific weapons. A lot of it is up to personal preference as well, so the entries on our list can certainly be more optimized, but should be enough to get you through the campaign, either on Legend or Normal.

Contraverse Hold + Grenades (Void)

Warlocks got a much-needed, high-powered buff to their Void grenades with Contraverse Hold. This Exotic was already good, but a new built-in Weaken effect and an extra grenade charge made it even deadlier, and that's why it's easily among the top builds in Destiny 2 going into Renegades.

Contraverse works with a slew of different grenade options, depending on your playstyle, but Axion Bolt is our favorite. This grenade unleashes a series of tracking projectiles with a somewhat long range, giving you a relatively safe way to take down foes.

You can also go for Scatter Grenades, Vortex Grenades, or Handheld Supernova to spice it up. Handheld Supernova in particular deals a devastating short-range blast when using a Magnetic Grenade (and others). That said, Axion Bolt is usually good enough as long as your projectiles don't go rogue and blow you up. It happens.

Getaway Artist + Storm Grenade (Prismatic)

Getaway Artist with Prismatic continues to be a force of nature, especially given the buffs to Arc Soul (and buddies in general). The Final Shape's most effortless Warlock build now works with Facet of Dominance to jolt enemies and interacts better with grenades, with Hellion's damage increasing with that stat.

As far as your Aspects go, Feed the Void is almost a must-have to keep your grenade energy topped up. The second fragment slot is usually Bleak Watcher, though Hellion makes for a good substitute to spice up the formula. Plunderthabooty runs a version of a buddy build with Hellion, Weaver's Call, and Facet of Mending, which grants you surprisingly great sustain without resorting to Feed the Void.

Consume your grenade, get ability kills to get Devour, then continue mowing down enemies until your grenade is full. Rinse, repeat, and try not to trip on all the orbs of power you make with Firepower.

Mataiodoxía + Needlestorm (Strand or Prismatic)

Mataiodoxía is also in the running for the most juiced-up Warlock Exotic in Renegades, and its odds are looking pretty good. In addition to its base effect of giving you Suspend with Arcane Needle, as of the new expansion, it also improves the power of your Needlestorm—like Cuirass of the Falling Star does for Thundercrash.

You can run this build with Strand or Prismatic. Strand gets more firepower on Needlestorm through Thread of Evolution (increased damage from Threadlings), but Prismatic has a more versatile kit with better survivability, grenade spam due to Devour, and Transcendence.

Lightning Surge + Winter's Guile or Solipsism (Prismatic)

Winter's Guile may make for a devastating new take on the old Lightning Surge Prismatic builds. This Exotic got some new life, working close to a Warlock version of Wormgod's Caress with a Transcendence-like effect built in. With the Exotic's new effect, melee and finisher kills grant a stacking damage bonus to that ability. When at max stacks, you can enter a "berserk" mode with even more melee damage and regen.

Your second aspect is up to your preference, but the sustain from Feed the Void makes this a given for us. To fall back on a classic, though, this build also works marvelously with Solipsism, especially if you have an Inmost Light/Synthoceps roll. You can even run Mataiodoxía if you're looking for a little oomph in your Needlestorm.

Starfire Protocol + Fusion Grenades (Solar)

Gone are the days when Starfire was an unending missile barrage, but the stat rework made this already-strong build even better, and the fact that it finally works with Radiant is just icing on the cake. Hellion is a natural pairing for this since you get your Rift back on grenade kills, and you can use it to trigger your Solar synergies through Scorch. Bring Ember of Torches and Ember of Empyrean for Radiant uptime, giving you extra grenade regen from Starfire. Ember of Resolve works if you need more sustain.

The post Best Warlock builds in Destiny 2: Renegades appeared first on Destructoid.