Warlocks, you're up for the exotic armor tier
list update. We have some new exotics to talk about, and
by new I mean exotics I haven't reviewed since the previous list, so let's talk about them. (Danielle copying me) Felwinter's Helm, yeah, back in Season of the Worthy. Arc, Solar and Void.. (Danielle laughs) I couldn't keep up! (Datto) Yeah, you didn't have the cadence.
(Danielle) I know, I thought I did, I got the first one! Felwinter's Helm. Arc, Solar and Void melee kills create a burst
of energy weakening nearby enemies, with finishers and kills against tougher enemies increase
the radius of the burst and the duration of the effect. While this is a really interesting helm in
terms of its exotic perk, I have seen it almost nowhere. That being said, I think this is an underrated
exotic. Being able to use a finisher to proc the effect
really helps this since if it was limited to charged melees only, I think it would be
pretty weak. The debuff is potent on top of the fact that
it disorients targets, with the radius of the effect being larger than you think even
on weaker enemies. I don't think this is really needed in lower
end PvE, but it definitely has some utility towards the higher end, but you do have to
ensure you're hitting a big group of enemies AND that you have an escape plan. Trying to spawn trap enemies is probably going
to be your best bet. I would say this is potentially worth it if
you and your team can really work to MAKE it work, but I don't think it revolutionizes
the Master/GM experience. The problem is that it just relies on big
clumps of enemies to really make it powerful: tagging 1 or 2 dregs with this isn't gonna
be a difference maker over the course of a Nightfall. Dawn Chorus, one of the more regal looking
exotics in the game, enhances your burn and Daybreak damage. Daybreak projectiles cause targets to burn
on contact, which increase your Daybreak blade damage and all of your burn effect last longer,
gaining a small amount of melee energy for each tick of burn damage. So, how much energy we talking here? Well, actually, a pretty good amount. Using bottom tree melee, if the burn lasts
the full duration, you get your melee back. The only problem is that for the most part,
the only time stuff is surviving that long is in Legend or Master Lost Sectors if you're
by yourself if you hit majors or ultras or if you get the explosion to hit other targets. Otherwise, maybe a boss will live long enough
in the strike playlist or something. My thing is... what kind of benefit are you
really getting from that effect? Your melee is back, so you can melee another
target so it takes a bunch of burn damage to get your melee back? Burn damage isn't really that significant
and as we'll cover, Necrotic Grip does the whole aoe melee thing quite well. You can use a solar grenade too to tag targets
for some burn to get that melee back. The OTHER side of this is the Dawnblade portion,
which is considerably more impressive, having the damage each swing ramp up considerably
on a burning target. BUT, it does take a few hits for it to actually
start ramping that damage, meaning you'll be about half way through your super by the
time you start to see that bonus damage. Essentially, this turns your Dawnblade into
a super that's not bad for fighting bosses, which would bolster top tree's super considering
how tame it is compared to the rest of the subclass. Overall, I'm giving this an "it's ok out of
5," nothing remarkable, mainly because Sunbracers are a thing and I think this takes a backseat,
unless you're using bottom tree. Necrotic Grips are pretty, pretty good. Damaging enemies with melee poisons them with
increasing damage over time and if they die, they spread the poison. This poison can continue to chain off of anything
killed until there are no targets left. The best part of Necrotic Grip is that you
don't need to kill anything, it is simply damage only. Meaning you COULD hypothetically run into
a giant mob of enemies, smack one of them, then kill them and watch the rest of them
burn away. Not to mention that this damage over time
effect lasts for QUITE a long time. Now, in terms of practical application in
higher end content, you're still putting yourself at risk for what can boil down to killing
a few enemies a bit faster. But in most other content in the game, especially
if you're solo, there isn't a lot to hate about these gloves. Also, they work with Thorn, allowing you to
spread the poison effect even more than you're able to, but Thorn isn't always going to be
the best pick in end game content. Finally, Mantle of Battle Harmony is sort
of like the mods from Season of the Chosen, demanding that you match your subclass element
with your weapon element for a bonus. In this case, it's bonus super energy whenever
you get a kill with a weapon matching the element of your subclass. If you have full super, you get a weapon damage
buff instead, about 20%. Here's the thing: Warlocks already have very
good elemental subclass exotics. Crown of Tempest and Geomags for Arc. Phoenix Protocol for Well, Sunbracers for
solar. Void is maybe a bit weaker, you have Skull
of Dire Ahamkara and Nezarec's Sin. But, if you're in an activity that doesn't
lock your loadout and you can meet the requirements of this exotic, you can use this to get your
super and then swap to Skull, Phoenix, Geomag, whatever. There are plenty of good elemental weapons
to use as of this video too: Palindrome, Igneous Hammer and Waking Vigil hand cannons for starters. The super gains are pretty noticeable, I was
able to get double the amount of super energy in this Lost Sector example on screen when
using Mantle compared to not using it. My main gripe is that the timer doesn't refresh
on kill, so to get the most out of it, you need to pace your kills, which isn't something
a lot of people are going to do. You will naturally pace yourself in higher
difficulty content though, since things take longer to kill. I would say this is more suited towards solo
play than it is group play, but if you're willing to meet the requirements, it's not
too shabby either way. The damage buff is pretty nice too. Not sure I'm using it in content that locks
my loadout over the top subclass exotics though, Phoenix Protocol is simply too good, Geomag
gives you basically 20% of your super for free and Skull see good returns too when thrown
well. But, I would say it's up there for most other
activities, especially when you can swap. As far as PvP goes, the energy gains aren't
very remarkable, you'll get a couple of seconds off your super compared to not using it, scaling
better at lower intellect levels, but unless you're doing a lot of swapping to Geomags,
the main benefit of Mantle is gonna be that damage boost after a kill when you have your
super. BUT, that requires you to hold your super
in order to gain the benefit. Plus, if you're using a 120 RPM hand cannon
for example, I'm guessing you likely have a damage perk on it already, enabling those
2 taps. For some people, viable, for others, well,
I imagine you want to use your super because using your super is fun. Those are the newer exotics. Next, we'll re-review the older exotics to
see if anything got shuffled around and as I said in the Titan video, not much has changed. PvE Voidwalkers, I think it's pretty close
between all 3 of your exotics, Skull, Nezarec and Contraverse and I really think it depends
on playstyle when it comes down to it. Skull is going to be a set and forget kind
of pick, you fling your Nova, get energy back and continue on your way. Nezarec is going to be for the slayers out
there who are capable of keeping that buff rolling, which I do think is a bit tougher
to pull off well in higher end content compared to Contra or Skull. Nezarec isn't technically a void exotic, but
it works much better with one. And Contraverse is solid in GM Nightfalls,
boosting your damage against champions thanks to the ability to have it proc TWICE on the
same target if you're using Vortex Grenade AND if the target stays within range of the
grenade for long enough. That makes stunned champions the perfect target. And if Oppressive Darkness is a seasonal mod,
well, you can't make champion killing any easier than that. My only gripe is just the intentionally inconsistent
energy returns, sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't. For PvE Dawnblades, Phoenix Protocol reigns
supreme in GM content and will continue to until something is done about it, period. Nothing beats the amount of Wells you're able
to get as a result. Besides Phoenix Protocol, it's Sunbracers. The synergy they have with top tree make you
a nonstop grenade spamming murder machine. Towards the higher end of play, this is going
to be less and less effective without some initial damage on certain targets, but even
then, getting back ability energy is a staple of the subclass branch. Wings of Sacred Dawn were placed here last
year, but I'm removing them this year. For Stormcaller, as much as I'd like to give
it to Crown of Tempest again, I think with Chaos Reach's recent surge of popularity and
my ratings being more weighted towards Legend, Master and GM content, it has to go to Geomags. Crown of Tempest is great in most other content
in the game, even a good amount of Legend content, but as you push into Master and GM,
it gets a bit harder to keep that buff rolling, especially considering you need to get your
melee in that rotation too. Chaos Reach is fine, I don't think it's anything
too crazy, but it does more or less get you a champion kill. Outside of GM and Master Nightfalls, I'm probably
taking Crown of Tempest provided I can put myself in a position to chain ability kills
a lot. Getaway Artist is an exotic with a lot of
fun build potential, but it's not something I really take seriously when I gotta buckle
down. And Stormdancer's Brace is a nice alternative
to Crown of Tempest, boosting your Stormtrance damage, but if we're in a GM, I'm probably
going Chaos Reach for the faster damage output and if I'm in a place where I can use Crown,
I'm using Crown instead in order to get supers considerably more often. The neutral exotic tier list also remains
the same, simply adding Necrotic Grip to the list. Lunafaction is a staple for Deep Stone Crypt's
final boss and will always mesh well where Phoenix Protocol is not needed, although I
value Phoenix more than Lunafaction in most other activities. Otherwise, the other exotics on the list are
Ophidian Aspect, Claws of Ahamkara, Nezarec's Sin, Winter's Guile, Verity's Brow and Chromatic
Fire. None of these exotics changed in any way since
last year and therefore remain as powerful as they did last year. Ophidian's global weapon buffs are outstanding,
Claws can allow for greater build potential, Winter's Guile allows for insane melee synergy
with One-Two Punch which might be a bit overkill and tougher to pull off in higher end content
although again, there is limited access to One-Two Punch nowadays, Verity's Brow is still
a bit under the radar though, but that's for a good reason. It's fine, but I think if you're going for
a team-wide support kind of build, its tough to fight Phoenix Protocol or even just going
full Aeon with your fireteam instead. Let's throw Chromatic Fire in there as well,
but definitely in the middle. Explosions are pretty fun, but that's definitely
more oriented for non-Master and GM content. As for subclass specific PvP exotics, last
year, Contraverse Hold was demolishing everything in its path. That reign of terror has ended, but there
hasn't really been much competition in the slot mainly because... there haven't been
any new exotics to compete in this area. In fact, most Warlock subclass specific exotic
armor is actually rather weak for PvP, save for this surge of Geomag Stabilizers. Dawnblade is pretty weak when it comes to
solar exotics and arc really only has Geomags as a strong contender. Most of warlock's exotic strength comes in
the form of neutral exotics, of which there are a few to choose from. However, again, not much has really changed
here either due to new exotics that were introduced not having a big impact on the PvP tier list. The top contenders continue to be Transversive
Steps and Ophidian Aspects above all else. When speed is everything, these will shine,
no matter what kind of speed you need. Transversive allows auto-reloads while sprinting
and gives you additional sprint speed and Ophidian allows for insane weapon ready speeds
and reloads. They affect a large portion of your gameplay
for the entire match, not just abilities, not just supers, but your guns. Getting the most out of an exotic is important
when it comes to your selection and these will be active all the time, in every game,
period. A close third is Karnstein Armlets, allowing
you to stay in the fray with instant heals and constant health regeneration for a few
seconds after a melee kill. Going into fights with full and regenerating
health is a massive advantage, increasing the time it takes to kill you. You just need to be in a position to punch
people very often, but keep in mind that you can proc this with top tree Dawn's ranged
melee attack. Eye of Another World gets some points for
just being an exotic that does a thing that you don't need to keep track of, but other
top exotics also just have persistent effects that you don't really need to keep track of
either, making this a bit of a weaker selection. Astrocyte Verse is a movement exotic, but
one that I haven't seen much of thanks to Icarus Dash. You can only use blink on Voidwalker, Voidwalker
isn't the most popular at the moment, so therefore Astrocyte Verse is not going to be popular. Also, it's apparently still broken, where
the weapon ready speed is still not working. Apotheosis Veil has some very niche use in
more intimate PvP settings where you can bait the enemy into chasing you down, then activating
your super into full health. In PvE, it's a get out of jail free card,
but ideally, you're not placing yourself in that kind of position in the first place. Then, we have the rest of the exotics for
Warlocks. These are either more niche exotics that can
work within certain builds and playstyles, exotics that are just outmatched by others
or just exotics that are not really in the meta. The Stag can generate a lot of PvP rift energy
due to how often you're liking to lose your shields and I actually think quite highly
of it, but otherwise this doesn't get much attention. Starfire Protocol's fusion grenade, rift combo
has always been interesting, but it's never really broken into the mainstream because
of Phoenix Protocol. While there is some niche build potential
with it, double healing nades, double heat rises, it doesn't have the greatest ease of
use, not to mention, Sunbracers and Phoenix Protocol just kind of blow this out of the
water. Wings of Sacred Dawn demand a very specific
playstyle, a playstyle that I imagine most players are not comfortable with or experienced
enough to really utilize, not to mention its high risk, medium reward perk, locking you
in the air. Vesper of Radius also has to compete against
Phoenix Protocol. In higher end activities, getting surrounded
by enough enemies that this would be useful usually means you will die before you're able
to even use the rift in the first place. Sanguine Alchemy got a complete rework from
last year, to where it now pauses the timer on your rift if you get a kill in said rift,
extending its duration. Not a bad perk at all, but if you're going
to stay locked into a position for a while, you can probably just drop a Phoenix Well
and get most of that super energy back to drop another. Promethium Spur has a fun sounding perk, but
in practice, it's not much more than a novelty. Warlocks, that'll do it for your tier list
update, not a very significant update, but you probably knew that going into this video. Warlocks definitely have some good exotics,
but in my opinion, they're probably the worst of the 3 classes when it comes to exotic strength
overall, so I do wonder if we see some more reworks or buffs when it comes to them. Hunters, you're up next and if you thought
this update didn't have a lot going on, wait until yours gets uploaded. Thanks for watching, I'll see you next time.
