This Prismatic Warlock build takes the best parts of multiple subclasses and weaves them into a self-sustaining loop of damage, survivability, and crowd control. By centering around Mataiodoxia and its Arcane Needle synergy, every melee strike becomes a detonating, suspending powerhouse that fuels your other abilities. Combined with Devour for infinite healing, Storm Grenades for debuffs, Phoenix Dive for survivability, and Sunshot for explosive weapon synergy, this setup ensures you’re constantly cycling abilities, generating orbs, and staying alive while dishing out massive damage.

Why this build is good

This prismatic Warlock build is good because it turns Arcane Needle into a central engine of damage, crowd control, and energy return. With Mataiodoxia equipped, every Needle kill creates suspending detonations that lock down groups of enemies, while stacking multiple Needles on tougher targets produces larger and more powerful explosions. The chest piece also returns melee energy when defeating suspended targets, meaning your primary ability is always ready to use. On top of that, the exotic allows Arcane Needles to pierce Barrier Champions, giving the build endgame utility without needing to swap weapons or mods.

The Prismatic subclass setup ties everything together by ensuring your abilities constantly feed into one another. Feed the Void grants Devour whenever you secure an ability kill, letting you sustain through near-infinite healing and grenade regeneration. Pairing this with Storm Grenade and Facet of Dominance means your grenades automatically jolt or weaken enemies, amplifying both your damage and survivability. Phoenix Dive further enhances survivability by curing allies while spawning Threadlings through Weaver’s Call, adding a layer of passive damage and distraction. This creates a loop where every ability used not only helps you survive but also accelerates the return of your other abilities.

Fragments round out the build by stacking multiple sources of buffs and debuffs. Facet of Courage increases your damage against targets afflicted by Darkness effects, which you are applying constantly with unravel, weaken, jolt, and suspend. Facet of Protection and Facet of Purpose provide layers of defense, giving you resistance or protective buffs whenever you’re surrounded or picking up Orbs of Power. This makes the build tanky even in higher-level content. Meanwhile, Facet of Ruin ensures that Solar ignitions and Stasis shatters hit harder, further boosting area damage. These fragment choices create a balance between survivability and raw destructive power.

The weapon loadout enhances the elemental synergy already in place. Sunshot offers explosive Solar ad-clear that pairs with Solar siphon and surge mods, feeding you Orbs of Power and keeping your Armor Charge economy rolling. Mint Retrograde provides high-impact primary damage, while Boomslang 4FR serves as a boss-DPS option that benefits directly from your Armor Charge-fueled weapon surges. The mod setup ensures your orbs are plentiful, your melee and grenade abilities recharge rapidly, and your Solar weapons hit harder. With Time Dilation extending Armor Charge duration, you maintain damage buffs longer, keeping your DPS steady in longer fights.

Altogether, this build works because it creates a self-sustaining cycle of ability uptime, survivability, and explosive damage output. Every kill fuels your next ability, every orb keeps you alive or strengthens your weapons, and every elemental interaction compounds into stronger control and damage. It’s versatile enough to handle ad-clear, crowd control, and champion coverage, all while keeping you tanky through Devour and constant healing. That combination of sustain, control, and damage is why this prismatic Warlock setup stands out as so powerful.

Gameplay loop

Open with Arcane Needle – Use it to suspend and unravel enemies. Kills cause detonations, and multiple Needles on majors trigger bigger explosions. This starts your loop and begins returning melee energy.

Secure a kill to trigger Devour – With Feed the Void, any ability kill (Needle, grenade, Threadling, etc.) activates Devour, giving you healing and grenade regeneration.

Follow up with Storm Grenade – Toss it to jolt and weaken enemies (via Facet of Dominance), spreading debuffs and locking down groups for easy cleanup.

Use Phoenix Dive on cooldown – Dive in for healing (Solar cure) while spawning Threadlings with Weaver’s Call. This keeps you and allies alive while adding passive damage.

Chain ability kills into Orb pickups – Sunshot and siphon mods generate Orbs, which give you Armor Charges, restore melee cooldowns, and grant rotating defensive buffs through Facet of Purpose. This resets the loop and keeps your abilities nearly infinite.

Exotic Armor

Mataiodoxia

This is an exotic warlock chest armor that comes with the perk Stylostixis.

Stylostixis – Targets damaged by Arcane Needle emit a suspending detonation when defeated, and landing multiple Arcane Needles on the same target immediately triggers a larger, more powerful detonation. Defeating suspended targets grants melee energy. Your Arcane Needles are strong against Barrier Champions.

You can get this from Master Rahool in the Tower, or keep an eye on Xur for when he sells it (he’s around from Friday until reset on Tuesday).

Prismatic Subclass Setup

Super – Nova Bomb, Hurl an explosive bolt of Void Light at a target, disintegrating those caught within its blast. Nova Bomb travels slowly and seeks targets. Detonations shatter into smaller seeker projectiles.

Class Ability – Phoenix Dive, Dive to the ground and create a burst of Solar Light that cures nearby allies.

Melee – Arcane Needle, Sling a woven needle that will embed in your target, unraveling them. Activate your melee ability again to chain up to two additional attacks.

Grenade – Storm Grenade, A grenade that calls down a focused lightning storm. This is going to jolt targets.

Aspects

Feed the Void – Defeat a target with any ability to activate Devour. This gives us a good amount of health, plus an almost infinite stream of grenades.

Weaver’s Call – Casting your class ability spawns three Threadlings.

Fragments

Facet of Courage – Your Arc, Solar, and Void abilities deal increased damage to targets afflicted with Darkness debuffs.

Facet of Dominance – Your Void grenades weaken targets, and your Arc grenades jolt targets.

Facet of Protection – While surrounded by combatants, you are more resistant to incoming damage. While transcendent, the effect is increased. This is going to help us stay alive.

Facet of Purpose – Picking up an Orb of Power grants either Bolt Charge, Restoration, Frost Armor, Woven Mail, or Overshield based on the damage type of your equipped Super.

Facet of Ruin – Increases the size and damage of the burst when you shatter a Stasis crystal or frozen target, and increases the area of effect of Solar ignitions.

Weapons

Primary – Mint Retrograde (Rocket Pulse)

Mint Retrograde is a Legendary Kinetic Pulse Rifle with a Rocket-Assisted Frame meaning the weapon fires self-propelled rocket ammunition. Projectiles explode on impact for high damage.

To get Mint Retrograde you’ll want to run Pinnacle Ops, and you can find Pinnacles Ops via The Portal. Mint Retrograde is part of the rewards pool for Pinnacle Ops, and it’s a random drop throughout the activity, plus once you defeat the final boss.

Energy – Sunshot (Exotic Hand Cannon)

Sunshot is an Exotic Energy Hand Cannon. Let’s check out the gun itself.

Sunburn – This weapon fires explosive rounds and highlights targets that take damage from Sunshot.
Sun Blast – Targets killed with Sunshot explode in Solar energy.
You can get this exotic hand cannon from Xur.

Power – Boomslang 4FR (Linear Fusion Rifle)

Boomslang 4FR is a Legendary Power Linear Fusion Rifle. You can get this from Edge of Fate activities, including Kepler and The Portal.

Mods

Head
Strand Siphon – Rapid Strand weapon final blows create Orbs of Power.
Special Ammo Finder – ncreases the effect of all contributions towards the Special ammo meter.
Solar Siphon – Rapid Solar weapon final blows create Orbs of Power.

Arms
Grenade Font – Collecting an Orb of Power causes you to gain 1 temporary Armor Charge.
Melee Font – Collecting an Orb of Power causes you to gain 1 temporary Armor Charge.

Chest
Arc resistance – Reduces incoming Arc damage from combatants.
Solar resistance – Reduces incoming Solar damage from combatants.
Void resistance – Reduces incoming Void damage from combatants.

Legs
Solar Weapon Surge – Your Solar weapons gain a small bonus to damage while you have any Armor Charge. Your Armor Charge now decays over time.
Invigoration – Reduces melee cooldown each time you pick up an Orb of Power.

Class
Outreach – Reduces melee cooldown when using your class ability.
Time Dilation – Your decaying Armor Charge has a longer duration.

Let me know in the comments what you think.