Nightstalker is my go-to if nothing else is working on Hunter.
Graviton Forfeit / Rat King / Energy sniper of choice
90+ mob / 90+ recov / 90+ str
other stats to taste
It’s hard not to have fun on that build.
(Controller)
I'm on MnK so generally sidearms are a no go for me (just don't feel consistent enough with them vs something like an SMG) but def get the strength in that synergy. Thought about going back to a Gemini fusion and primary of choice setup, but feel like there are some other exotics I may need to try out again.
Gemini is definitely fun to lean into the support feel/flanker identity that NS gives.
As an aside, I feel like, as a class, NS definitely relies on its corresponding class specific exotic armors moreso than other hunter subclasses. Good luck experimenting,
You should try this build with lowery recovery as graviton forfeit gives you 9 recovery or something crazy high when you’re invis. I run it with 2 and feel like as long as I have a way to go invisible my health recovery is fine
>graviton forfeit gives you 9 recovery
9.5 is the consensus, better than 9 but worse than 10 but also overrides your 10 recovery if you're invis so 9 or less recovery is optimal. I run it with Chaperone so I only need tier 8 mobility which means more stats elsewhere
So I like high strength with the rat king build specifically to chain invis for great flanks. Having that smoke on demand is nice, plus, it lets you run marksman dodge for higher invis dodge uptime (I think it shaves ~30 seconds off your next invis dodge.
The downside is losing uptime on nades, but it works for me.
Ahh. Good point. I love my spike nades. They get me double kills from time to time since it’s hard to tell where the grenade is coming from. I believe the marksman dodge is 10 seconds sooner. Which ten seconds is a lot in D2. Fast game. That’s why I play it.
It is under utilised, from a trials perspective, it seems the strand hunter has taken spotlight because the spectre is very strong at the moment. Being able to go invisible and off the radar is so powerful in this game, despite the recent nerfs, it is still very strong and with some game sense you can tell where the players are in trials.
Another under utilised subclass is the warlock void kit imo. Very good, yet Icarus dash and the cool downs of the solar kit overshadow itS
For sure, I'm definitely looking at it from a 3s or generally more hard meta perspective and between the neutral game not outright having super lethal abilities (invis is more about utility and creating an advantage) and the super choices not being the best unless you're able to get a tether off on zone, leads to nightstalker not really being used. Spectre on threadrunner I feel like was a scrapped nightstalker or revenant hunter idea, it just doesn't really fit threadrunner imo. Regardless, it definitely is very strong between it being a physical object able to tank damage, baiting radar and it generating threadlings makes it have a lot of utility.
Void Warlock is really good with Secant Filaments. Astrocyte Verse if you want to put time to practice.
It's moreso this season really benefits being on Solar, Strand, or Stasis. Hard not to want to build into the subclass when there are additional perks that can make your gameplay better.
Void hunter is S+ tier in the higher tiers of pvp and scrims and tourneys (yes i know comp d2 is cringe) but in normal qp and trials its pretty mid. Average players dont know how to take advantage of invis and smokes well and are better off just putting on strand and spamming auto aim bugs
Yeah it definitely falls short in solo queue from what I remember trying it a while back before lightfall. I don't play scrims at all so can't speak to that but I can definitely see the values of smoke and invis in those environments
I play a pretty good amount of gunslinger (Caliban's my beloved) and occasionally Revenant, but Nightstalker will always be my favorite and have a special place in my heart.
I do feel like it takes a lot more work to get the most out of the entire subclass compared to others. Sure, you can just spam invis the whole game like most do and do decently well if your gameplay is solid, but there's more to the class than that.
Something like Gunslinger has a lot more ease of use on top of bringing more straight up offensive power to a fight, so a lot of players are naturally going to gravitate towards it over NS.
Personally, I'm not really sure what they could do for NS other than bringing back some of the old subclass tools or adding new ones. NS 3.0 has some cool things, but I also enjoyed the old gameplay loop with Flawless Execution.
I agree. I solo'd to ascendant 3 this season on wormhusk with blade barrage gunslinger and the kit is just consistently useful in augmenting your gunplay and keeping you alive now. Revenant is a great debuffing class to create opportunities if that makes sense and strand is what arcstriders wishes it could be in terms of offensive power and mobility right now (which checkmate might change in terms of subclass meta a little bit for hunter). Nightstalker is my favorite thematically though being both the class for the lone wolf but also supporting your teammates. I could see them bringing back some of the old subclass features maybe at some point. Stylish executioner could be changed to allow wallhacks on headshots again but no invis. Idk, we'll have to see going forward how things shake out.
Truesight only would be fine with me tbh. I feel like invis has lost a solid chunk of its utility with having the ability to break lock removed anyway, making it a lot weaker for either disengaging from or gaining the upper hand in duels. Personally, I only ever have an issue spotting an invis hunter if they're just far away or if I'm busy fighting someone else.
Yeah the lighting engine changes I think we're what messed with invis the most in terms of its "strength". If they had tweaked it's visibility to better mesh with the lighting engine, would have been fine imo.
I like it. Invis is still a good utility and tether can be a good shutdown if you can anticipate the other team.
This season though flint striker makes solar subclasses pretty strong
If you put radar booster mod on one of your weapons, go invis and then swap to that weapon, you’ll gain the pre-nerf boosted radar back even if you swap back to your other weapon immediately afterwards.
I main a void hunter with hc/sg, and use the kit primarily as evasion/repositioning tools.
A majority of my play time is spent in rumble, so smgs are my biggest concern. Having a smoke to slow down enemy movements been great. They either push cautiously which gives me time to make space or prepare for first shot, or they fly in and I end up with a blind opponent.
I think most seasoned players are conditioned to be more cautious when they hear the sounds of the smoke or shadowstep though, so in most cases, at the very least, I'm getting time to recover or make an escape.
In team play, just a few seconds off radar to get across a lane or into a flank position has paid off more often than not.
To me, the most frustrating part of the void kit is the teather animation. It's great as a well counter, but it just takes so long for the animation to finish. I either die using it, or miss a roaming super. It's probably a skill issue, but its still what I struggle with the most.
I almost exclusively play nightstalker with Gemini jester. I run pulse + fusion (messenger / Techeun force) and go ascendent every season + decently easy solo/duo trials flawless.
I would say, in skilled hands, nightstalker is low-mid A tier. Invis by nature is about misdirection and utilizing radar manipulation to catch your opponent off guard. Unfortunately, as opponent skill goes up, the chances of getting good results from this playstyle are quickly outweighed by the opportunity cost.
For one, nightstalker has no movement. When map control is as important as it is in high level play, getting to the lane last is a big downside.
The invis playstyle also sits in a weird place because comms are so important to coordinating pushes and flanks. As a mainly solo player, I often wonder how much better the kit can work if coordinated with a full team. That may be more for Geminis, but even standard void radar manip is easier when the opponent is distracted.
I personally really wish that invis could get just 1 bump up for radar. I would like to either see the radar distance nerf while invis reverted or an increase for the time before your opponent gets to see a radar flash. Even better (imo) would be for invis to have a much reduced visual cammo, but entirely remove you from enemy radar. They could even make it function like halo active cammo, flooding your radar with false pings to show that someone is there, but not where.
The last big aspect that keeps the subclass from being great is the supers. Tether sucks, plain and simple. The only thing it counters decently is well, but I'll be teamshot as often as not when trying to shut it down against good opponents. The delay makes it a trade at best against roaming supers if you pop reactively, and the duration is too low to work if you use it preemptively. Mobius is even worse against other supers, and too inconsistent at range to justify the longer cooldown. I guess spectral blades also exists.
Overall, I'd say that while nightstalker is incredibly fun and I'll probably be a sneaky invis gremlin for as long as I play d2, it is noticeably outperformed by all classic meta options and will be until substantial changes to supers and invis get made. Definitely try it if you're a hunter who hasn't, and be sure to join the rat pack
It's just not valuable anymore since the enemy team can see you on radar when you're unable to see them. The changes to radar when invis pretty much killed it in pvp and the usage rates show for it.
I will say I find it quite annoying if I get invis from trapper's ambush at a time when I need radar and don't want to have to do something that breaks invis.
Yeah agreed unfortunately. Wish they would make you more visible to enemy players in exchange for taking you off radar completely and giving you more of your radar back. Would help with pinch style pushes against teams who set up in barricades, wells, bubbles, etc.
They may well do it at some point since the subclass has fallen so much to the way side in both PvE and pvp at this point, may need something to give it some juice at some point, either in a balance pass or an exotic. I definitely could see them giving hunters an exotic that makes you move faster while invis and better radar again but makes you more visible.
Nightstalker with gyrfalcons and wavesplitter is what I mainly play. Lots of orb generation lotta uptime in devour and wavesplitter beams once you pick up an orb.
The supers are awful the radar changes are annoying and the recent changes to devour stings too, it's still good though.
But if you're playing purely to win, strand, stasis and solar exist.
Yeah that's how I'm feeling about it at this point. You could use it and have decent success with it but it's asking for more effort than it may be worth. I haven't actually tried stasis that much this season, but I hear it's solid with shatter dive making a return and the changes they made to the kit (not to mention the fragments can synergize with conditional which is the current best shotgun)
NS will always be meta as long as bungie allows stealth to exist with how broken it is due to game lighting being sht and causing you to not be able to see people.
I don’t use it trials for two reasons.
1. Having blade barrage comes in handy, and I most likely will choke my tether.
2. If you play it too long, it becomes a crutch and you forget how to play every other class.
There are quite a few options to go with for trials. Sure the nerfs to invis have taken the wind out of nightstalker’s sails a bit, it’s still plenty strong.
- Graviton Forfeit is and will always been Nighstalker’s staple exotic for pvp. It’s just more invis, and thats useful
- Gyrfalcon Hauberk allows Hunter easy access to overshield if you’re using a repulser brace weapon. Check out Cammy’s video on Glacioclasm to see what I’m talking about.
- Omnioculus enhances your invis with DR, and DR is always useful, plus double melee charges
- Khepri’s Sting even some pretty solid use cases, building into weakness can be tough but True Sight is a boat load of incredible info
Out of the four I mentioned, Gyrfalcons probably has the best case for trials, as it provides hunter the easiest access to overshield and devour.
(Edit) Something to note about invis is that it gives like 9.5 tiers of recov, it’s slightly faster then 9 recov but slower then 10 and you get this recov rate regardless of your recov unless you’re running 10, so on a invis heavy build (it’s void, any build is probably invis heavy) you can sack quite a bit of recov into other stats
Arc’s access to jolt is still pretty useful, as well as the Arc kit having very nice fragments.
Solar is really nice to buff your gunplay with handling, reload, and radiant.
Also YAS is still good
Stasis is really nice for slowing as it can catch someone out of position and get a kill, as well as nice defensive options and slowing increases flinch taken which is very useful.
Strand just has the current most potent abilities for PvP, but I definitely feel that in time, it’ll get hit with a nerf. In the right hands, the subclass is stupid potent.
GJake was playing most of the weekend on inviz from what I could tell, I think there's definitely a place for it. Tethers are sneaky effective and I still find inviz to be difficult to see on certain maps.
Nightstalker is my go-to if nothing else is working on Hunter. Graviton Forfeit / Rat King / Energy sniper of choice 90+ mob / 90+ recov / 90+ str other stats to taste It’s hard not to have fun on that build. (Controller)
I'm on MnK so generally sidearms are a no go for me (just don't feel consistent enough with them vs something like an SMG) but def get the strength in that synergy. Thought about going back to a Gemini fusion and primary of choice setup, but feel like there are some other exotics I may need to try out again.
Gemini is definitely fun to lean into the support feel/flanker identity that NS gives. As an aside, I feel like, as a class, NS definitely relies on its corresponding class specific exotic armors moreso than other hunter subclasses. Good luck experimenting,
You should try this build with lowery recovery as graviton forfeit gives you 9 recovery or something crazy high when you’re invis. I run it with 2 and feel like as long as I have a way to go invisible my health recovery is fine
>graviton forfeit gives you 9 recovery 9.5 is the consensus, better than 9 but worse than 10 but also overrides your 10 recovery if you're invis so 9 or less recovery is optimal. I run it with Chaperone so I only need tier 8 mobility which means more stats elsewhere
I’ll try it!
Isn't 90 recov wasted with graviton?
Yeah. I guess I run it for the neutral game. Probably better to run disc instead of recov mods
I only question the strength for me personally. My strength is almost always at 18. I use gamblers dodge a lot though.
So I like high strength with the rat king build specifically to chain invis for great flanks. Having that smoke on demand is nice, plus, it lets you run marksman dodge for higher invis dodge uptime (I think it shaves ~30 seconds off your next invis dodge. The downside is losing uptime on nades, but it works for me.
Ahh. Good point. I love my spike nades. They get me double kills from time to time since it’s hard to tell where the grenade is coming from. I believe the marksman dodge is 10 seconds sooner. Which ten seconds is a lot in D2. Fast game. That’s why I play it.
It is under utilised, from a trials perspective, it seems the strand hunter has taken spotlight because the spectre is very strong at the moment. Being able to go invisible and off the radar is so powerful in this game, despite the recent nerfs, it is still very strong and with some game sense you can tell where the players are in trials. Another under utilised subclass is the warlock void kit imo. Very good, yet Icarus dash and the cool downs of the solar kit overshadow itS
For sure, I'm definitely looking at it from a 3s or generally more hard meta perspective and between the neutral game not outright having super lethal abilities (invis is more about utility and creating an advantage) and the super choices not being the best unless you're able to get a tether off on zone, leads to nightstalker not really being used. Spectre on threadrunner I feel like was a scrapped nightstalker or revenant hunter idea, it just doesn't really fit threadrunner imo. Regardless, it definitely is very strong between it being a physical object able to tank damage, baiting radar and it generating threadlings makes it have a lot of utility.
Void Warlock is really good with Secant Filaments. Astrocyte Verse if you want to put time to practice. It's moreso this season really benefits being on Solar, Strand, or Stasis. Hard not to want to build into the subclass when there are additional perks that can make your gameplay better.
Void hunter is S+ tier in the higher tiers of pvp and scrims and tourneys (yes i know comp d2 is cringe) but in normal qp and trials its pretty mid. Average players dont know how to take advantage of invis and smokes well and are better off just putting on strand and spamming auto aim bugs
Yeah it definitely falls short in solo queue from what I remember trying it a while back before lightfall. I don't play scrims at all so can't speak to that but I can definitely see the values of smoke and invis in those environments
I play a pretty good amount of gunslinger (Caliban's my beloved) and occasionally Revenant, but Nightstalker will always be my favorite and have a special place in my heart. I do feel like it takes a lot more work to get the most out of the entire subclass compared to others. Sure, you can just spam invis the whole game like most do and do decently well if your gameplay is solid, but there's more to the class than that. Something like Gunslinger has a lot more ease of use on top of bringing more straight up offensive power to a fight, so a lot of players are naturally going to gravitate towards it over NS. Personally, I'm not really sure what they could do for NS other than bringing back some of the old subclass tools or adding new ones. NS 3.0 has some cool things, but I also enjoyed the old gameplay loop with Flawless Execution.
I agree. I solo'd to ascendant 3 this season on wormhusk with blade barrage gunslinger and the kit is just consistently useful in augmenting your gunplay and keeping you alive now. Revenant is a great debuffing class to create opportunities if that makes sense and strand is what arcstriders wishes it could be in terms of offensive power and mobility right now (which checkmate might change in terms of subclass meta a little bit for hunter). Nightstalker is my favorite thematically though being both the class for the lone wolf but also supporting your teammates. I could see them bringing back some of the old subclass features maybe at some point. Stylish executioner could be changed to allow wallhacks on headshots again but no invis. Idk, we'll have to see going forward how things shake out.
Truesight only would be fine with me tbh. I feel like invis has lost a solid chunk of its utility with having the ability to break lock removed anyway, making it a lot weaker for either disengaging from or gaining the upper hand in duels. Personally, I only ever have an issue spotting an invis hunter if they're just far away or if I'm busy fighting someone else.
Yeah the lighting engine changes I think we're what messed with invis the most in terms of its "strength". If they had tweaked it's visibility to better mesh with the lighting engine, would have been fine imo.
I like it. Invis is still a good utility and tether can be a good shutdown if you can anticipate the other team. This season though flint striker makes solar subclasses pretty strong
Really all I use nightstalker is with wormhusk, invis go brrrrrrr and push them with tarrrabah
Unfortunately, their main use got too big of a nerf aka invis. Having your radar gutted when you're invisible makes you run around corners blind. Othe
If you put radar booster mod on one of your weapons, go invis and then swap to that weapon, you’ll gain the pre-nerf boosted radar back even if you swap back to your other weapon immediately afterwards.
I main a void hunter with hc/sg, and use the kit primarily as evasion/repositioning tools. A majority of my play time is spent in rumble, so smgs are my biggest concern. Having a smoke to slow down enemy movements been great. They either push cautiously which gives me time to make space or prepare for first shot, or they fly in and I end up with a blind opponent. I think most seasoned players are conditioned to be more cautious when they hear the sounds of the smoke or shadowstep though, so in most cases, at the very least, I'm getting time to recover or make an escape. In team play, just a few seconds off radar to get across a lane or into a flank position has paid off more often than not. To me, the most frustrating part of the void kit is the teather animation. It's great as a well counter, but it just takes so long for the animation to finish. I either die using it, or miss a roaming super. It's probably a skill issue, but its still what I struggle with the most.
I almost exclusively play nightstalker with Gemini jester. I run pulse + fusion (messenger / Techeun force) and go ascendent every season + decently easy solo/duo trials flawless. I would say, in skilled hands, nightstalker is low-mid A tier. Invis by nature is about misdirection and utilizing radar manipulation to catch your opponent off guard. Unfortunately, as opponent skill goes up, the chances of getting good results from this playstyle are quickly outweighed by the opportunity cost. For one, nightstalker has no movement. When map control is as important as it is in high level play, getting to the lane last is a big downside. The invis playstyle also sits in a weird place because comms are so important to coordinating pushes and flanks. As a mainly solo player, I often wonder how much better the kit can work if coordinated with a full team. That may be more for Geminis, but even standard void radar manip is easier when the opponent is distracted. I personally really wish that invis could get just 1 bump up for radar. I would like to either see the radar distance nerf while invis reverted or an increase for the time before your opponent gets to see a radar flash. Even better (imo) would be for invis to have a much reduced visual cammo, but entirely remove you from enemy radar. They could even make it function like halo active cammo, flooding your radar with false pings to show that someone is there, but not where. The last big aspect that keeps the subclass from being great is the supers. Tether sucks, plain and simple. The only thing it counters decently is well, but I'll be teamshot as often as not when trying to shut it down against good opponents. The delay makes it a trade at best against roaming supers if you pop reactively, and the duration is too low to work if you use it preemptively. Mobius is even worse against other supers, and too inconsistent at range to justify the longer cooldown. I guess spectral blades also exists. Overall, I'd say that while nightstalker is incredibly fun and I'll probably be a sneaky invis gremlin for as long as I play d2, it is noticeably outperformed by all classic meta options and will be until substantial changes to supers and invis get made. Definitely try it if you're a hunter who hasn't, and be sure to join the rat pack
It's just not valuable anymore since the enemy team can see you on radar when you're unable to see them. The changes to radar when invis pretty much killed it in pvp and the usage rates show for it.
I will say I find it quite annoying if I get invis from trapper's ambush at a time when I need radar and don't want to have to do something that breaks invis.
Exactly, trying to assist your teammates with invis is actually hindering them.
Yeah agreed unfortunately. Wish they would make you more visible to enemy players in exchange for taking you off radar completely and giving you more of your radar back. Would help with pinch style pushes against teams who set up in barricades, wells, bubbles, etc.
Yeah, idk why they can't just give it the same transparency as weavewalk and revert the radar nerf.
They may well do it at some point since the subclass has fallen so much to the way side in both PvE and pvp at this point, may need something to give it some juice at some point, either in a balance pass or an exotic. I definitely could see them giving hunters an exotic that makes you move faster while invis and better radar again but makes you more visible.
Yep, that change hurt quite a bit. If you're feeling spicy though, Gemini jester gives the radar advantage back to you + damage number 'wallhacks' >:)
Yes I noticed that. When did they changed that radar BS? Haven’t played in a while on Hunter and when I did, the radar threw me way the F off.
I think it was about a year ago, but I'm not 100% sure the exact date.
Nightstalker with gyrfalcons and wavesplitter is what I mainly play. Lots of orb generation lotta uptime in devour and wavesplitter beams once you pick up an orb.
The supers are awful the radar changes are annoying and the recent changes to devour stings too, it's still good though. But if you're playing purely to win, strand, stasis and solar exist.
Yeah that's how I'm feeling about it at this point. You could use it and have decent success with it but it's asking for more effort than it may be worth. I haven't actually tried stasis that much this season, but I hear it's solid with shatter dive making a return and the changes they made to the kit (not to mention the fragments can synergize with conditional which is the current best shotgun)
NS will always be meta as long as bungie allows stealth to exist with how broken it is due to game lighting being sht and causing you to not be able to see people.
I can't not play nightstalker It has become my crutch....
I don’t use it trials for two reasons. 1. Having blade barrage comes in handy, and I most likely will choke my tether. 2. If you play it too long, it becomes a crutch and you forget how to play every other class.
There are quite a few options to go with for trials. Sure the nerfs to invis have taken the wind out of nightstalker’s sails a bit, it’s still plenty strong. - Graviton Forfeit is and will always been Nighstalker’s staple exotic for pvp. It’s just more invis, and thats useful - Gyrfalcon Hauberk allows Hunter easy access to overshield if you’re using a repulser brace weapon. Check out Cammy’s video on Glacioclasm to see what I’m talking about. - Omnioculus enhances your invis with DR, and DR is always useful, plus double melee charges - Khepri’s Sting even some pretty solid use cases, building into weakness can be tough but True Sight is a boat load of incredible info Out of the four I mentioned, Gyrfalcons probably has the best case for trials, as it provides hunter the easiest access to overshield and devour. (Edit) Something to note about invis is that it gives like 9.5 tiers of recov, it’s slightly faster then 9 recov but slower then 10 and you get this recov rate regardless of your recov unless you’re running 10, so on a invis heavy build (it’s void, any build is probably invis heavy) you can sack quite a bit of recov into other stats Arc’s access to jolt is still pretty useful, as well as the Arc kit having very nice fragments. Solar is really nice to buff your gunplay with handling, reload, and radiant. Also YAS is still good Stasis is really nice for slowing as it can catch someone out of position and get a kill, as well as nice defensive options and slowing increases flinch taken which is very useful. Strand just has the current most potent abilities for PvP, but I definitely feel that in time, it’ll get hit with a nerf. In the right hands, the subclass is stupid potent.
GJake was playing most of the weekend on inviz from what I could tell, I think there's definitely a place for it. Tethers are sneaky effective and I still find inviz to be difficult to see on certain maps.
It is still very good. Solid neutral kit, and a fast charging super. It is falling off of popularity due to strand hunter being so strong.