Destiny 2's Grandmaster-level Nightfall Strikes offer a formidable challenge to test your build crafting and combat skills. Once you've decided which class you'll be taking into the fray, you can turn your focus to an Exotic Armor piece best suited for the given Nightfall.
With a variety of Champions and elemental burns to consider, you'll want some tricks up your sleeve to fit your needs. While Hunters, Titans, and Warlocks all fit unique roles, there are powerful Exotics for each class that fill both support and DPS niches. Decide with your teammates if you want to prioritize utility functions like Orb of Power generation, or prefer to nuke every obstacle the moment it spawns.
10 Aeon's Arms – All Classes
- Sect of Force: Punish powerful combatants before they can harm your allies.
- Sect of Insight: Empower your allies and keep them well-supplied.
- Sect of Vigor: Keep your allies in the fight.
Selecting any of the Aeon Cult Sects will bestow a set of two fantastic perks.
The best selection for most GM Nightfalls is the Sect of Insight, as it will provide precious ammo to both you and your allies.
Sect of Insight grants both the Aeon's Inspiration and Armsbearer Chant perks.
- Aeon's Inspiration: Successive precision weapon takedowns have a chance to drop an Orb of Power for your allies.
- Armsbearer Chant: When you finish an Elite, you generate Special ammo for your fireteam; when you use a finisher on a boss or miniboss, you generate Heavy ammo for your fireteam. Nearby Aeon cult allies who do not have the Sect of Insight role equipped also gain a bonus to weapon damage for a short time.
9 Ursa Furiosa – Titan
- Ursine Guard: Move faster while guarding when Sentinel Shield is active. Guarded damage converts to Super energy when the Super ends.
Ursa Furiosa is a powerful choice for Void that will give support-oriented Titans a reason to switch away from Ward of Dawn. Aside from Sentinel Shield's superior offensive abilities, Ursa Furiosa shifts your focus to guarding with your shield instead of tossing them.
Before you start running the calculations on damage lost because your Titan can't use their weapon, be aware that a 40 percent damage buff greatly exceeds the 25 percent Well of Radiance provides.
On top of the damage buff, you can shoot through the shield, allowing you to deal incredible DPS while protected from incoming shots.
8 Omnioculus – Hunter
- Beyond The Veil: Gain a second Smoke Bomb charge and damage resistance while invisible. When you make an ally invisible, they gain damage resistance while invisible and you gain melee energy.
Omnioculus is one of the best Exotics for Hunters in Destiny 2 and easily top-tier for keeping you and your fireteam safe. If you time your smoke bomb correctly and make two allies invisible with your throw, then you'll maintain essentially unlimited invisibility for your squad.
This Exotic can even single-handedly save a run where you are the last guardian standing. You can go invisible to revive a teammate, immediately make them invisible with a Smoke Bomb, and then do the same for your third to finish regrouping.
7 Phoenix Protocol – Warlock
- Battle-Hearth: Kills and assists while standing in your Well of Radiance replenish Super energy.
Solar Warlocks boast access to arguably the most flexible support Super ability in the game via Well of Radiance. This impressive ability becomes even more potent when combined with Phoenix Protocol, the best Well-based Exotic.
In simple terms, putting your Super to good use by killing enemies brings you closer to yet another Well of Radiance charge. With more Supers, excellent protection, extra damage, and orb generation, this Exotic is simply too good to pass up.
6 Heart of Inmost Light – Titan
- Overflowing Light: Using any ability (grenade, melee, or Barricade) empowers your other two abilities. "Empowered" means abilities regenerate faster, melees and grenades do more damage, and Barricades have more HP.
Titans looking for a one-size-fits-all Exotic really lucked out with Heart of Inmost Light, as this chest armor can be used with almost any of the best Titan builds.
However, which mods you select to take advantage of Orb generation or ability kills is entirely up to you. Heart of Inmost Light is like a high-quality blank canvas that you as the artist can fill with beauty as you define it.
The freedom to spam your abilities is a beautiful thing, so let your imagination run wild using your favorite subclass.
5 Orpheus Rig – Hunter
- Uncanny Arrows: Provides ability energy for each target tethered by Deadfall anchors. Moebius Quiver has an additional shot.
Orpheus Rig's versatility earns it a place among the best Exotics to use for a potent Void Hunter build. With this support Exotic, select mods that ensure you are constantly generating Orbs of Power for your allies.
Firepower will help your grenades generate orbs when tossed at tethered enemies whereas Power Preservation will improve your super generation for allies.
If you want to focus on your own damage, then switch to Moebius Quiver to make use of Void Hunter's impressive DPS Super with an extra quiver shot.
4 Osmiomancy Gloves – Warlock
- Fervid Coldsnap: Your Coldsnap grenades have an additional charge that recharges quicker on direct impact. The seeker spawned from Coldsnap grenades travels further.
Much like Heart of Inmost Light, there are few things that can stop this Exotic when combined with the proper mod combinations and high Discipline. This Exotic enables builds that focus on freezing entire rooms of enemies in an instant.
Since you'll be throwing Coldsnaps, be sure to select Whisper of Hedrons for a host of buffs including +60 Resilience and Recovery when you freeze a combatant. Whisper of Fissures is another powerful Stasis Fragment that will make frozen foes explode when defeated, clearing out crowds quickly.
3 Abeyant Leap – Titan
- Puppeter's Control: Drengr's Lash spawns two additional projectiles which track targets aggressively and travel farther. Gain Woven Mail when suspending targets.
Abeyant Leap might just be the most broken Titan currently available. Firstly and foremost, it greatly improves Drengr's Lash so that your barricades will suspend more enemies.
On top of that, you will gain Woven Mail to improve your survivability, so any enemies that weren't suspended will struggle to kill you. By using high Resilience, you'll generate more barricades and stay safer via higher damage resistance. It will be almost impossible to die once you get the play style down.
2 Star-Eater Scales – Hunter
- Feast of Light: You gain additional Super energy from Orbs of Power. While your Super energy is full, picking up an Orb of Power overcharges your Super, causing you to gain a burst of healing when cast and a bonus to your Super damage. At maximum overcharge, you also gain an overshield.
Star-Eater Scales work with all Hunter Supers while making almost any of them useable for DPS. Even Golden Gun gains incredible damage boosts that far surpass its subclass-specific choice, Celestial Nighthawk.
In addition to the ability to raise the DPS of already-strong Supers like Gathering Storm, you'll be safe while you are suspended in the air for your Super cast. There's no better combination of DPS and on-demand protection for Hunters.
1 Cenotaph Mask – Warlock
- High Priority: Steadily reloads a portion of your equipped Trace Rifle's magazine from reserves. Damaging a vehicle, boss, or Champion with a Trace Rifle marks them. When an ally defeats the marked target, Special ammo is generated for you and Heavy ammo for your allies.
Let's just get it out of the way: this Exotic is the most absurd-looking dinosaur-like helmet in the entire game.
With that said, it's also a dream for those who have been dying to put their stash of powerful Trace Rifles to good use. If you've ever used Divinity, then you can now pair it with the most perfect partner you could reasonably conceive.
When used with Divinity, your Exotic Armor and Weapon will combine to consistently weaken targets while you generate Heavy ammo for teammates. And you get more ammo for your Trace Rifle too. Just go use it for yourself and be amazed by the flexibility it gives you and your team.