Forgotten Destiny 2 Exotic nobody uses is finally worthy of its prestige status

Despite being some of the rarest drops in the game, Destiny 2’s Raid Exotics are largely hit-and-miss, with many only filling niche, highly-specific roles.

As is often the case with Bungie’s looter shooter, though, the meta can and does change wildly when major updates introduce new synergies.

Touch of Malice, largely ignored since it was reprised from the original Destiny alongside King’s Fall, has long been considered useless due to its self-damaging nature, but thanks to Revenant’s Artifact Mods, it’s now one of the best DPS primaries in the game for Warlocks.

Per Destiny Tracker, Touch of Malice’s use rate across all PvE of less than 0.1%. Here’s the case for why that statistic should be much, much higher.

Touch of Malice Prismatic build – Meta analysis

Touch of Malice benefits massively from Revenant’s Artifact Mods.

As is so often the case post-The Final Shape, Prismatic is what you’ll be using here, and unlike most Warlock builds that use the dual Light and Darkness subclass, Solipsism, not Getaway Artist, is the Exotic armor you need.

Specifically, you’ll want one with Spirit of the Claw and Spirit of the Necrotic. Both bolster your Arcane Needle ability by granting an extra melee charge and mass-spreading poison among enemies respectively.

Touch of Malice compliments this further which, as a Weapon of Sorrow, inflicts poison with the blight projectile alt-fire granted by its Charged with Blight perk.

Charged with Blight is also a reliable method of inflicting Blind. Revenant’s Arc Compounding Artifact Mod increases all sources of Arc damage. Paired with Touch of Malice, any Arc weapon with a high rate of fire will shred blinded enemies, with Arc and Kinetic Weapon Surge increasing their potency further.

The only downside, of course, is Touch of Malice’s in-built self-damage, but this is made negligible through liberal use of Healing Rifts and grenades as well as Devour and the Exotic’s own restorative effect on rapid final blows.

Destiny 2 content creator Aztecross showcases the build in his video below.

(Topic begins at 17:22)

For more top-tier Warlcok loadouts to use in Destiny 2 throughout Revenant, check out our breakdowns of the infinite Nova Bomb and Stromtrance builds.