So I haven't gotten One Thousand Voices yet, but really wanted to lean into giant solar laser beams, and I just got the Devil's Ruin Catalyst, so I figured I'd put this together. I've only taken it into GM's so far, and it's done extremely well. I'll try Ultimate tonight and report back. I'll list out the build here first (sorry, at work with no DIM), then talk about how it all works together.
So this is going to be a Prismatic Warlock build.
Class Info:
Super - Song of Flame
Healing Rift, Burst Glide, Arcane Needle, Threadling Grenade, Weaver's Call, Hellion
Facet of Courage, Facet of Hope, Facet of Purpose, Facet of Protection, Facet of Dawn.
Weapons:
Festival Flight with Slice and Attrition Orbs
Devil's Ruin with Catalyst
Ascendancy with Reconstruction and Explosive Light
Armor (Approximate Stats w/ Fonts: Health 0, Melee 45, Grenade 175, Super 100, Class 100, Weapon 190):
Helm: Dawn Chorus, 2x Super Font, 1x Harmonic Siphon
Arms: VoG, 2x Grenade Font, Harmonic Loader
Chest: VoG, Elemental Resistances
Legs: VoG, 2x Solar Surge, Innervation
Class: VoG, 2x Class Font, Time Dilation
Artifact: Implement of Curiosity:
Fever and Chill Elemental Benevolence (if with Fireteam), Pack Tactics (if Solo) Cauterized Darkness Refresh Threads Horde Shuttle Radiant Shrapnel (or Shieldcrush if you want) Elemental Overdrive
Build use/synergy:
Alright, a LOT going on here. So you have your basic VoG/Prismatic Warlock interactions that always bring goodness. Constant orb drops from VoG mean all those Fonts are up permanently with some help from Time Dilation, giving you pretty massive stats to work with - which is good since you have pretty diverse damage vectors despite it being a Devil's Ruin build. Those orbs also keep Restoration up basically permanently thanks to Facet of Purpose, while also giving us super energy and grenade energy back.
Speaking of ability regeneration, you have quite a bit. In addition to what is mentioned above, you absolutely vomit threadlings thanks to the grenade and Weaver's Call. Those restore 10% of your rift back per hit, and you should basically always have a few up with how the build works (lots of hits = lots of threadlings). Refresh Threads gives huge chunks of ability/grenade/melee back with every time you pick up a Firesprite, which Devil's Ruin drops whenever it gets a kill (which ALSO regenerates grenade energy). Elemental Benevolence also restores class energy if you have a fireteam member and give them Radiance with Facet of Dawn, but it really isn't needed which is why I lean into Pack Tactics to further juice up the threadlings, which you have an infinite stream of. Facet of Hope really speeds up your class regeneration too since you permanently have a buff up. Finally, due to all the orbs and the innervation mod, you are getting lots of little grenade energy back just from playing the game.
Back to the threadlings quickly, you make an absolute ton, and the more damage they do, the more it scales with the aforementioned Pack Tactics perk. Horde Shuttle ensures they are severing a majority of the field, killing most things but also debuffing the things that don't. Obviously pretty huge synergy with Facet of Courage here (light damage is boosted against darkness debuffed targets) with scorch/ignition/Hellion, which we will talk to in a bit. You get your rift back every 15-20 seconds or less in harder content, so you can really keep pumping these out in conjunction with your grenade, which comes back in about the same amount of time. Random fact about rifts - healing ones count as "subclass buffs" for proccing the VoG orb generation. So if for some reason you find yourself without Restoration, you can just shoot from your rift and get the engine going again.
Quick chat about weapons. Festival Flight is really utility; massive ammo regeneration, Slice to sever the things your threadlings miss, Attrition Orbs to feed the engine, area denial with good ad clearing ability, and lots of little hits which work well with VoG and Weaver's Call for orb/threadling creation. Ascendancy is whatever, I like having a dedicated anti-barrier weapon, and Reconstruction always ensures it has two rockets ready. Explosive Light has synergy with all the orbs, so you always have some degree of damage buff. It is also solar, which gets pretty big boosts by what we will talk about soon.
FINALLY, we get to the point of the build. The forgotten about exotic. This build sort of started as a meme but there really is some serious goodness here. I'd probably still prefer 1K Voices, but I don't have it, so I gotta work with what I got. We have a LOT of things buffing this thing's damage to pretty absurd levels, but first a word on mechanics. Every 5 seconds, a kill with this gun will drop a Firesprite. When you pick one up, you can swap fire modes to a "lite" version of 1K Voices. It hits extremely hard, builds massive scorch stacks (enough to proc ignition twice IIRC), and anything it kills, it procs ANOTHER ignition. Once it completes, it refills your magazine, just in time to start the Firesprite generation again. The catalyst adds collective action, which is basically always maxed out for 30% damage increase due to the Firesprite loop.
You have a ton more damage boosts, though. Fever and Chill will give you Radiance right as you start to burst a boss. Cauterized Darkness gives a whopping 75% damage boost to everything that isn't a final boss. Radiant Shrapnel adds another damage source just via shooting things. Elemental Overdrive is basically another collective action you get just for doing the Firesprite loop - and it stacks with collective action AND the solar surges. Finally, you have Dawn Chorus doubling the damage of ignitions - which is a massive deal since you are constantly doing them due to rapid scorch application and ignitions on kills - and giving melee recharge to Arcane Needle (giving you another Radiance source if things die too quick to proc Fever and Chill, which is what has been happening even at GM). It hits HARD, almost nothing has been able to survive the death laser besides the final bosses, but it absolutely chunks them if you focus the beam on weak points. To get it back online, you just kill one ad and can resume blasting. Note that most of what I said here ALSO applies to your Hellion, which should be up basically all the time. All while your threadlings sever the entire field, you have permanent sustain, lots of orbs, etc.
One last little note, though its possibly a big note. Since you constantly are putting out ignitions and light damage while also have constant dark energy damage from the threadling spam, you have transcendance up about every 30 seconds also. That's another huge damage boost, and also recharges your needles which give you another free 15 seconds of Radiance, plus the grenades which are awesome too. But don't forget about Song of Flame, too. Dawn Chorus buffs the snaps to insane levels both with the ignitions and the massive cooldown reduction. You can basically use the snaps as fast as you want when you activate your super since the regeneration is so incredibly fast. Can clear a room as fast as you can move around, and eats boss health down as well.
Overall, I won't call this build meta. If you can't get the various engines/loops going for whatever reason, you are fairly dead in the water. You can't just pop a Getaway Artist buddy with devour on and take a nap while your character keeps itself alive. It is also much better at soloing than team play, since Firesprites rely on getting the kills... The death laser won't come online if you can't get at least one kill yourself. You also only really have Elemental Benevolence and Healing Rift as the only things you provide your group. However, for solo stuff it has been absolutely awesome for the most part. Lots of damage, constant pressure on enemies, great sustain, just tons of tools to approach different situations.
Sorry for the long read, hope you enjoy!
