In Destiny 2, 'verbs' are the elemental status effects that form the core of all modern combat builds. Understanding what keywords like Scorch, Volatile, and Jolt actually do is the single most important step to transforming your Guardian from a casual shooter into an unstoppable force. These verbs—unique to the Solar, Void, Arc, Stasis, and Strand subclasses—are the building blocks of synergy. They are how you cause chain reactions, debuff bosses, control entire rooms of enemies, and keep your fireteam alive. This glossary breaks down every single one.
Solar: Fire, Healing, and Explosions
The Solar subclass is a duality of immense destructive power and potent restorative light. Its verbs are straightforward, focusing on burning enemies to a crisp or providing some of the strongest healing effects in the game. When you build into Solar, you are choosing between setting the world on fire or becoming an unkillable beacon for your team.
Scorch and Ignition
These two verbs form Solar's primary offensive loop. Scorch is a damage-over-time burn effect. Applying Scorch from any source—a grenade, a melee, a weapon perk—adds 'stacks' to an enemy. As stacks accumulate, the burning damage increases. If you apply enough Scorch stacks to a target (100, to be exact), they Ignite. An Ignition is a large, instantaneous Solar explosion that deals heavy area-of-effect damage to the target and anything nearby. This explosive payoff is fantastic for clearing groups of adds and can even stun Unstoppable Champions.
Destiny 2 in-game screenshot
Cure and Restoration
On the defensive side, Solar offers two powerful healing verbs. Cure provides an immediate burst of healing. It's a lifesaver in critical moments, instantly replenishing a chunk of your health and shields to get you back in the fight. Restoration, by contrast, provides healing over time. While Restoration is active, you continuously regenerate health and shields, a process that persists even while you are taking damage. This makes it an incredibly powerful tool for surviving sustained enemy fire.
Radiant
Radiant is Solar's primary damage buff. When you are Radiant, all of your weapons deal increased damage against enemies. This buff is simple but effective, turning your arsenal into a more efficient killing machine. Crucially, Radiant weapons can also pierce the shields of Barrier Champions, making it an essential tool in high-level content.
Finally, Solar subclasses can generate Firesprites. These are small orbs of Solar energy left on the battlefield. Picking one up grants a small amount of grenade energy, but their utility can be significantly enhanced with certain subclass Fragments, such as granting Restoration on pickup.
Void: Debuffs, Shields, and Invisibility
Void is the element of cosmic mystery, focusing on weakening enemies, controlling the battlefield, and empowering yourself with powerful defensive buffs. Its verbs work in concert to debuff targets while making you a stealthy, unkillable force of destruction.
Weaken, Suppression, and Volatile
Void's debuffs are some of the most potent in the game. Weaken causes a target to take increased damage from all sources. As a bonus, it also slows their movement and reduces the accuracy of their weapon fire. Suppression is a hard crowd-control effect; it prevents enemies from using any abilities, movement modes, or even firing their weapons. This can completely neutralize a dangerous foe and is capable of stunning Overload Champions.
Volatile is the most explosive of the three. A Volatile target becomes unstable. Upon taking additional damage, they erupt in a powerful Void detonation. This explosion also applies the Volatile effect to any other enemies caught in the blast, setting up devastating chain reactions. Granting your weapons 'Volatile Rounds' is a popular and effective way to apply this verb, and it also stuns Barrier Champions.
Destiny 2 in-game screenshot
Overshield, Invisibility, and Devour
Void's survivability verbs are legendary. An Overshield is a protective barrier of Void light that adds to your existing health pool and provides a significant amount of damage reduction. Invisibility does exactly what it says: it renders you invisible to enemy combatants. You can still be seen by other players in PvP, but in PvE, you are effectively undetectable until you perform an offensive action. This is a powerful tool for repositioning, reviving teammates, or escaping a bad situation.
Devour is arguably the most powerful of the three. Once activated, any kill you get fully restores your health and grants a burst of grenade energy. The effect is on a short timer, but each subsequent kill resets it, allowing a skilled player to chain kills together and become virtually immortal. Void also creates Void Breaches, which are collectible items that grant class ability energy when picked up.
Arc: Speed, Lightning, and Disruption
Arc is the element of pure, unadulterated speed and aggression. Its verbs are designed to get you moving faster, hitting harder, and chaining lightning between everything in sight. An Arc build is about relentless forward momentum and overwhelming enemies with electrical fury.
Amplified and Jolt
Amplified is a unique buff triggered by rapidly defeating targets with Arc damage. While Amplified, you move faster and your weapon handling is significantly increased. After sprinting for a few seconds in this state, you enter an even faster state called Speed Booster, allowing you to traverse the battlefield at incredible speeds.
Jolt is Arc's primary debuff. A Jolted enemy will periodically chain lightning to any other nearby enemies whenever it takes damage. This effect not only deals significant bonus damage but is also excellent for clearing tightly packed groups of foes. Jolt is also one of the primary ways to stun Overload Champions.
Blind
Blind is Arc's crowd-control verb. It disorients combatants, causing them to stumble around, unable to fire their weapons. In PvP, it whites out an opponent's screen and removes their HUD. It’s an effective way to shut down a dangerous enemy and can be used to stun Unstoppable Champions. Lastly, Arc creates Ionic Traces, which are streaks of Arc energy that travel along the ground toward you. Collecting them grants energy to all of your abilities.
Stasis: Control, Freezing, and Shattering
The first of the Darkness subclasses, Stasis is all about battlefield control. It manipulates the physical state of matter to lock down enemies, creating and destroying crystals of frozen energy to dominate any engagement.
Slow and Freeze
Stasis's core loop begins with Slow. This verb reduces an enemy's movement speed, ability regeneration rate, and weapon accuracy. Applying more Slow stacks to a target will eventually Freeze them solid. A Frozen combatant is completely unable to move or act, making them a vulnerable target for you and your fireteam. Frozen enemies take increased damage from all sources. The Slow effect can stun Overload Champions.
Destiny 2 in-game screenshot
Shatter
Once an enemy is Frozen, you can trigger the final verb: Shatter. By dealing enough damage to a frozen target or a Stasis crystal, you can cause it to shatter, dealing a burst of kinetic damage to the target and any other enemies in a small radius. A well-timed Shatter can clear out an entire group of frozen combatants and is also capable of stunning Unstoppable Champions. Stasis also creates physical Stasis Crystals on the battlefield, which can be shattered for damage, and Stasis Shards, which grant melee energy on pickup.
Strand: Suspension, Threads, and Woven Mail
Strand is the second Darkness subclass, a psychic power that allows Guardians to tap into the cosmic weave of reality itself. Its verbs focus on manipulating enemies by suspending them in mid-air, unraveling them into projectiles, and reinforcing your own defenses with a suit of woven Strand matter.
Suspend, Unravel, and Sever
Strand's debuffs offer unparalleled control. Suspend lifts enemies off the ground and wraps them in Strand threads, rendering them completely helpless for a short duration. They cannot move or shoot, making them easy targets. This is incredibly powerful for neutralizing high-threat enemies and stuns Unstoppable Champions. Unravel infects a target with Strand matter; as they take damage, they spray out 'unraveled projectiles' that seek out other nearby enemies. Sever is a defensive debuff, significantly reducing the amount of outgoing damage an enemy can deal.
Destiny 2 in-game screenshot
Woven Mail and Threadlings
On the buff side, Woven Mail is a potent defensive tool. It encases your Guardian in a protective lattice of Strand, providing a very significant amount of damage resistance against all non-precision damage. Threadlings are small, sentient creatures made of Strand matter that you can summon. They will crawl across surfaces to seek out nearby enemies, leaping onto them and dealing damage. Finally, Strand's unique world object is the Tangle. Defeating an enemy affected by any Strand debuff creates a swirling green Tangle, which can be picked up and thrown as an explosive projectile.
Your Build Starts Here
Mastering these verbs isn't just about memorizing terms; it's about seeing the battlefield as a chemical equation. Combine the right effects, and you can trigger explosive chain reactions that clear entire rooms before your enemies can even react. Every Aspect and Fragment on your subclass screen is a tool designed to generate, enhance, or benefit from these core elemental keywords. Now that you know what they do, it's time to experiment and build the Guardian you were meant to be.