Dev Insights: Prismatic Deep Dive

Hey, Guardians, Gameplay team here.

Starting with the release of Stasis in Beyond Light in 2020, continuing with subclass 3.0 during the year of The Witch Queen, and most recently with the release of Strand in Lightfall, we’ve been hard at work building out the full kit of abilities, Aspects, and Fragments that you’ve assembled into your perfect monster-slaying machine. The builds you’ve crafted helped you overcome insurmountable odds, taking down powerful foes and ensuring the safety of the Last City... for now.

With The Final Shape looming, the threat has never been more imminent, and the stakes have never been higher. We knew that if humanity was going to go up against the Witness, we had to pull out all the stops.

WELCOME TO PRISMATIC

For the first time, players will be able to wield the powers of Light and Darkness simultaneously, unlocking combinations of abilities never before possible. Today, we’d like to give you a brief overview of The Final Shape’s new Prismatic subclass, including the suite of abilities available, how you’ll expand your capabilities, and the unique gameplay it brings to the table.

The Prismatic subclass is familiar, but with a twist. Your Super, melee, grenade, and Aspect slots will feature a selection of Light and Darkness abilities from all five damage types. You can also select from all available movement modes and class abilities, including the subclass-specific ones, such as Phoenix Dive, Acrobat’s Dodge, and Thruster. Our main goal for Prismatic is to enable new and interesting buildcrafting combinations that lead to new types of gameplay, so that we can keep the game feeling fresh. As part of this, some of the abilities we’ve chosen are ones that we think have been underused since their initial release and have exciting interactions with the rest of the roster. In many cases, we’ve adjusted how certain Aspects function to specifically enable these unique interactions.

With Prismatic, we want to make an immediate impact. From the very first mission of The Final Shape, you’ll have access to a complete starting Prismatic build with a set of Light and Darkness abilities, Aspects, and a full set of Fragments. Let’s dive into the details of what these starting builds have to offer, as well as the rest of abilities you’ll be wielding.

PRISMATIC HUNTER

Instinct is honed over years to respond in an instant.

The Prismatic Hunter is evasive and maneuverable, grappling around the battlefield and leaping to advantageous positions with Ascension. Their starting Prismatic build enables that maneuverability, with Winter’s Shroud providing a handy debuff that Stylish Executioner (which now triggers by defeating an enemy afflicted by any subclass debuff) can activate from, providing easily accessible Invisibility to reposition to wherever you need to be with safety.

You will be able to choose between the different Light and Darkness abilities from each column below.

• (starting) indicates abilities that are included in your starting Prismatic build during the first mission of The Final Shape.

PRISMATIC TITAN

The coalescence of Light and Darkness into an unbreakable bulwark gripped in an unstoppable fist.

The Prismatic Titan excels at disabling enemies to make them easy targets for high-impact follow-ups. Drengr’s Lash, Shackle Grenade, and Diamond Lance are all potent primers for a subsequent Consecration, Thunderclap, or powerful Unbreakable blast. Their starting build allows them to freeze targets with Diamond Lance (which can be created from any ability final blow) and wind up fully charged Thunderclaps to remove the threat from the fight in one fell swoop.

• (starting) indicates abilities that are included in your starting Prismatic build during the first mission of The Final Shape.

PRISMATIC WARLOCK

Truth lies in the seams between Light and Darkness.

The Prismatic Warlock brings an army to bear, summoning a horde of Bleak Watchers, Hellions, and Threadlings in the blink of an eye. Their starting build lets them lock down entire rooms with Bleak Watcher and Penumbral Blast, and their ability damage (including damage caused by shattering the frozen targets) kickstarts Feed the Void, granting grenade energy to start the cycle anew.

• (starting) indicates abilities that are included in your starting Prismatic build during the first mission of The Final Shape.

EXPLORE YOUR POTENTIAL

While you’ll start off with a fairly focused initial loadout, you’ll quickly expand your toolset and possible combinations. As you continue through The Pale Heart of the Traveler, you’ll uncover the remaining abilities, Aspects, and Fragments as mission rewards as well as unlocking them through post-campaign quests and as collectibles hidden in the world.

Our ultimate goal is that, as you progress in your journey to save the Traveler and humanity, you’re able to continually experiment with new buildcrafting options and find novel ways to tackle the challenges ahead of you. There’s no currency to earn to unlock these new buildcrafting elements. When you find a Prismatic chest in the world or after a particularly tough battle, they’re immediately granted and available for use.

Part of building Prismatic was ensuring that every option and combination felt viable across a variety of content and difficulties, so most of the abilities you’ve seen here have also had a tuning pass that we’ll share in more detail in the leadup to The Final Shape’s release. Aspects that were damage-type-specific have had their requirements loosened when using Prismatic. For example, Diamond Lance and Feed the Void activate from ability defeats of any damage type, not just Stasis and Void, and Stylish Executioner activates when defeating an enemy afflicted by any elemental debuff, not just Void.

BREAK PAST YOUR LIMITS

Prismatic is more than using familiar abilities in new combinations. We also wanted to create new gameplay to showcase the player’s newfound mastery of the elements. Enter Transcendence. It’s the result of the collision of Light and Darkness that your Guardian can now control and enables the use of never-before-seen power. When you’re using Prismatic, you’ll notice a new bar below your Super energy meter. This is the new indicator for the Transcendence Light and Darkness meters.

When you deal Light-aligned damage (Arc, Solar, and Void) or apply Light-aligned buffs or debuffs, the Light bar on the left fills. When you deal Darkness-aligned damage (Stasis or Strand) or apply Darkness-aligned buffs or debuffs, the Darkness bar on the right fills. Kinetic damage fills both bars at a reduced rate, but that rate increases when either bar is filled, making it a solid choice to help a lagging bar catch up.

When both bars are full and meet in the middle, Transcendence is available. While Transcendent, your melee and grenade energy are instantly refreshed and regenerate more quickly. Dealing damage with a grenade further increases your melee regeneration rate and vice versa. Your weapon damage is slightly increased, and you are more resistant to incoming damage.

Our goal for Transcendence—both in terms of uptime and potency—is that it feels like a miniature Super that’s only readily available when your loadout and playstyle interweave Light and Darkness together in harmony. Being Transcendent also allows you to break the shields of special combatants standing in your way on your journey through The Pale Heart of the Traveler. These combatants have been bound by The Witness and are invulnerable to incoming damage otherwise.

In addition to these boosts, while Transcendent you’ll also have a new grenade (one unique to each class) that deals both Light and Darkness damage types.

Hunter: Hailfire Spike

• Throw a device charged with Stasis matter and Solar energy that attaches to surfaces or targets and then erupts into a slowing storm. After a short duration, the device ignites, creating a deadly scorching cyclone.

Titan: Electrified Snare

• Throw an explosive device energized with Strand matter and Arc energy that detonates in a supercharged suspending burst. The suspended target takes heavy damage over time and chains jolting lightning to any nearby targets.

Warlock: Freezing Singularity

• Throw a mass of Void energy and Stasis matter. On impact, it deploys a miniature black hole orbited by a halo of slowing ice. After a short duration, the black hole implodes, suppressing and dealing heavy damage to all nearby targets.

IN MULTITUDES

Now let’s talk about Prismatic Fragments. One of the challenges we identified early on was that a lot of the power from our single-damage-type subclasses comes from the network of many interconnected gameplay loops the player can dip into when they focus their buildcrafting on a single element. When the player’s focus is split between multiple elements, we still need to provide enough opportunities for stacking powerful synergies, as well as providing value to the new Transcendence loop. To help us solve that problem, we’ve increased most Prismatic Aspect Fragment slot allotments to 3, with a few of our most potent options staying at 2 Fragment slots.

You’re going to need the extra space. With Prismatic, from day 1 of The Final Shape, you’ll be able to find or earn a total of 21 Fragments—a sizable bump over the typical 14-16. Some are reimaginations or combinations of existing Fragments and some are brand new. Unlike our core damage types, Fragments in Prismatic are unlocked for all of your characters as soon as you acquire them. If you finish the campaign on your Hunter and want to start on your Titan, your Titan will have all the fragments you unlocked on your Hunter.

Here is a look at some of the Fragment options you can look forward to:

• (starting) indicates abilities that are included in your starting Prismatic build during the first mission of The Final Shape.

We’re truly excited at the new possibilities that Prismatic brings, from combining abilities in brand new ways to exploring more buildcrafting options than ever before. We look forward to seeing what you all come up with as we venture forth into this new era of Destiny 2!