Bungie has dropped a fun horde mode with the new Onslaught activity. You have to survive 50 waves by preventing enemies from destroying your base. You also have tools like turrets, mines, and decoys at your disposal. Loot consisting of iconic weapons that were previously removed from the game provides additional motivation.

But what’s a good way to get through the mode? Wave after wave, enemies push towards our base. Besides the most obvious tactic of killing all enemies as quickly as possible, there’s another option: stopping the enemies to have more time to kill them. A balanced team composition is helpful here, with someone who stops the enemies, while another player deals a lot of damage, and the last one focuses on secondary objectives and revives as their main task. I want to introduce you to my Hunter Stasis build, which is extremely fun and practically stops enemies from moving at all times.

For those who don’t want to read further, here’s the build on DIM: https://dim.gg/tye6mky/Permafrost-v2

Abilities, Aspects, and Fragments

Class Ability: Gambler’s Dodge ➞ you get your melee back faster Movement Ability: Triple Jump ➞ just always on the Hunter Melee Ability: Withering Blade ➞ slows enemies Grenade Ability: Duskfield Grenade ➞ slows enemies and freezes them

Aspects

Touch of Winter ➞ The grenade’s area of effect is larger and a shatterable crystal is created in the center. Grim Harvest ➞ Defeating slowed or frozen enemies creates Stasis shards, which charge your melee. With Whisper of Rime, you also get an overshield.

Fragments

Whisper of Conduction ➞ Stasis shards within 15 meters come to you on their own. Whisper of Rime ➞ Small Stasis shards heal for 5 health, large ones for 35. At full health, an overshield with a maximum of 50 health is charged. Whisper of Durance ➞ Slow and ability-over-time effects last longer. Whisper of Chains ➞ Within 10 meters of a Stasis crystal, you gain 40% damage resistance. Whisper of Shards ➞ Shattering Stasis crystals grants 500% grenade regeneration for 6 seconds. Additional crystals extend the effect up to 11 seconds.

Weapons, Armor, and Mods

Verglas Curve ➞ Killing enemies creates up to five Stasis arrows. The next hip-fire shot fires these arrows together, creating Stasis crystals at the point of impact or freezing hit enemies. Indebted Kindness ➞ I chose Indebted Kindness for Barrier Champions. It does a lot of damage and can also do some area damage with Voltshot. Rocket Launcher (Nightly Disturbance or Apex Predator) ➞ A rocket launcher is helpful here against bosses, either Stasis or Apex Predator.

Renewal Grasps ➞ The grenade’s radius is increased even more, plus you take less damage within the radius and enemies in the radius deal less damage.

For armor stats, the focus is: Resilience, Discipline, Mobility. You want to be as tanky as possible and get your grenade back as quickly as possible. Mobility makes you faster and gets your dodge back sooner.

Helmet Mods

➞ Dynamo: Dodging within 15 meters of enemies charges 2.5% of your Super. ➞ Harmonic Siphon: Two rapid Stasis weapon kills create an Orb of Power (2.5% Super). ➞ Kinetic Siphon: Kinetic weapon kills create an Orb of Power (2.5% Super).

Gauntlet Mods

➞ Grenade Kickstart: Orbs grant Armor Charge, Armor Charges partially refund grenade energy. ➞ Impact Induction (2x): Damage with charged melee attacks recharges grenades by 12%.

Chest Armor Mods

➞ Font of Endurance: Armor Charges grant a +30 Resilience bonus. ➞ xxx Resistance: Reduces incoming damage of one type by 15%. ➞ Harmonic Resistance: Reduces incoming Stasis damage by 15%. The only other fitting mod.

Leg Armor Mods

➞ Recuperation: Orbs of Power restore 70 health. ➞ Innervation: Orbs of Power recharge grenades by 10%. ➞ Elemental Charge: Four Stasis shards create one Armor Charge.

Cloak Mods

➞ Bomber: Recharges grenades by 12% when using your dodge. ➞ Reaper: After a dodge, the next weapon kill within 10 seconds creates an Orb of Power (0.8% Super). ➞ Powerful Attraction: Dodging collects Orbs of Power within a 12.5-meter radius.

Artifact Perks

The artifacts are season-dependent. For the current Season of the Wish, there are bonuses for the Stasis subclass, even though the clear focus is on Solar. I will only list the important perks here; you can choose the missing points as you like.

Piercing Sidearms ➞ Sidearms can shoot Barrier Champions out of their shields. Perfect with Indebted Kindness. Unstoppable Bow ➞ Stops Unstoppable Champions. From Whence You Came ➞ 5% more ability damage against Taken and Scorn enemies. Pillar of Ice ➞ Defeating frozen targets creates a Stasis crystal nearby; bosses create two. Overload Rocket Launchers ➞ Rocket launchers are strong against Overload enemies. A second way to break the Overload besides Stasis slow. Dragon’s Bite ➞ Breaking shields with Stasis weapons has a chance to freeze the enemy. Hail the Storm ➞ Shattering frozen enemies deals 12.5% more damage, shattering crystals 28.6% more. Shattered Stasis crystals send out five shards that each deal 50 damage and slow hit enemies.

Gameplay Loop

The playstyle of the Permafrost Hunter is relatively simple: freeze enemies, slow enemies, create crystals, destroy crystals. To do this, you get quite close to the enemies, throw your grenade into them, and stand in the field yourself while killing the enemies with the bow. As soon as the bow has five charges, you fire from the hip and create crystals that can be destroyed again.

To get your grenade back as quickly as possible, you should always use your melee when possible and then dodge near enemies. Then melee again. This gives you a pretty fast grenade recharge. Bosses and Shriekers are quickly turned into mincemeat with the rocket launcher. This also covers all three champion types. The sidearm for Barrier, the bow and freeze for Unstoppable, the rocket launcher and slow for Overload.

Personally, this build is a ton of fun for me. It litters the battlefield with crystals, shards, and orbs. This gets your abilities back quickly, restricts enemy movement, and also deals a lot of damage. Only the bow feels a bit weird. It deals decent damage to single targets. It only becomes truly powerful through the crystals, but then it turns into a monster in terms of area damage!

What do you think of the Permafrost Hunter?