Hunters have historically had some of the best Exotics in Destiny 2. With all those powerful options, it can be hard to find the right one to use. So, we’ve created a list of the top 10 that includes our picks for the best Hunter Exotics to use in both PVE and PVP activities.

Update History

Removed Aeon Swift, added Cyrtarachne’s Facade

Destiny 2 Best Hunter Exotics Liar's Handshake

10. Liar’s Handshake — Destiny 2 Best Hunter Exotics

Using your Arc melee ability or being hit by a melee attack will allow you to follow up with an extremely powerful melee counterpunch that will heal you.

With the release of Arc 3.0 in Season of Plunder, Liar’s Handshake is an extremely powerful Exotic option for Hunters. Combining it with Combination Blow allows you to deal out huge amounts of damage. Unfortunately, you’ll likely have a hard time doing this kind of thing in Grandmaster Nightfalls and similar kinds of content in which melee attacks can be quite risky.

Destiny 2 Best Hunter Exotics Caliban's Hand

9. Caliban’s Hand

Your Proximity Knife scorches targets it damages with its explosions, or ignites targets on final blow. After throwing a Proximity Knife, you gain increased melee regeneration until the knife explodes.

If you like throwing exploding knives, Caliban’s Hand is the Exotic for you. Defeating targets with your Proximity Knife causes Ignition effects, which you can combine with various Hunter aspects and fragments to maximize your add control abilities and make things go boom.

Destiny 2 Cyrtarachne's Facade

8. Cyrtarachne’s Facade

Gain Woven Mail when activating grapple. Increased flinch resistance while Woven Mail is active.

Getting free Woven Mail whenever you use your grapple is an incredible useful effect in both PVE and PVP. It gives you huge damage resistance in PVE and still a considerable effect in PVP, and the flinch resistance is a nice bonus too.

Destiny 2 Best Hunter Exotics St0mp-EE5

7. St0mp-EE5 — Destiny 2 Best Hunter Exotics

Increases sprint speed and slide distance. Improves High Jump, Strafe Jump, and Triple Jump. The airborne effectiveness stat of all weapons receives a large penalty.

So you get a penalty to airborne effectiveness while you’re using them. When you’re moving this fast, who cares? One of the all-time PVP Exotics for any class in Destiny 2, St0mp-EE5 are strong neutral picks that improve every aspect of your movement. If you don’t want to think too much about what Exotic to equip in the Crucible, you can’t go wrong with these.

Destiny 2 Best Hunter Exotics Wormhusk Crown

6. Wormhusk Crown

Dodging gives a small health and shield bump.

Similar to St0mp-EE5, what makes Wormhusk Crown so good is how easy it is to use effectively. It provides a straightforward boost to your dodge ability, healing you when you use it. This is a strong and simple to proc effect across all subclasses, giving Hunters a reliable means of healing in both PVE and PVP.

Destiny 2 Best Hunter Exotics Renewal Grasps

5. Renewal Grasps

Your Duskfield grenades have a much larger effect radius. Allies inside the Duskfield take reduced damage and targets inside the area deal reduced damage.

After a big nerf to their PVP impact, Renewal Grasps have become a little less dominant in the Crucible. Still, they’re a great pick for any Stasis Hunter in PVP and PVE. In endgame PVE content, the damage resistance they provide is significant enough to help keep you and your fireteam alive. And even in PVP, they can still give you the slight edge you need to win a firefight by boosting your teammates’ resistance and decreasing your enemies’ damage output.

Destiny 2 Best Hunter Exotics Gyrfalcon's Hauberk

4. Gyrfalcon’s Hauberk — Destiny 2 Best Hunter Exotics

Your Void weapons gain volatile rounds after you emerge from being invisible. When you are invisible and defeat a combatant while using a finisher, all of your weapons gain bonus damage; you and your nearby allies gain a reserve overshield and improved class ability regeneration. These reserve overshields can be deployed by using a class ability.

Gyrfalcon’s Hauberk has one of the longest perk descriptions of any Exotic in Destiny 2, but don’t be thrown off by its seeming complexity. In reality, it simply incentivizes you to become invisible as often as possible and to execute finishers. It provides a huge damage buff in PVE and a smaller but still significant one in PVP, and it even combos with Exotic weapons that can turn you invisible.

Destiny 2 Best Hunter Exotics Assassin's Cowl

3. Assassin’s Cowl

Powered melee final blows grant invisibility and restore a portion of health and shields. Finishers and final blows against more powerful targets increase the duration of the invisibility and the amount of health and shields restored.

While turning invisible is the hallmark of the Nightstalker, Assassin’s Cowl can work on any subclass. This is a fantastic Exotic for solo players running difficult content, and in ways is the Hunter version of the Titan’s Loreley Splendor Helm. While that Exotic allows Titans to become more or less unkillable, Assassin’s Cowl can make Hunters almost permanently invisible.

Destiny 2 Best Hunter Exotics Omnioculus

2. Omnioculus

You gain a second Smoke Bomb charge and have damage resistance while invisible. When you make an ally invisible, they gain damage resistance while invisible and you gain melee energy.

What’s that? You want to make not just yourself, but your entire fireteam invisible? Say no more: Omnioculus has got you. The ability to make your teammates invisible is invaluable in high-level PVE, letting you avoid dangerous situations and reposition to more favorable locations without taking fire. And in both PVE and PVP, the damage resistance you grant to your allies is a huge boon.

Destiny 2 Best Hunter Exotics Star-Eater Scales

1. Star-Eater Scales — Destiny 2 Best Hunter Exotics

You gain additional Super energy from Orbs of Power you pick up. While your Super energy is full, picking up an Orb of Power overcharges your Super, causing you to gain a burst of healing when cast and a bonus to your Super damage. At maximum overcharge, you also gain an overshield.

You like using your Super, right? How would you like to use it more often and to greater effect? Slap on the Star-Eater Scales, which boost the Hunter’s Super DPS potential to the highest in Destiny 2. Massively powerful in any kind of PVE content and with every Super the Hunter has access to, this is perhaps the most enviable Exotic in the class’s kit.

The Top 10 Best Hunter Exotics in Destiny 2 (March 2023)

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