Subclasses

Disclaimer I’m a warlock main.

There are plenty of articles and thoughts about which Subclass to run in Crucible. Below are thoughts on how each subclass synergizes with Lion usage. Based on that, you can make a choice as to prioritize it or not.

Warlock subclasses

Dawnblade:

• Attunement of Sky (Top tree)

• Top tree Dawnblade is perfect. High on mobility and the Celestial Fire melee, which has three homing bolts that do 33 damage each. Wonderful long range clean-up. Emphasis on mobile and aerial play fits perfectly with Lion having no in-air or hip-fire accuracy penalties. It’s honestly the best choice, hands down.

Voidwalker:

• Attunement of Fission (Middle Tree) -Handheld Supernova (HHSN) with Contraverse Holds used to be a monster and it filled the weak close quarters game of Lion admirably. It’s still “viable”, but not “broken” like before.

• Attunement of Chaos (Top Tree)

  • An alternative to middle tree, that still uses Contraverse Holds. Super-charging your Axion Grenade as a combo with Lion is very doable. Contraverse with Axion offers a shorter charge time and a longer hold time than HHSN. That said, it doesn’t offer that insta-kill short range solution of HHSN.

Stormcaller:

• Attunement of Control (Middle Tree)
  • A shutdown super and another long range melee. Middle tree also offers Pulsewave that gives a bonus to speed for quickly disengaging.
• Attunement of the Elements (Bottom Tree)
  • It doesn’t have blink in Super, but you get an Arc Buddy on rifts for you and your allies. (It’s weaker than Getaway Artist but synergizes well.) Your rifts charge faster, another incentive to play with your team and use your Lion for team shots. Also, your melee isn’t ranged, but does have extended range thanks to Rising Storm. Great choice for Getaway Artist. Note: Eating your grenade while you have weak Rift arc buddy will refresh the duration of weak arc buddy, while hopping into a rift while you have strong Getaway Artist arc buddy will refresh the duration of strong arc buddy.)

Titan Subclasses

Sentinel:

• Code of the Protector (top tree)
  • Defensive Strike gives an overshield to you and your allies for a melee kill. Pair this with Synthoceps and you’re gonna be a CQC beast. Additionally, top tree also offers Ward of Dawn and Weapons of Light. Weapons of Light gives +35% damage, increasing your perfect Lion damage from 168 to 227.

Striker:

• Code of the Missile (middle tree)
  • Inertia Override: Picking up ammo during a slide will reload your equipped weapon and increases weapon damage for a short time. Given how Lion ammo drops are 100% guaranteed on kill. A free reload and a damage buff of 25% is great. The damage buff takes perfect lion damage from 168 to 210.
  • Ballistic Slam is a sprinting airborne smash into the ground for massive AoE damage. Pair with Synthoceps and this is a great way to clean up Lion kills for aggressive play.

Hunter Subclasses

Grenade Choices:

• Skip Grenades, especially with Shinobu’s Vow Enhanced tracking, are an excellent finisher for Lion hits when the target runs away.

Arcstrider:

• Way of the Current (middle tree)
  • Tempest Strike is a slide uppercut with some serious range and AoE damage. Will clean up Lion hits well.

Gunslinger

• Way of a Thousand Cuts (middle tree)
  • Knife Trick (throw a fan of burning knives), Burning Edge (while enemies burn, your dodge AKA free reload recharges faster), and Playing with fire (destroying burning enemies recharges Knife Trick faster) is some amazing synergy on it’s own, but with a grenade launcher with massive uptime, you’re going to have a good time.

Not a lot of synergies here beyond that, to be honest. Most of the Hunter subclasses will work well with Lion. Way of the Sharpshooter has the Weighted Knife, but the rest of the perks are about precision and Lion isn’t precision capable. Nighstalkers have the wombo combo which is a fun way to clean up Lion shots.