WALL OF TEXT INCOMING. Read at your own discretion.

NTTE: That purpose of this post is to speculate on what one of the existing subclasses might look like if it was converted to the same kind of system that the new Stasis subclasses have with Aspects and Fragments. This is me ruminating on the Dawnblade.

Being a long time Solar Warlock, I wanted to tackle what the Dawnblade first and foremost. This is not just because of my desire to see some of its abilities improved (that is part of it), but because the Dawnblade has some structural issues when you try to convert it. These issues are born from the irregular perk distribution that happened when Bungie decided to stray from the textbook structure they established with other subclass paths.

The Aspect system affords players 2 slots for perks of their choice outside of their super and melee ability. Grace only has two neutral game perks so it slots into the new system just fine. Flame has two super perks and one neutral game perk, so even if you combine the super perks together, you would still end up with a free slot. However, the Attunement of Sky has three neutral game perks.(Icarus Dash gets enhanced during Daybreak, but I don't think that counts as a "super perk".) So in order for players to still b able to run the current Attunement of Sky perks you'd have to stuff three perks into two Aspects. You also have the situation where you have two vastly different effects tied to consuming our grenade. Naturally this means there need to be some concessions and reevaluation of the existing effects.

With that preface out of the way, here is my theory crafting on what the Dawnblade might look like with the Stasis subclass paradigm.

Please note that all of the Grenades, Class Abilities, and Jump abilities remain unchanged in this concept.

[Super]

• Daybreak: Weave Solar Light into blades and smite your foes from the skies. Upon impact, blades release a streak of deadly flames.
• Well of Radiance: Impale your Solar sword into the ground, creating a well of Solar Light that heals and empowers nearby allies.

Notes: While the Stasis subclasses seem to only have a singular super option at the moment, most our existing subclasses have alternate supers. Rather than have them eat into the precious two Aspect slots, I decided it was best to make them an alternate option. This is the first big assumption this rework makes.

In order to give base Daybreak a bit more punch and mitigate the odd damage falloff (presumably due to hit detection), I wanted the splash damage from Fated for Flame to be an intrinsic part of the super. Although the splash damage range may have to be reduced slightly in that case.

I've left Well of Radiance untouched here. I know some people want it nerfed, but removing much more from Well without adding a new function would render it to a glorified Rift as opposed to the enhanced glorified Rift it is now. My stance is that if any tuning does occur, I would request that we get something else built into the Well as compensation. Maybe something like ability regeneration for allies inside it? That would at least be a different kind of utility and be a nice callback to the Sunsinger's Song of Flame.

[Melee Ability]

• Celestial Fire: Tap the melee button to fling out a long-distance cluster of fireballs that explode on contact.
• Guiding Flame: Strike an enemy with this melee to burn your target and temporarily increase the damage done by you and nearby allies.
• NEW - Brand: After sprinting for a short time, use this melee ability to swing your Solar sword around you, igniting the struck foes. (THIS IS JUST A FANCY MELEE, IT DOES NOT DEAL SWORD WEAPON LEVELS OF DAMAGE.)

Notes: Similar to the supers, I'm operating on the assumption that we would still have access to our three different melee options.

Celestial Fire and Guiding Flame both have strong use cases, one built for ranged damage and the other support. Igniting Touch on the other hand is an outlier in melee ability design, being consumed on-hit, but only triggering its secondary effect on-kill.

Brand is my suggested replacement for this rework. It has a double meaning, referring both to the process of burning a sign onto something as well as being an archaic term for a sword. Not only would this tie in the sword aspect of the Dawnblade into the neutral game, but would provide a more dynamic melee attack while still filling a similar igniting, close ranged, add-clearing niche.

[Aspects - Choose 2]

• REWORK: Wings of Icarus: Fire weapons, use melee abilities, and throw grenades while gliding. Activate while midair to dodge twice. (Fragment Slots: 0)
• Phoenix Dive: Activate while in midair to quickly descend and restore your health. While Daybreak is active, descend causes explosive damage and returns Super energy. (Fragment Slots: 3)
• Everlasting Fire: Killing an enemy with Daybreak extends its duration. (Fragment Slots: 0)
• NEW - Prominence: Your Rifts periodically release a pulse of Solar Light, igniting nearby enemies. Combatants take damage from each pulse.
• Benevolent Dawn: Empowering or healing allies regenerates your grenade, melee, and Rift abilities. (Fragment Slots: 1)
• Heat Rises - Alteration: Consume your grenade to gain weapon haste, extend glide time and improve in-air accuracy. Airborne final blows extend the effects of Heat Rises. (Fragment Slots: 1)
• Divine Protection - Alteration: Hold to convert your grenade into a Blessing which will heal and shield you and your allies. (Fragment Slots: 2)
• NEW - Viking Funeral - Alteration: Hold to overcharge your grenade, causing it to weaken enemies, making them more susceptible to damage. (Fragment Slots: 1)

Notes: We don't know how many Aspects the Stasis subclasses will end up getting. My baseless guess is 4 on the low end and 6 on the high end. But with each of the original subclasses having 3 different paths and some with some super perk augmentations or alterations I wanted to keep in addition to the neutral game perks, I went with 8 options. If you trim my additions it goes down to 6 Aspects.

The three abilities labeled with "alteration" are mutually exclusive. Heat Rises, Divine Protection, and Viking Funeral provide vastly different effects, all tied to the same binding. Trying to stack them would cause conflicts. Therefore, limiting players to one of the grenade alteration effects seems more sensible than attempting to make them interact with one another.

I made the decision to condense the Icarus Dash, Heat Rises, and Winged Sun perks. First, the effect that extends the duration of Heat Rises would be made intrinsic to the buff, making it self sustaining with sufficient airborne kills. Next, I figured that the Icarus Dash maneuver could be merged with the aerial combat component of Winged Sun. Icarus Dash mitigates some of the risk of being up in the air. As for the melee energy refund on the current Winged Sun, I thought it would be best to convert that into a Fragment rather than force any more effects into a singular Aspect.

I don't see Bungie giving Dawnblades with Icarus Dash access to maneuverability AND tracking during their super, so I thought it likely that they would drop Fated for Flame to increase the skill floor for Daybreak. But I wanted to conserve the flame jets for the aforementioned reasons.

With both Titans and Hunters having access to a "weaken" effect, I thought it would be nice to have one on Warlocks that wasn't tied to a seasonal mod. For that reason, I saw it fit to revive Viking Funeral in a fashion as a callback to D1 and to give Dawnblades a more offensive tool that can still contribute in group activities.

Last up is the actual new perk I'm suggesting, I'm calling Prominence. I've wanted an Rift augment that causes it to burn enemies for some time now. And with the Shadebinder's Frostpulse freezing enemies, I figure now would be great timing to propose the idea again. Borrowing from the Vesper of Radius, Prominence would release waves of Solar Light igniting nearby enemies. In addition to that, PvE combatants would also take damage every time a wave goes out, akin to a Pulse grenade. I think it would help convey the Praxic mentality and make Rifts a strong zoning tool without acting like a full on second grenade in PvP.

[Fragments]

• Song of the Empyrean: Airborne final blows grant melee energy.
• Song of the Forge: Solar weapon kills grant a slight amount of grenade and melee ability energy. (Scales based on enemy difficulty.)
• Song of Ash: Using your class ability changes your Kinetic weapon's damage type to Solar.
• Song of Stars: Melee ability kills generate Orbs of Power.

Notes: These are all working names and tentative effects. I'm trying to mirror the fragments we've seen for Stasis with a Solar flavor. If you have better suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Song of the Empyrean is the aforementioned effect pulled from Winged Sun. I don't know how much use Hunter and Titans could get out of its, but it seemed like the best bet to keep the Aspects sensible.

Song of the Forge is a very slight passive source of ability energy, granting a bit more ability energy the more difficult the enemy is; nothing too big. However, I thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce more synergy between Fragments. Song of Ash is there to help enable Song of the Forge and would let you tinker with your loadout a bit as you could replace something like a Osmosis gun with this perk.

Song of Stars is a callback to the D1 Sunsinger's Sunburst. I just thought that an additional source of Orbs would be nice for teamplay and open up some different build options.

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Resources notwithstanding, something like this is how I would handle reworking the subclass if I were in Bungie's shoes. I would like to see some kind of rework in the future as Flame is really underwhelming, but I am not actually expecting a full on re-imagining to happen even if I hope it does.

I'm curious to what other think their favorite subclasses might look life if Bungie goes through with reworking them. If you want to talk about your hopes for the future I'd be glad to hear them. I'd like to get some Hunter and Titans to talk about their options as I've been noticing a lot of disparate parts when you shuffle all the perks together.