New Malpais — Sticky-Bomb Unravel Engine (Hunter)
Weapon: New Malpais (Pulse Rifle · Primary · Strand) · Subclass: Threadrunner (Strand) · Role: Add-clear detonator + Unravel-spread on a self-feeding Tangle loop Sandbox: 9.7.0 · Created 2026-06-16
Empty a burst into a pack, then pull the trigger again on the alt-fire and the rounds you parked in their bodies all go off at once — and with the catalyst, that blast unravels everyone caught in it. New Malpais wants a subclass that turns Unravel and dead bodies into more damage. Strand Hunter does exactly that: the explosions seed Unraveling Rounds and kills, those make Tangles, Tangles become
Whirling Maelstrom — a screen-clearing Strand chainsaw fed entirely by you detonating embedded rounds. Grapple keeps Woven Mail up so the loop never stops.
The weapon
Atomizing Rounds (verbatim): Rounds fired embed themselves in targets. [Alternate Weapon Action] to detonate embedded rounds.
Catalyst — Unraveling Blast (verbatim): This weapon's explosions unravel nearby targets.
You fire normal pulse bursts; each round that lands sticks in the target instead of dealing its full hit up front. Pressing the alt-fire detonates every embedded round simultaneously — front-load a target with a mag, then pop it for a burst of AoE. The catalyst is the build-defining upgrade: the detonation now unravels everything nearby, so a single alt-fire turns a clustered pack into a field of Unravelled targets (Unravel is a Strand DoT debuff that spreads to nearby enemies on damage). That converts New Malpais from "delayed-damage novelty" into an Unravel applicator — and Strand Hunter is the kit that monetises Unravel kills.
Loadout
| Slot | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Subclass | Threadrunner (Strand) | The only subclass that pays you for Strand kills, Unravel, and Tangles — exactly what the catalyst manufactures. |
| Super |  Silkstrike | Roaming rope-dart; on-theme panic/DPS button. Damage is the gun + Maelstrom, not the Super. |
| Class ability |  Gambler's Dodge | Melee energy back near enemies; reload + reposition between detonation volleys. |
| Movement |  Triple Jump | Air control to line up the next embed-and-pop on a fresh pack. |
| Melee |  Threaded Spike (Threaded Specter melee) | Ricochet melee → melee energy back; powered-melee kills arm Unraveling Rounds via Thread of Propagation. |
| Grenade |  Grapple | The keystone — grapple grants Woven Mail through Cyrtarachne's, and Woven Mail is what lets Thread of Transmutation make Tangles. |
| Aspect 1 | Whirling Maelstrom | Destroying a Tangle weaves a Strand mass that seeks targets and emits Unraveling projectiles on kills — the payoff for every Tangle the loop spits out. (+2 Aspect Energy.) |
| Aspect 2 |  Widow's Silk | Second grapple charge → near-permanent Woven Mail uptime and twice the Tangle-fuel + Maelstrom seeds. |
| Fragments |  Thread of Transmutation,  Thread of Propagation,  Thread of Generation,  Thread of Warding | See Why-this-works. Make Tangles, arm Unravel, refund grapple, top up Woven Mail. |
| Exotic armour |  Cyrtarachne's Facade (Helmet) | Grapple → Woven Mail with flinch resistance + healing on kills. The free DR layer and the Transmutation enabler. |
| Weapon 2 (Special) | Strand Special — Wave-Frame GL or a Strand Sniper/Fusion | Tangle-on-kill chains with Transmutation; surge-matched. Champion frame fills a coverage gap (below). |
| Weapon 3 (Heavy) | Machine Gun / LMG (any element) | Sustained boss/champion DPS the Primary can't personally delete. |
Why this works (the mechanics)
- The catalyst makes New Malpais a Strand-verb dispenser. Embed a mag → pop → the blast unravels the pack. Unravel spreads on damage and is a debuff-bucket multiplier, so every gun in the fireteam hits the unravelled pack harder — and the kills it produces are Strand kills, which is what the rest of the kit eats.
- Woven Mail → Tangles → Whirling Maelstrom is the engine, and it's all self-fed. Grapple gives Woven Mail (Cyrtarachne's). Thread of Transmutation = "while you have Woven Mail, weapon final blows create a Tangle" — so every New Malpais detonation kill drops a Tangle. Whirling Maelstrom turns destroyed Tangles into a roaming Strand mass that itself emits more Unraveling projectiles on kills. One alt-fire can cascade into Tangle → Maelstrom → Unravel → more kills → more Tangles without another input.
- Unraveling Rounds double up the embedded blast. Thread of Propagation (powered-melee kills) arms Unraveling Rounds on your Strand weapons, so New Malpais's normal bursts unravel before you even detonate. With the catalyst on the blast too, you apply Unravel coming and going.
- Woven Mail never lapses. Two grapple charges (Widow's Silk) + Thread of Warding (Orb pickup → Woven Mail) + Cyrtarachne's on every grapple = the Transmutation precondition is always satisfied, so Tangle generation is continuous, not bursty.
- Grapple is free to spam. Thread of Generation (dealing damage → grenade energy) refunds grapple off New Malpais fire, so you grapple for Woven Mail far more often than the base cooldown allows — closing the loop back to #2.
- DR is built in, not bolted on. Woven Mail (~30%-ish DR) is up nearly always, and Cyrtarachne's adds flinch resistance + healing-on-kill while it's active — a Primary-weapon build that survives because the same grapple that fuels Tangles also tanks you.
Stats & mods
Weapons 200 → Class ~100 → Health/Grenade balance. Weapons stat scales New Malpais's PvE damage (the whole build flows through it); Class feeds Gambler's Dodge for melee/Propagation upkeep; Grenade matters less because Thread of Generation + Widow's Silk already flood grapple.
- Helmet: Harmonic Siphon (Strand kills → Orbs — the detonations make these in bulk; Orbs feed Thread of Warding's Woven Mail) · Ashes to Assets.
- Gauntlets: Melee Font (props up Threaded Spike / Propagation) · Heavy Handed.
- Chest: Arc/Solar/Void Resist (flat DR stacked under Woven Mail).
- Boots: Strand Weapon Surge ×2 (≈+17% Strand damage straight onto New Malpais) · Orbs of Restoration.
- Class item: Powerful Attraction (dodge vacuums Orbs → Warding Woven Mail) · Bomber / Time Dilation.
- Stat tuning: +Weapons where the gear allows; this build's whole output is weapon damage funnelled into Strand verbs.
Surge-match the Special weapon to 
Strand as well so both Primary and Special ride the same surge mods.
Where it shines
- Add-dense PvE — Onslaught, GMs, Legend/Master content, Nether: embed-and-pop into a pack is a one-button room clear once Maelstrom is rolling; Unravel keeps spreading through reinforcements. This is the build's home.
- Champion coverage — flag this. New Malpais's exotic intrinsic carries no bespoke champion stun, and Pulse Rifle archetype stuns vary by frame (Anti-Champion 2.0: Rapid-Fire/Lightweight → Overload; High-Impact/Aggressive → Unstoppable). Treat New Malpais's own champion stun as frame-dependent and unverified for this exotic (see Verify notes) — do not rely on it. Cover champions on the Special and Heavy slots (pick frames for Barrier + Unstoppable + Overload), and lean on Suspend (Silkstrike / a Suspend grenade swap) to lock down Overload behaviour and elite ability-spam.
- Weaker in single-target boss DPS: it's a Primary detonator, not a boss gun. The Heavy LMG is your boss answer; New Malpais handles the room around the boss.