Champions are the enemies that turn a comfortable activity into a wipe. They hit hard, they shrug off normal damage, and each type has a defensive trick you have to answer with the right tool. The good news is that the rules got a lot simpler with Update 9.7.0 and Monument of Triumph in June 2026. This guide explains what each Champion does, where you will meet them, and how stunning works in the current game.
What Champions are
Champions are elite mini-boss enemies that arrived with the Shadowkeep expansion in 2019. They are not a separate enemy race. Instead, a Champion is a beefed-up version of a familiar unit, such as a Cabal Colossus, a Vex Hobgoblin, a Hive Knight or a Fallen Captain, with an extra defensive mechanic layered on top.
There are three types: Barrier, Overload and Unstoppable. Each one punishes a different habit, and each one has a matching counter. Hitting a Champion with the right anti-Champion effect stuns it. The game confirms a stun with a sound and an on-screen prompt, and for a short window the Champion stops moving and becomes much easier to kill.
A stunned Champion does not stay helpless forever. Once it recovers, there is a short cooldown before its special ability is back online, which you can read from the growths on its back. Use that window to burst it down rather than waiting for a second stun.
The three Champion types
Barrier Champions
After taking a chunk of damage, a Barrier Champion raises a dome-shaped shield that ordinary shots cannot get through. While the shield is up, the Champion heals back much of the health you just removed. An anti-Barrier hit breaks the shield, stops the healing and stuns it. If nobody on your team can break shields, you will be stuck watching its health bar refill.
Overload Champions
Overload Champions regenerate health even while you keep shooting them, and they lean heavily on their abilities. That makes them dangerous in practice: a Vex Minotaur that teleports around the room, or a Fallen Captain that keeps blinking out of sight. Stunning an Overload Champion interrupts the healing and gives you a clean damage window.
Unstoppable Champions
Unstoppable Champions have very high damage resistance, ignore normal staggers and push aggressively into close range. Think of a Hive Ogre or a Taken Phalanx that keeps walking toward you no matter what you throw at it. A proper stun removes that damage resistance for a while, so save your heavy damage for the moment it goes down.
Where you will meet Champions
Champions are tied to harder content. On lower difficulties you may never see one, but they are a fixed part of the endgame. Expect them in:
- Nightfall strikes on higher difficulties
- Harder Lost Sectors, where the activity details tell you which Champion types to prepare for
- Raids, starting with Garden of Salvation
- Higher-difficulty dungeons and some seasonal activities
Newer enemy factions have joined the roster too. The Dread, introduced in The Final Shape, include Champion versions such as the Barrier Grim and the Unstoppable Husk.
How stunning works after Update 9.7.0
For years, dealing with Champions meant checking the seasonal artifact every few months to see which weapon types had anti-Champion mods. The Edge of Fate, released in July 2025, kept that system and added intrinsic anti-Champion perks to more Exotic weapons. Monument of Triumph, the June 9, 2026 update (version 9.7.0), replaced it entirely.
The changes that matter most:
- Every weapon now has a built-in anti-Champion effect. It comes from the weapon’s archetype (its frame) instead of from an artifact mod.
- Anti-Champion mods are gone from the artifact. You can now pick from several returning seasonal artifacts, and none of them carry the old Champion mods.
- No more activation rules. Previously, Unstoppable effects needed you to aim down sights for a moment and Overload effects needed sustained fire. Now the effect applies as soon as your shots connect.
Weapon archetypes and their Champion counters
The core rule follows six common frames. Slow, heavy-hitting frames handle Unstoppable, steady accurate frames handle Barrier, and fast-firing frames handle Overload.
| Champion | Core frames | Notable exceptions |
|---|---|---|
| Barrier | Precision, Adaptive | Disruption sniper rifles, Caster swords, Legacy PR-55 pulse rifles |
| Overload | Lightweight, Rapid-Fire | Support auto rifles, Area Denial grenade launchers, Vortex swords |
| Unstoppable | Aggressive, High-Impact | Heavy Burst hand cannons and pulse rifles, Rocket-Assisted pulse rifles and sidearms, Micro-Missile grenade launchers, Wave swords |
Exotic weapons have their own assignments, chosen to suit how each one plays, so they do not always follow their frame’s default. Always check the anti-Champion icon on the weapon itself before an activity. Our weapons database has both a Weapon Frame filter and an Anti-Champion filter, which makes it quick to see which weapons cover each type.
Subclass verbs that still stun Champions
Weapons are now the main answer, but several subclass debuffs still stun Champions. This is useful because it frees up a weapon slot, and abilities can stun targets you cannot easily shoot. The most consistently documented pairings are:
| Champion | Subclass effects |
|---|---|
| Overload | Jolt (Arc), Suppression (Void), Slow (Stasis) |
| Unstoppable | Blind (Arc), Ignition (Solar), Suspend (Strand) |
The Radiant and Volatile Rounds change
If you learned Champions before mid-2026, this one will catch you out. Radiant (Solar) and Volatile Rounds (Void) used to let any weapon break Barrier shields. Since Monument of Triumph they no longer do that. Both now give a damage bonus against Champions instead, so they still help you kill Barrier Champions faster, but they will not pop the shield on their own. Some in-game descriptions were slow to reflect this, which caused a lot of confusion after launch.
For Barrier Champions, bring a weapon with an anti-Barrier frame. Suspend is a handy backup: it cannot break a shield that is already up, but suspending a Barrier Champion can stop it from raising the shield in the first place.
Browse the full list of grenades, melees and aspects on our abilities page to see which ones apply these debuffs, and read our elements and subclass verbs guide for what each keyword does.
Practical tips
Check the activity before you load in
The activity screen lists which Champion types are present. Plan your loadout around that list instead of trying to cover all three types every time. If only Barrier and Overload show up, an Unstoppable weapon is wasted space.
Split the jobs in a fireteam
In a group, agree on who handles what. One player covering Barrier, one covering Overload and one covering Unstoppable is a simple setup that rarely fails. Because subclass verbs can also stun, a player whose build spreads Jolt or Blind can cover a Champion type without changing weapons.
Stun first, then commit damage
Shooting an Unstoppable Champion before it is stunned mostly wastes ammo against its damage resistance. Shooting an Overload Champion without stunning it gives it time to heal back up. Land the stun, then use your heavy weapon or Super during the window that follows.
Re-check your favourite weapons
Since every weapon now has a Champion role, an old favourite may cover a type it never did before, and a weapon you relied on might have a different role than you remember. A few minutes checking your vault is worth it before a Grandmaster run.
Plan it all in one place
Our build planner lets you put together a subclass, armor and weapon rolls in one view, so you can confirm that your loadout answers every Champion type an activity throws at you. For a deeper look at the elemental debuffs mentioned here, see the subclasses overview.