Destiny 2’s Edge Of Fate Expansion Is Changing Exotic Armor In A Big Way

Destiny 2’s upcoming expansion, The Edge of Fate, is overhauling how armor functions. Stats are getting reworked, set bonuses are being introduced, and new stat archetypes are being added to make farming top-tier armor a more straightforward process.

Legendary armor has been extensively covered, yet information on how Exotics would carry over has been sparse. In today’s This Week in Destiny post, Bungie has revealed just how Exotic armor is going to work under the new Armor 3.0 system.

How Exotic Armor Will Work Under Armor 3.0

Starting in The Edge of Fate, all Exotic armor that drops will adopt the Armor 3.0 system. Each armor piece that drops will come with 11 mod energy by default, roll with a stat archetype influenced by your Ghost mods, and roll with a stat range between 58 and 63. Masterworking the item will upgrade the item’s three lowest stats, granting a stat total “comparable to all but the very best Armor 2.0 rolls,” according to Bungie.

Players with a stockpile of Exotic armor will have their items updated to use the new Armor 3.0 stats automatically. However, they will not benefit from stat archetypes or the new masterwork system. The stat transition will be a one-to-one conversion with no added features. Stats being depreciated—Mobility, Resilience, and Recovery—are being replaced with Weapons, Health, and Class, respectively.

How Stats Will Roll On Exotic Class Items

Exotic class items are receiving special treatment under this new system. All Exotic class items will be converted to embrace all of Armor 3.0’s new features automatically, functionally behaving as Tier 5 armor under the new system. Bungie further clarified how stats would roll on these items.

[Exotic class items] will receive the maximum stats available for an Exotic (30 in the primary stat, 20 in the secondary stat, and 13 in the tertiary stat).

To prevent this from massively increasing the number of possible class item rolls, these stats will be assigned based on their rolled perks: the archetype being determined by the left column perk, and the tertiary stat by the right column perk.

Players who have already farmed for Exotic class items will be grandfathered into this new system automatically. Unfortunately, this does mean that Artifice sockets will no longer exist on Exotic class items; they’re being replaced with tuning sockets to further adjust armor stats.

Featured Exotics

This week’s TWID also revealed all Exotics that will be considered featured going into The Edge of Fate. Bungie is adding a new mechanic called “New Gear” that will grant bonuses to your build for using items released during that content cycle—weapons gain a damage bonus based on their tier, up to 10 percent. Armor receives a damage resistance bonus instead, up to 15 percent.

Exotics that are featured count as New Gear, which means they’ll benefit from these same bonuses. An exact list of all the featured Exotics was showcased in today’s TWID and can be viewed below.