Destiny 2 revolutionizes your gaming experience with Armor 2.0, the new armor system. The community celebrates the changes – and so do I.
Where does the new information come from? Last night, on August 14th, Bungie presented what may be the game-changing feature of Shadowkeep in a very relaxed and nerdy livestream: Armor 2.0.
This is a new armor system – it might sound a bit dry at first, but it will significantly change the way you will play Destiny 2 in the future.
During the livestream, the community regularly freaked out in the Twitch chat; even Sven and I occasionally let out a “Wow” or “Very, very cool” while watching.
After the stream, many guardians and content creators summarized on social media: “Armor 2.0 is one of the best things Bungie has ever done,” or as the well-known streamer Gothalion puts it: “Armor 2.0 is DOPE”:
Many new features in the character overview
What does Armor 2.0 actually change? With the new armor system, essentially two goals are pursued:
- More individuality – You no longer have to compromise between good looks and functionality in your armor. You can equip each armor piece with mods that grant bonuses.
- More depth – The armor system will become more complex. New stats are introduced, and you will have more freedom in combining mods and bonuses.
The new character screen:
During the stream, the new character screen from Shadowkeep was already shown, revealing some innovations that have nothing to do with Armor 2.0:
- The glimmer cap will be raised to 250,000. Previously it was 100,000. Bungie’s DeeJ confirmed this innovation.
- From now on, you will see your Sparrow behind you and the ghost floating next to your head – so you can always check if the look of your armor matches the Sparrow and the ghost shell.
- Bottom left you will recognize a new slot for the artifacts, which will be a new feature of Shadowkeep. Artifacts were not elaborated on yet, they will be introduced later.
- Additionally, you will see 6 stats instead of just 3 under the power level. Because the properties Strength, Discipline, and Intellect from Destiny 1 are making a comeback.
What do these stats do?
- Strength reduces the cooldown of melee ability
- Discipline reduces the cooldown of grenade ability
- Intellect reduces the cooldown of super ability
What’s new about the stats: You increase these stats by finding appropriate armor that improves the stats with mods or making the armor a masterwork.
- Each stat can be improved from 0 to 100, as you can see in the image above. Once you reach certain ranks (the image above is nearly rank 4), the respective cooldown time is further reduced.
- Additionally, the specific, current cooldown time is displayed along with how much time the next stat rank would grant.
The centerpiece is the mod system
This is the new mod system: Armor 2.0 is mainly about how you can customize your armor pieces with mods in the future. Each armor piece can be individually customized with three mod slots each. It looks like this:
This is the energy level: Each armor piece now has an energy level, which you can see in the image above the mods. It is random whether the armor has Solar, Arc, or Void energy (in the image, it’s Void energy).
You can upgrade the armor up to energy level 10. Each level costs you glimmer, legendary shards, and enhancement cores or “Enhancement Prism.” To reach level 10, an “Ascendant Shard” is also required, as you can see here:
Level 10 means you now have a masterwork armor that grants extra bonuses to all stats.
What does the energy level bring? You need a high energy level to equip more mods. Depending on the strength of the mod, it costs you different amounts of energy. In one of the images above, you see the improved sniper aiming, which costs a hefty 6 Void energy.
If you choose this mod, you still have 4 Void energy left in an optimized armor piece of energy level 10, which you can invest in up to two more mods.
Do mods also have a specific element? Yes, you have Arc mods, Solar mods, Void mods, and general mods. The general mods fit into any armor, while the elemental mods only fit into armor with the matching element.
Which armor pieces have Armor 2.0?
- All legendary armor pieces that can drop after the Shadowkeep release will have Armor 2.0. In other words, it is worth playing the old content again to obtain the armor you desire.
- All Exotics will have Armor 2.0 when you obtain them after Shadowkeep. But even if you pull an Exotic from your collections, it will have Armor 2.0. The roll is fixed. Other rolls can only be obtained through random drops. Exotics will have their exotic perk and 3 mod slots.
- Your majestic Solstice armor can receive an upgrade to Armor 2.0 from the gunsmith. He has a free upgrade package for you at the release of Shadowkeep:
What you need to know about the mods:
- If you slam a mod into an armor piece, the mod is not consumed. You can re-equip it anytime.
- Mods are obtained from various sources. The gunsmith especially is said to randomly drop them through rank-up packages. He also sells them, but his offers rotate. In top activities like raids or the Iron Banner, you can also randomly get mods.
- The various mods are spread across the different armor pieces. In the stream, it was seen that mods that improve aiming can be equipped on the helm, while mods that speed up reloading are for the gauntlets.
- Equipping a mod costs 500 glimmer. You can remove it again and equip another one, which will also cost glimmer.
What about ornaments? The way you can customize the look of your armor is changing too. The armor that has previously come from the Eververse will become ornaments that you can apply to any armor piece:
We’ll embed the entire livestream here as a YouTube video in case you want to (re?)watch it in its entirety:
Overall, Armor 2.0 is very well received in the community. It adds more depth, more individuality, and allows for more crafting and creative builds.
I’m already looking forward to experimenting with the new armor system – and felt the hype welling up in me and the guardians again yesterday. And what do you think about it?
