‘Destiny 2’ Should Invest In Shiny Exotic Armor

One of my favorite things Destiny 2 has done in recent memory is the concept of “shiny” weapons in Into the Light content, ones that would drop with a cool paint job and double masterworked perks. This is happening at least to a certain extent with new “Heretical” weapons as of tomorrow with the launch of Heresy, albeit in an altered format.

Destiny has struggled to make armor drops relevant in recent years. Many years, in fact, and that has been especially true of exotic armor pieces, now relegated to expensive focusing at Rahool purely to get good stats, which is exceedingly dull and often frustrating. (Hell, you even have to do that for new seasonal exotics now, as they don’t drop in the world anymore)

My idea to fix this is something I touched on before, last year, but I am back to pitch it again: Shiny exotic armor. The idea is that these would be occasional wild drops since this is supposed to be, you know, a looter, and constantly picking up nondescript engrams to focus is so boring. The plan:

• The armor would drop with minimum stats of 66 or above.
• The armor would drop with spiky distribution in at least two stats.
• The armor would be “Tier 5” armor, which is something new that Bungie is introducing in Frontiers (though all the details aren’t entirely clear on what that means for armor).
• The armor would drop fully masterworked, saving you three Ascendant Shards.
• The armor would drop with the new artifice slot already open, saving you an Exotic Cipher.

I am debating what sort of cosmetic thing the armor could have, as it’s trickier than weapons. A special shader would be odd since armor has to match a set. A cosmetic addition (a doo-dad or logo or something) would be cool except the concept of exotic ornaments sort of messes that up. I would take even a cool shiny icon like the weapons had, I guess.

Destiny will be changing armor in Frontiers, as I mentioned, so there may be more that could be added here, but you get the idea. I have been so tired of dull armor drops for ages now, which have been relegated to “good stats,” an artifice slot or lately, an attempt to get you to use seasonal armor for some bonus that is not worth making an entirely new set. There needs to be more than that.

I am just really exhausted of Destiny being less and less of a looter over time, as I want exciting drops, even if they existing alongside crafting (which of course is not a thing for armor). I want to kill things and have an engram pop out and I pick up that engram and it’s something cool. I feel like that doesn’t happen with exotics outside of raid/dungeon ones, and we need more of it in the game.

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