Buildcrafting in Destiny 2 will look completely different in Lightfall thanks to a thorough overhaul of some of its major systems—including changes to some of its most popular mods.
When Lightfall releases on Feb. 28, Charged With Light and Elemental Well mods will be bundled into a new mechanic called Armor Charge. The affinity system in armor will also leave the game with the new expansion, Bungie confirmed today.
Starting with Lightfall, the Combat Style mod socket will turn into an additional mod socket for specific pieces. With the change, Bungie is also revamping Charged With Light and Elemental Well mods, fusing them both into Armor Charge. Armor Charge works similarly to Charged With Light, allowing players to gather up to three stacks of the buff by default (up to two from Charged With Light) and gain effects from them. The new system will also focus on Orbs of Power instead of their respective areas, providing some unexpected overlap between the two old systems.
“Many mods that previously created elemental wells or gave you stacks of Charged with Light have been converted to instead create an Orb of Power,” Bungie said in the blog post. As a base functionality, though, players will receive the effects of Taking Charge as long as they have an Armor Charge mod equipped, which will allow them to stack up the buff by picking up Orbs of Power. Finisher mods will also consume your Armor Charge instead of the Super energy in the old system.
While Elemental Wells as fans know them are going away, each subclass will spawn some objects based on the damage type used to generate them. These will not be generated by mods, though. Some of them are familiar, while others are new additions. Here are the ones Bungie shared so far:
- Arc: Ionic Traces
- Solar: Firesprite
- Void: Void Breaches
- Stasis: Stasis Shards
- Strand: “will also have an object,” though Bungie hasn’t shared more details.
“The ability to spawn these objects will not come from armor mods but from your subclass instead,” Bungie explains in the blog post. “While the Ember of Tempering Fragment is active for Solar Hunters, it will now create a Firesprite when you defeat an enemy with a Solar weapon.”
“Picking up any of these objects will grant ability energy or have other effects depending on your subclass build,” Bungie also added. “If you’re running a Solar subclass and you have the new Ember of Mercy Fragment equipped, picking up a Firesprite will grant you the Restoration effect.”
As a practical way to have more ease of use in their builds, the mod system will also get its own screen, akin to the Appearance Customization (transmog) screen. This will allow players to quickly see and switch which mods they’re using.
The armor overhaul is a tremendous change in and of itself. It doesn’t come on its own, though: it launches alongside the in-game Loadout system and the changes to Match Game, Champions, and Artifact Mods, which will make for a far more streamlined process from season 20 onwards.
