Destiny 2 players who farmed Master Duality when it was on rotation might have a big payoff when Lightfall releases. After much fan-fostered speculation about how Artifice armor would work, Bungie confirmed these pieces will provide a free +3 boost to any of the six base stats, and it’s up to the player to choose how to employ those gains.
Starting with Lightfall, all Artifice armor pieces will have a unique mod slot that allows players to equip a mod that boosts one of the six base attributes. This mod will cost zero energy, Bungie confirmed in a press conference last week, and players can swap it out whenever they want to. This change effectively means there are no downsides to Artifice armor when compared to an equivalent piece, barring the difficulties to acquire it.
Players knew Artifice armor would see some changes after Bungie outlined the overhaul to buildcrafting in Lightfall. With Artifact perks being enabled without the need to slot them in players’ armor pieces, Artifice armor will lose a core part of its identity in Lightfall. To spice up the chase for these armor pieces and give players more options, Artifice armor “will have a new unique mod slot that grants three additional points to your character stats,” Bungie outlined in the blog post. These changes will apply to all Artifice armor pieces, including those obtained before Lightfall.
After the announcement, however, fans were still speculating about how that bonus would apply in practice. It was unclear if that extra mod would cost energy to equip, similar to pre-Lightfall Artifice armor, or how that +3 stat boost would apply.
With the new Artifice armor, players can get up to +12 to any stat of their choosing when using four armor pieces and an Exotic. The +3 bonus can also help players top up any stats that are close to the tier threshold. Since Destiny 2 only grants bonuses for every 10 attribute points, an Artifice armor piece could help turn an 87 into a flat 90, for instance, providing more buffs that weren’t available with an 87.
Artifice Armor only drops from Master dungeons, however, and not all Master dungeons are created equally. Season of the Haunted’s Duality seems to have bigger stat spikes and higher overall scores, which has made it a prime target for farming before Lightfall. There are only up to two Master dungeons available at any time, however: the Pinnacle dungeon and the Master version of the featured dungeon, if applicable. With the changes to Artifice Armor coming in with Lightfall, though, all that time guardians spent farming the Nightmare of Caiatl might just bring huge bonuses in the end.
