Unveiling Destiny 2's Epic Season 22 Exotic Armor Enhancements

Destiny 2's Season 22 brings a fresh wave of exotic armor adjustments for players to explore. The main aim of these changes is to enhance and revitalize the exotics that are often overlooked. While some alterations simply refine a single effect or bonus, other exotic armor pieces have been completely reconstructed.

Exotic armor is among the rarest and most unique gear in Destiny 2. Distinguished by its unmistakable yellow background and engram, each piece offers a distinct feature or bonus. These can range from something as simple as adding an extra melee charge to requiring players to execute specific maneuvers to activate effects. These exotic armor pieces and their perks often serve as the foundation of a Guardian's build, and any modifications to them can have a cascading impact on how players should approach utilizing these items effectively.

What Exotics Are Changing in Season 22?

Bungie has significantly revised Exotic armor and weapons several times throughout the history of Destiny 2. However, these revisions have become more consistent in recent expansions. As the game continues to evolve with the addition of new weapons and abilities, the once powerful effects of certain gear become less impressive compared to newer additions. This is commonly referred to as power-creep, a phenomenon commonly observed in live service games and MMOs.

Fortunately, Bungie is aware of this issue and regularly adjusts Exotic gear to align with the current state of the game. Additionally, this process of investigating and reworking underperforming Exotics can sometimes uncover opportunities to address bugs as well. Now, let's take a look at how the Exotic armor landscape will change in Season 22.

Hunters

Knucklehead Radar: The Foetracer Exotic helmet has been enhanced by incorporating its original functionality while also maintaining all of its previous benefits. In addition to marking enemies, it now grants increased damage to marked enemies that have low health, allows the radar to be visible while aiming down weapon sights, enhances the radar quality, and improves airborne efficiency with any weapon.

Foetracer: Bungie has taken inspiration from the Monochromatic Maestro Seasonal Artifact Mod to revamp this Exotic. When damaging enemies with an ability, it provides a damage boost to any weapon of the same element. Moreover, this helmet proves advantageous for players who rely on subclass-specific resources such as Ionic Traces, Stasis Crystals, or Firesprites, as it generates one with each ability or subclass-matching elemental kill.

Lucky Raspberry: Bungie acknowledged the unreliability of previous versions of this Exotic. However, the end result remains unchanged - the improvement of Arc Bolt grenade charge time. Now, this is achieved by rewarding grenade energy through Jolts and Ionic Trace pickups, rather than when the grenade chains lightning to another target.

Renewal Grasps: The cooldown of the Duskfield grenade on Renewal Grasps has been reverted to its original duration, undoing a previous nerf. Previously, equipping Renewal Grasps increased the Duskfield grenade cooldown to 152 seconds from 62 seconds. Despite this change being undone, the Exotic still provides a larger Duskfield area of effect, protection for allies within the area, and reduced damage from enemies inside the area.

Titans

Icefall Mantle: The original ability of this Exotic allowed Titans to replace their Barricade with an overshield and release a slowing burst when the ability was triggered. A new enhancement has been introduced that boosts the damage of Stasis weapons after quickly eliminating enemies with Stasis, and activating the class ability launches players to the maximum bonus level.

Doom Fang Pauldron: In addition to its original effect, which grants Super energy for Void melee kills and enhances the effectiveness of the Sentinel Shield Super, this Exotic now also grants bonuses to Void weapon damage for swiftly eliminating enemies with Void abilities. Achieving a Void melee kill instantly awards the highest tier bonus.

Path of the Burning Steps: Following a revamp in Season 21, Bungie is enhancing Path of Burning Steps even more. These adjustments guarantee that Solar Grenade kills grant an instant kill and provide the highest tier of Solar weapon damage bonus. This Exotic provides a damage boost to Solar weapons for quick Solar kills, making the user more resistant to the Stasis Freeze effect.

Eternal Warrior: In Season 21, this piece received some adjustments, including a longer duration for the Arc weapon damage bonus after the Fist of Havoc Super ends. The duration has been extended to 30 seconds, compared to the previous 10 seconds. This Exotic offers various benefits, such as an increasing Arc weapon damage bonus for quick Arc kills, an overshield upon activating Fists of Havoc, and the highest-tier Arc weapon damage bonus when the Super concludes.

ACD/0 Feedback Fence: Previously, this Exotic would gain charges with each melee strike against the wearer. Furthermore, incoming melee attacks would reduce the damage taken and cause an explosion. Now, ACD/0 provides armor charge through melee damage, offering protection against melee attacks and emitting a powerful burst of Arc energy when struck by melee hits.

Hallowfire Heart: Hallowfire Heart impressed players during Season of the Haunted's Solar focus, offering a heightened ability charge for a Titan's Solar subclass. It also provided additional increases while a Super was active and heightened effectiveness when airborne. With recent adjustments, the focus has shifted to enhancing Sunspots, allowing them to shine and appear more frequently. The bonuses for ability charge while in Super are still retained.

Warlocks

The Astrocyte Verse helmet used to enhance Warlocks' mobility, enabling them to Blink longer distances and with increased frequency. It also facilitated quicker weapon engagement upon exiting Blink, allowed radar visibility during Blink, and provided an enhanced performance while airborne. In addition to these existing features, the helmet now has two new functions: Blink causes nearby enemies to become volatile, and Dark Blink no longer drains Super energy when the Nova Warp Super is active.

Geomag Stabilizers used to be considered a top-tier Arc Warlock Exotic, as they enabled players to continuously generate Super energy while sprinting. However, recent modifications have transformed this Exotic to focus on extending the length of Chaos Reach by damaging enemies with the Super. Moreover, the addition of new functionality allows players to acquire Super energy by collecting an ionic trace.

The Wings of Sacred Dawn Exotic caters specifically to Dawnblade Warlocks, granting them the ability to float in midair after aiming down the sights of their weapon. This not only enhances accuracy and effectiveness while airborne, but also provides damage resistance and reduces flinching when under attack in the air. Furthermore, players have the option to maintain the floating effect by landing rapid hits with their weapons. Uniquely, this Exotic now includes an automatic reload feature for Solar weapons, triggered after defeating an enemy while aiming down the sights.

Winter's Guile provided a boost to melee damage for Warlocks when they eliminated enemies with a melee attack. However, this posed a problem for Stasis Warlocks, as their empowered melee ability is a ranged projectile that primarily inflicts the Freeze effect. To address this, a new effect has been introduced where enemies frozen by the Penumbral Blast melee will automatically Shatter after a short delay, without any action required from the player.

Destiny 2 can be played on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.