Season 22 Exotic Armor and Abilities Preview

All Season 22 Abilities and Exotic Armors (Destiny 2)

Bungie just released their plans for the Season 22 balance pass which looks at exotic armor for and abilities for all 3 classes.

A lot of Strand changes are in this release that may impact the end game meta.

This article will summarize the changes and give insight to how they will affect the meta of the game.

Dive into our Prismatic Hunter guides, Prismatic Warlock guides, and Prismatic Titan guides for the newly released expansion, The Final Shape.

Exotic Armor

Hunter

Knucklehead Radar

• Changes
  • The functionality of the Foetracer Exotic helmet has been completely removed from that Exotic and added to Knucklehead Radar, on top of its existing benefits.
• Thoughts
  • This is a nice quality of life change to now have an exotic that marks targets, keeps up radar when ADS, and offers some stat bonuses. But I don’t think it will move the needle to make it a worthwhile exotic to use. It’ll most likely see a small uptick in PvP play, but there are better PvP options and it will still have no use in PvE.

Foetracer

• Changes
  • We took some cues from the popular Monochromatic Maestro artifact perk for this one. When you deal damage with one of your abilities, you gain a damage bonus with weapons that have damage types matching your subclass damage type. Additionally, when you defeat an enemy you’ve damaged with one of your abilities (either with another ability or with a weapon with a damage type matching your subclass type), you will spawn one of the collectible objects associated with your subclass, such as Ionic Traces or Firesprites.
• Thoughts
  • Depending on the damage bonus duration and amount this can be a great exotic for PvE. With a high damage bonus this can be a good DPS exotic and with a good duration this can be a good neutral game exotic. This will definitely be make or break depending on these values, but keep your eye on it if they are generous with these numbers.

Lucky Raspberry

• Changes
  • This Exotic was a little too unreliable in its current form, so we’ve taken a crack at streamlining its energy gains, while leaving some of its benefits intact. The Exotic still expands the chaining capabilities of Arc Bolt grenades. But now instead of basing the grenade energy gains on those chains, each time you damage an enemy with the lightning strikes from the jolted condition—as well as each time you pick up an ionic trace—you gain additional grenade energy. We’ve also given this grenade the intrinsic ability to stun Overload Champions. Now you don’t have to jolt them and then trigger the jolt lightning strikes just to stun them, making these grenades a more reliable tool against Overload Champions.
• Thoughts
  • Depending on how large the chunk of energy is, this exotic will most likely end up being a bad version of the Warlock’s Fallen Sunstar. Arc Bolts are a weak grenade in their current state, so it’s hard to justify use of your exotic around it. The changes are more so PvE-centric, so it’s hard to imagine this not continuing to be a dud in PvP.

Renewal Grasps

• Changes
  • We’ve undone the previous nerf to Duskfield grenade cooldowns when using this Exotic.
• Thoughts
  • This is a nice change as in their current state this exotic makes a massive trade off by worsening Duskfield Grenade’s cooldown by 40%. In PvP they don’t offer enough damage resistance to be as good as they once were, but in PvE this is a nice change for defensive builds that Stasis Hunters can lean into for more difficult content.

Titan

Icefall Mantle

• Changes
  • Grants an escalating bonus to Stasis weapon damage when getting rapid Stasis kills. When you activate your class ability, you immediately gain the highest tier bonus.
• Thoughts
  • This really depends on the damage bonus. Getting the max bonus when using class ability is really nice as this synergizes with Cold Comfort for boss damage phases. I imagine this will be the same as The Path of the Burning Steps where the 25% damage bonus is not worth the lack of stacking with Surge mods and dedicating an exotic.

Doom Fang Pauldrons

• Changes
  • Grants an escalating bonus to Void weapon damage when getting rapid Void kills. When you get a Void melee kill, you immediately gain the highest tier bonus.
• Thoughts
  • These exotics are uninspiring… This will most likely be the 25% damage buff and not be worth using when Surge mods give a 22% damage buff when using 3.

Path of the Burning Steps

• Changes
  • Getting a Solar Grenade kill now grants the highest tier Solar weapon damage bonus.
• Thoughts
  • This isn’t enough to move the needle. This doesn’t solve the fundamental issue with the exotic that it doesn’t stack damage with Surge mods.

Eternal Warrior

• Changes
  • Since the exotic only grants its highest tier damage bonus automatically when your Super ends (which is a rarer occurrence), the duration of the Arc weapon damage bonus when your Fist of Havoc Super ends has been extended to 30 seconds (up from 10 seconds in Season 21).
• Thoughts
  • This still won’t matter and won’t make these exotics better.

ACD/0 Feedback Fence

• Changes
  • This Exotic got a complete mechanical rework and now ties into the Armor Charge system, increasing its versatility and making it more useful in scenarios where you might not be taking a lot of melee damage. With the new perk (which completely replaces the old), when melee hits give you an Armor Charge, you take reduced melee damage while you have that Armor Charge. Taking melee damage causes you to emit a burst of damaging Arc energy that jolts targets, consuming your Armor Charge and dealing more damage based on the number of stacks consumed. (Note that the damage dealt by the burst of Arc energy should be comparable to its current damage for 0-3 stacks of Armor Charge.)
• Thoughts
  • This exotic is currently a PvP exotic and it being based on armor charge will most likely end that as getting armor charge stacks in PvP is rather rare. The only way this will continue being a PvP exotic is if it continues to deal 100 or more damage when at 0 stacks of armor charge or when you melee at roughly the same time the game’s peer to peer net code thinks you have a stack and 1 stack does greater than 100 damage to allow a kill with a melee and an arc discharge. For these to be good in PvE the damage resistance needs to be astronomically high to justify using this in more difficult content.

Hallowfire Heart

• Changes
  • This Exotic often stands in the shadow of the more ubiquitous Heart of Inmost Light. To remedy that, we’ve removed its base energy to Solar abilities and replaced it with a perk that will let you build more into Sunspots. We think you’ll be seeing many more Sunspots on the battlefield as a result. As for the perk that greatly increases your ability regen rate when your Super is fully charged, we left that as-is.
• Thoughts
  • Now this can be very good depending on the exact benefits to Sunspots. The Throwing Hammer Bonk Titan is one of the best classes in the game and if this opens up more build options to that class, this can be a great alternative to Synthoceps for that class depending on this change.

Warlock

Astrocyte Verse

• Changes
  • We’ve added two more pieces of functionality to this Exotic. Enemies near you when you Blink become volatile. Additionally, when you’re using the Nova Warp Super, the Dark Blink ability no longer consumes Super energy.
• Thoughts
  • This is another example of giving a PvP exotic, PvE buffs that won’t change it at all. Nobody uses Blink in PvE, so using this to make enemies Volatile seems silly. Then on the PvP side the Volatile range needs to be very large otherwise you have to use blink on top of another player to get the added bonus which is extremely risky for little benefit. The benefit it gives to Nova Warp is menial as that super is bad in all facets of the game.

Geomag Stabilizers

• Changes
  • While we’ve often heard calls to restore the perk that let you top off your Super energy by sprinting, the legacy of that incentive still creates some pretty silly play patterns. Instead, we wanted to give players a way to get more Super energy, no matter how charged their Super is. Now picking up an ionic trace while wearing this Exotic will grant Guardians additional Super energy.
• Thoughts
  • This is a nice quality of life change. This most likely won’t change too much with the exotic unless this bonus energy gives enough energy to get supers as quickly as Orpheus Rig can. This is on Warlock, and with Electrostatic Mind this class can create a lot of Ionic Traces.

Wings of Sacred Dawn

• Changes
  • Leaning into the “orbital weapons platform” fantasy, we wanted to help players have a way to stay aloft longer (especially in target-rich PvE environments). Typically, reloading was the main cause for a float to end. This Exotic now automatically reloads Solar weapons (including the weapon you are holding) from reserves each time you get a kill while aiming down sights. Try this one out with Xenophage!
• Thoughts
  • This definitely sounds fun! And if the auto-reload occurs when you are on the ground this has potential to be a real good exotic with something like Tommy’s Matchbook. If the reload is only while in air that’s still a nice buff, but won’t be anything groundbreaking as you’ll have to over-expose yourself to play around it.

Winter’s Guile

• Changes
  • Due to the nature of the Stasis warlock’s melee ability, this Exotic was previously a disappointing choice for that subclass. We’ve added a new perk to this one, specifically for when you are playing your Stasis subclass. Now combatants encased by your Penumbral Blast melee will automatically shatter after a short delay.
• Thoughts
  • This is fine. Osmiomancy Gloves are so much better in this slot for the Stasis Warlock it is hard to justify taking those off for shatter damage.

Abilities

Titan Barricade

• Changes
  • Towering Barricade
    • Base cooldown increased from 48 seconds to 70 seconds.
  • All Barricades
    • Maximum health reduced from 600 to 500.
    • Damage resistance vs. PVE combatants increased to compensate.
• Thoughts
  • This is mostly a PvP nerf. In PvE Rally Barricade already had a lower cooldown, and this will most likely push players into using that more due to the cooldown differences. Titans are still very strong in PvP, especially Striker, and this seems like a good step to knock down how effective they are.

Striker Titan

• Changes
  • Thundercrash
    • Increased base cooldown time from 500 seconds to 556 seconds, matching the majority of our roaming Super roster.
  • Knockout
    • Reduced damage bonus vs. players from 50 to 30.
• Thoughts
  • Knockout is a big part of what makes Striker so strong, but I think the strength more so lies in the lunge range and the healing. This is a start to take it down though. The super is also a big part of what makes it strong in PvP. This cooldown doesn’t seem like much, but could be the difference in a Ward of Dawn or Well of radiance super in Trials getting value the round before Thundercrash comes up.

Strand Part 1

• Changes
  • Suspend
    • Reduced base Suspend duration vs. non-Champion PvE combatants from 8 seconds to 5 seconds.
    • Thread of Continuity now extends this duration to 7 seconds, down from 12 seconds.
    • Reduced base Suspend duration vs. Champion combatants from 8 seconds to 3 seconds (4 seconds with Thread of Continuity).
    • Increased snap damage dealt to Suspended boss combatants by 67%.
  • Thread of Mind
    • Reduced class energy gain, based on the tier of the defeated target:
    • Minor combatants reduced from 15% to 10%.
    • Major combatants and players reduced from 25% to 15%.
    • Bosses, Champions, and minibosses reduced from 50% to 25%.
  • Thread of Generation
    • Reduced the overall energy gain per damage event against PvE enemies by about 20%.
    • Rebalanced the energy gain multiplier across primary weapon archetypes. We wanted to bring the energy gains for dealing damage with precision weapons and fully automatic weapons closer together.
    • Overall, we’ve reduced the efficiency of fully automatic primary weapons and increased the efficiency of precision primary weapons to compensate.
  • Threadlings
    • Increased Threadling damage vs. PvE combatants by 30%.
  • Tangles
    • Reduced Tangle creation cooldown time from 15 seconds to 12 seconds.
  • Sever
    • PvE combatants affected by Sever now have their outgoing damage reduced by 40% vs. 30%.
• Thoughts
  • This is the biggest of all of the changes in this insight article. Suspend is the strongest ability mechanic in the game at the moment. This is a big hit, and the timer for Champions is what will be noticed the most. Suspend will still be strong as with multiple Strand teammates the abilities can be chained together to make up for the time drop, but the infinite Suspend builds won’t be quite as potent, especially in solo play. Thread of Mind and Generation are also two Fragments used in almost every meta Strand build, so this will be a hit to the Subclass as well. The other adjectives got some nice buffs, the most notable of which is Threadlings. Strand Warlock is a sleeper class at the moment and can dish out great DPS with its super. This buff can boost the Threadling based Warlock into a top build going forward.

Strand Aspects

• Changes

• • Threaded Specter

• • • Increased Threaded Specter lifetime from 10 to 12 seconds.
    • Increased Threaded Specter health vs. PvE combatants.
    • Threaded Specter now takes longer to detect nearby PvE combatants at the beginning of its lifetime.
    • PvE combatants now more consistently focus on Threaded Specter instead of the Hunter.
    • Allied players no longer have reticle magnetism toward Threaded Specter.

• • The Wanderer
    • While this Aspect is equipped, destroying a Tangle with your weapon will now weave the Wanderer, which surges upward and detonates, suspending any nearby enemies. We’ve also increased the Wanderer’s detonation range and damage.
    • Destroying a Tangle now creates a delayed Suspending detonation.
    • Increased Suspend detonation radius from 6 to 7 meters against PvE combatants.
    • Increased thrown Wanderer Tangle detonation damage to match standard Tangle detonations.
• Thoughts
  • Threaded Spectre wasn’t really groundbreaking in PvE. These buffs do make it sound like it’ll be a better decoy, but it will still be hard to justify taking this over the other Aspect options that Strand Hunter has. As for the Wanderer, these are small but nice buffs and the Aspect creates a Tangle from a Threadling kill. Between the Threadling buffs and these buffs running Strand Warlock with Weaver’s Call and The Wanderer is looking like it can be very good.

Strand Fragments

• Changes
  • Thread of Propagation
    • Now grants +10 Strength.
  • Thread of Continuity
    • No longer grants +10 Strength.
  • Thread of Wisdom
    • No longer requires a precision kill to activate.
  • Thread of Isolation
    • Reduced the number of precision hits required to activate by an average of about 30% (varies by weapon archetype).
  • Thread of Rebirth
    • The number of created Threadlings now increases based on the tier of the defeated target:
    • Minor combatants: 1.
    • Elite combatants or players: 2.
    • Boss, Champion, or miniboss combatants: 3.
• Thoughts
  • Another Threadling buff with Thread of Rebirth… This one isn’t much but Threadlings have a really good chance of being meta. The other Fragments aren’t anything crazy. Thread of Continuity will continue to be mandatory due to Suspend having reduced duration and this loss of strength hurts it more, but it won’t have too much of an impact as Strand Subclasses don’t really build into Strength. With the buff to Sever, Thread of Isolation may be interesting, but the overall impact of Sever just isn’t close to as strong as Suspend and despite the nerfs to Sever it will most likely still be the focal point of Strand builds outside of Threadling Warlock.

Highlights

For the exotic armor changes there aren’t any that stick out that’ll be game breaking by any means. The buff that has a chance to be a good option is Hallowfire Heart. Not many details were given as to how this will affect Sunspots, but in the current state of the game Sunspots are very strong and if this exotic can open up more build options with them it has a chance to be a staple for Titans. The other exotic pieces under the Titan don’t seem as if they’ll be anything special. There is a different sentiment for Hunter exotics as Foetracer has a good chance of being a good neutral game and/or boss damage tool depending on the duration and damage bonus of the buff. If anything sees an improvement in PvP it’ll be Knucklehead Radar with its plethora of bonuses, albeit they are small ones.

As for warlock armor, Wings of Sacred Dawn has interesting potential. With Starfire Protocol a shell of its former self, there is a lot more operating room for other exotics to come in. Sunbracers are great right now, but those are for grenades and for more weapon based builds Wings of Sacred Dawn can see some good use with the synergy it’ll have with Ember of Empyrean and solar weapons such as Tommy’s Matchbook which will let you continuously heal through Tommy’s self-hurt, reload, and get extra damage.

The ability changes impact Striker Titan and Strand. The main goal of the Striker nerfs were to lessen how effective they are in PvP. These will definitely knock them down a tad, but their kit as a whole will still definitely be in the upper tier. The Barricade changes will make Titans less annoying to fight in objective game modes across all subclasses and the Striker specific nerfs will most likely be felt in Trials where the longer Thundercrash cooldown could be the difference in getting super first or second in a match.

For Strand as a whole these are some real large changes. Suspend got hit hard and it’s really no surprise as it trivialized much of the game. The main part of it that’ll be felt is when dealing with Champions. With other enemies there shouldn’t be too noticeable of a difference and the Suspend duration will definitely still be the best crowd control option. Threadling got some very nice buffs and these have a good chance of bringing Strand Warlock to the upper tier of the meta. That subclass has been good and flying under the radar, but this buff has a good chance of making it a top build going forward.

Closing

Be sure to look out for new builds and guides when Season 22 launches on August 22nd. These and many other changes will go live, so we will have the most up to date information on the top builds and weapon rolls once the new patch is live.