How to get Gambit Prime armor in Destiny 2

Destiny 2’s Season of the Drifter has kicked off with Joker’s Wild. The big addition in this DLC is Gambit Prime and The Reckoning, two new modes that work in tandem to bring you brand new armor sets. The new armor in question is Gambit Prime armor, a special collection of armor that comes with perks specific to Gambit and Gambit Prime. If you want to really flex your Gambit skills, you will want to get a full set of Gambit Prime armor. Let's dive into what each armor set brings to the table, what perks the armor offers, and how to get your hands on Gambit Prime armor.

How to get Gambit Prime armor

Gambit Prime armor is a set designed for Gambit and Gambit Prime but only available through The Reckoning. This is a new PVE activity that players can complete with a squad of up to four players. Players can unlock one piece of Gambit Prime armor at a time for each succesful completion of The Reckoning. The caveat is that players must first acquire the Weak Synthesizer.

The Weak Synthesizer is a device that turns Synths into special Motes. Once a Mote has been made, it can be placed in a bank at the start of The Reckoning. Depending on what Mote has been made will dictate what type of Gambit Prime armor is rewarded. For example, putting a Sentry Synth into the Synthesizer will yield a Sentry Mote, which when placed into the bank in The Reckoning will reward one piece of Sentry armor.

Once a Mote has been placed in the bank, the portal will open allowing access to the arena. Players will need to successfully beat the boss in order for the Mote to turn into an armor piece.

The type of Synth you use to create a mote with the Weak Synthesizer will determine the type of armor you can receive from The Reckoning.

Once you have started an activity in The Reckoning, you will have 6 minutes to complete it. If players do not kill the final boss within those six minutes, they will be teleported out of the arena where they can collect their Mote from the loot bank and use it again. Every player will need to bank a Mote if they want to get a piece of armor.

While the armor type you get from the bank is guaranteed to be the type of Mote you used (Collector, Invader, etc) the piece of armor will be random. Players could wind up receiving multiple helmets before receiving a single chest piece.

Gambit Prime armor roles

You can view your progress towards each set of Gambit Prime armor in your Collections.

There are currently four sets of armor that players can earn through playing The Reckoning. Each armor type is determined by the type of Mote you used to activate The Reckoning. While you will most likely want to obtain all four armor sets at some point, each complete set has a specific purpose, allowing players to focus on a primary role:

Reaper – Slays mobs quickly and helps generate motes for allies.
Invader – Steals enemy motes and focuses on killing opponents.
Collector – Sends bigger blockers and is rewarded for mote collection
Sentry – Protects the bank and counters invaders and blockers.

Each Gambit Prime armor set really leans into a specific role. If you're more comfortable with one role, like invading, choosing the Invader Gambit Prime armor set is going to be a good idea. It's going to be interesting to see how the meta shifts as players discover the best team loadout. Though there are four Gambit Prime armor types, it could end up being better to have multiple of the same type, for instance, three Sentries.

But there's a reason why the Gambit Prime armor allows players to excel in a specific field, and it's all thanks to the Gambit Prime armor perks.

Gambit Prime armor perks

	Requires +3	Requires +6	Requires +10	Requires +15
Collector	Inheritance	Umbral Armor	Cashback	High-Yield Savings
Collector	Drop a portion of your carried Motes on death.	Rapidly picking up 5 Motes grants an overshield.	Gain Kinetic and Energy ammo whenever you bank.	Carry up to 20 Motes. This enables you to send Giant Blockers to the enemy team.
Invader	Assassin's Munitions	Lethal Defense	Killmonger	Bank Robber
Invader	While invading, ammo slowly trickles to your Kinetic and Energy weapons over time.	Grants an improved Invasion overshield.	Each Guardian defeated while invading grants a temporary damage bonus once you return to your own arena.	Invading locks the enemy's bank. Stand near the locked bank to drain Motes.
Reaper	High-Value Tracker	Pinata of Death	Long-Lasting Favor	Major Rewards
Reaper	Damaging a high-value target or non-Primeval ultra marks it and weakens it for allies	Rapidly defeating multiple combatants drops Special ammo for allies.	Motes you generate have an increased lifetime.	Defeating powerful enemies grants a temporary surge in grenade recharge rate.
Sentry	Umbral Strike	Safe and Sound	Invader Tracker	Light of the Drifter
Sentry	Multikills grant a damage buff against Taken. Clears when you damage a Taken combatant. Stacks up to 5x	Standing near the bank triggers health regeneration.	Damaging an invader marks them for your teammates.	You and nearby allies are granted maximum resilience, mobility, and recovery while in the Well of Light.

Make sure you know how to get The Recluse pinnacle weapon in Destiny 2: Season of the Drifter.

As you can see from the table above, each set of Gambit Prime armor (Collector, Invader, Reaper, and Sentry) has four unique perks. These perks are unlocked by equipping multiple of the same armor type. This means players can potentially mix-and-match armor sets to unlock various perks across the board.

Outside of the four main roles, Gambit Prime armor also comes in three different "rarities": Illicit, Outlawed, and Notorious. The difference between these is how much of a bump-up in levels a piece of armor provides. For example, Illicit offers a +1 per piece of armor, Outlawed grants +2, while Notorious boasts +3.

Having a full set of Illicit Gambit Prime armor equipped can give a maximum of +5, meaning that not even the second perk will be activated (as it requires +6). One way to reach the fourth perk requirements is to equip a full set of Notorious Gambit Prime armor.

Complete higher tiers in The Reckoning to unlock the Outlawed and Notorious Gambit Prime armor.

However, we did mention mixing and matching armor pieces to unlock various perks. To make this a reality, players will want to use a synth as a consumable. When consumed, a synth will give a +3 bump to one of the four roles for 30 minutes. Players can only have one role bumped at a time, so if you consume a Sentry Synth and then an Invader Synth, you will lose the +3 to Sentry.

With this in mind, players could potentiall wear three pieces of Collector armor and two pieces of Sentry armor, use a Collector Synth, and wind up with Inheritance, Umbral Armor, Cashback, Umbral Strike, and Safe and Sound from those two different armor sets.

You can equip several pieces of a Gambit Prime armor set to enable the perks that each set has to offer.

Picking the right Gambit Prime armor for you is going to be based on how you like to play. Players aren't just limited to one armor set though, as they can mix and match to unlock various perks across the board. It's even possible to have the level one perk from each Gambit Prime armor set if you wear one piece from each. Start experimenting with various Gambit Prime armor sets to see what best suits your playstyle in Destiny 2.

If you’re looking for more help with Joker’s Wild, make sure you hit up our Destiny 2 complete strategy guide. We have a ton of helpful strategy articles that will assist you as you try to unlock all the pinnacle weapons and compete in the new game modes introduced with the latest update.