Exotic weapons and armor coming with Destiny 2: Beyond Light
A deep dive into Beyond Light's new Exotic weapons and armor, and how they might synergize with subclasses and builds.
Bungie has released a new trailer for Destiny 2: Beyond Light that highlights a suite of new Exotics. This mixture of weapons and armor pieces look to drastically change some of the fundamental player mechanics, including swapping out class abilities and incorporating new damage-over-time effects. Let’s take a look at what’s on offer and how this might change how you play your favorite class.
Remember to ensure you’ve got what you want before November, because there is a lot of stuff leaving Destiny 2 with Beyond Light.
New Exotic weapons – Beyond Light
The recent gear trailer gave players a small glimpse at four new Exotic weapons coming to Destiny 2 with Beyond Light. While we already knew about No Time to Explain, we at least now have a clearer picture of how it functions. Whether these will find a regular home in your build will depend entirely on how the meta shifts come November.
No Time to Explain – Pulse Rifle
First up we have No Time to Explain, a weapon that started its life as a Legendary reward at the end of the Destiny 1 campaign. This weapon would later become an Exotic Pulse Rifle with the Taken King expansion.
In Destiny 2, No Time to Explain features the same magazine-filling effect where precision hits and hits against enemies affected by Stasis returns rounds to the mag. It has an additional perk where stacking this effect can be used to summon a portal that fires bullets from “an alternate timeline of the weapon”. Stealing bullets from someone else to save us? What could go wrong?
Depending how the meta shifts, we could see No Time to Explain becoming a top pick for Crucible. This will all depend on the mods available through the Season 12 artifact as well as any shifts to the damage output of other weapons. The added DPS from the portal could be quite difficult to fight against.
No Time to Explain is available for those who pre-order Beyond Light with the season pass. Alternatively, it will become available for all Beyond Light users after Season 12.
Cloudstrike – Sniper Rifle
Cloudstrike is an Exotic Sniper Rifle that sounds like it’s more of a rapid firing sniper than a high impact weapon. Its main perk has precision final blows creating lightning bolts at the target location. Alternatively, if the enemy doesn’t die, rapid precision hits will summon an “entire storm”. Whether this storm is different to a Storm Grenade remains to be seen.
Right now, Sniper Rifles are in a difficult spot in the Destiny 2 PVE meta. There’s really not a lot of point using them over a Shotgun or even an Auto Rifle like Gnawing Hunger. This could see some use in Crucible, but that depends entirely on the scope and how sticky the reticle is.
The Lament – Sword
Swords are one of the best DPS weapons in Destiny 2 as of Season of Arrivals. For the most part, players have been using Falling Guillotine, among others, as a means to melt bosses. With The Lament, Bungie looks to give players another option when it comes to Swords, and this one specializes in dealing with Champions.
The Lament has a saw built into the blade, which revs up when the sword blocks a projectile. When revved, the blade will cleave through shielded enemies, with a strong focus on Champion shields. Judging by the blurb on Bungie’s post, it would seem that the more projectiles you block, the more the saw will rev. At its maximum power, The Lament will heal the wielder on hit.
If Swords stay in a strong place, we could see players shifting to The Lament as a boss DPS option. That is, of course, assuming bosses are similar to that seen in The Prophecy dungeon, as opposed to floating enemies you can’t get near.
Salvation’s Grip – Grenade Launcher
The final Exotic weapon Bungie showcased for Beyond Light is Salvation’s Grip. This Exotic Grenade Launcher looks to utilize the new element, Stasis. Players looking for greater synergy within their Stasis builds may want to consider what’s on offer here.
Every round from Salvation’s Grip creates Stasis crystals that freeze targets. The launcher can also be charged to increase the freeze radius as well as the number of crystals created. Whether the damage comes directly from this or the coupling of other abilities remains to be seen.
While they’re still effective, Grenade Launchers have fallen out of the top spot recently. Perhaps we’re in for another shift, though, one would hope for more attention on the other, easily-forgotten explosive ordnance: Rocket Launchers.
New Exotic armor – Beyond Light
It wasn’t all about Exotic weapons in the Beyond Light trailer. There were also six new Exotic armor pieces highlighted.
A brief look seems to suggest that Warlocks got the raw end of the deal on this one. Both the Hunters and Titans have had their class abilities replaced with new mechanics when using an Exotic, while the Warlock’s Rift has seemingly remained untouched.
Arthrys’s Embrace – Hunter Exotic Gauntlets
The throwing knife has gone through its ups and downs. But now, thanks to Arthrys’s Embrace, the weighted knife looks to become a little bit more powerful.
The main perk of these gauntlets gives the knife a second ricochet, allowing it to bounce around sharper angles. Furthermore, rapid precision hits receive increased damage and can stagger enemies. Whether this translates to easier headshots or just montage-worthy trick shots remains to be seen.
Hunters that opt for the Way of the Sharpshooter will likely enjoy the precision hit synergy found here.
Mask of Bakris – Hunter Exotic Helmet
Hunters will be pleased to hear that their dodge is getting replaced. That is, it’ll be replaced when wearing this Beyond Light Exotic helmet.
Instead of the standard Marksman or Gambler’s Dodge, Mask of Bakris gives the Hunter a Fallen Captain-like Shift ability. This looks to teleport the Hunter laterally, while also cloaking the wearer after activation.
While likely not so useful in PVE, this sounds extremely troubling to play against in PVP. A skilful Warlock Blink can disorient even the most proficient fighters and Dodge was already extremely powerful without Shift’s displacement and invisibility effect.
Icefall Mantle – Titan Exotic Gauntlets
Expect to see a lot of Titans rocking the Icefall Mantle. This Exotic piece of armor allows Titans to create an overshield on-demand at the cost of the Barricade ability. This means, instead of providing cover for the team, the Titan will become even more difficult to kill in combat.
If Resilience wasn’t already a top priority for Titans, this Exotic will change that. The reason for this is that Resilience is a Destiny 2 armor stat that directly affects a Titan’s Barricade cooldown. This is, of course, assuming the cooldown for the overshield uses Barricade's stats.
In terms of which subclass will benefit the most from this Exotic, that will likely be dealer’s choice. However, Code of the Protector, with its overshield-creating melee, could have Titan’s shielded almost all the time.
Precious Scars – Titan Exotic Helmet
The other Titan Exotic, Precious Scars, also leans into the overshield mechanic. After reviving an ally, this helmet will grant the Titan an overshield and an aura that shields nearby enemies. How this aura works is currently unknown. It could be a time-based aura as well as one that breaks after a certain amount of damage is received.
We could see a situation whereby this helmet is quickly equipped in Trials of Osiris before going for revives. This would give the revived teammates more of a chance at surviving those hard-scoping snipers.
Dawn Chorus – Warlock Exotic Helmet
And now we get to the Warlock Exotics. The first off the ranks is the Dawn Chorus, which gives Daybreak sword projectiles extra damage and causes enemies to burn on contact. Every time a burn damages a target, Warlocks will receive melee energy.
This is sounding like an extremely powerful Warlock Exotic. The bottom-tree Dawnblade was already powerful, with its duration extended on every kill, which allowed it to clear waves of trash mobs with ease. This extra damage should make it feel a bit better when wielded against powerful targets, which mostly shrugged off the flaming swords.
Necrotic Grip – Warlock Exotic Gauntlets
Unfortunately, the Warlock doesn’t get a class ability altering Exotic. Instead, they have Necrotic Grip. This Exotic pair of gauntlets grants a damage-over-time poison whenever you melee an enemy. Afflicted enemies that are defeated will spread the corruption and restore melee energy.
How Necrotic Grip synergizes with subclass melee perks will change which subclass players will want to use. For instance, does the Attunement of Conduction melee still give extended range and chain lightning? If so, poison and chain lightning will be a fantastic combo.
Alternatively, the extremely powerful Attunement of Hunger may increase in power with the addition of poison and more crowd control. We’ll see when Beyond Light releases exactly how this piece interacts with other melee abilities.
The new Exotics coming to Destiny 2: Beyond Light look rather promising. It will be interesting to see how these Exotic weapons and armor pieces function in the wild, especially as players look for the best builds in the lead up to dungeon and raid releases. Make sure you check out the Shacknews Destiny 2 guide, it’s where we’ll be collecting all the critical Beyond Light guides and information.
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