The mod system and buildcrafting in Destiny 2 has long been a frustrating affair for new and veteran players unfamiliar with the various systems and additions added piecemeal over the years, preventing many from fully exploring the power potential of their Guardians in endgame content. Bungie wants to change that in February’s Lightfall expansion, and they are reworking the mod system entirely to do so.

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Revealed in a blog detailing the evolution of buildcrafting, the Destiny 2 dev team went into detail about the removal of redundant offerings, a new loadout system, a mod customization screen, and updates to every single mod currently available. These updates range from the removal of Energy types on mods that previously required a matching Solar, Void, Arc, or Stasis armor piece to be equipped, as well as transitioning weapon-type-specific mods to damage-type-specific mods for increased build flexibility.

One of the biggest changes is to Elemental Wells and Charged With Light mods. These combat-style mods will be effectively removed in Lightfall, replaced or merged into a brand new set of universal mods in a system called Armor Charge.

What are Armor Charge mods in Destiny 2? The system replacing Elemental Wells and Charged With Light, explained

The Combat Mod socket is being removed on all armor pieces, replaced by an additional regular mod socket in its place. With its removal, the mods that once belonged to the Elemental Well and Charged With Light categories are being turned into armor slot-specific mods within the Armor Charge system. For example, Powerful Friends and Radiant Light will now be head socket mods while Time Dilation goes to the class item socket.

This revamped Armor Charge system has its own mechanics and functionality, even if many of the mods within it will have the same effects or triggers as they had as part of the previous Elemental Well and Charged With Light systems.

• Equipping any armor mod that uses the Armor Charge system will give players access to the system.
• Taking Charge, a mod that previously gave players a stack of Charged With Light when picking up an Orb of Power, is now an intrinsic perk given to all players who have an Armor Charge mod equipped.
• By default, players can hold up to three stacks of Armor Charge. Charged Up has been integrated into this system as a chest mod to allow players to increase the total stacks they can carry up to six maximum.
• While players have stacks of Armor Charge—displayed as a buff in the Status Effects area of the UI—those stacks can be consumed for various effects based on the Armor Charge mods they have equipped.

The functionality of Armor Charge is very similar to Charged With Light, but makes the system much more accessible by giving players more stacks to work with, as well as making Taking Charge an intrinsic effect rather than something that needs to be equipped. The inclusion of Elemental Well mods like Font of Wisdom and Time Dilation also expand on the benefits that can be gained from those stacks, rather than the limited Charged With Light triggers.

The benefits that can be gained by consuming stacks of Armor Charge are split into two categories: Passive benefits and Instantaneous benefits. Passive benefits like Font of Wisdom’s bonus to Intellect function by consuming a stack of Armor Charge every 10 seconds, unless those stacks are consumed by another trigger and the effect ends prematurely. This means these benefits can effectively be kept active permanently if players are able to continue gaining stacks of Armor Charge during battle.

Instantaneous benefits function off of particular triggers, consuming one to three stacks of Armor Charge to provide the player with a more immediate boon. This more than likely concerns mods that provide benefits such as Restoration or time-limited increases to damage and damage reduction. Mods that provide benefits via Finishers have also been merged into this system, now consuming stacks of Armor Charge instead of Super energy.

The Destiny 2 mods and systems being deprecated in Lightfall

With the Armor Charge system focusing on a very specific type of buildcrafting, mods and mechanics that do not fit into this rework of armor mods won’t be returning for Lightfall. These systems will either see dramatic changes in order to fit into the new buildcrafting model or have been removed entirely as Bungie sees them as no longer fit for purpose.

The most notable mods going away in Lightfall are Warmind Cells. Warmind Cells were once notoriously powerful when they were introduced in Season of the Worthy, but ever since they were heavily nerfed during the Beyond Light era, they have been rarely used by the player base in favor of Charged With Light and Elemental Well builds.

Warmind Cells saw a major resurgence in Season of the Seraph thanks to the reprisal of the IKELOS weapons with significantly upgraded perk pools, but Season of the Seraph will also be a last hurrah for them.

“With the removal of Armor Energy type and the consolidation of mechanics into Armor Charge, some mods became redundant and were removed,” Bungie explained in the Buildcrafting Evolved blog. “An example of mods that aren’t coming along for the ride are Warmind Cells. These are a relic of a different time and had already been nerfed in the past. They had a good run, but these mods will be deprecated and no longer available starting in Season 20 to make way for new options to consider when crafting your preferred combat style.”

Most mods aren’t getting wholesale removed like Warmind Cells, but will be seeing some tuning and changes to match the system. “While the main goals here were to streamline the buildcrafting experience, we also had to do some tuning while we were under the hood to address some of the power spikes certain build combinations created,” the dev team stated.

“Some ability energy gains, stat bonuses, and weapon damage bonuses from mods have been reduced, though we’ve also added some new mods to expand your build possibilities. Not all previous builds are going to be able to be recreated one-to-one, but the system has been changed enough to open up a lot of new possibilities with new mods and ability combinations.”

Until Lightfall launches, the significance of these tuning changes and the impact of the new mods won’t be fully clear. But even now, it’s clear Armor Charge will be a major shakeup to how modding and buildcrafting are currently handled in Destiny 2.

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