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Recent years have seen Bungie provide Destiny 2 players with an increasing number of ways to influence what type of rewards they obtain in-game. Now, Exotic armor drops are the next area to get this treatment, as Bungie is introducing Exotic armor focusing.
As detailed in a new blog post, beginning in Season 21, Rahool at the Tower will allow you to dictate what you get from an Exotic engram. You can still decrypt an engram for free as you currently can, but you’ll also have two options to influence what you get. The first, Advanced Decryption, allows you to focus an engram into an Exotic from a particular expansion (and its corresponding seasons). Seemingly due to the sheer number of them, there will be four slot-specific options–helmets, gauntlets, chest armor, and leg armor–for Exotics from the original Red War campaign. Subsequent expansions, up through Lightfall, will have only a single focusing option. Regardless of which you choose, the cost will be 30,000 Glimmer and one Ascendant Shard, in addition to the required Exotic engram.
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Precision Decryption is the other option, and while it’s more costly, it will allow you to specifically focus a piece of Exotic armor of your choice, though you’ll need to have obtained the Exotic you want previously. As this is a particularly appealing option for ensuring you have a quality stat roll on a specific piece of gear, the cost is increased to 60,000 Glimmer, three Ascendant Shards, and one Exotic Cipher. The current cap on Exotic Ciphers will also be increased from one to five to ensure you can amass a small collection of those to fund this type of decryption.
As far as obtaining Exotics goes, Bungie said it agrees with criticism that Legend Lost Sectors “aren’t currently a great method for new players to acquire Exotics from Beyond Light onward until they’ve played enough, and that with the new activity level changes, they become even less welcoming to many players.” It also acknowledged the issue with getting what you want–the rotating Legend Lost Sector only allows you to target gear for a specific slot, but as more and more Exotics are added, that becomes a less reliable method, which likely explains the new Precision Decryption system.
Bungie noted that it recently increased the Exotic drop rates for Legend and Master Lost Sectors. Players have since complained that the increase was not significant enough, but Bungie said that it’s wary of making too large of an adjustment “when the activity itself will be getting easier and easier, especially in light of other changes coming.”
Also adding to the array of ways to get Exotics, Bungie is planning another change to the Vex Strike Force event. This rare event on Neomuna was recently adjusted to take place more frequently. Following a future update, these events will be guaranteed to drop a new piece of Exotic armor if there are any that you’ve yet to collect. There won’t be any day-to-day restrictions on what gear slot they will drop for, as there are with Lost Sectors. Those who have already obtained all of the available Exotics will instead get a random roll.
Another potential pain point for many players, obtaining raid and dungeon-exclusive Exotics, will also be getting addressed, although Bungie didn’t go into much detail. It said that there will be “exciting news” for those who like obtaining Triumphs to increase the drop rate on these hard-to-obtain Exotics. It’s unclear if Bungie plans to increase the drop-rate bonus that existing Triumphs offer, add more of these types of Triumphs, or something else.
In terms of individual Exotics, Bungie is also planning to buff “more than 15” of Destiny’s “lower-performing” Exotic armors, while others will get unspecified balance changes. A recent blog post specifically called out that buffs and adjustments are also coming to more than 12 Exotic weapons, with Graviton Lance and Salvation’s Grip being called out by name.
Many of these changes will be going live with the launch of Season 21, Season of the Deep, which is expected to begin on May 23. The new season will also see the introduction of new armor mods, among other buildcrafting changes.
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