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Destiny 2: Shadowkeep made many drastic changes to the game's sandbox and loot system. The most notable change was the overhaul of armor, otherwise known as Armor 2.0. This system replaced the random-rolled perks on armor in exchange for swappable mods and random armor stats.
Intellect, Discipline, and Strength have returned to allow for more build diversity, yet there are so many moving systems that it can be rather obtuse for newer players to dive into. Fortunately, Armor 2.0 is much less intimidating than it appears. Mastering this system is key to completing Destiny 2's hardest content. Here is a complete guide to Destiny 2's Armor 2.0 system.
Updated January 16th, 2022, by Charles Burgar: Armor 2.0 has seen some additional changes since the last time we updated this guide. The Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack has introduced variable cooldowns for every ability in Destiny 2. This has changed the effectiveness of Discipline, Intellect, and Strength for most builds. We've updated this guide with updated values for these three stats, and we've tweaked a few entries to better reflect how Armor 2.0 works today.
How Armor Stats Work
There are six major armor stats that players need to manage: Mobility, Resilience, Recovery, Discipline, Intellect, and Strength. These stats determine everything from a character's strafe speed to the recharge rate of their skills.
Here's a detailed look at what each armor stat does:
| Stat | Effect | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Mobility | Increases your walk and strafe speed while also increasing the height of your first jump. |
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| Resilience | Increases the amount of health your shield has. Reduces Stasis breakout damage. |
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| Recovery | Speeds up health recovery while reducing your shield recharge delay. |
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| Discipline | Reduces your grenade cooldown. |
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| Intellect | Reduces your Super cooldown. |
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| Strength | Reduces your melee ability cooldown. |
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Armor Stat Breakdown
If you're into numbers and min-maxing, you'll want to know how each stat behaves as you increase its value. Before we delve into specific numbers, it's important you understand how stat tiers work.
Stat Tiers
Stat tiers refer to the value of your stat when divided by ten, rounded down. All stats in Destiny 2 can range from having a value of 0 to 100. Increasing a stat by ten points will increase its tier, granting stronger benefits.
For example, let's say that your Strength stat is 42. This is considered to be a tier four stat. If you increased the stat to 50, it becomes a tier five stat, reducing your melee cooldown by a few seconds. If you increase it yet again to 59, it would still be a tier five stat, as dividing it by ten would leave you with 5.9. Rounded down, you get five.
In essence, your tier is the first number on your stat. Try your best to not have leftover points in a given tier to maximize the effect of all of your stats.
Stat Number Breakdown
All stats behave slightly differently when invested into. Mobility scales linearly with investment, Resilience gives slightly more benefit when invested into, Recovery becomes exponentially stronger as you invest, and the remaining three stats—Discipline, Intellect, and Strength—receive diminishing returns with high investment.
Below are the values that you can expect from each tier of a given stat. Discipline, Intellect, and Strength list a percent modifier, showcasing how much they increase or decrease an ability's base cooldown. For reference, T3 is an ability's base cooldown. T0-2 slow it down, while T4-10 speed it up. More information about this ability cooldown system can be found here.
Destiny 2 Stats
Tier (Column)Stat (Row) | T0(0-9) | T1(10-19) | T2(20-29) | T3(30-39) | T4(40-49) | T5(50-59) | T6(60-69) | T7(70-79) | T8(80-89) | T9(90-99) | T10(100) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mobility | 0% | 4% | 8% | 12% | 16% | 20% | 24% | 28% | 32% | 36% | 40% |
| Resilience | 0% | 1% | 2% | 3% | 4% | 5% | 6% | 8% | 10% | 12% | 13% |
| Recovery | 0% | 3% | 6% | 9% | 11% | 14% | 17% | 23% | 29% | 34% | 43% |
| Discipline | -25% | -14% | -4% | 0% | 16% | 28% | 37% | 44% | 50% | 54% | 60% |
| Intellect | -44% | -27% | -14% | 0% | 5% | 10% | 14% | 18% | 20% | 22% | 23% |
| Strength | -25% | -14% | -4% | 0% | 16% | 28% | 37% | 44% | 50% | 54% | 60% |
| Note: Values for Discipline, Intellect, and Strength are rounded up. Values will vary between abilities by ± 1%. The percentages listed are with respect to the ability's base cooldown (achieved at T3). |
Class Ability Cooldowns
While your subclass type doesn't impact your class ability cooldown, your class does. For example, the Hunter's Dodge ability recharges much faster than a Warlock's Rift. Cooldowns for each class-specific ability can be found below:
Tier (Column)Class Ability (Row) | T0(0-9) | T1(10-19) | T2(20-29) | T3(30-39) | T4(40-49) | T5(50-59) | T6(60-69) | T7(70-79) | T8(80-89) | T9(90-99) | T10(100) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Hunter Dodge(Mobility) | 0:34 | 0:32 | 0:30 | 0:29 | 0:29 | 0:24 | 0:22 | 0:19 | 0:16 | 0:14 | 0:11 |
Titan Barricade(Resilience) | 0:52 | 0:46 | 0:41 | 0:37 | 0:33 | 0:30 | 0:28 | 0:25 | 0:21 | 0:17 | 0:14 |
Warlock Rift(Recovery) | 1:57 | 1:43 | 1:31 | 1:22 | 1:15 | 1:08 | 1:03 | 0:59 | 0:51 | 0:46 | 0:41 |
What Are Armor Mods?
In addition to armor stats, most armor pieces can equip armor mods that can grant a wide range of buffs. Every armor piece can equip a General mod, Slot-Specific mod, and a Combat Style mod. Some armor pieces also come with a fifth mod slot, used either to store raid mods (raid-exclusive armor) or Artifact mods (Master Grasp of Avarice armor).
To equip an armor mod, head to your inventory and inspect an armor piece of your choosing. Hover your cursor over a mod slot to see which mods you can equip. Note that every mod has an energy cost that is denoted at the top of the screen beside your armor's elemental affinity. You can upgrade this energy total by using Legendary Shards and Masterwork materials. An armor piece cannot exceed ten energy.
General mods provide bonuses to your armor stats such as increased Mobility or Intellect. These mods come in two forms: +5 bonuses and +10 bonuses. The former cost around 1-2 armor energy while the latter cost 3-5 energy.
Slot-specific mods grant effects such as increased ammo on grabbing ammo bricks, faster ADS times on weapons, or taking reduced damage from certain foes. These mods vary for each armor slot.
Combat Style mods provide powerful, build-enabling effects through the use of three mechanics: Charged with Light, Warmind Cells, and Elemental Wells.
Finally, raid mods offer benefits that are only active during certain raids.
Here is what you can expect to find in the Slot-Specific mod slot:
- Helmet: Weapon targeting and scavenger mods. Mods that grant Super energy for using abilities go here as well.
- Gloves: Dexterity and reload speed mods. Fastball and ability energy perks go here as well.
- Body Armor: Damage resistance, ammo reserves, and unflinching mods.
- Boots: Ammo scavengers, weapon holsters, and Orbs of Power mods.
- Class Item: Finisher, class ability, and most Seasonal Artifact mods.
Unlocking Mods
Players will not start Destiny 2 with every mod unlocked. The best way to unlock new mods is to obtain Legendary Engrams from vendors. Zavala is the best vendor for this, as increasing your Vanguard rank is fairly easy. Shaxx's Crucible Engrams are a good source as well. If you have a stockpile of Legendary Shards, Master Rahool's Legendary Engrams can also unlock armor mods.
Combat Style mods are tied to seasonal activities and are obtained by participating in that season's progression system and/or activity. Players that miss these seasonal mods can obtain them from Ada-1 in the Tower. She sells one random Combat Style mod each day for ten Mod Components.
Elemental Affinities
Elemental affinities further influence the types of mods that can be used on an item. Each element is tied to a certain subset of mods curated by Bungie.
- Solar: Grenade and health mods.
- Arc: Melee mods.
- Void: Class ability mods.
- Stasis: Situational ability regeneration mods.
As for Combat Style mods, these elements behave a little differently:
- Solar mods can stack with each other unless otherwise noted.
- Arc mods have a secondary bonus that is activated if you have a second Arc mod installed on either that armor piece or in another item's Combat Style slot.
- Void mods typically grant powerful effects for little energy at the cost of your stats.
- Stasis mods grant powerful boons for a slightly higher energy cost.
Should you obtain an armor piece with an elemental affinity you are not happy with, you can change the item's affinity at any time by hovering over the item's elemental affinity icon and reforging it to a different element. This costs one Upgrade Module. Reforging an element while retaining your armor's rank will require all previous upgrade materials unless it's Masterworked. Any Masterworked armor you reforge will cost an Upgrade Module and some Glimmer.
Upgrading And Masterworking Armor
Upgrading armor is core to getting the most out of it. Every time you upgrade an armor piece, it will gain an additional energy point that can be used to slot additional mods into that piece. An armor piece cannot exceed ten energy, and unlocking the final three energy points on your armor will cost Enhancement Prisms and Ascendant Shards.
When a piece of armor is upgraded to its maximum of ten, it will become Masterworked. Masterworked items grant an additional +2 to every armor stat in addition to having ten energy to work with.
To find the materials needed to Masterwork your armor, you will need to obtain Enhancement Cores, Enhancement Prisms, and Ascendant Shards. Most of these materials can be obtained by completing Nightfall: The Ordeal missions located under the Vanguard section of the Director. The higher the difficulty, the rarer the Masterwork materials you'll receive. Banshee-44 and Ada-1 also sell Masterwork materials for an exorbitant price. It is not recommended to buy Masterwork materials from them unless you absolutely have to.
How To Obtain Masterwork Materials
For guides on how to obtain each Masterwork material, check out the links below:
Artifact Mods
Shadowkeep also introduced players to Artifacts, a progression system that unlocks powerful mods that can compete with Exotics in terms of power. Only 12 Artifact mods can be unlocked at a time, and unlocking these mods comes from earning experience points. Keep in mind that once the season ends, those Artifact mods become defunct and won't function. They're worth using, however, granting strong benefits such as a weakening effect on Void grenades or increased melee ability damage. These can be obtained through a short quest introduced every season. Earn experience points by playing the game to unlock Artifact mods.
Combat Style Mods
All Legendary armor pieces also have a Combat Style mod slot that can slot in unique and powerful effects. These mods must be obtained from seasonal activities and progression systems tied to that season.
As of Season of the Risen, all Combat Style mods revolve around three mechanics: Charged with Light, Warmind Cells, and Elemental Wells. We cover each of these mechanics in our Combat Style mod guide.
How To Farm High-Stat Armor
Every armor piece is randomly rolled upon acquisition, but there are a few ways to bias armor to drop with high stats.
- Decrypt Prime Engrams.
- Obtain armor from raids or dungeons.
- Focus Umbral Engrams with certain armor stat biases (can only do this three times per week).
- Equip Armorer mods on your Ghost Shell.
- Complete Iron Banner matches.
- Complete Trials of Osiris matches.
For farming, your best options are the Prophecy dungeon and Iron Banner. Prophecy is the only dungeon in Destiny 2 that still drops rewards after you clear it for the first time that week, allowing you to clear the raid multiple times for high-stat armor. Iron Banner drops loads of armor with high stats, although this is a limited-time event that only happens three times per season.
While you're farming an activity, be sure to equip an Armorer mod on your Ghost. These mods will force all armor you obtain to drop with at least ten in a chosen stat, with a high chance of making that item's stat bias your chosen stat.
