How Destiny 2 Gear Tiers work in Edge of Fate

Destiny 2 Gear Tiers are one of the more surprising features arriving with The Edge of Fate, substantially changing the gear grind. It’s something wholly new for the franchise, with Bungie saying the idea is to rekindle some of the “chase and excitement” that comes from earning new gear, eliminating that feeling of earning a bucketful of Legendary goodies in a single Destiny 2 mission, only to find many of them are disposable.

Gear will now have five tiers of loot for players to earn, with each tier adding additional benefits. Alongside Armor 3.0, Gear Tiers mark a big change for Destiny 2, so here’s all we know so far.

Destiny 2 Gear Tiers explained

As mentioned above, Gear Tiers are a way for Bungie to inject a little more excitement to the loot chase for all players and help you get gear appropriate for the level you like to play at.

New Legendary weapons and armor pieces will have a “Tier” from 1 to 5 that determines its overall strength and quality, improving its stats and perks and providing some other benefits - I’ve gone over the specific upgrades of each Gear Tier further down.

However, this system seems to be entirely tied to activity difficulty as there doesn’t appear to be a way to upgrade a weapon or armor piece’s tier using upgrade materials (though you can still masterwork gear with materials). Essentially, the greater the challenge, the greater the rewards, with Tier 4 and 5 gear being more widely available for the most skilled and committed players.

When you arrive on Kepler, the new destination added in The Edge of Fate, you’ll start earning Tier 1 gear, before then earning Tier 2 on occasion. Bungie says, “Upon completing major accomplishments or raising your Seasonal Power, you’ll earn permanent upgrades to Kepler’s reward tiers,” which are tied to campaign completion and post-game activities. The milestones you’ll need to hit haven’t been explained just yet but we’ll update this guide after The Edge of Fate launches.

As for Tier 3 and up, you’ll be able to replay the campaign and engage with post-game content to access higher-tier loot. You can also stack modifiers in the new Portal activity selector to increase the chances of grabbing big rewards.

“Lastly, once the raid opens, players will find new challenges to acquire pinnacle tiered rewards, but we won’t spill what the raid team has cooked up quite yet,” Bungie has teased, suggesting that post-Raid completion, we’ll be able to get even better rewards. Note that this is for Legendary gear only so Destiny 2 Edge of Fate Exotics won't have Gear Tiers!

All Destiny 2 Gear Tier benefits

For the most part, Gear Tiers in Destiny 2 change the available perks on your Legendary weapons and the stats on your Legendary armor. Higher tiers also grant additional benefits, such as enhanced perks and a new visual style for your weapons, inspired by the recent addition of ‘holofoil’ weapons in recent updates, and extra mod energy in the case of armor.

Here are all the benefits provided by the five Gear Tiers:

• Tier 1:
  • Weapons from this tier will be the base weapon, and can use new seasonal mods.
  • Armor pieces from this tier have a total stat range of 52-57.
• Tier 2:
  • Weapons in Tier 2 can drop with enhanced traits.
  • Tier 2 armor pieces have a total stat range of 58-63.
• Tier 3:
  • Weapons in Tier 3 can drop with two traits per column, meaning they’re more versatile than T1 and T2.
  • Armor pieces from Tier 3 have a total stat range of 64-69.
• Tier 4:
  • Tier 4 weapons gain access to ‘enhanced’ mods and seasonal mods, as well as enhanced weapon parts like barrels and magazines.
  • Armor pieces from this tier have a total stat range of 70-75 and have one extra mod energy for a total of 11.
• Tier 5:
  • Finally, a Tier 5 weapon unlocks a unique ornament and shader combo, and has a unique combat flair. Perhaps more importantly, Tier 5 weapons have enhanced Origin traits and three traits per column.
  • A Tier 5 armor piece has a stat total of 75 (30 in its primary stat, 25 in its secondary, and 20 in its tertiary), the extra mod energy from Tier 4, and a random “tuned” stat which unlocks a special mod slot that allows you to slightly adjust the stat distribution on your armor piece.

Higher-tier weapons aren’t necessarily more powerful in a numerical sense as you can fully masterwork them at all Gear Tiers to bolster their stats, but their additional perks will give them greater flexibility, and enhanced perks might make the difference in the toughest activities. Similarly, given how Gear Tiers affect armor, you’ll want to earn the highest tier armor pieces you can to min-max your stats for an optimal build, and the extra mod energy at Tier 4 will be a huge boon.

What are Seasonal Mods?

In case you missed Destiny 2’s Episode III Heresy content, Seasonal Weapon Mods are a great way to tweak your build each season to try new experiences and operate separately from the Seasonal Artifact.

Rather than Unstoppable, Overload, and Anti-Barrier rounds, these are more focused on a certain theme, with Edge of Fate’s being, uh, ‘Temporal’ in nature.

Here are the five we know of so far, with the descriptions taken from Bungie’s blog post:

• Temporal Loader: This weapon loads ammo from reserves when dealing damage to targets that are slowed, frozen, or suspended.
• Temporal Tracker: Gain bonus aim assistance or projectile tracking for a moderate duration after picking up an Orb of Power.
• Temporal Adapter: Readying this weapon grants it bonus stability, handling, and reload speed for a moderate duration that is borrowed from an alternate timeline version of the weapon. Swords gain bonus charge rate and guard resistance.
• Temporal Armaments: This weapon gains bonus damage versus Cabal and Vex targets.
• Temporal Blast: This weapon stores a portion of its damage dealt into Charges. At five Charges, the weapon's next shot creates an explosive blast on impact that damages nearby enemies.

As for how you’ll get your Guardian’s mits on them, Bungie says you’ll find these by exploring Kepler and completing Portal activities, so they won’t be XP-gated like Artifact mods.

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