The best armor in Destiny 2 has been bugged for months and a fix "requires some additional time"

The first batch of artifice armor introduced to Destiny 2 via the Grasp of Avarice dungeon is still bugged after several months, and Bungie says a fix will take a little longer to prepare.

The studio acknowledged the bug (again) in its latest blog post. It previously released a small hotfix targeting the issue, but it only fixed the armor of players who hadn't logged in since the start of the ongoing Season of the Haunted. Active players, who were obviously more likely to complain about the bug, still had bugged armor afterward. 

Artifice armor is the best armor in Destiny 2 because it comes with an extra mod slot for seasonal artifact mods. You won't always use this slot since some mods are prohibitively expensive, but it can unlock some otherwise off-limits combos, and just having the option makes it objectively better than other armor assuming they have equal stats.

With this in mind, many players sunk plenty of hours into the Grasp of Avarice dungeon – the only source of artifice armor before the launch of the new Duality dungeon – to farm the stuff, only for its key selling point to disappear for what's looking like this entire season. 

You can still farm new, non-bugged artifice armor, but many players are understandably reluctant to hastily replace the gear they just grinded out just to dodge a bug. The recent launch of Grandmaster Nightfall Strikes, one of the few activities where the mod combos enabled by artifice armor are extremely handy, has only exacerbated this pain point among end game players who can't use their best gear. 

Bungie explained the cause of this bug and the reason for its delayed resolution. One designer compares it to the iconic golden idol scene from Indiana Jones: when the seasonal artifact mods are reset, the extra mod slot on artifice armor pulls a "switcharoo" trying to fill the now-empty slot. 

"Off by even a small bit, and everything can come crashing down," Bungie says. "In this instance, some of the bags of sand we used were not quite right. We are working on a fix for this to ensure that everything registers as intended, but these little sockets are craftier than they appear. 

"The true work comes with the next fix, which includes using a script to comb through all characters on all accounts to reinitialize specific components that make up these particular armor items, thus restoring all those lost sockets," Bungie adds. "As you can imagine, this takes time and it’s a complicated road to travel. We’re committed, though, and we are working hard on getting everything back to where it is supposed to be." 

If that wasn't enough, Destiny 2 players are also struggling with inflation even after a massive Legendary Shard dupe.