‘Destiny 2’ Details Update Next Week For Masterwork Armor, Iron Banner Rewards, And Raid Bonuses

Bungie’s first step on its roadmap to fix Destiny 2 drops on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC next Tuesday, January 28. The game studio shared details Thursday evening of what Guardians should expect in the next update, starting with the return of Iron Banner for Season 2, plus Masterwork Armor, new Raid rewards, and multiple other fixes.

Bungie has had a rough couple of months since the release of the Curse of Osiris expansion. culminating with a Wall Street analyst declaring the game was not in a good place and voicing concern the game may not recover. The 1.1.2 update for Destiny 2 is the first step in an attempted recovery and will be delivered Tuesday following approximately four hours of downtime starting at 11 a.m. ET / 8 a.m. PT. The game should return by 3 p.m. ET / 12 p.m. PT and bring the first Iron Banner of 2018 with it.

Iron Banner Season 2

Lord Saladin’s return to the Tower will bring an update to his vendor inventory menu. Players will be able to purchase individual five Iron Banner armor pieces and three individual weapons using a combination of Legendary Shards and Iron Banner Tokens. He will also have a collection of Iron Banner Armor Ornaments for each Guardian that must be earned by completing certain challenges in the event.

Season 2 weapons will be included in Iron Banner Engrams, which is great news after the uproar caused by Season 2 weapons not being in the recent Faction Banner event. This includes a new Hand Cannon, Scout Rifle, Shotgun, along with other rewards like a new Sparrow, Ghost Shell, Ship, and emblem that tracks the number of lifetime Iron Banner rank ups earned in Destiny 2. Just note Season 1 items also have a chance to drop from the engram.

Addition of Masterwork Armor

Masterwork Armor builds off the introduction of Masterwork Weapons by providing an upgraded tier of Legendary gear. Like with weapons, all Legendary armor has a chance to drop as a Masterwork with the highest chance coming from Trials of the Nine and the Raid activities. They can also come from any Legendary Engram dropped during in-game activities or through picking up an engram from any of the vendors. Existing Legendary armor can also be upgraded to Masterwork quality at the cost of Masterwork Cores and Legendary Shards.

The hook of Masterwork Armor is each piece grants a 3 percent damage resistance when using a Super that stacks up to 15 percent when a Guardian dons a full set. Additionally, players can rework armor by spending Masterwork Cores and Legendary Shards to reroll the stat package of Mobility, Resilience, and Recovery.

It is important to note Masterwork Armor will launch with a bug. If a player attempts to rework a Masterwork Armor piece twice in a row, the progress bar will fill but the item stats will not be re-rolled. Fortunately, Masterwork Cores will not be consumed but players will want to back out of the item and then view it again when reworking multiple times. Bungie is working on a fix for this bug but did not want to delay the release of Masterwork Armor due to an issue with no major impact.

Raid Changes

Bungie is also taking a first pass at making Raid and Raid Lair rewards more interesting. Raid armor will now drop with specific perks that only work while on the Leviathan, just like players saw in the original Destiny. The difference is these will come through various built-in mods that give bonuses like 25 percent more damage from Solar abilities.

The good news is that Raid armor will drop with the new Legendary raid mods and players will be able to swap Raid mods without them being consumed like mods elsewhere. The only catch is it will cost one Calus Token to exchange one mod with another. It will also be possible to replace a Raid mod with a standard mod.

Other significant changes to Raids include giving double drops when completing a Prestige Raid. Guardians will no longer have to complete both the normal and Prestige raid for a shot at gear during a week. Additionally, Raid encounters will always drop a Raid piece going forward and the Raid Vendor will begin selling a rotating selection of Raid gear every week.

Finally, the Contender’s Shell will be a new Ghost Shell that drops from the final encounters in the Leviathan Raid and Eater of Worlds Raid Lair. This new shell comes with some special perks like the chance to receive a Bright Engram, a 50 percent chance to pull from a list of Exotics not yet collected, plus a tracker of the number of encounters completed.

Other Fixes

Bungie also listed the following fixes coming to Destiny 2 as part the 1.1.2 update.

• Prometheus Lens – Increased base damage plus Flame Refraction perk now generates ammo instead of pulling from reserves.
• Fixed an issue where new characters created after the release of Curse of Osiris were not receiving the Flashpoint milestone.
• Players in social spaces, like the Tower, receive a notification when their Lost and Found at the Postmaster is full.
• Heroic strike completions now have a greater chance of granting Exotic rewards.
• Mercury challenges are now available during adventures.
• Fixed an issue where Curse of Osiris strikes were not properly granting Clan Engrams when featured as a Nightfall activity.
• Fixed an issue where Challenges were not appearing within Quickplay.
• Increased the dismantle timer for Masterwork Cores.