‘Destiny’ Age Of Triumph Bringing Elemental Primaries Back, New Raid Armor

Bungie hosted its final Destiny livestream Wednesday before the Age of Triumph launches next week. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One owners have new sets of armor and ornaments to look forward to plus the return of key raid weapons in new flavors.

Age of Triumph, the final Destiny event, will kick off with update 2.6.0 scheduled to be released on Tuesday, March 28 at 1 p.m. ET/ 10 a.m. PT.

New Armor and Ornaments

Bungie hosted an in-game fashion show to parade new looks for Raid armor. All four Destiny Raids will reward new Armor and Ornaments at the 390 Light level when completing. These will come from completing the various challenge modes each week.

The Vault of Glass Ornaments are based off Vex technology with a blue glow and special effects like Gorgon tendrils coming off the shoulders of the Warlock and a shield across the back.

Meanwhile, Crota’s End has green energy spikes growing out of the armor that will disintegrate when shot only to slowly restore themselves.

The new King’s Fall raid armor with ornaments features the same reaction to getting shot as the Crota’s End items. The unique feature the armor looks cracked with energy ready to burst through.

Finally, the Wrath of the Machine armor and Ornaments will come with even more SIVA style. The Ornament is similar to the Crota’s End armor in that the SIVA elements appear to be broken and floating around the body of the Guardian.

The Age of Triumph specific items will come from locations outside the raids. Class Items can be obtained by completing the questline given by the speaker. Armor, on the other hand, will be picked up from the Treasure of Ages.

Elemental Primary Weapons

The question of bringing back elemental damage to Primary Weapons has been a hot question since Bungie first revealed Age of Triumph. The developers have come up with the solution by offering two version of weapons like Fatebringer and Vision of Confluence – a Legendary version and an Exotic Adept version, which drops in the 390 Light level Raids.

The new Legendary version of the raid weapons will not have elemental damage, but will retain the original look. Bungie is adding Exotic Adept versions of weapons like Fatebringer, Vision of Confluence, and others which will have primary damage.

Note that not all Raid Primary Weapons will be given Exotic Adept versions. Additionally, Raid Secondary and Heavy Weapons will not see Exotic Adept versions at all since they already elemental damage capable.

While Vault of Glass and Crota’s End had elemental primaries, these were removed by the time Crota’s End came around. Bungie will add Exotic Adept versions to both Crota’s End and Wrath of the Machine.

Other Weapon Notes

Black Hammer will not be coming back. Bungie explained the weapon’s perks are still too good to be brought forward, so Bungie will retain the Black Spindle in its place.

Nechrochasm will come back, but it was never used much so Bungie is going to give it a boost. The weapon previously caused a small Cursed Thrall-style explosion with every precision kill. Going forward, it will cause a small explosion on every kill, whether it is a precision kill or not. Bungie hopes this plus changes to the Auto Rifle class will put this weapon in rotation more.

Weapon Balance Changes

Hand Cannon range has been brought down slightly by three meters. This is in reaction to the last weapon balance update and will not affect the damage. More details on the range change will be detailed in the patch notes.

Auto Rifles get a “decent” extension of range as well. The damage drop has been extended to allow them to cause more damage and to give them “more teeth.”

The response to the Hungering Blade changes that affected several other perks will also go in with the 2.6.0 update. This includes retaining the change to the Red Death Pulse Rifle and Life Steal Warlock perk, but with a buffed health effect. All other affected perks will revert back to health regeneration versus health recovery.

Unfortunately, the change to the Truth Exotic Rocket Launcher holding only a single rocket will remain.

Ammo Changes

The changes to the Special Weapon economy in PVP was controversial with the last weapon balance change. Bungie is adjusting to the complaints by giving Sidearms a slight nerf. The weapon will retain its intrinsic perk of keeping ammo when Guardians die and respawn. However, the weapon will only come back with a single magazine’s worth of ammo.

Another change to the Special Weapon economy is to the ammo crates for the weapon class. They will now fill the entire Special Weapon magazine automatically.

[Featured Image by Bungie/Activision]