Destiny 2 Season 22 Exotic armor reworks and class rebalancing detailed

Bungie released new details today regarding planned changes for Destiny 2 Season 22. The two hot topics of discussion relate to Exotic armor reworks of 14 different pieces along with various tweaks to Guardian subclasses to improve balance across the gameplay sandbox.

Some of these changes should immediately stand out as significant adjustments for certain playstyles and the current meta. Other upcoming changes will just need time and experimentation to gauge the effectiveness of the changes. Bungie’s main focus is to add back relevance to a few less-used Exotics and to encourage more strategic options across all modes.

Titan Exotic armor changes

Icefall Mantle – Grants an escalating bonus to Stasis weapon damage with rapid Stasis kills. Class ability activation grants the highest tier bonus.

Doom Fang Pauldrons – Grants an escalating bonus to Void weapon damage with rapid Void kills. A Void melee kill grants the highest tier bonus.

Path of the Burning Steps – A Solar Grenade kill grants the highest tier Solar weapon damage bonus.

Eternal Warrior – The Arc weapon damage bonus for when a Super ends now lasts 30 seconds instead of just 10 seconds.

ACD/0 Feedback Fence – This Exotic now ties into the Armor Charge system. When melee hits grant an Armor Charge, you take reduced melee damage while you have that Armor Charge. Taking melee damage emits damaging Arc energy and jolts targets. This in turn consumes your Armor Charge and deals more damage based on the number of Armor Charge stacks consumed.

Hallowfire Heart – Bungie’s giving this Exotic Armor some more love to help it stand out from the similar Heart of Inmost Light. Base energy to Solar abilities is removed, but there’s a perk which allows for players to create more Sunspots.

Image via Bungie

Hunter Exotic armor changes

Knucklehead Radar – All the existing perks remain, but Foetracer’s Relentless Tracker perk stacks now too. It will mark targets and allow for more damage done to low health marked targets.

Foetracer – This helmet gets a full rework with the ability to grant a weapon damage bonus for dealing damage with an ability. The weapon damage type must match the subclass damage for this to activate. Defeating enemies damaged by abilities will also spawn Ionic Traces or Firesprites depending on your subclass.

Lucky Raspberry – The existing mechanics stay the same, but you’ll uniformly gain back grenade energy now from the jolted effect that damages enemies. It used to be based on the size of the chain, so it’s easier to manage now. The grenades will also now stun Overload Champions without the necessary condition to jolt them first.

Renewal Grasps – The previous balance nerf has been reverted.

Warlock Exotic armor changes

Astrocyte Verse – Enemies near you when you Blink become volatile. The Dark Blink ability no longer consumes Super energy for the Nova Warp Super.

Geomag Stabilizers – Picking up an Ionic Trace while wearing this Exotic will grant Guardians additional Super energy.

Wings of Sacred Dawn – This should greatly appeal to those who already like this Exotic. Solar weapons automatically reload (including the held weapon) from reserves with each kill while aiming down sights. This will allow players to remain airborne much longer for overhead assaults.

Winter’s Guile – Enemies encased by your Penumbral Blast melee will now automatically shatter after a short delay, giving this Exotic that cold killer feel. It should at least feel more satisfying to use for fun, if not anything else.

Screenshot via Bungie

Upcoming class ability changes

We’re not going to cover every detail Bungie breaks down in the blog post, but you can take away the following points.

Titan Barricade abilities will get nerfed, particularly in PvP with longer recharge times. Striker Titans will also have the Super nerfed slightly to prevent overpowered scenarios in PvP such as Trials.

Strand Suspend is also getting nerfed to prevent it from competing with Stasis and because it is currently too easy to use and too convenient of a counter for a wide variety of scenarios. Lastly, Strand Fragments will be rebalanced to make all of the different perks more useful for better class build variety.

You can read the full blog post from Bungie for all the knitty gritty details. Be sure to check out our Destiny 2: Lightfall Guide Hub if you’re catching up for the release of Season 22. We also have plenty of guides going back multiple seasons and expansions such as for the Witch Queen and Beyond Light.