What's Actually Changing with Armor 3.0
Edge of Fate brings the biggest armor overhaul since Shadowkeep dropped Armor 2.0. This is a complete rebuild of how stats work, how you farm gear, and how you put builds together. If you've been playing Destiny for a while, you'll need to forget almost everything you know about armor.
The new system rests on three major changes that all work together. First, stats now go up to 200 instead of 100, and every single point matters instead of just hitting tier breakpoints. Second, armor pieces drop with specific "archetypes" that determine which three stats appear on each piece. Third, armor sets now have perks that activate when you wear multiple pieces from the same collection.
The Big Three Changes
Stats Get a Complete Makeover: Your familiar six stats get new names and new functions. More importantly, you can now push any stat up to 200 points, and every point between 101-200 unlocks completely new benefits. No more wasted points when you hit 107 in a stat.
Archetype System: Instead of random stat rolls across all six categories, each armor piece now drops with a specific archetype. Think of it like a weapon's intrinsic perk, but for stats. A "Gunner" piece will always focus on weapons and grenades, while a "Brawler" piece prioritizes melee and health.
Set Bonuses Return: Remember armor sets from way back? They're back, but better. Each new armor set has two perks that kick in when you wear 2 or 4 pieces. You can still use your exotic, or mix and match different sets for multiple 2-piece bonuses.
How Your Stats Are Changing
The Name Game and What It Means
All your current armor automatically converts on a 1:1 basis when Edge of Fate launches. If you have 20 mobility right now, it becomes 20 weapons. Here's how everything translates:
Mobility → Weapons: This isn't about movement speed anymore. Weapons stat controls reload speed, handling, and damage against different enemy types. Think of it as your "gun gets better" stat.
Resilience → Health: Still about staying alive, but now it covers healing from orbs, flinch resistance, and shield behavior. The name change reflects that it's about more than just damage resistance.
Recovery → Class: Your class ability stat. It affects cooldowns and energy generation, plus it gives you overshields when you use your class ability at higher investment levels.
Discipline → Grenade: Same grenade cooldown function, but now it also boosts grenade damage when you go past 100 points.
Intellect → Super: Still controls super energy generation, but high investment also increases your super damage significantly.
Strength → Melee: Covers powered melee abilities like before, but now it also affects regular punches and glaive damage when you invest heavily.
How the New 200-Point System Works
Every single point now does something. Going from 143 to 144 weapons gives you the same improvement as going from 144 to 145. This makes gear with "weird" stat totals like 67 actually useful instead of wasteful.
The real game-changer happens after 100 points. Every stat unlocks a second set of benefits from 101-200 that can completely change how you play. You get significant damage boosts, new defensive options, and mechanics that weren't possible before.
Breaking Down Each Stat
Weapons Stat (Your Old Mobility)
Points 1-100 give you better reload speed (up to 10%), improved handling (up to 10%), and extra damage against regular enemies in PvE. You'll see 15% more damage with primary and special weapons, 10% more with heavy weapons against minors and majors.
Points 101-200 are where things get spicy. You start dealing extra damage to bosses (15% for primary/special, 10% for heavy), 6% more damage to other players in PvP, and ammo bricks can drop double ammo. At 200 points, you're guaranteed double ammo from every brick.
Health Stat (Your Old Resilience)
Points 1-100 focus on immediate survival. You get up to 70 HP back from each orb of power you pick up, plus 10% flinch resistance when enemies are shooting you.
Points 101-200 improve your shields. You gain 20 extra shield capacity in PvE, your shields start recharging 25% faster, and they fully recharge 50% quicker than normal.
Health is probably the weakest stat overall. You can get most of these benefits from a single Recuperation mod, so it's not a priority unless you're really struggling to stay alive.
Class Stat (Your Old Recovery)
Points 1-100 make your class ability come back faster and improve energy gain from all sources. This includes exotic effects, weapon perks, and anything else that gives you class ability energy.
Points 101-200 give you an overshield every time you use your class ability. It's 40 HP in PvE, 20 HP in PvP, and lasts 5 seconds for quick abilities like dodge, 10 seconds for longer ones like barricade.
High class investment works great for builds that spam abilities or use exotics that scale with class ability energy. The overshield alone can be a lifesaver in tough content.
Super Stat (Your Old Intellect)
Points 1-100 affect how much super energy you get from everything - dealing damage, taking damage, orbs, mods, whatever. It doesn't change your base super cooldown timer though.
Points 101-200 add direct damage to your super. We're talking 45% extra damage in PvE, 15% in PvP at max investment. This stacks with other super damage effects too.
Grenade Stat (Your Old Discipline)
Points 1-100 work like they always have - faster grenade cooldowns and better energy gain from external sources.
Points 101-200 add serious damage scaling. Up to 65% extra grenade damage in PvE, 20% in PvP. This even affects the melee part of grapple grenades.
Any build that uses grenades regularly should consider heavy investment here. The damage bonus is substantial and works with everything that boosts grenade damage.
Melee Stat (Your Old Strength)
Points 1-100 improve melee ability cooldowns and energy restoration from all sources.
Points 101-200 boost all melee damage - powered abilities, regular punches, and glaive hits. You get 30% more damage in PvE, 20% in PvP at max investment.
The broad scope makes this useful for more than just melee builds. Even if you only punch occasionally, the damage boost applies to unpowered melees too.
What Happened to Mobility, Resilience, and Recovery?
These three stats are now fixed for everyone:
- Mobility: Set to 40 for hunters, 30 for titans and warlocks. You can boost this with new leg mods - stack three of them and hunters hit 100 mobility, other classes get 90.
- Resilience: Everyone gets 100 resilience automatically. That's the full 30% damage reduction in PvE for all players, no investment required.
- Recovery: Fixed at around 60 for everyone. You can improve shield recharge through the health stat instead.
Understanding Armor Archetypes
How Archetypes Work
Every armor piece that drops now comes with an archetype label. This determines which three of the six stats appear on the piece and how they're weighted. Instead of potentially getting all six stats at random values, you get three specific stats with predictable distributions.
Each archetype has a primary stat (rolls up to +30), a secondary stat (up to +25), and one random tertiary stat (up to +20) chosen from the four remaining options. This system lets you target specific stat combinations while keeping some randomness for variety.
The Six Launch Archetypes
Paragon: Super primary, melee secondary. Great for builds that want frequent supers with melee backup. The random third stat comes from weapons, health, class, or grenade.
Grenadier: Grenade primary, super secondary. Perfect for explosive builds that also want good super generation. The third stat can be weapons, health, class, or melee.
Specialist: Class primary, weapons secondary. Built for class ability spam with solid weapon performance. Random stat from health, super, grenade, or melee.
Brawler: Melee primary, health secondary. Close-combat builds with good survivability. Third stat from weapons, class, super, or grenade.
Bulwark: Health primary, class secondary. Tank builds with frequent class abilities. Random from weapons, super, grenade, or melee.
Gunner: Weapons primary, grenade secondary. Weapon-focused builds with explosive backup. Third stat from health, class, super, or melee.
Picking the Right Archetype
Your archetype choice depends on your playstyle and build goals. Weapon builds want gunner, super damage builds prefer paragon, and ability-spam builds might go grenadier or specialist.
Ghost mods can influence which archetypes drop more often, so you can farm for specific combinations. The new armorer mods replace the old stat-specific ones and work the same way.
Stat Combinations That Are Going Away
If you have gear with these combinations, consider keeping it:
- Weapons + Super (currently mobility + intellect)
- Weapons + Melee (mobility + strength)
- Health + Grenade (resilience + discipline)
- Health + Super (resilience + intellect)
- Class + Grenade (recovery + discipline)
- Class + Super (recovery + intellect)
- Class + Melee (recovery + strength)
The weapons + super combo is particularly valuable for DPS builds, making existing mobility + intellect gear worth saving.
The New Gear Tier System
Five Tiers of Quality
All new armor drops with a tier rating from 1-5 that determines stat totals and extra features. Higher tiers come from harder content, creating clear progression incentives.
Gear Tier Performance
Tier 1: 52-57 total stat points. Basic quality from standard activities.
Tier 2: 58-63 points. Includes new exotic drops and represents modest improvement.
Tier 3: 64-69 points. Starts approaching good Armor 2.0 levels.
Tier 4: 70-75 points. Gets 11 mod energy instead of 10, enabling more complex builds.
Tier 5: Guaranteed 75 points with perfect distribution (30/25/20). Also gets 11 mod energy plus stat tuning.
Tier 5 Special Features
The highest tier armor includes a stat tuning slot that unlocks after masterworking. This lets you move 5 points from any stat into a randomly designated "tuned stat" on that piece.
You can't choose or change which stat gets tuned - it's random per piece. But you can either move points into the tuned stat or just add points to your three lowest stats instead.
This gives you extra fine-tuning options for min-maxing, especially when combined with masterworking.
Getting Higher Tier Gear
Tier 5 armor only drops from the hardest content - grandmaster nightfalls, master dungeons, that level of difficulty. You can't upgrade existing pieces; you need to earn higher tiers through challenging activities.
The tier system isn't retroactive, so your current armor won't suddenly get tier ratings or special features.
Set Bonuses Are Back
How Set Bonuses Function
Each new armor set has two perks that activate when you wear 2 or 4 pieces from the same collection. Since you have 5 armor slots, you can run a 4-piece set with any exotic, or mix different sets for multiple 2-piece bonuses.
Think of set bonuses like origin traits for armor. They're helpful additions that round out builds but aren't required for basic functionality. You can build around them or just treat them as nice extras.
Known Set Examples
Focuses on mobility and explosive weapon synergy for aggressive playstyles.
Bushido: 2-piece heals you on kills with freshly drawn or reloaded weapons. 4-piece reduces incoming damage after bow, shotgun, or sword kills, with damage extending the effect.
Last Disciple: 2-piece grants reload speed to primary weapons after kills. 4-piece gives special ammo progress when you pick up orbs of power.
Tecsec: 2-piece significantly increases kinetic damage against shields and constructs. 4-piece creates disorienting shockwaves when you break shields or kill tough enemies with kinetic damage.
Set Bonus Strategy
Don't treat set bonuses as build requirements. They're more like helpful additions that can solve specific problems or add new gameplay options.
Mixing two different 2-piece bonuses often gives more versatility than committing to one 4-piece effect. This approach also gives you more flexibility with exotic selection and archetype choices.
Masterworking Changes
New Masterwork System
Masterworking works completely differently now. All armor drops with full mod energy available (10 normally, 11 for tier 4-5), so you don't need to spend enhancement cores just to use mods.
Instead, masterworking adds +5 to each of the three stats that aren't on your armor piece. For example, if your brawler armor has melee, health, and weapons, masterworking adds +5 to class, super, and grenade.
A full set of masterworked armor gives you 75 extra stat points spread across your build's weakest areas. This prevents completely dead stats while encouraging diverse distribution.
Resource Impact
Removing the energy unlock requirement dramatically cuts enhancement core costs for trying new builds. You can immediately test armor at full mod capacity without any investment.
Masterworking becomes about squeezing out extra performance rather than basic functionality. This makes complex builds accessible to players who don't want to farm enhancement cores constantly.
Exotic Armor in Armor 3.0
New Exotic Behavior
Exotic armor that drops after Edge of Fate follows tier 2 stat distribution (58-63 points) and gets archetype assignments. Specific exotics will lean toward certain archetypes based on their design - Synthoceps should favor brawler archetype since it's melee-focused.
The exact relationship between exotic effects and archetype bias isn't fully clear yet, but the general principle makes sense.
Exotic Class Item Updates
Exotic class items get special treatment with guaranteed 63-point stat packages based on their perk combinations. The distribution is always 30 primary, 20 secondary, 13 tertiary.
Here's how it works: the left column perk determines your archetype, the right column perk determines your tertiary stat. Spirit of Inmost Light (left) gives paragon archetype (super/melee), while Spirit of Cyrtarachne (right) adds grenade as the tertiary.
So Inmost + Cyrtarachne always gives 30 super, 20 melee, 13 grenade. Other combinations exist but need confirmation for their specific distributions.
Class items lose artifice slots during conversion, but the guaranteed stats and retroactive application should maintain their value.
Ada-1's New Exotic Shop
The expansion adds exotic focusing through Ada-1. Everyone gets 20 exotic vouchers that can be spent on custom-rolled exotic armor with specific archetype selection.
This system lets you target exactly the exotic rolls you want instead of hoping for good RNG. The service lasts for the entire Year of Prophecy, so you have plenty of time to spend your vouchers.
Class items aren't included in the focusing system since they use the perk-based stat determination instead.
Legacy Exotics
Most existing exotic armor won't automatically convert to full Armor 3.0 features. However, Bungie is releasing refreshed versions of 28 exotic weapons and 15 armor pieces per class that work with the new system.
These "featured" exotics rotate with major updates, so you'll get ongoing chances to acquire updated versions of popular pieces.
Collection exotics will have fixed archetypes but terrible stat totals, making them useful for testing but not for serious builds.
Building Better Loadouts
Stat Priority for Most Builds
Weapons and super stats provide the best bang for your buck in most situations. Weapons gives universal damage improvements that help everywhere, while super offers significant burst damage during key moments.
For general play, getting ability stats to 70 points maintains current performance levels. Going beyond 70 gives you improvements that aren't possible in the current game.
DPS Focus: Prioritize weapons for consistent damage and super for burst windows. 200 points in either stat provides massive multiplicative damage bonuses.
Ability Builds: Hit 70 in your main ability stats first to maintain current energy generation efficiency. Then push for damage bonuses if they help with your preferred content.
Choosing Archetypes for Your Build
Gunner archetype with weapons primary and grenade secondary covers most needs.
Paragon archetype focuses on super with melee backup.
Specialist balances class ability uptime with weapon performance.
Bulwark combines health and class ability focus for maximum survivability.
Advanced Building Tips
Mixed Archetypes: Using different archetypes across your five armor pieces lets you balance multiple priorities instead of going all-in on single stats.
Set Bonus Integration: Pick set bonuses that solve problems in your build rather than treating them as the foundation. Two-piece bonuses often provide more flexibility than four-piece commitments.
Exotic Synergy: Match your exotic armor to complement your chosen archetypes. Pairing brawler archetype pieces with melee-focused exotics creates multiplicative improvements.
The Math on Perfect Builds
With perfect tier 5 armor in all slots, you can reach about 515 total stat points before exotics, masterworking, and mods. Masterworking adds 75 points to your off-archetype stats, while mods and other sources provide additional scaling.
Any single stat can theoretically hit 200 points, though achieving this requires serious commitment and limits investment elsewhere. Most builds benefit more from balanced distribution targeting multiple 100+ point stats.
Common Questions Answered
What Happens to My Current Gear?
Your existing armor keeps working with automatic stat conversions. Mobility becomes weapons, resilience becomes health, recovery becomes class. Everything else converts 1:1.
You won't get set bonuses, gear tiers, or archetypes on old armor, but the stats transfer perfectly and the gear remains functional.
Do I Need to Regrind Exotic Class Items?
Nope. All existing exotic class items get automatic conversion with guaranteed stat packages based on their perks. The process is automatic and preserves the value of well-rolled items.
Artifice slots disappear during conversion, but you get guaranteed stat allocations as compensation.
How Do Fragments Work Now?
Subclass fragment stat bonuses convert using the same 1:1 ratio. Facet of Purpose's -10 recovery penalty becomes -10 class penalty in Armor 3.0.
Font mods continue working with the new stat names. Font of Wisdom gives bonus super stat points instead of intellect.
Can I Change Archetypes or Tiers?
No to both. Archetype and tier assignments are permanent and can't be modified. You need to farm new pieces if you want different archetypes or higher tiers.
Ghost mods can bias archetype drop rates, but they can't change pieces you already have.
Should I Farm "Illegal" Combinations?
Depends on what content you're planning. If you're doing contest raids, solo challenges, or other high-end stuff right at launch, farming combinations that become impossible might be worth it.
For casual play, understanding the new systems and planning your builds is probably more valuable than perfect pre-expansion gear.
What's the Best Preparation?
Learn the archetype system and figure out what stat distributions you want for your planned builds. The resource requirements are much lower now due to energy unlock removal, so knowledge matters more than stockpiling materials.
Clean out vault space for new armor while keeping pieces with good stats or soon-to-be-impossible combinations. Focus on understanding rather than grinding.
Getting Ready for Edge of Fate
Pre-Launch Farming
Whether you should farm "illegal" stat combinations depends on your day-one plans. Contest raiders and solo challenge runners might benefit from perfect pre-expansion gear, but most players will do fine learning the new systems instead.
The weapons + super combination (currently mobility + intellect) offers the most value for high-end PvE, making it the top priority if you decide to farm.
| Current Combo | Armor 3.0 Conversion | Priority Level |
|---|---|---|
| Mobility + Intellect | Weapons + Super | High - Perfect for DPS |
| Mobility + Strength | Weapons + Melee | Medium - Good for hybrids |
| Recovery + Discipline | Class + Grenade | Low - Niche builds only |
Resource Management
Enhancement core requirements drop significantly since you don't need them for basic mod functionality anymore. Focus on masterworking materials and mod components instead of cores for energy unlocks.
Legendary shards remain valuable for mod purchases and whatever new systems the expansion introduces. The emphasis shifts from immediate needs to long-term experimentation and improvement.
Knowledge Investment
Understanding how archetypes work, which stats to prioritize, and how set bonuses integrate gives you the biggest advantage going into Armor 3.0. These skills stay valuable throughout the expansion's lifetime.
Get familiar with stat conversions, archetype distributions, and the math behind stat investment. This knowledge helps you make smart decisions when new armor starts dropping.
- Every stat point matters now
- Much higher damage potential
- Set bonuses add variety
- Lower resource requirements
- Clear progression paths
- Need to relearn everything
- Some combinations impossible
- Tier 5 gear is rare
- Vault space concerns
- Complex interactions
The Armor 3.0 overhaul represents the biggest change to Destiny's progression system in years. The combination of enhanced stats, targeted archetypes, and set bonuses creates more build diversity than ever before while maintaining clear paths for improvement through challenging content.