This article is part of a directory: Destiny 2: Lightfall Complete Guide And Walkthrough
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Destiny 2: Lightfall overhauled how buildcrafting works. Besides getting access to Strand and some new Light subclass Fragments, the entire armor mod system has been streamlined to make buildcrafting easier than ever. If you've always wanted to create the ultimate PvE or PvP build in Destiny 2, now is the perfect time to jump in.

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Understanding builds in Destiny 2 will require mastery of its new armor mods, including the Armor Charge system. This guide will showcase how to unlock armor mods as a newcomer, what armor mods do, how the Armor Charge system works, and we'll showcase how every Armor Charge mod in Destiny 2 works.

Updated January 13, 2024, by Charles Burgar: Season of the Wish has added a new mod energy scalar system that makes certain mods less effective on abilities with longer base cooldowns. This impacts virtually every build in Destiny 2, at least in PvE. This specific mechanic is covered in our ability cooldowns guide, but for the purposes of this guide, we've updated our mod tables to mention if the mod is affected by this new system or not.

Additionally, Season 23 also nerfed most ability cooldown mod values. We've updated every mod affected by this change with accurate values.

Unlocking Armor Mods

Destiny 2 Guardian Ranks Journey Screen

If you've played Destiny 2 at any point before Lightfall, you'll have every mod unlocked by default. Veteran players should skip to the next section.

New Lights will start Destiny 2 with a limited selection of usable armor mods. To unlock additional armor mods, you must increase your Guardian Rank. You can find your current Guardian rank in the 'Journey' tab in your inventory menu.

Inspecting your current rank will showcase a series of challenges you must complete to increase your rank. Some of these Triumphs unlock various armor mods as rewards. Reach Guardian Rank 6 and complete the 'Threats and Surges' R7 challenge to unlock every armor mod in the game.

Anyone who was grandfathered into Guardian Rank 6 won't need to complete the "Threats and Surges" Triumph.

Installing Mods And Upgrading Your Armor

Armor mods are the bread and butter of most builds. It's what enables your character to spawn Orbs of Power, enhance their finishers, increase their damage resistance, and generally improve ability uptime. From your inventory, hover over the right-hand side of the UI and select the 'Mod Customization' tab to see all of your armor mods.

This screen looks intimidating at first glance, but this menu mostly serves to give an overview of your build. Select any armor piece to check that item's mod sockets. You should see four sockets. The first socket is a General Mod Socket, allowing you to increase one of your armor's core stats (explained in the next section).

The other three slots are Armor Mod Sockets. Each armor slot in Destiny 2—helmet, arms, chest, boots, and class item—has unique armor mods that greatly improve your ability uptime or weapon performance.

Hovering over a mod socket will showcase all of your options. Each mod you equip costs a set amount of energy capacity. For example, the Hands-On helmet mod costs three energy. This means you'll need a helmet with three spare energy to socket this mod. If your armor doesn't have enough spare energy, you can either remove mods already installed on your armor piece or upgrade the armor itself.

Upgrading Your Armor

Destiny 2 Helmet Mods Upgrading

All armor in Destiny 2 can be upgraded to increase its energy capacity. In the same modding screen, hover over the "Energy" bar that's above your mods. Selecting this will upgrade your armor at the cost of upgrade materials like Glimmer and Legendary Shards, later ranks requiring coveted Masterwork materials.

Armor can be upgraded a total of ten times. A fully upgraded armor piece is known as a Masterworked item, denoted by a gold border. Masterworked armor pieces have ten energy capacity and grant bonus stats to your character.

Armor Mod FAQ

Destiny 2 Season of Defiance Armor Set For All Characters
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Armor Stats Explained

Destiny 2 Assassin's Cowl Stat Showcase

Excluding class items, all armor pieces in Destiny 2 increase six of your character's core attributes: Mobility, Resilience, Recovery, Discipline, Intellect, and Strength. For every ten points you have in a given stat, the magnitude of that stat's effect increases. For example, going from 20 to 30 Discipline lowers your grenade cooldown slightly, but going from 23 to 27 does not.

The table below showcases what every armor stat in Destiny 2 governs.

Mobility

Governs strafe speed, initial jump height, and the Hunter's Dodge cooldown.

Resilience

Governs PvE damage resistance, total HP, flinch resistance, and the Titan's Barricade cooldown.

Recovery

Governs health regeneration delay and the Warlock's Rift cooldown.

Discipline

Governs grenade ability cooldown.

Intellect

Governs Super ability cooldown.

Strength

Governs melee ability cooldown.

If you're interested in how exactly each stat affects ability cooldowns, consult our Destiny 2 ability cooldowns guide.

Armor Charge Explained

Destiny 2 Armor Charge Mod Description Example

Armor Charge is a rework of Destiny 2's previous Charged with Light system. Armor Charge is a malleable buff that is granted, consumed, and modified through armor mods. By default, Armor Charge can stack up to three times and lasts until death. This changes once you start equipping mods.

While any Armor Charge mods are equipped, picking up an Orb of Power grants one stack of Armor Charge.

Similar to Charged with Light, Armor Charge mods are color-coded to denote their purpose, as described below:

Destiny 2 Radiant Light Mod Icon

Green

Grants stacks of Armor Charge when the listed condition is met.

Destiny 2 Emergency Reinforcement Mod Icon

Yellow

Consumes one, three, or all Armor Charge stacks when the listed condition is met.

Destiny 2 Font of Vigor Mod Icon

Blue

Grants a passive bonus while Armor Charged.


Your Amor Charge stacks now decay once every 10 seconds.

Unless you have blue Armor Charge mods equipped, your Armor Charge stacks will not decay. For example, if you're running a build that uses Grenade Kickstart and nothing else, your stacks will persist until you throw a grenade. Keep this in mind when deciding what you wish to spend your Armor Charge stacks on.

Stacking multiple blue Armor Charge mods will not increase your stack decay rate. For example, if you have six Font mods equipped and gain Armor Charge, you'll gain all six passive benefits for ten seconds, the same as with a single mod. If you wish to extend your passive buff duration, you can use the Time Dilation mod found on class items.

Armor Charge FAQ

Destiny 2 Season of Dawn Armor Sets

All Armor Mods Explained

Destiny 2 Season Of Defiance Armor Set

This section will explain how every armor mod works in Destiny 2, including Armor Charge mods. Expand any of the subsections below to find any mods you're interested in. Mods are separated based on slot and if they interact with the Armor Charge system.

All Armor Charge mods can be found in the "Armor Charge Mods" subsection, while all mods that don't interact with Armor Charge can be found in their respective armor slot section. Mods are listed in alphabetical order.

Nearly all mods showcased below work inside the Crucible. We'll make any mention if the mod doesn't work or otherwise behaves differently in PvP environments. We also want to give credit to the Destiny Data Compendium for providing stat values for many of the mods covered in this section. For values missing from the compendium, we tested them ourselves.

Helmet Mods

All helmet mods that don't involve Armor Charge can be found in this section. These mods include Ammo Finders, Scouts, Ashes to Assets, Hands-On, Dynamo, Power Preservation, Siphons, and Targeting mods.

Arm Mods

All gauntlet mods that don't involve Armor Charge can be found in this section. These mods include Firepower, Heavy Handed, Bolstering Detonation, Focusing Strike, Impact Induction, Momentum Transfer, Weapon Loaders, Dexterity mods, and Fastball.

Chest Mods

All chest armor mods that don't use Armor Charge can be found here. These mods include Ammo Reserves, Unflinching mods, Concussive Dampener, Sniper and Melee Damage Resistance, and Elemental DR mods.

Leg Mods

All leg armor mods that don't use Armor Charge can be found here. These mods include all Orb of Power energy mods (Absolution, Innervation, Insulation, Invigoration, and Orbs of Restoration) alongside Better Already, Recuperation, Ammo Scavengers, and Holster mods.

Class Item Mods

All armor mods that socket into the class item (capes, bonds, and marks) that don't use Armor Charge can be found here. These mods include Bomber, Outreach, Distribution, Reaper, and Proximity Ward.

Armor Charge Mods

All mods that interact with the Armor Charge mechanic are listed in this section. Unless otherwise listed, all of these mods work inside the Crucible. While any Armor Charge mod is equipped, picking up an Orb of Power will also grant x1 Armor Charge, up to a maximum of x3 Armor Charge stacks.

Next
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