Destiny 2 has had a better initial showing than its predecessor. The game currently has an 85 percent rating on Metacritic, and an 8.5 out of 10 on ign.com. Apparently, Bungie has done something right with this installment. While the more fluid storyline and multiplayer mode additions have a lot to do with this, one thing is for sure; the items players can grab in the game also matter greatly. The incentive to try new missions or take out enemies depends on what rewards are up for grabs. In Destiny 2, many gamers are looking for the “best-of-the-best,” and “crème-de-la-crème” of weapons and armor. These are normally represented by “exotic weapons.”
Exotic weapons are yellow and golden class weapons with more desirable perks and statistics. These are the items that make someone decide to take on the craziness of something like the Leviathan raid. Exotics can be in many different classes of guns or armor (legs, arms, and helmets), and they can make a Titan, Hunter, or Warlock’s life a lot easier. While most exotic weapons, like the Sweet Business or STOMP-EE5, are good investments, not all exotics are created equal. There are some that may be worth avoiding altogether. It is evident that Destiny 2 is a combat heavy experience, this is the exact purpose of the game. Therefore, it is crucial for players to have nothing but the best armor in their arsenal. Thegamer.com is here to help you stock up, so here are the eight best exotic armor and the seven to avoid.
15 Best: The Lucky Raspberry Will Have Your Enemies Crying
They may have a funny name, but these Raspberries are surely lucky. The Lucky Raspberry is chest armor for Hunter Arc Striders. The feature Probability matrix increases the chaining capabilities of the arc bolt grenade and recharges if it deals damage. The description seems abstract and not as big of a deal, but it is a perk that players need to take a second look at. There are videos of players chaining almost five grenades together to take out swarms of enemies. Even if the next weapon does not attach to the previous one, it can still kill three to four nearby enemies. It excels in PvE and PvP situations and catches other players by surprise when a player can send three to four grenades in 10 seconds because of the damage recharge.
14 Worst: Skip On The Dunemarchers
These things look like they walked right out of RoboCop. They are cool to look at, but that is where the interest in this leg armor should stop. The Dunemarchers are exotic leg armor for the Titan class. They do increase speed, but they do have a high charge time — five seconds of running around to get these things going, which is way longer than it seems — makes these pieces of armor not efficient or effective in realizing its perks. Once they are charged they are supposed to chain an electric shock to nearby enemies once killed. However, this leg armor cannot get the job done. Ultimately, they inflict little damage, have low combat ability, and are not at all effective against shields.
13 Best: You Would Be A “Knucklehead” To Pass This Up
Mtashed, a YouTube video game reviewer, does not give out many 10 out of 10 scores for Destiny 2 armor, but he felt the need to go out on a limb with this one, and with good reason. The Knucklehead Radar gives hunters the chance to use radar on every single weapon: primary, secondary, pulse, kinetic, whatever, this helmet will personalize the radar to the gun used. Destiny 2 made a little delay between switching from radar to standard view, but this helmet fixes all of that. It is easier to change between radar and normal vision, so there is no delay between the two if someone is flanking. Using this with a MIDI Tool would even make it more useful. This one is worth it.
12 Worst: Mask Of The Quiet One Is Not A PvP Rockstar
Every exotic on this worst list is not all bad. It would not be exotic if it did not have some positive qualities to it. This is one of those times, but there are still some questionable perks of this weapon. The pros for this Titan helmet armor are not universal to all of the mods for it and are not transferable to PvP situations. The Code of The Aggressor ability paring with Mask of the Quiet One produces little to no activation and zero activation when using super melee. These issues make it less likely to use the perk during the unpredictability of PvP situations. The developers at Bungie know how to make an attractive looking exotic, because this thing looks awesomely cool! Too bad you may need to skip it for something else.
11 Best: Become Unbeatable With Karnstein Armlets
After taking a second look at these guys, they are pretty useful. A little secret about exotic weapons, the best ones have the most mysterious and sentimental piece of lore attached to them. This one has a quote that says, “You are mine, you shall be mine, you and I are one forever.” If anyone can make armor sound romantic, it's Bungie. The Karnstein Armlets are exotic gauntlets for the warlock class. If correctly used in the Voidwalker subclass, these things can almost make a warlock character invincible. The more you punch enemies, these armlets grant health recovery and melee, grenade and class ability energy. There is also a perk to increase mobility and be a little lighter on the move. The more you use them, the better you get. Even though these armlets seem to have a romantic history to them, their purpose is none other than creating fighting machines now.
10 Worst: The One-Dimensional Mechaneer’s Tricksleeves
If you are going to fight an advance boss or participate in a raid for an exotic, it better be worth it right? It is not acceptable with for a piece of armor or weapons having only one benefit going for them. The Mechaneer’s Tricksleeves fall into that category. The Mechaneer’s Tricksleeves are exotic gauntlets for hunters and are a little lacking in what they offer players. In comparison to so many other exotics, these gauntlets are more than underwhelming. Their only perk is increasing sidearm reloading speed. It has some small general benefits like increased mobility and resilience, but nothing impressive like other exotic gauntlets. It makes no sense to keep these just because of increased reload speed. So, you might want to stay away from these “tricksleeves.”
9 Best: Two Words: Uncanny Arrows
The Orpheus Rig, exotic leg armor, has an excellent ability for Hunters. This also provides an incentive to use those Shadowshot Anchors in super. Uncanny Arrows allows skilled players to increase ability energy depending upon how many enemies they can tether with bolts from the anchor. Tethering even a small number of enemies can significantly raise the super bar and drive up the intensity of attacks in PvE and PvP situations. While this can be circumstantial depending upon the subclass, there is still a huge benefit to being able to increase ability further while using a super. Plus, how cool does it look to be able to shoot a projectile that mirrors a bow and arrow. Hunters seem to be having all the fun in Destiny 2.
8 Worst: Partial Ammo Reload? Huh?
Transversive Steps are warlock leg armor, and it is hard to believe they made their way into Destiny 2 as exotics. They are a carryover from Destiny 1, and their only benefit is a mild increase in speed, and partial ammo reloads for one weapon. Considering what other exotics can do they are not worth the trouble. If you happen to see these dropped during a random event, or acquirable during a heroic public event, just get rid of them. They will take up space for something that really should be in your arsenal. There seems to be a trend here: the coolest looking exotics don’t seem to carry the most punch because these things look fantastic. On looks alone, players probably would have grabbed these. However, the fashion statement is the only pro from this one.
7 Best: Victory Is Not “Insurmountable” With This Helmet
The Titan helmet, Insurmountable Skullfort is essential for any Titan who enjoys those close quarter interactions and heavy melee play styles. This is perfect for PvE and PvP, so it is very versatile. Vex gets up in your face, knock them out. Dreg thinks he has your number, take him down. Your friend wants to make a statement in multiplayer? They don’t stand a chance with this. Again, the more you use the abilities, the better results this helmet will give you. Where this weapon really shines is arc melee. Not only does it look pretty impressive, but the perk, Transfusion Matrix allows kills with arc melee to increase health regeneration and melee energy by a pretty good amount. You look like you just walked off the set of Tron with this helmet, so have fun and wreck someone’s day.
6 Worst: A “Spineless” Exotic
So far, the Hunter’s have been winning the exotic battle, but they have been dealt a blow with these average gauntlets. Young Ahamkara’s Spine is gauntlet armor for Hunters, and again has very underwhelming qualities to be considered an exotic. It only increases Tripmine grenade duration, marks those hit by the blast (why is this even needed), and decreases recoil for an energy weapon. Honestly, a legendary weapon has better perks than this. You wonder what the developers were thinking with this one, or if they ran out of ideas for new weapons. The lore quote on this one doesn’t even make any sense: “Give me your arm, oh bearer of mine. Let me help you fill the world with teeth.” Ummm, explain this, please?
5 Best: Be Captain America For A Few Seconds
Each Avenger has their formidable signature weapon “calling card.” However, no one can argue that Captain America can do one of the coolest things. He can chuck that shield across an army of enemies. Well, Destiny 2 likes to pay homage to other franchises, and there is no doubt they were inspired by Marvel. The Doom Fang Pauldron are gauntlets for Titans. The best ability for these is that fact that players can ricochet their shields around the whole match completely obliterating enemies, and boomerang the shield right back into their hands. Using this ability also recharges another melee ability, and players can play off of these skills. Who would have thought that a shield could do just as much damage as anything else?
4 Worst: No Luck With These Pants
How do you go from Insurmountable Skull front or Mask of the Quiet One to Lucky Pants? Did someone just give up on the naming process at this point? All joking aside, these things are not worth the time or effort to use. The Lucky Pants are leg armor for Hunters, and they only have two abilities which are downright average: fast ready speed and initial accuracy for hand cannons. Again this does not seem like something that is worthy of an exotic spot. If all you use are hand cannons (which is not likely for most players), then pick this one up. However, other than that it probably will not do much good. Why can’t the lucky pants be “lucky?” It’s a travesty!
3 Best: Something For The Solar Lovers
Alright, so you are making your way through a PvP map, proud of yourself because you chained together some kills. You should be, that is hard to do in PvP. Anyway, you hit a corner and come around to see something you have never seen before. You know this person is a Titan, their weapons give that away. However, their whole torso is up in flames. Well, Hallowfire Heart did its first job of scaring the daylights out of anyone who does not know about this chest armor. It has one main perk, but a really awesome one for Titans who use solar abilities. It dramatically increases the recharge rates of solar skills when the Hammer of Sol is used. It also helps if someone is holding onto their Super ability, this will enable all of the other abilities to recharge as well.
2 Worst: This One Makes You Take Damage To Win…That’s A No No
If there is one thing that should never show up as a perk on any weapon, it is that you have to get taken to task before it really shows its value. Many have heard of perks that allow you to live longer closer to death (looking at you, COD), but this one did not seem to get the concept right. The ACD/O Feedback Fence, gauntlets for Titans has two perks that do not make a lot of sense, the ability to deal a significant explosion if hit enough times by enemies. Also, if you take a certain amount of melee damage, it will then deal harm to those around you. Unfortunately, the explosion is not enough to really deal a large amount of damage to warrant grabbing this one. So, dismantle it.
1 Best: Automatically Reload Your Automatic Rifles
What is one of the biggest problems when using a gun in games? Reloading. Each gun can have its own reload speed. Even though it may take a few seconds to load up on ammo, those are still precious seconds where a player can be vulnerable to others. This is why anything that can allow players to reload any weapon automatically is incredibly valuable. Destiny 2 moves fast, and players need something to maximize each second. Actium War Rig is chest armor for Titans and allows players to reload their auto rifles from reserves automatically. In the middle of a battle and you just went empty on auto rifle ammo...wait…no, you didn’t. Actium War Rig is here to save the day! The more time players can spend in combat, the better.