With the release of Forsaken, Destiny 2 changed the way that masterworking weapons and armor works. For weapons, however, even though the feature changed, the effects of masterworking still made sense, since players could see the stat bar move up. However, armor masterworks needed a bit more explaining and Bungie has finally offered that.
In this week’s Bungie Weekly Update, Destiny 2 Sandbox Tester Ryan Hammond explains how the resistances for masterwork armor work. While players knew that armor carries elemental resistances based on its masterwork, Hammond has now given them the exact numbers.
According to Hammond, for each tier of masterwork on each piece of armor players will gain 1% damage resistance against that armor. So a chest piece with a tier 3 void masterwork will mitigate 1% of void damage from incoming AI combatants. This does not apply to PvP, where damage has its own scaling system.
In total, players can have up to 25% elemental damage resistance, spread out across their armor pieces. They can specialize in a single element or dedicate masterworks to any combination of the three elements in Destiny 2 (arc, solar, or void).
On top of the elemental resistance, masterwork armor carries an overall resistance when players activate their super. This resistance percentage is once again tied to the tiers on each piece of armor but it is a general resistance, not an elemental one. As Hammond explains, a player with tier 12 arc resistance and tier 3 void resistance has 12% resistance against arc damage and 3% resistance against void damage. But they also have a 15% overall damage resistance when in super, which stacks with the innate damage resistance that comes with being in a super.
Bungie has finally added some clarity to the concept of masterworking armor in Destiny 2 and now players can better understand what they are getting from each tier. Whether or not those damage resistances are worth considering on top of armor perks is hard to determine, but it will certainly help once new, harder content releases in the future. It seems Bungie’s goal is to send players into new endgame content under power level and let them use buffs and debuffs for survivability.
Destiny 2 is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One
