re: Official Destiny Thread (PS4) Join us in the Vault

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The recent Destiny patch brought some notable changes to exotic weapons, but next week’s expansion offers some additional big adjustments. Specifically, exotic items will become available for an upgrade to keep them in line with the new top-tier gear.

Here’s how it works. Upgrading exotic weapons and armor is completed by interacting with the weekend vendor, Xur. When he arrives every Friday morning, he will now have a new option to upgrade one of your equipped exotic items. Each week, he’ll offer some (but not all) exotic items as being available to upgrade.

You’ll need three things. First, you need to own the original version of that exotic item, and turn it in to exchange for the upgraded version. It doesn’t matter if this old version of the item is brand new or fully upgraded. To complete the upgrade, you’ll also need to turn in an exotic shard. This recently introduced new material is available for purchase for seven strange coins from Xur, or by breaking down another existing exotic item in your inventory. Finally, each exotic upgrade costs a hefty dose of cash – around 7000 glimmer as of my play through of the expansion in mid-November. After turning all three of these things into Xur, he’ll hand you a brand new version of your item with a higher defense or attack value cap.

It’s important to note that this process resets the upgrades on your exotic item, but you’ll now have a new higher damage or defense cap to work towards – so you’ll need to decide if you’d rather keep your fully upgraded old version of a weapon or armor piece, or start over. With that said, the process of upgrading exotic items is now faster, and does not require ascendant materials. Instead, the last slot requires one additional exotic shard, as revealed in Monday’s patch.

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It’s also important to note that these upgradeable exotics are available to all Destiny players once the expansion launches, not just the players who purchase The Dark Below. However, only owners of The Dark Below can get new exotics that launch with the DLC.

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Another important note for those high-level players out there: Both heroics and nightfall strikes will see an increase of two light levels once the expansion opens. So prepare for those level 30 nightfall challenges.

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To encourage players to embrace initial upgrades even as they wait for raid drops, ascendant materials are now used primarily to upgrade non-raid legendary gear. Raid gear is instead upgraded with radiant shards and energy, which are acquired in the Crota’s End raid. To put it another way, the raid has its own internally consistent upgrade economy.

In addition, if you don’t get the specific energy or shards you’re hoping for, Eris Morn offers an exchange, allowing you to trade in one for the other. Another way to get radiant shards and radiant energy is to break down unwanted items acquired in the raid.

Perhaps most importantly, the loot raid drops for Crota’s End have been refined from what we experienced in the Vault of Glass. Specifically, the game will pay closer attention to the drops you’ve already had, as well as how long it’s been since you get a “fun” drop (as opposed to just materials). While there’s still a significant component of randomness, Bungie strongly implied to me that players should have a more consistent reward experience with the raid than what has been experienced in Vault of Glass when the Crota’s End raid launches on day one of the expansion.

Looking ahead to 2015, players can expect that new raid primary weapons will only be available through the hard mode of the Crota’s End raid – set for launch in January.

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