Wrap your head around Destiny 2’s new armour stats system, and check out the first Exotic armour pieces

Destiny 2 makes big changes to how you build your character.

Destiny 2 introduces a swathe of changes to the systems current Destiny players are used to.

As outlined by Arekkz in the video above, one of the major changes in Destiny 2 is how armour contributes to your character build.

In the first game, armour affected your overall Light (gear) score as well as providing defence, but once you hit the cap on that the real differentiator was how it added to your intellect, discipline and strength stats. The higher each of these stats were, the more rapidly the associated ability would recharge – up to a point.

From what we’ve seen of Destiny 2 so far, that’s all gone: now armour contributes to your armour, agility and recovery stats. In the first Destiny, these three stats respectively affected the amount of damage you could take before dying; your speed of movement; and how quickly your health and shields regenerated after taking damage. We don’t yet have full details, but it seems likely that will carry over to Destiny 2.

These three stats have been especially important in Crucible (PvP), but could only be adjusted by activating nodes on the subclass screen. As we’ve already seen, Destiny 2’s subclass skill trees don’t feature armour, agility and recovery nodes.

So unless there’s some other way to change your cooldown timers in Destiny 2 that we haven’t seen yet, it looks like character building will centre on adjusting your armour, agility and recovery stats by collecting and equipping powerful armour, rather than trying to minimise your cooldowns. It’s a subtle change, but one that will mean a lot to hardcore players.

First Destiny 2 Exotics

The video also gives us our first look at a piece of Exotic armour in Destiny 2. We’re excited to see more of these; we’ve already tracked down 14 Exotic weapons in Destiny 2.

Although Bungie hasn’t released any formal information on Exotic armour, as it has for weapons, the promotional materials shown during the Destiny 2 gameplay reveal seemed to suggest at least three of the pieces we saw were Exotics.

You can look at them in the video above – a pair of Exotic Titan gauntlets with huge horns on the shoulder, a shiny Exotic Hunter helmet, and an amazingly ornate Exotic Warlock chest, which is already one of Destiny 2’s most coveted items.

The video also talks a little bit about how we might find Exotics in Destiny 2 – but it’s kind of speculative right now – and right at the end cursors over some of the armour on show at the recent preview event so you an at least see what sort of perks normal armour pieces have.

Want to know more about what’s changed and what’s the same, or just what the heck’s going on? Our Destiny 2’s new weapon equip slot system.

Destiny 2 releases in September for PS4 and Xbox One.

The PC version of Destiny 2 has not been dated.

Wrap your head around Destiny 2’s new armour stats system, and check out the first Exotic armour pieces posted first on http://ift.tt/2k0LiGW