Destiny 2's Season of Plunder is soon going to see Master King's Fall and Grandmaster Nightfall Strikes added to the weekly rotation of activities, which is often a critical time to make effective loadouts that tackle common issues like survivability, boss DPS, and Champions. These are all problems that Destiny 2 players have to solve to some degree with their builds, especially in endgame content where deaths are more punishing, bosses are more dangerous, and Champions can easily disrupt any fight. Champions can be particularly problematic because their presence limits players with regard to their chosen weapons and energy slots in terms of mods.
The way anti-Champion mods work is that every Season Bungie creates a set of mods with specific weapons associated with each Champion type and makes them available as unlocks in the seasonal artifact. This means that most players are not ready to face Champions in Destiny 2 the moment a new Season begins unless they use Exotics with intrinsic Champion-stunning rounds, but that is still limiting. Furthermore, it makes grinding for more unlocks in the seasonal artifact a top priority, which is counter-intuitive for when a new Season launches. Bungie should fix this, and Lightfall is the perfect opportunity to do so.
Why Destiny 2's Champion Mods Need A Permanent Fix
Destiny 2 players have been unhappy about Champion mods for a while now, as they actively limit the weapons one can use in harder activities because not stunning Champions can severely hinder any fireteam. Right now, Champion mods are exclusively a seasonal unlock, meaning that those available in every Season will never be the same the Season after that, and they only rely on the seasonal artifact. This selection of rotating mods is what typically determines the meta for a given Season because weapons with Champion mods tend to be more desirable to use across the board.
In some cases, the selection of anti-Champion mods is not the greatest, and it has players upset about it for the entire Season. This is something that often happens with sidearm Champion mods, Overload mods for auto rifles, and many other instances where either the supposed anti-Champion weapons are bad at stunning them or simply they are not good picks in the endgame. Bungie is indeed making an effort to add more intrinsic anti-Champion rounds to Destiny 2's Exotics, something that made weapons like Le Monarque and Thunderlord great in Season of Plunder.
For a more definitive solution, Bungie could fix this by introducing Champions mods permanently at a given energy cost that is average-to-high, and then have a selection of these mods appear at a lower energy cost in the seasonal artifact on a rotating basis, much like Scavenger mods right now. For example, Season of Plunder features a Scavenger mod for swords and one for machine guns, and both cost one energy, whereas they normally cost four and five energy, respectively. Likewise, having Champion mods in Destiny 2 that can be permanently unlocked and used at all times would still make cheaper versions of these mods more enticing when available in seasonal artifacts.
This would open up a lot of build diversity options for players in every Season, as they would be able to choose from the same set of mods every single time and use whatever they want, as long as they meet the energy requirements. For example, Primary weapons typically appear in the seasonal artifacts' rotations at a one-energy cost, whereas they could be made permanent for two energy, and still show up in seasonal artifacts moving forward at their reduced cost to encourage players to use those, instead. Overall, Destiny 2's meta could use a shake-up like this, and Champions have often been a sour spot for Bungie, which makes this solution a win-win scenario.
Destiny 2 is now available for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.