With Destiny 2 being one of the most renowned looter-shooters on the market, it's only natural one of its greatest allures is getting different items to use. Hunting for good rolls with both weapons and armor pieces is a big part of the experience, and one that can get Destiny 2 players excited if they get something of valuable. Each weapon comes with five different rolls that make it unique, and each piece of armor comes with six different stats between which the attributes are allocated at random.
Another sought-after category is Exotic weapons and class-specific armor pieces, as these items change the way the game is played with a specific character or weapon archetype. Exotics are among Destiny 2's most iconic drops, and this is something that held true in the first installment of the series when players who received Gjallarhorn would share their reactions online. Because there are many Exotics in the game, it's only natural not every one of them is the best, but at times all it would take for them to become optimal is just an easy tweak.
Mask of Bakris
Ever since its release, Destiny 2's Mask of Bakris was considered a strong Exotic piece of gear for Stasis Hunters, as it granted a significant increase in damage with Arc weapons after using a Shift - a different sort of Dodge ability exclusive to the Helmet. The Exotic came out around a year ago when the Beyond Light expansion dropped, and Destiny 2 has changed a lot since then. Arc weapons were strong picks in PvE and PvP alike due to some of them dealing the best damage in the game, and it made sense to use Mask of Bakris because there were no Stasis weapons.
Salvation's Grip was the only Stasis weapon in the game at the time, and it was loosely used for the Beyond Light questline alone. However, now that Stasis weapons are around and quite powerful with guns like Ager's Scepter and Vulpecula, Mask of Bakris could use a change to make it work with them too. Elemental Well builds have been taking Destiny 2's meta in a very different direction that promotes using guns of the same element as a wielder's subclass, especially thanks to Font of Might and Elemental Armaments. The Helmet is rarely used anymore, and this change could help it shine again.
Salvation's Grip
A weapon that needs quite a lot of help to shine outside of story missions and climbing walls with glitches is the aforementioned Salvation's Grip. Salvation's Grip is an Exotic grenade launcher for the Power slot, using Heavy ammo to shoot, that creates Stasis crystals at targeted locations. Considering this is a grenade launcher and Stasis crystals are otherwise generated by Glacier Grenades when using a Stasis subclass, it would make sense for this gun to become more viable by letting it shoot any available Stasis grenade.
Being able to change what type of Stasis grenade Salvation's Grip shoots on the fly would make this gun more valuable in all content, even in activities like Grandmaster Nightfall Strikes where the game locks the players' loadout from being changed. This could even be the weapon's Exotic catalyst if it ever gets one, rather than an actual change.
Chromatic Fire
A Warlock Exotic that's not among the worst in the game is Chromatic Fire, a Chest Armor that provides the equivalent of perks like Dragonfly or Firefly to Kinetic weapons when landing a precision final blow. This generates an explosion that deals damage in an area around the target, and the AoE damage type changes based on a player's currently equipped subclass. While this is a decent pick in general Destiny 2 playlist activities, it could become more valuable with two minor changes.
The first would be to allow Chromatic Fire to work with Darkness subclasses rather than only Light ones, so Stasis users could still find this Exotic worthy of the slot. The second change would be to make it work so repeatedly hitting precision shots on a target stacks a debuff that triggers a more powerful damaging explosion after a while. The main benefit of this kind of change is that Destiny 2 items favoring add clearing are often useless against bosses, and this stacking would prevent that.
Khepri's Horn
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Khepri's Horn is a Titan Exotic Helmet that was introduced in Destiny 2's Year 1 with the Curse of Osiris DLC, and its situational usage has never been among the best in the game. What it does is grant Barricade energy when killing enemies with Solar damage, and then it adds a blast of Solar energy to Barricades whenever they are summoned. Because of it relying on kills and the Barricade blast being short ranged and underwhelming in damage, this Exotic could be changed to work in a way that's akin to Icefall Mantle.
Khepri's Horn could remove the Titan's Barricade ability altogether as Icefall Mantle does, and instead provide a powerful Solar blast ability in its place. This could be a melee attack, an AoE explosion around the Titan, or even a ranged ability, making it a high-risk, high-reward playstyle. However, having more damage to compensate for that could make this otherwise useless Destiny 2 Exotic more enticing. Furthermore, its trigger could be changed from requiring Solar kills that regenerate energy to dealing Solar damage and reducing the amount of Barricade energy provided.
Overall, there are many other Exotics that could use some help, but these aforementioned examples are in a state that aren't good, even if it doesn't make them unusable. Since Destiny 2's 30th Anniversary Pack will come with sandbox changes, including nerfs to Stasis and buffs to Whisper of the Worm and other Exotics, it would be a great time to make room for a few more items as well.
Destiny 2 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.