Destiny 2's The Witch Queen era brought along several fundamental changes to the gameplay loop and the players' ability to create their own builds to tackle the type of content they want. This is achieved thanks to a healthy mix of sandbox updates to weapons and how they function, as well as the Light subclass reworks that aim at making each of the elements more akin to Stasis from Beyond Light through Aspects and Fragments instead of skill trees. While these changes are fantastic additions to Destiny 2's complex sandbox, it's worth looking at the state the game's Exotics are in at the moment before launching the Lightfall expansion next year.
With every new Season in Destiny 2, Bungie typically adds at least one brand-new Exotic for every class and at least one new Exotic weapon included in the Season Pass, but typically it's two weapons per Season with the additional one coming from Dungeons or Raids. As of Season of the Haunted, every class has a total of 36 Exotics to choose from in terms of armor pieces, and then there are a total of 94 Exotic weapons, but not all of them are nearly as useful as one would think. In fact, it's not uncommon for Destiny 2 players to gravitate towards a handful of Exotic armor pieces and weapons to use in all game modes, a number that's probably sitting somewhere in the ballpark of 12-15 Exotics total.
Destiny 2 Has Too Many Useless Exotics or Ones That Are Hard to Get
The fact that there are so many Destiny 2 Exotics that are basically never used in any game mode is concerning per se, but when one takes into consideration that Bungie keeps on adding more of them every Season, the loot pool and the usage percentage are both being diluted. What this means is that obtaining all Exotics becomes a taller task with every new Season, especially considering that Exotic armor pieces have random stat rolls that may render them great or awful depending on the builds and combinations that players want to try. An example is that Vex Mythoclast is still one of the rarest Exotics in Destiny 2 as a whole, and even though Bungie's new Dungeon and Raid rotator system can make the grind less extenuating, it's not enough to guarantee a drop.
Many Destiny 2 Raid weapons end up being the rarest in the game because of how RNG-dependent they are in terms of drops, and most of them are not even among the best Exotics available because they mostly have niche functionalities. The consequence is that Raid Exotics tend to be reworked at a later date to make them more valuable in the current meta, which often shifts so drastically in between Seasons that it's hard to balance everything around that. And yet, there are plenty of non-Raid Exotic weapons that are indefinitely stored into Vaults or claimed from the Collection tab when needed because they have little to no use in day-to-day content.
When it comes to farming Exotic armor pieces, Destiny 2's Lost Sectors are the only place where players have a tiny bit of control over what they get, considering that the Exotics rotate daily based on their slots and players can use Ghost mod to focus stats. Nevertheless, obtaining the exact stat roll and distribution that players need is not an easy feat because of the abysmal drop rates in Lost Sectors and because of the enormous loot pool, which is usually the biggest for Exotic arms, to the point that most classes have at least eleven Exotics in that category alone. With new Exotics being added, the probability to get the items players need with the correct rolls for their builds becomes quite low.
Why Bungie Should Overhaul Destiny 2's Exotics Before Lightfall
Because the Light 3.0 updates are taking place one per Season and because they are Bungie's way to uplift buildcrafting as a whole in Destiny 2, Season 19 will look a bit shallow in comparison to every other Year 5 Season. Although balancing Exotics is not a tall order in the current state of things, an Exotics 2.0 patch would be extremely beneficial for the game's longevity and the ability to better curate builds for all sorts of activities. An example of this is the fact that only a handful of current Exotic armor pieces and weapons have interactions catered to the Void 3.0 and Solar 3.0 updates, when instead this percentage could be much higher and make these items more rewarding to get and use.
Then, there are multiple Exotics in the game that don't really make sense in the current state of the game because their perks are more "vanilla" than the newer items being introduced, with examples being Exotics like Sealed Ahamkara Grasps, Eternal Warrior, or Claws of Ahamkara. These are just some Exotic armor pieces in Destiny 2 that don't have a place in the meta, and changing them to make them better would be better than introducing brand-new items while older ones stay to collect dust.
Weapons behave in a similar manner, with guns like The Prospector, D.A.R.C.I., The Queenbreaker, Salvation's Grip, The Jade Rabbit, and more, having outdated traits that make them useless across the board. Again, these are examples, and the state of Exotics in Destiny 2 is not great when most of the existing items fulfill no role anywhere. For these reasons, having a Season dedicated to rebalancing the Exotics in the game would be ideal before Lightfall drops, particularly if it's going to introduce a whole new subclass or new interesting sandbox changes. Even if Lightfall itself ends up launching with an Exotic overhaul, Bungie's best bet is to take care of these items before many others are introduced.
Destiny 2 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.