What are Armor Charge mods in Destiny 2: Lightfall? – Explained

The overhauled modding system is here

Destiny 2: Lightfall overhauled its entire armor modding system. For the veteran players, this has led to some confusion, feeling underpowered, and trying to navigate the new interface. In reality, the process has been streamlined to make build crafting easier than it has been before. With the addition of stored loadouts, you can save up to six for quick swapping depending on activity and area.

Creating the ultimate Strand build for Hunters, Warlocks or Titans is now more accessible than ever, since Bungie announced that it would be unlocking all of the Strand Fragments early. Previously, some of these were scheduled to unlock on March 7 with the rest after the World’s First raid race is won. Understanding how to make your build the best it can be will require knowledge of the new modding system, including Armor Charges.

Unlocking armor mods

If you’ve played Destiny prior to the release of Lightfall at all, you’ll have almost every mod unlocked already. New Lights will begin their Destiny 2 journey with a limited selection of mods. To unlock additional mods, you need to increase your Guardian Rank. You can do this by heading to the Journey tab which will show you a selection of challenges you can complete in order to increase your rank. To unlock every armor mod, complete the Threats and Surges challenge which requires completing three Nightfalls with the currently active surge as your subclass.

Upgrading your armor

Armor mods allow your Guardian to spawn Orbs of Power, increase damage resistance, and improve ability uptime amongst other buffs and perks. From the Character screen, head right to see the mod and build crafting screen. This can seem a little overwhelming, but it gives a grand overview of your build currently and what effects the mods you have selected are having on your statistics. Here, you can also see any perks that your seasonal artifact is giving.

Selecting an armor piece will show that item’s mod slots. There are four on most armor pieces with the exception of raid gear and artifice armor, which have an additional slot. The first one is a general socket which allows you to increase your statistics, such as intellect or mobility. The other three slots are Armor Mod slots. Each item has unique mods that improve abilities or weapon performance.

Each mod equipped costs a certain amount of energy, and you can increase the available energy by using materials to upgrade your armor pieces to a maximum of 10. Hover over the energy bar above the mods and long press to upgrade it. This costs glimmer, legendary shard, enhancement cores, enhancement prisms, or ascendant shards depending on the level you’re trying to upgrade it to. A fully upgraded piece of armor is known as “Masterworked”, which gives it a gold border. These also grant bonus statistics to your Guardian.

What is Armor Charge?

Armor Charge is the main rework of Destiny 2‘s previous Charged with Light mechanic. Armor Charge is granted, consumed, and modified through the use of armor mods. Armor Charge can stack up to three times by default and lasts as long as you survive, but this changes when mods begin to be equipped. While any Armor Charge mods are equipped, Orbs of Power will grant one stack of Armor Charge.

Armor Charge mods are color-coded to show their function. Green mods will give stacks of Armor Charge dependent on certain conditions being met. Yellow mods will consume Armor Charge stacks. Blue mods will give a passive bonus while you have Armor Charge but they will decay once every ten seconds. With no blue mods equipped, your Armor Charge stacks will not decay. Equipping multiple blue mods will not increase the rate at which your Armor Charge decays.

How do I get Armor Charge?

Orbs of Power are the main way to get stacks of Armor Charge. As long as you have mods equipped, picking up an Orb of Power will give one Armor Charge. Mods such as Stacks on Stacks on the leg armor increase this. Mods such as Firepower, Heavy Handed or Siphon mods will spawn more Orbs of Power. Empowered Finish is also a good mod to use for generating Armor Charge.

You can hold up to three stacks of Armor Charge by default, but this can be increased by equipping Charge Up mods on chest armor. With three of these, you can have up to six stacks of Armor Charge.

The best Armor Charge mods in the game currently include weapon surge mods on boots and kickstart mods on arms or your class item. For those that prefer the PvP modes in Destiny 2, you should look at Time Dilation and any Font mods. Time Dilation will make Armor Charge last for longer whilst Font mods improve your Guardian’s statistics. Powerful Friends and Radiant Light are still powerful despite not giving increased statistics anymore.

Destiny 2: Lightfall is available now for Xbox, PlayStation and PC.