Masterworking armor is freaking expensive

Found this thread over on Reddit. It provides a detailed breakdown of the costs of the various materials that go into masterworking a piece of 2.0 armor.

You should read the post for all the details, but here’s the total sum for fully masterworking a complete set of armor, including 1 exotic:

grand total of:

• 850 enhancement cores

• 2,825 planet mats

• 1,200,000 glimmer

Yikes O_o

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So I’ll just, uh, go play activities instead of buying them all and it will cost me significantly less.

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So I’ll just, uh, go play activities instead of buying them all and it will cost me significantly less.

I like your plan. I’m going to take that approach as well :)

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Apparently you can grind the hardest Nightfalls repeatedly to get the high level materials, so I'm not sure the intent is for players to actually spend this much. Either way, it's a little daunting (and all the additional currencies...bleah).

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I’m sort of okay with it being expensive or taking awhile to masterwork a full set. I’m struggling with picking stuff to masterwork. I have a few sets level up to have 7 slots, and even a few pieces bumped up to 8, but I’m still hesitant to take anything beyond that.

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As others have mentioned, it's cheaper to earn than to buy. (Sort of.)

I ran the 950 nightfall about 6 times last week (twice per character), and earned 9 prisms that way. That's almost a shard, in a week of playing. (Yes, that means 5 weeks per armor set, or 7 if you're including an exotic.) Seems like I could up that number if I really wanted to speed up the process; those nightfalls are actually pretty fun. :)

I haven't tried the 980 yet, but I'm 12 levels above where Fallout was when he made that film referenced in the thread, so I'm guessing that'll become more of a possibility in the next couple of weeks. That will seriously speed things up.

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Out of curiosity, what level were you when running the 950 Nightfall?

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Out of curiosity, what level were you when running the 950 Nightfall?

I've been mid-960s for all of them, but the people I ran with were often underleveled. (The first 3 or 4 always had someone in the high 930s. It wasn't until one last night where everyone was over 950.)

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Found this thread over on Reddit. It provides a detailed breakdown of the costs of the various materials that go into masterworking a piece of 2.0 armor.

You should read the post for all the details, but here’s the total sum for fully masterworking a complete set of armor, including 1 exotic:

grand total of:

• 850 enhancement cores

• 2,825 planet mats

• 1,200,000 glimmer

Yikes O_o

How many enhancement cores do you get these days? Are they more plentiful than in Warmind / Forsaken?

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How many enhancement cores do you get these days? Are they more plentiful than in Warmind / Forsaken?

Based on my own experience, I'd say yes. At one point last week I got up to 90-something without really trying. Prior to Shadowkeep, the most I can ever remember having at one time was 70-something, and that was when I used the legendary shards/rank up packages loop to acquire and dismantle a ton of legendaries - typically I only had a handful. But 850 is still kind of a lot.

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Found this thread over on Reddit. It provides a detailed breakdown of the costs of the various materials that go into masterworking a piece of 2.0 armor.

You should read the post for all the details, but here’s the total sum for fully masterworking a complete set of armor, including 1 exotic:

grand total of:

• 850 enhancement cores

• 2,825 planet mats

• 1,200,000 glimmer

Yikes O_o

How many enhancement cores do you get these days? Are they more plentiful than in Warmind / Forsaken?

You can get 3 per day per character from Banshee for simple tasks (a couple of dozen hand-cannon kills, for example). You get 10 each time you reset your valor rank (I've done it 4 times since Shadowkeep launched), and 7 each week, per character, for the clan engram.

I started shadowkeep with about 600 cores. Two weeks later, after using a bunch, I've got 750 or so. Yes, it's easier than it used to be. No, building up the 850 is not going to be easy. Then again, buying all your stuff from Banshee is NOT the best way to get that stuff; I'm going to do a combination of buying and earning.

(Remember, by the time you hit level 100 in Season Rank, you've earned 3 Ascendant Shards, 6 Prisms, and 25 cores, so that's the equivalent of 385 cores right there - almost half of what you'll need for a single full set.)

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(Remember, by the time you hit level 100 in Season Rank, you've earned 3 Ascendant Shards, 6 Prisms, and 25 cores, so that's the equivalent of 385 cores right there - almost half of what you'll need for a single full set.)

Lol I don't know what ascendent shards and prisms do.

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They’re just more end game upgrade currencies. You use them for the final few tiers in Masterworking armor.

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OK so I'm basically never doing that. But then I never did it under any of the old systems either, so meh.

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OK so I'm basically never doing that. But then I never did it under any of the old systems either, so meh.

I’ve really only ever seen value in Masterworking the few weapons one insists on keeping with them at all time. That’s pretty much my Duke Mk.44, Misfit, and Bad Reputation.

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OK so I'm basically never doing that. But then I never did it under any of the old systems either, so meh.

I’ve really only ever seen value in Masterworking the few weapons one insists on keeping with them at all time. That’s pretty much my Duke Mk.44, Misfit, and Bad Reputation.

This is more about armor, I think. It used to feel mostly needless. Now it's completely necessary to upgrade armor to be able to equip mods. Have those extra few slots from Masterworking can make a huge difference.

As for guns, I'd argue even that is far more necessary now. With the slower Super recharge, using guns that don't generate orbs can be a real handicap.

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Here are a bunch of my semi-related thoughts on the new armor system:

I agree that MW'ing weapons is even more important now since super charges much slower.

Previously, MW'ing armor was expensive but not super helpful. By the time Shadowkeep hit, I had only done it on 2 or 3 full sets of armor. Now it is both more expensive and more useful.

In retrospect, the advice to shard all mods was a bit misleading. I vaguely remember reading "you will use mod components to buy new mods" but never any information that these would only be available 1 per day for purchase, and may be duplicates that you already have. The change in the mod system from Y1 to Y2 meant Year 1 mods literally stopped working. The change from Year 2 to Year 3 is just "we would prefer you to use Y3 mod system" and you can still add Y2 mods to Y2 armor that you may have. For some reason, I was expecting a Y1-style change and now I don't know whether to shard or keep my just-1-of-each-Y2-mods I have. It just seems weird.

Pros/cons on modding armor 2.0:

Pros:
- We can finally change what the armor looks like*
- Changing cosmetics is easier / cheaper
- There are some interesting mods that didn't exist before
- Adding / changing mods is cheaper
- I like the energy mod-cost system (in concept...)
- Cool having D1 stats again

Cons:
- The armor system is confusing (cosmetic limitations, the way energy works, relationship with armor 1.0)
- We can only change our armor to look like SOME of the armors (and which ones is not clear at all)
- Armor 2.0 ends up with fewer perks than armor 1.0 (My Armor 1.0 specialty outfits for Pulse Rifles, ARs, Fusions, Hand Cannons, etc are way better than I will ever be able to create using the current system. What is the motivation to switch over, other than the limited cosmetic changes??)
- It is REALLY EXPENSIVE to get "10 energy" on a piece of armor--this is a negative change from Armor 1.0, which had mods/perks inherent from the get-go without needing to spend any resources
- With 7 energy--which is what you can get using the more common materials--the choices of mods is pretty limited. Lots of "just ok" weapon-type mods cost 5.
- The mod slots prevent using certain mods together
- Elemental affinities are a 2x burden: restrictive for mods, but also trapped behind dumb layer of RNG (All 3 of my higher-total helmets so far are Arc.)
- Armor "total" stat is completely random and high-power armor only comes from limited activities (IB and Raid??)
- D1 stats are still completely reliant on RNG

All that being said, here is what I would like from armor 2.0 in the future:
- Any armor can look like any other armor, once you unlock it.
- Elemental affinities should be less of a burden (remove at least one of the barriers listed above)
- Armor 2.0 should be as strong as / have as many perks as Armor 1.0 (Mods cost less energy? Armor gets more energy by default?)
- MW'ing armor should either be cheaper or should not be so useful or game-changing. Those last three energy slots are very costly.

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Masterworking armor is freaking expensive (Destiny)