Destiny 2 players can upgrade their Exotic armor with an Artifice slot—but they may pay a hefty price

Destiny 2 players can take the help of Artifice armor to gain a few extra stat points to spare. Now, Bungie is extending that functionality to Exotics with The Final Shape, according to a blog post today, though players will have to spend a rare resource to get it.

Today’s dev insights blog outlined changes to Exotic armor pieces with The Final Shape. Exotic armor can now take Artifice armor slots, though Destiny 2 players will have to spend one Exotic Cipher and 10,000 Glimmer on them.

Artifice armor has a unique mod slot that lets players add three stat points to an attribute of their choice. This comes in handy when aiming for the next tier on a stat since you only get benefits every 10 points. Exotic armor pieces, however, don’t have access to that special mod before The Final Shape.

With the next expansion, players can upgrade a masterworked Exotic and give it an Artifice mod slot, granting that piece three more points to distribute as they see fit. The catch, though, is that it costs an Exotic Cipher.

In the current economy, Exotic Ciphers are rare and time-gated. There are only a handful of ways to obtain them, including a single one in the season pass, plus three each season for Annual Pass holders, and a weekly quest from Xûr.

Xûr’s weekly Xenology quest is the only repeatable source, which requires players to complete several playlist or seasonal activities within the five days that the merchant is around. This currency may also be under added strain with The Final Shape‘s rework of Rahool, the Tower’s Cryptarch and Exotic vendor, who will require Exotic Ciphers to obtain new Exotics starting with the next expansion.

Without any changes, having multiple Exotics with Artifice armor slots will stretch players’ inventories thin, with an elusive currency having multiple purposes. The issue becomes much more dire considering the sheer volume of Exotics available for multiple classes.

The future of Destiny 2 may bring an “upcoming Xûr revamp,” as recapped by Bungie. This could potentially solve issues with the scarcity of Exotic Ciphers, especially considering the price of upgrading multiple armor pieces across multiple classes.

The extra armor slot, however, can be a boon for players. With Artifact mods on all five pieces, players get an extra 15 points to distribute as they choose, which helps offset stat penalties from Fragments and enables a bit more buildcrafting.

Destiny 2 players can start adding new slots to their armor once The Final Shape releases on June 4.