I’m continuing to grind my way to a collection of Masterwork Legendaries in Destiny 2, yet the more I find, the more I realize that this system still has a long, long ways to go until it becomes something genuinely interesting.
We are, essentially, at step one. The best thing about Masterwork weapons is that they create orbs on multikills. That’s really it. In terms of added gameplay benefit, that’s a good one, and when all your weapons are Masterworks in a kit, that can really add up quickly. So bra-vo there.
But past that? I think there’s still work to be done to make the Masterwork hunt truly exciting.
1. Meaningful stat increases
I have yet to find a Masterwork weapon that actually…feels like a different gun. I’ve previously compared Masterworks to “Ancient” Legendaries in Diablo 3, but in that game, those offered huge damage boosts to the point where you could instantly jump up a difficulty level or two once you found one.
I don’t expect that dramatic of a change here in Destiny 2, but I want Masterwork perks to feel truly meaningful, and that probably means doubling or tripling some of the stats that can currently roll on gear. 5% range and stability, 10% ammo capacity and reload speed, these are just not noticeable buffs on almost all weapons, and some of them are downright goofy on things like snipers or rocket launchers. But triple that, 30% reload speed, 15% stability, and you start to actually feel the difference. It’s not god tier loot until it feels like god tier loot, and orb generation alone is not cutting it for Masterworks. It if unbalances PvP, deactivate those bonuses in PvP, easy enough.
2. Something to work toward
I think it was streamer Gothalion who suggested something like this, but I like the idea of not just “kill counters” on weapons, but something to work toward for Masterworks based on kills. The idea is something along the lines of say, for every 100 Hive you kill, you get a 0.1% damage increase to Hive going forward. This would stack up to a max of say, 5 or 10%, and different Masterworks would drop with different enemy types in that “damage increase slot.”
Kill trackers are fine, but ultimately meaningless in gameplay. This system would let you build a three weapon “anti-Hive” or “anti-Cabal” kit that you could take on strikes heavy on those enemies. It would take a long, long time (thousands upon thousands of kills), but it would be useful kind of grind, the likes of which the game does not currently offer.
3. A perk boost, not a stat boost
If Bungie insists on these tiny stat increases for Masterworks, I don’t think it’s out of the question to offer the idea that a Masterwork bonus could be an extra perk rather than just a little stat bump.
This could either be one more perk in addition to the ones the gun already has, but if that’s too overpowered, perhaps just another perk option in the last slot where there’s usually only one choice there.
I know Bungie said they wanted fixed rolls to make guns easier to balance, but has that really done anything meaningful since the launch of Destiny 2? I don’t think so, and this would be a way to make Masterworks more valuable while also pleasing the “bring back re-rolls” crowd to a certain extent.
4. Introduce Masterwork armor as soon as possible
Right now there’s no bigger bummer than getting Legendaries from faction engrams or Legendaries in the wild, because there’s exactly a zero percent chance that it has the ability to be a Masterwork in the current state of the game.
The longer we go without armor Masterworks, the more useless loot we’re accumulating, so I hope this happens sooner rather than later. Bungie has already spoken about Masterwork armor, saying that it won’t generate orbs, but instead might offer a third option for which stat it boosts on your Guardian. That’s a good start, but I would love for Masterwork armor to go the extra mile, like come with a second mod slot, or something like that, which again, would actually influence gameplay in a meaningful way.
5. Masterwork Exotics
This was…a bit of an oversight. Most exotic weapons in Destiny 2 are somewhat underpowered as is, but add in the fact that they can’t generate orbs, and there’s little reason you’d ever use most of them over a Masterwork Legendary.
So yes, Exotics should be able to drop as Masterworks also. They would be very rare, considering how low the Exotic-to-Legendary drop rate is already, but it would at least be possible to find them or craft them (30 cores? 50 cores?) so they’re not totally taken out of the running for what goes in your kit. Stat boosts, orb generation, the whole nine yards. Masterwork Exotics would be the most rare, most sought-after items in the game, and a great thing for ultra-endgame players to hunt, in combination with these other changes. And no, you couldn’t find them from buying stuff from Xur on repeat.
So, those are my suggestions. Anything else you would add?
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