The chocolate box of exotic gear that comes with a new Destiny 2 expansion is always one of the biggest reasons to log back in. With The Edge of Fate expansion, which launches on July 15, the slate of new supercharged weapons and unique armour pieces feels particularly fresh—including one item, Melas Panoplia, which enables an ability that has been requested by Titan mains for years.
At a preview event at Bungie HQ in Bellevue, Washington, I was able to play with six of the expansion’s new exotics—one of which, New Land Beyond, is technically already in the game if you’re willing to splash out on the Year of Prophecy’s ultimate edition. There were three armor exotics—one for each class—and three exotic weapons in the dev build, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple remain under wraps, including the reward from the new raid.
But let’s work with what we know. Below, I detail the six new exotics I tested, including the most busted exotic primary I’ve ever equipped.
Third Iteration (Scout rifle)
- Tri-Planar Mass Driver: Fires a spread of Void energy projectiles. Aiming down sights narrows the spread.
Third Iteration is a void scout rifle that comes from the season pass. It fires at 200 RPM, uses primary ammo, and fires a spread of void energy projectiles that narrow when you aim down sites. Let’s also be clear: it absolutely bangs right now. To the point that almost everyone in the testing room was excitedly discussing how broken it is.
It’s the most wildly overpowered primary exotic we’ve seen in years
This is by far the standout exotic from The Edge of Fate expansion. It’s the most wildly overpowered primary exotic we’ve seen in the game in years, potentially ever. It hits all the exotic boxes: it’s strange, it’s unique, and it’s extremely powerful.
So, a little more about how it works: when you fire Third Iteration, it shoots multiple shots in an extremely accurate spread. Imagine the Cerberus+1 auto rifle shot, but capable of dealing full damage at the range of a scout rifle. However, when you aim down the sight for a brief period, the shots consolidate into a single, high-impact, sniper-like round. This shot then marks the target, causing them to take increased damage from Third Iteration. Oh, and when you defeat a marked target, you turn invisible and gain truesight (i.e. wallhacks). The way this works in practice is that you mark a big enemy with the consolidated shot, and then blast it with your long-range, shotgun-like shot.
In the build I played, this absolutely shredded through enemies and bosses—even on the legendary difficulty of the campaign. It was killing orange bar enemies in two shots or less during higher difficulty campaign missions. Incredibly, according to the devs on hand, the scout has already nerfed at least twice. Conversations are ongoing as to whether it can ship as hot as it currently is, but the devs seemed delighted with our reaction, so fingers crossed.
It’s also going to slot very nicely into some key builds, making the Gyrfalcon Hunter invisibility loop very easy to kickstart. But even without building into void or having any synergy with the rest of my build, it was my go-to exotic for my entire play session at Bungie.
Graviton Spike (Hand cannon)
- Temporal Manipulation: Press reload to swap between fast-firing Arc mode or slow-firing Stasis mode.
Graviton Spike is a craftable exotic hand cannon in The Edge of Fate that seems like it’ll come from a quest. This weapon extends the dual darkness/light weapon idea first introduced with the Conditional Finality raid exotic from Root of Nightmares.
It uses primary ammo, sits in the energy slot, and it says it fires at 150 RPM. However, you can change the fire rate by taking advantage of its exotic perk, Temporal Manipulation, which lets you swap between a fast-firing arc mode or slow-firing stasis mode. Final blows and precision hits overcharge the opposing mode to enable additional effects.
The charged stasis version creates crystals and coldsnap seekers, the charged arc version causes bolts of lightning.
This weapon is great for if you’re looking to charge Transcendence for your Prismatic subclass, or take advantage of some elemental verbs and modifiers. But the real benefit comes when you rapidly swap between the two modes after getting headshots.
Precision hits with one elemental type charges the other. When you swap to the charged element, you’ll get more benefits for landing precision hits. The charged stasis version of the gun creates stasis crystals and a coldsnap seeker that freezes enemies. The charged arc version causes bolts of lightning to strike targets.
This thing offers a really active playstyle which was a ton of fun to play with. How long it’ll take to get the fully upgraded version of Graviton Spike, and what it’s potential upgrades entail, is the big question. If it’s anything like previous mission exotics, it’ll take at least a few runs to earn all the catalysts and intrinsics.
New Land Beyond (Sniper rifle)
- The Master: Scoring precision hits increases this weapon’s damage until the wielder’s defeat. Massively increases ammo reserves.
New Land Beyond is already in Destiny 2—at least if you buy the digital deluxe edition of The Year of Prophecy—so it hardly feels necessary to put it on this list. But it is technically a new exotic coming in The Edge of Fate.
It’s getting a catalyst which causes rounds to load into the magazine when you have high stacks of the damage buff.
This updated version of an original Destiny exotic is a special ammo sniper rifle that sits in the kinetic slot. It fires at 72 RPM and only uses iron sights, making it a little unwieldy to use (although the Snapshot perk has helped it feel less clunky). NLB’s main exotic perk is The Master, which means scoring precision hits increases its damage until the wielder’s defeat. It also massively increases ammo reserves.
The cool and useful thing about New Land Beyond is that the damage buff remains intact until you die. That means even if you store it and swap to a primary, you can pull it back out and fire off an extremely powerful shot into a boss or major enemy. It’s also getting a catalyst once the expansion hits, which causes new rounds to load into the magazine when you have high stacks of the damage buff. Hilariously, New Land Beyond’s perk can stack up to 100, although the damage buff doesn’t scale much beyond 20 stacks.
Moirai (Hunter chest)
- Webcatcher: Threaded Spike can bounce to Tangles, detonating them and returning immediately. Tangles detonated by Threaded Spike are rewoven and retrieved by it. Catches without a Tangle refund extra melee energy,
Moirai is a new Hunter chest in The Edge of Fate, and it’s all about Tangles and strand. Your Threaded Spike—the strand melee—can now target Tangles in the arena. When it hits one, your Threaded Spike detonates the Tangle and will spawn a new Tangle in your hands if you catch it.
The first Tangle you hit with your spike become a maelstrom, you can then throw the second Tangle to create another maelstrom.
On its face, this one seems a little uninteresting, but when you pair it with the Whirling Maelstrom aspect, which causes your Tangles to basically grow hands and fist-fight people, this exotic gets very exciting indeed. Not only does the first Tangle you hit with your spike become a maelstrom, you can then throw the second Tangle to create another maelstrom.
All of that being said, this definitely seems like the most fiddly of the three exotics. I’m certain that some Hunter main out there will find an absolutely wild way to use it, but it’s going to take a bit more work to get it into a build than the other exotic armor pieces for the expansion.
Eunoia (Warlock gauntlets)
- Consul’s Pitch: Hellion projectiles deal increased damage the further they travel, eventually fracturing into scorching shrapnel.
Eunoia are some new Warlock arms which enhance Hellion; the little Solar buddy added in The Final Shape. Whenever the Hellion fires while you have these on, its primary shot explodes part-way to the target, creating a blanket spread of fire and scorching anything in the area.
This isn’t the flashiest exotic in this expansion, but it’s a ton of fun to use. Hellion was already an excellent choice for managing large crowds of enemies—something you’ll find in most activities in Destiny 2 these days. With Eunoia, it gets much better at clearing large groups, allowing you to focus on beefier targets while everything else explodes around you.
Melas Panoplia (Titan gauntlets)
- Forge Master: Collecting a Firesprite or rapid Solar final blows make you a Forge Master, allowing you to recall your Throwing Hammer. After impacting a target, recall your hammer at full intensity to perform a Perfect Recall, causing an explosion of forge slag. Perfect Recalls and collecting Firesprites extend your time as Forge Master.
Melas Panoplia is the exotic armor piece of the expansion, and has one of the most widely-requested exotic effects in all of Destiny 2. These gauntlets enable you to throw your solar Titan’s hammer and then hit melee again to return it back to you, Thor-style. It looks, feels, and sounds just as good as you’d hope, with the Titan stretching out their hand in eager anticipation of the hammer’s return.
If you wait a moment for the hammer to flash after it hits a target, then hit the recall button, the hammer will cause a massive explosion
However, it’s a little more complicated than just throwing the hammer and pressing the button again to bring it back. Instead, you need to get multiple solar kills to get a special Forge Master buff. When you next throw your hammer, you’ll get a short timer indicating how long you can throw and recall it—which you can do unlimited times, assuming the buff hasn’t run out.
What makes this so fun is that it also comes with a timing mini-game. If you wait a moment for the hammer to flash and make a sound after it hits a target, then hit the recall button at the perfect time, the hammer will cause a massive explosion around itself before it returns to your hands. This explosion looks flashy, but it also seems quite strong. It’s difficult to tell how effective it’ll be in true endgame content, but I was able to wipe out much beefier enemies than I expected with the explosion, and even deal pretty considerable damage to legendary campaign bosses with just my hammer throw.
This is one of the best exotics in years. It’s exactly what I’ve always wanted as a Titan main, but somehow even better than I imagined.
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