Masterwork gear in Destiny 2: Everything you need to know

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Top equipment contributes a lot Fate 2‘s endgame, allowing you to boost a weapon’s stats beyond its power level with enough resources. Besides the cool gold rim and kill tracker, Masterwork gear offers a number of goodies: extra orbs, specific stat boosts, and more.

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Like almost every system in the destiny 2, Bungie doesn’t explain Masterworks very well. In this guide, we’ll cover what Masterwork gear is (and isn’t), the perks Masterwork gear offers, and how to max out the gear you have.

What Masterwork Gear does and doesn’t do

Before we dive into what Masterwork Gear has to offer players, it’s important to understand the nature of the upgrades. Premium items offer no damage or power level increases compared to standard legendary or exotic gear. Equipment will still be roughly the same level as your current equipment, and in some cases may be lower. If you’re not sure if you’re going to use the weapon at all, it’s best to store it in your vault because it can always be reloaded or broken later.

The good news: Legendary Masterwork items are technically considered modified versions of Legendary weapons and armor. As such, they do not count towards the “one exotic weapon” and “one exotic piece of armor” rules. We combined the Masterwork Fusion Rifle with the Exotic Scout Rifle, allowing us to cause some serious carnage against the enemy.

What improvements does Masterwork Weapons offer?

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Legendary Masterwork Weapons offer several bonuses on top of the attributes you can find in standard Legendary Weapons. Perhaps most important is the Masterwork Weapon’s orb-generating ability: scoring multiple kills with the Masterwork Weapon — killing two or more enemies in a matter of seconds — will automatically generate an orb of light that is used to charge your super ability. During solo play this is a handy way to take down targets faster, but is more powerful during co-op raids. By focusing on the smaller, multi-killable targets while your teammates attack the larger boss, you can generate a steady supply of orbs for them to use.

How can I get Masterwork equipment?

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Legendary masterpieces

There is a small chance that any legendary weapon you pick up will already be a masterpiece. Certain legendary drops are also automatically masterpieces, such as the Salvager’s Salvo ritual grenade launcher from Season of the Chosen. However, you’ll mostly have to manually upgrade your weapons.

Each weapon has 10 ranks and is considered a Masterpiece at rank 10. You can upgrade your weapon at any time using the inventory screen, and as long as you have enough resources, you can instantly go from level one to level 10. If you don’t have enough resources, don’t worry; each level rewards you with slightly increased stats.

Here’s what you need for each level:

First level — basic weapon
Second level — 2500 Glimmer
Third level — 2500 Glimmer, one legendary shard
Fourth level — 2500 Glimmer, one Legendary Shard, one Enhancement Core
Level Five — 2500 sparkles, two legendary shards, one enhancement core
Level Six — Two legendary shards, two enhancement cores
Level Seven — Three legendary shards, two enhancement cores
Level Eight — Three legendary shards, three enhancement cores
Level Nine — Five legendary shards, three enhancement cores
Level 10 — 10 legendary shards, five enhancement cores

Exotic Master Weapon

In season 3 of Fate 2, Bungie added Exotic Masterwork Weapons. Rather than being a random drop, each exotic weapon you acquire has or will have the ability to become a Masterwork weapon (not all exotics will have a Masterwork version available upon jump).

To upgrade an exotic weapon, you must find its corresponding Exotic Masterwork Catalyst, an item that will trigger a quest or otherwise give you instructions telling you what to do. Like upgrades, both the catalyst and instructions are different for each weapon. Some catalysts are in specific places – Bungie said some weapons will have clues if you inspect them carefully – while others drop randomly. After acquiring and applying the Masterwork Catalyst to your weapon, there are a number of more direct steps you must complete in order to hone the Masterwork to its final, most mastered state.

Another thing you should know: Unlike Legendary Masterwork gear, you can’t customize upgrades to Exotic Masterworks. Each piece of Masterwork gear has one custom-made masterwork.

What about Masterwork Armor?

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Legendary Masterwork Armor offers a similar, though less variable, bonus to standard legendary gear. Premium armor pieces grant 3% damage reduction while using a super move. As a result, a full Masterwork Armor set provides a 15% damage reduction. Additionally, each rank gives your armor more elemental energy, allowing you to equip more mods.

Like legendary weapons, legendary armor can be upgraded to its Masterwork level. Here’s what you need for each level: