An Introduction to... Mods

NOTE: Due to significant overhauls of core game systems as part of the Lightfall expansion release this guide is now out of date and needs almost completely rewriting. If you have any questions drop them in the comments and I'll answer them to the best of my ability but as long as this notice is present assume any information in the guide itself no longer applies.


An introduction to mods - what they are, where to get them and what they can do. This guide isn't intended as a complete list of all mods as this information can already be found in-game.

What are Mods and where to acquire them.

Mods are unlockable items that can be inserted into your weapons, armour or Ghost. They do exactly what you'd expect and modify your gear - some provide extra stats whilst others provide a variety of buffs and effects.

The main method through which you'll acquire most of your mods is juts playing the game. Anytime you decrypt an engram and acquire a weapon or a piece of armour you also have a chance to acquire a mod as an additional item. There are seven other sources that mods can be acquired from:

• Banshee-44 sells four weapon mods on a daily rotation.
  
• Ada-1 sells four armour mods on a daily rotation.
  
• Raid mods can be acquired from the secret chests in each Raid. Last Wish is entirely RNG whilst Garden of Salvation, Deep Stone Crypt, Vault of Glass and Vow of the Disciple are on a knockout list.
  
• Combat Style mods from current seasons can be acquired from the relevant seasonal vendor. Once that seasons content is no longer available these wil move into Ada's loot pool.
  
• Nightmare mods can be acquired by completing Nightmare Hunts.
  
• Adept mods can be acquired by either completing Grandmaster Nightfalls, completing encounters in Master raids or dungeons or going Flawless and reaching the Lighthouse in Trials of Osiris.
  
• The Seasonal Artifact has a selection of mods available which change with each season.

Purchasing mods requires 10,000 Glimmer. If you're a returning player and have leftover Mod Components in your inventory these no longer have any use and can be dismantled.

Each mod shares a number of core features:

• Elemental Affinity is shown on the top left corner of armour mods. Mods with an elemental affinity can only be slotted in armour with a matching affinity.
  
• Energy Cost is shown in the top right corner of armour and Ghost mods. The combined cost of mods on a single piece of armour or Ghost can't exceed 10 (assuming it's masterworked).

General/Slot Specific Armour Mods

Each piece of legendary armour has four mod slots available. The first is for general armour mods, the second and third are for mods specific to the that armour type and the fourth is for combat style mods. Raid armour has a fifth mod slot for raid specific mods. Artifice armour obtained from the Master version of the Grasp of Avarice Dungeon have a fifth slot for artifact mods.

Weapon types that only use primary (white) ammo don't have access to certain ammo related mods.

Head

• Super/Orb Generation - These either provide you bonus Super energy or spawn additional Orbs of Power when meting certain conditions.
  
• Ammo Finder - These increase your chance of finding Special (green)/Heavy (purple) ammo whilst you have a weapon of the matching type equipped.
  
• Targeting - These improve target acquisition, accuracy and aim-down-sights (ADS) speed for the matching weapon type.

Arms

• Mods that effect the functionality of your grenade and/or melee abilities in some way. Primarily through changes to regen/cooldown.
  
• Loader - Increase the reload speed for the matching weapon type.
  
• Dexterity - Faster ready and stow speed for the matching weapon type.

Chest

• Resistance - Reduce certain types of incoming damage.
  
• Reserves - Increase the amount of ammo you can carry for the matching weapon type.
  
• Unflinching Aim - Reduces flinch from incoming fire whilst aiming the matching weapon type.

Legs

• Mods that provide various effects when picking up Orbs of Power. These are primarily either reduced ability cooldown or health regen.
  
• Scavenger - Matching weapon types get bonus reserves when picking up ammo used by that weapon.
  
• Holster - Gradually reload stowed weapons of the matching type over time. Stacking a second copy of a mod reduce the time required for a full reload but don't change the amount of ammo reloaded. Rocket Launchers, breech-loading grenade launchers, bows and swords don't have a Holster mod available.

Class

• Mods that effect ability cooldown/regen when using your class ability.
  
• Finisher - These mods provide various effects upon using a finisher but using your finisher now costs a certain amount of your Super energy.

General

These mods can be applied to any piece of armour and add either +5 or +10 to the matching character stat.

Combat Style Mods

There are currently three types of combat style mod - Charged with Light, Warmind Cell and Elemental Well.

Charged with Light

These mods come in three types. Mods with green icons give the player a stack of the Charged with Light buff when their condition is met, mods with yellow icons consume those stacks when their condition is met whilst mods with white icons provide other effects related to this buff.

By default a player can have a maximum of two stacks of Charged with Light (stack size can be increased by certain mods), once acquired stacks don't have a timer but will be lost when you die. Whilst there are ways to become Charged with Light without generating your own stacks you can't become Charged with Light if you have no way to spend those stacks.

A very basic Charged with Light build would combine the Taking Charge and Protective Light mods. The former generates stacks of Charged with Light by picking up Orbs of Power whilst the latter consumes those stacks to provide you additional damage resistance whenever your shield is destroyed.

Warmind Cell

Warmind Cells are glowing orange orbs (not to be confused with various other glowing orange orbs) that explode when shot and in turn deal damage to any enemies within the area of effect. Warmind Cells are generated by defeating enemies with any Seventh Seraph or IKELOS weapons whilst having any Warmind Cell mod equipped. All players can see and shoot Warmind Cells created by other players regardless of their own mods and can also interact with other players Warmind Cells in any other way their own mods allow. Warmind Cells expire after approximately twenty seconds and will glow more brightly the closer they are to expiring.

As well as the basic functionality outlined above Warmind Cells can provide a variety of other effects depending on the mods you have equipped. Certain mods also allow you to pick up and throw Warmind Cells to further extend their functionality. Wrath of Rasputin in particular stands out by allowing you to generate Warmind Cells with solar splash damage final blows even if you don't have a Seventh Seraph or IKELOS weapon equipped. Mods with green icons give the player stacks of Charged with Light for interacting with Warmind Cells, all other mods have white icons.

Spawning a Warmind Cell requires up to seven kills credited to you with higher tier enemies giving more progress towards your next cell and with Boss kills guaranteeing a cell spawn. Warmind Cells can be spawned in all PvE activities including Gambit but not in PvP game modes. There is a short cooldown on the generation of Warmind Cells.

Elemental Well

Elemental Wells can be spawned when you have an elemental Well mod equipped and fulfill its stated condition. An Elemental Well will generally match the subclass of the player that created it. Elemental Wells spawn for all players in a team and one player picking them up doesn't prevent other players from doing so. Picking up an Elemental Well doesn't require any mods to be equipped. Like with Warmind Cells Elemental Wells can't be spawned in PvP game modes.

The basic functionality of Elemental Wells grants 10% energy to the ability with the lowest energy, picking one up that matches your subclass grants energy to all of your abilities. This functionality is then expanded upon depending on which mods you have equipped.

Again, as with both Charged with Light and Warmind Cells mods with a green icon give the player stacks of Charged with Light with all the other mods having white icons.

Legacy and Raid Mods

Vow of the Disciple, Vault of Glass, Deep Stone Crypt, Garden of Salvation and Last Wish

These mods are acquired exclusively from raids and can only be equipped to a given raids specific armour set. They have a wide variety of functions but typically enhance a players ability to fulfill a specific role with a given raid encounter. These mods will only be active whilst in the appropriate raid.

Nightmare

These mods are acquired through Nightmare Hunts and can only be slotted into Dreambane Armour which like raid armour has a fifth mod slot specifically for these mods. These mods provide either increased damage against or reduced damage from Nightmare bosses.

Riven's Curse and Transcendent Blessing

These are technically general armour mods but are grouped here as they relate primarily to legacy content.

Riven's Curse can currently only be found on the Reverie Dawn armour set obtained from the Dreaming City and increases both the damage you deal and receive whilst in the Dreaming City. If you remove or replace this mod on a given piece of armour it cannot be recovered.

Transcendent Blessing is an enhanced version of Riven's Curse that increases only the damage you deal within the Dreaming City. This is the only consumable mod still in the game and is acquired by completing Petra Venj's Gateway Between Worlds weekly bounty. This mod ca be applied to any piece of armour but can only be recovered by dismantling that piece of armour.

Weapon Mods

All legendary weapons have a single mod slot available. Weapon mods fall into the following lose categories.

• Spec - These mods either increase a weapons damage against certain types of enemies (Minor, Major, Boss, Taken) or increase the effects of certain weapon perks (Surrounded, Rampage, Dragonfly).
  
• Stats - These mods improve one or more of your weapons stats either globally or under certain conditions (in-air, ADS, sprinting, etc).
  
• Adept - These are enhanced versions of the stat mods and can only be equipped on Adept weapons. Some of these have a negative impact on a second stat.

Adept Icarus Grip is currently exclusively earned through Trials of Osiris. Adept Big Ones Spec can be earned from either Grandmaster Nightfalls or Master raids/dungeons but Not Trials of Osiris. All other Adept mods an be earned from any of the three sources.

There are no caps on acquiring Adept mods from Trials of Osiris or Grandmaster Nightfalls but you can only acquire them from your first clear of each encounter per class per week in Master Vault of Glass.

Ghost Mods

Like armour pieces Ghost shells have four mod slots that each take a certain type of mod. Most Ghost mods are permanent unlocks just like weapon and armour mods though some of the higher tier ones are considered fragile, fragile mods expire at the end of the content year in which they are obtained.

• Experience Mod - Increase XP gains by up to 12%.
  
• Tracking Mod - Detect chests, resources or both at up to 75 meters.
  
• Economic Mod - Increase Glimmer gains by up to 65%, focus the stats rolls on armour, increase the rewards from harvesting or public events.
  
• Activity Mod - Award extra currency or materials for meeting certain criteria in specific activities. This slot unlocks once a Ghost shell is fully masterworked.

Seasonal Artifact

Each season a new Artifact will be available and with it will come a new selection of temporary yet potentially meta defining mods. All mods in the artifact can be unlocked but each unlock will require an increasing amount of experiencce. You can reset your artifact at any time to choose a different selection of mods but each time you do so the cost will increase from the initial cost of 10K Glimmer until it caps at 100K Glimmer.

The first column includes five mods that allow you to add anti-Champion functionality to a variety of weapons. Each subsequent column will require you to unlock a certain number of mods from the previous column(s) in order to access it's mods.

Credits & Acknowledgements

If I've made any errors please comment to let me know and I'll fix them as soon as possible. If there any other guides you'd like to see then let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Finally if you want to be extra awesome and support my guides then you can donate over on Ko-fi[ko-fi.com].

Changelog

24/09/2021

• Updated sources for Adept mods as per Hotfix 3.3.0.3[www.bungie.net]

11/03/2022

• Updated for The Witch Queen/Season of the Risen.
  
• Created new sections for the Combat Style and Legacy and Raid content as the Armour Mods section had reached the character limit.

[joryma]

ok

[DakotaThrice]

The game doesn't support modding. The closet we get are some of the great third party sites that utilise the API.

[joryma]

i thought mod meant like a game modification not a weapon one lol

[jgamer93]

This helped me a lot! Thank you very much!!

[Ace]

That's cool and all but what's destiny 2?

[✪ Wtf_Noodles]

whats a mod

[Finder]

good guide 9/10,could use some memes

[i live inside your walls]

i finally found it... an actual guide

[Kirby]

hey tysm!!!

[spycat og gangster]

thats crazy