How do Destiny 2's mods work? Get the most of your weapon and armor mods with our quick guide.

How do Destiny 2's mods work? Get the most of your weapon and armor mods with our quick guide.

In Destiny 2, Mods provide useful effects and modifiers to your weapons and armor. For example, you can install Mods that allow you to reload your kinetic weapons faster, absorb more damage, change a gun's elemental properties, or even recharge grenades faster. These effects can positively impact your ability to survive in a tense firefight. To help familiarize you with Mods, we've detailed below how to get Mods and the best practices of using them. Be wary, there are slight spoilers below.

For more guides for the game, including breakdowns of the three classes, along with our skill and ability galleries for the various subclasses, be sure to visit our Destiny 2 guides and walkthroughs page for more information on what's happening in the online world of the Guardians.

Why Are Mods Useful?

Aside from enhancing your equipment, Mods allow you to tailor your weapons or armor to better suit a specific playstyle. With Mods, you can craft multiple sets to use for different gameplay situations. For example, you might create one that emphasizes on enhancing mobility, one that improves your subclass, or even one made specifically for Raids. Mods are useful modifiers that can heavily increase your chances of survival.

How Do I Get Mods?

During the main campaign, you can acquire Mods out in the field or by turning in Bright Engrams to the Eververse. You can equip them by entering the Details screen of a weapon or armor piece in the character screen. Like weapons, Mods come in Epic (Blue) and Legendary (Purple) categories.

After you beat the game, you're also able to buy Mods by turning in Gunsmith Materials to Banshee-44. In order to get Gunsmith Materials, simply dismantle any unwanted weapons or armor in your inventory.

It's ideal to try to find the weapons and armor pieces that you enjoy using before installing any Mods as once you put them in you won't be able to get them back unless you buy/trade/craft them.

Which Mods Should I Use?

As mentioned in our glimmer guide, it's useful to buy Epic Mods from Banshee-44 because once your power level hits 280, you can then trade in three of them for a Legendary Mod. The benefit to using Legendary mods is that you can gain five points of power towards kinetic weapons, energy weapons, and power weapons. In addition, you can gain five additional points of power towards your armor pieces alongside any special effects they might have. This helps you push your power level over the 280 mark.

It's important to note that despite using Mods to enhance your power level, your weapon and armor drops will scale accordingly to your base power level stats. Don't expect to get powerful equipment just because you've artificially upgraded your power level; though, it's possible to get lucky and get higher powered equipment.

How Do I Create Powerful Mods?

You can trade in two Mod Components and 1,000 glimmer to Banshee-44 to create a random new Legendary weapon or armor Mod. To get a Mod Component, you need to dismantle other Legendary mods. For example, you can do this to get a Legendary Kinetic mod that gives 5 more power to kinetic weapons.